Benchak the Nightstalker's page

From what I recall of GoT, In general, the combat is more arcade-y than Elden Ring (especially in the later parts of Tsushima). There’s a similar emphasis on blocks, parries, and dodges, but in Tsushima there wasn’t a stamina bar to worry about, and the parry windows were pretty generous.

Elden Ring (and souls games in general) are less forgiving. If you attack when you shouldn’t, expect to get punished for it, and with stamina you can’t just roll all the time.

The one-on-one duel segments of Tsushima felt more Souls-y though—you had to learn the boss’s moves and pick the right time to attack.

Elden Ring doesn’t have the different stance mechanics, but it does give you a lot more options for combat styles, with tons of weapons and magic to choose from, so combat is also a lot more varied. A tanky sword-and-board character is going to feel very different from Jin, as will an astrologer shooting magic missiles.

Ultimately, the combat is pretty similar to prior souls games. When it clicks for you, it feels incredibly intuitive and rewarding. I’ve revisited DS3 several times, trying different builds and styles of play, but I haven’t felt the same urge to go back to Tsushima.

I am absolutely loving this game. Got my second great rune last night.

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

I'd like to see Monk styles based around weapons.

Frex, a longsword style. You go into the stance and can only make longsword attacks, get some cool benefits/bonuses, and later feats give you special longsword attacks.

Kind of like Peafowl Stance?

Yeah, but expanded to weapons that don't normally have the Monk trait, or don't qualify for ancestral weaponry.

Like, a spear monk style would be cool.

A katana monk style would be cool, maybe something like iajutsu/building off quick draw.

I'd like to see Monk styles based around weapons.

Frex, a longsword style. You go into the stance and can only make longsword attacks, get some cool benefits/bonuses, and later feats give you special longsword attacks.

I've been requiring players to spend a week or two of downtime to get access to uncommon spells and such.

They're 20th level now, in book 6, and still nobody has bothered to learn teleport.

I'm actually pretty jazzed about it.

I started this module. I read that A1 room in the opening. I was wondering how the PCs were supposed to enter? It says the main doors are blocked by rubble. It says the northwest doors are blocked by collapsed rubble. The only way I see into the Sanctuary of Prescience is through the secret doors in the back, which would cause the PCs to run into the Ankou before the fight in A1.

On a side note, a couple of Leukodaemons and 3 poisoners against a lvl 12 party is not much of a challenge. Even throwing in the six poisoners from the rafters, the challenge isn't very strong. By lvl 12 if you don't have casters backing you up, then you're not going to last long. The poisoners have no caster backup. The PC casters easily controlled the battle with healing, AoE, and control spells.

I believe the front door collapses after the PCs enter, as part of the “opening with a bang” read aloud text.

So they’d come in through the front door, the front of the church collapses during the attack, and the PCs have to find a new way out through areas A3 & A4.

As to the encounter, yeah, it feels underwhelming. I ended up skipping this entire area, but if I were to run it, I’d probably jack up the number of reinforcements pretty significantly.

One of the ways I nudged my players toward rescuing Starborn early in book 5 was having the Skinner get sent to the same prison at the end of book 2, and then having word get back to them that she was murdered in her cell.

Then in book 5, I was able to suggest through friendly NPCs that Wynsal probably wouldn’t survive long in prison, especially once the Grand Council elects a new primarch. I made the political debate happening in the background a source of rising tension.

Meanwhile, the last few lines of a certain poem by one Edgar Allan Poe run through my head:

Out — out are the lights — out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero...

** spoiler omitted **

Literally the inspiration for this monster, back when I wrote it up for 1e. Psyched to see them finally show up in 2e!

Okay so you prepare 2 "anti AoO" spells. You pop them in two fights and are now done for the rest of the day.

Invisible does not make it so you don't trigger AoO it only makes it so there is a chance to fail. Which btw a DC11 flat check is not hard to make. Same thing with Mirror Image, it doesn't stop you from provoking, just makes it so they have a 25-50% chance of not hitting you.

