Beckman's page

Wait, nevermind. Who cares if the Rogue gets dominated.

Thomas Hutchins wrote:

if 70% success with just a little investment

A trait, a feat, your species, that species alternate race trait, and 30% of your gold is not a little investment by any measure

And there is a very good argument for a 70% success rate not being very good. It comes up often enough that you wind up spending a fight every other session not getting to play your character.

I'll second that...

I get to choose between getting possessed and becoming a meat puppet, or building characters which spend their time devoting the interesting option part of their customization selecting things to not get possessed.n If you chuck bombs, you need to have point blank shot, precise shot, and precise bomb... it's hard to have an effective bomb type alchemist without that.

The overall number of feat slots and options isn't a reflection of the number of actual choices you get with a build... sometimes your build simply does not work without certain things.

Yes, you can make an alchemist who doesn't fail ALL the time... or succeeds more.. but your build is basically completely set.

The cleric/druid over there? He's doing what he wanted to do anyway.

Let's do Rogue next. :-/

I mean, I'm gonna ask the question: why are we banning things at all.

Is Lore Warden ruining someone's fun? Are the characters who have it ruining people's fun?

Pathfinder is a game which sells monthly content with more options.

The core mechanics of this game are pretty terribly balanced.. when certain classes can win initiative and 1-shot other classes with a high DC spell, it's about as bad as it can get. Rocket tag.

And Lore Warden in the problem?

I don't actually think the problem is the classes with saving throw based spells.. the problem is that the other classes don't have options to compete. And they KEEP HITTING the martial classes with nerfs. It's unreal.

Things were so much better at the time of the ACG for martial characters in comparison.

If the argument is, 'Too many additional resources is hard for the new character', then reprint the Core Rulebook. Or include a list of core feats and equipment from alternate resources in the Pathfinder Society Field Guide.

But nerfing 'must haves' is silly. Are we going to nerf 'Cloak of Resistance' since it's effective at pumping saves?

The clear spindle nerf is another martial blow... I understand the reasoning for the nerf - but I think it takes the game into an even more rocket-tag state.

at lv9 you're looking at 3+3+1+2+2-1= will save of +10, +12 with heroism. Against DC 20 you have 45% chance to fail pre heroism, 35% with heroism.

3 (cloak of resist)

Tumor Familiar, Iron Will and a Trait is basically 2.5 feats patching will...

But I don't see anything vital or critical we're sacrificing for this build. +13 will save didn't require any perfect race, gear or build for this alchemist. All it required was choosing to build a character to compensate for their poor save. Tumor protector familiar's are all the rage with alchemists, so why not fix the will save with it!

I think the issue here is that if you buy a special wayfinder, you've purchased an item for your character. The character is unchanged only it has different gear. This character is a specific character which has been optimized for will saves. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does put you in a pretty small box - it's just as restrictive as the 'powergaming builds' that people rail against. It's not doing something abusive of the game (it's trying to not be taken over), but it IS restricting your character by taking certain class specific options to patch a weakness.

This is equal to a cleric lv9 with +3 cloak and 16 wisdom. This is putting us around what most clerics, wizards, and other classes that have a good will save are at.

A level 9 cleric is going to be 18-20 for his starting stat, putting 2 points into it for level ups, and a +2 hat (at least). So generally, a +6 for the stat, and +6 for their good save. They'll sit at +15 before heroism. +17 if they've maxed their casting stat and bought a +4 hat. +19 with heroism.

For me, I can tell you that I would rather play a will based character every time than have to spend 2.5 feats on will saves.

Wait a second. I would claim your are trying to just create a cheesey alchemist build but you are missing the cheesey gooey parts that's inherently increases Will.

I mean, I hardly think an alchemist which isn't maxing Wisdom classifies as 'cheesy'. The alchemist could be doing ANYTHING, he's just not maxing will. He was basically just born into a class without a good will save...

Perhaps Alchemist isn't the best example... but there are a lot of classes with bad will saves. Gunslingers, for instance. 'oops, Gunslinger is possessed'.

Okay, I'll bite.

It's good that the Spindle is (probably) going. It was bad for the game.

The risk of being "taken over" is part of the game. It's a key ability for various schools of magic and classes that use them. It's also a key ability of several classic monsters.

The Ioun Stone is forcing authors to put in questionable choices in adventures to circumvent it; labelling something which is obviously a possession effect as a "curse" just to get around it, or "can't believe he's not Evil" chaotic neutral villains.

If you're worried that you'll one-shot other PCs if possessed, maybe it's a moment to reflect on the soundness of your character building style. Maybe you've put so much trust in your spindlefinder that you thought you could get away with focusing all-out on attack, instead of a more healthy balance between attack and defense?

Let me first say that I agree with part of what you have said - I think an interactive game is better than a non-interactive one from a balance perspective. So, for instance it's better if you have to roll a roll to do something to another player (or stop a player from doing something) than if you don't have to roll anything.

HOWEVER, this is why I think the current situation post-removal from the clear spindle ioun stone is worse.

1. Now people pretty much auto-fail, and don't succeed a lot of the time even if they spend resources on it if they're certain classes.
2. Having your character taken over is not fun.
3. Killing other PC characters with your character isn't fun.
4. Being killed by other PC characters isn't fun.

An alchemist has no reason to have Wisdom, but let's say you have a 12 in it. You're level 9 and you buy a cloak +3 and +1 morale ioun stone. You've got a +7 to save. You fail on a 1-12 on DC 20, which is a 60% fail rate. And realistically, let's say you have a 10 wisdom (did not dump) and have a Dex mutagen up, you're looking at a 70% fail rate.

On the flip side, if you're a level 9 caster, you cast a level 5 spell, you started with 20 in your stat, increased it 2 times and have 2x spell focus. That's DC23 with no metamagics or other shinnanigans. It's pretty easy to get to an unsaveable save DC.

I've seen characters not able to make will saves on a 19 in 7-11 in PFS. Granted, those characters are not without guilt... but if trying and spending a lot of gold on saves gets you a 35% pass chance, I can understand why some people pass it up.

I feel like there should be something to stop you from murdering everyone around you. Why should they print 'No PVP' in PFS, then basically create (fairly unavoidable for some characters) PVP through the environment? It's the same end result!

In the absence of anything else being printed, UMD and magic circle 10ft seems like the choice now :-/

I understand why the 'I'm immune' response annoys people, but the, 'I can't save except on a 20' phenomenon is also troublesome. It indicates that even with buying help to their save, the character would still have a hard time passing.

You're going to love the seducer's bane, found in the wrists section of Ultimate Equipment!

