Dark Archive Playtest Analysis

Monday, November 22, 2021

Welcome, Archivists. I’m James Case, here for your debrief on the playtest for Pathfinder Dark Archive! First, thank you all for taking the time to try out the psychic and the thaumaturge and for filling out surveys, talking about the classes on forums and chat servers, making blog posts and videos, and all in all helping us make the classes the best we can be! Now that the playtest has wrapped, we wanted to talk about some of the feedback we saw and the directions we’re starting to take class revisions. While we’re still in the middle of discussions, development, and analysis, we thought we’d check in. Keep in mind that both classes will get a ton of small updates across the board, as well as more feats, class path options, and the like, so we’re just going to focus on the big changes here!

Psychic:

Thaleon, the iconic psychic. Sketch by Wayne Reynolds.
Thaleon, the iconic psychics

Main Takeaways:We tried something a little different from the conventional spellcaster model with the psychic’s lower number of spell slots and strong focus on …focus... cantrips, amps, and other special powers, with conventional slotted spells filling a more supplemental role. The overwhelming majority of you responded that you preferred this approach over a conventional spellcaster approach; however, much of the feedback also indicated that while what the psychic got in exchange for this reduced spell loadout was very interesting, it didn’t feel powerful or useful enough to make up for the difference in lost spell slots. So, a major direction of change for the psychic will be to retain the “fewer spell slots” and “cantrip/amp focus” class role, but adjust the power level of the supplemental pieces so that you can truly feel like you’ve unleashed the awesome power of your mind. I’ll get into some of the approaches we’re taking in each point below.

We also wanted to get a sense in the playtest of what you all thought of the general tone and genre of the class. This was pretty conclusive—over two-thirds of respondents said the more magical cast was working for them, so we’ll be staying the course here as well!

Spells and Spellcasting: A strong majority of respondents stated that they preferred the playtest arrangement of the psychic’s spellcasting and key ability scores, so we’ll be sticking to those and keeping the psychic as a spontaneous occult spellcaster whose subconscious mind gives them a thematic choice of key ability score between Intelligence and Charisma.

I also want to call out that, as with past spellcaster playtests, the specific spells granted on the conscious minds drew only on spells we had already published, so some needed to be chosen for role (“a damaging spell here” or “a scouting spell here”) and easy understandability even if they were a little outside the theme—for instance, magic missile was a stand-in for a more on-theme damaging level 1 spell on the distant grasp psychic. The final Dark Archive book will introduce several new spells with the psychic in mind for thematically tighter granted spells!

Psyche: The ability to unleash your psyche to amp spells for free was originally intended to let psychics really feel like they got to be masters of focus by cheating the Focus Point caps. However, the fact that psychics had almost unlimited Focus Points took up a lot of the power budget for the class, rippling into the psyches needing to come online later and have both benefits and drawbacks, as well as affecting the power of amps (which I'll touch on next). Therefore, one of the biggest changes we’ll be making to psychic is to remove this aspect of Unleash Psyche, and then redistribute that power through the rest of the class for a more consistent play experience.

Consistent feedback also showed that while psyches were interesting when unleashed, most combats didn’t last long enough after the third turn to make getting into the psyche feel worthwhile (meaning that much of the psychic’s power was tied up in a feature they had inconsistent access to). While we don’t want to make Unleash Psyche an “assumed first-turn action” in the vein of Rage, Hunt Prey, or similar, we do want to make it easier to do. Thankfully, with the removal of psyche’s role as a source of unlimited Focus Points, we have a lot of options for making it more accessible, as well as for adding more punch, such as effects that happen when your first Unleash your Psyche, more special abilities that happen automatically when you are unleashed, or the ability to end your psyche earlier for a single big benefit.

Amps: Amps are one of the major parts of the psychic, and most respondents stated that they found these options very interesting—Mark tells me that amps scored among the highest for “interesting” of any class we’ve playtested—but also that they felt weak in comparison to normal focus spells. They were! Since Unleash Psyche meant that you could amp your focus cantrips 5 or more times in a single combat, as opposed to a hard maximum of 3, those amps needed to be a little under the balance point of spells like fire ray. While psychics will retain their focus on amps, they likely won’t have such an outsized number of them, so we have plenty of room to now bring the power scale of amps back up.

