Wow, that's a throwback. Apparently I solved it back in 2022 though the bounded feat's a little silly, go me B>
They haven't gotten back to Secrets of Magic, of course, that'll probably be a more complicated and expensive project than usual given the lore changes there. Alchemical archetypes were reworked in the remaster, so it's at least possible they'll tweak bounded spellcaster archetypes, though not probable! I would like that.
It is worth noting that between Eldritch Archer, Beast Gunner, and Spellshot, it's clearly not a design tenet that a powerful feature like Long Spellstrike requires worse than standard casting potential or anything. (At least, not significantly so, I suppose you could count the missing breadth feats and Spellshot's missing Master feat which I'm unsure is intentional.) The bounded spellcasting archetypes are just an issue of trying to keep multiclass archetypes from outdoing their respective classes on a core feature in some way — there have been times this hasn't been successful but they do historically try — and the resulting balance point between these special archetype casting progressions and the regular ones simply being off.
Other examples of this are Dangerous Sorcery and Brawling Focus! Some feats got consolidated, too — Accurate Flurry is completely useless now that Impossible Flurry had its effect added, for one.
Because spell proficiency isn't tied to tradition anymore, Imaginary Weapon (and any Psychic cantrip) is valuable for any Int or Cha caster. Which is all of them save for three. :b
That said, it's a very strong dedication, but I wouldn't call it clearly busting the bounds and convention of the game math the way Exemplar's does. I was kinda disappointed that PFS didn't just ban it if they didn't want to come up with a fix to make it reasonable — and a good fix for the rest of the community to take inspiration from would've been pretty helpful.
That seems a touch hyperbolic as conclusions go...if you're somehow shooting enough to run out past very early levels, you can probs craft some with downtime or work something else out with your GM. Basic ammo isn't really meant to be a problem in most cases.
As for Drifter, combination weapon melees being incentivized is a little weird, but it's less so than original Singular Expertise was, I think. Combination weapons are closer to standard ones in overall power now, and maybe they figure that the slight reduction in traits and/or die sizes is enough to make them okay to give at full proficiency — you can just ignore the firearm part flavor-wise, at least.
(The other weird thing is not allowing bayonets and reinforced stocks to get the better proficiency, and I wonder if that has anything to do with two-handed stocks ending up super strong by finesse standards/for something you can attack seamlessly with. :b )
To be a little twisted for a second: Ready is normally double the action cost, not half again, for the funny things you can do with the nonspecific reaction it grants. You could maintain that general design by not only requiring that Ready be increased to three actions, but also having it impose Slowed 1 for a round after performing the readied activity. ¯\_('w')_/¯
Elemental Annihilation Wave is, like, inherently cool, so I was always a bit sad that the heightening was lacking. Now it's still H+2 but it keeps up with standard AoE scaling, and I'm glad for that ¯\_('ᵥ')_/¯
That was a design decision, hon...and it only came up on the dev side in relation to Commander. I think you should try to gently lower your hopes of that being changed.
I just got Sure Strike from Divine Access at Lv 11, after having to redo the character for the remaster. Oh well, wasn't necessarily going to use Moonlight Ray that often even still. ^ ^;
Wonder if that means spell attack runes could be officially added some day...
Blog Post wrote:
Player Core
Several feats got improvements to be more appealing for the characters they’re meant for.
There was a lot of cool ideas there, it made for an interesting read. Kudos :>
I haven't gotten to play a Magus in a long while, but from what I recall, I found managing their various actions to be a fun little puzzle (if one that rammed into my indecisiveness on occasion), and I love the aesthetic and places where it really makes good on its gish fantasy.
It does sort of work against itself design-wise on occasion, wanting you to have a variety of martial and magical actions and lean into the class's special hybrid mechanics, but also ending up with those structures being a bit harder or less rewarding to make use of than alternatives that maximize gambling for huge numbers. (I do find variety and general gish/hybrid stuff satisfying, but god do I love winning the lottery and exploding a boss turn 1. ^ ^) I was really happy to play Twisting Tree, both because I found it a very neat idea and execution and because its features felt cohesively smooth and balanced in their distribution; I don't think I would've enjoyed things quite as much if I either felt dependent on Cascade for the core appeal of my subclass(/playstyle), or was built for never ever wanting it at all.
