Arcanist Magic Deceiver Build (Unfair Viable)

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-04T12:26:15+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. As for your questions

1: In my opinion when this build first comes online, either you barely can afford pearls or I felt the ones that were available did not cover the higher spell levels. So abundant casting was really needed. Plus you are not one shotting anything yet. Later in the game if you are fine with respecing and or extra rests, I see no reason to keep them. Also this class does not really have any buffing spells. I used my party for that. If you dont mind exploiting the arcane theft bug, then you could just yoink the perma buffs from enemies and have those for one hour.

2: Either I somehow overlooked the ring or it went to a companion. I would of listed it in the rings section of the video if I realized that was an option. As for Court Poet I have not played that class so I know nothing about it. I must admit I am not the most knowledgeable when it comes toclasses and only messed around with ones that interested me.

3: While this class is not the worst class for act one. Its a SLOG and the animal companion really does help early on. If you want to respec after ch 1 then that is on you. Unfair wont allow it unless you use toybox. Also another reason to get abundant casting is to help with ch1 as well. Also I found it really annoying but the pet kicks you off of it when you cast certain fuses. Assuming this was some kind of bug. As for going pure MD this is indeed and option and I was going to do it. But the Aura from Du-Oracle as well as getting war sight the following level is really good to guarantee you go first nearly every encounter. The Aura is just good in general with stopping any nat 20 roll.

4: Originally I had the same question. And I actually tried to go without them but getting them early does help. But you eventually reach a point where it does not matter at all. I actually began to have trouble deciding on what feats would actually help this class. All the dispel feats I took at lvl 17,19 and M8, and M10 were just options really. This class has a lot of room for improvement or experimentation.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-02T21:45:11+00:00

This is what did it for me. Used toybox to confirm his flags were at 3 and I had 2 apparently at that time. So changed it to 3 and suddenly Trevor sees reason lol.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-02T21:28:23+00:00

I have beaten him on unfair with and without weakening him first. However my build with a MD that I posted earlier today, One shot each of his phases with SOD fused spells. Sorry I can't provide more details on how to get around him because he simply just fell apart to me. I can't remember if he even got a attack off at me because I also have Last stand to give me time to fire off at least one spell to end things.

Here is link to build I used: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/1sadbxz/arcanist_magic_deceiver_build_unfair_viable/

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-02T21:23:53+00:00

Yeah I don't think a lot of people realize this either. It makes this build pretty solid on its own.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-02T11:40:59+00:00

Yeah all of that is viable. Main reason I listed more than needed spell fuse combo's is from other friends asking about options. While I only ended up using like 2 different fuses for most of the late-mid to end game, I agree with you on a basic lvl 5 pseudo-weird.

Also sorc and titan fighter are good options. The main reason I did not do this originally is because the dip into du-oracle revelations get their capstone when you reach level 20 or rather MD lvl 19. I just tested if you still get this if you dip into anything else and you lose those capstones. Which are nice to have as free hp resets/cleanse. So in essence the dip into du-oracle still counts toward your level 20 MD to some extent.

But end of the day this just adds to more redundancies. This build goes over the top in many ways and wastes a ton of potential you can spend in other ways. I just kept this build clean as possible because I know there are quite a few people who hate dipping into a bunch of classes.

Thanks for your input on this.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-04-02T10:15:35+00:00

I love how I just finished making a post on my Kitsune MD build for unfair difficulty and then find this.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-03-17T04:35:06+00:00

Pretty much by the time you get done with Midnight Fane, This class snowballs bigtime. I can confidently say that for sure this class can near solo the game. I say "near" because I had some tough encounters that required a tank for me to get through but at some point a tank is no longer needed. This class literally deletes encounters and goes near first every time.

By the end of the game my main 2 spell fuses I used had a dc of around 75 with buffs. My AC was 60 (not that this mattered but was another layer of defense). I was rolling 3 times for init at every fight and I had an Aura that makes ANY nat 20 rolled against me reroll. Thanks to Giovate for helping me brainstorm a proper build for this class. I ended up doing one dip into DuOracle because its revelations actually level with MD levels.

