Aristophanes's page

Space!

...the Final frontier!

This should be fun!

In practice what it amounts to is either

A) saving 2 GP on a chain shirt. If you don't have +1 strength both will penalize your stealth and thievery checks.
B) Higher HP and hardness compared to the similarly priced studded leather, which is very rarely relevant.

Armor specialization doesn't apply to light armor, so a adding a new armor group to lighr armor doesn't actually make a differencedifference.

In practice, it is slightly underpriced, but it's not game breaking. It mostly lets dex-based characters go for a different aesthetic.

Ah, I didn't consider that. So, not great for low str Rogues and Rangers.

Kilted Breastplate
Flexible
Source War of Immortals pg. 146
Price 3 gp; AC Bonus +2; Dex Cap +3; Check Penalty -1; Speed Penalty —
Strength +1; Bulk 1; Category Light; Group Plate
This armor consists of a chest plate, typically made out of bronze or other water-resistant alloys, strapped to the body with a leather harness and featuring a skirt of leather pleats reinforced with metal studs to protect the upper legs.
Traits
Flexible:
The armor is pliable and doesn’t hinder most actions. You don’t apply its check penalty to Acrobatics or Athletics checks.

Is there a better armor for a character with proficiency in light and medium armor with +3 dex and +0 str?

*BUMP*

My only interaction with a Runelord was way back in PFS1 Season 4 "The Waking Rune". Krune, Runelord of Sloth, couldn't use Evocation himself, but could, and did, summon creatures that had those abilities.
I would say it is only Anathema for the Runelord himself.

For those in the thread who are unaware of the origin of the tier list:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?266559-Tier-System-for-Classes-( Rescued-from-MinMax)

Is this a Remaster thing?
I thought you were only limited by the number of invested Items you had, and could otherwise use them and wear them as you like.
Wear 3 belts, 2 cloaks, 4 hats... whatever.

The direct link to the Pathfinder forums isn't working.
You can get to the forums by just clicking "Community",
But the "Community>Forum>Pathfinder>-click on Pathfinder>" link takes you to the

"Not Found - We were unable to find what you're looking for." Page. FYI

I was living in Northern NJ and playing in several D&D 3.5 games.
I moved to Baltimore Maryland in 2008 for work. I don't remember how I heard about it, but I got involved with PFS at a game store in Abingdon in late summer 2012. When the PF2E playtest started, I followed it in the forums intently. It quickly became my favorite version of D20. I've been playing it ever since!

Ravingdork wrote:

I generally value Con over Dex on a summoner. The former helps both the eidolon and the summoner whereas the latter only helps the summoner.

I tend to prefer Dex over Con. HP is something that is easier to compensate for in the game, whether with feats, items, or spells, while the options to compensate for a lower AC are a bit more restricted or expensive.

For example, you can easily get more HP with Toughness with an increase equivalent to +1 in Con, besides temporary HP from various sources like elixirs and spells, besides heals not caring about your maximum HP (I always thought that healing effects should receive a Con bonus to make Con a more relevant attribute, it would have been much more interesting if healing spells received this bonus per die, for example in heal instead of receiving +8 they could receive +4 and the rest as Con bonus, and soothe could have been 1d10+Con, besides other skills like Treat Wounds which could receive Con x 2 at DC 20, Con x 6 at DC 30 and Con x 10 at DC 40. But I digress). While to compensate for the lower Dex with an unarmored character you need to take armor proficiency feats, and deal with all the drawbacks of using them such as weight, strength requirements and skill penalties or resort to Drakeheart Mutagen using an alchemist MC and deal with its drawback.

And the last point that makes me prefer to invest in Dex are the skills, which OK the eidolon can also use, but it can't use them with tools (at least not in RAW), so having a high Dex allows the summoner to benefit from thievery, stealth and acrobatics...

Oh yeah, particularly for cloth casters! My go-tos are Numbing tonic and Soothing Tonic in close quarters combats.

Easl wrote:

"Survivability" is not a game stat and those numbers are made up.