Mirror Image is great when the Enemy attacks you once, and hits one of the images. As soon as the enemy is striking you twice or more, the spell becomes a waste of both actions and resources because they will pop all three of the images really quick. You actively provoking AoO makes it even worse since the enemy doesn't even have to spend an action to pop one of the images.

This is not even mentioning the fact that literally all other martials can use those spells better than a Magus.

Those spells are not cure all, they are a mitigation at best, while cutting into your very few spells per day.

If the party faces 3-6 encounters per day, and ~30% of encounters have an enemy with AoO, on average, you won't need more than 1-2 spells to deal with AoO. You're by no means done for the day.

And sure, those spells aren't foolproof, but if you're an enemy, are you going to spend your one reaction per round on the invisible magus, or save it for someone you don't have less than a coin-flip chance of hitting? Defensive buffs are often as much about disincentivizing attacks as they are negating them.

I'm not arguing that spellcasting is a cure-all for AoOs, merely that spellcasting is a valuable piece of the magus's toolkit that's not meant to be used purely for hp damage. I am arguing in response to the claims that the only way for the magus to deal with AoO is building around it/using starlit span, or that the magus's limited spell slots are useless for anything but attack spells.

It’s not schrodinger’s magus to suggest that a magus can spend one or two of their 6 spell slots a day prepping some of the broadly useful buff and defensive spells they have access to, which aside from their intrinsic benefits, can also be used to overcome situations like enemies with AoO.

Mirror Image is a great spell. It’s a fantastic defensive buff, and particularly good for laughing shadow maguses who get it as a studious spell. It also negates a lot of AoOs.

Invisibility is a great spell, useful in-combat and out-of-combat. It also negates a lot of AoOs.

Enlarge is a great spell, which grants reach and a hefty status bonus to damage. It also negates a lot of AoOs.

Etc.

The point isn’t that the magus always has a solution to every situation—it’s that the magus suffers very little opportunity cost when preparing solutions for AoO. The solutions are all things that benefit the magus in other ways, or can solve other problems.

The "Options and Versatility" of Spellstrike is primarily being able to run into resistances die to split damage.

Champions and Monks have much stronger other utilities. Champions are absolutely insane when it comes to controlling the battlefield, while Monks not only are incredibly flexible due to an actually strong action economy, but have excellent lockdown potential as well.

Swashbuckler is another class that has issues, such as the inconsistency of Panache.

Most importantly, however, it doesn't get smacked in the face for doing it's thing, which just feels bad.

I said the options and versatility of spellcasting, not spellstrike.

I think you're really undervaluing access to the arcane spell list here by treating it as just another source of hp damage.

And it really only helps that subclass, doesn't help against the bigger AoO monsters (monsters get bigger on average as level goes up), and they have only 2 studious spell slots.

And the other hybrid studies have hands free for scrolls, and/or easy access to staves, and/or their own studious spells to deal with the situation.

Is a round where the magus buffs themselves a wasted round? Are they not contributing to the combat by doing so? I kind of feel like that's the crux of the disagreement here.

There's just no genuine balance argument for it, it works against the flavor of the class, it is a disservice to the fantasy it is trying to fulfill, Spellstrike already has other balance mechanisms, the class itself has even more balance mechanisms, and since it gets increasingly worse at higher levels (where monsters gain increasingly better ways to screw with action economies), it causes the gameplay experience of the class to worsen at higher levels.

There has been very little argument in favor of keeping it as-is, just whataboutism and "but you can work around it."

The topic is not *how* to work around it, but *why* it shouldn't be there in the first place.

I personally disagree with a lot of what you're saying here. Spellstrike provoking doesn't work against the flavor of the class for me, and it doesn't disservice the fantasy of the magus in my eyes.

I am open to the possibility that it makes the experience of the class worse at higher levels--I haven't played a magus at high levels yet, so I can't share my perspective. Is that your actual experience playing the class so far?

