Archivist: Spells, Spells and more Spells

[username]

Homebrew Class: Archivist



Characteristics: Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower
Skills: Academic Lore, Animal Ken, Arcana, Crafts, Forbidden Lore, Medicae, Perception, Politics, Scrutiny, Tech-Use
Spell Schools: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Illusion, Necromancy, Telekinesis
Bonus for Completion: Gain the Feat Extracurricular Study.

Bookworm
Level: 1
Prerequisites: Academic Lore 1, Arcana 1, Forbidden Lore 1, 1 Spell
Feats:
Minor Magic
Spellbook
Spellbook
*Skill Focus (Mental Skill)
Foresight
Eidetic Memory


Researcher
Level: 2
Prerequisites: Academic Lore 2, Arcana 2, Forbidden Lore 2, Extracurricular Study, 6 Spells
Feats:
Minor Magic
Spellbook
Spellbook
*Tested
Skill Focus (Mental Skill)
Improvisational Magic

Archivist
Level: 3
Prerequisites: Academic Lore 3, Arcana 3, Forbidden Lore 3, Extracurricular Study (Twice), 12 Spells
Feats:
Minor Magic
Spellbook
Spellbook
Skill Focus (Mental Skill)
Decipher Glyphs
*Research

Manuscript Maid
Level: 4
Prerequisites: Academic Lore 4, Arcana 4, Forbidden Lore 4, Extracurricular Study (Thrice), 18 Spells
Feats:
Minor Magic
Spellbook
Spellbook
Expanded Knowledge
Walking Library
*Maid’s Duty

Pagemaster
Level: 5
Prerequisites: Academic Lore 5, Arcana 5, Forbidden Lore 5, Extracurricular Study (Four Times), 24 Spells
Feats:
Minor Magic
Spellbook
Spellbook
Expanded Knowledge
Living Legend
*Archmage Tradition

Old New Feats

Decipher Glyphs (Adventurer)
You've spent countless hours studying ancient runes, symbols, and hieroglyphs. For this reason, you can always recognize what language a body of text is written in, regardless of whether or not you can read the language normally.

Living Legend (Supreme Commander)
Gain a Hero Point that may be spent, but not burnt.

Maid’s Duty (Maid)
Your loyalty and duty can allow you to push yourself as far as an exalt... and if you are an exalt, that much farther. You gain a Hero Point that can only be spent to activate abilities that require spending Hero Points. You cannot spend it normally or burn it.

Walking Library (Adventurer)
You gain a +2k0 bonus to Lore tests you have an applicable specialty in.

A note about Expanded Knowledge
Technically this feat can only be taken once according to book one, although it shows up twice in it. The effect in general works if it were taken twice though the last sentence of it would run into trouble… but it does that even with the Skill Focus Feats. If you (or your SM) have an issue with taking Expanded Knowledge twice in this class progression then consider both to be replaced by the below NEW feat:

Expandeder Knowledge
There's really knowing things and there's really, really knowing things. You gain an additional specialty for all of your Lore skills. This doesn't have to be the same specialty for each lore skill, and this doesn't prevent you from getting more specialties later.

[Nightwalker]

I really like this class.
Minor nitpick: If the completion bonus for each level is +1 use of Improvisational Magic, but that feat only appears at level 1 of the class track, it might be an idea in the later levels of the class to add Improvisational Magic to either the prerequisites, or as an optional feat at later levels?

[Amanojyaku]

No. Improvisational Magic is a limited-use feat. It does not have an effect that can stack and thus can't be taken multiple times anyway.

[GuardianTempest]

You can get the feat by dipping in other classes anyway.

[username]

So some changes to the Archivist! When the change was made way back in 2016 on the old forum to make the completion focus more around improvisational magic, I was concerned since that is quite a potent power. It also changed the focus from knowing a bunch of spells to having all the spells. 5 freebie improve magic per session is a lot for the situational spells that you will only need to cast once or twice. Sure improve magic doesn’t grant you spell ranks so unless you already have the school you’ll be casting dangerously at characteristicKcharacteristic, but lots of exalts have ways around that anyway. It also had the ugly situation of improvisational magic at 1st level when it can’t be used then and as Nightwalker pointed out it was a bit wonky when it wasn’t required to advance.

I finally got some feedback on it confirming my fears so I can make some changes I had in mind that regress it slightly toward the original set up but not entirely removing the current capability as well. CHANGES:

I’m changing the class completion bonus to gaining the Extracurricular Study feat and increases the spells each level after 1st needs to compensate. Technically that could be used for Sword Schools instead but I leave that to the player’s progression: Studying schools of sword still makes sense for the theme and you’ll only be hurting yourself by making it harder to advance if you want to go through the class. I considered (and it was suggested) to instead mimic the Runechaser completion bonus due to the sword school option of extracurricular but I think it works well enough.

To compensate for the change, two pre-existing feats are added to level 4 and 5: Maid’s Duty from Maid and Living Legend from Supreme Commander. Maid’s Duty allows 1 use of a feat that requires a hero point without spending a hero point per session, and Supreme Commander is an actual hero point that cannot be burnt meaning it allows the same but a bit broader. This delays the access to Improv magic shenanigans until a later level and reduces the amount of it that can be done per session, though on the other hand also allows usage for other things (such as Archmage Tradition). With this change the 4th level of the class was renamed to accommodate getting maid’s duty. Unfortunately Researcher no longer has research… I might move Tested up to 3 to move research back down to 2, but I’d really like to avoid them getting tested any later while still not giving it to level 1.

I’m also trying out some new class progression requirements: Each level requires having a certain number of Extracurricular study feats, in additional to spells. This makes it harder to just jump to later levels though is still certainly possible for multiclassing with Arcane Knight, Wanderer etc. I’m wondering if I should remove the 1 spell known requirement from level 1, but then someone might ask about what happens if you take Spellbook before you have any spells (Don’t do that), so better safe than sorry. Several exalts get spells from abilities or assets that will work and otherwise something like an Initiate can also get in easily enough due to having Minor Magic.

One other concern I have that I’ll address. TECHNICALLY speaking Expanded Knowledge isn’t marked as a feat you can get multiple times in book 1. It appears on two classes in book 1 as well so it may well be purposeful but it does function reasonably well if it was allowed to be taken multiple times, although the last sentence in it runs into trouble when taking it multiple times… but also runs into trouble even with taking Skill Focus feats too. If it is an issue, I’m making a note and option for it.

Overall I think this set up is much better and more balanced than the previous one and functions closer to its original intention. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns please let me know.

[GuardianTempest]

I have an idea for a Level 5 feat and that would be "Whenever you use the Improvisational Magic feat, use may your level in place of the spell's magic school." If that's too strong, perhaps the effect can be "add 1 to the effective magic school rating."

The logic is that since this class is so good at Improvisational Magic, it would eventually start blurring the lines between magic schools, using its knowledge of existing magic schools to better cobble a spell it doesn't previously know.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Y'know, I get that Enuncia wasn't a thing at the time this school was made, but I do think it would make a better fit for the class than Telekinesis.