Not at all. +2 Con is +2 hp per level which is roughly 15% extra hp on a 10hp class. -2 Dex is 25% extra damage from AC based attacks. Considering that there are other types of attacks, you end up actually with a lower difference but AC based attacks are the most common ones.

So we are speaking of +15% survivability on the Eidolon and (at most) -10% on the Summoner. I hardly see how you can still consider Dex as better than Con on a Summoner considering that the Eidolon takes damage much more often than the Summoner.

Now, I agree that having a character with extremely low AC can create a "damage sponge" issue with the enemies hitting it repeatedly because it's easy. But considering that the Summoner is a backline character, it's already the case: When you get access to a backline character you focus on them. The main question being: Will the backline character survive long enough to run away?

Side note, your calculations are weird and seem wrong. The number of attacks you take don't have any impact on your "survivability". It's just a question of having higher chances to evade blows vs having a higher hp pool, none of that is affected by number of attacks.

So...what would be the "survivability quotient" of +2 Dex/+2 Con as opposed to either of the +3/+1 or +3/+0 options? I have yet to play a Summoner, but my instinct is to go +2/+2.

YuriP wrote:

That's the fun and interesting part. You are not your own ally but your eidolon is, so you can apply effects that usually are forbidden to be self applied to your eidolon.

Okay, next Summoner I play I'm gonna free archetype into wood kineticist so I can protector tree myself...

That will work to protect your Eidolon, but not the summoner directly.

We also have a Spyglass which allows "to see eight times farther than normal"! Two whole times better than this tatoo!

Absolutely fantastic!
If we knew what that should mean.

So would someone with the tatoo and using a spyglass be able to see 32 times farther? ;-)

Meh, I spent 50 years bringing my 6th level Cleric to cast 3rd level spells on the 4th level of the dungeon. I think I'll be able to figure out Rune/Rune by context.

I was perusing the Tatoo section of AoN and came upon "Eye Slash", which says:
"Small scars or marks around your eye improve your distant vision. These scars are especially common among orc scouts, who favor scars shaped like eagle talons. You can see four times farther than normal. If you have darkvision, you can see blood in color. Higher-level versions of an eye slash are larger and more elaborate scars or marks, radiating out around the eye."

How far can a normal human or your average elf see otherwise?

“In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

YuriP wrote:

The class DC progression is slower

6 levels at minus 2 but the Inventor Unstable actions are not magical and as such circumvent the rather classical status bonus to saves against magic and other resistances against magic (Golems, Will o' Wisps). So it's nearly as good as the Kineticist, they are in the same ballpark. And being able to fight a Will o' Wisp is actually a massive asset.

YuriP wrote:

He basically has 2 unstable AoEs

1, no need to be nice with the Inventor. But their impact is vastly higher than the Kineticist ones. They're better than Overflow Impulses, both in damage and in areas. And at high level, you get a second one.

There's no point in casting tons of AoE effects as enemies will quickly drop. Past the very first rounds, you have to switch to single target damage for maximum effectiveness.

YuriP wrote:

He doesn't use the key attribute for the Strikes

Which would be relevant if we were comparing the Inventor to a martial. But compared to the Kineticist, the Inventor is significantly better in single target damage output thanks to its martial abilities.

For me, both classes are extremely close in role. I personally consider the Inventor a superior Kineticist (but I must admit the Kineticist uselessness outside combat impacts my judgment a lot).

The Kineticist is not useless outside of combat!

I think atheism in Golarion is more like "as I go on with my day, and do the things I need to do, and then the things I want to do, at no point do Gods enter my thoughts, and I am not less happy, successful, etc. because they do not." Like in Pathfinder you can't really disagree with "the Gods exist" because it's just a fact that they do, it would be like saying "there's no such thing as a scorpion."

