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The Complete Arcanist Handbook

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Complete Arcanist Handbook cover

Packed inside this handbook you’ll find new player options for your bard, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard characters! The Complete Arcanist Handbook includes:

  • 4 Bard colleges: College of Drama, College of Fortune, College of Pantomime, College of Puppetry
  • 4 Sorcerer origins: Arcane Prodigy, Cursed Existence, Greenheart, Reincarnated Warrior
  • 4 Warlock otherworldly patrons: The Archmage, The Crone, The Great Trickster, The Titan
  • 2 Warlock pact boons: Pact of the Cauldron, Pact of the Sole
  • 4 Wizard arcane traditions: The Grey Guild, School of Fundamentals, School of Golemancy, Theurgy
  • 58 spells!
  • and 52 magic items!!
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Don’t forget to pick up these other titles in The Complete Handbook series or grab them all in our bundle!

The Complete Martialist Handbook CoverComplete Devout Handbook CoverThe Complete Handbook Series Cover

Curious but not quite sure? Check out The Incomplete Arcanist Handbook for an in depth preview!

Incomplete Arcanist Handbook Cover

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If you enjoy The Complete Handbook series, you might like other titles from its authors, Benjamin Huffman and Ross Leiser.

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Reviews (5)
Discussions (21)
Customer avatar
Jaakko S June 27, 2022 6:32 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Just reasking. Did not get an answer last time.
Is this getting Fantasy Grounds module treatment?
Customer avatar
Victor M January 23, 2022 5:47 pm UTC
I'm currently running a game and one of my players presented the Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer and I had a question about Metamagic Prodigy:

Does the pool of Prodigy Points go up as you gain levels or is it just the initial 3 gained at lvl 6?
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Customer avatar
Benjamin H February 11, 2022 5:21 am UTC
CREATOR
Yes, your prodigy points increase as you gain levels. Your pool is always equal to half your sorcerer level.
Customer avatar
Jaakko S August 08, 2021 5:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Is this coming to Fantasy Grounds like the other two?
Customer avatar
Ashley S July 03, 2021 2:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hello, for cantrips like "Illusory Feint", "On a miss, you make a weapon attack with the same weapon against the target. On a hit, the target takes X damage". Does it means that the target takes weapon damage + X damage or only X damage ?
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Customer avatar
Ross L December 28, 2021 12:46 am UTC
PURCHASER
Only X damage
Customer avatar
Bob F April 15, 2021 1:47 am UTC
Is this not available for Fantasy Grounds yet?
Customer avatar
Ethan W February 04, 2021 6:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Customer avatar
GR D January 16, 2021 3:04 am UTC
PURCHASER
A question I have about the Grey Guild and the Conspiracy of One are the duplicates capable of acting on their own, as in capable of going out on their own for their duration to do things, or do you need to be in complete control of them at all times.
Customer avatar
Sandwich H December 30, 2020 7:02 pm UTC
PURCHASER
For the Reincarnated Warrior sorcerous origin, I worry that it's basically just Eldritch Knight, but better and fancier in most ways. Sure, it's not as durable, but having a full-caster progression is far more useful in most games than a Second Wind and higher hit die, as long as you're counting situations outside of combat. The Soul of Endurance essentially makes up the difference in durability anyways. It gets War Magic a level earlier, gets Improved War Magic for "free" later on, and that Legendary Prowess...

At 18th level, sure, it's a capstone, but it has the potential for major shenanigans. With 2 levels of Fighter, we can get Action Surge. We can then cast Haste on ourselves, which reads as follows:

"[the target] gains an additional action on each of its turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack action (1 weapon attack only) [...]"

Now, it's a little unclear and might be up to the DM whether the Haste wording takes precedent - "one...See more
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Customer avatar
Ross L March 12, 2021 4:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
While your pure numbers are correct, there are a number of assumptions that ignore very important aspects of the argument:

1) While a Legendary Prowess flurry can't be counterspelled or Legendary Resistanced, and can get around resistances and immunities, weapon attacks can still miss. The math will be different depending on the AC of your target, but it definitely shouldn't be assumed that you're hitting with 100% of the attacks.

2) Every Legendary Prowess attack must be made with a melee weapon. So, unless a Fly spell is cast on you, there's no guarantee that a target will be within range of your attacks. Eldritch Knight doesn't have this restriction.