As to the "you can work around it" comments, for my part, those are mostly in response to the people saying "the only way to deal with AoO is to build around it/play starlit span."

If folks are going to argue that spellstrike shouldn't provoke because stock-standard magus can't get around AoO, I think it's fair to point out that that isn't true.

A 2H Magus activating a scroll needs to stow his weapon, draw the scroll, cast the scroll, and then redraw the weapon, and the scroll only mitigates AoOs.

The 2H magus gets enlarge as a studious spell, so they don't need to use a scroll.

And aside from putting them out of AoO reach, enlarge is also, you know, a genuinely helpful buff. It's extra reach (on a class that can also make AoOs), and gives a status bonus to damage.

First of all, let me say that I don't have a dog in the hunt. I'm not particularly interested in playing a Magus. But I have read the entire thread, and I have a question for those who think spellstrike should provoke: Do you believe if it didn't, that the Magus would be too strong? Or are you afraid it might set a bad precedent regarding spell casting and AsoO?

I guess I just haven't yet seen a convincing argument in favor of keeping provoking.

Do I think the magus would be too strong?

Probably not. I mean, that's the thing--70% of the time, a magus who doesn't provoke is exactly as powerful as a magus who does.

I just think it engenders a certain amount of tactical passivity. Like, the early posts talked about spellstrike being part of a magus's rotation. You spellstrike, you recharge, rinse and repeat. But if all you're doing as a magus is walking up and hitting the enemy in melee for high damage every round, you're just playing a fighter with extra steps and more ribbons.

I like that the current magus has some limitations, because it encourages you to play to it's strengths (spellcasting)--just like the rogue has to think about positioning.

To put it another way, to me, personally, a magus who kicks on mirror image to avoid AoO is just so much cooler than one who never provokes at all.

But, obviously, other people feel differently. I wouldn't be upset if they decided to make some changes to the class. I just hope that if they do, it remains limited in some ways--making a cantrip or cantrips that don't provoke for spellstrike, or giving maguses a bonus to AC against AoOs provoked by spellcasting.

SuperBidi wrote:

Physicskid42 wrote:

When one of my players wanted to kill a high level monster by using Create Cottage to smash it with a house, I said “you can try but you have survive direct attacks and concentration checks for 10 rounds” I’ll be darned if he didn’t pull it off. And that was a more interesting outcome for everyone. It was only possible because he saw and took one of the few open ended spells and took it.

I can only speak for myself, but that's not something I want in my games (both as player and GM). So I'm happy it's not something that can be pulled off in PF2.

Cottagecore can be so creative.

Honestly though, that sounds super fun and quite inventive. As a DM I’d allow it, and if ai was a player I’d be pumped if someone in my party materialised a cottage to wipe out an evil…witch.

It sounds like a fun thing to happen once.

Also note that the Rogue Flat-Footed restriction is encouraging them to be sneaky and tricky, enhancing the flavor. Meanwhile, the Magus restriction is encouraging them to pick the subclass that changes the entire concept from melee magic user to a magic Archer.

I'd argue it encourages them to be tricky with their spells.

Off the top of my head (not including invisibility, which has already been mentioned):

Mirror image
Enlarge for extra reach
Use illusions to provoke
Use darkness/darkvision
Hideous laughter/confusion/uncontrollable dance to shut down reactions
Buff an ally with stoneskin so they can eat the AoO

Even debuffs that aren't foolproof, like fear, dazzled, or concealment, can swing things in the magus's favor.

All those are available to any hybrid study--a lot of them are even available as studious spells.

I also love this, and I’m excited to see how you tweak Olansa.

I was also planning on dropping the madness angle, and having her retain her human form when they start the fight. Then, when her hit points hit a certain threshold, the power of the cane overwhelms her, and she gets transformed into the drider-esque version.

I like Charisma.

I also feel like if it were flexible/any mental, it'd be too clear of a choice to go Wis/Int.

Chalice Implement -> Estus Flask

Praise the Sun!