Atheism in Pathfinder should be akin to "I do not benefit from checking my boots for scorpions, because I live my life in a way where I do not run into scorpions" (e.g. they don't live in the place I do because of climate, I don't leave my boots outside, or I am immune to scorpion venom for whatever reason, etc.) So the atheist in Golarion should be someone who does not see benefit in celebrating the Gods, participating in religion, fearing the gods, etc. so they just don't do those things. There might be religion-adjacent community events that they might participate in for the community, but not the religion.

The interesting thing about Rahadoum is that it is a mix of that kind of atheist, and the misotheistic kind. People in Rahadoum disagree with each other about a great number of things, so why not this? Some Rahadoumi folks will believe that celebrating the Gods because they are powerful is ridiculous, but they would also believe that objecting to Pharasma's judgement is ridiculous because she is very powerful. You just treat the experience like "the dragon has asked you to relocate your chickens, because the coop you have built is an annoyance to the dragon" you understand that this is something you should just go along with, since you have a good idea what the alternative is like and it's worse.

Dragons forcing the relocation of chicken coops...So that's why eggs are so expensive!

Help me out people:
One For All is a 1st level Swashbuckler class feat.
To get it, you need to either be a Swashbuckler and choose it at 1st level or have the Swashbuckler dedication and take it at 4th level.
Is there any other way to get it?

Easl wrote:

My money's on them getting it from ... PFS feedback...

As a reminder, PFS reports include nothing about characters, not even their level. Well, yes, there's a name.

Really?

Now I don't know if anything except the PFS# is reported.
I've only ever played, so it may be that the GM only needs to report the #

YuriP wrote:

Exocist wrote:

2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.

I fully agree. The main impression is that you don't have enough spellslots to nothing beyond Soothe. So in the end you just add Soothe in half of then what makes then useful.

I fully agree, especially for the lower levels. My issue with spamming soothe is that it is just a worse heal and you have you just end up using it to remove dying from allies. At that point it does really matter if you are using rank 1 or rank 3, the ally will probably still go down to one hit. Eventually other spells like synesthesia take over at a certain point. That said, it does feel like you are limited to only the greatest hits for each rank. You just don't have enough room to pick a spell that might be situational.

Exocist wrote:

Its action economy is pretty bad as well. The necromancer had beastmaster to deal with the thrall problems, i.e. the fact that they can't move if they want to create thrall and cast a focus spell. Putting thralls in the "right place" is just not really possible with how much the battlefield moves around at higher levels, and how bad your focus spell ranges are. I often found myself with spare thralls on the battlefield that just did nothing except sit there, and having to summon new ones because the range on my spells was too short.

The need for thralls to be in the right location made what I initially liked about the class much harder to do. I like the idea of announcing your intentions in advance. Placing a thrall in the middle or beside a group of enemies tells them whether you are going to use necrotic bomb or boner barrage. Then they should get to act accordingly, either spending actions to avoid the area or destroy the thrall. My problem was that both options are so easy that you end up just being better off...

Thank you Hamitup. This typo really tickled my inner 12 year-old!

Thanks.

OK...help me out here people.

This thread starts out with Raven Black seemingly responding to another post, and Fabio being credited with creating the thread, but there is no OP for reference.
Then Cyouni commenting on a portion of a post that isn't in the thread, and Keftiu posting something that seems to be a non-sequitur.
Was this a continuation from another thread?

This is very confusing.

Does this mean that Cobyslarni is a "Pactyderm"?

I'm here all week!
Try the Veal.

Your party comes face to face with a group of potentially hostile humanoids.
You're 3rd level, and have Sleep prepared.
To avoid wasting your spell, can you use Sense Motive to determine A) whether any of the opponents are powerful enough (5th level or higher) to be immune, and/or B) the most optimal spot to place it?
Are there any rules covering this scenario, or is this a GM judgement call?

Guntermench wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

What's a high Reflex save? At different points, might be different but by high level you should have a 22 strength, Legendary Athletics, +2 or 3 item bonus, and with a +2 circumstance bonus while raging for combat maneuvers.