3) Each attack can target only a single creature, which is very powerful against a singular boss monster, but it's not like the insane potential average damage Meteor Swarm can deal when you take into account the incredible number of targets that spell can have. 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-level spell slots are meant to do some pretty...See more
Customer avatar
Sandwich H December 30, 2020 6:36 pm UTC
PURCHASER
For the School of Fundamentals wizard, do you think it's worth changing the wording to "expend a wizard spell slot to augment its effects"...?
The features are very powerful and versatile, and I think almost any spellcaster that loves to use cantrips would find it worthwhile to take a 2nd-level dip otherwise, and still have the potential to use even the powerful abilities of expending higher level slots without taking more wizard levels.
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Customer avatar
Ross L March 12, 2021 3:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
While I would love to do that, unfortunately doing so would have no real effect. Per the multiclassing rules, if you take levels in two different spellcasting classes other than Warlock, your spell slots homogenize into a number of spell slots depending on your combined spellcaster levels (PHB pg. 164-5). And given Warlock's small number of spell slots per battle and the fact that they tend to want to do other things like Hex with them, it ultimately isn't worth it to add the additional wording. Also, due to the Intelligence 13+ or higher requirement for multiclassing, most spellcasters other than Artificer would have to provide a bit of investment in what is often considered a sub-par ability score to take the multiclass in the first place, and I think that's okay.
Customer avatar
Christopher D November 14, 2020 11:59 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hey I really love this book and its been great to make my players feel more special but i have a question about the warlock Archmage subclass
Eldritch efficiency it say you can use a bonus action to spend a spell slot to regain smaller spell slots but a warlock can only have two spell slots at that level and any spells they recover are cast at the highest level

thank you
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Customer avatar
Ross L November 15, 2020 3:15 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, Christopher! I'm so glad you and your players are enjoying the book!

Eldritch Efficiency doesn't cause you to *re*gain spell slots; it *creates* temporary, lower-level spell slots that you have until you finish a short or long rest. This allows you to circumvent the Warlock class's rigid "you can only cast your spells at the highest level" clause and get a bit more casting out of each of your spell slots if you wish. It's fantastic for the purposes of a Warlock who wants to use spells like Detect Magic, which is an extremely useful spell but doesn't scale when it's cast using higher level spell slots. At 6th level when you gain the feature, you could potentially turn one or both of your 3rd-level spell slots into a bunch of 1st-level spell slots so that you could alternately cast Detect Magic and Hex as you need, for example. The feature just grants a whole bunch of extra spellcasting flexibility, which narratively comes about because your Archmage patron has taught your warlock to use...See more
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Kaine O October 01, 2020 2:47 am UTC
PURCHASER
Great book, and I'm loving it so far! I was hoping to get some clarification on Power Chord, and how its targeting works. Is the number of creatures that take damage within the 30 ft. range meant to be unlimited, or am I missing something? I really like this spell, but it seems rather strong for a 1st level spell.
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Customer avatar
Benjamin H October 03, 2020 8:34 pm UTC
CREATOR
It does target an unlimited number of people with the drawback that it does very little damage (1d6). Also potentially dangerous in a situation where you have more than 3 or 4 allies within 30 feet (since they will take the damage as well).
Customer avatar
Barry D September 02, 2020 7:13 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Wanted to make sure I was understanding the Bind Familiar spell.

The spell says that "you perform a ritual on a willing creature" to make them your familiar. It doesn't give any restrictions, so does that mean you could turn one of your party members into your familiar, or a dragon even?

Also, it doesn't mention the ability to summon and dismiss this familiar, so I wanted to see if that was something you could do with a familiar created by this spell.
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Customer avatar
Ross L September 03, 2020 2:41 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, Barry!

While Bind Familiar is within the same "family" of spells as Find Familiar and Find Greater Familiar (for example, you can only have once familiar, no matter which of these spells it comes from), you're correct to note that it differs from the others in a few key ways.

Yes, you can use Bind Familiar to make ANY willing creature your familiar. While I wrote this spell with the intention of it being used on your party members (especially tanks), you can most certainly use it to make an NPC your familiar, of course at the DM's discretion of whether or not the creature is willing.

Because of this special nature of the bound familiar being a physical creature to which you have bound your magic, not an entity conjured from another plane like the other spells in the "family," you lose some functionality while gaining other functionality. The most major loss of functionality is that you can't dismiss and summon the bound familiar like you could one...See more
Customer avatar
Spencer J August 28, 2020 8:05 am UTC
PURCHASER
Just wanted to check on a few things:

For Cursed Existence Sorcerer, the Curse Infusion feature doesn't seem to have a level attached to it. I'm assuming you get it at 6th, but I just wanted to check.