:( Doesn't work, since it's a resistance bonus. If it were a circumstance bonus, or a sacred bonus, or a competence bonus, I would definitely consider. Although ~10k is a bit high to consider in addition to your normal cloak...

I strongly feel that while clear spindle ioun stone is very good, there should be more items which can be purchased to avoid your character being taken over by hostile forces.

Even if you purchase a +5 cloak of resistance, a character who doesn't CAST with Wisdom gets ruined by a halfway decent caster who can control him.

When the DCs start getting into or higher than 20, your +6 +1 (stat) and +4 from cloak, +1 morale (other ioun stone) = 12 is a 40% chance to lose against a DC20 willsave after spending 20k on saves (which is a decent chunk at level 12). A level 5 spell + a 20 attribute = 20.

And losing means murdering your party.

I think if you're going to take clear spindle ioun stone away, I would strongly advise printing a cleaner (more clear) item which does a +5 circumstance bonus for 8,000 gc against compulsion, charm, domination effects and possession effects. Without a cloak of resist, you will still lose against these types of saves without a good will save. Perhaps a minor and major version - with the Minor version being 2k gold for +2 circumstance bonus.

Such an item would still miss things that would make you afraid, sad, stunned, confusion, insanity ect...

Being taken over by other characters is not fun. Killing your party members is not fun. And building a fighter or weak willsaved character who can make these types of saves is not feasible.

I've not been in a TPK, but I've been close... and I've definitely seen some..

1) Waking Rune - Got wrecked. Ran away. No one died. Because we decided to not die and ran away. Like heroes.

2) Heard of another party which died due to fighting demons inside a darkness spell and deciding not to run away. YOU GOT EM!

3) Could have been TPKd by savage GMing when a group of monsters with Pounce could have surprised the entire party and pounced us into oblivion, but instead decided to attack only after we had occupied a hall, creating a choke point - although a single character died to pouncing, we could have all been dead, so... yeah.

4) Saw a party die to many, many gaze attacks in a confined space. Sad times.

5) Nearly died playing in a 3-person table with a pregen at a special so that the special could fire. Had 2 fluff characters which were not good at combat at my table and a pregen who was vastly superior to the other PCs in every way. One was a melee character who tried to be a switch hitter playing up who had Power attack and also used a bow, with STR14, DEX 14, CON 12, WIS10 INT14, CHR14 and two of his feats used for skill bumps. Rocking that sweet +6 \ 1d8+3 in the 7-8 tier, and a dex-based sneak attack twf CRB rogue without the agile enchantment. Would have dropped the table, but we barely hit the special requirement to play the special.. dropping would have made the special not fire. Survived by basically not losing / dying in RL time, as the special pushed events forwards at certain intervals.

When I ran Waking Rune I probably did like 20 hours prep. I recommend planning for 7 hours of time to run it.

It was a fun time. It was a shame it got cut short because of the slot. We all ran away, but lived. And that's what matters. Don't be a hero. Save yourself and live. But I think that scenario requires a lot of prep... if you ever decide to run it, don't give players a win to make them feel good - that's not what the scenario is for. Ruin their dreams.

I like the idea of limited replays - I would happily play Pathfinder and not get boons if it meant that I could play scenarios again... Maybe make a much more limited number of replays if you want to get the original boon from a scenario..

By if I had to not be able to get boons in order to replay things, it would be an acceptable compromise for me...

By way of example, in the next two weeks, I have 2 tables per week of different scenarios tables scheduled to fire at my local store - none of which that I can play and GMs are already covering them - they do not need extras. I will be staying home instead. Even if I've played the scenario before, I'd much rather be out there killing monsters. Most of the 40% of scenarios which I have not played are in Season 1 and 0, where the game was... less refined.

+1 to being able to play. There are plenty of GMs where I am.

From the optimized point of view is far for being optimized: I could have stuck with the slayer for extra sneak attack damage and conserve my BAB (3d6 + Accomplished Sneak attacker for an extra 1d6) and get some slayer's goodies while I'm there. On the other hand, the investigator added a very needed dose of Will saves, some minor buffs and a bit of social skills even with his low CHA.

Clever Wordplay: Diplomacy - because it's hard to investigate when people hate you.

Feel like just staying slayer with the above traits, though would be pretty OK and you could investigate nearly as well if you took some of the traits above. Slayer has pretty OK skills, decent skillpoints.. and the longer you stay in it the better your studied target gets. Spend some gold on saves and take a clear spindle ioun stone + slot it.

The designers wanted solo-class characters to be the norm. The prestige classes were meant to be less appealing mechanically so as to make solo-classing the predominant choice. So it's that they did a very good job at meeting their design goals.

They want prestige classes to be fairly rare and not super common, in 3.5 they were super common and it was expected to go into at least 1 and likely more. You didn't really ask which class are you as which PrC are you going for. So if PrC started becoming more norm, then either the design goal has changed, or their goal isn't being adhered to.

For sure I would agree that the designers wanted solo characters to be a compelling choice - I am not sure that I would agree with the designers making PRCs mechanically weaker so that they would not be selected...

Between 3.5 and Pathfinder, they added a bunch of stuff to the core classes and now you have good reasons to play them. However, not only did they make Core classes, better, generally PRCs got weaker, which created a mechanical asymmetry. They succeeded in creating a reason to play a base character, but that should have little do to with whether the PRCs are mechanically good or if they should be rebalanced by publishing additional options to support them.

Bringing up the floor is also power creep.

I don't hate that definition - that "power creep" is any change in average power, but I think the term power creep carries such a negative meaning that I would hesitate to use it in such a context, since in general, I would define it to usually applying to an unintentional slow creep in power. Or even an unintentional large shift in power.

Whereas, I would agree with the term, "Rebalancing" which would apply to a change wherein bad options are made better because they were previously unplayed in order to attempt a change towards a greater diversity of options which are playable.

The mere existence of this feat, regardless of its inclusion in PFS, has brought this argument into existence. It does come down to a single questions, do 2 feats = one caster level and is this power creep?

It's been discussed over and over in the thread, but the synopsis is:

1 Caster Level does not have to = 2 feats.

It's: What you get from the prestige class for levels in that prestige class without one or more levels of casting.

verses

2+ feats (could be more for multiple levels missed)
Whatever you had to do to get into the PRC, like taking bad feats there also
Whatever you lose from your core class if anything (Like, wizard feats, for instance)

The feats/feat chain does not need to be balanced - the characters enables or create need to be balanced against other possible characters.

