Thoughts on Occult Adventures


Product Discussion

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I'm just waiting for it to go up on sites like the SRD, so I can skim it over. Subscribers tend to blanket-approve and over-hype everything in my experience; not that they're always wrong, just that I wouldn't take their opinion without giving things a peek first.


Bloodrealm wrote:
Reading the posts on the Product Discussion from when just Subscribers had the book this book sounded great! Overwhelmingly positive on EVERYTHING. But now that it's out for everyone, all I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...

Only one class is underpowered, kineticist. And that's because it's basically a martial.


I have a question o the guys that have read the book.

Is Occult adventures a book on classes?. I mean, is the focus of the book to present new classes with new mechanics for the players to make their PCs?

Silver Crusade Contributor

Nicos wrote:

I have a question o the guys that have read the book.

Is Occult adventures a book on classes?. I mean, is the focus of the book to present new classes with new mechanics for the players to make their PCs?

Not as such, although the classes take up a lot of space. One gets the impression that they've learned what the messageboards expect from them...

There's a lot of new spells, and not just for psychic casters. Some of the new feats are accessible to existing characters as well.

There's a big section on new occult mechanics and on running occult campaigns that makes for very interesting reading.


Nicos wrote:

I have a question o the guys that have read the book.

Is Occult adventures a book on classes?. I mean, is the focus of the book to present new classes with new mechanics for the players to make their PCs?

More or less. My beef with the book is that it offers little to nothing for existing material to be used with. Very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built.

It's a crunch book designed for offering more player options but it's limited it's scope to the classes found within.

My biggest takeaway is the 7,000 gp item that gives you a +1 luck bonus to all saves and a once per day +4 luck bonus to a save before you roll it.


Milo v3 wrote:
Bloodrealm wrote:
Reading the posts on the Product Discussion from when just Subscribers had the book this book sounded great! Overwhelmingly positive on EVERYTHING. But now that it's out for everyone, all I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...
Only one class is underpowered, kineticist. And that's because it's basically a martial.

I'm not even sure if that even. I was underwhelmed by by the class during the playtest but even then there was quite a bit I could do past the rogue and I was playtesting arguably the weakest element (Electric). Now it has twice the talents, burn actually does something other than give bonus attack and damage, a worthwhile amount of skills and better ability to save burn for emergencies. The only thing I find wrong with it is that I never did or will like Burn. Until I get to use this version of it and see it failing as much as a rogue or fighter I'm unconvinced as to how underpowered it is.

The other classes are mostly odd ducks that have a hard time fitting in the normal paradigm of gameplay. Some of them don't have a definite role so play weird. But if you play weird games it looks like it works out. I'm reminded of Rogue Genius Games' Time Thief or Rite Publishing's Luckbringer. Its hard to pin it down into a role unless you optimize it for a weird role instead of the same tired 4-man band roles in D&D.


Milo v3 wrote:
Bloodrealm wrote:
Reading the posts on the Product Discussion from when just Subscribers had the book this book sounded great! Overwhelmingly positive on EVERYTHING. But now that it's out for everyone, all I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...
Only one class is underpowered, kineticist. And that's because it's basically a martial.

Yeah, I'm noticing that they're moving from "martials suck" up to "anything that even resembles a martial sucks."

Goodbye, Kensai sustainability. No thanks, Scarred Witch Doctor, don't need you around, so go cast in the back with the rest. Check out our hilarious Vigilante playtest: it thinks it's people! What we really need is ANOTHER full caster! BLANDY MCPSYCHIC and his 6-level sidekick GUY WHO STARES AT STUFF! One is just a Sorcerer, and the other stares at stuff!


Malwing wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Bloodrealm wrote:
Reading the posts on the Product Discussion from when just Subscribers had the book this book sounded great! Overwhelmingly positive on EVERYTHING. But now that it's out for everyone, all I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...
Only one class is underpowered, kineticist. And that's because it's basically a martial.

I'm not even sure if that even. I was underwhelmed by by the class during the playtest but even then there was quite a bit I could do past the rogue and I was playtesting arguably the weakest element (Electric). Now it has twice the talents, burn actually does something other than give bonus attack and damage, a worthwhile amount of skills and better ability to save burn for emergencies. The only thing I find wrong with it is that I never did or will like Burn. Until I get to use this version of it and see it failing as much as a rogue or fighter I'm unconvinced as to how underpowered it is.

The other classes are mostly odd ducks that have a hard time fitting in the normal paradigm of gameplay. Some of them don't have a definite role so play weird. But if you play weird games it looks like it works out. I'm reminded of Rogue Genius Games' Time Thief or Rite Publishing's Luckbringer. Its hard to pin it down into a role unless you optimize it for a weird role instead of the same tired 4-man band roles in D&D.

