Bluemagetim's page

This is how I understand what we have right now if following the rules entries and the GM is not using discretion to change something.
Inner sea region is the frame of reference.

Rare is basically a list of options a GM has to opt into.
Uncommon is mostly access restricted where players can pick options granting the content. Like a wizard picking boundry, they get teleport. GM has to use discretion to not allow it.
Common is the baseline content of an inner sea campaign, Players dont need to have specific options to gain it and GMs dont need to specifically opt into the content.

About GM discretion. GM discretion is available for GMs no matter the tag. Discretion allows changing the tags content has even. So if a GM is using discretion in a way you disagree with its not a tag issue, its a table dynamic issue, which is what I said in earlier.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I personally don't think power level is part of what rarity tags delineate on their own.

I looks like its just access and how common something is in the inner sea region.
PC pages 11 and 31 give a good idea of what the intent was.
Rare options can be very powerful or not but the tag isn't what tells us that, its just saying its rare and GMs need to explicitly include it for it to be available.

It's part of the equation, Teleport and such spells are uncommon because they are potentially disruptive (i.e. "more powerful than a GM might wish for") for certain campaigns, not because they are regionally limited.

These two aspects of the rarity system should be separated for clarity, IMO.

Ok I see your point more clearly.

The teleport part of this is more of a judgment against why they made it uncommon.
The tags dont really tell us why, just that they are. The best part of the system is that if you dont think it should be uncommon it doesnt have to be in your game.
As a player though if you really want teleport for example boundry curriculum gives access. At which point if a GM is saying no its not due to the uncommon rarity tag since picking boundry is the exact mechanism to overcome the uncommon designation by the rules.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I personally don't think power level is part of what rarity tags delineate on their own.

I looks like its just access and how common something is in the inner sea region.
PC pages 11 and 31 give a good idea of what the intent was.
Rare options can be very powerful or not but the tag isn't what tells us that, its just saying its rare and GMs need to explicitly include it for it to be available.

It's part of the equation, Teleport and such spells are uncommon because they are potentially disruptive (i.e. "more powerful than a GM might wish for") for certain campaigns, not because they are regionally limited.

These two aspects of the rarity system should be separated for clarity, IMO.

Ah ok I see what you mean by more powerful.

I personally don't think power level is part of what rarity tags delineate on their own.
I looks like its just access and how common something is in the inner sea region.
PC pages 11 and 31 give a good idea of what the intent was.
Rare options can be very powerful or not but the tag isn't what tells us that, its just saying its rare and GMs need to explicitly include it for it to be available.

Table dynamics is the problem. A GM autobannign everything uncommon. Or a GM requiring favor to allow a katana.
A healthy dynamic is different. A player who wants to start off with a katana tells the GM they are picking this uncommon option for thier character is that an issue?
GM knows if it is or isn't an issue and tells the player no problem or actually it isn't right for this campaign to start off with one.
That isnt even always it isnt right to find one in game either.
Sometimes a reason is there but not something the GM should share because it spoils the story or a plot twist.
In the case of an online PbP game I think there is a courtesy in putting prominent hard lines for your game upfront, its not nice to waste anyone's time.
But is the rarity system a problem? I dont think so. i think it makes bad dynamics stick out like a sore thumb though.

The other side presented on this was rarity tags are too convoluted and more specific tags would be better for GMs and players. I am more ambivalent to that idea. Some form of it would work, it will do some things better but it also will introduce new problems. What we have has very little actual downside that actually stems from the tags themselves from my experience.

Bluemagetim wrote:

As far as foundry maps go I have tried a few different ways but I found it pretty easy to use Krita(free art software) to draw the map i want.

It will come out as basic or as advanced as your ability but even a basic map you color in can look neat when you import it into foundry. The bonus being everything is exactly as you wanted it to be.
it is a bit of work to do this for every area so I do it when i want something specific.

I used to make my own maps in DungeonDraft, and I also tried Dungeon Alchemy, but I am afraid that making my own maps for every single session and sometimes multiple maps for the early game where it's more "choose your own adventure" might burn me out. But maybe if I start preparing everything now, in advance and then later actually run the game I could get well ahead of schedule?

Burn out is real.

i would guess if tags were to become more granular, how things got sorted would just become another point for arguing.

As far as foundry maps go I have tried a few different ways but I found it pretty easy to use Krita(free art software) to draw the map i want.
It will come out as basic or as advanced as your ability but even a basic map you color in can look neat when you import it into foundry. The bonus being everything is exactly as you wanted it to be.
it is a bit of work to do this for every area so I do it when i want something specific.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Actually my understanding and experience in the past has been that without this kind of system the discussion still happen its just has no starting place except the GMs whims. Ive played with different GMs and what is considered baseline varied a lot and they varied a lot from me.