And I didn't get an attacking focus spell back then, but I was really tempted to. I know Spell Swipe was likely designed with the expenditure of a spell slot in mind, but I wish it simply worked fully with any attack spell by copying the effect, because being The Blazing Bolt and Imaginary Weapon Feat just makes the latter even more attractive. They probably couldn't have known even with the long development pipelines, but it's funny how that lined up. :b
In any case, I find it really nice that being a martial with a strong focus on magic lends itself to fun flavor and the strongest possible benefit from caster-focused things that dip into attacks or martial support, like spellhearts and Bespell Strikes and a lot of Sixth Pillar feats (which kind of feel like lost Magus content, honestly). I find it lovely that there's a special Magus-focused staff you can do fun things with if your GM's into it! Sometimes it really does feel like one of the best blends of those worlds in the system, and it likely is, but I'd still be happy to see it get tweaks and core additions down the line so it can realize even more of its potential. Considering the likely difficulty of nailing down the bounded caster design, especially with a playerbase that all wanted very different things from those classes, I'd say it was a pretty good go at it which would benefit from all that's been learned since then. ✿
I believe the complaint was that in addition to still using the standard caster level for Weapon Specialization, it also doesn't receive Greater Weapon Specialization like standard martials do.
Bloodrager is conceptually intimidating and might take some levels to truly get going, but it's honestly got such a sick design. The ability to regain spell slots, the huge bonus damage making the archetype accuracy for their spells work, their whole gameplay cycle with bleed and drained and recovery, Hematocritical being really cool...I didn't think much of them before, but I'm interested in trying one someday because that flavor of spell-and-blade appeals to me a lot. :3
I'm inclined to agree with some others that Exemplar and Animist are both really cool and well-made classes for the most part. Ooh, and Seneschal has such a great blend of flavor and fresh mechanics, too~
I was not expecting to check out this thread and find so much devil's advocacy for such an obviously overpowered option. It's looking like Hell's Rebels in here. :b
My fleshwarp Investigator uses a Triggerbrand nowadays, because it's cool and the versatility helps sometimes. Being a d4 weapon in its primary (ranged) use doesn't matter much, seeing as she only really attacks once a round at most and has a rune (or special ammo) and precision damage on that, plus crits boost the die size a fair bit. ¯\_('v')_/¯
No one's actually gone into detail here, so. TL;DR for the following post: there's a few potentially underwhelming things but yes, they're largely worth it.
Cursebound Feats:
1 Foretell Harm (starting feat for Flames/Tempest): free action 1/round, previous non-cantrip damage spell's target takes 2*spell rank damage of the same type on their next turn, then is immune 24 hours. It's not an astoundingly impactful amount in a vacuum, but it can retrigger weaknesses, has no save, and takes no extra action economy. If the PFS clarifications have input from the designers, it's supposed to work on all targets of an AoE, which would also magnify it quite a bit. Helpful to have and use either way, worthwhile enough for all but the most extreme curses (and by that I mostly mean Ancestors unless they can get some safety), though other Cursebounds may outshine it in their use cases.
1 Nudge the Scales (starting feat for Life/Bones): one action to heal 2+double your level to a target in 30 feet. It's Restore the Mind with no immunity, requirement or buff usage. Works on undead or living, but doesn't benefit from buffs to vitality or void healing effects since it's neither. Also has a weird passive side benefit for Bones's sake to let you choose whether you have vitality or void healing (the class could've used more of these!). Overall, it's a decent emergency heal and 3rd action thingy, with a value roughly equal to two-thirds a Lay on Hands but at range, and that's certainly worth the cost of most curses.
1 Oracular Warning (starting feat for Battle/Cosmos): not to be confused with the old Lv 10 feat of the same name, this is pretty much Battle's former Call to Arms spell, a free action on initiative to give all allies in 20 feet +2 status to initiative and half your level in temp HP. Bonus increases to +3/+4 if you use it at Cursebound 2/3, which...is potentially ill-advised unless this is your only Cursebound forever. I've heard some people really gas this one up, initiative bonuses being a bit of a YMMV like so many other things; the higher bonuses are largely irrelevant, but it's pretty much always nice to have at a minimum. (Stacks with Scout and similar as well.)
