Bluemagetim's page

Bluemagetim wrote:

Just as a recollection, a level 1 wizard in any edition ive played have never been fun or fulfilled the class fantasy because the class fantasy is always a higher level wizard.

The class fantasy of the apprentice barely learning magic wizard is not what anyone is thinking when they pick the class. I mean they used to be a 1d4 hp class with one spell at level 1 that had to endure and survive low levels to eventually become the wizard fiction depicts them as.

True, the 1st level PF2 wizard is probably better than any previous edition low level wizard.

But because magic in PF2 is generally less powerful than previous editions, and in comparison to other classes in PF2, the wizard fails to deliver in expected flavor as you level up too.

Good point.

Just as a recollection, a level 1 wizard in any edition ive played have never been fun or fulfilled the class fantasy because the class fantasy is always a higher level wizard.
The class fantasy of the apprentice barely learning magic wizard is not what anyone is thinking when they pick the class. I mean they used to be a 1d4 hp class with one spell at level 1 that had to endure and survive low levels to eventually become the wizard fiction depicts them as.

neat multi-class synergy.
Main classing ranger you get natures edge at level 9 with dedication in guardian and hampering stance means any enemy in 5 feet of you while the stance is up is off guard to you.

Teridax wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

I see...

Then you are deliberately withholding information from your description in order to trick people by presenting a so-called "simple test" that is actually something more complicated.

Hold on, so because I didn't indulge your non-solution that tried to shift the goalposts by sidestepping the problem as presented entirely, I'm deliberately withholding information now? Do you not think that perhaps trying to approach the scenario as presented in good faith instead of making stuff up would have been the smarter approach?

Dragonchess Player wrote:

That's worse than moving goalposts. That's intentional deception.

Ah yes, clearly it must be intentional deception to present a scenario under the expectation that players address the scenario, rather than an imagined aftermath that deliberately attempts to avoid the scenario in its entirety.

... but seriously, do you realize how you're sounding here? I'm sorry, but this is comical. If you can't come up with a solution that fits within the parameters of the scenario, just say so, it's not a slight against your abilities as a GM or your powers of imagination. It would certainly be a lot more productive than making these kinds of accusations and gratuitously bolding words like we're in a comic book.

And to be clear: the scenario was intentionally chosen to make it difficult to convey information that would let the party prepare spells in advance. If you can't come up with a proper solution to it, it's not necessarily for lack of imagination, it's because this is one of many different situations that happens in adventures, including official adventure paths, where the party doesn't really have great options for informing themselves, and the GM doesn't have very many ways of giving that information in a way that makes sense in-universe. A lot of people have tried to handwave this

...

Great examples!

I don’t think there is any real way to say this isn’t a combat focused game. Combat is in its bones, its ancestors are all combat focused games, by page count, by weight of content, the fact it just got a war gaming supplement.

PF2 is combat focused as part of its core design ethos. It’s not the systems be-all and end-all however.

It’s not wholly focused on combat, and there are several means of getting around encounters without combat itself, but when I look at actual non-combat focused TTRPG’s, they don’t look like Pathfinder.

I think its in the name. They are table top role playing games. So I would say role playing is the genre and umbrella these games fall under. But I guess It would be more correct to concede there is a major focus on combat and it is oart of the draw of the game but its is in the context of a roleplaying game promising endless options and has plenty of options if the GM uses them for players to not have to engage in the well developed combat rules.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Its kind of like when I have played some of those older RPGs where you can make a character.

At first i might think a min maxed character dumping anything that doesnt give a numeric advantage to combat is the most powerful character I can be only to find I end up being unable to play the character at all the way I would like to. Can't choose dialog options that make my character sound cool, can't find treasure, or unlock what I find, can't get better outcomes that require persuading, or the best deals in shops.
It all comes down to how the game is designed. The thing about P2E is that its much more open such that any particular game has infinitely more ways for a GM to reward or penalize character choices to make those in combat feel like winning at it gets anything they want, or to make skill outcomes and RP decisions or even spell selection also consequential in deciding outcomes.

No, not really. Once again, this is a group game. GM can't tailor adventures for one player hoping the other players go along with it.

There are no silver bullet spells. So if you put a creature in the game that might be impacted slightly more by a spell, doesn't change that when the fighter and rogue kill it that spell still may not have had an effect.

For some reason so many people talk about a class in isolation, whereas my thinking on classes is how they operate in groups. That's why I view classes that need advance information to perform equally well, because they rarely perform better, as not great. Most martials are in go mode all the time. They can get past hazards, monsters, obstacles, and such often by just hitting it or with skills.

I keep wondering what the other party members are doing around you while you're thinking of all these special spells or bits of information that

...