Not to be dense, but every allegation from both Jessica and Crystal is about something from three or more years ago. What allegations of sexism, transphobia, or racism are current enough to not have been part of what the listed changes were done to address?

The issue is, we (the customer base) often don't hear about bad stuff until three or four years down the road, when ex-employees have enough distance from the situation to talk freely about it.

Hell, Jessica started her thread saying she'd been holding off airing some of this dirty laundry because she was worried folks at Paizo might retaliate against her friends still with the company.

The point of dredging up these issues from years ago is to provide context for the problems that are happening now, behind the scenes, that we don't have any details on.

Sara Marie got fired, and Diego quit in solidarity, alleging a lack of integrity from some of the management. What happened there? No clue! But four years ago Jeff told Jessica that cleaning the floors was too expensive, and it took an organized email campaign to HR to get them to vacuum the place.

So the question I have to ask is, what issue(s) is Jeff ignoring right now?

Because good folks are getting fired/quitting. Some figurative floor there is still dirty.

I hope they keep it Int/Cha. I like the connection with the old psychic spell components, Thought and Emotion.

Starlit Span

2)Dual Weapon Warrior
4)Dual Weapon Thrower
6)Force Fang
8)Expansive Spellstrike
10)Dual Weapon Blitz
12)Focus 2

Force Fang is a decent recharge for ranged and a source of focus point, can change to runic impression if desirable.

Expansive Spellstrike is just for Blink Charge for FFXV Noctis Style, thrown the weapon and teleport to it then force fang.

Double Slice and Dual weapon Blitz gives a decent option for spellstrike off turns.

Gloaming Shard gives you the Noctis move without spending a feat/spellstrike on it.

I’m for sure taking it with my Magus for Strength of Thousands.

Thanks to the free wizard mc archetype, I have plenty of spell slots to work with, and debuffs have a lot longer longevity in low-level slots than attack spells.

Plus, I’m using a scythe, so I’ve gotta grab cone of cold so I can do the Sister Freide move :)

Shield Archon seems like an outlier too. 33 is an Extreme AC for a 10th level creature, and 15 for a save is Low-to-Terrible.

I’ll be interested to see how Shadow Signet plays in actual game conditions. Two of my Edgewatch players bought them, and so far, it hasn’t felt unbalanced or overpowered (and both players said that they enjoyed being able to play the ‘what save to target’ game)

In one of the games I’m playing in, one of the other players is running a dhampir playtest summoner.

I really appreciate being able to Battle Medicine the summoner to keep the Eidolon hp up, without having to rush into melee range. On the flip side, if I need to drop a real deal spell, I don’t need to prep a Harm to cover the dhampir—I can just target the Eidolon.

Yeah, the release date should be locked in now.

I think I went through this same internal debate some months back, and finally settled on Magus.

Free MC wizard + Magus wave casting means you've got a decent amount of magic to throw around, and one big spellbook to keep it in.

67) Sharra, a scythe-wielding gnoll Magus with the Inexorable Iron Hybrid Study. She grew up in Osirion, as part of a growing cult of Pharasmin gnolls inspired by my Mummy's Mask character, a gnoll cleric named Inanna.

She joined the Magaambya both to develop her talents in arcane magic, and to learn more about the gnolls of the Mwangi Expanse.

A featherless biped.

I do think it would be neat to be able to have a favored form, and still be viable from 1-20.

To keep up with the math, you have to graduate from wolves to dragons to purple worms or whatever, but sometimes you just want to keep that classic wolf aesthetic.

Honestly, the heist would be a much better fit in book 5, after the PCs lose their badges.

You'd have to rework the plotline pretty significantly, but I think there's some fun potential there.

I was going to say, the pre-built map of the catacombs I got from the Roll20 Book 2 package seemed to work fine, even with the dynamic lighting turned on.

(Though, I am for sure switching to Foundry after I'm done with this AP, for a host of reasons).

