AnotherGuy's page

This class does a lot to get other players involved in their turns, but doesn't really do much on other players turns. It's a bit ironic that they give others a use for their reactions, while not having many for themselves if they're ranged (which as action starved as they are seems like the way to go).

I really wish they had some built in, or at least feat options, for Aid. Something like using a tactic also counts as preparing to Aid allies effected by the tactic. Maybe a level 10 feat for an extra reaction that can only be used to aid.

Or really absolutely anything else you can do with a reaction (preferably from range), even if it's just being able to use your reaction to make an ally responding to a tactic be able to not require a reaction (helpful at low level, pretty pointless once you get the higher level reflex feat).

Other than that, it does feel like some of the options are a lot stronger than others.

I also really like the idea of planting the banner, as others have said it scales strangely. It could probably just be int + half level at 5 to fix that. I'm also not sure what to do about it if my banner is on/is my weapon or shield. It's kind of a hefty price to pay to lose the weapon, but you kind of need it to be your weapon to use anything with the banner trait. Right now the obvious choice is to ignore the one option that's bad to use if it's your weapon. Long story short, I'm not convinced the banner trait is a good idea.

Mellored wrote:

exequiel759 wrote:

Mellored wrote:

that really wouldn't solve the issue of 4 commanders sending 1 guy across the map and back.

How it wouldn't? You won't be able to be target of Form Up! more than once per turn.

Defensive Retreat (15')

Form Up (25')
Coordinate Maneuver (5')
End It (5')
Pincer Attack (5')
Stupefing Raid (25')
Demoralize Charge (25')
Valerie's Charge (50')

= 155'
Twice the speed they could take on their own turn.
And there "will be more tactics".

But wait, there's more! Elf can take a feat to make their steps ten feet instead of five, doubling all the step distances. Honestly, thirty foot Defensive Retreat sounds like something you could build around.

It'd be cool, but unfortunately elves don't have a feat to allow them to step 10'. They get a feat that gives them a bespoke action that lets them step twice, they're still only stepping 5 feet whenever they are granted a step action.

Will Huston wrote:

shocking grasp thunderstrike being a save spell really gonna peeve the magi.

I was about to make another complaint but then I forgot this isn't starfinder. is melee spells that don't provoke just not a thing in PF2e?

It really should be, and I keep hoping they'll fix that obvious oversight, but I think we've seen some remaster touch spells and they still have somatic components...

For me, specific magic items are almost always disappointing. There's a lot of fun and interesting ones, and property runes but... They're pretty much never better than the standard flaming/frost/corrosive etc.

Now, this may well be the fault of the energy runes but... Some items are just SO bad. Piston gauntlets? How do we end up with piston gauntlets?

Hmm, people are talking a lot about tanks, but I generally disagree with what people seem to be focused on.

I'm not interested in playing a champion because they are hard to kill, I'm interested because they make everyone around them much harder to kill. They have more AC than everyone else, but their reactions allow them to protect allies.

Some other martial characters can protect ranged allies very well (even better than champion probably). A monk with a maneuver focus, tangled branch stance and whirling throw does make a pretty good tank. Not for a Melee investigator, but certainly for a wizard.

There's a few other things in there that can push enemies to try and target you or protect your allies, but it's still mostly a champion thing. Unfortunate then that they have such heavy roll playing baggage.

"I mean, to some degree tolerating evil is still evil."

True, in the same way that tolerating good is still good.

Alignment just doesn't make sense for actual people 99% of the time. I hate most everything it brings to the system. Alignment damage is terrible. Having the only true tank class tied so tightly to alignment and tenants is Anathema to me...

I'd much rather it not exist.

Squiggit wrote:

I was trying to build a character the other day who studied the undead, fiends, and religious practices, but wasn't particuarly defined by their own faith and I could really feel a lack of relevant skill feats.

A quirk of the system may be that such a character may be better served by Additional Lore: Undead Lore and Additional Lore: Fiend Lore than by pumping Religion, though Wis and Int bonuses may say otherwise.

