Pathfinder Playtest: Halfway There!

Hello all!

Michael Sayre here, Design Manager for the Pathfinder Rules & Lore team, and the lead on the upcoming Pathfinder War of Immortals. I’m chiming in to remind you all that we are now a few days past the halfway point of the playtest for the new animist and exemplar classes. If you haven’t seen the playtest yet, make sure to head to https://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest and download it now! If you have seen the playtest, head to that same link to leave your survey feedback. We’ve already gotten hundreds of responses and we’re very pleased with the positive response. The team has already begun sifting through some of your insights in preparation for the next steps, when we continue developing these classes after the playtest closes.

As normal for these playtests, we’ll tell you a bit more about the insights we’ve derived from your feedback once the playtest closes. For the sake of keeping that data as strong as possible, we don’t want to bias the results by saying too much, too early. There are a couple common questions I think we can answer for you now, though.

Will the animist get more apparitions in the final version? Absolutely! Right now, the apparitions we’ve packaged with the playtest are testing specific dynamics of play, with a focus on specific roles we think the animist is likely to fill. You can definitely expect to see more apparitions in the final release.

Will the exemplar get more ikons and epithets? The exemplar will definitely see new ikons post-playtest, and the chances of new epithets are pretty high, though we’re still sifting through data about the degree to which these mechanics are working for folks. The final form that epithets take based on your feedback might have some influence on how many are published in the final product.

What about new feats? Again, the chances are really high. Some of the feats we put out for the playtest were very experimental, so it’s possible that you might see some feats go away and other feats take their place in the final product. Other feats might have aspects of their level, functionality, or other parameters change. Our playtests are playtests, not previews, so while there’s often certain elements of what we present that we’re pretty confident will stick around in some form for the final version, anything might change based on the feedback you give us and the general satisfaction levels our players are finding within the playtested classes.

Illustrations by Wayne Reynolds

And that’s about all I’ve got for you, folks! Though, maybe…

So, sometimes we have more ideas than fit in a book, and I’ve certainly had some ideas that I think are fun but unlikely to make it to print. The circus-themed apparition below is one such idea, so you tell me, folks: on a scale of 1–10, where 1 is “evil circus spirits don’t belong in my game” and 10 is “GIMME ALL THE EVIL CLOWNS!!!”, how much do you think something like the Reveler in Lost Glee should be in the final product?

Reveler in Lost Glee

Revelers in lost glee are twisted apparitions that arise in desolate and abandoned places where people once found great joy. They find immense mirth in causing harm or discomfort to others and don’t enjoy being attuned to animists who fail to laugh at their antics.

Apparition Skills Circus Lore, Fortune-Telling Lore

Apparition Spells Cantripprestidigitation; 1stdizzying colors; 2ndlaughing fit; 3rdhypnotize; 4thconfusion; 5thillusory scene; 6thvibrant pattern; 7thwarp mind; 8thquandary; 9thwails of the damned

Vessel Spell trickster’s mirrors

Avatar Ringmaster of the Dark Celebration Speed 50 feet, ignore difficult terrain and greater difficult terrain; Melee [one-action] ringmaster’s whip (reach 15 feet, trip), Damage 6d10+6 slashing; Ranged [one-action] feast of the lost (acid, range 120 feet, versatile void), Damage 6d6+6 acid

Apparition Vessel Spell

Trickster’s Mirrors [one-action] Focus 1

Uncommon, Animist, Focus, Illusion, Mental, Visual

Defense basic Will

Duration sustained up to 1 minute

You are surrounded by up to 3 mirrors that reflect twisted and distorted images of you, making it hard to tell where you actually are within your space and potentially causing those who attack you to hit one of the mirrors instead. You start with one mirror and gain an additional mirror each time you Sustain this spell, up to a maximum of three mirrors. Any attack that would hit you has a random chance of hitting one of your mirrors instead of you. With one mirror, the chances are 1 in 2 (1–3 on 1d6). With two mirrors, there is a 1 in 3 chance of hitting you (1–2 on 1d6). With three mirrors, there is a 1 in 4 chance of hitting you (1 on 1d4).

Once a mirror is hit, it is destroyed. If an attack roll fails to hit your AC but doesn't critically fail, it destroys a mirror. If the attacker was within 5 feet, it must succeed at a basic Will save or take 1d4 mental damage as it believes itself cut by a shower of glass shards from the breaking mirror. A damaging effect that affects all targets within your space (such as a caustic blast) destroys all of the mirrors.

Heightened (+1) The mental damage dealt by a broken mirror increases by 1d4.