There is a valid point to be made - and it has been made several times in this thread - that future development may not coincide with the current power levels. Maybe they will do a better job creating PRCs which get a lot of value because of that spellcasting level loss and thereby it will create OP characters. It's a valid concern. One potential mitigating factor is that this feat now exists, so regardless of PFS play or not to some extent they will need to accommodate the fact that this feat exists and not print insane stuff which loses a couple of levels of spellcasting and the second mitigating factor is that would break with their current paradigm of how much value they give prestige classes.

I think there are valid concerns, but we really couldn't find any current specific builds for prestige classes which beat out core classes +feats outside of specific scenarios.

Since I am unable to find scenarios where this feat obsoletes existing character options, I would object to a term with a negative connotation, "Power Creep" being used to describe it. If more options are power creep, then every new option is power creep, even if it is of average power level. I think, "Limits design space" might be more accurate, since it limits the new things that the game could publish in the future without causing issues.

We do feel the pain of players wanting games and are looking at ways to mitigate it while still keeping the campaign integrity intact.

I thank the posters, that they posited ideas politely and kept the discussion cordial. Let's keep the conversation going and see where it leads us!

I can completely see that there are valid reasons to have concerns about people replaying old adventures for credit.

From a personal standpoint, however, I have played 60% of all Pathfinder modules, most of which are not season 0 or season 1, which means that I now have a difficult time actually playing PFS regularly despite being *blessed* with living in an area where we have a great shop and 2-3 tables which fire every week to play since most of the content is season 3+ which I have played a lot of.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people who regularly GM there, so GMing will not be able to make up the difference. I know several people in the same boat here.

I play this game socially to hang with people and it seems odd that we make it difficult for the most avid players to play, since you can't replay a game and play with your friends without being a GM. If I could play core characters in a non-core games, I would...

I don't have all the answers here as to the solution for the problem - but I think it is a real issue which causes you to lose players from the community which are by there very nature very devoted to your game.

Edit: And I would be 100% happy to be unable to get a single boon when replaying a scenario. Maybe that's a distinction as to what you can use a GM star to get or something... I just want to play the game.

Recommend you be a Scout / Thug rouge instead of Kitsune Trickster. It will let you sicken people when you sneak attack them and also let you to charge and get sneak attack and therefore sac those dice to dirty tick instead of spending a feat on that. I think it's probably worth changing your attributes slightly to accommodate. I think Scout would still be usable if you were a kitsune trickster, since it swaps out uncanny dodge only.. and it would let you dirty trick on a charge at level 4 rogue. Snakebite Striker is worth considering, since it gives you +1d6 sneak attack, decent hps, and +1 BAB.

I agree that this is going to be a rough start until at least level 4. I might consider stocking up on every conceivable form of junk consumable to livetil level 4. Tanglefoot bags, smoke sticks, alchemist fires, acid flasks, light crossbow, ect. Live til level 4, then you get dex to damage and it all starts clicking a little better.

Yes it is. Please see the blog post introducing the core campaign. Also, in the future you can post questions regarding the core campaign in the forum specifically for the core campaign.

Wow, I had no idea. That's great ! :D

I was wondering if retraining a feat/class feature etc. is available in PFS Core play.

My guess is no, but I have a couple players who are hoping to take advantage of it if possible.

Don't believe so :(

Runeward tattoo buy the whole set instead of upping your cloak from +3 to +4, you get the same bonus and know when a spells going off within 60 feet of you.

I like the idea, but I had a Skald with Supersition and while the bonus against spells and spell like abilities is super rad, you'd be surprised how often the saves we make are supernatural or extrordinary.

But I really like the idea - it's yet another way to get mah saves up :D

First encounter of the scenario, Necromancer reanimates a bunch of creatures with Animate Dead.

Second encounter, we encounter some horrifying undeads and take control of them.

Last encounter, we see the BBEG and he just.... RUNS AWAY INTO THE SWAMP

and he's all... swimming around in the murky swamp water.... and we're like, "CRAP, he's getting away"

So the necromancer summons skeletal dolphins, which apparently still have blind sense and we echolocate the bad guy. He ends up dying because of the fleet of dolphins (both living and undead) which were summoned...

Well, I have absolutely no interest in futuristic RPGs, including Starfinder. At all. And I also hate that it's in the same world as my fantasy genre.

Like, "Look, nothing bad can happen since we made it to the future OK." Did they have to lower the stakes on my Fantasy game??

So I hope they do not dial back their releases of the things that I do care about (Pathfinder) for the things which I do not (Starfinder).

(Not saying that it is a bad game or that other people who like it are wrong - just that I do not)

I'm still wondering whether my Dirty Trick Slayer will be any good.

Be a Bounty Hunter and he will be. Retrain into it if you have to... it's legit.

Pop out of nowhere and say, "HI, BTW, YOU'RE BLIND AND I'M CLOBBERING YOU."

Full BAB with a little extra... and they're flat footed against you when they don't notice you, so your CMB should be pretty good... Seems fine if you have enough bonuses to Stealth and CMB. I mean, eventually the monster's CMDs will be too high, but like, you're a basically a two handed weapon fighter, so you should be OK. Own a bow with appropriate arrows as a backup plan.

A boon that allows you to upgrade a Unique Weapon or Armor would be difficult to implement, but wonderful for some people. I for one see so many flavorful unique magic weapons/armor/shields (Like pretty much anything from Inner Sea Gods) that do cool things that tie into the setting and everything...but I know that buying them for a character would be a bad idea because I can't add enchantments to them.

This would enable far more flavorful weapons in higher level games without being too obtrusive.

I know a character at my FLGS who plays a "Wizard" (bloodrager) who yells out spells as he beats people to death.

He's sad because he has been beating people to death in Mage Armor (actual armor) with a stick, saying, "Take 27 stick damage" and he wants to upgrade a stave, such as a "Staff of Dark Flame", but yet, he'll be stuck at +1 to hit from his staff forever.

There should be a boon to upgrade named stuff for a little bit extra.

Beckman wrote:

If you do -2 to hit from Slashing Grace, you're about 55% chance to hit a CR9 critter with AC21.

Slashing Grace would not work with two-weapon fighting. Are you perhaps meaning Piranha Strike?

That's the one. Yup, Yup. Sorry :-/

1d6+7 -5 damage most likely. its really not practical to carry 2 of everything you need to get througj dr. Two handed weapon users can get an adamntine beatstick +3 , go through dr more often AND overcome it with brute force better.