Speaking of unconventional roles, I've been itching to play TPK Games' Malefactor class, which has a feel that'd probably fit right into Occult Adventures thematically, except that it's a lot less complicated. It's themed around spirits, curses, and misfortune, and it's a non-caster that uses at-will abilities that can be boosted (like Kineticist, but most are Su with only a couple Sp) from a resource pool, but it fills a strange role as a Wis-based melee debuffer, although its at-wills can be used at range (it also has 6+Int skill points/level, so it has use there, too). It also has tons of roleplaying flavour just like the weirder OA classes (its intentionally un-toggle-able aura basically prints the GM a license to cause minor shenanigans).


magnuskn wrote:
I'll be honest, when I got the PDF yesterday evening, my eyes glazed over when trying to make sense of the Kineticist and after that I only skimmed through the book for the artwork and to read the list of spells (which look singularily useless for the non-psychic classes). I guess I'll take a new look later today, maybe have some actual opinions. But the new classes look waaaaay more complicated than what we got before, needlessly so.

This was largely my takeaway. Every class has some unique subsystem of resource management, on top of the changes that psychic spells have relative to normal spellcasting. Some classes have multiple such resources. That feel like a lot for a player to keep track of, much less a GM.


Malwing wrote:

I'm not even sure if that even. I was underwhelmed by by the class during the playtest but even then there was quite a bit I could do past the rogue and I was playtesting arguably the weakest element (Electric). Now it has twice the talents, burn actually does something other than give bonus attack and damage, a worthwhile amount of skills and better ability to save burn for emergencies. The only thing I find wrong with it is that I never did or will like Burn. Until I get to use this version of it and see it failing as much as a rogue or fighter I'm unconvinced as to how underpowered it is.

When I call kineticist underpowered, I'm meaning tier 4.

Nicos wrote:

I have a question o the guys that have read the book.

Is Occult adventures a book on classes?. I mean, is the focus of the book to present new classes with new mechanics for the players to make their PCs?

There's also a decent collection of archetypes for old classes (like promethean, sensate, flesheater, esoteric, mindblade), there are chakra rules for monks and ninjas with feats to enhance it, there are feats to give non-psychic casters psychic stuff, metamagics, feats for possessors, spells for non-psychics, occult rituals that can be done by anyone (even martial), equipment, environmental stuff like new haunts, etc.


Zelda Marie Lupescu wrote:
I am kind of sad that the Psychic has no healing spells... I mean, for me the 'psychic healer' is a thing I was looking forward to making.

The Psychic with the Faith discipline can heal.


From the perspective of a guy with family who typically either plays or runs 1/week in PFS:

Kineticist: Look at all those interesting characters I'll never build! It looks fun, but then you need to find a way to make it work.

Medium: Theoretically sounds like a good class, but expect table variation when it comes to your locations each day. Extremely dippable.

Mesmerist: "Giant Will save or go f(*& yourself. Oh, you're immune to mind-affecting? Well, I'm 3rd level, so there's still a 50% chance of go f(*& yourself."

Occultist: Ridiculous level 1 transmutation combos and overly-complicated mechanics for a stuff-based class.

Psychic: Some interesting stuff, but you can be completely shut down with Bane. On the plus side, you can spend one of your precious 3rd level spells known to be able to give that same disadvantage to others. Good luck fitting that in!

Spiritualist: WIS-based summoner with the perfect level 1 scout. Greeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. It's even got a decent spell list.


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Am I the only one that saw the Psychic and said F$%$ yes! Now I can make that Dwarven Bard/Psychic (with the Psychedelia discipline) named Jerry Garcia :-)

Silver Crusade Contributor

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captain yesterday wrote:
Am I the only one that saw the Psychic and said F+!@ yes! Now I can make that Dwarven Bard/Psychic (with the Psychedelia discipline) named Jerry Garcia :-)

Not Skald? :P


Kalindlara wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
Am I the only one that saw the Psychic and said F+!@ yes! Now I can make that Dwarven Bard/Psychic (with the Psychedelia discipline) named Jerry Garcia :-)
Not Skald? :P

:-D

I don't have the ACG, Bards are better anyway :-)

Scarab Sages

Jerr-bear was not metal enough to be a skald.


One of my early thoughts is ; Why is there no Psychic Archetype Spirit? Were there no mighty legendary psychic casters in the past like there were for Arcane or Divine?


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
One of my early thoughts is ; Why is there no Psychic Archetype Spirit? Were there no mighty legendary psychic casters in the past like there were for Arcane or Divine?

There aren't any because the Medium itself is Psychic.

There also aren't because the Medium's Spirits are based on the 6 Mythic Tiers and the 6 Stats.


