Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[maglag]

As others have already pointed out, Pathfinder also has broken stuff in it, so if you play "all dicks on the table" then Pathfinder and 3.5 Wizards are exactly the same power. They are both powerful enough to run the game into the ground at about level 9 if not before. So it's basically a meaningless point of comparison. And even if the comparison point was meaningful, it still wouldn't give you an answer, because breaking the game is the same end point in both cases. Candles of Invocation exist in both games, and Pathfinder characters have more wealth by level. I think the theoretical optimization takeoff point for pure RAW wankery is like one level earlier in Pathfinder.

And as already pointed out multiple times, gate has been severly nerfed in PF, because not only it is limited to HD=CL, there's no more monsters with HD lower than CR. So a candle of invocation in PF is not an auto-win against any pre-epic challenge.

It was also explained multiple times how 3.5 casters can and will have more wealth by level. PF only pulls ahead if you add houserules to 3.5 and allow PF 100% free reign.


As for scrolls, time stop. You just chain time-stop scrolls and drop other scroll spells that work during time stop. You win everything in 1 round of real time in any tome game with just that, and your class/build doesn't matter as long as you can use scrolls.

And then you take the Mona Lisa from the cold dead hands of the fools who used their wishes for anything but a massive pile of scrolls.

[Echoes]

Is there a list of spells weakened in PF(glitter dust)compared to spells improved in PF?

Rule of thumb: Every spell from the 3.5 PHB that was save-or-lose has been nerfed. "Death" becomes "pile of damage", crippling conditions come with new saves every round.

No spells have been improved, but new ones have been introduced. Create Pit & co. are single reflex save-or-lose vs. non-fliers. Suffocate is the new hawt SoD.

Magic jar is word-for-word reprinted from 3.5. It's actually stronger in Pathfinder, because protection from [alignment]'s suppression of charms, compulsions, and possession effects is now alignment-based rather than universal. True Neutral is the king of alignments if you want to bodyjack people in Pathfinder.

Also, Pathfinder's change to Persistent Spell is crazy-go-nuts with magic jar (and other SoDs, but magic jar gets you the most mileage). Between that and the general buffs to casters, being a SoD-focused caster in Pathfinder is probably overall even stronger than it is in 3.5 even with the nerfs to the Spells that Fvcking Kill People.

And then they went and printed the Arcanist, as if to mock people who argued that Pathfinder wasn't the Casteriest Edition ever.

[Orca]

On another note, for what is essentially a "Supreme Conjurer", that is, good at most if not all aspects of the conjuration school, what would my best chassis be, a Conjurer Wizard, a School Savant Arcanist, or an Occultist Arcanist?

The conjuration school doesn't have a lot of conceptual glue holding it together, but OK.

Lets compare them at a couple of levels. First level 5.

The wizard has 3rd level spells, swift action 10' teleport & +2 rounds on SM duration. Academae graduate, SF (conj.), Augment Summoning, GSF, Fast Study sound good feats/discoveries to have. Assume he bars necro & enchantment. A possible list of 2nd-3rd level spells prepared might be 3) stinking cloud, SM 3, haste, 2) create pit, SM 2, 2*open slot.

The school savant has 2nd level spells, swift action 10' teleport, +2 rounds duration on SM and one exploit. He has no way of standard action summoning. Assuming you're going to summon anyway, maybe SF (conj.), Augment summoning, expanded preparation, extra exploit (potent magic) & the exploit consume magic items sound useful. You might prepare the 2nd level spells Create Pit, SM 2, glitterdust and leave one open slot.

The occultist has 2nd level spells and SM 3 as a standard action lasting minutes/level from his arcane reservoir, and 2 exploits. With the same feats as the school savant he might have the exploits dimensional slide (50', part of a move action), potent magic & consume magic items (from the feat). Spells prepared might be Create Pit, glitterdust, open slot.

The wizard would be the most generally useful, the occultist the best summoner by a mile and the school savant comes nowhere. I'll take a look at similar characters at 10th tomorrow.

[rasmuswagner]

On another note, for what is essentially a "Supreme Conjurer", that is, good at most if not all aspects of the conjuration school, what would my best chassis be, a Conjurer Wizard, a School Savant Arcanist, or an Occultist Arcanist?

The conjuration school doesn't have a lot of conceptual glue holding it together, but OK.

Lets compare them at a couple of levels. First level 5.

The wizard has 3rd level spells, swift action 10' teleport & +2 rounds on SM duration. Academae graduate, SF (conj.), Augment Summoning, GSF, Fast Study sound good feats/discoveries to have. Assume he bars necro & enchantment. A possible list of 2nd-3rd level spells prepared might be 3) stinking cloud, SM 3, haste, 2) create pit, SM 2, 2*open slot.

