Spells
Source: Advanced Class Guide, p. 8
An arcanist casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, presented in Chapter 10 of the Core Rulebook. An arcanist must prepare her spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, 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. To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the arcanist must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell’s level. The saving throw DC against an arcanist’s spell is 10 + the spell’s level + the arcanist’s Intelligence modifier. An arcanist can only cast a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table 1–1. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score (see Table 1–3 in the Core Rulebook).
Classes 1 An arcanist may know any number of spells, but the number she can prepare each day is limited. At 1st level, she can prepare four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells each day. At each new arcanist level, the number of spells she can prepare each day increases, adding new spell levels as indicated on Table 1–2. Unlike the number of spells she can cast per day, the number of spells an arcanist can prepare each day is not affected by her Intelligence score. Feats and other effects that modify the number of spells known by a spellcaster instead affect the number of spells an arcanist can prepare.
An arcanist must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the arcanist decides what spells to prepare and refreshes her available spell slots for the day.
Like a sorcerer, an arcanist can choose to apply any metamagic feats she knows to a prepared spell as she casts it, with the same increase in casting time (see Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats on page 113 of the Core Rulebook). However, she may also prepare a spell with any metamagic feats she knows and cast it without increasing casting time like a wizard. She cannot combine these options—a spell prepared with metamagic feats cannot be further modified with another metamagic feat at the time of casting (unless she has the metamixing arcanist exploit, detailed below).