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Imbicatus wrote:
Jerr-bear was not metal enough to be a skald.

Ozzy the Prince of Darkness on the other hand...


chbgraphicarts wrote:
Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
One of my early thoughts is ; Why is there no Psychic Archetype Spirit? Were there no mighty legendary psychic casters in the past like there were for Arcane or Divine?

There aren't any because the Medium itself is Psychic.

There also aren't because the Medium's Spirits are based on the 6 Mythic Tiers and the 6 Stats.

I see. But that doesn't make sense from a game world point of view. Since they're drawing on the legends and myths of the past, Vudra should definitely have mythic and legendary psychic users.

Also, there should have been a Mythic Path for psychics sorted out


I do think a psychic spirit would be decent, even if it was simply a super weak one that lacks a list of favoured locations and can be seances anywhere because your mind is it's favoured location.


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
chbgraphicarts wrote:
Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
One of my early thoughts is ; Why is there no Psychic Archetype Spirit? Were there no mighty legendary psychic casters in the past like there were for Arcane or Divine?

There aren't any because the Medium itself is Psychic.

There also aren't because the Medium's Spirits are based on the 6 Mythic Tiers and the 6 Stats.

I see. But that doesn't make sense from a game world point of view. Since they're drawing on the legends and myths of the past, Vudra should definitely have mythic and legendary psychic users.

Also, there should have been a Mythic Path for psychics sorted out

I... don't think they even knew that there were going to BE Psychic classes when they wrote the Mythic Adventures books some years ago.

Why would you write something that supports a game mechanic that's barely on the drawing-board, if even THAT far along in the creative process.

That's like saying Superman changing in a phone booth in the Fleischer cartoons makes no sense because they should have known that everyone would have cell phones in the 21st Century.

---

Really, the Archmage and the Heirophant don't HAVE to be casters, anyway, let alone Arcane and Divine. They're most likely going to be that, but as they don't add spells themselves, and any character of any class can take any Mythic Tier, they're sorta generalized.

They designed the Mythic Tiers based around the six basic archetypes of RPG classes and the six Stats (Warrior/Str, Thief/Dex, Defender/Con, Controller/Int, Healer/Wis, Supporter/Cha).

Though there's nothing to say that they won't introduce more Spirits later.

Gladiator could be a warrior that targets/challenges enemies and uses Str
Archer could be a ranged-combat-based Spirit focusing on Dex
Berserker could be a warrior that dopes and gains lots of HP to wade into combat, focusing on Con
Scholar could be an Alchemist using Int
Ascetic could be a Combat-Maneuver-based Spirit using Wis
Sensitive could be a Psychic and use Cha

They've added extra Bloodlines over the years, so maybe they'll come out with a few more Spirits in future PRD as time goes on (it's especially likely with Horror Adventures coming out sometime next year or in 2017).


No , I meant when they wrote OA, they should have included a Mythic Path for psychic chars in it.


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Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
No , I meant when they wrote OA, they should have included a Mythic Path for psychic chars in it.

Oh.

OOOOOOOOH.

Oh, no... oh holy freakin' GOD no.

Mythic Adventures is a bridge I think Paizo'd rather see burned, in all honesty.

It's a fine corner-case thing, but Mythic Tiers and the entire Mythic... THING... is just so horrendously lopsided that it's best left to its own devices.

Oddly enough, Mythic Ranks for Monsters works fantastically well - it's a superb system to up the power of enemies and make "boss" monsters.

But when Players get a hold of Mythic Tiers, the game becomes way too simple - everyone very quickly becomes Superman-Goku hybrids and just utterly destroys everyone and everything. You basically stop playing Pathfinder and start playing something more like Exalted d20.

Worse yet the "martial" Mythic Paths are even more linear than the base Martials, and the "caster" Mythic Paths even more quadratic than ever.

Now, all of this is fine if you're intending to play a very-silly, very-Munchkiny, very-DBZ-esque game were you're playing characters who are Gods in all but name. I mean, Mythender exists for a reason.

But Mythic rules fit so god-awfully into the game as far as balance is concerned that they've basically been relegated to "Monster-Only" status even by the Devs.

Mythic rules are here to stay to create Boss monsters, and that's it.

You can create perfectly fine Mythic Psychic characters using the pre-existing 6 Mythic Paths.

Because, as I said, while the Heirophant and Archmage are generally INTENDED to be used with Divine and Arcane casters, nothing about them says that they must be, and in fact it's completely possible to not only make a Sorcerer Heirophant and a Wizard Archmage, it's also completely possible to make a Fighter Archmage, a Rogue Champion, an Arcanist Trickster, a Witch Guardian, and a Barbarian Heirophant.