Fiend Lore isn't going to give you any skill feats either... You also can only level so many skills, and Wisdom is a lot more useful than Int.

Most of the best known skill feats are all combat focused. I'm not sure how I feel in general about skills as combat actions, but I really like having things other than striking and moving to do.

Primarily, I'd love to see a little more combat relevant options for attributes that don't currently have them, especially dex. Dex characters (especially melee) feel pretty boring to use for me, which is sad because they're thematically my favorite characters. Things like catfolk dance are great, sad it's locked behind a specific ancestry.

Int could also use some love. I love the Inventor's tinker, but again locked behind a specific class. Though changing recall knowledge to something like analyze target using some int specific skill would also help a lot of things.

I'd love love love being able to use multiple attributes for a skill, and I'd greatly appreciate having completely different attributes. I want positioning to matter, I am bored in ranged but I don't want to be strong...

I wish most attributes had some sort of combat skill action. Dex characters feel so stuck with strike.

I'd really like to play a weapon master type character. A martial that doesn't really do extra damage, but has multiple weapons and easy/free ways to switch between them. Think gunslingers reloads for weapon swapping. Maybe with a free shifting rune?

I love the degrees of success mostly... But I'm not convinced that we need to have crit fail effects on so many skill actions, like trip. I get it, trip isn't strike, I'll stop using it.

I was actually thinking about a character that's lucky, but entirely inept. Something that gives a big permanent typeless penalty to checks (or specific checks) but also gives you two rolls and take the better. Any time the second roll is the better, and successful, you succeed through sheer luck despite your ineptitude.

After playing wizard of legend, and even many of the souls borne games, I just want to play a melee caster. Not a gish, only spells, but specifically close range. Short cones, touch spells, emanations.

Unfortunately, AoO in 2e is VERY common (less than 1e obviously), and most casters have terrible defenses. Close range spells are also quite rare, especially at higher levels, and generally aren't stronger than ranged versions.

It's the first thing that I tried to build in 2e, but I just can't make it work. Maybe kineticist will help.

Other fictional characters that kind of inspire the concept are the ninjas of Naruto. They're often gishes, but characters like hinata with the gentle fist, or Naruto raisengan, the chidori etc, are all primarily destructive for their magical component, most closely resembling touch attacks.

You seem to misunderstand Leo. Rage gives +1 damage twice per round at the cost of one ac. Unleash gives +1 damage twice per DAY at the cost of 2 ac, and you have to wait until round 3 to activate it. This is VERY obviously a net negative. Presumably it was made that way to make up for the free amps.

This feels bad because the free amps were mentioned previously in the text, so I don't mentally associate the two. That's my whole point with this post, try to keep the positive and negative more closely associated.

Just to clarify, my point wasn't entirely about the balance. When you include the free amps, focused intent might be worth it, but the fact that the upside feels so separated from the downside makes it feel bad.

I was pretty sure rage had an upside? For a Barbarian, rage is entirely optional. I assume they wouldn't use it if it didn't have a benefit.

I think this is a bit of a spellcasting problem in general. Melee spells shouldn't trigger AoO. They often have the exact same damage (gouging claw vs TP), may as well give touch spells some upside. Since Magus should mostly want touch spells anyway, that should fix the issue.

This is getting pretty off topic, but charisma is really good out of combat. Intelligence is OK, though I would be hard pressed to say it's better than dex. Wisdom is pretty much just for healing/perception, but martials generally have higher perception bonuses. Strength martials end up in a similar place to int casters in out of combat utility (ignoring magic, which is potentially quite useful).

As far as magic goes, getting cantrips is fairly easy with non-class feats. Lots of backgrounds / heritages / ancestries get access to useful ones. Using a class feat will net you some scaling cantrips too if you don't plan to use them to attack. A lot of out of combat utility you can pick up from feats.

As for spell slots, perhaps I just don't play to as high a level as others, but if I'm saving my top "few" levels I'm not saving anything for utility until level 7?

