Agonarchy's page

The presence of AOE shoving options is a factor. While it does require some setup, using Clear the Way in a typical PFS map and smashing at least 3/5 targets into walls is fairly realistic.

Castilliano has the right of it. It's certainly worth being sceptical of, but we do already have tradeoffs like Enlarge giving you clumsy or the whole sleepwalker archetype. Perhaps better for feats or subclass features, though.

I think it would be interesting to explore a daredevil that got bonuses based on debuffs. The worse off they are, the more dangerous they are. Basically expanding on some of the drunken master concepts, but broader.

I think they're going to need to build stunt damage directly into the abilities, otherwise they're going to have to police forced movement abilities across the whole game.

I did some very basic math between a level 8 +1 striking d12 and agile d6, and a level 20 +3 of each, with fire, then ice and shocking runes, and the math is very close at least vs. a 13+ roll needed to hit.

d12/d6
Lvl 8: 14.625/15.675
Lvl 20: 34.675/34.625

Agile actually gets crit on a 20 on the third roll, so they get more critical effects triggering. This obviously ignores other effects.

Of course, there are a few ways to get a d8 agile attack, and a bunch of other combos.

Agonarchy wrote:

I'm hoping someone out there does a math breakdown soon. I find myself leaning into combos like fighter dedication + brutish shove + powerful shove or mauler dedication (butchering axe or spirit thresher) and just about half of their feat choices, like shoving sweep. Once you have rushing stride at level 6 as an initiator you can bring in a lot from dedications, especially those with press feats.

A centaur half-orc daredevil can deal 3d12+3d6+33 damage with a Brutish Shove if they have the Practiced Brawn, Punishing Shove, Brutish Shove (ofc), and Powerful Shove feats at 12th level (earliest this build comes online by taking Guardian Ded. at 2nd level, Punishing Shove at 4th, whatever guardian feat at 6th level, Fighter Dedication at 8th level, Brutish Shove at 10th level, and Powerful Shove at 12th level). Its also important to take into account Brutish Shove is going to be a follow-up attack after using Daring Stunt, which would deal 3d6+26 damage, so the overall damage per turn would be 3d12+6d6+59 (avg 99.5) if both succeed.

Thanks for that! Best to start with Rushing Stride rather than Daring Stunt in some cases, especially if you had them off guard already somehow, so you can proc runes and crit effects.

Speaking of orcs, their ancestry feats all scream nay sing Daredevil, not just the one that gets them butchering axe.

I'm hoping someone out there does a math breakdown soon. I find myself leaning into combos like fighter dedication + brutish shove + powerful shove or mauler dedication (butchering axe or spirit thresher) and just about half of their feat choices, like shoving sweep. Once you have rushing stride at level 6 as an initiator you can bring in a lot from dedications, especially those with press feats.

I'm pretty sure that "prop" is intended to exclude the generic floor tiles of a given adventure, but it would be good for them to clarify. There are a lot of rules lawyer loopholes in the playtest rules that need to be tended to before the release.

At some point you are likely to find yourself trekking through the dunes or flying or swimming so it's going to come up eventually.

If the floor, then perhaps too the ceiling. Though fighting flying creatures remains a struggle.

Igneogenesis is a daredevil's best friend.

We could use an option that allows for staves and hafted weapons to be used as a prop so you can go full monkey king.

There really needs to be a mechanism for handling larger opponents regardless, like being able to crawl all the way over the dragon to get to the other side even if you can't pile drive them.

Even with a dagger or fist it's maybe 30.5 vs 16.5 with full runes. Certainly ways to make it work, but I feel like it needs a small additional effect to not be highly niche.

Pressing Pummel has some math to consider per character.

There are plenty of ways to get a handless maneuver, such as Kholo's Crunch feat, which then open up d12 weapons. Pile on the generic weapon energy runes and strength and it's pretty trivial to get to 4d12+3d6+13 per strike for 49.5 average damage per strike vs. 16.5.

I appreciate the team actively listening to feedback. It's an important driver of the trust needed to invest in the game for the long haul.