Gage is neutral. I don't see why he would want to hand off a mass murder bomb to anyone. Gage would be far better off letting the law handle Nogorber Cults as he doesn't want that fight as far as I see it, mobster or no.

There is a long history of The Mob helping the cops in situations like this when dealing outside of their organization. Nogorber cults are definitely outside The Mobs purview.

And as far as I see it if he tells some level 10 plus cops to kick rocks, he's going to find out these cops aren't easily told to kick rocks. If he wants real trouble with high level cops, he's gonna get it.

I don't like playing lvl 10 plus cops as some soft cops who have to sneak in to take care of things. They are city muscle. FBI plus level cops. You don't mess with them when dealing with a city wide terrorist situation. Gage messes with them, they gonna mess back with him. He's not going to like it.

I said Destroy/Offload because I was writing from the perspective that Gage doesn’t know what the thing is. Ultimately, he never knows what the thing is, because it’s already gone by the time the PCs come calling. You can’t appeal to him on the grounds that it’s a terrorist bomb, because the PCs don’t know that. Hell, Gage has to take their word for it that the item has anything to do with the Norgorberites at all.

It’s safer for his business and his reputation if he just makes this whole problem disappear. He doesn’t have to fight the cult, he just has erase their connection with him.

And the fact that they’re level 10+ cops isn’t that convincing. Gage is 11th level. His lead staff are almost all in the 10+ range. His ex-employee Franca is 13th. He’s got a hefty number of 8th level dudes on the payroll. Sure, he’s probably not going to literally tell the PCs to kick rocks, but if he says “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to come back with a warrant before I allow you into the vault—I have to ensure the privacy of my customers” what are the PCs going to do about it? Murder hobo their way through a few extreme encounters worth of bouncers?

That’s all just my perspective though. I’m not here to backseat GM for you. I think the heist itself is very fun, and I might encourage you to think about adapting it rather than ditching it entirely, but if you want to have Gage cooperate with the PCs in your game that’s also a totally valid approach.

Sure, but like I said, if the PCs go to Gage with the info, my sense is he'd brush them off and deal with the issue himself.

If he cooperates, leads the PCs down to the vault, and they find a dangerous cult thing, that definitively links him with the cult. That's bad for him, and his business.

If he tells them to kick rocks without a warrant, he can destroy/offload the bomb himself, clean up the evidence, and solve his problem without getting his name in the papers.

I agree that the heist is a bit railroady, but I like that it gets the PCs hands a little dirty, and sets up some of the themes that return in book 5--namely, Miogimo's plotline.

I ran Gage as essentially a mob banker, with the idea that he caters his vault services specifically to criminals and other ne'er-do-wells, with the understanding that his connections on the Grand Council can keep the watch out of his business and keep your ill-gotten goods safe.

IIRC, the PCs don't actually know what the bomb is when they go to heist it, only that its a dangerous item, so I think that gives Gage enough deniability to tell the PCs "come back with a warrant".

If anything, I think he'd probably try to solve the issue himself, without involving the watch.

It's also more useful for situations where you're outside your wheelhouse.

E.g. A high-Int Wizard with skill boosters is going to lose a lot using Assurance on a Society check, but my Dandy Rogue with a 10 Int? Not so much.

There are different branches in the Magaambya: Cascade Bearers, Emerald Boughs, Rain-Scribes, Tempest-Sun Mages, and Uzunjati. They all have different focuses and specializations—e.g. Tempest-Sun Mages are warriors and protectors, Uzunjanti are historians (iirc).

I think, in general though, they’re consciously trying to avoid a lot of the more Harry Potter-y, boarding school tropes.

The idea that some swords are just plain better than others is a pretty popular fantasy trope. I don't mean better because they're flaming, or holy, or have special powers, I mean that some swords are just more sword-y than others.

Is that a sacred cow they should have axed in the new edition? Maybe. But my sense is most people seem to enjoy it, and enjoy having a dimension of character growth not tied to xp. For those that don't, ABP works fairly well.