New Stuff!: Of course, we always increase the number of options between the playtest and the final class! In addition to the new spells that will be added in Dark Archive, the psychic will of course be gaining new feats and choices of both conscious and subconscious minds. In honor of our new iconic psychic, Thaleon, I’ll share his conscious mind, which is called the tangible dream. This path focuses on materializing and projecting the user’s thoughts into the physical world, allowing you to conjure walls, blades, and other constructs of force (or astral thread, or ectoplasm, as your character concept fits) around the battlefield!

I’m getting a vision… It’s… of Mark, talking about the thaumaturge!


Thaumaturge:

Mios, the iconic thaumaturge. Sketch by Wayne Reynolds.
Mios, the iconic thaumaturge

Hi everyone, Mark Seifter here for a post-playtest report for the thaumaturge class. I first want to thank you all for participating in the playtest by running and playing games, posting your playtest results and analysis, answering surveys, and having good discussions! In particular, the playtest was happening during a pretty challenging period for us at Paizo, and I appreciate how all of you in the playtest stepped up your game compared to earlier playtests with extremely civil discourse, keeping repetitive points to a minimum so I could keep up with all the new ideas, and just really engaging with each other’s ideas and feelings in good faith to talk about different directions.

Overall, people really liked the thaumaturge, with a strong good feeling from the majority of players, but there were definitely some areas where it needed tweaking or rethinking, usually in a way that didn’t detract much for most playtesters but did in a big way for a small number of them. This left the thaumaturge in an interesting situation, with about as many people who were about as many huge fans of the class as the highest-ranking class we’ve ever playtested, but then that small number with especially low rankings. The great news about that is that it left a clear path forward.

Main Takeaways: The one thing I wasn’t sure about was whether playtesters would like our new vision of the thaumaturge or would prefer something more similar to the first edition occultist. What I discovered is that you really like the martial thaumaturge concept, by an overwhelming majority, and want it to remain a magpie picking up from all four traditions. However, there was a desire to make it clearer how the class fantasy works with respect to exerting your force of personality to convince the universe, as well as to add more capacity to the class’s skills so that Charisma-based skills are front and center to match the intro lore about being persuasive. The changes to Esoteric Antithesis and Find Flaws (see below) may help with this as well to allow better advantage of your Charisma key ability score, while freeing up a broader variety of character concepts—this will let players freely choose whether to lean more heavily on magical learning or more on making things up as you go along as best fits the character. We’ll also be making a variety of quality-of-life changes based on other playtester proposals.

New Implements: As the playtest mentioned, we’ll be adding up to nine implements (three each granting active, reactive, and passive abilities). Of the four new implements, one of them will be the tome (or a ledger, notebook, or similar object), a passive implement that mysteriously writes down information about everything around you to assist you. The other implements are one to let you inspire and lead your allies, one to debuff your enemies, and one that misleads your enemies’ attacks, but I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what implements those might be!

Esoteric Antithesis and Find Flaws: One thing I’ve learned from these playtests is that our playtesters tend to be our most dedicated and experienced players (and even if you’re new to Pathfinder, you are very experienced with tabletop RPGs in general). So, whenever even our most experienced playtesters think a mechanic is complicated, I think I should take another look at that. People loved the benefits for these abilities but thought they were complex, and that they sometimes had issues being tied directly to Recall Knowledge. Our plan is to disentangle Esoteric Antithesis from Recall Knowledge (with a feat, like investigators’, to pick up a free Recall Knowledge if you want that), instead just flat-out forcing your will on the universe with a check to establish a connection (I’m thinking a name like “Forge Connection”). One consequence of this is that even on a failure, you can forge a connection, but a success or critical success will give you more. Additionally, while a high majority of players really liked the playtest benefit from Esoteric Antithesis, there were some good ideas about how to open up to allow a variety of benefits to allow for more playstyles. So, we’re looking at offering multiple benefits a thaumaturge can pick from when you successfully forge a connection. This separates out the benefit where you apply a creature’s highest weakness and the benefit where you create a new weakness as two options, to handle the feedback people gave about situations where they were already applying a creature’s highest weakness due to preparation for the encounter. It also allows you to gain new benefits, for instance, when you might prefer a special buff or debuff instead of simply more damage. Right now, we’re toying with the idea of having a different connection for each implement, as some folks also thought implements could use one more unique power, and then have more connections available through feats

