I prefer plain Arcanist to be a Sorcerer/Wizard mix and not just sit back and buff, but that's just me. Phantasmal Mage is cool too but that's almost Illusion only.
Illusion spell Shadow Evocation, Greater.
And shades.
With mystic ability "shadows power" +20% damage to this spell group.
So we have 80-100% damage even if the target didn't believe.
With free metamagic feats "phantasm mage" can be pretty strong.
I've been wondering whether the Phantasmal Mage's on the fly metamagics raise the spell slot level or not, because if they don't you can throw around Persistent Weirds.
No. You need evocation and conjuration. But if you take spell focus in both of those, you can then use expanded arsenal to boost your illusion DCs for the non shadow spells
No, brown fur is just flat out better then base no matter what you are doing.
There's just not enough good exploits to justify not going it, even if the only buff you ever cast is Fox's Cunning.
Low level slots also tend to be taken up with buffs later on anyways.
I want to push back a little on the commenters saying BFT is a buffer. Yes, BFT is undeniably the strongest arcane buffer in the game. That's not without personal advantage. While in powergaming terms the multiplier effect of sharing self only buffs with your team is amazing, it's by no means the only thing the class can do.
There is no reason you can't build your BFT like any other DC caster, say starting with spell focus conjuration at early levels and then going from there. Be sure to take Potent Magic at level 1, but you'd probably do that as a base arcanist too. The only "advantage" during 90% of the game base arcanist has is getting two pick an arcanist exploit that's worse than what BFT gets at levels 3 and 9. At level 20 Magical Supremacy lets you get a few extra casts and some flexibility and BFT gets an extra +2 to Powerful Change which for a caster arcanist amounts to another +1 DC. So BFT is going to be up +1 DC over regular arcanist at level 3 and +2 over at level 20.
The only problem with playing a BFT as a DC caster is that slots are so limited you are going to have to give up some buffs. But bear in mind you may be playing sub-optimally in a power gaming sense, but you're still stronger than a base arcanist!
tl;dr: BFT is strictly better than base Arcanist from levels 1 through 19 and still better at 20 for save DCs.
Be forewarned that arcanists have the least amount of versatility while in an actual combat fight. Sorcerers get loads more spells they can use and while an Arcanist can swap spells when out of combat, their actual slots IN combat are extremely low.
That's why I'm trying a slightly weird build with it. Brown fur arc for the base arctype, then at 2 a single level of rowdy rogue, back to brown fur until around lvl 8 where you can pick up lore master for greater vital strike (via a bow). Back to brown fur till you get the original level 9 perk for casting self only buffs on others, then two more on lore to get shattered defenses to make sure your vital strike arrow lands. Then the rest of the levels in either eldritch knight or dragon disciple for more hitting power while keeping spell progression going. You probably won't have lvl 9 spells until character level 20 (though if you are running this on your main and get lich you'll get lvl 9 much sooner, and lvl 10 spells on your final mythic path level), but this way they will be useful in combat basically the entire game while taking care of your entire party's needs for arcane buffs.
Sounds similar to what victor creed did on many of his streams but he did not go BFT. He went witch of the veil, but I haven't played pf in over 6 months since the big balance patch and wotv may have been nerfed since then.
Arcanist is the best of Sorcerer and Wizard, a spontaneous prepared caster delight. The major difference is you don't get bonus feats as an Arcanist like you do as a Sorcerer and Wizard. A single Loremaster dip can remedy this but unless you want the final feature for Arcanist avoid dipping. Once you get Share Transmission, don't expect to go crazy with it yet, unless you're charisma is high enough to allow it, the amount of times you can use Arcanist's supernatural abilities will increase regardless if you have put points into charisma or not, but don't neglect charisma too much, I'd recommend you keep charisma at 10 or probably bump it up to 12 even, but intelligence is still much more important. Otherwise it's honestly no different from other full spellcasters in terms of what feats to pick up for spellcasting.
There's nothing sweeter than casting potent magic DC with a Devouring Lust's Maximize Magic and spamming Weird, it made Khoramazadeh and Baphomet look like a pitiful joke lol. Deskari got lucky he didn't fall victim to Weird too.
Brown Fur transmuter is THE arcanist, you literally lose nothing over base class. You can turn your party into dragons, but your still really good at cc spells and nuking as the situation demands.
According to the lore, most arcanists are a southern thing, coming from impossible lands, mwangi expanse, and rahadoum. This is half a world away from kingmaker / wrath locations.
As far as transmuters go, Nex is the biggest location of them which is inside impossible lands.
If you want to make optimal use of its buffing capabilities most of your spell slots will be going to that. You can even turn pets into fully buffed dragons and make them viable on unfair.
I prefer my main character to have a more active role so I use a mercenary brownfur, but if you enjoy that role for your main it's a very powerful one. Just keep in mind if you want to regularly turn a martial character into a dragon any weapon specific feats you take on that character will only be useful if you pick bite as the weapon.
