As a longtime GM and fan of the fantasy genre who has pretty bad arachnophobia, I've learned that there are just going to be stories and books I simply can't interact with because spiders make appearances throughout. Season of Ghosts is one such example, but tragically this also includes absolutely astounding books such as Lost Omens: Mwangi Expanse. That's really sad, but I've mostly made my peace with the knowledge that some things just aren't going to be accessible for me.
The part that really bothers me is how prevalent spider art is even in stories that only occasionally include them, like Kingmaker. I've come to rely on a very cautious scrolling tactic where if I find an encounter that seems to have spiders involved, I'll veeery slowly and carefully scroll down bit by bit so I can check for art on the pages and make sure I'm not about to get jumpscared while reading. This time, the artwork appeared normal - plants and earthy tones, nothing furry or spindly, probably some kind of plant monster - so I scrolled down to the page thinking myself safe and OGRE SPIDER OGRE SPIDER AGH
Now I dread going back through the document. Even though I know which page it's on, I know that there's always a chance that I'll land on that image by accident while scrolling or paging through my book. And what's more, if I want to access any of the text on that page for the purposes of running the adventure, I have to zoom in reeeally close for fear that I might accidentally set myself off. It sucks! The best plan I've got is to send it to a friend who's not as arachnophobic and have them edit a screenshot to cover it up and send it back, but I can't replace that image in the PDF. It'll always be there, and I'll always have to put extra effort into avoiding that page when I'm using my document. It sucks.
I wish I wasn't so scared, but knowing that the reaction is irrational doesn't make it any easier to deal with. There's no simple "mind over matter" solution, and using the Archives of Nethys instead still risks a spider image on their page and doesn't carry any of the context of the adventure. I don't want the art removed or anything, plenty of people enjoy spiders in their fantasy and I'm not looking to change that. I wish there was just a way for the reader to spoiler or remove certain images from a PDF without changing any of the formatting during viewing so I could interact with the book the way it's intended.
If 3 classes isn't enough to classify a design trend, neither should 3 kills be enough to classify a serial killer. The point is that the idea that 3 isn't enough of a data pool to pull from is absurd based on the previous conclusion.
Lemme write out the argument being made point-by-point to explain why it's faulty:
Non Sequitur wrote:
1) I want to establish a trend in Data Set A, but I don't know how many data points I need.
2) The government has decided that 3 data points are sufficient to establish a trend in Data Set B for legal purposes.
2a) [Unspoken Assumption] These two data sets are similar enough that the standards for establishing a trend in one can be reasonably extrapolated to the other.
3) Therefore, 3 data points should be enough to establish a trend in Data Set A.
The problem is that little unspoken assumption in the argument - it does not follow that there is a significant enough connection between the data sets being compared or the topics associated with them to draw conclusions about one based on the other.
Oh, right, I'd almost forgotten, but I did a count recently and it turns out there's exactly three classes that have the ability to take Wisdom as their Key Ability Score - Clerics, Druids, and Magical Trickster Rogues (who kind of cheat by virtue of taking either a Cleric or Druid multiclass dedication :p). Monks and Rangers have significantly decreased their reliance on it between editions, and the end result is that it's the least commonly-used ability score besides Constitution for classes. I get that Wisdom is a pretty good stat since it applies to Perception, Will saves, and Medicine, but I'm honestly a bit thrown that of the eleven classes we've gotten since the CRB, not one of them actually uses Wisdom. I'd really love to see a new non-caster class that centers Wisdom in their kit!
Yeah, I've noticed that for some reason 2020-21 seemed to be big egg-breaking years for a lot of folks, myself included. I'd say I'm not sure why, but I have at least a couple theories :p
I'm also disappointed in the Voluntary Flaws change. One of the things I've often experienced, particularly in Organized Play, is an intense stigma against "making your character worse for no reason", with the implication that your character is ruining other people's fun. The old system neatly sidestepped that to an extent by offering a small, but still relevant, benefit.