Since none of the Mythic Paths actually ADD spells by default and even contain enough non-spell-based options for a purely-muggle-Martial to take Archmage and Heirophant all the way to Tier 10 without missing a beat, any of the 6 Paths can be slapped onto any class and go from there.

So, basically, they didn't create a Psychic path for the same 2 reasons they didn't create an Alchemy path:

1) We've already got all 6 Stats covered

2) Oh, god, this whole system is as broken as Leonardo Dicaprio's dreams of ever getting an Oscar... ABANDON SHIP! SAVE THE MYTHIC RANKS FOR MONSTERS BUT BURN EVERYTHING ELSE!!!


Incidentally, I've been running Reign of Winter as an "E8" campaign with mythic tiers to bridge the gap between level and CR. Party of 6, tier one, with I think 5 bonus feats are taking on CR 15 encounters in the fifth book. The fights are scary, but yeah; mythic is nuts. It's really something you shouldn't take lightly as a DM, but it's good at being a huge surge in power.


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I really don't understand complaints about Mythic characters being OMGPOWERFUL. After all, they're MYTHIC. Being powerful is the point of it.

Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that not having a Psychic Spirit in the Book of Psychic Stuff is kind of weird.

I'll probably try to come up with my own for my home games. Base it on the Archmage with some Kineticist maybe.


1. Sad about no ACG class archetypes.

2. Sad about Chakra Opening being SO taxing on Ki consumption and THOSE SAVES. I really love the effect of the 8th Chakra, but I don't think there's a way for a Monk to actually get there and maintain it for a respectable amount of time. MAYBE a Sensei Monk could. I would have liked simplified mechanics, perhaps more tied to Charisma in order to create a new breed of Charismatic Monks.

3. Rest is good. Occultist a bit too messy.


Mythic is good at what it's meant to be, a replacement for epic levels. It's over the top, ramps up the power by a giant margin, and gives cool powers to characters. And while you can technically play a divine archmage & arcane heirophant, it doesn't "work" without houserules because so much of it specifies "arcane spells" or "divine spells" in the abilities. Also kineticist is pretty screwed without a Psychic path.

Quote:
1. Sad about no ACG class archetypes.

Interested at all in a Bloodrager archetype that gives them kineticist powers?


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

I really don't understand complaints about Mythic characters being OMGPOWERFUL. After all, they're MYTHIC. Being powerful is the point of it.

Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that not having a Psychic Spirit in the Book of Psychic Stuff is kind of weird.

I'll probably try to come up with my own for my home games. Base it on the Archmage with some Kineticist maybe.

Again, I think they were going for simplicity's sake.

If you were to have 7 Paths, one of the 6 Stats would be getting 2 Spirits, and that would create issues.

The simple way to fix that is to add another 5 Spirits so that all 6 Stats are covered by 2 different Spirits.

That honestly would have been okay - just look at the shear number of Domains and Bloodlines in the CRB.

But, then... look at the CRB. The book is a DOORSTOPPER and is literally in danger of falling apart it's so big. So maybe shoving ALL those Domains and ALL those Bloodlines into a single book wasn't such a hot idea...

There's a thing called "pagecount," also, that the devs and editors need to watch out for, and they likely just said "there isn't ROOM for 12 Spirits in this book, so we're sticking with 6"

Given that the Medium takes up a good 17 pages unto itself already, I can't blame them for not wanting to add yet another 3-4 pages on top of that.

The book also costs $45, which is more expensive than book prior to it. Part of that is that the book is a whopping 274 pages, making it the BIGGEST non-Bestiary book since the NPC Codex back in 2012.

If the book were BIGGER, it'd cost even more. So they REALLY were concerned with not going over pagecount if at all possible.

So, just hold on and see what comes later - they may print a Player's Companion like they did for MA that introduces a new host of 6 Spirits, or maybe we'll get new Spirits in Horror Adventures.

I can understand it seeming odd that there isn't a Psychic spirit in a Psychic book, but maybe they thought too much Psychic stuff would ruin the fun, and wanted to go with familiar things before trying to branch off into odd areas.


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Secret Wizard wrote:
1. Sad about no ACG class archetypes.

Well, there is ONE - the Psychic Investigator, but... yeah. Nothing more than that.

Was kinda hoping for a Psychic and Ectoplasmic Bloodrager Bloodline to complement the Sorcerer.

Or for an exorcist-style Slayer or Warpriest archetype or something.

cont. wrote:
2. Sad about Chakra Opening being SO taxing on Ki consumption and THOSE SAVES. I really love the effect of the 8th Chakra, but I don't think there's a way for a Monk to actually get there and maintain it for a respectable amount of time. MAYBE a Sensei Monk could. I would have liked simplified mechanics, perhaps more tied to Charisma in order to create a new breed of Charismatic Monks.