...though, it does assume most players are going to be using weapons, and doesn't do much for those who want to focus on pure spellcasting.

Hypothetically, you could make an evolution feat that gives the eidolon a multiclass dedication?

Could be a fun way to inject some class flavor into an eidolon.

You can't cast a top tier nuke and 2 martial level attacks in a round. The action split appears to be always 1-3.

I don't think that's the case. They said Act Together gives you one 1-3 action thing and one 1 action thing.

So you could cast a 2 action spell with the Summoner, using Act Together to take a free attack with the Eidolon, and then use your last action to take a second attack with the Eidolon.

I'm going to play a Gnoll Magus with a Scythe for Strength of Thousands.

In Mummy's Mask, I played a gnoll cleric of Pharasma, who after that campaign had gone back to spread the faith of Pharasma to the Gnolls. This character is going to be a descendant/follower of that cult.

Because Medicine the skill just isn't fast enough. You nearly never heal enough in just 10 minutes, or 20 or 30 for that matter. You very often need 40, 50 or even 70 or 80 minutes to heal back up fully using Treat Wounds (and I'm obviously assuming someone in the party has Continual Recovery).

That has not been my experience.

My skill healers almost always top the party off in ~20 minutes.

Are your players/groups getting knocked all the way to single digits every fight?

Are your skill healers investing fully in skill healing, or did they stop at Continual Recovery and call it good? Ward Medic is pretty easy to pick up, and by 7th level can by quadrupling the amount of healing the medic is dropping each 10 minutes.

That's not even getting into the Medic Archetype, which really ramps things up.

They'll need an emulsifier, and it might end up being more of a holy mayo than a holy oil.

Not really. My players did the same thing.

It doesn't mention it in Book 1, but those two show up again in book 4, at the Noxious Retort, getting drunk in one of the rooms.

If I were running this AP over again, I'd play up this scene to make The Whisker Brothers as memorable as possible, and then bring them back through the rest of the AP as small-timers who keep getting in way over their heads.

You don't need an organized, large scale plant growth program--just say your prayers to Erastil, and he'll ensure you have a bountiful harvest.

My players made it past the Tyrroicese, and are about to hit the Skinsaw hideout, but I noticed something weird about the Seamers.

So they’ve got a loop of wire on their free hand that lets them grapple as a reaction, which is rad. And once they grapple you, they can start stitching stuff to you, which is cool and gruesome. I’m on board. The players saves are penalized if the Seamer hits them with their Flay ability first—makes sense.

But the Flay ability requires them to hit with a non-war razor melee attack, and follow it up with a war razor attack, which means you need to dual-wield your shortsword and war razor to flay the PC. But that’s going to take up both your hands, and the description of Wire Catch sure makes it sound like they’re supposed to have a hand free for grapples and disarms.

So are they supposed to start with both weapons out, flay, and then drop one to start stitching? That seems like a lot of equipment juggling to pull off their (admittedly) cool schtick.

And another thing, what’s up with the shortsword attack being 2 less than the war razor?

I think I’m just going to give them +1 Striking War Razors, ditch the shortswords entirely, and have their Flay ability work without needing a non-war razor hit.

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

One of my usual PFS players took the Blessed One archetype specifically for Lay on Hands.

So, not wasted for everyone I think.

My Oracle in Age of Ashes took Blessed One for Lay On Hands. It's great to have a thing to spend focus points on without pushing me up the curse track.

Does it work that way? Oh snap. We have an oracle, actually an orcacle, in my AoA game and they're looking for a way to squeeze out more healing as well.

"Other Focus Spells

One of my usual PFS players took the Blessed One archetype specifically for Lay on Hands.

So, not wasted for everyone I think.

My Oracle in Age of Ashes took Blessed One for Lay On Hands. It's great to have a thing to spend focus points on without pushing me up the curse track.

Can confirm Jim Groves wrote the Camarach (he’s playing in my AoE campaign right now, as a swashbuckler ironically enough)