Advanced Class Guide
Arcanist. We're hitting the ground running with what's potentially Pathfinder's most problematic spellcaster. The intended fantasy of this class is supposed to be a spellcaster which seeks to meld study with blood-borne magic, but that honestly just comes off like a lazy reflection of its mechanics to me. That makes this one of the few classes in the game that genuinely just piggybacks off the fantasy of another. Its main draw is its spellcasting method: It casts like a sorcerer with Spells Known and Spells Per Day, but it memorizes those spells known each day. It also has Arcane Exploit, which is a pool of points you can use to achieve some neat tricks.
I'm guessing even the novices in the audience are thinking the way Arcanist casts spells sounds overpowered. Sorcerer still gets more spells per day and Wizard still gets more versatility and earlier spell levels, but...yeah, Arcanist has me a little nervous too. Their one downside is, unless you take an exploit for it, you're stuck being very specific with your metamagics. You have to fill a memorization slot with it, like one of your fourth level spells known that day being Intensified Fireball instead of being able to be flexible and cast it once or twice. It's a small downside, honestly. Most spellcasters have very little to spend their cash on except metamagic rods anyway. Well hey, at least the class looks like a lot of fun to play, right? As a staunch member of Team Sorcerer, this is the kind of compromise I like.
Bloodrager. He gets mad and he casts spells. Next class, please. No, honestly I promise I'll go into it further than that. Advanced Class Guide seeks to make new, interesting things by mashing two classes together and seeing what their babies look like. To be clear, I love the idea and I feel like nearly every class in this book is great. I'm lukewarm on Bloodrager, but I don't think it's the writer's fault. The very idea of "Barbarian, but spellcaster too actually" to me always felt born entirely from the fact that it's one of the few things in D20 fantasy gaming that definitely can't happen. Sometimes, you tell someone "no" to something and it makes them immediately want it. Still, this is a pretty good class which has a very unique feel compared to Barbarian, and I like that Magus is no longer the game's only Magic Action Man.
Mechanically, Bloodrager can pull of some decent tricks and has a big bag of cool stuff to pull from. Its spell list is small but filled with good buffs. He eventually gets the ability to cast a minor buff for free when he rages, which is great. The bloodlines are also filled with pretty good choices. The only gripe I have is that it still works like classic Barbarian, with +STR and +CON instead of +Attack/Damage and +HP. It's an easy as hell fix if your group agrees it's a problem, though.
Brawler. You ever go to a person's house and they obviously have a favorite kid? It's tragic how obvious some people are, right? Well, we're at that part of the guide. Brawler is the answer to an unarmed combatant that doesn't buy into the philosophy of being a monk, far more like a fighter. The wealth of concepts Brawler owns that don't really fit into monk is also immense. People who trained as an unarmed fighter out of necessity, or pride. People who actively reject philosophy. Wild, hard-drinking people who happily wade into bar fights. I love this class for its feel and also its mechanics, and for filling a role I've been dying to see filled since I started playing 3.0.
It can do some neat stuff like trading a bit of damage to use weapons in the Close category, but its key ability is Martial Flexibility, which gives you temporary access to combat feats. In the right hands, this is insanely useful and fun. It means never taking a "sometimes" feat...because something like Blind Fight will be available every time you need it, so long as you don't blow all your uses. If that's a bit too much planning for you, it even has an archetype called Snakebite Striker which trades it for some dice in sneak attack. You don't get the full rogue-like amount since you're a full AB character, but hey. It's damage on top of damage.
Hunter. So I've never really looked too closely at this class because it exists firmly inside the blast radius of ranger, a class I loathe. This is another class that essentially steals the fantasy of another, a thing I'm increasingly negative on as I do these reviews. It's ranger, with more spells, a better pet and more focus on utility than murder. It also casts from the Druid AND Ranger spell list, super handy. If you have a nature themed concept, you could do worse than Hunter.
