BaronOfBread's page

I had a PFS Ancestor Oracle who really leaned into the curse effect and with the Remaster that character is pretty much dead for two reasons. The first reason being that they were Dex based and clumsy would wreck them, but this post is about the second reason.

The second reason is that Meddling Futures, the replacement for the ancestor oracles' old curse, is bad. Meddling Futures has a 1 in 4 chance of getting what you really want, as opposed to the curse which had a 50-50 shot. You can't try to get ready for your action since you only know what is prescribed on that action, as opposed to the curse telling you at the end of your previous turn. Meddling Futures can shut down any action that isn't the prescribed action, so you can't dodge the effect by Raising a Shield or other useful actions that weren't penalized with the curse.

Meddling Futures has some positives, in that it can only shut down one action (unless you try to use an activity like a spell cast) and that you choose when you gamble on it instead of always having it going. But when is it actually good to gamble on getting an improved action vs potentially losing an action? More importantly, how does that math change when taking the gamble costs you?

That's really the rub, Meddling Futures just isn't good enough for a cursebound feat. It gets outcompeted for damage by Foretell Harm and Whispers of Weakness eats its lunch on some skill checks as well as for Strikes (and some other attack trait actions as well). If the idea is that because the feat has a wider variety of bonuses it should cost more, then there needs to be some kind of reliability to getting what you want when you need it otherwise it is just more chances to get wrecked. If an ability is going to unreliably give me a smaller effect than an ability that is cheaper to get and reliable, then that first ability needs a change.

Maybe make the effect more reliable, roll d4s equal to your cursebound value and pick one. Maybe drop the cursebound trait, weaker effects feel justified if they don't increment cursebound. Maybe if you don't use the action during your turn you flat check vs stunned 1 at the end of your turn, getting to choose when you use the action once you know what it is makes the bonus far easier to use. Maybe something else, I'm sure there are upgrades more clever and balanced than those. Maybe its too late for errata to improve it. But I think an upgrade is required for this to not be a dead feat and a dead play style.

I noticed a little bit of trashing of the Lantern implement in a different thread and decided I have enough thoughts I should put them in their own thread.

I am somewhat conflicted about the Lantern because on one hand it has narrow use cases that are uncommon unless you are in the "right" campaign, but on the other hand it is oppressively powerful within those use cases. You can walk around a room a few times and be quite certain you will have found everything to be found there with just the initiate benefit, but in most games I have played in or run you will very rarely have anything to find. Adept pretty much nullifies invisible enemies as a problem, which makes any enemies that rely on it chumps but won't do anything against a bear. It just feels like it will either be a seldom relevant class feature or something that breaks a campaign over its knee, which means it basically has no home on any character.

You can't even really build around it. The best I came up with was some kind of Recall Knowledge build to make use of the status bonus, but the Tome just does that better (though you could stack those, but then you have two passive implements in hand). It's a real shame, the adventurer with a lantern presented as he delves into the unknown dark is an iconic visual and this would have been a great way to fulfill that fantasy if the implement was more broadly useful.

Those are some of my thoughts, what about you folks?

We should make Find Flaws not be a Recall Knowledge (RK) check for a few reasons. Before we go into the reasons, I want to put forward what I think that looks like so I can explain how the change improves the Thaumaturge.

Find Flaws (1 action, Magical, Thaumaturge)
You call on the stories and symbols relevant to your foe, using the nuggets of truth to instill a new truth into your target. Using a skill that could be used to RK about the target, you roll using CHA instead of the usual ability modifier against the standard level-based DC of the target's level. This check has the effects of a RK as well as the following effects. (Actual effects unchanged)

So, why do I think this solves problems?

Firstly, by explicitly making this ability magical and flavored as "story-based truth-making", we can justify using Charisma because we are doing magic stuff in a similar vein to the Bard. We also move the mental justification from "How does Charisma help me recall information?" to "Why does magically evoking stories give me information?", which should be an easier justification. This also explains why the weakness you get from Esoteric Antithesis only applies to the target and not others of their kind.

Secondly, by making this not a RK check, we can avoid some skill feat interactions. Primarily, we can avoid making Unmistakable Lore a mandatory feat. I don't know if it would end up that way with the current version, but I am concerned it could (when combined with a generic lore skill you can't critically fail the current Find Flaws, which means you could ignore Charisma and skip advancing your knowledge skills). If we still want Dubious Knowledge to work with this, we can do that in the class ability that grants Dubious Knowledge.

Thirdly, by making this use the standard level-based DC, which RK uses most of the time, we avoid the DC modifiers that apply to RK that come from the rarity of the creature. This solves the issue of the Thaumaturge being bad at hunting Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, and That Orc With A Name. This also gives the Thaumaturge a niche separate from the current RK classes, the Rogue and the Investigator, which it needs because it doesn't have the skill increases every level that those classes have. You may not be able to name every Fae, Golem, and Ooze you come across because you can't keep up every skill, but you can reveal that the Witch King's prophecy used lower case "man" instead of the commonly assumed upper case meaning.

Thoughts?

A classic image of a swashbuckler is the swashbuckler balancing on a mast spar with a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. When we get guns, we should get the options necessary to make this a viable character moment.

A couple of options that I think could do this are:
A swashbuckler finisher that lets you draw a weapon and strike with it, explicitly allowing one-handed ranged weapons to benefit from precise strike damage with this finisher.
A swashbuckler feat that makes weapons with Reload 1 or higher apply precise strike damage and lets them be used for finishers.
A swashbuckler style that lets a swashbuckler use reload weapons with finishers and has a way to build reloading into the standard swashbuckler action rotation, through the style's bonus feat (perhaps a Craft feat to reload with benefits) or just give them an action to reload while doing something else.

The other thing that I would like to see is a swashbuckler style that works with Intelligence. A gear-centric swashbuckler with Crafting as the style skill would be exciting and this looks like the place where it could come out.

I know this is a while after the playtest, but I just thought about it recently and better late than never.