Rarity helps players and GMs understand the design intent and gives a baseline content the designers intended to be universal vs less so.

I would only agree if I would see any method/logic in intention behind rarity tags and as most of us agreed here - there is none. Too many hats. Does it have uncommon casue it might be disruptive? How exactly - there is only few that are obvious like Teleport or Ressurection. Or its regional? Or maybe it doesn't fit best theme of this class/setting? Or tradition? Is this weapon uncommon becasue of... what exactly? Traits? Damage die? What designer had in mind? Is this spell too strong... or just... does something that someone thought might do something that someone thought he wouldn't like but we can't say for sure?

My experience with playing TTRPGs is this - if something will actually come up as disruptive - then you as GM have proof, reason, experience and actual data with said thing to say "ok, this stuff is little problematic for a while". Until you try yourself - how the hell can you tell Paizo tagging is accurate for whatever their reason was? You can't say for most.

In the end every system depends on "whims" of GM. But without rarity system you actually have to test something in gameplay to judge stuff. That's way better in my book than trust some random guy I don't know from Paizo who slapped tag on it and I have no idea what he was thinking about doing so.

you know i do need acknowledge that you are speaking from your experience with the tags and it sounds like it hasnt gone well.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

This says more about a particular table dynamic than the rarity system doesn't it?

There wouldn't be a need of such discussions at table without rarity system, would it?

It would be more healthy "case by case" like in normal TTRPG after something actually was proven to be disruptive instead of guessing. And consider the amount of tagged things - such negotations/discussions would definitely be way way way way less common.

Actually my understanding and experience in the past has been that without this kind of system the discussion still happen its just has no starting place except the GMs whims. Ive played with different GMs and what is considered baseline varied a lot and they varied a lot from me when I GM.

Rarity helps players and GMs understand the design intent and gives a baseline content the designers intended to be universal vs less so.
But just because we have a designer base line doesn't mean it has to be followed.

And just to expand on this for a sec.

Bluemagetim wrote:

This says more about a particular table dynamic than the rarity system doesn't it?

There wouldn't be a need of such discussions at table without rarity system, would it?

It would be more healthy "case by case" like in normal TTRPG after something actually was proven to be disruptive instead of guessing. And consider the amount of tagged things - such negotations/discussions would definitely be way way way way less common.

Actually my understanding and experience in the past has been that without this kind of system the discussion still happen its just has no starting place except the GMs whims. Ive played with different GMs and what is considered baseline varied a lot and they varied a lot from me when I GM.

Tectorman wrote:

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

2. Many uncommon things are just so cool. That's it. Uncommon archetypes are cool, uncommon weapons are cool, some uncommon /feats/spells are cool (Boneshaker is COOL!) or good (Sudden Bolt), but in noway even remotely too good. Pretty much THE COOLEST ancestries are all uncommon. Who the hell wants to play 3rd decade in row of just humans/elfs/dwarfs again where you have cool stuff like Leshy, Conrasu, Automatons, Kashirisi, Nagaji, Reflection and so on. It's what makes PF2e so cool in first place.

That's my take as well. P2E presents all these neat ancestries (and some classes as well) and says "Hey, you see this neat thing? You see how cool it is? You want to play as one of these? Are you interested? Are you excited? Was this a major contributing factor to why you flipping bought this book in the first place?

"Oh, well. Too bad. Playing as one of these requires you to haggle and negotiate and potentially make yourself out to be a burden and a pain to deal with. So instead of that hassle, why not just play the same bog-standard human, elf, or dwarf?"

It's why I haven't bought many of the latest books. It's discouraging when the game practically rubs your face in the cool things only to younk them out of your reach.

Very well said

"Here is all the cool stuff you paid for from our books"

"Yay!"

"Now go haggle and negotiate with GM if you can use any of them. Good luck"

And in the end many will never play with them. Great.

That's in my opinion not how you create healthy system.

This says more about a particular table dynamic than the rarity system doesn't it?

For me the rarity system is fine as is.
Like someone earlier in the thread mentioned they just ignore it, others said they use it and its been helpful. At worst its meaningless to your game and at best it gives a reason to discuss problematic or unthemed content before finding it on a player's character sheet.

In reading through this thread I think the 2 per 10 minutes a psychic still gets over other classes has not really been weighed in.
I know in my games I will tell players when they can take 10 without consequence but going for more might be risky.
I also let them know when they are going into an area they can expect resting at all to be a substantial risk.