Yeah, that really seemed like a major missed opportunity.

Not only are they hard to open and take a LONG-ass time to KEEP open, they're pretty epically underwhelming for the amount of effort they take.

I looked at them thinking it might open a new door of awesomeness for the Sacred Fist, let alone the Monk, and yet... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnot much, no.

Opening Chakras could have been a major boost for the Monk, and they could have even made an Archetype around it. I'd probably be fighting the urge to throw up over the number of ROCK LEE! builds that'd be out there, but at the very least you'd hope that opening Chakras would substantially boost a Monk's power.

But, instead, I'm greated with...

Lv2 - DR7/- max for 1 round when first opened
Lv4 - Fly speed = Base Speed, Average Maneuver, for 1 round only when first opened
Lv6 - Breath Weapon 6d8 (but only when the Chakra is openened...)
Lv8 - Heal 1d8 + 14 max HP once per Chakra opening
Lv10 - Stagger Foe within 30ft (DC20+Cha Will Save)
Lv12 - True Seeing for 1 round, only when the Chakra is Opened
Lv14 - use 2 Chakra abilities each round as though they were just opened.

Now, every single one of these would be fine... IF they did what was written above from the moment you gain access to them. But they don't.

These are their Effects AT Lv20!

And it takes 7 rounds of Swift Actions and 7 Ki to even get to the 7th (lv14) Chakra, because you have to open each one in succession every single time you start the ritual.

And then it takes ANOTHER Ki Point and Swift Action to maintain it every round.

Oh, and every Round you have a Chakra open, you have to make a Will Save based on the total number of Chakra currently opened, or you go back to 0, with the Will save hitting 38 once you get the 7th Chakra open.

Meanwhile, over here, we've got Casty McWizard-Pants who's CREATING DEMIPLANES WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A BAT OF THE EYE OR SPELLCRAFT CHECK.

Like... WHAT THE SHIT, MAN!?

All those abilities added together are not that powerful, even for a lv14 character (when you can access the Crown, or 7th, Chakra)

And on TOP of this, you need to burn a Feat to get this.

Right, 'cause... all this convoluted bullshit is totally worth a Feat, when you're very likely to not get past the 3rd or 4th Chakra ever in a Fight.

Chakras could have been REAL fun and cool, and instead they're an honest-to-god waste of pages.


Psychic Investigator! I stand corrected.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I really list this book for the most part. Pyschic and occult stuff isn't really my cup of tea, but man does the content in this book stand out. It's so new, so different, it's kind of refreshing.

Between this book and the Bestiary IV, we now have everything we could want to host an occult Cthulu game.


I made a playtest chakra monk to see how it goes. It was only really worth it to open two chakra points for the flying. I'm sorely disappointed in the chakra system. I was hoping that the effects would be more dramatic since you have to spend so much ki at a huge risk.


I'll probably try to test something where the chakras just take the ki while you use them, but when you stop unlocking them or let it all go you get the ki back. Maybe have an initial cost of 1 ki as the hurdle to overcome that root chakra. Could be too much, but I haven't seen many people complain that the monk gets too many nice things. And jeez, yeah, those saves... Probably do something about those...


Milo v3 wrote:


Interested at all in a Bloodrager archetype that gives them kineticist powers?

In a word....YES


I should say: Chakras have me salty, but everything else I like.

I even like the Medium this time around. It might be a little weak, but at least it's more manageable, and being weak just means you can up power later.

The initial 6 Spirits are bland but effective. At least the Champion is actually pretty dang strong - a constant +2 to Attack AND Damage, EWP with one weapon and MWP with everything, the ability to retroactively add +1d6 to any Attack roll for 1 Influence, and 6+ Skill Points for a single-level dip is pretty dang nice.

Play a Relic Channeler and have a Champion Spirit available 24/7.

I could see lots of classes taking a single dip just for that; something like a Rogue would be all over that.

It'd come completely online a little late, but imagine a Rogue that takes Medium 1 / Swashbuckler/Daring Champion 1 / Rogue X, so they have effective Full BAB up through lv6, and by lv5 are getting Dex to Attack and Damage with a Falcata in one hand and a Shortsword in the other without having to pay 1 extra copper piece.


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Oh Kineticist, I didn't recognize you at first, but as I reread your class section today to make sure I understood your mechanics, I realized who you were.

You're Old Man Words of Power, back with a few tweaks, a new name, and better publicity than last time!

...Not that that's a bad thing. I thought you had potential last time that got wasted by the poor execution that's characteristic of a lot of the old optional rules systems like you.

I hope you do better this time Words of Power... I mean Kineticist. ;)


Thoughts on Occult Adventures: probably very likely to get tampered with by a psychic or eaten by a devourer.