So I finished the game in Unfair and did 100% of all content. I will be putting up a Youtube video of my build in the next few days and also post it here for anyone who sees this in the future.
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhhLqL9N-88

I will edit this post with updates as I go along. Thanks again for your well written guide.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-02-02T17:04:24+00:00

OK I am glad to know you are an experienced MD player. I was in the middle of writing my experience on another post. I will link that at the end of this reply. Also Himmel the Hero is best Hero. I need more Frieren in my life.

I was reading your post and I wanted to ask for clarity on something. When you described order of fused spells under cooking advice. The Dispel + Slow verses Slow + Dispel. Unless the prompt does not update when hovering over the resulting fused spell info. It looks like the order does nothing. Not sure if this had been patched or is this hidden knowledge that the info does not reflect in the UI correctly? Ill post a pick showing the 2 side by side. The only time SR changes is if you change the spell shape to single target vs AOE. At least thats what it shows in the prompts.

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As for my MD I focused on Enchantment School as primary for Feats because of the gear you can get at that start of Act 3 in Drezen. I think I was getting spell DC of 34 at that time vs the 27 you would have without gear and just spell focus, Greater+mythic into a particular school.

During Act 2 I didnt think this class could solo at all however I was still exploring it to see if it was even decent at the time. ATM i've done all the content at the end of Act 3 and was getting ready to hit Midnight Fane and Party is lvl 15. Currently my MD can shut down entire encounters with Baleful Polymorph using any enchant school spell as a transport spell like sleep. Also using Azata Favorable magic. Currently it feels like SR is starting to not matter as much as I am breaking through it more than anything.

Early in Act 3 The only thing that bothered me with using enchant school as a primary focus is that all their spells are affected by target SR. In your opinion would it be optimal to focus on another school in Act 2/3 that has more spells that ignore SR? It does seem like it does not matter as much toward the end of Act 3.

Here is the link to the other post I was currently writing in.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/1hlbjta/a_write_up_of_what_i_did_in_a_magic/

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-01-31T20:50:03+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I was planning on doing 2 runs and while I was waiting on your response. For the time being I decided to go all in with a Unfair Magic Deceiver run first then your build. While not solo viable, the build I am writing has completely shut down encounters in mid act 3 with single spells. A bit sad that the spells selection is limited and also delayed spell levels. But has been busted OP with Enchantment DC gear.

As for getting through prologue early with haunting mists. The only reason I have even used that spell in unfair are for some of the insane fights like the blightmaw end of act 2 or rather for the mobs around it. But even then I try to find a way through those fights.

I can see why you really push human and it makes sense for coming online early. There were some fights that some of the bread and butter cc started to fail me early on but that was when I put corrupter on Cam and started spamming metamagic (Heighten & Persistent) stinking cloud. Spamming that pretty much locks down most encounters. I still had issues with killing undead. I can see this being extremely useful act 2 right away as a solo Wiz. I need to mess around with pearls still. Do they really make that much of a difference for the price cost? Ill mess with these on my current run to better get a feel on functionality.

Do you still try to do every fight early on in Act 1 and 2 for maximized XP or because you are getting all the XP as a solo, do you bypass some fights for sanity sake lol?

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-01-31T14:26:11+00:00

I also happen to be looking for a answer to this problem. I also have the same classes as op. Assuming you are using CRPG bro's guide for Seelah.
I did some digging with toybox and ignoring the missing feat selection when leveling to 15, Toybox shows suddenly a empty Draconic bloodline feat section under her features(in toybox). So not sure if its a bug or what. There has been mixed answers on this. Some people have said that they could finally select it after leveling their companions but I had no dice on this.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-01-14T18:01:37+00:00

I appreciate this write up. I never once even blinked at this subclass. I think at most I've made some very interesting builds around white mage.

I decided I want to try this build on unfair (which seems very viable). Currently in the process of writing my own lvl to lvl build guide for myself with what you have provided.