Ah well. I look forward to having to rebuild half my characters to comply. :|
I was just talking to my friends about this elsewhere - even outside of PFS, it's a lot easier to sell your group on "My character takes a couple flaws in order to get a boost to something more relevant to the concept" than it is to sell them on "My character takes a couple flaws because it fits their concept better". People generally don't mind the former, but there's a lot of folks out there (and I do mean a lot of folks) who swear by optimization practices and see the idea of playing a character who's voluntarily weaker than expected to be detrimental to the party.
Changing how Voluntary Flaws work will ensure the system is used far less often both in organized play and at home games, and it removes one more option for tweaking characters from the game. It's not just about character optimization (though obviously it is at least a little about that).
Personally, I think 3 Boosts + 1 Flaw should have become the alternative, with the option to buy out of the Flaw as per usual. I don't hate the 2 Boosts option, it's gonna make a lot of my character ancestry choices more focused on theme and PC identity rather than stats, but it leaves me wondering if there's a reason 3 Boosts + 1 Flaw didn't become standard. I'm not sure I like the change to the Voluntary Flaws system either, if only because it felt relatively balanced as-is and gave some players the option to tweak stats a bit more to meet a concept. As long as the limitations on how many boosts and flaws a stat can receive within the same step remains intact, I don't see it breaking anything personally.
That would be handy. My take on it though is that would be an unintended buff to most builds that don't fit in a specific ancestry/class. Many builds would end up with an extra boost on their hands with int or cha flaw, which I get why they wouldn't want that.
This is true, but is that actually a net power increase in a game where INT and CHA govern both most downtime activities and valuable skill actions for combat, such as Demoralize and Recall Knowledge? I'm personally of the opinion that it's a sidegrade at the end of the day.
Personally, I think 3 Boosts + 1 Flaw should have become the alternative, with the option to buy out of the Flaw as per usual. I don't hate the 2 Boosts option, it's gonna make a lot of my character ancestry choices more focused on theme and PC identity rather than stats, but it leaves me wondering if there's a reason 3 Boosts + 1 Flaw didn't become standard. I'm not sure I like the change to the Voluntary Flaws system either, if only because it felt relatively balanced as-is and gave some players the option to tweak stats a bit more to meet a concept. As long as the limitations on how many boosts and flaws a stat can receive within the same step remains intact, I don't see it breaking anything personally.
At the moment, with both the Kineticist and the Treasure Vault book on the way, my biggest desire is a book focused on skills. I want more skill feats, and I mean a lot more. Some skills seem to get all the love, and it'd be nice to expand the Level 7 and 15 options a bunch. I'd also love class feats and archetypes that interact with skills more - stuff like Acrobat, Linguist, and a few of the Inventor's class feats.
There was actually a Roll For Combat stream today where the topic of the 1000xp per level design came up, and Mark Seifter talked about it a bit. The stream is on YouTube right now, titled "Does the Gold Economy Work in D&D and Pathfinder?", and you can find the relevant conversation here. I'll paraphrase some of what was said as a couple questions and answers below:
Q: Why use XP instead of Milestone?
A: Many players prefer milestone leveling, but there's still a significant portion of the base that prefers using xp for their games, and the decision to use xp as the default came down to ease of implementation. It's easier to implement milestone in a game where xp is the default than it is to implement xp in a game where milestone is the defualt, so they opted to make the rules for the more complicated mechanic instead to make it easier for both parts of the playerbase to do what they want.
Q: Why use 1000xp per level instead of some other number?
A: The idea of using 100xp per level was actually considered at one point - 100xp for 100% of a level is pretty easy to remember, after all - but it turns out they really needed the extra digit to add more granularity so they wouldn't wind up handing out 1/2 xp at any point.