I know, right? It's painful to watch. And they frequently get MURDERED ny enemies because they spent all that money on two weapons and not armor. 1d6+6 (when slashing grace //// Edit: Piranha Strike, I mean.) as a standard action attack as you move up to the baddie is a bad opener.

Max STR power attacking two handing rogue is better. It also lets you take Cormugeon Smash for intimidation / Shatter Defenses builds where you start sneak attacking people because they are shaken. And you only pay for one enchanted weapon, so you can buy things other than weapon upgrades.

Alternative: if you hate the idea of playing something using STR is to build a natural weapons rogue and take one of the rogue archetypes that lets you dirty trick with sneak attack. That works out well. Or at least -better- usually. Specify your claws as a light weapon to get your rogue damage on it, then take a Robe of Mighty Strikes: Agile to use on your other natural attacks and possibly a Holy Amulet of Mighty Fists? And fireball people (like a million d6s) with sneak attacks..

TWF, combat maneuver guy, sneak attack, and teamwork feat focused builds all have trouble working in PFS. Not that they can't work, just they have a harder time working or work sporadically. No one has said these builds can't contribute to combat.

Then thread went to, being useless in combat doesn't work well in PFS. Especially since it's quite easy to be useful in combat and still pull off all the OoC stuff you wanted to do. And because it's really easy to make yourself be useless in combat and then in a few levels you really feel how much of a dead weight you are and have no way of fixing it.

Useful in combat != optimized for combat

I think everyone is going to have a different idea of what is optimized for combat, but I think it's super easy to be in a bad spot at level 8 with a rogue TWF.

STR 10
DEX 20 (22 w/ belt)
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 10
CHR 13

+2 Dex Belt 4k
+1 to hit Ioun 4k
2x +2 weapons 16k
+2 Cloak of Resist 4k
4k Misc stuff

Feats:
TWF
Imp TWF
Weapon Focus: weapon
slashing grace
???

Attacks will be: 6 + 6 + 2 (enh) + 1 (ioun) + 1 (WF) (-2 twf penalty) = +14/+14/+9/+9 (with Imp TWF) for 1d6+7? Walk up to the enemy and get full rounded? If you do -2 to hit from Slashing Grace, you're about 55% chance to hit a CR9 critter with AC21. CR9 critter has around 95hps

1d6+11 at 55% chance to hit on your primary attacks means about 1.5 hits per turn with an average dpr per round of ~25 on a full attack before DR. Once creatures start getting harsh DR, life gets hard real fast.

To me, the above would be OK, but... just be prepared that if you go against CR+3-+4 creatures like a Golem fight or a Dragon fight, you will likely have some issues. And this character is nominally optimized for combat, doesn't do great damage and has no defenses to speak of. Maybe a Mistmail or something.

Beckman wrote:

Perception is the first skill you take, unless you have prereqs for something, or if you have some roleplaying requirement for your character...

No. Not really. Unless you really optimization into skill monkey territory which is what everyone is arguing you do it doesn't help as much as you expect it would.

Hmm, well, I guess we have just had very different play experiences.

Beckman wrote:

What do you mean +50? DC 50? OK? I mean, any class with Acute Senses is going to be able to find it.. and I would be lying if I said that I didn't have characters with that spell, but other than that you're hosed. And the consequences for being hosed are usually a save. So try to have good saves? Falling to your death? (boots of the cat or be flying when the spell goes off)

I've played through scenarios where they are specifically designed to negate those tactics. In fact I almost TPK'd a party by accident with your logic.

If the guy who has +40s perception can't find this trap, then there's no point in trying to avoid it. It just murders you. I have yet to find this trap...

Of course, PFS sticks these types of traps in indiana jones esq style which is to say, "SOLVE THE PUZZLE... DON'T GET IT WRONG OR ELSE"

I could totally see a DC50 trap being used as the enforcement of a puzzle and failing the puzzle gets you killed. Personally, I hate puzzles. But some people like them. To each their own, I guess.

Beckman wrote:

However, bad Perception leads to going top of turn 2.

Mechanics wise no. Bad perception and going in the surprise round are strangely unrelated.

This could be a regional difference - for sure, stealth checks are opposed by perception, so when the enemy is stealthing and you do not see them, there should be a surprise round. However, many GMs in my area have perception checks to have you notice things - when you fail them, you do not act in the surprise round. Whether the GMs in my area have played it right in the scenarios that I have played... who knows.

Edit:
Compared to actually deadly traps, I have seen many more "skill monkey" rogues with two weapon fighting that can't contribute to combat effectively. At times, even causing the table to play up and get slaughtered.

Beckman wrote:

This leads to at level 5 a perception of:
5 (ranks) + 3 (training) + 5 (eyes) + 2 (tool) + 1 (trait to bring it in class trait bonus if applicable) + X (trait) = +16 + X, which is usually enough to find the trap, unless it is a hard-to-find magic trap. But that's why you have 2 people searching...

Nope. The trap that has a large chance of TPKing the party can potentially get a +50. I mean there is the chance that the GM softballed some of those scenarios if you did play the harder ones but sweet jesus some of the traps are devious in PFS.

What do you mean +50? DC 50? OK? I mean, any class with Acute Senses is going to be able to find it.. and I would be lying if I said that I didn't have characters with that spell, but other than that you're hosed. And the consequences for being hosed are usually a save. So try to have good saves? Falling to your death? (boots of the cat or be flying when the spell goes off)

I would give examples of combats which can TPK the party, but spoiling mods isn't cool. Suffice it to say there are more of these than I can recall traps.

Beckman wrote:

5 (ranks) + 3 (training) + 5 (eyes) + 2 (tool) + 1 (trait to bring it in class trait bonus if applicable) + X (trait) = +16 + X, which is usually enough to find the trap, unless it is a hard-to-find magic trap. But that's why you have 2 people searching doors and checking the halls. Druids, Clerics, ect will have perceptions in the 20s at level 5/

So you say that you don't need specialists but by the very nature of your math and logic you are actually arguing for a specialist. There is no way Clerics or Druids get perceptions in 20s at level 5 unless you specialize in it and honestly given the few skill points those classes get you aren't going to invest 5 ranks.

Perception is the first skill you take, unless you have prereqs for something, or if you have some roleplaying requirement for your character

Really, you aren't specializing in anything other than, "not getting jumped by enemies" - traps just happen to get caught in the crossfire and it's not a lot of build resources in the long hall. At higher levels, it's like 5% of wealth by level for that 2.25k gc. I mean, do what you can. The options presented don't make you noticeably less good in combat, with the exception of Acute Senses, which, when cast on an Extend Rod will let you find anything for 2xmin/level.. Going first in combat is great, which is why improved init is so good. However, bad Perception leads to going top of turn 2.