Also, for College of Fortune Bard, when using the Pocket Ace feature, how many times can you use your pocket ace before the next long rest? Is there a limit?
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Customer avatar
Ross L August 28, 2020 1:02 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, Spencer!

You're correct that Curse Infusion was intended to be at 6th level; that text must have gotten lost somewhere between Final Drafts and publishing.

For Pocket Ace, you only lose your ability to use the feature by expending the pocket ace to add it to one of your own rolls. Otherwise, the limit is your Bardic Inspirations, since the pocket ace's only other use is to swap it for the result of what an ally rolled on a Bardic Inspiration die you granted them. This swapping can be used strategically for awesome synergy with the Push Your Luck feature!

I hope that answered your questions adequately!
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Customer avatar
Spencer J August 28, 2020 11:26 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Definitely cleared it up for me. Thank you very much! Great work as always!
Customer avatar
George P August 28, 2020 4:54 am UTC
PURCHASER
This book has been a good read.

Though I see that the curse Sorcerer subclass dose not have it's 6 level ability listed it's probable Curse Infusion but then it should be marked as it's 6 level ability.

It's level 18 ability just seems like a more expensive Heightened Spell.(I feel like I am missing something)


Hope to see improvement made and what ever comes next.
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Customer avatar
Ross L August 28, 2020 12:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks, George!

You're correct that Curse Infusion was intended to be at 6th level; that text must have gotten lost somewhere between Final Drafts and publishing.

Curse Bombardment differs from Heightened Spell in two key ways: Heightened Spell gives one target of the spell you're casting disadvantage on its first saving throw against the spell, whereas Curse Bombardment can be used as a bonus action against any creature you can see, and that creature has disadvantage on ALL saving throws until the end of your turn. So, while you're most likely going to cast a spell to take advantage of it, you can use some other ability or effect that will cause the target to make a saving throw to make use of its disadvantage. And, if you coordinate with your allies, they can use Readied actions to also make use of the target's disadvantage! That's why it's more expensive and attached to a capstone ability.

Hope that helps!
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Customer avatar
George P August 28, 2020 3:28 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thank you for the clarification this helped a lot.

Good luck on whatever your next endeavor is.
Customer avatar
Nils O August 26, 2020 7:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
A question regarding the spell "Forsaken Chains". Do the chains also break if the creature moves unwillingly? Do they break if the creatures moves up or down or teleports? Because the spell seems kinda strong if someone else has a spell like "Gust of Wind" or "Fear".
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Customer avatar
Ross L August 28, 2020 1:18 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, Nils!

Forsaken Chains uses "moves" the same way that the Spike Growth spell does, meaning that the effect activates if an affected creature uses its movement. If the creature has a swimming speed or a flying speed, upward or downward movement using one of those speeds would count, but falling wouldn't because that doesn't use the creature's movement.

If the target teleports, such as by using the Misty Step spell, that technically isn't defined as movement in 5e rules because you're disappearing from one spot and reappearing in the other, not using a movement speed to move contiguously through space. So, I would rule that teleportation wouldn't proc the chains. However, the target would still be surrounded by the chains after the teleportation is completed, so using any of its movement speeds
after would still cause the chains to proc.

Since the effect requires a creature to use its movement speeds, Gust of Wind wouldn't proc the chains because that spell...See more
Customer avatar
Michael C August 26, 2020 9:09 am UTC
PURCHASER
Question regarding the Reincarnated Warrior at 18+ level. If I bonus action cast shadow blade at 7 level, then take the attack action and use Legendary Prowess expending a 9th level spell slot, does that mean I get 9 attacks at 5d8 each?
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Customer avatar
Ross L August 26, 2020 12:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Actually, it's even better! Legendary Prowess grants you *additional* attacks, so you'd actually have 10 attacks with your 5d8 Shadow Blade! Quite the combination for burning a 7th and 9th level spell slot on the same turn, eh?

It's balanced out, though, by the fact that the attacks can still miss, and you'd be missing out on the attack and damage roll bonuses (as well as any special effects) of a magic weapon you'd probably have by level 18. Also, psychic damage isn't always the most reliable damage type against Tier 4 enemies. That said, in a white room scenario, this is an extremely powerful combination worthy of burning two of your highest level resources.

However, while 9th-level slot Legendary Prowess is crazy amounts of limited-target burst damage, it's usually better used with 3rd- through 5th-level spell slots since you can get those back with sorcery points, whereas 9th-level spells tend to have a lot more flexibility, area of effect, and world-altering effects. That's at least...See more
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on August 24, 2020.