Generally speaking, casters can do some fairly cool stuff, like make bridges from nothing, making everyone invisible, flying, making a bunch of limbs just burst out of someone, etc. Etc. And yeah, healing, buffing, de buffing and terrain control are all different and cool ways to support, but what they do feels more defined by their spell list than their class, and they aren't to concerned about their own positioning outside of, don't be next to anything. One divine caster ends up feeling like any other.

So I see where people would lump sorcerer and bard and witch together. I could see why someone might look at the psychic and say, oh, another sorcerer.

But I think the idea of focusing on cantrips is a good way to differentiate it as one of the other big hallmarks of those classes is, we fought a bunch, let's all go to sleep. If you can make a caster that can maintain some level of support / utility through cantrips alone, that's different enough for me, but I would still love to see a caster doing something like leo described.

I also take issue with the idea that 8 health per level and mediocre armor Proficiency is "something that martials do".

I'm not super stoked about having a whole subsection of classes (casters) being relegated to a specific role, and I'm not convinced that casters are so much stronger than Rangers that they need to be at deaths door if an enemy looks at them.

Part of the problem with melee casters (not necessarily even tank) is definitely the spell list. Most all Martials could choose to be ranged characters, but they generally lose out on damage. There are VERY few close range spells, and they are not generally better than ranged ones (at least not for long).

Part of it is the mechanics. Even melee ranged spells trigger AoO. Casters generally have awful saves and miniscule health pools. Maybe that's because of things like Mage armor, blur, fly and invisibility. But if casters are balanced around the flexibility of spell lists, their builds become very rigid. They have enough flexibility to be completely pigeon holed.

I'd love to see the psychic get better health scaling / saves / armor Proficiency. I know the general consensus seems to be that the Bard is overturned in part because he gets that, but I don't understand why that's not baseline. Especially if this is a all day resources caster without as many spell slots.

For sure, I'm not at all opposed to having downsides, I'd just like them to be closer to the upside they are making up for. The component substitution is a cool bit of fluff, I like it, but mechanically does this only matter if you can't speak? Maybe that comes up as often as frightened, but I haven't had it come up in a game I've played yet...

A lot of people have discussed the balance over all, but I'd like to address a more connotative concern. Even if the class was balanced right now, you end up with some strange build up/choices.

Things like choosing a subconscious mind where you're reading the flavor and getting excited about the feature your about to get sour pretty quickly when you realize; "oh, I get a cool flavor from these, but no mechanical benefit and they have Huge downsides." Maybe that's necessary to balance out some big benefit elsewhere, but I would prefer if the benefits and negatives were placed together. It's not different as an end result, but it FEELS better.

Similarly you get your description for unleashing your psyche and you are thinking, awesome, free focus points. Then you see the unleash you get by default, and you just don't even want it. Maybe the downside is necessary because the free amping is too strong without it, so each unleash ends up looking like a net negative, but again, it FEELS bad.

I've never come across a class where I'm reading through a class feature wondering if I can just not take it. Can I just forgo a subconscious mind and not get a class ability boost? Can I unleash with just the free amp per round? It's a weird situation.

I kind of understand where someone might get "another sorcerer" from. It really does feel like casters are fairly defined by their spell list rather than the class in many ways, and in a lot of ways this class will play pretty similarly.

Super squishy (check)
Has to play ranged (check)
Relegated to support/control (check).

Unfortunately it really does feel like ALL casters end up as squishy ranged supports, with the few outliers often considered too strong. That said, this might just be Paizo's stance on spellcasting, and while I would love to get a tankier caster, a more "in the fray" caster, it's pretty clear from the spell list and general spell casting mechanics we aren't going to get that.

So, from the standpoint that this is a new caster, so they must be a squishy ranged support, I think they are doing a good job distinguishing this one. While the balance is pretty clearly off, I like the concept of cantrips as the primary tool.

The one thing I am most concerned about is not having enough variety in ampable cantrips. If I'm just going to telekinetic projectile each round I'm going to feel like a strangely flavored (and weak) ranger. Though I do understand that this is still a caster, it's not meant to deal single target damage. Maybe TP isn't a great amp cantrip then? Or maybe the amp should let it hit more targets?