In that respect GMs have the tools to create situations where 2 for 10 is a real advantage the psychic still has and situations where it doesnt matter at all.

Thanks.

yes sorry I did mean battle harbinger.
It just seems like a directional change so I wouldn't want battle harbinger to be left out.

Has there been anything about a possible errata for Warpriest after the spellcasting slot progression changes in Impossible Magic were released?

I am considering just not using wave casting and use 2 slot progression for anything that has it still.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Whatever PAIZO needs to do to stay in business they should…

That is a very dangerous sentiment for both consumer and employee safety.

I said this casually.

Whatever PAIZO needs to do to stay in business they should, but what I would like to see is that they make this right with the folks at Archives, what that means is between them. The work they have done for years was a symbol that this company not only had invested in its gaming community but that its community was committed to investing in them. I hope this change doesn't mean they are moving away from a way of decision making that set them apart.

My take on what they presented is that they are looking at the what a strike or a spell or some other independent effect is producing given all the sources that contribute as the weakness trigger limiter.
interactions within that black box? Some things they pointed out like the familiar weapon material and slashing take the highest but a lot of it still seems like they are trying to figure it out with the foal of one proc of each weakness per box that isnt the weapon material thing.

I would see the following.
A. 0 damage. Check. Same reasoning. Nothing new to consider.

B. 5 damage. Check. Same reasoning. Str is part of modifiers, bonuses, and penalties of the strike damage. Nothing new to consider.

C. I agree with this. the piercing or slashing damage from the shortsword has to be the only magical damage being dealt. The alchemical fire gets the full resistance value.

D. Also agree. alchemical fire triggers fire weakness but has not gained any new traits like magical so still faces the full resistance.

E. Same. This is how I would have determined the damage before any of the errata or clarifications. I would have treated the flame wisp as a separate spell effect and not part of the strike. however if they now consider that flame spell part of the strike's effect just from a different source it does present some decisions about what is inside the box to be made.
Maybe the easiest way is to treat all fire as one sum that gets a fire weakness value once and then gets to take the hit against resistance at its best applicable trait.
The alchemical and magical aspects are present so treat the sum of fire damage as though it is whichever gets the most benefit at the moment. I can work with this simplification though it lowers the impact of resistance like this.
What I wouldn't want to see is one damage sum with all the traits from the weapon and the fire. That is more simplification than I would want.

Weakness with the new goals will have to contend with what separates anything that is going to be considered part of the effect of a strike spell and effect for determining distinct triggerings.

Resistance on the other hand cares about what happens in the box based on whatever they decide are distinct for the purpose of resisting and what gets to have traits for that purpose too.

I look forward to seeing the new method. The stated goals sound great.

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

Here are 5 questions from the player core to ask about a creature plus one more I thought was important for a hypercognition.

I think the main draw for a lot of people to Pathfinder 2e is that they didn't need to spend a lot of time homebrewing solutions to the written rules.
The more situations like the Oracle not having clear spells known or their things like it that come up the more GMs need to homebrew a fix to keep things moving. The typoes and smaller print issues have always been there but things like this are not the same kind of issue.

For my part I like to homebrew when I want things to work differently than what is written, but I don't want to homebrew because what is written doesn't work.

Ok since Teridax asked for some math I thought I would show the basic problem with 2d8 scaling for a psychic using their class features.
Lets look at rank 7 with basic class features that dont require extra actions.

Fire ray 49 ave damage, 98 crit damage (floor fire is a great make them move feature or 24.5 ave damage not affected by crits if they don't)
Chain lighting from a sorcerer 65.5 ave damage, 131 crit damage
Unleashed psychic OLD IW amped 77 ave ave damage, 154 crit damage
Unleashed psychic New IW amped 63 ave damage, 126 crit dmaage

Including basic class features Old IW was doing too much damage and way to much damage on crits compared to chain lighting a rank 6 slotted spell. As far as I am concerned IW should not out damage a sorcerer using chain lighting. I think Paizo made the right call to downgrade IW and by making it force gave it a different lane since that 63 ave and 126 crit is going to be just that against almost any creature.

Bluemagetim wrote:

selling the Psychic?

defending them?

That kind of framing is missing the point of the discussion and polluting it.

Understanding what it is actually doing is the point.