----------------------------
The reason the game defaults to using the same amount of xp for each level up wasn't mentioned during the stream, but personally I think it's fairly straightforward - changing how much xp it takes to level up at each level means you need to increase how much XP monsters are worth at each level, too. That makes it harder to design consistent systems for encounter balance, as a fight with the same level of challenge is going to be worth different amounts of xp based on what level the players are, and means the GM has to remember more formulas or refer to more tables to do their job. It also doesn't really serve much purpose in the game, save for artificially increasing xp values at every level, and if you're already trying to keep the ratio of encounters per level consistent to begin with... why not make the xp required to level up a consistent value, too?
In more related conversation, uuugh I need to get off my ass and think about talking to someone about HRT stuff now that I'm on work insurance but like, man, spending money.
This was my biggest concern and the main reason I didn't go for it earlier, since I fully expected my work insurance wouldn't cover it, but it turned out it totally does and my workplace HSA even covers the cost for a full year of refills. There was literally no reason not to and I let my own doubt stop me from trying to get HRT for a whole year. Don't be like me, go for it!
It has never been Paizo’s intention to discriminate against any employee when making decisions of who to send to industry trade shows, but we see now that our room-sharing policy was based on outdated interpretations of gender, was not friendly to transgender employees, and could contribute to a perception of transphobia at the company.
Jeff Alvarez wrote:
“As the person in charge of trade shows, I want to apologize to anyone that felt marginalized as a result of the convention decision-making process,”
Look, I'm not a public speaking expert or anything, but here's the thing about apologies that you don't seem to understand. A strong apology must include the following elements:
1. An acknowledgement of what was said/done that caused harm to others.
2. A stated understanding of why what was said/done was harmful.
3. A promise that, going forward, said behavior will not occur again.
4. Following through with that promise.
The issue with your "apologies" is that you continue to make statements that suggest that you don't really think that what was done was transphobic at all, but that it could be "perceived" as transphobic and might make people "feel marginalized". These statements deflect any personal responsibility for the harm that this policy - which you acknowledge yourselves was outdated - caused, and understate the fact that despite any intentions you may have had in enforcing it the policy itself was transphobic and has verifiably caused harm. To not acknowledge this, to not own your mistake and give a proper apology that demonstrates understanding of the harm caused and your responsibility for the harm it did, runs afoul of Elements 1 and 2.
If anyone felt marginalized, it's because they were marginalized, and if there was a "perception of transphobia at the company" then it's because they passed their perception check. To water down the harm your leadership caused by upholding and enforcing a transphobic room-sharing policy to "We know this might look bad and we're sorry if anyone felt hurt" is frankly cowardly and doesn't give me hope for how you plan to handle these issues in the future.
Every time I think about coming back to the forums again I wind up hearing about how messed up things are here, and it just makes me sad :(
That said, it gives me a lot of hope to see y'all out and about on the forums and trying to preserve some semblance of civility here. I don't envy you one bit, but I seriously appreciate you all the same <3
"Recent departure" certainly is... one of the ways this could've been phrased. Starting the public statements with misleading passive descriptions of what happened really isn't giving me much hope for a proper response here.
I've witnessed the issue of players getting stuck on one combat routine in a set of three tournament-style combats with my Kingmaker group's Barbarian and Champion Paladin as a duo. Each fight the enemies had different abilities and prioritized different strategies - where Round 1's foes just ran up and exchanged blows, Round 2's relied on mobility and retaliation reactions to give the players headaches, and Round 3's specifically targeted the Paladin first to stop him from allowing the Barbarian to tank all the damage easily.
The players never really changed tactics from fight to fight, and while their tanking strategy worked well in the first round's all-out slugfest it suffered in Rounds 2 and 3 from being too inflexible and reliant on the Paladin's reactions to function. If they had gone for a Trip or a Grapple in Round 2 on the more mobile enemy the fight probably would've ended much sooner, and they really should've changed strategies in Round 3 to focus on debuffing an enemy to oblivion with some combination of skills to take out an enemy early on and lessen the damage they had to deal with. Their decision to commit to a single strategy wound up being a weakness in the long run.