1 Whispers of Weakness: if you liked Vision of Weakness, this is that at Lv 1 instead of 4 (with an added explicit range of 60 feet), and most people like learning weaknesses and lowest saves without a check before being given a +2 status to the next attack (and a pat on the head and a compliment). Quite useful for most anyone, with how much guesswork it can take out of fights!
2 Meddling Futures: rework of the old Ancestors curse, now a free action to have your next action soft-dictated (DC 6 to do something else) and get a bonus: +1/+2 status to attack/damage on the Strike (+6 damage if Cursebound 3), +1 status to the skill check (C3 makes it +2), status bonus equal to the spell rank on its damage or healing (+3 if C3), or +10 staus Speed for your movement (+20 if C3). Overall...it's divisive, I've heard most people balk at it but also heard arguments for it being improved since you can choose to use it when your turn/action isn't super critical. For my part, I'm just sad you can't keep it up as a duration, the loss of the choose-your-buff outcome in favor of a niche movement/speed buff case is unfortunate, and few of the bonuses are that impactful for the Cursebound they cost, unless your curse does basically nothing. Which certainly doesn't apply to Ancestors who probably has the worst time trying to use it, tragically.
4 Knowledge of Shapes: that's right, it goes in the square hole! If you have Reach/Widen Spell you can use it as a free action, little else to say. Saving an action can always be nice for safer/more impactful turns, but I wish that it didn't require you to actually have the feat(s) on this slightly more feat-reliant class, or that it could work with other Oracle spellshapes too.
4 Thousand Visions: former Flames thing, this is a free action to make your senses imprecise beyond 30 feet, and within 30 feet, prevent you from having to make flat checks to target concealed things, reduce your DC to target hidden to 5, and keep you from being off-guard to hidden. This lasts for a minute! You don't always run into this but it can be nice to have in one's back pocket, especially for occasions in cramped areas where there's pretty much no extra downside, and the total lack of action needed along with the duration is very nice.
8 Debilitating Dichotomy: they couldn't keep the GOAT down by backing up its scaling a level...though they also didn't have to do that, there's lots of spell-like feats that scale on odd levels. ~w~; In any case, two actions to force yourself and a target within 30 feet to take 9d6 mental with a basic Will save, target's stunned 1 if it crit fails and you take one degree better than you rolled (plus Oracles have some of the best Will progression in the game). Scales by 3d6 at Lv 10 and every two levels after. It's quite strong and can advance battles faster, especially after some heightening, but not every character will care about/for the damage or be able to spare the curse. Still great for most, and broadly worth its progression.
10 Roll the Bones of Fate (Bones/Lore only): one action 1/10 minutes to get one of four results: you or an ally in 30 feet roll twice and take higher on the next attack roll or skill check, enemy within 30 feet must succeed on Will or roll twice and take lower on the same, both previous effects happen, or all creatures in 30 feet roll twice and take either higher or lower depending on the higher number being even or odd. This is mostly all-upside, unlike Meddling Futures, and you'd need quite a bit of bad luck to have multiple allies reroll to lower and enemies reroll to higher (though that can happen). The effects are fairly potent and generically useful, so I think it's worth the Bones/Lore curses in most cases...though I wonder what either of those mysteries really have to do with this theming.
10 The Dead Walk (Ancestors/Battle only): two actions, two spirits appear that can grant flanking for a round appear within 30 feet and make one Strike each against an enemy adjacent to them, using your spell attack and dealing 4d6 damage (presumably their MAPs are separate). Using it at C2/C3 summons three/four spirits instead, but the Strike damage doesn't scale. Against one enemy, 8d6 and soon the chance at 12d6 ain't bad at all at Lv 10/11, but the descaling does eventually hurt it some and it doesn't do as well against multiple enemies, though free flanking is nice and the flavor's good. Not sure how well it holds up at those mythical lategame levels, but it's solidly worthwhile for at least a large chunk of the remaining gametime when you get it, I believe...at least for Battle. I imagine Ancestors really really doesn't want to reach Clumsy 3/4 just to scale this thing.
10 Trial By Skyfire (Cosmos/Flames only): another old Flames curse thing, this being one action to cause 2d6 fire on a basic Reflex save to all creatures (including you) in a 10 foot emanation each round, for a minute. Can be suppressed by Sustaining, and if you're at or reach C3 the range increases to 15 feet as the damage doubles to 4d6. It's...not especially appetizing in general cases, unlike Dichotomy, Oracle Reflex is poor and the range and damage are both low, exposing them to danger to use it on enemies. It can potentially hit fire/area weaknesses multiple times with no further action cost, which is nice I suppose, and both the Cosmos and Flames curses are free so it's worth that non-cost.