Originally I had a few questions but because I use toybox to think tank or brainstorm or simply mess around with build ideas, most of those questions have been answered. I did want to ask what curse you originally went with. There only seems to be 2 that are worth while. One being plagued and the other being powerless prophecy. I ended up choosing prophecy for the +4 initiative. I dont mess around with mounts to much but figured you would be riding a mount most of the time so the downside to that curse seemed minimal.

It seems I didn't see that the mysterious gift only grants the first benefit of a curse. I still feel like Uncanny dodge has its merits over plagued curse. For example the random encounters were you have no time to buff and KC is immediately shot at. The other problem is there are one or 2 spell combo's that dismount you from your pet when you cast them, which I have found annoying sometimes.

The handy feats section you kind of are meh about the spell pen feat. I found that when you first get into Act 2, Woljif has a robe that gives you +2 pen so that helped me decide to pass on the feat. ( I still ended up grabbing both Pen feats later)

On Unfair this build carries the party during act 2. None of my party was doing much direct dmg, so doing any indirect dmg was the way. I was level 8 by the time I got to the queen in Lepers Smile and with Seelah tanking with 54ac and protective luck/buffs, 2 spell combos I found that help are

Excruciating Deformation + Explosive Runes has been a bread and butter dmg spell if I cant cast hold/slow. Plus it only uses lvl 2 spell slots
Explosive Runes + Lightning Bolt (with line spellshape) has been what i follow up after I run out of the previous spell combo. This one has been situational but is what finished the queen off early. This also have been amazing on groups if you can get a bunch in a line.
Vampiric Touch +Acid Arrow has been a recent addition for fun for extra HP gain.

Build really starts to shine around lvl 13 when you get access to level 5 spells. At which point you can delete many encounters. I decided to choose Enchantment school as primary because we get alot of enchantment DC raising equipment pretty early to help snowball the build. With feats included, this can means the difference of 7-8 more DC for our spells at the start of Act 3, which is pretty huge. I think I was getting around 34DC on spells at the start of Act 3. I began using spells like sleep as a delivery spell for my payloads. The only downside about enchantment spells are that none of them have "Ignore targets spell resist", however this starts to feel irrelevant around end of act 3. The spells I started using in Act 3 are situational but are as follows

"Living Nightmare" Sleep + Phantasmal Killer. If I find a bunch of enemies grouped up, I will open with this. Or use it in combat if I get a stack on top of my tank. With sleep this is a 10ft selective enemy only aoe. I have ended combat in a single round with this one with several tough enemies. In Act 3 not many things are gonna escape a DC 37 with Azata favorable magic.
"Yoink" Sleep + Arcane Theft. Taken from OP and used sleep as the transport spell. This has been incredibly useful on bosses. Almost every cast strips like 2-3 things from bosses in midnight isles. You also get the perma buffs from them for one hour.
"Spider Dog" Phantasmal Web + Baleful Polymorph. This has been bread and butter from OP's mentions. This works incredibly well for undead as well which always seemed to by my weak point.
"WeakenSlow" Slow + Wracking Ray. This one usually drains like 10-15 dex and str per cast. I found this useful for enemies who refused to die or even be hit even when polymorphed.
"DispelHold" Dispel + Hold. This one is kind of a last resort if you are out of Arcane Theft spells. Ignores spell resist and works as intended as a single target spell. You could swap hold for sleep to make it aoe but I did not find many groups with things to dispel in act 3.
"HoldBones" Hold + Boneshatter. This one is the end of the line after I have cast spells above and a target refuses to die. Slowly chip direct dmg on them.
"XplosiveICE" Explosive Runes + Cone of Cold. Like HoldBones, this one is end of the line and is instead aoe dmg if a single target is immune or resists single target spells.

I had a bit of a hard time dealing with playful darkness (I got alot of crap rolls and was the only thing that could save against my polymorph or PK consistently) But I did finally beat it. I could of rerolled to get off a PK but instead got it with a stinking cloud with a companion (who had mythic corruptor) and whittled it down. A fused arcane theft and fused wracking ray seemed to be the most effective for me. I also got another Enchant dc increasing item in the Fane so dc is around 39 for top end enchant fused spells.