Let's say level 15 with a +2 weapon with trip or a +2 athletics item you're looking at a 15 +8 proficiency +5 str (21 str) +2 item +2 circumstance for rage (Brutal Bully or whatever it is called) for +32 with Titan Wrestler and reach. So a reflex save of +37 to need a 15 or better if the enemy isn't debuffed with some kind of clumsy or other negative condition modifier.

You usually have a better chance to trip than hit even against a high save creature as most creature's saves aren't that high given all you can stack. I'm not going to say a high reflex save creature who resists never happens and as a DM I do like to hand out Kip Up to certain enemies to counter it, but trip is pretty good almost all the time, especially go on a Giant Barbarian who doesn't necessarily need Titan Wrestler to deal with size.

Furious bully right, i forgot about that. that extra +2 makes a big difference.

Like a lesser death is level 16 has +33 reflex. So a level 15 barb with furious bully is doing great despite high reflex, triping on a 11. But if this was fought at level 13 as a +3 solo boss encounter for the party proficiency would be 2 less putting it at a 13 which is not as bad as a 15 without Furious Bully. Furious bully is really good.

Lesser Death probably not a great example since it would be done with Misfortune.

Lesser Death is brutal. Though this very creature was annihilated by a Starlit Span magus at range in one round. It had already used its reaction teleport on a caster and then nuked to death in one round by amped imaginary weapon outside its misfortune aura. Very anticlimatic.

My crew went up against a trio of Lesser Deaths. My Bard was able to cast a 6th level Roaring Applause, and two of them failed, and one succeeded, so I sustained it for the rest of the fight. I also crit my lingering composition, so we won with a round left on the courageous anthem.

Since AON doesn't have Animist yet, and I'm at work,
I will assume that DSF has a 1 min. sustain duration:
Regaining the THPs each round isn't that strong.
Unless the Animist has used them, they don't stack,
and any character can get the same effect with Numbing Tonic.
As a player, I wouldn't count on it.
As a GM, I'd probably allow it.

I fing hate walls of text but if this is the only way...

In the glossary & index of PC1

Quote:

round A period of time during an encounter in which all participants get a chance to act. A round represents approximately 6 seconds of game time. 11, 435

durations measured in rounds 426

since some of you are dead set on counting it as if it was a duration, let's check that page first

PC1 p.426 is the first page of the Effects section

Duration wrote:

Most effects are discrete, creating an instantaneous effect when you let the GM know what actions you are going to use. Firing a bow, moving to a new space, or taking something out of your pack all resolve instantly. Other effects instead last for a certain duration. Once the duration has elapsed, the effect ends. the rules generally use the following conventions for durations, though spells have some special durations detailed on pages 302. (pages 302? lol typo find. also that's spells, so we won't be detouring there just fyi ~B)

For an effect that lasts a number of rounds, the remaining duration decreases by 1 at the start of each turn of the creature that created the effect. Detrimental effects often last "until the end of the target's next turn" or "through" a number of their turns (such as "through the target's next 3 turns"), which means that the effect's duration decreases at the end of the creature's turn, rather than the start.

Instead of lasting a fixed number of rounds, a duration might end only when certain conditions are met (or cease to be true). If so, the effects last until those conditions are met.

Some effects can be ended early with the Dismiss action (page 419). An effect with the sustained duration lasts until the end of your next turn, but it can be extended as described in the Sustain action (page 419).

So this entire block is talking about the duration of EFFECTS. The "cooldown" of a dragon's breath weapon and similar abilities that "can't be used for X rounds" aren't effects. They're a...

This is great! It explains everything perfectly.

Thank you Baarogue!!

Unicore wrote:

Rogues want to be in melee all the time to make the best use of their opportune strike, but don’t carry shields, and don’t have great AC. Like barbarians, their big swings of damage tend to lead to them getting focused on, only they don’t really have the HP and they literally get eaten alive by very many grab monsters (I have seen it!). It is definitely the class I see getting beaten up the most.