(How well does this fit Cosmos flavor, really? They could've paired Tempest and Flames again instead, given it some damage type option for utility...but sure, space includes the sun and other stars. And there's the electric weakness to consider, though it could've offered a bludgeoning/cold option for rainfall or hail.)
10 Waters of Creation (Life/Tempest only): Tempest gets this placid support feat instead, because...water theming. Or maybe they gave it water theming for Tempest. Two actions to vitality-heal creatures within a 15-foot emanation for 5d6, +1d6 for every 2 levels beyond 10, and its d6s become d8s if you're C3 when you cast it. It's an action saved over three action Heal and pays for it by being slightly weaker unless you use your last Cursebound on it, and having half the range, and not dealing vitality damage, and not being able to use anything that enhances Heal with it. A renewable two-action AoE heal is far from bad to have in your pocket, but the downsides do mount to make it inconvenient or unattractive at times. (Lower range at least makes it easier to avoid enemies with, maybe?) I think it could have used just a bit more spice or convenience and am not personally interested in spending the Lv 10 feat slot on this, but if you take it I'm sure it can be a clutch option and certainly worth its curse, especially on Tempest. (Life at least gets healed before the curse advances.)
16 Conduit of Void and Vitality: you need to have Heal or Harm as a signature spell for this, and it lets you cast the three-action version of either spell (using a slot like normal) for two actions, with one creature being healed an extra 1d8*Cursebound value and one being harmed extra for the same value if applicable (both can apply to separate targets if the spell does both). This is nearly the only Cursebound that directly modifies a spell you cast, and thus the only one with a guaranteed resource cost beyond the curse, though as action economy feats go it's decent enough, especially if you set out to acquire some things which enhance Heal/Harm. The extra damage/healing on singular targets often won't be much to write about compared to flat bonuses and die size buffs that everyone in the AoE benefits from, though it can certainly still help, especially with three-action Heal/Harm usually being a bit swingier and weaker than other AoEs. I like this more than Waters of Creation despite the resource cost, and both are worth their curse in most relevant cases...though I do still feel it could've used a little something, considering Clerics can get Fast Channel for most of the effect with no extra cost at Lv 14, and with lots more feat support for those spells on the side. :b
20 Mystery Conduit: just like the original, lets you cast a Rk 5 or lower spell without the slot cost, in exchange for advancing your curse, which saves an action and lacks the 1/minute frequency over Sorcerer's Bloodline Conduit/Druid's Ley Line Conduit/Psychic's Unlimited Potential. Tell me true, has anyone ever used this? Any of these? You can afford so many scrolls and wands of 9-or-more-levels-earlier spells at this point, if you're really running out of them that often. ^ ^;
Then there's the feats that trigger off of, require, or otherwise interact with Cursebound...
Cursebound Support:
8 Water Walker: part of the former Cosmos curse benefit, souped-up at an earlier level but costing a slightly pricy feat slot. If you're C1 you can walk across liquids but not stop on them, and if you're at least C2 you simply get the effects of Water Walk. Nice thematic image, obviously niche, though it's required for...
14 Lighter Than Air: after the Water Walker benefits, you go somewhat beyond the previous Cosmos curse by gaining the effects of Fly if you're Cursebound at all, and a +10-foot status bonus to that Speed if you're C3. Obviously costly to have both of these, but certainly not niche, though it would've been nice to include the hovering-above-ground part that Cosmos used to get too, since Fly requires actions to sustain that.
14 Forestall Curse: does largely what it used to do, lets you use a Cursebound thing without advancing it 1/day. It's a free action now, which is a solid improvement, and it's obviously no longer a spellshape (though it might interfere with trying to use those with Conduit anyway, depending on GM strictness). Notably lets you get those "if used at C3" benefits more than once in an encounter, and is the only way to do so now that you can't overwhelm yourself.