Pacts: People loved the story of the pacts—in fact, they wanted them to have stronger effects, and many wanted the option for any character, even non-thaumaturges, to gain them. We had actually planned on including similar pacts in a yet-unannounced part of the book, but based on your feedback, we also expanded the pacts into a full-on pact binder archetype for anyone to take! Opinions were pretty varied about their rarity, perhaps the most mixed we’ve ever gotten in a multiple choice question for paths moving forward, so we’ll take that into account moving forward.


A Glimpse, A Hunch, A Flicker of the Future:

Hey, thanks for sticking around! Here’s something coming up in Dark Archive—while the book is still in development and various things might change a little, I wanted to give a sneak peek into a new type of player option coming up in the cryptids file, one of the eight casefiles of the Dark ArchiveM.

Creature Echo Feats

Creature echoes are a new type of feat that grant you special powers based on exposure to an unusual creature. These are rare and usually only occur after a significant event involving the creature. Imagine a town where people have, one by one, begun to turn to stone. You might spend many months tracking down the cause of the phenomena, only to eventually find it was an ancient creature with a petrifying gaze living deep under the town. However your encounter with the creature goes, the following feat might echo with you if you survive:

Stone Skin — Feat 12
Rare, Transmutation
Prerequisites You have been petrified.

It might have been a medusa, dracolisk, or even a fossil golem; regardless of the source, you were the target of some petrifying effect, and an element of that stony gaze has remained with you, both protecting and slowly consuming you. Your limbs are coated with a layer of stone that rests atop your skin. You gain a stone fist unarmed attack which deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage, has the shove trait, and is in the brawling weapon group; unlike a normal fist, it does not have the agile or finesse traits. As your life force ebbs, this petrification spreads over more of your body to form a stony armor. When you have fewer than half your maximum Hit Points, your stone fist unarmed attack increases its weapon damage die from 1d8 to 1d10 and you gain resistance to physical damage equal to your Constitution modifier.

If you would gain the dying condition, you can choose to instead be permanently petrified to avoid the risk of death. Counteracting this petrification requires a casting of stone to flesh of a spell level equal to at least half your level, as well as a counteract check against the hard DC for your level. Each time you recover from petrification caused in this way, you gain a new scar on your skin in the shape of a long, thin crack.

Scribes of the Archive

Before I go, I want to say thanks to the awesome writers whose work is featured in the book. We’re in the middle of development and I gotta say, they’ve done some strange, spooky, and brilliant work!

Written by Rigby Bendele, Logan Bonner, James Case, Dan Cascone, Jessica Catalan, Banana Chan, Kay Hashimoto, Sen.H.H.S., Patrick Hurley, Avi Kool, Daniel Kwan, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Liane Merciel, Jacob W. Michaels, Andrew Mullen, Quinn Murphy, K. Tessa Newton, Mikhail Rekun, Patrick Renie, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Shay Snow, Soup, Alex Speidel, Solomon St. John, Geoffrey Suthers, Ruvaid Virk, Jabari Weathers, and Isis Wozniakowska



We’ll have more for you in the future, so stay tuned for further updates over the next year. Again, thank you all so much for taking the time to participate in the playtest and for sending in feedback to make the classes the best they can be!

In darkness lies enlightenment,

James Case
Designer

Mark Seifter
Design Manager

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Paizo Employee Designer

29 people marked this as a favorite.

Once again, thank you to everyone for trying out the classes and sending in feedback!


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Everything I see here looks great and I am very much looking forward to Dark Archives, and the expanded Thaumathurge options. One of my players is already having a blast with his Thaumathurge in Malevolence (with a little bit of home-brewing how to handle the Recall Knowledge stuff).