I do hope that daredevil and slayer have mounted-friendly options. Daredevil could do some rodeo clown trick rider nonsense, and a mounted slayer could give us a Vampire Hunter D feel.

I'm curious about the daredevil's non-combat utility. Swash has a lot of good synergy with social and thieving skills, but daredevil only really implies athletics and a cruder use of Dex and Cha.

Daredevil seems like the strength swashbuckler, almost an anti-swash with the way they crash about the place. I'm curious about how they'll compare to a gymnast given their damage isn't precision and will probably have a full strength bonus. Also... I have to assume they can swing around big weapons. Also could make for some amazing unarmed attack builds for someone wanting to fight like a ravenous beast without going barbarian.

Slayer sounds fiddly, but the sort of thing that allows players to basically adjust their build mid-adventure, which could be a nice feature for folks tired of having a build/enemy mismatch.

The overall takeaway here is that there are no strong patterns to rely on. Kip Up is neither rare nor ubiquitous as a whole, but its usage or lack thereof can be concentrated.

Players with Kip Up are relevant to the critical failure effect of the Trip maneuver.

While shifters have history I'm much more interested in a class that has a static form that allows them to function more like a monster, with as many callbacks to actual monster design as possible. This lets you play directly with existing ideas like grafts, fleshweaving, and mystical bloodlines, without having to shove it sideways into a class with its own features. As the class gimmick you give them a cooldown system to play that plays into ye olde 1d4 round recharge powers. You can then tack on being able to change forms as a subclass or feat tree.

There are certainly builds and team combos where the feats are more useful or less useful.

Slam Down blocks the MAP for the trip. It does the most for a two-handed weapon without trip, but also helps with a one-handed weapon - even one with trip alreadt - if you have a free hand. Even for an agile flail with trip you're still saving MAP, though probably breaking even unless you're pretty sure about the strike.

Crashing Slam allows for some weird builds to work better, like a finesse fighter who barely dipped a toe into athletics. The damage bump is basically nothing but being able to trip reliably even at level 20 with Strength as a dump stat is pretty nice.

Claxon wrote:

I like slam down because you can play a two-handed weapon user without requiring that you use a weapon with the trip trait.

Yep.

But you expect Crashing Slam to be a significant upgrade compared to that given it's competing against other level 10+ feats.

Agonarchy wrote:

Not everyone has Kip Up. Guidance etc. are always useful unless you have something better, which may still be a one-action use.

I would wager a significant majority of martials do have Kip Up at that higher level, it's too useful for when you get tripped or get knocked unconscious/dying.

Literally any status bonus is better than Guidance (Bless, Bard Song, Wand of Heroism, etc). At that point in the game (level 10+), even just moving, raising a shield, Demoralizing, etc is generally better than Guidance.

Agonarchy wrote:

It's quite possible that your and your party's choices don't make the best use of the feats, but it's easy enough to make use of.

But the other level 10 feats do not require you to twist yourself into knots to be powerful.

Do you see that?

Tactical Reflexes is just good.

Disruptive Stance is just good.

Fearsome Brute is just good.

Certain Strike is just good.

Etc.

That's what Crashing Slam is being compared against. That's the opportunity cost.

A lot of assumptions about party composition, builds, and purchases here. Certainly may apply about a main class fighter for the higher to-hit option. Crashing Slam is also part of 3 different archetypes. Mauler even makes two-handed martial weapons count as simple. You are not guaranteed any particular status bonuses, and certainly not constant ones. Fortune effects are almost always one-roll wonders. Some builds just will not have a spot for Kip Up. It's possible that, for a traditional fighter on a traditional team it's a bad choice on the balance, but it's not so niche that it needs to leave you with a functional +5 on your third attack to be viable.

Agonarchy wrote:

Reducing the number of rolls needed lets you use single-use buffs for both effects, like guidance or fortune effects. Plus no chance of tripping yourself.

I assume this is referring to the original post about Crashing Slam vs the above discussion of Slam Down? Because Slam Down is still two rolls.

