Arius Kaufmann's page

I'm not sure I understand what the advantage of delivering the spell via the strike gets you that makes it worth the risk of losing the spell by missing with a melee attack. Do you get to circumvent the target's save? Most witches don't have a particularly good strike so it doesn't seem like the 1d6 even with runes gets you much in exchange for the high likelihood you don't even get to the part where they roll for saving throw, especially since the two spells it works with are already pretty powerful.

It seems a reasonable feat even without that ability. I just want to make sure I understand it.

A complete familiar guide. Beast statblocks to help with adjudicating which standard abilities have to be taken, examples of play for things like valet, and perhaps some designer's notes to clarify some of the decisions for balance.

Thanks for doing this - it's handy.

Arius Kaufmann wrote:

cavernshark wrote:

Arius Kaufmann wrote:

But a level 5 alchemist who's a chirurgeon can make 18 5th level elixir of lifes every morning. There's no contest.

You're being wildly disingenuous here. A chirgugeon who uses class features to only make 5th level elixirs of life also has no other class abilities. No spells, no bombs, no poisons, no hexes, etc. Those elixirs of life also vanish the next day. The potions crafted via the crafting rules do not.

Yes, the alchemist can take Magical Crafter, and so can the witch. But one is a skill feat that requires a very specific early investment by the player and maybe they player doesn't want that. Multiple paths to the same objective is good. In the scenarios where crafting potions is useful (you can't buy them) and that's all you ever want to craft, making 6 instead of 4 might matter. If that's useful, grab the feat. Notably, because it's level 1, an Alchemist could multiclass into witch and pick it up are a later level if they also only wanted to make potions on top of their usual daily alchemical items.

Crafting abilities are highly campaign dependent. This feat is no different. If you don't like it, don't take it. That's reasonable. But acting like it's useless isn't helpful, or correct.

And the next day he makes 18 more. Or, he can choose to make 12 Elixirs of Live and 4 fire bombs. Or 6 EoLs and 4 firebombs, 2 centipede venoms, and 2 tanglefoot bags.

So what if they go away the next morning? It's not like he doesn't then get to choose another batch of stuff. How about 6 fire bombs, 4 juggernaut mutagens and 3 elixirs of life? Yeah - that 6 level 1 healing potions after almost three weeks of worth is just SO worth it.

I don't have to act like it's useless. You have to contrive exceptionally narrow situations where it's useful at ALL.

Oh, and you can't take cauldron at 1st level. It's a 1st level feat, but Witches and Wizards, for example, don't get a class feat at 1st

...

I like PF2e. I don't dislike the crafting rules. I like the Witch class. I dislike one feat in the class and apparently, that's so offensive you felt the need to call me disingenuous. Not satisfied with the defense of Cauldron you've mounted you have added straw men, speculating a dislike of the class, crafting, or the whole game system. You disagree. Great. Take the feat. Knock yourself out.

Arius Kaufmann wrote:

But a level 5 alchemist who's a chirurgeon can make 18 5th level elixir of lifes every morning. There's no contest.

You're being wildly disingenuous here. A chirgugeon who uses class features to only make 5th level elixirs of life also has no other class abilities. No spells, no bombs, no poisons, no hexes, etc. Those elixirs of life also vanish the next day. The potions crafted via the crafting rules do not.

Yes, the alchemist can take Magical Crafter, and so can the witch. But one is a skill feat that requires a very specific early investment by the player and maybe they player doesn't want that. Multiple paths to the same objective is good. In the scenarios where crafting potions is useful (you can't buy them) and that's all you ever want to craft, making 6 instead of 4 might matter. If that's useful, grab the feat. Notably, because it's level 1, an Alchemist could multiclass into witch and pick it up are a later level if they also only wanted to make potions on top of their usual daily alchemical items.

Crafting abilities are highly campaign dependent. This feat is no different. If you don't like it, don't take it. That's reasonable. But acting like it's useless isn't helpful, or correct.

And the next day he makes 18 more. Or, he can choose to make 12 Elixirs of Live and 4 fire bombs. Or 6 EoLs and 4 firebombs, 2 centipede venoms, and 2 tanglefoot bags.

So what if they go away the next morning? It's not like he doesn't then get to choose another batch of stuff. How about 6 fire bombs, 4 juggernaut mutagens and 3 elixirs of life? Yeah - that 6 level 1 healing potions after almost three weeks of worth is just SO worth it.

I don't have to act like it's useless. You have to contrive exceptionally narrow situations where it's useful at ALL.

