Alexander Augunas Contributor |
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I'm entirely surprised Chronomancer is legal because it seems to violate the rule of an archetype being more powerful than what it gives up.
I don't have a horse in that race (not a fan of prepared spellcasting), but looking it over, it gives up a fair bit.
—You lose the awesome utility of having a familiar or an arcane bond. For a familiar, that's a loss of a scout / extra set of actions if you go Improved Familiar or a feat-like benefit if you stay with a standard one. For an arcane bond, you're losing out on the ability to upgrade a magic item at a cheaper rate and spontaneously cast any spell in your spellbook once per day.
— You lose almost all of the class's bonus feats, leaving you with Scribe Scroll and the 5th-level feat.
In exchange, you're getting a pool of points with a similar capacity to an investigator, except your "inspiration" doesn't work on skills, allows you to reroll initiative checks for you or an ally, and allows you to add a lower-bonus inspiration die to a saving throw, otherwise like an investigator.
At 5th level, you get the ability to spend points for a redo with a spell, but don't regain the spell's action. This is probably the best ability in the bunch, but its an immediate action, meaning no Quicken Spell shenanigans for you and if you use it, you're out your saving throw bonus from before.
Accelerate is pretty good, but it does come with the caveat of needing to cast spells on allies (and not being as good as a damage boost as actually casting haste on your whole party). In short, this seems better for NPCs to me and not a huge deal for PCs.
Complex Contingency is basically a bonus feat. (There's a feat in the ACG with similar benefits.)
Parallel Self is super cool and flavorful, but at 20th level you're probably going to have a maximum of 20 points in your pool, assuming you get to Int 30. This means that you're basically hoarding onto half of your points (ergo not using any of the previous abilities) in case you die, and if you don't, you don't get your cool ability.
In all, I think its a good, well-balanced archetype for the wizard that does cool stuff without being better than the base class. (Something that is rare, since wizard is really difficult to balance for.) In a home game, the powers this archetype gets are not better than crafting, and they're only arguably better than metamagic feats.
Dustin Knight Developer |
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shaventalz |
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There's some really fiddly stuff in there, with a lot of potential combinations. (Trust me!)
So they might be giving it extra-careful deliberation. Better to do it right the first time, and all that.
Yes, but... it's still a 3-month-old book.
I understand that they had issues with GenCon/Starfinder/whatever, but that long of a delay in legalization isn't good for anyone. It doesn't help game stores sell books, it leads to complaints directed at Paizo, and it means the players who bought the book don't even get to use it. This is one of the reasons I'm planning to stop buying books until after they're legalized (if then.) I used to be able to just pick up a new book more-or-less on a whim, and reasonably expect there to be interesting stuff in there that would get legalized shortly. Not any more.
GM Lamplighter |
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I'm in favor of the team taking as much time as they need to decide what becomes legal. It provides more time for the wonky stuff to be found and considered. Yes, it means I don't buy everything as soon as it becomes available, but obviously Paizo has adapted to that shift in revenue timing.
Consider that your viewpoint of what is "good for anyone" may not represent the majority.
Chris Lambertz Community & Digital Content Director |
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