You're not wrong about being able to hero point or guidance one roll vs two (how often are you getting guidance at level 10+ though?) and eliminating the nat 1 case of tripping yourself...but if you DO trip yourself, you can literally just Kip Up as a free action since it's your turn. No harm done at all.

And those seem like very minor bonuses that should be part of a level 4 feat, not a level 10 feat that's competing with Tactical Reflexes, Disruptive Stance, etc.

Not everyone has Kip Up. Guidance etc. are always useful unless you have something better, which may still be a one-action use.

It's quite possible that your and your party's choices don't make the best use of the feats, but it's easy enough to make use of.

Reducing the number of rolls needed lets you use single-use buffs for both effects, like guidance or fortune effects. Plus no chance of tripping yourself.

Agonarchy wrote:

You're comparing a stance to a flourish. Slam Down/Crashing Slam may also trigger additional riders on the auto-crit, if any such exist.

I've never heard of any riders? Remember the auto-crit is on the trip, so it lacks all weapon traits (including magic so does nothing to incorporeals) and doesn't trigger weapon criticals or runes or anything.

I believe it works with "The Harder They Fall", but it at least opens up the possibility. At a minimum, it's a second instance of damage, which is worse if they have bludgeon resist, but better if they have vulnerability.

The main difference is, of course, still the stance.

You're comparing a stance to a flourish. Slam Down/Crashing Slam may also trigger additional riders on the auto-crit, if any such exist.

Agonarchy wrote:

For errata, having a brief window of planned support after each release covering major issues only would go a long way. Even just a window of one week for readers to find issues and one week to fix the top ten worst issues found in the previous week. This could all be overridden with a more careful sweep later, but would let things like the confusion over oracle spells get resolved.

I guess I sort of think it is ok to let this be a fan provided service that happens here on the forums. Players ask their rules questions, discuss them, see if there are consensus reached that cause those discussions to go away, and then developers can look and see if those are implementable in the products and line up with underlying game principles or if they need further tweaking. The rules are free to everyone so, in the vast majority of cases, this is not labor Paizo had to do themselves, nor will official rulings inherently make everyone’s games inherently better.

PFS makes that a less attractive solution. A good chunk of players purchase a book specifically for allowing PFS play. But this is why I emphasize the really nasty problems only.

For errata, having a brief window of planned support after each release covering major issues only would go a long way. Even just a window of one week for readers to find issues and one week to fix the top ten worst issues found in the previous week. This could all be overridden with a more careful sweep later, but would let things like the confusion over oracle spells get resolved.

Even ignoring the non-statically linked continuities and alternate timelines, deities and even just demons have such a weird relationship with identity that you can't really rely on "facts". There could be a new Nocticula, and number of equally valid ones, some sort of time loop, a split soul, a Piccolo good/evil split, an imposter, an entity formed from outdated lore, Nocticula being infested or forgetting herself, etc. etc.

The goddess of self-redemption on your own terms vs. going around redeeming people to your own standards. Nocticula's about self-perception more than external approval.

I am a reliable advocate for removing attack accuracy from stats. It does require cooking up extra uses for stats to give wizards a reason to max Int, but that's needed anyway.

The more free hands you have, the more interesting options there are. Nets aren't even magic, but they can do a lot as an opening move. Eternal eruption, even under-leveled, is great for when you're a martial fighting a swarm or ooze. Windlass Bolas is a great tool for abusing Athletics builds at a distance.

Utility items can be great with the right planning. Versatile Tinder box is handy for a patient pyro and for various bluffs. Flask of Fellowship, Bottomless Stein, etc. are simple but nice, flavorful tools, Decanter of Endless Water can be a menace, and so on.

Combat also doesn't have to mean getting the other team all down to 0 hp. From recent PFS examples:
I get lucky with a crit and one-shot the boss of a group of thugs in the first round of combat after saying stylish*, thugs all give up.

Encounter with a un underground room full of cultists with a narrow entrance, and I have Igneogenesis and immediately wall them in, cultists all give up.