Contributor

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I know the conversation's moved a little past this, but I wanted to address comments like this one:

Scavion wrote:
My beef with the book is that it offers little to nothing for existing material to be used with. Very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built.

That lead to comments like this one:

Bloodrealm wrote:
All I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...

And provide some numbers I looked up on my flight home from GenCon, my contributor copy in hand.

While it's true that new classes and their archetypes take up just shy of 100 pages of this 260+ page book, and only 24 of the 68 feats are for general use by other classes, that dismisses the incredible amount of content for use by all classes that are in this book's pages.

For old classes, there are 22 new archetypes.

There's 113 new spells, and 56 (almost exactly half) are usable by non-occult spellcasting classes. The new occult rules chapter is 21 pages of auras, chakras, psychic dueling, possession, and rituals that are usable by all classes. AND there's the occult skill unlocks, which with 1 feat (Psychic Sensitivity) open up a whole new world of abilities for anyone who qualifies and wants to buy their way into occult abilities, any class at any level.

The Running an Occult Game chapter is 27 pages of great advice for running occult games with or without the new classes, and includes new rules for haunts, loci spirits, planar explorations, etc.

And of the 21 pages of new magic items, totaling 104 new items, only 11 are occult-class specific, leaving 93 occult-themed items there for the taking!

So with 24 feats, 22 archetypes, 56 spells, piles of rituals, pages worth of skill unlocks, chakra unlocks usuable by non-psychic classes right now, and nearly 100 new magic items, saying "very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built" is disingenuous at best, and at worst threatens to turn away those who are otherwise enthusiastic about the content but being giving the wrong impression that they won't find anything useful. Just because you didn't find anything useful doesn't mean someone else won't.

Ravingdork wrote:
I really list this book for the most part. Pyschic and occult stuff isn't really my cup of tea, but man does the content in this book stand out. It's so new, so different, it's kind of refreshing.

*fistbump*


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Brandon Hodge wrote:

I know the conversation's moved a little past this, but I wanted to address comments like this one:

Scavion wrote:
My beef with the book is that it offers little to nothing for existing material to be used with. Very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built.

That lead to comments like this one:

Bloodrealm wrote:
All I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...

And provide some numbers I looked up on my flight home from GenCon, my contributor copy in hand.

While it's true that new classes and their archetypes take up just shy of 100 pages of this 260+ page book, and only 24 of the 68 feats are for general use by other classes, that dismisses the incredible amount of content for use by all classes that are in this book's pages.

For old classes, there are 22 new archetypes.

There's 113 new spells, and 56 (almost exactly half) are usable by non-occult spellcasting classes. The new occult rules chapter is 21 pages of auras, chakras, psychic dueling, possession, and rituals that are usable by all classes. AND there's the occult skill unlocks, which with 1 feat (Psychic Sensitivity) open up a whole new world of abilities for anyone who qualifies and wants to buy their way into occult abilities, any class at any level.

The Running an Occult Game chapter is 27 pages of great advice for running occult games with or without the new classes, and includes new rules for haunts, loci spirits, planar explorations, etc.

And of the 21 pages of new magic items, totaling 104 new items, only 11 are occult-class specific, leaving 93 occult-themed items there for the taking!

So with 24 feats, 22 archetypes, 56 spells, piles of rituals, pages worth of skill unlocks, chakra unlocks usuable by non-psychic classes right now, and nearly 100 new magic items, saying...

I kinda feel like people don't understand how these sub-lines of books work.

This isn't Ultimate Occult. It's Occult ADVENTURES.

It should be obvious by now that there are basically 6 Book Sub-Lines within the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system:

1) The "Advanced" series.
These books generally add almost nothing BUT Player options to the game and sometimes add wide-ranging aspects to the basic game. Advanced: Player's Guide (basically a MASSIVE expansion to the CRB, adding in 6 new Base and 6 new Prestige Classes, new Combat Maneuvers, and 2 new game aspects - Archetypes and Traits); Race Guide (collected/added over 30 new playable Races; added Alternate Racial Traits and Racial Favored Class Bonuses to the game); Class Guide (added 10 new Classes to the game, almost half of which are Prestige Classes made into Base Classes)

2) The "Ultimate" series.
This focuses on modifying a large swath of rules and a general aspect of the game. Case in point: Combat (duh), Magic (duh), Intrigue (skills), Equipment (duh), Campaign (added/modded general rules for the DM to run a more-fleshed out Campaign

3) The "Adventure" series
These books are less about expanding the basic rules of the game and instead focus on one Genre, adding rules appropriate to games that use that Genre. Mythic Adventures basically was a mashup of the BECMI Immortals rules, Deities & Demigods, and Epic Level Handbook all rolled into one horrendously imbalanced rules subsystem (albeit FUN in that regard, and has proven to be an utter treasure trove for Devs and DMs alike who want to create unique "boss" enemies by using Mythic Ranks); Occult Adventures added "Psychic" classes, creating a second Axis on the caster wheel (Divine vs Arcane, Psychic vs Alchemy), and so touched on a traditional aspect of the game that felt missing since the early days of 3rd Ed; Horror Adventures (due August of next year) will add new rules for Madness, a new system for players slowly becoming Corrupted & even Transforming into horrors themselves, and shoving even more Lovecraftian themes into the game than you can shake a Shoggoth at.