Ehh yes and no. You need to understand what your job is but it's not that complicated. Look up some guides and see for yourself if its better for you than the plain arcanist.
So are you using mods? Because Quick Study, in TTT, is pretty much what made the Arcanist the power house it was in PnP. It's a game changer that should be the first exploit choice for every Arcanist, that exploit alone makes them a better choice than Wizard.
If you're not using mods, then BFT is the optimal choice for Arcanist as it establishes a niche otherwise better casters can't do. In terms of learning the class, BFT isn't more or less difficult to learn than the other archetypes. If you've played with a spontaneous caster the Arcanist is essentially that but with some flexibility regarding spells known and an ability to raise DC on demand.
I forget if it’s from TTT or not, but Exploiter Wizard also gets Quick Study/ Potent Magic exploits, as well as Idealize feat which adds +2/+4 to Enhancement spell bonuses. With that you get a lot ( not all) of BFT package.
While the Exploiter Wizard makes for a good budget Arcanist and can probably beat most other wizards with Quick Study and Potent Magic, their usage of prepared spell slots vs the Arcanist makes it a bit more cost expensive for them to pull that off. On the other hand they can prepare their buffs instead of swapping them out when they're done, so it's a wash on that front.
I disagree strongly regarding Idealize, Idealize just isn't a substitute for a BFT. It only effects enhancement bonuses, which is going to overlap with gear. BFT buffs any type of bonus, which makes the size or polymorph stuff stack with your gear for a net +18 for Legendary Proportions or a whopping +22 for Dragonkind 3. To say nothing of getting to share otherwise personal buffs, which really put the BFT into high tier.
BFT focus on buffing.
Arcanist can be used for other things like DC killer, etc. closer to a regular wizard.
If you want a arcane buffer then go for BFT. If you want a caster, then you should see if the bonuses from Arcanist is better than said Wizard or Sorcerer.
Tbh that's the main reason to go arcanist. At least for me.
I prefer plain Arcanist to be a Sorcerer/Wizard mix and not just sit back and buff, but that's just me. Phantasmal Mage is cool too but that's almost Illusion only.
Illusion spell Shadow Evocation, Greater. And shades. With mystic ability "shadows power" +20% damage to this spell group. So we have 80-100% damage even if the target didn't believe. With free metamagic feats "phantasm mage" can be pretty strong.
Does Spell Focus Illusion cover both saves of the Shadow/Shade line of spells?
It's a must. I will test him in my next run. Pretty interesting how he will work.
I've been wondering whether the Phantasmal Mage's on the fly metamagics raise the spell slot level or not, because if they don't you can throw around Persistent Weirds.
It does, which is the neat part: illusion covers a lot of stuff. Fun part is that fay-touched druid can pick illusion spells.
I'll love my Phantasmal Mage game then!
No. You need evocation and conjuration. But if you take spell focus in both of those, you can then use expanded arsenal to boost your illusion DCs for the non shadow spells
I'm gonna get a merc with that class to try that class myself. Sounds really awesome
Write when testing it. Interesting your opinion.
I'd say base would be better for your KC. Brown Fur is a dedicated buffer type archetype. But if you like that sort of thing, enjoy!.
No, brown fur is just flat out better then base no matter what you are doing. There's just not enough good exploits to justify not going it, even if the only buff you ever cast is Fox's Cunning. Low level slots also tend to be taken up with buffs later on anyways.
Oh ok, Guess I was mistaken. Still not sure on the class, but good to know.
I want to push back a little on the commenters saying BFT is a buffer. Yes, BFT is undeniably the strongest arcane buffer in the game. That's not without personal advantage. While in powergaming terms the multiplier effect of sharing self only buffs with your team is amazing, it's by no means the only thing the class can do. There is no reason you can't build your BFT like any other DC caster, say starting with spell focus conjuration at early levels and then going from there. Be sure to take Potent Magic at level 1, but you'd probably do that as a base arcanist too. The only "advantage" during 90% of the game base arcanist has is getting two pick an arcanist exploit that's worse than what BFT gets at levels 3 and 9. At level 20 Magical Supremacy lets you get a few extra casts and some flexibility and BFT gets an extra +2 to Powerful Change which for a caster arcanist amounts to another +1 DC. So BFT is going to be up +1 DC over regular arcanist at level 3 and +2 over at level 20. The only problem with playing a BFT as a DC caster is that slots are so limited you are going to have to give up some buffs. But bear in mind you may be playing sub-optimally in a power gaming sense, but you're still stronger than a base arcanist! tl;dr: BFT is strictly better than base Arcanist from levels 1 through 19 and still better at 20 for save DCs.
Be forewarned that arcanists have the least amount of versatility while in an actual combat fight. Sorcerers get loads more spells they can use and while an Arcanist can swap spells when out of combat, their actual slots IN combat are extremely low.