Thank you for the playtest, and those interesting teases :)
DA is shaping up to be a very cool book, I feel.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm glad to see my biggest concerns (underpowered amps, no benefit for thaumaturges who were well prepared) are being addressed!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Interesting feed back. Is there a way to see a breakdown of responses, alla n= format?

Silver Crusade

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Nice!


9 people marked this as a favorite.

I haven't looked at either class yet, but I do like the Creature Echo feat concept, and the feat example you provided is pretty awesome.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I really appreciate just how much you guys broke down the various new ideas for the class; thanks for laying out the feedback so concisely and fully! Really looking forward to the Pact-Binder archetype as well. That looks fun as Hell ... possibly literally.

And I love the idea of the creature echo feats. They feel like an intersection of beast guns, story feats from PF1E, and the creature-feature-centric archetypes in 2E, like the Oozemorph. Very cool space to start exploring!

Design Manager

38 people marked this as a favorite.

Thanks everyone. You were great, and you helped make things easier for me in a difficult time. I appreciate you!


10 people marked this as a favorite.

"Each time you recover from petrification caused in this way, you gain a new scar on your skin in the shape of a long, thin crack."

Fan of the Dr. Stone anime are we?


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Let's see...

Psychic: Will keep the number of slots, will not break the focus spell limit if 3 anymore so can have stronger amps and unsleash will change to be some form of "rage" giving benefits when you use it.

Thaumaturge: Around the same as the playtest but find flaws will not be connected to recall anymore.

Sounds cool on paper, let's see how it will turn out in a year.

Dark Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I like what I'm hearing for the Thaumaturge. Super excited.

Paizo Employee Editor

41 people marked this as a favorite.

Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?


5 people marked this as a favorite.

Definitely looking forward to these classes. The new "tangible dream" unconscious mind sounds great.

Paizo Employee Organized Play Coordinator

27 people marked this as a favorite.
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?

Lightbulbs are suspicious Stasian Tech and are not to be trusted without a further four years of study!


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?

Yes, but if we did that, we'd get in trouble for how dusty the place has gotten lately. It'd be a whole project, and we can't get any of the interns to go back in there anymore, not after ... The Event.


13 people marked this as a favorite.

Low Light Archive when, Paizo?


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Awesome! I really need to start getting my surveys in earlier, so I don't get the end date wrong again. (Fortunately, it sounds like my feedback would have been largely in line with what other folks were finding.) I'm really looking forward to seeing the final version, especially for the Thaumaturge! Being able to lean into the charisma role more is going to be great for the characters I am interested in making with it.

Thanks to all the writers and designers working on this!


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?

Mildly-Lit Archive doesn't sound like a very interesting book.

Or worse, what if someone brought torches in and we got Flaming Archive.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Having alternative Connections is a really great way to make the class feel more flexible and address the problem of 'but I can already exploit that weakness', I love it.

Not mentioned in the post, but hopefully some improvements to how stretched thin the class' attributes can feel (the combination of desired attributes + low HP + bad saves was rough) and its ability to handle mooks.

Either way really looking forward to Dark Archive and I absolutely love the idea of creature echo feats.


10 people marked this as a favorite.

Symbolism to a poet: "I can use this to get ideas across in a creative and meaningful way."

Symbolism to a thaumaturge: "I can beat things up with this."


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Alex Speidel wrote:
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?
Lightbulbs are suspicious Stasian Tech and are not to be trusted without a further four years of study!

I am at least half convinced that Nikola Tesla is spending half his time on Earth and the rest on Golarion, so it makes sense that light bulbs haven't been brought over.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?

The electrical hasn't been updated in the archive for a while, even with a changed light bulb it would be the 'low-light archive' at a minimum.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think the theme of the Thaumaturge is cool, but it fell really flat in play (and I played at levels 1, 12, and 13). Hopefully these changes make it feel more fun.

I do hope that the 1e Occultist gets revisited in 2e. It was my favorite 1e class and the Thaumaturge had pretty much none of what I liked about it.


11 people marked this as a favorite.