He said his players have been going through AoA for a year. A year is a long time to get to know a system, unless you aren't trying to unlearn the 3.5/5e walk up to it and swing mentality.
I mean, that's entirely dependent on how often you play. Once a week, 5-hour sessions, for 260 play hours a year? Yeah, that's a lot of time to be learning a system. Twice a month (if you're lucky) 3-hour sessions for somewhere under 78 hours a year? That can seriously cut down on play time. My Kingmaker group is in the latter category and we're not even up to Level 5 yet after a solid 10.5 months of playing. I wonder how far Taking20's group actually got into the AP?
Somehow, I don't think you're supposed to agree with the person who acknowledges that destroying the indigenous people's cultural sites would be downright evil and then goes and enables it anyway strictly for personal profit. That's a pretty textbook example of an evil act right there.
I've seen Sleep end encounters at low levels already, I'd very much like to avoid that becoming a trend for the next 16 levels of combats. If I wanted to GM for a campaign where the party casters could single-handedly put down bosses with the right spell choice and just a little bit of luck then I'd still be running 1e.
I've been GMimg a converted Kingmaker campaign with a Champion (Paladin, Mounted), Rogue (Arcane Trickster to Imperial Sorcerer), Barbarian (Fury), Witch (Night) and Druid (Leaf, primary healer).
In my experience, low-levels have largely been cantrips, with the extended range on Ray of Frost making it the most-used with Produce Flame and Telekinetic Projectile tied for second. The AP is almost entirely outdoors at this point so there's a lot of space to distance themselves from enemies, and close-up they tend to default to the more damaging options unless an opportunity arises. The party just beat the (new) boss of Book 1 in a long combat where the Druid's Entangle blocked a chokepoint, making it easier to limit how many enemies they had to deal with and effectively giving them some space to fire off spells while two party members were totally immune to the difficult terrain it created. The Witch used a Level 2 Grim Tendrils which isntantly took out half the mooks, then on Round 2 put a key opponent to sleep before he could use his high reach and attack bonus to wreck the front line. He only managed to wake up a minute later on the final round of combat as things were winding down, so it effectively removed him entirely. The druid has also been healing to great effect between Goodberry, Treat Wounds, and Heal spells and has consistently kept the party alive through large amounts of damage.
So far, what I'm seeing is that the casters are not instantly ending combats anymore. That's a great thing. They're also not useless - they're contributing an equal amount to the combats as their teammates, and while sometimes one character will be in the spotlight it's usually a concerted effort by the party.
PF1:
You have a Standard, Move, and Swift action on your turn. You can trade a Standard for a Move but not a Move for a Swift, and you can't trade the other direction for either. You can use both a Standard and Move to do a Full-Round Action, but that's different from a 1-Round action which takes your turn and goes off at the start of your next turn assuming you don't get interrupted. You also have Free actions which cost nothing and can be done as many times as you like until your GM begs you to stop, and Non-Actions which aren't the same as Free Actions for some reason. You can also get an Immediate Action during other people's turns, but you only get one and it takes your next turn's Swift Action to do it - don't worry if you forget about that, because I probably will too. You also get one Attack of Opportunity if you're wielding a weapon that triggers based on stuff the enemy does, and you can get more if you take a certain feat, but they're not like Immediate Actions so they cost nothing to use. One of your available actions, the 5' Step, allows you to move 5' if it's the only movement you make during that turn - specifically a Move action to Move, or a Charge, or Run, or Long/High Jump, but not standing up, or being pushed or pulled, or teleporting. Except you can't take actions after you teleport, so remember that. But a 5' Step isn't an action, it's a Non-Action, so...? Oh yeah, you can draw a single weapon as part of a Move action to Move or a Charge, but only if your BAB is +1. Getting an item out is a Move action, but only if it's easily accessible - stuff in your bag takes a Standard. You can Charge as a Standard action if you're limited to just a Standard action, such as during a Surprise Round or when you're Slowed, but you only move half the distance. Some conditions can take away actions, but they vary in what actions get taken away and they're way worse for martial characters than casters. Etc etc etc ad infinitum.