I see this as well. Then again as a DM, I'm a jerk in that the rogue gets focused on because to most monsters he looks like a nice soft target to crush. Who wants to hit big metal armored dudes with shields or Mr. Raging Psychopath when they can take shots at agile, slender rogue. Unless they can get to the casters, then they go after light armor, wiggly fingers caster using nasty, nasty magic.

Yeah, monsters instinctively know that Rogues are more nutritious than other Martials. They eat a more balanced diet, and so have more tender and leaner meat.

I honestly don't care one way or the other, but this change feels like it was originally intended as a 'fighter/fear' kind of deal, and they couldn't agree on the specifics, so they just went with what they gave us.

Theaitetos wrote:

While being an attack spell often is a downside, it can also be an upside. There are times where AC is a foe's lowest save (oozes?). Off-Guard and status bonuses to attack are rather common, which do not work for save spells. (and hey, Sure Strike may be 1 p 10 min, but its effect is still the same)

Overall, I agree that this nerf has more or less killed Live Wire's usage.

Live Wire's main competition was never EA, but Telekinetic Projectile (& Needle Darts).

Heightening at +2 is just so bad, as it means it will only be on-level 1/4 as opposed to 1 every 2 levels.

And LW still does the electricity damage on a miss.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Trip H. on the previous page advocated that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting, and that players wouldn't use their brainpower without discomfort.

There's a lot that can get lost in the shuffle, but yeah, I'm going to take a sec to tear down that strawman.

I am against the 0A free dismiss for thralls, yes, as that would remove all brainpower from that consideration. If there really is an instant delete button with no cost nor context, then your entire thought process around creating thralls is fundamentally changed, and imo for the worse.

I very much support the addition of more tools that include more ways to remove unwanted thralls than what is currently baseline.

My main agree/disagree "line" is that there must always be some real mechanical cost around the deletion, else you no longer care/think about it. So long as a badly placed thrall creates some "need to change my plan a bit" response, then the puzzle/mechanic is "punishing enough" to meet my goal.

.

One specific example of the "more tools, but not a "solve" button" push was when I proposed 2nd grave cantrip that's granted at L1:

Quote:

Manipulate Thralls:

1A [tag][tag][tag]

With a jerk of animating energies, you stir your thralls into action. When you cast this cantrip, you energize up to the same number of thralls that you could add via Create Thrall. These thralls Stride up to 20 feet, and one may make an attack as if freshly created.

Additionally, you may consume any thrall within 60 feet to energize yourself, enabling you to Step before or after your thralls act.

While the genesis of this cantrip was the thrall block question, the point is that it's a genuine multi-purpose tool that gives the whole class more depth. The ability to do a:

1A: [Step](Spender) + [Necro management](not builder!)
that includes deleting a thrall, is the missing spender...

Would being able to dismiss a Thrall with a reaction, possibly as many as one could normally create with 1A, be enough of a cost?

Scarablob wrote:

Yeah, I never really understood why in DnD gnome were a "core race"

D&D 4e agreed with you and dropped gnome from the core lineup.

4E Gnome: "I'm a monster! RRAWRR."

Martialmasters wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Because they manipulate the boundary of life and death through theory, rather than vibes or intuition.

What what is this internal dirge supposed to be? If they are studying why have a dirge at all.

That's a fair point.

IMO, I wouldn't be opposed to just giving the Necromancer a spell book like the Magus / Wizard since I still see the Necromancer as a variant of Wizard. However, you're right an `internal dirge` doesn't jive with intelligence.

I disagree. I think it jibes very well with intelligence.

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

I don't remember the original wording for Arcwn Cascade and now I do just to see if this is right, the only thing I want is a Meld into Eidolon Class Archetype for Summonert that allows them to cast magic still while being their Eidolon...But that is just me.

My biggest hope is they actually nerf Rogue from critical succeeding all 3 saves starting level 17 and they hold onto their promise for Kineticist .

I probably shouldn't open this can of worms but you keep mentioning this kineticist errata. What errata are you expecting? As far as I know, there isn't really anything that needs errata

I think it's about how Kineticist interacts, or doesn't, with Mythic rules.