I can respect that. I do think P2E does codify non combat situations and provides abilities for it though. Outwit ranger compared to other edges, spells and class features with exploration in mind or social situations, most skill feats, and the biggest example would be the many subsystems.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Its kind of like when I have played some of those older RPGs where you can make a character.

At first i might think a min maxed character dumping anything that doesnt give a numeric advantage to combat is the most powerful character I can be only to find I end up being unable to play the character at all the way I would like to. Can't choose dialog options that make my character sound cool, can't find treasure, or unlock what I find, can't get better outcomes that require persuading, or the best deals in shops.
It all comes down to how the game is designed. The thing about P2E is that its much more open such that any particular game has infinitely more ways for a GM to reward or penalize character choices to make those in combat feel like winning at it gets anything they want, or to make skill outcomes and RP decisions or even spell selection also consequential in deciding outcomes.

No, not really. Once again, this is a group game. GM can't tailor adventures for one player hoping the other players go along with it.

There are no silver bullet spells. So if you put a creature in the game that might be impacted slightly more by a spell, doesn't change that when the fighter and rogue kill it that spell still may not have had an effect.

For some reason so many people talk about a class in isolation, whereas my thinking on classes is how they operate in groups. That's why I view classes that need advance information to perform equally well, because they rarely perform better, as not great. Most martials are in go mode all the time. They can get past hazards, monsters, obstacles, and such often by just hitting it or with skills.

I keep wondering what the other party members are doing around you while you're thinking of all these special spells or bits of information that might make a wizard stand out. I know in my groups the players

...

I know some people view this game as a combat focused game and it is more than set up to encourage and accommodate that style of play with the majority of rules covering that aspect and the way adventure paths are made but I have never understood a table top RPG in the general sense as being limited to combat in that way such that balance shouldn't consider what can be done outside of it. Mainly because if choices really matter in a table top RPG then players who seek alternatives to fighting directly using combat rules would also have options to do so. I mean things like, oh you have to stop orcs raiding from the river south of the village? Maybe a dam is holding back that water and the party can take it out to flood the orc camp before they can attack. stuff like that. Or maybe an ancient ritual could be used to calm the spirits of the ancient tomb if players were able to read the scrips on the walls and figure it out instead of facing the spirits head on. But things like this only happen when a GM or adventure path writer incorporates the possibility.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Its kind of like when I have played some of those older RPGs where you can make a character.

At first i might think a min maxed character dumping anything that doesnt give a numeric advantage to combat is the most powerful character I can be only to find I end up being unable to play the character at all the way I would like to. Can't choose dialog options that make my character sound cool, can't find treasure, or unlock what I find, can't get better outcomes that require persuading, or the best deals in shops.
It all comes down to how the game is designed. The thing about P2E is that its much more open such that any particular game has infinitely more ways for a GM to reward or penalize character choices to make those in combat feel like winning at it gets anything they want, or to make skill outcomes and RP decisions or even spell selection also consequential in deciding outcomes.

No, not really. Once again, this is a group game. GM can't tailor adventures for one player hoping the other players go along with it.

There are no silver bullet spells. So if you put a creature in the game that might be impacted slightly more by a spell, doesn't change that when the fighter and rogue kill it that spell still may not have had an effect.

For some reason so many people talk about a class in isolation, whereas my thinking on classes is how they operate in groups. That's why I view classes that need advance information to perform equally well, because they rarely perform better, as not great. Most martials are in go mode all the time. They can get past hazards, monsters, obstacles, and such often by just hitting it or with skills.

I keep wondering what the other party members are doing around you while you're thinking of all these special spells or bits of information that might make a wizard stand out. I know in my groups the players around me are crushing stuff without having special spells or

...

This concept of not balancing at all around what they can do outside combat was carried through for the rogue. And I don't like that rogues are balanced with other top combat classes around their combat contributions and simply twice any other character(besides investigator) with skills. I don't think there is any justification for rogues getting more skills and skill feats than other classes when their class abilities for combat are not at all compensated for that benefit.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Its kind of like when I have played some of those older RPGs where you can make a character.

At first i might think a min maxed character dumping anything that doesnt give a numeric advantage to combat is the most powerful character I can be only to find I end up being unable to play the character at all the way I would like to. Can't choose dialog options that make my character sound cool, can't find treasure, or unlock what I find, can't get better outcomes that require persuading, or the best deals in shops.
It all comes down to how the game is designed. The thing about P2E is that its much more open such that any particular game has infinitely more ways for a GM to reward or penalize character choices to make those in combat feel like winning at it gets anything they want, or to make skill outcomes and RP decisions or even spell selection also consequential in deciding outcomes.

No, not really. Once again, this is a group game. GM can't tailor adventures for one player hoping the other players go along with it.

There are no silver bullet spells. So if you put a creature in the game that might be impacted slightly more by a spell, doesn't change that when the fighter and rogue kill it that spell still may not have had an effect.