PF2:
You get three Actions, plus occasionally a single Reaction and/or some Free actions that trigger when a specific thing happens. Some classes can get one or two extra Reactions that can only be used for a specific ability. You can never activate more than one Free Action or Reaction off the same trigger. Some special actions called Activities take more than one Action to use. Sometimes you can get a fourth action with the Quickened condition, but that bonus action can only be used for specific things, and the ability that granted it will tell you what it can be used for. Some conditions take away a number of your Actions on your turn, usually either 1 or 2. That's everything.
See the difference in size between those blocks of text? See how many less exceptions and corner cases I have to cover for PF2, whose system I covered almost entirely in that paragraph? Guess which action economy system I, the Eternal GM of my table, prefer.
Where exactly is the censorship? The AP is still being released, unchanged. The Player's Guide will simply include guidance on how to remove the cop elements for groups who don't want to use them. They're literally leaving the choice to the individuals running and playing the game. Paizo wasn't forced to make an apology or donate to charities, they chose to do so. They could have just as easily said nothing and allowed people to "vote with their wallets" and skip it entirely, but instead they chose to address it and add options to make the AP more appealing to their customers.
Paizo also has the "freedom of expression" to publicly support whatever charities, causes and movements they so choose. Per the blog, inclusivity and racial justice are ideals Paizo has committed to. If they feel their actions around this AP don't reflect those ideals, then they'd naturally either need to make amends or else face whatever backlash may come. Given their track record (especially as of late) this blog seemed inevitable.
(Also, what exactly is publicly declaring your intent to "vote with your dollar" if not pressuring the company? That's literally the point. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - I was planning on skipping this AP due to the subject matter, so it would be rather hypocritical of me to suggest other people were bad for doing the same thing for different reasons. It's just that it seems odd to me to decry pressuring the company while also declaring intent to do so.)
Just to give an example of what an actual comparison would look like with average damage and accuracy factored in, I've done my first DPR post in, like, a year or more. Frankly, I don't think DPR really matters as much in PF2 as it did back in PF1 since anything past the second attack is often wasted, but this was fun regardless.
NOTE: The extra 4-6 bonus damage on a crit comes from the base weapon die increasing from a d10 to a d12.
DPR Calculations:
In PF2, there are two ways to calculate crits - you can either not count a crit as a hit (ex: if my accuracy is 75%, my chance to hit is 50% and my chance to crit is 25%) and multiply crit rate by the full damage dealt on a crit, or you can count a crit as a hit and only multiply crit rate by the additional damage dealt on a crit. I've done the latter, formula below.
DPR = (chance to hit x damage) + (chance to crit x bonus damage dealt on a crit)
For attacks against Flat-footed creatures, the enemy AC drops by 2 and accuracy increases by 0.1 with critical hits becoming more likely if this increases accuracy over 0.55.
Rogue DPR vs AC 46 = (0.55x34)+(0.05x45) + (0.35x34)+(0.05x45) + 2x((0.15x34)+(0.05x45)) = 49.8
Rogue SA DPR vs AC 44 = (0.65x48)+(0.15x59) + (0.45x48)+(0.05x59) + 2x((0.25x48)+(0.05x59)) = 94.5
Fighter DPR vs AC 46 = (0.65x44)+(0.15x55) + (0.4x44)+(0.05x55) + 2x((0.15x44)+(0.05x55)) + (0.15x55)+(0.05x83.5) = 88.325
Fighter DPR vs AC 44 = (0.75x44)+(0.25x55) + (0.5x44)+(0.05x55) + 2x((0.25x44)+(0.05x55)) + (0.25x55)+(0.05x83.5) = 116.925
What you wind up seeing is that the Rogue only deals more damage if they get to Sneak Attack a Flat-footed target and the Fighter has to attack normal AC, and even then the Rogue only does about 7% more damage. If the Rogue doesn't get Sneak Attack then the Fighter blows them out of the water, doing about 77% more damage. If they both attack a Flat-footed target then the Rogue closes the gap, but the Fighter still deals about 23.7% more damage.
