Archivist – Cleric Archetype

Design notes: Arcanist casting is arguably the best evolution of vancian spellcasting, with benefits taken from both the wizard and sorcerer’s spellcasting. Sadly there’s no divine caster alternate class with the same features. Enter the Archivist, adapted from an archetype by Molosz0pl. The archivist is the academically studied cleric, gaining their prayers through the devotion of studying their deity’s written word. This archetype replaces the spellcasting — and only the spellcasting of the standard cleric, with arcanist-style casting. The added casting flexibility is balanced against the fact that the character no longer automatically has the vast cleric spell list at his disposal, as well as the delayed gain of higher level spells to even levels.

Spellcasting: The archivist casts divine spells which are drawn from the cleric spell list. Her alignment, however, may restrict her from casting certain spells opposed to her moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells. An Archivist must prepare her spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of rest and spending 1 hour studying her Prayer Book. Unlike a cleric, her spells are not expended when they’re cast. Instead, she can cast any spell that she has prepared, consuming a spell slot of the appropriate level, assuming she hasn’t yet used up her spell slots per day for that level. Like a sorcerer, an Archivist can choose to apply any metamagic feats she knows to a prepared spell as she casts it.

To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the archivist must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell’s level. The saving throw DC against an Archivist’s spell is 10 + the spell’s level + the Archivist’s Wisdom modifier.

An Archivist can only cast a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Widsom score.
Unlike the number of spells she can cast per day, the number of spells an Archivist can prepare each day is not affected by her Wisdom score. Feats and other effects that modify the number of spells known by a spontaneous spellcaster instead affect the number of spells an archivist can prepare. The archivist uses the spells per day and spells prepared tables for the arcanist to determine the number of each. In addition, she is treated as having her domain spells as always prepared, without occupying one of her daily spells prepared. She may cast these domain spells using her spells per day. This feature and prayer book replace entirely the standard cleric’s spellcasting.

Prayer Book: At 1st level, an archivist forms a supernatural bond with a large tome containing the holy text of her deity and the prayers which she learns and inscribes. The tome may serve as a holy symbol and divine focus. She can replace her bonded tome with another book at any time, though she must perform a 24-hour binding ritual to attune herself to the new book.

An arcanist must study her prayer book each day to prepare her spells. She can’t prepare any spell not recorded in her prayer book, except for bless (which all archivists can prepare from memory).

An archivist begins play with her prayer book containing all 0-level cleric orisons plus three 1st-level spells of her choice. The arcanist also selects a number of additional 1st-level spells equal to her Wisdom modifier to add to the prayer book. At each new archivist level, she gains two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new archivist level) for her prayer book. She may also at any time add new spells from any other such prayer book she may find, or that may be taught to her by a cleric or another archivist.