Room with a few sleeping guards, and I'm a sneaky character with manacles; I cuff them to their beds and skip the combat part entirely.

Easy combats are perfect opportunities for a little improv.

* I pointed with a finger gun, said "Bang", and cast Needle Darts, and down they went. :3

Something the GM should consider, since they shy away from large numbers of enemies, is to use troops more often than usual. This allows you to have a wider scale of in-story combats without the GM needing to control eight fully separate pieces on the board, allows AOEs to shine, and is less awkward than there always being a swarm enemy.

Magic is generally not about high single target damage, so it's always going to be a bit difficult even with blaster builds. Control is usually going to be a lot more satisfying, especially if you build for spell combos, like any sort of damaging terrain spell you can sustain + any spell that keeps them in the terrain.

I would absolutely love a Book of Serpents, going over the various ophidian ancestries, giving access to sekmin/serpentfolk or a varition thereof, more details about their past and present, and a gaggle of serpent monsters,familiars, companions, and thematic magic, items, and features, particularly some more ways to deal with poison immunity.

Serpents have an astonishing amount of mythological and real life lore to work with, and the sekmins were kind of a big deal in the past.

Holding onto something would, at best, give you a circumstance bonus if the GM felt like it, but ladders are not super easy to hold tight to. Shove should work basically exactly as normal.

Though why shove down when you can shove down and *out*.

The Big Book of Scaling Items

Imagine a book where everything is still usable at level 20 you never have to get a graft ripped out because its DC is stuck at 20 or 26.

Brace is a tool you use when you're acting as a wall. You should not try to be a wall in an open field or against an archer. It's kind of weird it's not used for any spear weapons given this is basically what a pike/long spear is for.

Has Paizo tried a Precision Resistance to have a lesser form to use when it feels thematic, without completely turning off a precision class's core feature?

It probably needs some tweaking, since I think the level appropriate minimum resistance would still be close to effectively immune. So it might feel as bad.

Proteans have precision resistance.

A method of allowing siloed damage types to still be useful is to allow them to be converted into less-efficient alternatives. A swashbuckler or rogue could convert precision damage into a smaller amount of additional damage, and really you could do the same with elemental energy - have the fire kin bust out the sideaarm as they boost their speed or strength with elemental power.

I've been poking around with my swash build - finally should get to play it on Monday - and noticed that shuriken don't seem to be listed in the guide. With reload 0 they seriously ramp up the efficiency of Flying Blade, as you can now just carry a silly number of shuriken, powered by the bandolier, and use a more impactful rune than Returning. It also lets you play with metals and poison more while keeping your hand free for other things.

Swashbuckler makes for quite good "ninja" builds.

PF3, before any wizard tweaks, needs to have a major balance pass to ensure that spells of each level are roughly on par with each other. The imbalance between schools shouldn't be there to be a factor, and wizards become more attractive the harder the decision between spells is.

I'm glad the maftet got pushed up. They would make a great ancestry option. Sad sthenos weren't included for the same reason.

An Advanced or Persistent Weapon Infusion feat that would allow this would certainly have its fans, but the fiction is closer to a cantrip than actually wielding a weapon.

Basically, if you want reach flanking for a kin, carry a whip.

There are a handful of glaring issues which made 4E less fun than it was built to be, as much as I love the system, that PF2 mostly avoids:
* Monster HP was too high, forcing slogs
* Too many bonuses to juggle, PF2 is a medium to 4E's high
* Semi-forced builds. Choices were frequently negated due to previous choices, usually due to MAD.
* Almost nothing scaled, forcing you to abandon your powers to upgrade their output. PF2 does this with magic item DCs, though, which is stricter.
* Skill challanges were poorly explained and worse supported. Good idea, rough execution if the DM wasn't flexible.

Based on the D&D 5E 2024 feedback, a lot of players are hooked on the idea of summoning "real" monsters, so I think it would be best to add any formulaic summons as a new set of spells or an alternate option for the existing ones.