Tell me: what understanding are you bringing to this conversation by peddling unsubstantiated conjecture? What are you trying to contribute by repeating claims that were proven false by several people on this thread many times already? I took the time and effort to disprove your claim that the switch to force damage was "not a downgrade", and all you have to offer in return is repeating the baseless assertion that this was necessary due to the cantrip being out of line. It wasn't, its worse offense was a synergy with the Magus that got nixed.

And to be clear, I'm not asking you to pick a specific side here, only to argue in good faith. Moosher12 expressed contrary opinions, for instance, but made the effort to supplement their claims with math and research. You, by contrast, continue to make no such effort. Please, for the sake of this conversation, make an effort to provide some kind of basis for your claims if you're going to be challenging those of others.

My claims are substantiated clearly by what I showed in my previous posts. You can read them again and see it if you care to.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I think its the crit scaling of 2d8 on a focus spell. magus just made that happen with more frequency to the point it was becoming a cult build.

You literally said yourself it's the interaction that broke it. That means the interaction is the problem.

Yes, but it doesnt mean its the only one. It is just the thing that shows with more frequency the crit damage was too high for a focus spell.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Notice how it was the interaction of putting 2d8 scaling on martial to hit scaling that broke it?

It points to the crit damage having been the problem with the spell

"Notice how having superior accuracy, superior defences, and being able to combine the spell with a regular weapon attack makes the spell problematic?"

Yeah it's the spell that's the issue here, not the change of circumstances.

I understand your position on this. You have been consistent on it.

I think its the crit scaling of 2d8 on a focus spell. magus just made that happen with more frequency to the point it was becoming a cult build.

Bluemagetim wrote:

selling the Psychic?

defending them?

That kind of framing is missing the point of the discussion and polluting it.

Understanding what it is actually doing is the point.
And we can see that the new version after comparing it to creatures with actual resistances is operating like the old one against on level resistances minus the old IW crit potential that was out of line with the rest of the system. And when it is perfomring like the old version it is out performing anything else that is suffering against on level resistance.
It overperforms against higher resistances for the level.

So yeah that is what imaginary weapon has to offer.
But its not everything a psychic has to offer, its a tiny fraction of the class and only one subclass.

The spell that was so good before that everybody was complaining about how crazy the psychic was... Wait, that never happened. The only issue was how it interacted with another class via an archetype, and that was nuked like 4 different ways, as if 4 different people worked on this update and none were sure what any of the others were planning.

Notice how it was the interaction of putting 2d8 scaling on martial to hit scaling that broke it?

Bluemagetim wrote:

So yeah that is what imaginary weapon has to offer.

But its not everything a psychic has to offer, its a tiny fraction of the class and only one subclass.

So what?

"You can just not use it" is not an argument of good balance or design.

It narrows the discussion.

having it be phenomena that they need to learn about/predict/track down should eliminate the desire to backtrack. They could even learn early these are one way phenomena.

selling the Psychic?
defending them?

That kind of framing is missing the point of the discussion and polluting it.

Understanding what it is actually doing is the point.
And we can see that the new version after comparing it to creatures with actual resistances is operating like the old one against on level resistances minus the old IW crit potential that was out of line with the rest of the system. And when it is perfomring like the old version it is out performing anything else that is suffering against on level resistance.
It overperforms against higher resistances for the level.

So yeah that is what imaginary weapon has to offer.
But its not everything a psychic has to offer, its a tiny fraction of the class and only one subclass.

The Mist Spell (and several similar spells) do not have any effect if you and the target are on opposite sides of the area.

"All creatures within the mist become concealed, and all creatures outside the mist become concealed to creatures within it."

That seems counter-intuitive. A area of mist should affect attacks going through as well.

I run spells like that as actually blocking line of sight to things clear on the other side..

Bluemagetim wrote:

Yep and by not looking at the ones where they do not exceed you didnt show exactly how much damage we are talking about at each spell rank to that resistance value that would still be seen on creatures you might encounter.

Its not much. So we see a small loss in at those gap levels. We can really talk about the full scope of the downgrade. where its worst and were its not really much, and where its not a downgrade rather than talk in absolutes.

You know what? Let's do this. Let's actually run the math on every devil, in alphabetical order:

Agadaz: Level 4, resistance 5. Net +1 damage on the new IW.

Coarti: Level 7, resistance 5. Net -2 damage on the new IW.

Cornugon: Level 16, resistance 15. Net -1 damage on the new IW.

Deimavigga: Level 17, resistance 15. Net -2 damage on the new IW.

Erinys: Level 8, resistance 5. Net -3 damage on the new IW.

Ferrugon: Level 12, resistance 10. Net -2 damage on the new IW.

Gelugon: Level 13, resistance 10. Net -3 damage on the new IW.