14 Revelation's Focus: No, this doesn't actually enhance your rate of Cursebound recovery like it does your focus recovery, despite what you'd expect. I wonder what reason it could have to be at a later level than most other refocus hastens, when Oracle used to get those for free at earlier levels than most other casters. Anyway, please add speedier Cursebound recovery to it or the class features, thank you
16 Diverse Mystery: also almost exactly the same. Since there are no truly unique Cursebound actions, it still gives you another mystery's initial/advanced revelation spell, grants it the Cursebound trait, and even still makes you take the Cursebound 1 effect of that mystery, though you can now remove the curse effect like your own. What a throwback! Lots of good revelation spells with very minor curses to poach, too, though at Lv 16 it's likely in large part a cool novelty.
18 Blaze of Revelation: also almost exactly the same...but a little worse, I think! This used to be triggered when you'd become overwhelmed, which you really had to stretch for at this level, but after that you could use one (1) revelation spell from your mystery on each turn for a minute without using a focus point or (obviously) furthering the curse. And then you try to crit a Legendary Fort save lest you take unremovable Drained 2 or 4, or just die. This still lets you cast a free revelation spell each turn, but you need to be Cursebound 4 (which is not advanced by the focus spells) and activate the feat as a free action, which...sure you don't have to do weird extra-4th-focus-point things to activate it, but unless you're using your Cursebound in similarly wacky ways like trying to get the higher Oracular Warning bonuses, it seems quite unlikely you'll be out of focus points and Cursebound and want to spend many more of your turns on revelation spells after that, at this level.
But you can just not take that one, or the other weird ones. ¯\_('w')_/¯
The important point to all of this is that for as mechanically dull as they are, Cosmos/Flames/Tempest curses don't really do much in most situations, and the Battle/Bones/Life/Lore curses are fairly mild and bearable, especially with preparation. You don't even unlock the stages where the Tempest/Battle/Bones weaknesses and Battle/Bones/Lore save debuffs get more severe until the majority of campaigns are reaching a close, at Lv 11 (or 17 for when Lore grows largely unusable), and there's no longer much incentive to reaching the really bad stages, or a level lock to Refocusing more than 1 point, or an inability to drop your Cursebound condition below 1, so...more than ever before, you can just ignore the really bad parts of the curses for the most part.
It would take a lot more in the way of truly awful Cursebounds (or all of the curses being as punishing as Ancestors) to not be worth dealing with these largely mild drawbacks, and thankfully most of the Cursebounds are also genuinely nice to have rather than middlingly coasting by on that truth.
If the class must rely on its feats for most of the subclass flavor now, there should really be more Cursebound feats to give the missing Battle/Life/Lore/Tempest benefits, ideally even some that are actually unique, and the weakest subclasses/Cursebounds deserve some tuning to stand with the rest. Still, I'm glad it's mostly solid on the power front (this whole entire post having not even mentioned the extra slots and spells the class now gets >w>; ), and I'm sure it'll be interesting for, especially, the many new characters blissfully free of legacy character concerns~.
The bigger issue is that Ancestors still has what's probably the most punishing of the curses via stacking Clumsy. It's the worst at using its own former benefits (and Cursebounds in general) because of it.
I do like the way casters are being done lately, and that includes the overall idea of this rebuilt class — the sting in my earlier post was mostly from the point of view of my existing Oracle and what I already liked about the class.
I'm still deathly curious about all of the unknown details, but one thing that's kept sticking out to me is how they're going to handle the bonus spells for the mysteries that are already squarely within the Divine purview. Like, Flames and Tempest are obvious big winners which practically demanded Divine Access for staple elemental spells, and you could probably get some neat off-list stuff for the ones like Cosmos, Battle, Time (whenever that is), Lore, and even Ancestors, for their slightly occult flavor. But I'm not sure what you do for Life, when the only vital/void/healing spell that isn't Divine already is like, Soothe, and Bones might be in a similar boat. ^ ^;
So...you have to opt back in to curses as risk-reward upsides/sidegrades, with feats, and you also have to get these strong options that use the curse penalty with feats, aside from a single thingy at Lv 1.
Divine Access as a feature is great (even if 'halfway through their career' sounds pretty high with the original feat being Lv 4...), three granted spells is quite nice, the extra domain options are also very appreciated, but...goodness, the curse changes. My initial impression is pretty mixed.