Psychics are getting stronger, Unleash is getting the changes I wanted, and Pacts are getting spun off into their own thing - I'm very happy with all of this. The Creature Echoes seem really neat, too.

Is there any chance there's a soulknife-y Psychic option? I love to conjure a weapon.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Alex Speidel wrote:
Shay Snow wrote:
Has anyone considered changing the light bulb in the archive to make it less dark? No? Just me?
Lightbulbs are suspicious Stasian Tech and are not to be trusted without a further four years of study!

Quickly, everyone - speculate on what book Paizo is releasing four years from now! :p


1 person marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:

Psychics are getting stronger, Unleash is getting the changes I wanted, and Pacts are getting spun off into their own thing - I'm very happy with all of this. The Creature Echoes seem really neat, too.

Is there any chance there's a soulknife-y Psychic option? I love to conjure a weapon.

There's the Soulforger.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Perpdepog wrote:
keftiu wrote:

Psychics are getting stronger, Unleash is getting the changes I wanted, and Pacts are getting spun off into their own thing - I'm very happy with all of this. The Creature Echoes seem really neat, too.

Is there any chance there's a soulknife-y Psychic option? I love to conjure a weapon.

There's the Soulforger.

Sounds like "tangible dream" is able to conjure blades.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

The first part of the Stone Skin feat feels pretty weak for a Feat 12 (I'm not sure how much of the power budget "turn to stone instead of dying" part is), but I suppose the thing about "feats that require specific experiences" is that they're good ones to give out for free if they come up and you're amenable as a GM.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

By more Subconscious Minds, is it just INT/CHA ones or will there be a WIS one for the classic "mystic sage" trope?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm surprised and disappointed by the lack of a Wisdom option for the Psychic, but everything else sounds very promising.

(My guess for the "inspire and lead others" implement is a bell)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

That Stone Skin echo feat, if your 20th level champion got petrified to avoid death, will your sorcerer friend's wish copying flesh to stone work?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Evan Tarlton wrote:
I'm surprised and disappointed by the lack of a Wisdom option for the Psychic, but everything else sounds very promising.

I think part of the problem with a Wis-based one is that it would be hard to balance since Wis is already one of the most powerful stats in the game (it does Will and Perception and several extremely useful skills).


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm really happy to see the Thaumaturge keep CHA. For the people who wanted int or wis options, I hope maybe an archetype or feat/class options for Ranger and Investigator are made that can help create the fluff that you wanted.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
The first part of the Stone Skin feat feels pretty weak for a Feat 12 (I'm not sure how much of the power budget "turn to stone instead of dying" part is), but I suppose the thing about "feats that require specific experiences" is that they're good ones to give out for free if they come up and you're amenable as a GM.

Power-wise: I would guess that most of the budget is going towards the "turn to stone" part. It's not something that everyone is interested in (risk of death vs. getting back into the fight right away with healing), but it does the job really well. Oracle of Bones? You get to ignore Doomed entirely! Want to be "unkillable"? I think this is the closest we have.

Level-wise: It can't be lower, because Flesh to Stone is a 6th level spell.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm so thrilled that Thaumaturge is getting more debuff-y abilities available, and that it will avoid some of the clunkiness in play. Also pleased by the enhancements to Psychic, and THRILLED by the design of the Echo feats and the Pact archetype.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm sorry I missed out the opportunity to take part in the Dark Archive playtest (just got back into gaming in general and PF2e specifically) about a month ago. Both classes sound incredibly fun, for various reasons, and as others have said the 1e Occultist was a favorite of mine (I played one in Mummy's Mask and had a blast doing so), and with having said that I'm looking forward to the finished product and reading all about the Thaumaturge, and the Psychic.

Regards,

The_Minstrel_Wyrm


3 people marked this as a favorite.

This all looks really interesting! While I didn't have time or opportunity to participate in the playtest, I read the documents and the changes announced sound compelling. I'll be looking forward to getting Grand Archive!

I'm a little confused about the Creature Echo feats, though. Are they meant to replace a class feat in the character progression? Or are they solely intended as a sort of boon, as an extra feat?