About Persistent Damage:
I know I included the +2d10 Persistent damage on crit in the calculations for every individual attack, but honestly I'm typing all this up on my phone and by the time I realized it they were already included and I didn't feel up to fixing it. In any case, that bonus damage is included in both totals, and it doesn't cause any dramatic shift despite the Fighter's higher crit chance because A) it only adds 11 damage and B) that's multiplied by the crit rate for each Strike, meaning it adds about ~2-3 DPR to the Rogue and ~4-5 DPR to the Fighter. The 2-point shift in favor of the Fighter really doesn't change the conclusion at any point, and finding a way to account for Persistent damage that can only be dealt 1/round on a critical hit is really not worth it for what amounts to a minor inaccuracy.
thenobledrake wrote:
Minor note @LuniasM, which doesn't affect the point you are making at all:
A greater flaming rune and the like don't increase the damage dealt on a hit, so it's not 2d6 fire. It's 1d6 that ignores fire resistance.
That's a subject of debate at the moment, because the critical hit rules only call out the following exception:
Core Rulebook p451 wrote:
Benefits you gain specifically from a critical hit, like the flaming weapon rune’s persistent fire damage or the extra damage die from the fatal weapon trait, aren’t doubled.
The damage from Property Runes that aren't specifically added from a critical hit are not called out here. PF1's critical hit rules explicitly stated that bonus damage from things like Flaming and Frost aren't multiplied, but PF2 only makes the distinction between damage that's added on regular hits and damage that's added specifically as a benefit of critting. That's why I multiplied the Property Rune damage for Greater Flaming and Corrosive, but not for the Greater Flaming Rune's 2d10 Persistent damage, the Greatpick's Critical Specialization damage, or the bonus weapon damage die from the Greatpick's Fatal property (although I did decide the bonus die from Fatal counted for determining how much damage the crit specialization deals, which in retrospect is a questionable choice... But it only adds +2 damage per crit, so shrug. )
So let's compare a Fighter with a Greatpick making four attacks (Weapon Supremacy at Level 20 grants a Quickened Strike) plus a Brutal Finish action via Desperate Finisher. A Greatpick has Fatal d12, meaning on a crit it deals d12s instead of the normal d10s and adds a bonus die of damage. In addition, Picks have the critical specialization effect of adding +2 damage per weapon die. Your calculation didn't add DEX or weapon specialization, but the Fighter would be dealing 2 more damage per hit with them counted, so I'll just add +2 damage per strike. Also, damage from property runes is multiplied on a crit, except for the bonus Persistent damage which only applies on a crit already.
Brutal Finish adds 2 bonus weapon damage die, causing the last attack each round to deal an extra 4d12+4 damage (the bonus die are doubled, and the crit specialization adds 2 damage per die).
Assuming 5 crits, that's 144 x 5 + 2d10 Persistent Fire (Greater Flaming) + 4d12+4 = 792
Now, this isn't the best way to determine how much damage a build will deal on a typical turn or against a normal enemy, but even assuming the maximum possible damage the Fighter can still be built to outpace even the Rogue in the same calculation.
2) Their Racket gives them the ability to make someone Flatfooted against every attack you make for two turns, meaning they don't need support from teammates to set up Sneak Attack, and the Crit Success result is a solid debuff when it lands. This feature also means they're one of the better Racket options for ranged Rogues, as they can more easily take advantage of the debuff Feinting applies and don't need to spread out their physical stats as much.