4) The "Guide" Series
These books may or may not add much in the way of rules, but in general act as exactly what they say: as Guides on how to run some aspect of the game, be it the game itself (GameMastery Guide), classes & characters (The Strategy Guide), or atypical Sci-Fi-Fantasy elements (The Technology Guide)

5) Bestiaries
These add monsters. Lots and lots and LOTS of monsters. Pretty much JUST monsters, and that's fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

6) The "Codex" Series
These are like the Bestiaries no steroids. Rather than list hundreds of different and new TYPES of beasties, the Codex books flesh out one type of "encounterable" creature or another: NPC Codex (Non-monster, Non-Player Characters, be they enemies, allies, hirelings, contacts, cohorts, followers, or anything in between, even just the random shlubs you meet on the street); Monster Codex (fleshing out popular monsters into detailed societies by providing much-more in-depths and unique builds than the simple vanilla "naked monster" stat blocks of the Bestiaries

---

If you came in expecting Occult ADVENTURES to be like the Advanced Class Guide or Ultimate Combat, you obviously don't understand how these lines work.

Of COURSE there aren't tons of options in the OA - it wasn't designed to be something that added entirely-new mechanics to the base game like the Advanced Series, and it didn't focus or expand on a single already-existing aspect of the game like the Ultimate series.

OA added entirely-new rules for a specific Genre: that being the Pulp, Urban Horror-Fantasy-Mystery milieu of the late-19th/early-20th century when classical views of magic gave way to strange & freaky pseudo-sciences like esotericism, ectoplasm-spewing mediums, mind-readers, etc, where the line between "science" of the day and "magic" were so blurred as to be nonexistent.

OA is supposed to invoke things like The Shadow, the Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Isle of Doctor Moreau the more down-to-earth works of Lovecraft, the devices of Nikola Tesla, and even more modern-day works like John Constantine: Hellblazer and The Dresden Files.

There ARE options in there for other classes, but first and foremost the book is about adding rules to fit the genre being covered; this time around, it invovled adding 6 new "Psychic" classes to the game that fit the "gritty fantasy" atmosphere (because the Alchemist could only go so far as one class, and certainly couldn't actually fulfill ALL these different myriad roles through archetypes alone).

Like I said, people should understand what "Adventures" means by now when they see it in a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game title - it's all about making the Genre work, and then adding options for everything else comes second, if at all.


I came off excessively snarky in my original post (most of my mental processing on new books is done in snark, then translated into acceptable speech). I like the book. I like the theme, even if it is outside of my typical interest in the game. I even like a significant number of the new mechanics. There were a couple missed opportunities (chakras, for instance, fall under the "too slow, too costly, too inconsistent" umbrella).


Bloodrealm wrote:
Reading the posts on the Product Discussion from when just Subscribers had the book this book sounded great! Overwhelmingly positive on EVERYTHING. But now that it's out for everyone, all I'm seeing is complaints of everything in the book being incredibly underpowered and worthless, if flavourful, to the point where it's probably not worth the flavour to be so worthless. It's really killing my interest...

Although I started this thread and was (and to a point still am) underwhelmed by aspects of classes in the book, I will say that I also quite enjoy quite a bit of what's in the book. Here's some good stuff that I think the book has.

More and more I'm getting to like the kineticist. Despite feeling like Earth (my favorite element) isn't as good as most of the other elements, the class does pick up at mid to high levels and can lead to doing some really fun stuff.

I do like the flavor of the occultist, however I still have to figure things out to know if it will work well enough for me. Transmutation implements are on the obvious high end of the awesomeness for them, with necromancy being another solid option.

Mesmerist is hit and miss for me. I like the idea, but I guess I'll have to play it to see if it works better then what I'm thinking it does (which won't happen for a very very long time due to having only 1 gm for pathfinder, and wanting to play other classes more).

Psychic I'm actually getting myself more and more interested in. It doesn't seem to do much all that different, but if I want to feel powerful, I now have something else to look into outside of the wizard and the other full casters.