Gylou: Level 14, resistance 10. Net -4 damage on the new IW.

Hamatula: Level 11, resistance 10. Net -1 damage on the new IW.

Hellbound Attorney: Level 4, no resistance. Net -4 damage on the new IW.

Imp: Level 1, no resistance. Net -1 damage on the new IW.

Levaloch: Level 7, resistance 5. Net -2 damage on the new IW.

Munagola: Level 11, resistance 10. Net -1 damage on the new IW.

Nessari: Level 20, resistance 15. Net -5 damage on the new IW.

Ort: Level 0, resistance 3. Net +3 damage on the new IW.

Osyluth: Level 9, resistance 10. Net +1 damage on the new IW.

Phistophilus: Level 10, resistance 10. Net 0 damage on the new IW.

Sarglagon: Level 8, resistance 5. Net -3 damage on the...

The personal attacks are not warranted. I independently verified your conclusions and agreed with the 2-per-rank breakeven formula—that's validation, not bad faith. Where we differ is interpretation and what data set is most relevant for analyzing a remaster spell.

When you get ranks of spells coincides with when you face resistance values. Thats why I showed the gaps from earlier. When you face a PL+ force is actually pulling more weight since the resistance present would have eaten up more of your lower rank spell damage.
When the creature is close to your level which coincides with the spell rank break even point you described the damage loss or gain is negligible.
Its only when you start to exceed the level of the creatures you are facing and the mook is below one of the level thresholds I described above that we see large damage differences. At which point its a mook.
That is the relationship in more detail between force spell ranks and resistance by creature level.

Now here is what your point about crit damage exposes. I think that is the most important factor actually to all of this. What happens on crit damage is likely the reason the spell had to be brought down from 2d8 scaling to 2d6. And the relationship we can see happening from what i described above shows that the new lane gives the equivalent of the old damage under specific circumstances instead of all the time while curtailing the crit explosion you pointed out from ever happening.

Adding: Also moving away from just comparing the New IW from the old since it is force comparing it to anything that would be resisted in a fight is also a fight where it is pulling weight as if it was the old IW just not in crits, which was likely a big part of the reason behind the change.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ok so i get the same 2 per rank of the spell to break even. but I think you just needed more creature data to look at.

Here is what I am seeing in the monster cores 1 and 2. This is going to be a better way to measure if we are looking at how the new IW is going to perform in the remaster.
In these books the human devil is the outlier that doesn't have a physical resistance.

As already mentioned in the comment I provided you, I specifically went through the entire list of devils; only 6 have resistance matching or exceeding their level out of the listed 22. In most cases, it's not even "very close", and "very close" would still not be good enough. Even against enemies who resist physical damage, this change is a nerf the vast majority of the time.

Yep and by not looking at the ones where they do not exceed you didnt show exactly how much damage we are talking about at each spell rank to that resistance value that would still be seen on creatures you might encounter.

You could make it so its a convergence of things.
The elf player's ancestry
Another player came across a strange object either in an opening scene or as part of their background.
Either way its these chance things coming together that awakened the ancient magic in the aiudara.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Did anyone actually do the math with actual creatures that do have resist physical at different level threasholds for IW old and new?

I did a bit of that in this comment. The TL;DR is that in order for the switch to force damage to be worth it, the creature needs to have resistance at least equal to their level. This is rarely the case, because resistance to physical damage tends to be low. In the vast majority of cases, amped IW premaster still outdamages the remaster amped IW even when it hits resistance.

Ok so i get the same 2 per rank of the spell to break even. but I think you just needed more creature data to look at.

Here is what I am seeing in the monster cores 1 and 2. This is going to be a better way to measure if we are looking at how the new IW is going to perform in the remaster.
In these books the human devil is the outlier that doesn't have a physical resistance. Hellbound Attorney 4 0 physical (fire only)

Devil Resistance Progression(monster core 1&2):
Devil Level Physical Resistance
Ort - 0 - 3
Zebub - 3 - 5
Vordine - 5 - 5
Coarti - 7 - 5
Levaloch - 7 - 5
Sarglagon - 8 - 5
Phistophilus - 10 - 10
Ferrugon - 12 - 10
Ayngavhaul - 13 - 10
Gylou - 14 - 10
Deimavigga - 17 - 15
Nessari - 20 - 15

The thresholds are very close to the 2 per rank of the spell for when the new resistance value shows up but there are some gaps where Old IW is ahead against specific resist values but the damage difference is not that significant for damage at all of those levels. It seems the pattern would have a level 15 remaster devil come with resist physical(except silver) 15. which would eliminate some of the gap below.