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I rather liked the playtest version of Unleash, so I'm disappointed it is going, but absolutely agree with the feedback and am unsurprised that it is changed. Hopefully the free focus ability can be retained for another class, if the problem of coming on late in the fight can be solved.

Tome, Bell (debuff), Crown (inspire), and Ring (mislead) is my guess for the remaining implements. I want to say "key" instead of "ring" to match the harrow suits but ring seems more likely.

Edit: Also, something I vaguely felt during the playtest but didn’t quite nail down my thoughts on was that the class would have benefitted from defining a class power or “resonance” score, equal to your class DC - 10, and use THAT as your Find Flaws roll. Hopefully that happens in the release version; I assume the roll is going to be something like that, but having it as a defined term would be simpler to grok for he various places it will be used, such as with that one feat that lets you cast spells using that score as your spell attack roll.

I would also be interested in Thaums getting a legendary class DC for that. It doesn’t come up very often, but it might be interesting for this class to get more out of what uses class DC does have.


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That all sounds pretty sweet! I understand the sentiment that if psychic can use Focus spells 5 rounds in a combat they needed to be weaker, but that left the psychic with doing weak stuff as their main class Feature.

I especially hope for the distant grasp options to become stronger. I liked them but they just felt so damn weak. The unamped version was Borderline unusable imo. So i hope the unamped Focus cantrips also get some love.

Thaumaturge ideas Sound amazing! The stuff that was there was already so fun so im excited for more. Also hope the scroll feat stays!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Thaumaturge implements are a very cool way to do subclasses and I'm excited to see more of them. I liked how you could mix and match a couple in the playtest. Lots of build variety and flavor potential. Even the most mundane objects can be sources of power to the thaumaturge. Great stuff.

Grand Lodge

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I love seeing new(er) freelancers get hardcover credits! Shout out to Rigby Bendele, Kay Hashimoto, Daniel Kwan, Soup, and Geoffrey Suthers (those are the people who I'm 90% sure this is their first hardcover author credit, but if I missed someone that's on me). I'm so proud of all of you.


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Still hoping that the rule of three thaumaturge feat starts affecting DCs and/or magic attacks in some way. I truly couldn't comprehend why wouldn't it affect those - it's not only thematic, but would also allow for more playstyles and possible dedication uses.

I absolutely would get thaumaturge dedication for a Witch to get the rule of three and cast the most important spell on the third round.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
AnimatedPaper wrote:
Tome, Bell (debuff), Crown (inspire), and Ring (mislead) is my guess for the remaining implements. I want to say "key" instead of "ring" to match the harrow suits but ring seems more likely.

Keep in mind that the items are ones that need to be held in a hand to be presented. Amulet is the only worn one so far, and that's still something you would hold and present with one hand. Ring and crown don't make too much sense for that. Censor could be debuff, with bell for inspire.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
QuidEst wrote:
AnimatedPaper wrote:
Tome, Bell (debuff), Crown (inspire), and Ring (mislead) is my guess for the remaining implements. I want to say "key" instead of "ring" to match the harrow suits but ring seems more likely.
Keep in mind that the items are ones that need to be held in a hand to be presented. Amulet is the only worn one so far, and that's still something you would hold and present with one hand. Ring and crown don't make too much sense for that. Censor could be debuff, with bell for inspire.

I was thinking a cloak could be the mislead for that sort of reason; it is worn but not entirely useful for misleading unless held. Dueling cape meets the amulet implement sort of thing.


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I love these post-survey threads, it shows that voices were actually heard and we can point to specific people/threads/topics that causes some of these changes! As to the actual changes: Psychics keeping the design of a cantrip class and not a spellslot class is awesome, and the amps being kicked up and psyches being detached from the free amps is a direction I didn't expect, but I like. I hope (like many) they get a Wis option, but if they don't no tears will be shed; Thaumaturges getting Find Flaws simplified and decoupled from RK is a direction I am very happy with, and am excited to see how they deal with that. I also like the 3x3 passive, active, reaction; offense, defense, utility(?) direction of the Implements and the poaching of other classes as a gimmick like the Medium of PF1e. Monster Echo feats look AWESOME! I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT AND I AM ALREADY IN LOVE WITH THE IDEA! Keep up the amazing work Paizo, you wonderful wackos you


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You use the name pact binder for an archetype and that just makes me want Medium since that was more or less the pathfinder version of Binder.