The school savant has 2nd level spells, swift action 10' teleport, +2 rounds duration on SM and one exploit. He has no way of standard action summoning. Assuming you're going to summon anyway, maybe SF (conj.), Augment summoning, expanded preparation, extra exploit (potent magic) & the exploit consume magic items sound useful. You might prepare the 2nd level spells Create Pit, SM 2, glitterdust and leave one open slot.

The occultist has 2nd level spells and SM 3 as a standard action lasting minutes/level from his arcane reservoir, and 2 exploits. With the same feats as the school savant he might have the exploits dimensional slide (50', part of a move action), potent magic & consume magic items (from the feat). Spells prepared might be Create Pit, glitterdust, open slot.

The wizard would be the most generally useful, the occultist the best summoner by a mile and the school savant comes nowhere. I'll take a look at similar characters at 10th tomorrow.

The Master Summoner has Augment Summoning as a bonus feat, Superior Summoning as his level 3 feat; Unlike the Arcanist, his standard action, minutes-per-level summons are stackable. His 2nd level spells known include Haste, Glitterdust and Create Pit.

[Orca]

One mistake by me above - the 5th level arcanists have one less 2nd level spell prepared each. I don't think it changes the conclusions.

@Rasmuswagner - yep, the summoner is a definite competitor. It got a nerf in Unchained though as I understand it & I don't know all the details. I do know that their spell list got nerfed into the ground with Haste becoming a 3rd level spell, among other things.

In downtime any of the below can do lesser planar binding, and the occultist has the option of lesser planar ally too.

Wizard 10: Add Summon Good Monster, Superior Summoning & Persistent Spell as an arcane discovery. Dimensional Steps (300'/day) means you seldom have to prepare Dimension Door. Possible spells prepared from the top 2 levels available: 5) SM 5, Wall of Stone, Hungry Pit, Overland Flight 4) SM 4, 2*Persistent Glitterdust, Greater Invis, open slot.

SSavant 10: Add Persistent Spell, Superior Summoning & Quicken Spell via the Metamagic Knowledge exploit. He gets Dimensional Steps too. Possible spells prepared 5) SM 5, Wall of Stone, Overland Flight 4) SM 4, Greater Invis, open slot. Note that the arcanist's casting mechanic means he has Persistent Glitterdust, Spiked/Create Pit or Quickened 1st level spells too, but he doesn't need to prepare them with the metamagics.

Occultist 10: Add Persistent Spell, Superior Summoning & Quicken Spell via the Metamagic Knowledge exploit. He gets Augury 1/day & Contact Other Planes 1/week; Dimensional slide can move up to 100' now. Possible spells prepared 5) Wall of Stone, Overland Flight 4) Greater Invis, open slot. Same note re preparing low-level spells with metamagics applies, & SM can be cast using the arcane reservoir rather than spell slots.

I'm thinking the freedom to use persistent or quicken spontaneously more than makes up the difference in number of spells prepared that the wizard has at this level. I'd given the wizard another summoning feat as I didn't think he'd usually prepare (say) quickened obscuring mist given the number of spell slots he has available; an arcanist can use quicken spell spontaneously.

I still don't see a reason to go with School Savant over Occultist though, it looks like you might use it if you wanted some different school but not so much for conjuration.

[rasmuswagner]

@Rasmuswagner - yep, the summoner is a definite competitor. It got a nerf in Unchained though as I understand it & I don't know all the details. I do know that their spell list got nerfed into the ground with Haste becoming a 3rd level spell, among other things.

Yes, if you are forced to use the "Unchained" Summoner, he's been nerfed down to being a 6-caster, rather than the disguised focused full caster he was before. But, optional rules.

Arcane conjurers with feats to burn might look into Collegiate Arcanist or Hellknight Signifer to get access to Sacred Summons.

[Rawbeard]

The Pact Wizard archtype can take Sacred Summons. That is pretty neat, considering you can now get the LE summons without being an evil cleric if your campaign doesn't swing that way.

[ishy]

Preview: All classic spells on your spell-list are moved up to the spell level that wizards use. You get half the normal number of evolution points, but you also get a template full of bullshit to apply to your Eidolon. Everything else is unchanged.

Looks like a number of evolutions changed too. Pounce requires level 7 in unchained, large/huge only gives 4/8 strength instead of 8/16.

[Archmage Joda]

Sounds like my go-to summoner would be the occultist arcanist then, since I'd rather have the power of full casting to go with my standard action summons than a meh eidolon.