Medium and Spiritualist just aren't for me I think. Admittidely, I've not read the spiritualist, at all, not even in the playtest. That alone should show how interested in the class idea I am. So, my not being interested in the class, shouldn't sway anyone there since it's just not for me.

Just like anything in life though, everything will have its ups and downs, and so does this book. I hope we get some errata for the chakra down the line to make it more useable, I love the idea.


Archmage Joda wrote:


In a word....YES

Primordial archetype for bloodragers.


If you want to specialize in psychic duels, go human and pick the Heart of the Fields alternate racial trait. It lets you ignore one effect per day that would make you fatigued or exhausted.

So rather than burn spells or other resources you'll pull those MPs from your ability score pool once per day, crush the opposition, pay no price if you use less than half. Use more than half and I assume you'd still suffer the -4 penalty to all mental attributes, but you shouldn't be exhausted, so that's something.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Confused at all the complaints. Outside a few questionable/weak options this is by far the best book Paizo has put out for a long time. Really fun stuff and some of the most adventurous design decisions Paizo has made.

Big refresher from how incredibly conservative and uninspired most of the ACG was.

Contributor

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Sorry I pointed you out/quoted you directly, Sarisan. You just happened to be the one closest in-thread to express that sort of sentiment, and glad to hear the book's good outweighs the bad for you. I mostly posted for the benefit of those that might be left with the impression that there's no new content for their current characters, as other reviewers have engaged in even worse hyperbole for non-occult classes that's off-putting at best:

Beckett wrote:
It's also disappointing just how little it seems to focus on playing "occult" games outside of the new classes, and offers rather little for everyone else...
Marco Massoudi wrote:
Almost nothing for the old character classes.
Beckett wrote:
If you wanted more options for non-"occult" characters, it's really not for you (0-1 star).

This sort of talk isn't helpful for anyone, of course, and, as the numbers demonstrate, sure as hell isn't accurate. As Third Mind says above, not everything's for everyone, but that doesn't mean that a turn-off for one person isn't an exciting prospect for someone else...

Grand Lodge

Brandon Hodge wrote:
So with 24 feats, 22 archetypes, 56 spells, piles of rituals, pages worth of skill unlocks, chakra unlocks usuable by non-psychic classes right now, and nearly 100 new magic items, saying "very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built" is disingenuous at best, and at worst threatens to turn away those who are otherwise enthusiastic about the content but being giving the wrong impression that they won't find anything useful. Just because you didn't find anything useful doesn't mean someone else won't.

Quantity does not equal quality; and people have gotten really good at shifting through the junk to get to the gold. it isn't disingenuous at all to say " I found nothing, and you probably won't either"

Contributor

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9mm wrote:
Brandon Hodge wrote:
So with 24 feats, 22 archetypes, 56 spells, piles of rituals, pages worth of skill unlocks, chakra unlocks usuable by non-psychic classes right now, and nearly 100 new magic items, saying "very few feats and other options to consider for a character already built" is disingenuous at best, and at worst threatens to turn away those who are otherwise enthusiastic about the content but being giving the wrong impression that they won't find anything useful. Just because you didn't find anything useful doesn't mean someone else won't.
Quantity does not equal quality; and people have gotten really good at shifting through the junk to get to the gold. it isn't disingenuous at all to say " I found nothing, and you probably won't either"

Given the incredibly huge range of tastes and interests in the gaming community, such blanket statements are the very definition of disingenuous.

The statement should end at "I found nothing [for me]." Everything afterward is false assumption and hyperbole.


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9mm wrote:
Quantity does not equal quality; and people have gotten really good at shifting through the junk to get to the gold. it isn't disingenuous at all to say " I found nothing, and you probably won't either"

That is false though... Look at the promethean alchemist, sensate fighter, psychic detective, mindblade, esoteric, ritual magic (magic even commoners can do), leylines, new spells, magic items, etc. If someone found nothing in this book, they likely didn't look at it for very long.

Still, it's one of the Mythic/Occult/Horror Adventures book, so yes the focus is on the Occult. But it has ridiculously more content for non-occult classes than Mythic had for non-Mythic characters.

Grand Lodge

Milo v3 wrote:
9mm wrote:
Quantity does not equal quality; and people have gotten really good at shifting through the junk to get to the gold. it isn't disingenuous at all to say " I found nothing, and you probably won't either"
That is false though... Look at the promethean alchemist, sensate fighter, psychic detective, mindblade, esoteric, ritual magic (magic even commoners can do), leylines, new spells, magic items, etc. If someone found nothing in this book, they likely didn't look at it for very long.

never said it was true, all I said is just because Brandon doesn't agree doesn't mean people can't be disappointed at a grand total of 9 class agnostic feats; and if that's what they think, they should say so. The by-line matters.

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