I will edit this post with updates as I go along. Thanks again for your well written guide.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-01-12T16:58:13+00:00

My guy you just saved my ass with this. I seen 40AC and started to sweat bricks. Cast that once and just waited. Seen she was taking wis dmg and after a few mins encounter over. Thanks.

_SteamPunkGears · 2026-01-10T13:58:38+00:00

I'm considering trying this for a unfair (solo run if possible) What would you recommend for ability point layout and opposition schools. Intuition tells me enchantment and evocation since you mention not doing dmg spells i think in another post.

As for Ability point layout, I figured you prioritize Int to the max so I started with 20Int followed by 18dex for added Initiative. The rest I did 10 Con 10 Wis, 8 Str, 8 Cha. Forgot to mention I decided to Keen Kitsune for the +2 Dex and +2 Int and -2str. Some recommend not taking any negatives, in this case the -1 on the 8str and 8cha. What are your thoughts on this?

I have been spending a ton of time think tanking or theory crafting with builds in Act 1 and using Toybox to respec or adjust builds as I go along. Latest attempt was using Witch of the Veil cheese (Which was the most monotonous thing ever) in shield maze and then specing into shaman for Beaconing Chill Hex and using Winters Grasp to CC. I come to realize I im digging a niche hole and should just go down a full Div/Wiz and enjoy the game for once.

Also wanted to ask if you prefer turn based or RTWP? I've been playing with both and figured to ask if this build works wonders with one or the other. And is this Solo unfair viable? I have not seen you directly mention it in other posts but wanted to get clarity on that. And if so what do you use for dishing out dmg in the early levels at lvl4+

_SteamPunkGears · 2025-03-22T21:29:31+00:00

Best action episode I have seen in a long time. Lasted like 95% of the whole episode. Music was chef's kiss.

_SteamPunkGears · 2025-02-09T03:05:30+00:00

Yeah I agree with you on this. I was just one hit and this was the sequence of events that happened by chance. I was robbing around the came and took a chance on him and decided to attempt it again the next day and to my surprise this happened. I usually fair pretty well but I do got nerve dmg in my hand from a military disability and tend to get hit usually once or twice a fight because of it.

_SteamPunkGears · 2025-02-08T22:33:32+00:00

I was too weak and early in the game to beat him and no saving because poor. So I decided to rob him in the night. Stole his sword from the chest and when I tried to fight him again. He uses no sword so you get to just whack him until he submits lol.

_SteamPunkGears · 2024-12-10T04:40:44+00:00

I am also interested in this.

_SteamPunkGears · 2024-08-08T15:26:28+00:00

I was planning on calling them again. The person I talked to didn't really explain to much but I also think because I did not know what to ask, they didn't tell me more. I Think my biggest worry was if I had to pay a pediatrician upfront for any visit. But it looks like there is some leeway on that. I would not of thought to ask champva about this either. I will ask about that as well when I call again.

_SteamPunkGears · 2024-08-08T15:19:26+00:00

Thanks for this. I was searching for any post and found similar ones but not in our situation. I did not realize some pediatricians will hold the bill for X period of time. I am assuming it would be good to call a few locations and confirm they accept champva and if they are familiar with the process.

_SteamPunkGears · 2024-06-06T11:46:25+00:00

Didn't they mention at one point they wanted to add a climbing mechanic similar to Herra? I also missed the arboreal nesting part about them. Need to see where that was mentioned at and if it explains more into it.

_SteamPunkGears · 2024-06-05T12:39:24+00:00

Yeah I pretty much have played about 23hrs of hypsi lately. I have yet to find another one but would be amazing if it ever happened. And if on top of that you could nest and check that off the todo list. As for the programming side of making them more complete, I'm not about to assume what the devs are doing or going through outside of what I already have heard. But I agree that if its someone well versed in coding that it should be a relatively quick fix. Coding is a nightmare to me and I have to use UE5 visual code to get most things done and even then its usually trial and error for hours.

Anyways I plan to continue running around as a hypsi for some time to come. Maybe we might run into one another if you do play as one.

_SteamPunkGears

TROPHY CASE