I have an 11th level Bard.
These are 4th level spells that have been effective for him:

Confusion.
Invisibility - assuming it's not a signature spell
Blood Spray Curse
Enervation
Translocate-FKA Dimension Door.

Edit- Honeyed Words may be useful for your Bard. +4 for Deception checks.

Or, you could just have a cow kick over a lantern, ;-)

Errenor wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Aristophanes wrote:

GREAT GOOGLELY MOOGLELY PEOPLE!

PFS is not hiring Pinkertons to hack your personal computers to check up on your characters! Just fix your Oracles so they work and move on! No one but you will know!

*Points at the cheater and screeches in pod people*

* spoiler omitted **

By the way, what does 'fix' mean here? Play normal 'new' oracle? Play normal 'old' oracle?

And also it's not a subtle action at all. No GM needs to audit your chars to know if you play old or new version of oracle, it's obvious. So everyone will know actually. Then, if you play with the same people, also GM will know if you've bought a rebuild. And when you created your character. And PFS GMs (or GMs in PFS mode) tend to follow PFS rules.

"Fix" in this context would mean "use a rebuild that you technically didn't have to just change entirely to remaster Oracle", since we were talking about the situation of people that didn't get a rebuild so were still on the old class chassis but were forced onto the new mystery/curse.

And yes, if you just showed up with a remaster Oracle, only someone auditing your chronicles to see that you only played them after the cutoff date and didn't buy a rebuild would ever know anything is amiss. I doubt many people are going to audit it THAT closely if your sheets are in order and your build is legal, especially since they'd have to actually know to look specifically for this to even realize something is amiss.

But just to be clear: if the best way to get around this problem is cheating, that points to a problem with the guidelines.

If the choice is to not rebuild and play an "illegal" Oracle or to 'cheat' and rebuild to make a "Legal" Oracle, I'd say the spirit of the law trumps the letter of the law.

GREAT GOOGLELY MOOGLELY PEOPLE!
PFS is not hiring Pinkertons to hack your personal computers to check up on your characters!
Just fix your Oracles so they work and move on!
No one but you will know!
Do VOs audit character sheets anymore? Not since PFS2 started.
This isn't the "Aasimar won't be PFS legal next season so we'll speed run through a bunch of repeatables" kind of problem!

So Teridax, honest question:
Do most or all of the encounters in the games you play happen in areas that are larger than a 20' radius?
I myself play mostly PFS, which often has a lot of encounters inside dungeons or buildings, or Museums, and so don't give the party the luxury of spreading out.
Don't mistake me, there are also scenarios that primarily take place outdoors, one of which I played last night.

Tim_K wrote:

I recently purchased an RPG Bundle: Pathfinder 2nd Happy Birthday Remaster from Humble on 15 November 2024, ensuring I paid the full amount ($35) to receive the complete bundle as advertised ("You will get all 72 items. Thank you for giving extra and helping the Humble community!"). However, I noticed that only half (35) of the bundle's content was delivered to me. I kindly request your assistance in rectifying this issue. I don't have any of the books advertised in the bundle and should have received all 72 books. Paizo please help resolve this matter quickly. Thank you.

Did you redeem all three codes humble bundle gave you? If you only got 35 items it sounds like you only redeemed the $30 tier code. There's separate codes for the $5 and $15 tiers of the bundle that will give you 8 and 29 items respectively.

Thank you! I made the same mistake. I hadn't noticed that I needed to redeem the other two codes.

I was a player in a 3.5/PF1 hybrid homebrew that went from level 1 to 35.
We met more or less every Monday evening for two years with a few weeks off for Holidays, illness, the GM's wedding. That game was a blast! My character was a Binder, and focused on front lining with some healing.

Something I'm confused about when people hype up Amped Imaginary Weapon:

The rules say that the two attacks MUST be against different targets. While it will be more damaging as scales (since Amped Imaginary Weapon heightens damage at 2*rank instead of rank), you still have to make them against different enemies. So, you can't really use it against a lone Boss...