[Insomniac]

I think one thing to note as a Pathfinder conjurist is that high level spells with longer durations is the way to go. Pumping out a ton of lower level creatures really isn't going to get you there.
The summoning last is crazy backloaded.
5th level on up is when you start getting the juicy stuff, Celestial Dire Lion probably being the best brute combatant.

[magnuskn]

Yes, if you are forced to use the "Unchained" Summoner, he's been nerfed down to being a 6-caster, rather than the disguised focused full caster he was before. But, optional rules.

Well, if you play Pathfinder Society, the unchained Summoner has just become the official one.

I'd probably also go Occultist for a really good summoning character, since you get the best of all worlds... standard action summoning, full nine level spellcasting, all the other gimmicks you can do with an Arcanist, not to forget the Planar Ally spells for free.

Summon Good Monster seems to me to be a must-have, too. The celestials you can summon can provide lots of buffs and cure spells on demand as spell-like abilities. Spells like Neutralize Poison and Remove Disease are available after a certain level, which the resident party healer will never have to memorize again.

[magnuskn]

5th level on up is when you start getting the juicy stuff, Celestial Dire Lion probably being the best brute combatant.

For a few levels, Celestial Dire Tigers are ridiculously good. Pounce, Smite Evil... when I played a Master Summoner at that level, I made the party Barbarian basically obsolete.

[Archmage Joda]

If I were to do a blasphemy and be an evocation kaboom mage (well, blasting and also battlefield control, want to be able to amp up the power if necessary and just blast when I don't need to go full power), would I be better served with an Evoker Wizard, a normal Arcanist, or a School Savant Arcanist?

[Irish]

When you're a high enough level, abusing the crap out of Dazing Spell Metamagic can let you both blast and control the battlefield at the same time.

As for the stronger class types, no idea. I'd be interested to see where certain bloodline Sorcerers stack up against the 3 classes you mentioned though.

[Axebird]

An Arcanist that VMCs into Wizard for Admixture has the best raw damage and hit rate without being shafted by energy types, since they can burn their reservoir for increased DCs and caster level. They have to wait an extra level for spell levels which sucks ass, though.

Otherwise, Admixture wizard with Wayang Spellhunter (Metamagic Master on d20pfsrd) and Magical Lineage on Fireball. At 5th level with Spell Focus (Fireball), Varisian Tattoo, Spell Specialization, and Empower Spell you can toss a fireball (or coldball, acidball, or electricityball) that does (8d6)*1.5+2 damage (44 average). At high levels you give up on that and just ruin people with dazing fireballs out of 4th level spell slots all day.

An Orc bloodline sorcerer (yeah, they published that) can get better damage than you but loses out on being able to trivially swap energy types and casts metamagic spells with a full round action. Orc/Draconic Crossblooded can do some pretty overwhelming damage, but you still lose the ability to utilize blasts against anything immune to fire and your edge in damage is kinda worthless against the face of fire resistance (and how trivial it is to buy).

[Orca]

The crossblooded sorc is two levels behind a wizard on spell access. That should be enough to erase it from your mind.

An evoker wizard is simple & straightforward to make and gets higher level spells the fastest.

A school savant arcanist is simpler in play and can have a wider array of high level spells available thanks to the choice of spontaneous or prepared metamagic.

A blood arcanist (with the orc bloodline and the school understanding: admixture exploit) may be short on feats due to the bloodline taking up half its exploits, and gets less spells prepared than s.savant but should be the best at pure blasting.

A standard arcanist has the most feats & exploits to play with.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you're thinking about going arcanist or sorcerer over wizard like, at all for blasting purposes then why don't you just be an Evoker wizard that takes exactly one level of Orc/Dragon crossblooded sorcerer and then make the rest of your levels evoker wizard? Evoker wizard is even kind enough to give you a damage boost on top of the permanent damage boost you get to fire spells.

Yes, you have a dead level that doesn't advantage your spellcasting. But you already signed up for that shit when you contemplated going arcanist or sorcerer at all.

A standard arcanist has the most feats & exploits to play with.

There's no reason to go standard arcanist unless you're taking a funky archetype like the Occultist. You can just be an exploiter wizard. The exploiter wizard gets 9 bonus feats/exploits and the arcanist gets 10.

What's more, arcanist spellcasting isn't even all that until you get to around level 10 or so. Not only is the casting a level behind but you're not even super-versatile on your top-level spells. The arcanist does have a versatility advantage for not top-level spells, but then the wizard can just go 'lol noob' and bust out the Arcane Bond or UMD'd Mnemonic Vestment/Spell Lattice.

I seriously have no reason why the arcanist gets fapped to so much. It's certainly not a bad class; I'd rather play one than a sorcerer. And some of the exploits are very, very good. But the wizard is still better in most instances.