I have to hope that single cursebound thingy at Lv 1 is really cool for Life (though I can count on Life Link remaining I think), because as an existing Oracle I've spent all of my feats on archetype stuff for flavor and it's going to be a hard sell spending feats on curse stuff when I have those and the extra unique focus spell(s) to worry about. And I suppose I'll have to say bye to enhanced heals and the cool heal pulse thingy at Lv 11 (I'm at Lv 9! ;w; ), or force the feat that grants that stuff into the build as a high priority, because the campaign I'm playing in doesn't allow old versions of classes.
Dunno. There is a loss despite the other upsides. Maybe there's stuff I don't know about which eases this or it'll simply work better for the majority of players, I doubt I was the target audience for the curse stuff. I'm still interested in the details and overall concept, and remain hopeful for the Alchemist changes suiting a friend's desires. ✿
It's worth noting that even the slow-and-steady option might cost less in total than a Serum of Sex Shift, and might also be good for people who want some HRT for its gender-affirming effects but not the whole endpoint of the process. My girlfriend didn't like how the serum could make some trans narratives among adventurers harder/more awkward to explore by its existence, well-intentioned as it is, so even if one can quibble with the prices I'm glad for the existence of a somewhat humbler alternative that maps better! Totally your right to adjust the costs of such things, of course.
As for the meat of the post, hi y'all, thanks for sharing your stories! Happy neurodivergent transbian here, and it's been good to explore and learn what I am through the TTRPG space — I get to be among people who like all of me because of it, too. <3
... we get a bazillion spells like “Thread Laces” and “Boop Snoots”.
Ooh, sorry, which book is Boop Snoots in? Is it on the Divine list? AoN doesn't seem to have it yet and like, my kitsune's dating a kobold and a ysoki and there's a bunch of pets around, it's a very target-rich environment.
As much as I dislike Restoration, there's two big ways that it isn't obsolete: it lowers a condition without a check, and it helps with Doomed at spell rank 4 rather than spell rank 6 like Clear Mind. (Specifically non-permanent Doomed because that needed to be a distinction I guess.)
And if Paizo wanted to errata Synesthesia, there was absolutely nothing stopping them from getting around to it in the five and a half years since it got put in the playtest book with exactly the same effects it's always had. Aside from player discontent, I guess, and that didn't stop them from poking at cantrip damage or whatever. ¯\_('•')_/¯ It seems silly to say 'there must be a game design reason these weren't reprinted, they should be banned!' when all official guidance on the matter so far has been contrary to that.
My headmate and I do this all the time, actually. The West Marches group we play in keeps it kinda simple, so quests have a level and organizing players can join if they're within a level of it (and parties split between the extremes, e.g Lvs 2, 2, 4, 4, are discouraged for being hard to balance). The underleveled characters get double XP rewards for that quest until they level up, like the book suggests, and the overleveled characters can enjoy the slight power trip and chance to protect the others while getting a standard XP payout (and gold for a level below).
Since there's a server-wide mechanism for player characters to spend three actions warping to a safe home base and ending their involvement on a quest if things go poorly, there's space for GMs not to adjust for the underleveled characters or even be a little harsh. But we generally don't like to be, and in our experience it's been pretty alright playing underleveled for catch-up XP and such. It can certainly get a little desperate in harder encounters, but play-by-post format, relics, and somewhat generous access to items allow for a good few ways to deal with them, on top of the escape option. :>
It's just that it's a martial with a mental key stat, defenses that are typically on the weaker side, and a linear, sometimes action-heavy damage booster that's solid but doesn't get boosted by or interact with much in turn.
It definitely gets more in raw power/utility to make up for being a martial with a mental key stat than the others in the game, but taken on its own, it makes some sacrifices when it comes to total damage/defense compared to more dedicated martials and obviously can't offer as much utility and support as casters, so it totals out to being within acceptable boundaries for the game. (Specifically, for the original CRB classes, which tend to have the simplest and strongest selection.)
Where it does get a bit too overpowering for my taste is Recall Knowledge, because Esoteric Lore eats a good bit of that space's lunch even before the absurdity of Diverse Lore enters the picture. But, other RK-centric options and such tend to at least hold up okay in comparison, as far as I've seen — and much like Bard's dominance at party support, RK isn't something I tend to ban a class over being too good at or anything.