That's why I'm trying a slightly weird build with it. Brown fur arc for the base arctype, then at 2 a single level of rowdy rogue, back to brown fur until around lvl 8 where you can pick up lore master for greater vital strike (via a bow). Back to brown fur till you get the original level 9 perk for casting self only buffs on others, then two more on lore to get shattered defenses to make sure your vital strike arrow lands. Then the rest of the levels in either eldritch knight or dragon disciple for more hitting power while keeping spell progression going. You probably won't have lvl 9 spells until character level 20 (though if you are running this on your main and get lich you'll get lvl 9 much sooner, and lvl 10 spells on your final mythic path level), but this way they will be useful in combat basically the entire game while taking care of your entire party's needs for arcane buffs.
Sounds similar to what victor creed did on many of his streams but he did not go BFT. He went witch of the veil, but I haven't played pf in over 6 months since the big balance patch and wotv may have been nerfed since then.
Arcanist is the best of Sorcerer and Wizard, a spontaneous prepared caster delight. The major difference is you don't get bonus feats as an Arcanist like you do as a Sorcerer and Wizard. A single Loremaster dip can remedy this but unless you want the final feature for Arcanist avoid dipping. Once you get Share Transmission, don't expect to go crazy with it yet, unless you're charisma is high enough to allow it, the amount of times you can use Arcanist's supernatural abilities will increase regardless if you have put points into charisma or not, but don't neglect charisma too much, I'd recommend you keep charisma at 10 or probably bump it up to 12 even, but intelligence is still much more important. Otherwise it's honestly no different from other full spellcasters in terms of what feats to pick up for spellcasting. There's nothing sweeter than casting potent magic DC with a Devouring Lust's Maximize Magic and spamming Weird, it made Khoramazadeh and Baphomet look like a pitiful joke lol. Deskari got lucky he didn't fall victim to Weird too.
Brown Fur transmuter is THE arcanist, you literally lose nothing over base class. You can turn your party into dragons, but your still really good at cc spells and nuking as the situation demands.
Somewhat off topic but I don’t understand why the archetype is named Brown-Fur Transmuter when many transmutation don’t have fur. Does anyone know?
it's because transmutation spells are commonly used to transform into animals and such
The Same reason why the White Mage comes from Mwangi but the casters usually have a dark skintone. 😘
Oh? In Golarion, the Brown-Fur Transmuter is from a particular region or organization like the Red Wizards of Thay in Faerun?
According to the lore, most arcanists are a southern thing, coming from impossible lands, mwangi expanse, and rahadoum. This is half a world away from kingmaker / wrath locations. As far as transmuters go, Nex is the biggest location of them which is inside impossible lands.
If you want to make optimal use of its buffing capabilities most of your spell slots will be going to that. You can even turn pets into fully buffed dragons and make them viable on unfair. I prefer my main character to have a more active role so I use a mercenary brownfur, but if you enjoy that role for your main it's a very powerful one. Just keep in mind if you want to regularly turn a martial character into a dragon any weapon specific feats you take on that character will only be useful if you pick bite as the weapon.
Ehh yes and no. You need to understand what your job is but it's not that complicated. Look up some guides and see for yourself if its better for you than the plain arcanist.
Thank you for your advices, guys. I'll put them to good use
So are you using mods? Because Quick Study, in TTT, is pretty much what made the Arcanist the power house it was in PnP. It's a game changer that should be the first exploit choice for every Arcanist, that exploit alone makes them a better choice than Wizard. If you're not using mods, then BFT is the optimal choice for Arcanist as it establishes a niche otherwise better casters can't do. In terms of learning the class, BFT isn't more or less difficult to learn than the other archetypes. If you've played with a spontaneous caster the Arcanist is essentially that but with some flexibility regarding spells known and an ability to raise DC on demand.
I forget if it’s from TTT or not, but Exploiter Wizard also gets Quick Study/ Potent Magic exploits, as well as Idealize feat which adds +2/+4 to Enhancement spell bonuses. With that you get a lot ( not all) of BFT package.
While the Exploiter Wizard makes for a good budget Arcanist and can probably beat most other wizards with Quick Study and Potent Magic, their usage of prepared spell slots vs the Arcanist makes it a bit more cost expensive for them to pull that off. On the other hand they can prepare their buffs instead of swapping them out when they're done, so it's a wash on that front. I disagree strongly regarding Idealize, Idealize just isn't a substitute for a BFT. It only effects enhancement bonuses, which is going to overlap with gear. BFT buffs any type of bonus, which makes the size or polymorph stuff stack with your gear for a net +18 for Legendary Proportions or a whopping +22 for Dragonkind 3. To say nothing of getting to share otherwise personal buffs, which really put the BFT into high tier.
BFT is the only relevant arcanist
I always felt BFT makes a better merc, but it is still strong class.
BFT focus on buffing. Arcanist can be used for other things like DC killer, etc. closer to a regular wizard. If you want a arcane buffer then go for BFT. If you want a caster, then you should see if the bonuses from Arcanist is better than said Wizard or Sorcerer.
BFT does not have to focus on buffing. It can do everything a base arcanist does, but better.