Also, I feel like the best way to buff Unleash Psyche is to remove the spell failure chance from the stupefy it inflicts. And yeah, I know it's a flat 6 DC, but still, what if your dice rolls just suck?

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

If we rebalance the Psychic cantrips and make them 3 slot casters, it might be enough to fix them.

And this. I would gladly support this.

What do you usually do with any character when your rolls suck?

I'm having a blast with my PFS Gnome Distant Grasp/ Emotional Acceptance Psychic! With the Energized Font ancestry feat, he can start one encounter a day with the possibility of using 4 focus spells in the 1 encounter. Now, being PFS, he hasn't needed to, nor really had the opportunity, but it's there if I need it! *Hmmm..a gnome psychic with a familiar could start with 5*
He generally manages to do a competitive amount of damage with amped cantrips, and the Unleashed recovery has yet to be a serious factor.
So far through 8 levels, he has only failed to overcome stupefied twice, and both times, the next one in initiative order has ended the battle.
What is kind of frustrating, is when he uses the amped ray of frost he got from Parallel Breakthrough, gets a boatload of temporary HPs...and nobody attacks him!!

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, looking at the Ikons again after the playtest, I don't really think the issue is the mechanical power imbalance offered by the dedication feat, it is the fact that we basically have a class offering extra special magical items which are not usually a resource tied to class feats and class abilities.

I personally just don't think such a class needs to offer a dedication at all, because we already essentially have magical items and artifact rules to cover "My X class character finds this really cool item that they invest a part of themselves into and grows over time."

The whole Ikon system feels like a way to have a class that just uses magic items differently, which is cool, but letting other classes access that through a multiclass dedication was always going to be a disaster (hyperbole in the extreme, really "a power balancing issue"). The problem here is that the disaster errs on the side of making characters too powerful instead of too weak, like the kineticist and alchemist MC.

Thaumaturge/Inventor: Am I a joke to you?

There is absolutely no issue with a class having an item-shaped power boost that can be gained via their multiclass archetype, because they did it twice with no issues. They just, for some reason unknown to mankind, decide to give ~3 multiclass feats worth of upgrades plus unbounded scaling in the dedication itself. Somehow.

Fundamentally, the issue is that Exemplar is a good class, Exemplar dedication is a good idea, someone wrote the dedication feat while drunk and we're now left in a situation where the extremely illogical choice of having to ban the dedication feat of a perfectly functional class.

Nah, this looks more like a "hyped up on too much Red Bull at 25 or 6 to 4 in the morning kinda deal.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Gnomes, dwarves and halflings.

Leshy, goblins, poppets and shoony.
Gnomish flickmaces.
Elves called Anthony, or Justin or Frances.

All banned.

I get shoony and kinda everything behind it

but why ban half the core races?

This is just a guess on my part, but I surmise that it's because those Ancestries tend to bring out the..."Whimsical" side of some players, which can be disruptive if the GM is trying to run a more serious campaign.

You had me at "Roger Angel"!

You’re missing the new player core 2 version.

Ah...Aon isn't fully updated.

The memories of long-dead spellcasters grant you their
knowledge, making your spells more formidable. You gain
either a +1 status bonus to the next spell attack roll you attempt
before the end of your turn or an enemy within 60 feet takes a
–1 status penalty to the next saving throw they attempt against
a spell you cast before the end of your turn.
Heightened (5th) The bonus increases to +2 or the penalty
increases to –2.
Heightened (8th) The bonus increases to +3 or the penalty
increases to –3.

So what's the 'unintended abuse' combo that makes it a problem?

Imaginary Weapon and Ancestral Memories are problems too, but they're problems two feats deep into archetyping and draws from the same focus pool many of your cool in-class stuff draws on as well. Exemplar Archetype gives its main benefit immediately and said benefit is a passive that works perfectly with no action cost on whatever your class wants to do. It's a significantly bigger problem.

OK...what am I missing?

Does the Android Nanite Surge Ancestry feat "Offensive Subroutine" work with spells that require an attack roll?