The actual important stats are Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Perception, so we should get rid of all these other ones and just use those for everything in their place. :b
That's pretty plain, yeah. Spellstrike is a humongous amount of extra damage on a big chunky activity you need to spend some 3rd action to recharge, so you generally want to keep its accuracy as high as is feasible when you use it since so much output rides on it. :o
That said, I agree that you shouldn't entirely miss out on conflux spells if you can help it, with Shielding Strike and Dimensional Assault having 3rd-action utility (Thunderous Smite is a cheap way to trigger swarm/troop weakness!), and Force Fang offering extra damage when you need to recharge as a first action for back-to-back spellstrikes. Using an opportunistic mix of conflux spells and archetype focus spells seems like the best bet to me, especially if you end up with 3 focus points. ~★
Little quibbles with edge cases aside (they exist but that's for another thread), the new state of condition removal spells is SO much better, I am livin' as a Life Oracle who can feasibly (albeit with some effort!) cover all of that now. Turning 8 condition-clearing spells (Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, Restore Senses, Remove Disease, Neutralize Poison, Remove Curse, and Stone to Flesh) into 4 (Sure Footing, Sound Body, Clear Mind, and Cleanse Affliction) that address everything the old ones did and way more, and do it more practically for combat, is nothing short of blessed. ~w~
Speaking of blessings, Bless isn't the only spell that Became Real and suddenly changed what Divine can easily do, because Protection is now a Common spell that simply imparts +1 AC and saves for a minute! (And has Circle of Protection in its heightening! Though not the Rk 4 version that lasts an hour.) It was bizarrely difficult to get ahold of a basic-ass defense buff in this game, and Protection fills a much appreciated role for that reason. 'w'
And at the other end of the spectrum, a spell like Holy Light will always deal extra damage to undead and fiends, and then deal EVEN MORE extra damage to devils who have a weakness to holy.
So it turns out Pharasma isn't as cringe as we assumed. :P
In case y'all haven't actually gotten a chance to read it yet, Holy Light doesn't actually have that targeting anymore. It's innately Holy and deals its extra spirit damage to Unholy targets.
Runnetib wrote:
So, if I'm reading it correctly, Paladins are perfectly okay with lying now?
If it serves their goals, yep! They don't wanna be murdering though. (Save debates on what counts as 'murdering' for the table.)
Pharasma is simply too cringe to effectively address her undead problems. And that's okay. I, too, am a highly-occupied woman who fails at my biggest goals sometimes. ~w~
The image caption on page 79 should IMO tell the name of their lineage like the other image captions do.
That's kind of a reach for being relevant errata, especially since the whole flavor of nephilim now is that it can include influences from several planes, and thus it's just as likely that the character marked 'Nephilim' isn't of any one lineage and features both celestial and fiendish traits.
Apparently chain lightning, fireball, disintegrate, and haste are all unchanged.
Blaster wizards everywhere can relax, and mourn the loss of cone of cold in peace with their new best friends, falling stars and thunderstrike.
Howling blizzard says hi. 5th level spell, 10d6 cold damage, can either be cast as a 60 foot cone for 2 actions or a 30 foot burst at 500 feet for 3.
(Also its entire area becomes difficult terrain if I recall, let your Ranger buddy snipe them with their feature to treat any enemies on any difficult terrain as off-guard :> )
*points at all of the other books that have specific familiars*
To avoid being snippy for a moment, this isn't intended as a system reset or whatever, that elf feat still exists and so do specific familiars and so does all of the other content from all of the other books released since 2019. If you thought this was a hard reset or expected these remaster books to include everything made thus far, I'm afraid there was some communication or logistics you missed.
Yeah, we didn't get the first batch of really good non-multiclass archetypes until APG. We were out here staring through the store windows at World Guide wondering if Magic Warrior would be good :V
As far as archetypes go, nothing has changed for the new core books, except that while waiting to see what PC2 does we still have several years of archetypes and other content to use. And if that pressures the more stringent or reluctant GMs who use remaster stuff to reconsider disallowing premaster content, then...good, to be honest, there's really not much that gets weird and merits such a thing.
... the Wizard has a chance to become the worst caster in the game with no real area where it shines.
Some players would prefer the Wizard to be as good as other casters, which is definitely a legitimate complaint.