Beckman wrote:

This is because many groups have no one who can do this role, and therefore scenarios are not made for you to lose them when you can't do this.. unless you fall in a pit and die. Which means you should max perception ranks and check for traps cautiously like a good pathfinder.

You have not played a lot of scenarios have you because honestly the biggest flaw in your argument is that yes there are TPK worthy traps in PFS that will shred your party apart before you even enter the dungeons and those have a check starting in the mid 30s.

Quote:

Yes, you do not have every CHR skill. Most scenarios you will only need some diplomacy to get by. But INT casting types (Wizards, Magus, ect) get a boatload of Knowledges. The investment is minimal for most characters.

And outside of two or three instances none of the Int based casting types are ever going to be useful at more than a couple of them.

I have played 2/3rds of all modules and -never- seen people die to a trap. We find them, since where I play we have good perceptions. I have seen many traps that could ruin a party. But we haven't been so silly as to actually step on them..

EDIT: Wait, actually, I did see EXACTLY ONE player die to a trap. We found the trap and egged him on about triggering it, so he lay down on the trap and was killed by an ooze. Hilarious. I felt bad.

Mostly every character I have has:
Max ranks in Perception
Eyes of the Eagle (obviously not as the FIRST thing I buy, but early in your career)
Masterwork Tool of looking for traps
A trait to bring Perception in class if it was not already in class
(if it takes Additional traits to do this, OK.)

This leads to at level 5 a perception of:
5 (ranks) + 3 (training) + 5 (eyes) + 2 (tool) + 1 (trait to bring it in class trait bonus if applicable) + X (trait) = +16 + X, which is usually enough to find the trap, unless it is a hard-to-find magic trap. But that's why you have 2 people searching doors and checking the halls. Druids, Clerics, ect will have perceptions in the 20s at level 5/

Investment for this is .5 of a feat if necessary, 2550 gc, and one of your skills. Sidenote: It also helps you not get ambushed and not act in the surprise round, so it's got a dual-combat purpose. Acting in combat and going first is pretty important and most of the time the prerequisite for not getting ambushed is to see the thing trying to kill you.

Anyone can check for and find a traps. Once you've found it, you just have to either not activate it and go around it, or minimize its effects. On one character, I got a chronicle with a Wand of Summon Monster with 8 charges at CL3 for 120gc. An error in math (or discount), to be sure, but it was soooo useful in setting off traps.

I haven't yet encountered a scenario where if you find the trap but can't disarm it that you lose the scenario. I have found maybe 10-20% of scenarios that have really hard fights which if your group has players who cannot contribute a lot, then you are in danger of party wipe.

Ditto. Its wands or busts at least half the time at 7+

Hah, yeah, I mean, I think it's at least 80% of the time here. There's no need for clerics when you have enough damage, or enough cool magic. Just takes a long time to heal up out of combat.

Thomas Hutchins wrote:

EDIT:
Also because skills don't always come up. If you're the dex skills guy and those skill never come up then you're at effectively not having skills and not having combat. Combat happens far more than most skills you bring for the party are used.

It is not a either/or choice. Being a Skills PC does not mean we are unable to do anything in combat.

I build PCs to fill many roles - even Primary Combat ones. I try to play the ones other people DON'T bring to the table. As a result, I often play "Face" or "Trapsmith" or "Gadgets" or "Scout"... because no one else at the table fills those roles. I don't often have to play "Max Damage" or "Tank", as those seem to be the most common role other people play - and the 3rd (or 4th) Combat Specialist at the table doesn't really seem to add as much to the party as the "Face" (or "Trapsmith" or "Gadgets" or "Scout"...)

The reason I build very "optimized PCs" - specialists - is that I do not want to be the reason your PC dies. Sometimes when PCs die, the player looses everything they have worked for MONTHS or YEARS on. Nothing would bother me more than knowing that that 3rd level guy of yours, that you ran thru 8 scenarios (about 40 hours of table game time, maybe another 40 or 80 hours of hobby time at home tinkering - easily as much as a year of someones gameing) just got tossed in the trash,...

I generally object to the line of thinking that these are roles that need to be covered. In the VAST majority of scenarios we have no one who can disable traps. And it's fine. EVERYONE has good perception and so we see the trap and move on. Or we had the barbarian open the trap and it's fine. It's just not a role that's really needed for party success. Always LOOK for traps, but that doesn't mean you have to solve them. Unfortunately, for good or bad a scenario has to keep running after you fail to disarm the trap. This is because many groups have no one who can do this role, and therefore scenarios are not made for you to lose them when you can't do this.. unless you fall in a pit and die. Which means you should max perception ranks and check for traps cautiously like a good pathfinder.

Many characters can simply throw money and maybe a trait (Clever Wordplay for people who dump CHR) at being a face.
Buy a wand of honey tongue (2pp)
Raiment of Command?
Aspect of the Nightingale?
Ioun Stone?
Masterwork Tool (needs to be specific, but you can easily imagine some of these specific tools you could make. A stylish scarf for dealing with the upper crust of a Qadiran city, ect)

Yes, you do not have every CHR skill. Most scenarios you will only need some diplomacy to get by. But INT casting types (Wizards, Magus, ect) get a boatload of Knowledges. The investment is minimal for most characters.

When you do not have enough combat capable players, one or more than one people die and you CAN lose the scenario. Everyone, even characters who are good at social skills, should make significant contributions to combat. Encounters are balanced around combat capable PCs. The more people you have not contributing much, the more likely it is for very bad things to happen.

So were the classes designed with the balanced intent that those feats be available and potentially taken?

How do you even balance around those? "oh I'll cut out a level of spell progression, but only give 3/4 the reward for it since they maybe can get it back." ???

If I understand it correctly, someone at Paizo added this feat later, then presumably checked the classes in that book to make sure that they were OK with the feat. Also, since I don't see anything in the book which looks broken with the feat, they did a good job.

I think at least part of the answer is that since this feat now exists in Pathfinder in general, Paizo has to at least consider people taking it, so I would expect PRCs to have about 2-4 feats worth of power / utility for full spell casters in the future. Even if it's not a legal option in PFS without some sort of boon in the future it exists.

After we cover that and I pull a PC out, I'll tell everyone what I cover, and my worst failings. ("Hi, I'm Katisha. Call me Kat or Tish, never Kat-tish. I'll handle all the social skills, and I'm pretty useless in combat.")