It has decent spellcasting up to 6th level, a pet on the the level of a Druid, 6+INT skills, and a few other nice things. Animal Focus is a pretty decent ability. Its ability boosts are Enhancement bonuses, meaning they don't stack with gear, but using abilities like this can let you place your gold somewhere else. That can be very powerful. It also gets bonus teamwork feats. Here's the thing. I didn't even go into this when I talked about Inquisitor, another class that has a teamwork focus. Yes, they do work best when given a buddy(your animal companion) who can pair with you for free. Theoretically, this is a pretty neat, useful concept. In practice, not many of the teamwork feats are any good. Not only that, but you get the most useful one, Outflank, for free at level 2. I urge you to go check out the teamwork feat list to see what I'm saying. It doesn't detract that much from the class, but it bears mentioning.
Investigator. Another of the half-caster utility classes and potentially the best one. Investigators are detectives, trackers and other law-abiding concepts, but can also serve to express criminal masterminds, infiltrators, or any other roguelike concept that leans toward using their mind over their body. They get far less combat ability than Rogue, but in trade they get skill utilities and alchemist extracts. If you guessed I'm about to call it a great trade, you'd be right.
So obviously this class is a utility powerhouse, with rogue's only benefits over it being slightly more skill points and more combat focus. Investigator does get "Studied Strike", which is similar to sneak attack, but it's weird and conditional, and never gets a comparable amount of damage to sneak attack. Investigator talents are great, and even include some rogue talents. You can even take mutagen if you want some more combat ability. Inspiration bears mentioning too, though. You can pop it for a 1d6 bonus to skill rolls, and even get it for free on some checks. It's not always useful because the nature of skills is that raising the number past a certain point is sometimes wasteful. However, it can be a very powerful ability, especially if you take a talent that lets you expand your list of "free" inspiration skills.
Shaman. Shaman are those who consort with the spirits of the land to gain power and spells. It's different enough from Witch, I guess...but the class kind of isn't. They're a divine caster as opposed to Witch being technically Arcane. If that matters to you, I guess. Shaman's other parent class is Oracle, and while you can see its influence, Shaman clearly takes after Witch, including its custom spell list.
I dunno, guys. You get hexes, those are great. You get spirits, which are like choosing an Oracle Mystery, which gives you access to some custom hexes. Basically, you get to take some Witch hexes and some Oracle powers, which isn't a bad deal. You do get Evil Eye and Misfortune, but you don't get Cackle, so if you wanted a debuff specialist, Witch is still your huckleberry here. Shaman isn't bad. It looks fun. However, it exists entirely within Witch's shadow.
Edit: You get Chant, which is the same as Cackle. Shaman can still perform the "debuff specialist" slot fairly well.
Skald. He gets mad and he casts spells. Next class, please. No, sorry. This is a good concept, honestly. Scandinavian Skalds are an entirely different thing than the European Bard, and it's cool that we got something to express that. I don't have a problem with Bard's fantasy, and it is absolutely a very versatile class when you're talking about concepts, but a Skald is just different. It fills a fundamental hole in character lore that I like seeing filled: the hard bitten, fight-worn Viking lorekeeper. The hide-wearing barbarian leader, surviving by his wits but still existing on the front lines with his brothers and sisters.
Skald is fucking solid, mechanically. You fewer bard songs, but the ones you do get are awesome: Inspired Rage is a STR/CON buff with a few Rage Powers(!) added, Dirge of Doom is a no-save shaken condition, and their others are nice but conditionally useful. You get the awesome Bard spell list, and you get some personal defensive abilities like Uncanny Dodge and some DR. Spell Kenning bears mentioning too: Starting at 5th level, some few times a day you can just plain-ass cast any sorcerer/wizard, bard or cleric spell like it's on your Spells Known list. That makes for amazing utility.