For some reason so many people talk about a class in isolation, whereas my thinking on classes is how they operate in groups. That's why I view classes that need advance information to perform equally well, because they rarely perform better, as not great. Most martials are in go mode all the time. They can get past hazards, monsters, obstacles, and such often by just hitting it or with skills.

I keep wondering what the other party members are doing around you while you're thinking of all these special spells or bits of information that might make a wizard stand out. I know in my groups the players around me are crushing stuff without having special spells or special information.

Are they standing around in your group waiting?

Adding here your right that its a group game. Its not a matter of silver bullets its more of a case of the wizard having thier chance to contribute to solutions with their magic. Sorcerer is doing the same, they are contributing but when the wizard is picking a spell a sorcerer doesnt care to have that allows the party to take on a different approach you make it seem like its not the wizard doing something they can do differently to contribute to the solution.

I don't know that having spells that solve some problems some of the time takes anything away from the group aspect of the game. Some group set ups are counting on a caster to cast knock to give the group a chance to open a lock because no one in the group wanted to train thievery or force open a barrier because no want in the group is especially great at athletics. Not all groups build a balanced composition of characters and do use magic to fill in gaps.
Also when the giant barbarian crits killing or almost killing the boss by them self cause they went first and rolled a nat 20 how much of a group game does it feel like at that point?
sometimes different characters overcontribute to resolving a problem moreso than everyone else at the table. Its part of group games that different characters drive a solution when its within their wheelhouse. Why can't wizards use the right spell to do something too?

As far as tailoring adventures I do that myself for each of my party members giving everyone a chance to have situations in thier characters wheelhouse. And in this game even spells like knock encourage cooperation between whoever has the best chance and the spellcaster providing knock. others are still doing things, whatever they choose to do with their exploration choices, so its not a situation where everyone is just standing around.

Its kind of like when I have played some of those older RPGs where you can make a character.
At first i might think a min maxed character dumping anything that doesnt give a numeric advantage to combat is the most powerful character I can be only to find I end up being unable to play the character at all the way I would like to. Can't choose dialog options that make my character sound cool, can't find treasure, or unlock what I find, can't get better outcomes that require persuading, or the best deals in shops.
It all comes down to how the game is designed. The thing about P2E is that its much more open such that any particular game has infinitely more ways for a GM to reward or penalize character choices to make those in combat feel like winning at it gets anything they want, or to make skill outcomes and RP decisions or even spell selection also consequential in deciding outcomes.

Had you meant MCD/Multiclass Dedication/"dedicated" Guardian (for the Champion) instead of "devoted"? I'd regarded them as separate concepts so my reply might not make sense as it addresses just a Guardian.

I think blending those two classes is a bit overkill though an interesting thought experiment. As a martial I'd at least want to contribute if engulfed, swallowed, or simply alone. I think a Guardian struggles with that more than a Champion.

Lol yeah looking back at my post I wasnt clear.

Also if the champ is justice there is more synergy there if intercept level safety isn't needed that round. The creature attacking your ally becomes offguard for the attempt and retributive strike gets to attack the offguard creature right?

Bluemagetim wrote:

My bad i read that wrong. Ok so each will get an extra 6 damage.

Ok so something like the new battlecry! Frozen Fog would only get the extra damage the first time it damages and not on any sustained rounds.

Yep, exactly !

Comparing them with that in mind and being fair.

But! adding that 6 on top of the difference between what a chain lighting does vs vitrifying blast is a pretty significant loss of damage (so if the caster is there to do damage its the way to go for either wizard or sorcerer. the sorcerer just more likely to but not guaranteed to get more of it in) Gaining slow on one or maybe on multiple targets that can remain on subsequent turns and even increase in value is really good. The extra damage from bludgeoning when complimentary to your team is a nice to have if the party is using that damage type. Even the maul user will get 2-3 hits in one round considering reactive strike and at slow 1 thats almost half the 20 damage difference on a single stone bulwark lost for not using chain lighting. if one of them progressed or started at slow 2 and you have 2 party members able to take advantage of the extra damage it will add up very quickly.

So what I guess i am getting at here is that although a wizard is not better at just doing damage they can pick up a variety of spells that have situational benefits and using them in those situation can have better outcomes than just damage.
I would be interested in hearing if anyone sees what I am missing in this assessment. As much as I love lighting spells I would prepare a vitrifying blast for this fight and learn the spell for it if I knew it was coming.

i don't know, maybe a champion with devoted guardian and a tower shield and getting Bodyguard to swing one allies AC by 4 could be cool.
Could giving a caster that much of a boost while also intercepting strikes or champion reaction them let them comfortably use touch spells and cones from melee?

Bluemagetim wrote:

Blue_frog to be fair with your Stone Bulwarks example only that first one is getting the bonus 6 damage.