I feel like this type of character is bad in PFS, since it tends to hog screentime. Usually in PFS you have between 2-8 skills or so and many people pick Diplomacy since you don't *know* that someone will have the skill and you can be pretty stuck without it. So the type of specialist who does the social skills tends to mean that other players don't get the chance to do the roleplaying associated with the skills they took and the screentime gets focused on the character who has those skills.

And for that type of specialist, he has a bunch of wannabe Faces hogging what he is good at. While he can't contribute to the sometimes brutal encounters.

@Murdock

Yeah, Clerics have it hard for feats, and delaying PRC until 9 in order to get level 8 domains seems hard... So you're locked out of giving everyone freedom of movements :O

it seems like all the feats you're suggesting are nice to have feats. Not feats that are required for the build to operate.

TWF and ARCHERY needs the TWF feat and precise shot to function

...

You're getting an interesting character by your PrC instead of by extra traits.

I agree that these feats are not required to have the character function at all. However, the question is what you want your character to do. For a save or suck caster at level 11, my goal is generally to push the mechanics of the roll to easier affect the enemy and to be harder to pass.

By the time I do that, I usually have a couple of feats left. Most of the feats above are pretty good, the question (to me, at least) is whether the PRCs which you would go into are better than what you get out of feats and if so, whether they power creep the game or disrupt other people's fun. On the flip side, it makes other options viable which were not before, so it's not all bad so long as those options are not -everywhere-.

Personally, I like seeing other people have cool abilities from a prestige class. Seems neat. I'd rather they have that, then +2 save DC on their super cool spell and +4 init.

More versatile is not always better, when your one trick is really, really, good. In this case, going first, casting spells first, and making those spells work is the boring and effective tactic, imo.

Or, honestly, summoning creatures is really powerful too. The utility of being able to pick creatures that I want to go fight for me it pretty awesome too. Making those creatures better is good utility also which competes for those slots that I would use for this feat.

People insisting that casters do not have need of their feats are being a bit disingenuous I think

I actually disagree here - I think their perspective is a valid one. They're disagreeing with what the definition of 'need' is.

Also, I think we've done a *very* good job this thread of putting forth ideas, builds and perspectives this thread without using words which have a negative connotation to describe other arguments.

plaidwandering wrote:

People insisting that casters do not have need of their feats are being a bit disingenuous I think

Can you provide an example of casters that need of all of their feats? I've been asking, and none have been given.

Spell focus, greater, spell pen and greater. this is a SoS wizard.
Spell focus, spell specialization, spell pen and greater. this is a blaster wizard.
both use rods for metamagic. or go *human to pick up a meta if needed/wanted. *humans are the best for a reason.

Spell focus, augment summons, superior summons. this is a summoning wizard.
open, open, open, open, buffing utility wizard.

so care to share some common or frequent builds that need a ton of feats for a caster?

Here are some feats which make your life better as a caster who makes people take Saving Throws:

All casters:
Improved Initiative
Additional Traits

CHR casters
Noble Scion of War

Any caster who casts spells which use SR, which is most of them:
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Allied Caster, if you have a way to give teamwork feats to a friend who has a spell of yours memorized.

Blasters:
Elemental Substitution: ____ (again, you can only apply one rod on a spell, so sometimes you do not want the rod to be an elemental damage change)

Want a better Familiar?
Improved Familiar
Familiar Feat - to give your improved familiar something silly

For the summoning Wizard, or someone who just has extra feats
Academae Graduate (standard action critters)
Augment Summoning
Superior Summoning

For the stealthing wizard:
Skill Focus: Stealth
Hellcat Stealth (Stealth in your friend's Daylight spell)
Dampen Presence

These are the feats I would mention at first blush as ones most wizards would like to have. It's even good to take the summoning feats if you're not a summoner. Summon 1d3+1 small earth elementals.. at level 5, this is not a bad option. You can eventually summon 1d3+1 Ankylosauruses as a standard. Or multiple succubi. It's pretty sweet. We have to weigh the things you get from the prestige class over these types of options. The ability to make 3 creatures which do melee attacks at +7 / 1d6+10 (inc power attack and augment summoning) at level 5 as a standard (whereas as a full round option you may be disrupted significantly easier) is a relevant alternative to spending feats elsewhere, and standard action summoning doesn't get much worse as you level up.

But it's not like it's the only possible strong option to be created from the above and it's not like my feats are somehow the only ones in the game which are good - I haven't done an exhaustive search.

Rigby Bendele wrote:

The other thing to keep in mind is that we already have prestige classes that advance casting every level, but I still don't see those in play much.

I am always surprised that we don't see more wizards go into bloatmage. You give up two feats for a lot of flexibility and no loss of casting. It may be that its from a slightly obscure source.

I know, right? At minimum, you cast 1 spell of your highest level, then get back points and do it again, and then you can have an arcane bond. Like, literally 3 of the best spell of any level you have seems super fun. *shrug* it's got fluff downsides.

@Rigby - It's rough. While I think all levels of play matter, but the problem is that you can be doing incredibly wrong things at level 18, so the question really is what you're doing that's more wrong than the Wizard who is sitting there boosting his CL to 20 and Gating in Balors. I think the question is whether you're doing something in the game that is unhealthy for it. Rift Warden would fall on my watch list since you're super good in specific scenarios.

Other people might consider going less chr heavy and make a gish with power attack.

Edit: I would probably model the character after a reach cleric. Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, and just being tanky. Combat Reflexes lets you keep buffing while doing damage.

I do have a DD in the opening post as the original example build who is a natural weapon attacking tanky type. I suppose you could try doing this without using a polymorph spell somehow so that you would not be reliant on buffing the first round of combat.

Having said all of that, our example character below absolutely is able to contribute effectively to games, can cover lots of situations and is pretty durable. I have a hard time thinking that he is overpowered compared to a straight sorcerer.

I agree. I wasn't able to do anything with DD which felt crazy good. Since either you become a durable caster at the expense of being good at casting (because feats make you better at it) or you become a natural attack fighter with a lot of spells (which is OK, but natural attacks start to fall off by the time you get super good at them).

I applaud your testing. I think Holy Vindicator, Pathfinder Savant and Rift Warden are potentially good candidates for building them out at this point. I may get to it, but not tonight, since I'll likely be busy until 9-10PM tonight.

Michael Eshleman wrote:

Natural weapons.

Beg to differ with this, as a generalisation at least. Your experience may be different, and I can certainly imagine ineffective natural weapon builds based off low base attack classes, but on a high STR (or DEX with agile AoMF) character with at least 3/4 BAB and static bonuses to hit you can be much more effective than a manufactured-weapon user.