Spell Rank 3(1damage), 4(3damage), 5(5damage), and 6(7damage) spells against resistance 5.
Spell Rank 6(2damage), 7(4damage), 8(6damage), and 9(8damage) spells against resistance 10.

Did anyone actually do the math with actual creatures that do have resist physical at different level threasholds for IW old and new?

Bluemagetim wrote:

OK lets take your claim that the old version's purpose was risk vs reward.

Clearly now that isn't its role right?
Its doing something different its mitigating situations where damage could be lost rather than pushing higher numbers and its keeping all the risk of the old version. (That is true of the design we have even if you don't think those situations happen often)
That is a lane change. Your point is basically that its a car with the ability to enter the carpool lane but the freeway barely ever has one.
I do not agree with that as a universal statement(the carpool not being there).

It's literally doing less damage when amped now even when the resistance is in play. aka: It's worse at the thing you're claiming it was lane changed to do than it was before it was changed. So it's only actually better at this thing if a squishy caster class wanders into melee against two of a specific creature type and then chooses not to use their class ability to do more damage.

That means this argument makes no sense whatsoever even if it was true, and we've provided multiple examples to show that it's false. Some hypothetical scenario isn't convincing against actual published adventures demonstrating it's false.

Missing my argument then. I agree it is doing less than the old version.

Bluemagetim wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

I think you misunderstood what I have said form the begining.

I started from the position that the new version is a downgrade from the original. That force damage changes its lane. And that the the change made IW damage more comparable to other options rather than higher.
If you saw my earlier posts I said maybe they over corrected but that I also saw forcedamage as opening a lane for them. And that part I stand by. Constructs? bypassed. Undead? dont need to worry about what type. Devils? no problem. Adamantine dragon? ah damn not going near that thing. But you get the point.
Enmeis are immune to mental effects and resist physical? and your known spells are full of them? you still can contribute.
In my games I use devils and constructs and undead of many kinds and APs use them alot too. In fact when they are used they typically are the PL+ fights, they often have adds that can be hit by the amped version along with them. So i am not sure why we are looking at the full scope of creatures and saying physical resistance is rare when the frequency of their use pretty common or at least impactful when encountered.

because the whole point of IW was the risk vs reward.

you give the squishiest character in the game a melee option that requires him to be adjacent to TWO enemies and use an action that provoke Reactions and may be interupted as well by said reactions.

The reward was the higher damage.

now there is no reward, plain and simple.

giving a ribbon ability that triggers on a tiny subsection of creatures does not justify the risk any longer.

you still provoke from all enemies, not only the physical resistant ones.
you still need to be in the middle of the fray of all enemies.
but tyou are only rewarded a tiny fraction of the time.

OK lets take your claim that the old version's purpose was risk vs reward.

Clearly now that isn't its role right?
Its doing something different its mitigating situations

...

basically. I mean the framing there is pretty harsh but yeah. IWe were not miles apart in how we saw the mechanical change but we are pretty far apart in how we view its value afterward. Its a slower car that doesn't get slower f=when speed bumps show up. Now other cars the psychic could drive do have to slow for the speedbumps.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I think you misunderstood what I have said form the begining.

I started from the position that the new version is a downgrade from the original. That force damage changes its lane. And that the the change made IW damage more comparable to other options rather than higher.
If you saw my earlier posts I said maybe they over corrected but that I also saw forcedamage as opening a lane for them. And that part I stand by. Constructs? bypassed. Undead? dont need to worry about what type. Devils? no problem. Adamantine dragon? ah damn not going near that thing. But you get the point.
Enmeis are immune to mental effects and resist physical? and your known spells are full of them? you still can contribute.
In my games I use devils and constructs and undead of many kinds and APs use them alot too. In fact when they are used they typically are the PL+ fights, they often have adds that can be hit by the amped version along with them. So i am not sure why we are looking at the full scope of creatures and saying physical resistance is rare when the frequency of their use pretty common or at least impactful when encountered.

because the whole point of IW was the risk vs reward.

you give the squishiest character in the game a melee option that requires him to be adjacent to TWO enemies and use an action that provoke Reactions and may be interupted as well by said reactions.

The reward was the higher damage.

now there is no reward, plain and simple.

giving a ribbon ability that triggers on a tiny subsection of creatures does not justify the risk any longer.

you still provoke from all enemies, not only the physical resistant ones.
you still need to be in the middle of the fray of all enemies.
but tyou are only rewarded a tiny fraction of the time.

OK lets take your claim that the old version's purpose was risk vs reward.

