Post/Author/DateTime	Post
pectus_umbra 01-12-07, 03:59 PM	I know that people say that clerics and druids are broken just with the players handbook. So where do Archivists(Heros of Horror) fall on the power scale. They can learn any cleric or druid spell, and if I am not mistaken, any paladin, ranger, or assassin spell as well. So someone tell me how powerful an archivist is, and what makes it not broken compared to Cleric. I already know that the druid secret is wild shape. Thank you very much.
elondir 01-12-07, 04:08 PM	Archivists are essentially wizards who cast divine spells. They have dark knowledge and lore mastery, can learn every divine spell, and have two good saves, but only have d4 hit dice and poor BAB. They make excellent mystic theurges, because spellcasting is INT based and they can learn almost every spell in the game when coupled with wizard. Their knowledge of monsters is wonderful. Skill points are better than wizard or druid and the skill set is a cross between wizard and cleric. They fill the niche of healer but their greatest strength is their versatility. I think the REAL iconic Archivist is Rudolph Van Richten.
JagAgemo 01-12-07, 04:08 PM	assassin spells are arcane. while they do have access to any divine spell they can get a hold of they are still just casters. A cleric or druid can go in to melee and make them selves in to tanks and/or damage dealers.
spencerthomas 01-12-07, 04:09 PM	The trick about the archvists is that they have the options, but they need to collect the prayer book ( just like a wizards spellbook ). This can end up being a nice cash sink for the character. They do get new spells per level in the cleric list, must scribe the druid/pali spells in themselves. Clerics get their cheese from Divine metamagic and the heavy armour tank-ij. Druids get the Nature Spell casting while in Wild Shape I have not had a chance to play the archvists yet, but it is on my list. as for the assassin...they are divine casters??? edit: they are arcane casters. checked d20srd. -sc
RadicalTaoist 01-12-07, 04:09 PM	Depends. If you're willing to put the effort, they're incredibly breakable. Like Wizards, though, they take a lot more rules knowledge to break and are also broken later in the game than Druids or Clerics (on average). EDIT: The Adept (the NPC class) is a divine caster. With access to Fireball, Polymorph, and others.
Puca 01-12-07, 04:10 PM	Their access to spells, while better in some ways, is still severely limited by needing to be in their prayer book. They also do not get to turn undead, which while not that powerful, maybe, in and of itself, grants access to Divine feats. They do not get domain powers. Also they cannot spontaneously convert spells, which is of enormous benefit when deciding what to prepare.
pectus_umbra 01-12-07, 08:06 PM	Thank you for the input. My mistake about assassins. But a quick aside to elondir, they have a d6 HD, not a d4. Thank you again everyone! EDIT: But you have to admit the crazy stuff you can do with paladin spells. Early levels and crazy powers! Slightly less so for ranger spells. ] And does anyone know if a cleric can scribe domain spells on scrolls, I want my NPC Archivist to have chaos hammer, unholy blight, Order's Wrath and Holy Smite, but I don't want to break the rules.
JagAgemo 01-12-07, 08:17 PM	solong as he has the scribe scroll feat any caster can scribe any spell they know (or at least that's how I understand it to be).
YamiSouru 01-12-07, 08:39 PM	Ah archivist. my divine wizard friend we meet again...err anyway. A Archivist is a fun class thats power is, like a wizards, based near entirely on the spells you pick, along with their dark knowledge and other such fun class abilities. But in my opinion what makes the class really stand out is how well it becomes a mystic theurge when coupled with the wizard, whihc grants enough versatility to give you a way out of nearly any situation provided you have the insight to prepare for it. And thats where your knowledge of your enemies comes into play.