I agree

Natural Weapons work a whole lot better than manufactured weapon two weapon fighting since you get all primary attacks at full BAB and therefore you usually hit more.

Some of the best natural weapon fighting comes from Druid, which turns into a lion, then attacks you 6 times on the charge with Haste and initiates a Grapple because they have Grab. While the damage isn't outrageous on a Druid, there's some savage denial when you wrap the enemy caster in lions.

Since PFS is random people with random characters it's most peoples hope that people are bringing valuable members. A metric people use is how useful in combat are you. When your entire contribution was giving people a +1 to an attack or save then you're not really doing much to help the team win because a different character could have been dropping an enemy or hindering them to make them easier to kill. So if your supportive character doesn't meet their view of useful it will be seen as a character that is needing to be carried.

I do agree.

Although I don't need everyone to be a combat monstrosity and just tear the enemies in half, everyone should have an effective combat plan and invest resources into it.

It's worth noting that weapon damage does not scale very well unless you put an effort into it or are built for it. So your 14 STR guy with a Greataxe at level 2 might have an OK time hitting at +4 with your MW Greataxe, but as the AC scales up your life will be harder and you will have to invest resources in hitting and doing damage (magic weapons, STR boosting stuff, ioun stones) and/or Power Attack.

So for newer players, if you're looking to contribute and not quite sure how to do that, I'd recommend putting an 18 into DEX, not dumping STR or CON (keep them both at 12-14) and taking all the archery feats that you can.
Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Many Shot, Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots

Buy some a good ADAPTIVE bow, a +Dex item and maybe an ioun stone of +hit (if you have that book) at later levels you can take Boots of Speed, so that you don't have to rely on someone else to give you Haste. ANY 3/4 BAB or better class can pick up a bow, take the feats above and be OK. Sometimes they're significantly better than OK depending on the class.

Alternately, you can just be a caster, pump your caster stat and select spells which work in combat.

One cost I haven't seen discussed here--unless you're very clever in your leveling, there's going to be a gap between when you lose a caster level to a PrC and when you gain it back by the feat (unless Favored Prestige Class can be taken before you actually have a Prestige Class?). While the end state is a caster with full casting levels and the PrC's abilities, you spend some time in between without the full casting levels.

Now that being said, I generally don't believe that being weaker now is an appropriate cost for being much stronger later, and you do end up with the odd levels where you just went up two caster levels at once, which feels strange to some degree. I just thought it interesting that I hadn't seen any discussion of this aspect in this thread (unless I missed it).

You can retrain into feats you qualify for only a small amount of gold and 10 Prestige for your 2 feats in PFS, provided you have access to the retraining rules.

I certainly understand why this feat wasn't made legal.

1) Almost all prestige classes intended for full casters that lose a spellcasting level are so underpowered that they are rarely seen.

Yeah :(

2) But not all. Arcane Tricksters, for example, seem both fairly common and effective (the trickster lose the caster level by entry requirements but my point that a caster prestige class can be effective with a lost level stands).

They're popular, but Sense Vitals makes them just OK. Yes, you get a lot of skill points, but the loss of that level hurts you later and a Wizard can sneak attack just as well as you can with this spell. (and if you used Accomplished Sneak Attacker for early entry, then it caps your Sneak Attack dice, so you can't use both)

I think they have some nice utility, but later game the spell level you lost hurts. (the feat does nothing to fix this)

3) There is ABSOLUTELY going to be some Prestige Class that would be too powerful with full spell progression with some build. Not sure what it is but I'll guarantee that this feat would open up SOME overpowered build somewhere.

So, PFS decided to be cautious. This seems wise to me.

I'd like to see them open up selected Prestige Classes with this feat. But, despite the fact that I've got 3 or 4 concepts I'd love to try out WITH this feat, I think just allowing this feat would be unwise. Full casters do NOT need a power boost.

I think we have tried, with little success, to find a truly OP PRC with current material and this feat.. The ones which have been as good as existing options, but nothing in terms of a tableflip bad. As for new options, the question is now whether they will balance around the feat - it now exists even outside PFS, so I would argue that they now have to. The Paths classes seem to be balanced around it, certainly

I do agree that the feat needs a long look against both existing and new material before they see how they want to handle. It is a very powerful feat, but it has its own costs (see the rest of the thread).

Ryzoken wrote:

So we should ban power attack. After all, it's desired by virtually any character that swings a stick.

Power Attack, the big 6 magic items, etc. are all considered--in some ways--examples of how this design goal has not always been met in Pathfinder.

It's more complicated than that--I personally feel like there should be a way for people who want to get better at "hitting stuff" to become better at it other than gaining levels, so perhaps the problem lies more in the importance of damage or the limited number of ways you can improve it--but you are certainly not alone in pointing that out.

Edit: forgot the important part! Failing to accomplish a design goal does not mean you should give up on ever accomplishing it. A pretty good but imperfect game is better than a terribly broken one in almost every circumstance.

So I think what we're trying to get at here is how the feat changes build diversity. Will everyone take this feat and make PRCs? There seems to be interest in doing so, but will everyone build the same one?

How many people have Archers? Did they have point blank, precise shot, rapid shot, manyshot, deadly aim, clustered shots? That seems like a much more cookie-cutter and uninteresting progression to me - it's basically ALL the feats that a character gets unless they're a fighter.

Is the game more diverse or less diverse when you have 3 different PRCs which took this feat to get there as opposed to a game where everyone plays the core classes? I would argue more diverse, since there is a wider variety of things that characters do, although each of the characters choosing to gain additional options characters has a build restriction.

(I'm speaking about the diversity, not about the power level)

@Terminalmancer very well said.

@Thurston - Also having played Magic for quite a bit, I agree with your point that encouraging diversity in a metagame is a noble goal. But to that end, the question is whether we are in a more diverse game than we would be if the feat was legal.

I would argue that increasing the prevalence of PRCs is actually good for build diversity. Currently there is one, 'Deck', and it's core/base classes with 9th level spellcasting (at least, these are the subset of characters we are talking about). If anything, this would raise the level of acceptable alternate options. If the argument is that those options are fine without the feat, then they will be just as fine without it after the feat is legalized. I mean, another option is to ban 9th level spell casters... but... I mean, I like those classes :-/

You could take the game approach to make stronger PRCs which have levels lost of spellcasting but to more powerful stuff to compensate, but historically this has been badly balanced. Basically, as a full caster you have nil for combat effectiveness outside of specific builds, so losing that level really hurts without some great utility. This corrects the issue going forward but doesn't do much for the current options.