Clearly now that isn't its role right?
Its doing something different its mitigating situations where damage could be lost rather than pushing higher numbers and its keeping all the risk of the old version. (That is true of the design we have even if you don't think those situations happen often)
That is a lane change. Your point is basically that its a car with the ability to enter the carpool lane but the freeway barely ever has one.
I do not agree with that as a universal statement(the carpool not being there).

Bluemagetim wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

I would like you to consider another use though.

What about unleashing psyche so you can use a 1 action defensive benefit from your subconcious mind. Use a defensive amp like inertial barrier for DR. Now being in melee is easier to handle and ally assistance can actually keep you alive instead of being instakilled the first round you enter it. You still do non amped damage to a single target +2xspellrank thrown in as force.
And if the next turn looks like a favorable one to amp for full damage instead then do it. You can assess round by round on how defensive you need to be vs how aggressive you can afford to be.

you could do ALL oif that with old IW.

The only difference was that you would do more damage.

p.s. with only 2 rounds of Unleash, it's not like you really have the option to "assess round by round". If you do what you're saying while unleashed, you literally have a single round to "asses if you want to do full damage or nah" and then you have to bail and deal with missing 1/4th of your spells to Stupefy for the rest of the encounter...

Well when would you decide to go into melee in the first place?

Either the teamwork synergy has aligned and you want to get your attacks in(unleash move in and go with damage amp). or maybe melee came to you.
When melee came to you, and now you probably took one strike already. You either got team support and can stay in melee with defensive buffs or you cant at all and need to get out of there anyway. If it were me I wont use unleash unless I am getting something from it offensively or defensively or both.

and once again:

how does that change compared to the old IW apart from simply now just doing less damage?

aka less reward for the same exact risk.

as for the "when" you decide to go close, you most certainly do NOT Unleash just to do an unamped IW (or amped with a non damaging amp). You Unleash when you want to unload damage because the only thing...

I think you misunderstood what I have said form the begining.

In my games I use devils and constructs and undead of many kinds and APs use them alot too. In fact when they are used they typically are the PL+ fights, they often have adds that can be hit by the amped version along with them. So i am not sure why we are looking at the full scope of creatures and saying physical resistance is rare when the frequency of their use pretty common or at least impactful when encountered.

This is already a really cool idea.
Aiudara corrupted by aberrant power might make a good structural gate.
maybe even have a relic that is needed to make them actually work to get back and thats what the future day boss has on them.

I remember a really horrible game called drakenguard where newgame + was literally going back in time to redo things, except they didnt tell the player this. So as you did a newgame plus the protagonist just started making different choices and it always made things worse than the first playthrough. In fact every choice got more NPCs killed by the end of that playthrough than the last until you were fighting giant man eating space babies in neotokyo on your dragon. Like I said horrible game.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I would like you to consider another use though.

What about unleashing psyche so you can use a 1 action defensive benefit from your subconcious mind. Use a defensive amp like inertial barrier for DR. Now being in melee is easier to handle and ally assistance can actually keep you alive instead of being instakilled the first round you enter it. You still do non amped damage to a single target +2xspellrank thrown in as force.
And if the next turn looks like a favorable one to amp for full damage instead then do it. You can assess round by round on how defensive you need to be vs how aggressive you can afford to be.

you could do ALL oif that with old IW.

The only difference was that you would do more damage.

p.s. with only 2 rounds of Unleash, it's not like you really have the option to "assess round by round". If you do what you're saying while unleashed, you literally have a single round to "asses if you want to do full damage or nah" and then you have to bail and deal with missing 1/4th of your spells to Stupefy for the rest of the encounter...

Well when would you decide to go into melee in the first place?

moosher12 wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

no i assure you I am not trolling. But to call my comments as claiming dev godhood is hyperboli. I never said they can't make mistakes, I have always tempered my statements because its not unreasonable to think they understand the game they are developing. Its clear they redesigned IW do do do something different than it did before. Its also clear its a downgrade in raw damage from before.

what does it do different apart from just being straight up weaker?

what did they give it in return of the straight up nerfs?

because to me it looks 100% exactly the same "design space" wise and just 20% weaker "power wise".

well maybe consider what having a way to apply force damage with unleash psyche adds to an occult spellcaster.

What situations does that open up for them over physical damage types?

consider how little enemies exist that have resistance to all physical that is NOT bypassed by Force (since old one still dealt full damage to those).