I reckon it's only as legitimate as any other preference for casters, and not every preference can be fulfilled at once in the single product. There's a lot of good Arcane spells, and Wizard has never stopped being the caster with access to the most slots, flexibility, and situational boons for casting them — their feats can be boring, sure, but some of them are very good in those niches, and they've often been dismissed or kind of ignored in discussions of the class spanning back to the start of the edition. Arcane Thesis is also weirdly scorned despite being rather unique among caster subclass options and having some powerful options other casters don't get. ¯\_('•')_/¯
Did you read the one that extends any condition by one round? There's a range. :b
And there's also more to 'saving the Witch' than just the familiar benefits, there's some simple ways they seem to be taking to make it more appealing beyond the base power of being a caster. Those that like Rune (or The Inscribed One now) can get good use out of the ability in some setups, anyway — flanking is strong but usually requires having two people (who don't automatically revive later) in dangerous positions, and the particulars of a familiar can make them useful stand-ins to enable an offense.
Even then, there's a lot of set-DC ones that are powerful and/or really cool when those DCs are relevant, so mostly it's a consideration for when you're shopping (or wishlisting, or looking for leads, or deciding on formulas). They still make for good loot: great for a time, and if your party isn't the kind to use them or doesn't get a chance to, the ability to sell or disassemble them for resources to get other stuff is pretty acceptable.
(I do hope they eventually find an alternative to set DCs, like a more reasonable/palatable form of Resonance, or that they add a system to scale them. My houserules just allow an extra use of investing an item to use your attack/DC modifiers instead, and I haven't noticed that being an issue yet.)
I haven't had the time to look into the playtest a ton, I just know some of the optimizer sorts on Discord were kind of impressed by how well it can work as an off-martial with the right apparition (that you can switch in or out pretty freely).
Animist will sort of be that, I think? The flavor's probably different since it's a middle ground of it and Shaman, but it serves the same general purpose as well as the same thematic thrust. And the iconic situation is the same as any other, if they don't return as iconic of a class that doesn't mean they're not still extant in the world of Golarion.
There's, like, an entire nation of people with dragon blood or something. I have to imagine there would be some neat culture bits for those who have more of it than others, if they keep that setup or decide to make new ones! They include culture bits for ancestries with defined cultures in their setting, broadly speaking — there isn't much of a concentration of automatons or fleshwarps.
Also, there were a good few popular 3PP renditions of Kineticist, for years before the book where it's so big it's the only class was announced, so y'know. It's okay to publish stuff people want sometimes.
With those changes and the backstabber trait of the arbalest, Crossbow Rangers will make good assassins.
The Assassin archetype gives a +2 bonus to deception against your marked target (useful for the new Crossbow Ace) and Expert Backstabber doubles the backstabber trait bonus damage.
Still no getting around that marking your target takes up your entire first turn.
Have you considered maybe doing assassin things? Stealthily casing a joint, hanging back and studying a proud, boastful enemy while the others are bantering or challenging them, or finding a way to scout unseen or unrecognized all work.
If you have a few seconds outside combat, you can mark, and if you're being ambushed then no defending yourself from a surprise attack is not an ideal time to try to assassinate 'em, that being something that requires some planning and preparation. Which is fine, in my book, because the bonuses and extra benefits that can be gotten are good to have but not the core of a class's damage or whatever.
(That all said, the archetype's a bit nicer for switch-hitters since the base Mark For Death benefits agile/finesse melee weapons with extra traits, but everything else in the archetype is weapon-type-agnostic as far as I can tell, so it's a good option overall.)
After having to deal with 5E quibbling about "melee weapon attacks" being different from "attacks with a melee weapon" or whatever, it's nice for this system to actually differentiate between unarmed and weapon stuff and mean what it says pretty consistently.
That said, though Ranger combat feats are somewhat restricted in which weapon setups they support, (presumably for flavor/legacy reasons,) it won't really hurt anything to ignore that bit and use unarmed attacks with them.
You know what would be cool? And something I've unconsciously wanted since I first read through Sorcerer years ago? I want the fiendish bloodlines to have a blasting focus spell or two that draw on their origins, and thus have the Unholy trait...and also the Sanctified trait. So if you mostly draw on the hellish magic of your bloodline to fight but are sufficiently buddy-buddy with Nocticula or Ragathiel, then hey presto, your innate hellacious firebomb or whatever that burns at the core of celestials is also Holy and bears blessings against fiends. (And burns a bandit as surely as most anything else.) That would be sick. :3
Ditto for celestial bloodlines getting unholy blessings in a campaign like Blood Lords!