As Terminalmancer said:

Those of us who believe that spellcasters can, in some cases, gain utility by taking levels in a prestige class that loses at least one level of spellcasting, seem to agree that sanctioning this feat will reduce the variance between builds because levels of spellcasting are really good and this two-feat feat tree will become almost mandatory for a number of prestige classes. There's a secondary argument that the Prestigious Spellcaster feat is so powerful that it could lead to unbalanced builds.

There are also those of us who believe that lost spellcasting progression is such a drawback that it almost never, or never at all, makes sense for a full spellcaster. They will always lose utility by losing spellcasting. From this perspective, there seems to be general agreement that this...

I think it depends on where you fall on the spectrum of these two beliefs. I'm obviously on the latter side, but I understand people who are on the former. I think with sufficient data it may be possible to reconcile these views.

It's archery. You're always on the straight and arrow.

*ow ow ow sorry ow wo ow you CAN use a bow as a melee weapon ow ow ow...*

That pun was terrible. I approve.

Maybe it's just me not knowing the archetype, but how are razmiran priest sorcerers casting scrolls at full caster level? I don't see anything that would allow it. Maybe I'm just looking right past it.

Ya know, that's my bad, I think I was getting confused with his Mnemonic Vestments, since he used to play with them pre-nerf. Still, most of of the divine spells he actually wanted to use did not care about level.

(edit: sorry about the abrupt change of topic here, I assumed that you were tying back into Pathfinder Savant's advantages)

I think Pathfinder Savant is a great prestige class with a lot to offer. One notable difference is that as a Razmiran Priest Sorcerer, the items were not consumed but I ended up spending a higher level slot - which I was generally able to do since I have so many casts per day.

I don't believe that the character was OP or unfun to play with because of it - he was just prepared most of the time because of his large scroll library. Like, he would walk around with random scrolls that don't often come up.

As a pathfinder savant, you don't do that since you will still have to consume the scroll, but you will get full caster level on them. But shelling out for high level scrolls will make you go broke fast. Seems good, but not anything super outside the scope of what has existed in the game before.

Sure, you could combine both characters, but I don't think there are _so many_ spells which you need full caster level on that you would want to do that. Razmiran Priest already gets remove disease and remove curse as a known spell, and there's a level 5 spell, Greater Neutralize Poison which removes poisons without a caster level check.

All I'm saying that the option isn't somehow different than things which were already around, although it is mechanically sound.

Losing one or more levels of casting progression is a balancing factor and anything that removes that balancing factor without commensurate cost is not balanced. My opinion is that two feats does not equal a level of spell casting progression.

I said it elsewhere in the thread, this logic only works if we are balancing the power of the feats and not the power of the characters that they produce. The initial balancing of these prestige classes was not correct (in my opinion). In most cases the balance is not right, since the classes are worse or much worse than a straight core character. There are notable exceptions, but there are multitudes of bad prestige classes.

In terms of the resulting character, it's all about whether:
Bad Toughness
1 wasted feat slot (prestigious spellcaster)
The class features you miss out on
The prereqs of the prestige class

are a fair exchange for
What you get out of the prestige class with an additional level of spellcasting

It can't be unbalanced the above is not at least a fair trade. In order to be unbalanced, you'd have to say that the trade was a no-brainer.

I hate to keep bringing up Bloat Mage, but it is (in my opinion) better than regular wizard, and yet it does not see tremendous play. Probably because people don't like the flavor of the class, or they don't know about it or what have you. I don't hear players yelling at me for rolling a wizard and then not leaving it at level 6 for bloat mage :-/

Citing arcane archer seriously? One of the worst offenders

Arcane Archer is a great class if you can early entry (there previously were ways to do this), but currently that does not exist...

and I think to your point, since every archer is going to want/need weapon focus longbow) (it's a prereq) point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot, many shot and then now 2 additional feats at minimum, adding 2 more feats to this is 7 feats. It's a very narrow build.

It's worth noting that if someone should go walk down the hall, that if the Barbarian does it, it's likely you will not be scraping pieces of him off the floor on a failed perception check / save. Whereas the friendly rogue may just explode and be dead on bad luck. Scouting ahead, arguably, can be done by anyone with a good Stealth score, the ability to spot traps, and the ability not to die to them. It's the last part where Rogues can fall flat, especially in terms of hps.

Also, "scouting ahead" can trigger events early without the rest of the party there since it starts when people can see it.

There's nothing more "broken" as in game wrecking.

But it's already been shown that a full casting sorcerer into DD is just getting free survivability and better bloodline progression.

Anchorite - HP increase, save increase, gets free DC increase of their spells, can progress domains and channel, now with full casting.

Arcane Savant - can now poach spells from any list and not even give up 1 spell level, take 10 on UMD, bonuses to knowledge and spellcraft and UMD. Can use scrolls at his full caster level.

Darkfire Adept - can lower enemy saves, bonuses on calling outsiders, it's summons can summon more things.

Demoniac - free stackable stat increase so spell DC's are higher now. Plus resistances and immunities.

Holy Vindicator - continues channel progression, makes your channeling stronger, gives extra AC, full BAB, more HP, stigmata for a boost to like any combat stat, free empowere/maximized healing on self.

Tattooed Mystic

Umbral Agent

Winter Witch

All of these can make for great upgrades for full casters when you don't lose any spellcasting.

Dragon Disciple comes at the cost of losing feats on a sorcerer. They don't have as many floating around as a wizard. But i do agree it is something to consider. Seems ok.

Arcane savant - is a good one. Razmiran Priest does this with full casting as an archetype and hasn't caused too many problems. But i age it is strong.

Dark fire adept seems like a fair trade. Trade feats, Summon things better.

Demoniac requires chaotic evil, therefore is not to be used in pfs.

Holy Vindicator: Seems good.

Tattooed mystic: seems a little meh for what you get.

Unreal agent requires lawful evil, so that's a non starter

Winter witch: their best ability to see through winter weather is replaced by fog cloud and a goz mask, which requires no feats. It's a good deal, but not a crazy one.

I think even if you find a good option, like Rift Warden, it will likely not be the only thing that people will take..

I mean, look at Bloatmage. It's free spells for basically nothing.

Once you hit level 4 bloatmage can cast a level 4 spell for free, then roll a d8, even on an 8, you literally can't go crazy and kill everyone, then you get to cast another free level 4 spell... and as you get more and more levels, it gets better and better. You get a fist full of free spells for a feat and nothing else.

I'd argue that this is better than regular wizard, yet, it is not everywhere. Maybe some people just don't want to be Baron Harkonnen :D