Slayer. This is yet another class that steals another class's fantasy. I suppose a jungle stalker, an ultimate predator or sneaky Rambo style guerrilla is a different concept entirely from its parents Ranger and Rogue. Honestly, I'm a little suspect. If you turned Slayer in as a homework assignment, you wouldn't be getting an A from me. It's okay, though. It's not so bad that I dislike the class for it, and they can't all be home runs like Skald, Magus or Swashbuckler.
You get a full 1:1 Attack Bonus, you get decent skills and you get some things like Rogue Talents. I mean, what else do you want? That's already a lot. You do get some decent tracking utility, the slightly complex but useful Studied Target combat buff, and you can trade off your Slayer talents for ranger combat style feats. You can definitely see why I put Slayer into the "Utility Fighter" category, it gets a huge list of varied abilities.
Swashbuckler. This definitely became one of my favorite fighter-like classes. The Swashbuckler was an enormous hole in D20 gaming, with 3.X only having the Duelist Prestige Class(and you know how I feel about PrCs) and some dodgy, broken parrying feats from 3rd party books. It made it hard to play the roguish, charming fencer concept, and that felt like a major thing that was missing. Maybe we all just watched too much Princess Bride, but it feels like a staple of gaming. Until PF's Swashbuckler came along, playing a rogue and pretending had to suffice.
Swashbuckler is amazing, frankly. You get the ability to play a dexterity focused fighter and whether or not you decide to take Slashing Grace, your damage will be pretty good. Swashbuckler is a one-hand-and-shield concept that deals damage more comparable to a two handed fighter, and they get some tricks called Deeds in addition to that. Deeds let you blow a resource called Panache to either protect yourself via parry or pull off some neat stuff like targeted strike. The beauty of Panache is that it's a very limited resource(CHA bonus in points, that's it) but it "rolls" since you get it back when you confirm a critical hit or a killing blow. That way, you're managing it on a micro, per-fight level and not a per-day level. It's probably the most random number dependent class in the game because of this. I found, though, that even when I was Panache starved due to lack of critical hits, I was still having a blast playing Swashbuckler.
Warpriest. Hey, remember back during Cavalier that I called it a blatant bid to provide a separate-but-equal Paladin to those people who wanted a Paladin class for other alignments? Well, welcome to Warpriest. While not a bad class, its fantasy and roleplaying potential are deliberately identical to Paladin, with a thin veneer coloring it based on your alignment. I mean, I guess just providing new mechanics to old concepts is something. Maybe it's not that bad. It still leaves me cold, though.
Luckily, Warpriest's mechanics are pretty solid. You get the neat Sacred Weapon which can be used to get great damage out of silly weapons. You get decent spellcasting, all of the good buff spells, and Fervor, which allows you to cast personal buffs for free. You're more reliant on your abilities to deal good damage, but as I've seen firsthand, you can easily act as a full spellcaster when you need to. After that, you can then punch people in the face too.
Ultimate Magic
Magus. This is definitely a concept that's been missing from D20. I remember back in the days of 3.X stacking PrCs, clever spell selection and feats to make a fighting mage work. It was hard, but it was a concept we were fucking dying for: someone who weaved spells with physical combat. Thankfully, in Pathfinder it doesn't require the weird multiclassing and avant-garde feat selection 3.X did. Magus is here for you, and it can potentially let you blow everyone out of the fucking water.
You get the ability to do a full attack action with a one-handed weapon as well as casting a wizard spell. I can just stop right there, honestly. Even if you got nothing else, this would be a great class. But no, you get the ability to deliver touch attacks with your weapon, making even 1st level spells great for using with Spell Combat. You get Arcana, which can add an enormous amount of versatility to the class. It gets obvious things like Arcane Accuracy to facilitate dumping STR a bit, but it also has a few hidden gem arcana. Wand Wielder and Wand Mastery can ensure you never. Ever. run out of decent spells to supplement Spell Combat. Magus is frequently called overpowered, and while I don't agree, it's easy to see why.