Oh, and you can't take cauldron at 1st level. It's a 1st level feat, but Witches and Wizards, for example, don't get a class feat at 1st level. You have to do something like take a human with natural ambition or some other option to get it.

Arius Kaufmann wrote:

Terrible is being generous.

Let's say you're 6th level and want to craft 12 potions of moderate healing. The cost for cauldron or magic crafting is the same: 300gp up-front followed by 300gp worth of earning income.

The witch can, with a regular success, get this done in 158 days. The poor magic crafter, only brewing 4 at a time instead of 6, has to spend, wait for it, 162 days. What does that 4 days buy you? The ability to make ANY magic item, not just oils and potions.

I hope I'm missing something, but it sure seems like taking cauldron is a huge mistake.

I know they didn't want it just to be another version of alchemy, but they should have done something where it's an encampment activity of some kind. Between brewing and cleaning the cauldron afterwards, it could be a one-potion type for, say, two hours' work, and what you get is something that needs to be consumed that evening. It can have lingering effects, but you pretty much have to pick...

I don't like the crafting rules, so the fact that you're making me defend them hurts me - but your choice of scenario is presents this in the worst possible light making choices players shouldn't and probably wouldn't make.

Making 6 on level potions with a level 6 character is the problem. It's 300 gold investment, which is pretty huge at that level and you're doing 6 of them. A level 6 character is probably expected to have one of these at most. So you've gone with maximum item level, right before the character could be master proficiency, in the maximum batch size, with no world context explaining why we're crafting these anyway.

Instead, look at making 6 lesser healing potions. These are level 3 items. If a witch is in a settlement level 3 or higher, the witch could probably just buy them for 72 gold. That will always be the fastest choice. But let's assume we're in a small settlement 2 town just restocking before going back to a dungeon. A witch probably has a least a +15 crafting modifier at this level --...

You can get magic crafting at level 2 in some circumstances, so a feat that gets you an advantage for all of one level ain't great when money isn't even available usually.

The question isn't whether the level 6 potion is reasonable. It's a comparative. To craft 12 minor potions of healing as a sixth level character, it takes the same amount of money for cauldron and the magic crafter, and it takes the cauldron person 18 days and the magic crafter 21. So again, is three days worth exchanging the ability to create other magic items?

Besides, you say it's unreasonable for a level 6 character to make level 6 potions. But a level 5 alchemist who's a chirurgeon can make 18 5th level elixir of lifes every morning. There's no contest.

kaid wrote:

AzureKnight wrote:

The only trap with Cauldron is the cost. It is so expensive to craft at level. It will start to pay off and make sense when you can craft down about 4 levels or so.

One thing to note about making potions is you are making them for the group so the group should be helping subsidize their consumables. So having somebody who can crank out some potions at low levels is nice if you are in a position where you are away from town for a while to keep up group consumables.

I made a thread about this during the playtest (that got zero attention). Cauldron makes no sense as a 1st level feat (trying to get AoN to pull up the final wording, but the site is being slow).

The amount of time it takes to craft potions is insane, its like 45 or 60 days, depending on exactly how you adjudicate it (and the exact wording on the final version).

Edit:
Read the final version. The only change they made was that you can also make oils.

The feat is still terrible.

Terrible is being generous.

Let's say you're 6th level and want to craft 12 potions of moderate healing. The cost for cauldron or magic crafting is the same: 300gp up-front followed by 300gp worth of earning income.

The witch can, with a regular success, get this done in 158 days. The poor magic crafter, only brewing 4 at a time instead of 6, has to spend, wait for it, 162 days. What does that 4 days buy you? The ability to make ANY magic item, not just oils and potions.

I hope I'm missing something, but it sure seems like taking cauldron is a huge mistake.

I know they didn't want it just to be another version of alchemy, but they should have done something where it's an encampment activity of some kind. Between brewing and cleaning the cauldron afterwards, it could be a one-potion type for, say, two hours' work, and what you get is something that needs to be consumed that evening. It can have lingering effects, but you pretty much have to pick your poison. (Of course, this is where a coven would have a real advantage.)

But they need to do SOMETHING to make that feat even remotely worthwhile.

I do feel the buffing cantrips *are* verging on useless, especially when Inspire Courage is on the table.

Nudge Fate isn't great but it covers a broader set of circumstances than Inspire Courage, whose save bonus only applies to fear. I suppose it also depends on how large your party is. If you have six characters nudge fate would be awfully narrow whereas if you only have a couple, then it's arguably better.