Now, take that handful of enemies from the entire monster collection, and you still need:

two of them in the same battle
almost adjecent to one another
none of them having a reaction to murder you when you try to cast right next to them

So, is this one or two battles in the entire AP collection (if there are even that many...) the entire "design space" of the new IW that makes it worth being 20% less effective in the rest 99.9999% of the fights?

While I cannot check other adventure paths, (Mostly because I I'd prefer to actually read them, before skimming their monsters), I can at least check Kingmaker (I technically could also add Guilt of the Grave World, which had a few, but that's beside the point) Going through the overworld in Kingmaker, I did count over 10 instances of resistance, of which some of those cases were repeatable. But that was skimming only half of a 642 page book.

Granted, there

...

I would like you to consider another use though.

Unicore wrote:

A couple of thoughts about understanding "the design space":

1. You can't use rank 3 focus spells (like dragon breath and pulverizing cascade) to compare to rank 1 focus spells...

4. ...Amped IW should not be a better single target damage spell than amped Ignition.

About these two points, for the first, i agree, the fair comparison would be Amped IW VS Flurry of Claws and non-Amped IW vs Gouging Claw, which IW is just worse in both regards in almost all cases.

And about the second, one thing very important is that Ignition has reach, and anything with reach should always deal less damage than things without reach, so i disagree heavily with your reasoning.

That also assumes that standard psy cantrips were meant to be equal to unique ones.

Bluemagetim wrote:

We are not setting the standard. Paizo is. To me it looks like they deemed gouging claw just fine and a d8 imaginary weapon not only not fine but overlaping in design space.

That's the same Paizo that nerfed Monk Archetype flurry of blows right before coming out with both Spirit Warrior and Exemplar Dedication, right? And the same Paizo that still can't tell us what Oracle's spell repertoire is (or make an iconic that follows the remaster rules properly)? The same Paizo that forgot Kineticist exists in Mythic?

Look, it's pretty clear that Paizo staff are overworked and product quality has suffered for it. I sympathize with that, and it's probably why errata got shelved. It's an easy thing to deprioritize when you're already overworked on the relentless "release new stuff constantly" treadmill they have going.

But the net result of the compounding number of basic errors and "one author doesn't know what another author is doing" swings in balance between releases is that appeals "well Paizo did it so it must be right" ain't gonna fly. Paizo has been making a LOT of mistakes in these releases and they absolutely can get it wrong.

You are right with oracle. That is them literally sitting on the fence.

Bluemagetim wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

no i assure you I am not trolling. But to call my comments as claiming dev godhood is hyperboli. I never said they can't make mistakes, I have always tempered my statements because its not unreasonable to think they understand the game they are developing. Its clear they redesigned IW do do do something different than it did before. Its also clear its a downgrade in raw damage from before.

what does it do different apart from just being straight up weaker?

what did they give it in return of the straight up nerfs?

because to me it looks 100% exactly the same "design space" wise and just 20% weaker "power wise".

well maybe consider what having a way to apply force damage with unleash psyche adds to an occult spellcaster.

What situations does that open up for them over physical damage types?

consider how little enemies exist that have resistance to all physical that is NOT bypassed by Force (since old one still dealt full damage to those).

Now, take that handful of enemies from the entire monster collection, and you still need:

two of them in the same battle
almost adjecent to one another
none of them having a reaction to murder you when you try to cast right next to them

So, is this one or two battles in the entire AP collection (if there are even that many...) the entire "design space" of the new IW that makes it worth being 20% less effective in the rest 99.9999% of the fights?

Well it doesn't matter how many enemies exist in the monster core with those resistances, it depends on how many exist in your game or sometimes more importantly the ones that do exist is having force damage doing something for your character the rest of the party is struggling with or has to be knowledgeable about and prepare for. Are you able to use your GP on different things because of your force damage.

Also you can amp it for inertial barrier or something else too if you have them. Maybe damage isnt what you need that round the most? There is flexibility in it while still against a single target delivering 2xrank extra damage to a single target.

Aren't higher rank focus spells stronger?
Things like aoe and range that the rank 1 spells dont get.

Bluemagetim wrote:

no i assure you I am not trolling. But to call my comments as claiming dev godhood is hyperboli. I never said they can't make mistakes, I have always tempered my statements because its not unreasonable to think they understand the game they are developing. Its clear they redesigned IW do do do something different than it did before. Its also clear its a downgrade in raw damage from before.

what does it do different apart from just being straight up weaker?

what did they give it in return of the straight up nerfs?

because to me it looks 100% exactly the same "design space" wise and just 20% weaker "power wise".

well maybe consider what having a way to apply force damage with unleash psyche adds to an occult spellcaster.