I'm a bit confused by this, given feinting doesn't apply to non-melee attacks, unless there's a feat I've missed. I think all the rackets are potentially equally good at using a bow, since none of their traits apply, no? You also need to be within melee range of the target to feint and generate the benefit.
So there's a few things about Scoundrel that really set it apart from the other Rackets.
1) You can select CHA as your key ability score, so Scoundrel has better social skills, including Deception and Intimidation which are both very good for combat when used properly. This also means they're a great choice for multiclass dedications that use CHA, like Sorcerer and Bard. Yes, you have to use Spell Attack Rolls, but A) you're using CHA to hit and have Feint to make up for the lower attack bonus and B) you don't have to be in melee to get Sneak Attack - stuff like Snowball, Acid Arrow, Searing Light, and some melee spells plus Reach Spell can benefit from that (though there are admittedly not very many to choose from).
2) Their Racket gives them the ability to make someone Flatfooted against every attack you make for two turns, meaning they don't need support from teammates to set up Sneak Attack, and the Crit Success result is a solid debuff when it lands. This feature also means they're one of the better Racket options for ranged Rogues, as they can more easily take advantage of the debuff Feinting applies and don't need to spread out their physical stats as much.
3) Distracting Feint turns your Feint into a useful debuff for landing Trips, Disarms, and Reflex Save spells. Rogue gets more Skill Increases than any current class, so investing a little bit into Athletics to take advantage of that really isn't that big of a deal, especially if you plan on working it into your combat routine on a regular basis.
Problem is, you're playing a melee rogue in a party with 2(ish) other melee characters. With that much battlefield presence, you don't need to Feint to get Flatfooted on a target, and your allies are likely often in a position to do the same thing so your Crit Success result isn't very useful. You haven't taken Multiclass Dedication stuff and your caster is playing a class that doesn't have as many Reflex Save spells to begin with, so Distracting Feint isn't very helpful there either. I can't speak to the usefulness or power level of class feats or skill feats, as that's often down to personal preference, but it sounds to me like the combination of the team composition and your melee build are what stopped the Racket itself from getting much value. Switching Rackets there was probably the right choice unless you wanted to alter your build and combat style entirely.
All non-essential businesses are closed here. My workplace is covered, but profits are still down so much they're going to start furloughing people and cutting pay. With how slow business has been it's not much of a surprise.
I'm still holding onto hope that GenCon won't be cancelled this year since it would be my first and I finally have a friend who wants to go too, but idk how likely that is now. Crossing my fingers.
Yeah, you want crazy? Build a Life Spirit Shaman with the Witch Doctor archetype and Cleric Variant Multiclassing for far too many channels a day. Plus spell slots.
The benefit of Cackle is that it lacks the Concentrate trait, so it won't trigger reactions like Sustain a Spell does and it can be used even mid-Rage (or while Fascinated, if that ever comes up). It's not a major benefit as-is, but it gets you around some annoyances.
For my money, multiclassing to Ranger for Hunted Shot makes for a pretty good Shortbow build. On the turn you need to apply Hunt Target and Study Suspect you'll still have 2 attacks, and on following turns Hunted Shot basically pays for Study Suspect's action cost. Plus the bonus range and skill bonus are nice.
We've talked about it in the Arcane Mark discord, and the key point is swapping the Concentration trait for only affecting creatures that can hear you. Good for Raging and avoiding Reactions that trigger off Concentrate actions.
We just ignoring all the good options? It's especially criminal that Magaambyan Attendant and Halcyon Speaker haven't been mentioned yet, considering how great their feats are in general. And all the Knights of Lastwall feats and archetypes look good too. Hellknight Signifier is a bit of a mixed bag, sure, and the Scrollmaster is clearly suited for a specific type of campaign (or perhaps for PFS). But most of the options in this book are pretty good, or at least comparable to existing feats, heritages, etc. Now please excuse me while I build a Cascade-Bearer with access to every spell list up to Level 7.