[momothefiddler]

I seriously have no reason why the arcanist gets fapped to so much.

I'm gonna guess it's the same reason the Synthesist gets more complaints than the base Summoner, and that both of them are a bigger deal than the Cleric. A Synthesist has no issues that a Cleric doesn't also have, but it makes those issues more obvious.

See, it may be obvious to you that the Arcanist isn't as good as a Wizard. But I (who have played something like six games of D&D ever, if you count 4e and PF and games I've run, and exactly one session of that has been above level 3) don't know how to play a Wizard to its full strength and while the Wizard may have a higher ceiling, it's a lot easier to play an Arcanist who's "pretty powerful" than a Wizard who breaks the universe - or even a Wizard who's pretty powerful, tbh. So if I ever got to play a PF game, I'd be more likely to unbalance the party and unnerve the MC with an Arcanist than I would with a Wizard. And while I've not played a whole lot, I'm gonna guess that I've spent more time reading Wizard charop guides and theory and whatever than a lot of the people who fap to Arcanists.

tl;dr ICBMs are hard and for people with the right skill range guns will actually do more damage.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, it's not like a wizard that's better than 95% of arcanist builds is particularly difficult to play or build. If you're a specialist wizard that picks up an item Arcane Bond, you are already more versatile and powerful than an arcanist. You have more spells per day, you have access to them sooner, and in the case of top-level spells and top level-1 spells you have equal or greater versatility. Arcanists do have a couple of their own considerable strengths such as being able to get a familiar and Arcane Bond while also slapping on a phat +2 to CL and DC of all of their spells, so it's not like they're blatantly inferior to wizards like sorcerers are. Nonetheless, you're still better off just grabbing a wizard.

If you really want the exploits though you can still just go Exploiter Wizard. You get fewer spells per day and no arcane bond, but you get the major exploit tricks, but you're still more versatile with your top-level spells and get early access.

It's not like it's super-obscure or even mildly obscure cheese.

[momothefiddler]

Well, it's not like a wizard that's better than 95% of arcanist builds is particularly difficult to play or build.

Maybe I'm just shit at spell prep. Maybe I'm just imagining it wrong - I've never played a Wizard but they seem really picky and daunting.

In retrospect, I ought to have said that Wizards seem complex and Arcanists seem more strainghtforward for medium power levels, since I've never played either.

*shrugs*

[Archmage Joda]

At this juncture, I am more inclined towards Wizard, due to sooner spell level access. I just like spontaneous casting. Does the crossblooded sorcerer dip really make that much of a difference in blasty spell damage that it'd be worth losing a level as an evoker? And if so, when's the best time to take said dip? I would think as level 6, so you at least get 3rd level spells on time for it.

Also, I have folks in my group who seem to think that blasty mages are still every bit as powerful and useful as other kinds, but am torn between whether I should just shrug and go with it (and possibly just get some of the fun of rolling lots of d6s in combat), or should I actually try to disabuse them of that notion with a conjurer or illusionist wizard?

[tussock]

Action denial is what you use to show the unbridled glory of a caster. Once the monsters can't do anything that matters, for whatever reason, everyone else's class abilities barely matter either. If you're throwing 3-round dazes with your 4th level Fireballs, you're going to show that anyway, the damage is a minor side-effect. Pushing your DC up for more action denial will work better than trying to damage-spell everything to death, even as a damage-caster, and the high DC gives you better damage anyway.

What's the cost to fixing up your caster level in Pathfinder with dipping anyway? A feat? There's got to better things to do with a whole level, huge numbers of prestige classes only take away 1.

[Archmage Joda]

Assuming you mean just caster level (as opposed to also spells known and spells per day), the price can be as low as a trait.

Besides chucking fireballs, I also have the desire to play an illusionist reality warper, potentially able to blur the line between reality and illusion. To that end, specializing in shadow subtype spells seems the obvious way to go, would wizard still be the best base chassis for that, or perhaps a darkness or veiled illusionist cleric?

[Orca]

Actually yeah, +2 damage per die adds up quickly, if you're going for the wizard the sorc dip does work.

An illusionist can outright suck with a DM who uses the most restrictive interpretations of what illusions can do and who likes undead enemies a lot. A conjurer certainly might disabuse them of the idea that blasting is the way and the light, but if a blasty mage is a solid role in the game you're going to play then I wouldn't see the need to optimise past the level the rest of the group expects.

@Lago - Arcanists are easier to pick prepared spells with basically as soon as you get a metamagic. The benefits of the spontaneous metamagic option. Also I think you may be exaggerating how much spell level matters compared to save DC.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I wasn't aware undead have any sort of resistance against illusions.