With how well you make subclasses/paths/option for classes, the idea of a Class that basically has a bunch of subclasses that it can swap around daily is just so enticing. and yet it is going to be a long time before you do that...

The way I emulate mediums at the moment is with Summoner, letting the player shift eidolons daily, but they are always merged.

They can borrow more power from the spirit but the spirit gains more influence over the Medium, affecting the way their look either physically altering their body or clothing.

A Goblin Adventurer makes a pact with the spirit of the "Ruby queen" a master of illusions named so because her illusions would shatter into a cascade of ruby red glass-like particles and she was always adorned in ruby-encrusted gowns and high heeled pumps that looked like they were carved from the precious stone.

The more the Goblin borrows from the ruby queen, He finds himself increasingly adorned in such finery as the queen herself.


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I'm kinda mixed on psychic. With having so few spell slots, those amps better be damn strong and interesting to make up for it. On the other hand, manifested dreams is exactly the kind of theme I was looking for, and if done well, a focus spell centeic class tied to the occult list is something I've wanted.

The thaum changes look good and address many of my concerns. I like that "fake it till you make it" is just as viable as an actual scholar; one of my players in the test made his thaum a charlatan and it was a blast to see. Seeing a variety of options for antithesis besides weakness is really cool; I love martials that have debuff capability, and it fits the class so well. I hope the idea of giving each implement their own form of antithesis goes through, I like the idea of implements heavily determining how your thaum works, as they are the most immediate way to show off the "collects random bits" aspect of the class, and it's an aspect I like.


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Can't say I'm excited that CHA is the only option for the Thaumaturge moving forward considering all the flavor around knowledge/research that was baked into the Class even outside of FF/EA, but I suppose I'll reserve judgement for when the final arrives.

It's not the Class I thought it would be, but maybe it can still be a good Class. Guess Dwarves aren't supposed to be common Thaumaturges in Golarion.

Mark The Great wrote:
this will let players freely choose whether to lean more heavily on magical learning or more on making things up as you go along as best fits the character

This line does give me hope. I suppose I could settle for free Skill increases on Knowledge skills :)

The multi-option debuff is absolutely a great move though. Excited for that.

Psychic changes look fantastic though! Super excited for that.

Considering my playtest incorporated a Dream as a hook for my Psychic, I'm super happy to see it get an actual mechanic based on that :)


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Midnightoker wrote:

Can't say I'm excited that CHA is the only option for the Thaumaturge moving forward considering all the flavor around knowledge/research that was baked into the Class even outside of FF/EA, but I suppose I'll reserve judgement for when the final arrives.

It's not the Class I thought it would be, but maybe it can still be a good Class. Guess Dwarves aren't supposed to be common Thaumaturges in Golarion.

Psychic changes look fantastic though! Super excited for that.

Every time I see someone say "I guess [ancestry] can't be a good [class], I'm happy my table did away with ancestry stats and everyone just has 2 boons or 3 boons and a flaw


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Alchemic_Genius wrote:
Midnightoker wrote:

Can't say I'm excited that CHA is the only option for the Thaumaturge moving forward considering all the flavor around knowledge/research that was baked into the Class even outside of FF/EA, but I suppose I'll reserve judgement for when the final arrives.

It's not the Class I thought it would be, but maybe it can still be a good Class. Guess Dwarves aren't supposed to be common Thaumaturges in Golarion.

Psychic changes look fantastic though! Super excited for that.

Every time I see someone say "I guess [ancestry] can't be a good [class], I'm happy my table did away with ancestry stats and everyone just has 2 boons or 3 boons and a flaw

PAIZO GIVE ME A ALTERNATIVE DARK ARCHIVE DWARF HERITAGE THAT SWAPS CHA AND WIS PLEASERINO ;)

And to be fair, they can, they will just be the exception among dwarves. If we get compensation to be able to afford not being unintelligent, that'll probably be enough for me to be okay with it.

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