Sorcerous potency can affect every target once, so in the case of an AOE or a chain reaction like chain lightning, every opponent gets the bonus 6 damage.

My bad i read that wrong. Ok so each will get an extra 6 damage.

Ok so something like the new battlecry! Frozen Fog would only get the extra damage the first time it damages and not on any sustained rounds.

Actually Claxton it probably would have been more in keeping with the spirit of the past edition wizards while keeping this editions balance if the school slot allowed wizards to slot any spell but spontaneously cast any school spell from it instead of the prepared one.
That would have fixed the issue some have with the 4th slot.

Blue_frog to be fair with your Stone Bulwarks example only that first one is getting the bonus 6 damage. Both the wizard or the sorcerer using chain lighting will be comparable against a group of them. 6 extra damage to one of 3 or 4 is not really that impactful overall. having more spell options that can do more useful effects the creatures are not immune to would be good to prepare for. The main difference like we settled before is arcane evo wont reliably get you an alternative 6th rank spell.
Also to make the my point about more spells introduced being better for wizard than the sorcerer lets look closer at the Stone Bulwarks.

An ideal spell will go against reflex but going against will is also fine as long as its not a mental effect. It would not have any of its budget wasted on things these creatures are immune to. They are giving each other standard cover so no attack spells, but also they may keep each other in range of their cover ability so a burst or cone could be fine for targeting area. it only has 20ft speed and its ranged attack is less effective compared to its 10ft reach melee attack so movement reduction is not bad against them. Having the Cold, Earth, or Water tags can help bypass resistance (I am not certain this is RAW but I have been running resistance this way otherwise what would be the point of resisting anything but water or earth?) Adding effects like slow, moving penalties relegates them to rock throws against anyone not moving to them, or clumsy for ac, enfeeble for both the melee and brutal rock throws, fear likely would be a spell with the mental trait so it wouldnt work.
What spells check some of those boxes of the ideal spell?
Vitrifying blast is a 15 foot cone but widen spell can get that to an acceptable 25ft (a wizard that has widen spell could leverage it better than one without it) It has the earth trait, it does not have traits the creatures are immune to, it can apply slow, it also applies bludgeoning weakness (great if your party has bludgeoning martials already or if others casters and you also slot some additional earth bludgeoning damage spells), It hits reflex. This is less damage than even the resisted chain lighting but It has potential chain lighting doesn't have. If your party is already set to do bludgeoning this spell increases in value, the slow rider on fail on its own might be good enough a trade off for the damage already. If the slow hits on even one target it will have been worth it. At level 11 fail is 11 or under for the creatures so when getting multiple its likely at least one will fail.

And at level 11 a rank 6 Vitrifying Blast is a top slot spell and the DC to learn is 28, so a 13 or up for the expert arcana sorcerer with no int. Failure means waiting for level 12 and the moment will have passed.

There is another method for choosing spells. You can choose based on what your party needs you to do. So if the party needs aoe blasting or terrain manipulation or buffs or debuffs because that kind of spell prep fits into the party's prescribed tactics its hard to go wrong.
But I will admit if this is what the wizard is doing then a sorcerer could have done it as well while having all its class benefits.
But it also means in situations where the party's main go to tactics are not the best for whats coming at them day after day of gameplay the sorcerer isnt doing much different while a wizard can be completely different if needed.
But apparently no one experiences this kind of situation.

You know though what has come up from others was how a wizard can slip into different parties and be what is needed for them.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

I just want to clarify that this is primarily a player/GM/group play-style issue and not a class feature/mechanics issue.

A prepared caster works best if the player and/or party takes the initiative to Gather Information, do research, etc. during downtime before they go "adventuring." Note: This is an old-school* style of play that requires more than just "building" a character and starting the session at a dungeon entrance; it requires the player to use their agency so that they actually can customize their prepared spells

This completely misses what was said immediately before the bit of the quote that you snipped:

Teridax wrote:

This isn't a hypothetical either: at many tables and in many adventures, the pacing and structure of the adventure simply does not give the party the inherent opportunity to gather information about the next day and prepare their spells accordingly.

This isn't an old-school versus new-school style difference: often, the party will quite simply not have the downtime to Gather Information, and often Gathering Information or doing research does not or cannot possibly assist in spell preparation for a particular situation the party wishes to engage in for the day. Adopting an "old-school" approach would not change these factors, particularly when the party is already adopting that approach whenever possible.

I would say a balanced game has a mix of situations. Some you can prepare for and some you cannot. And actually some where you can prepare for some known elements while there will still be unknown elements.

Easl wrote:

Blue_frog wrote:

And Arcane ? Most of the time, Arcane is defined by what it cannot do. "You can do a lot of things except healing".

It's great to have access to many spells - including a heap of garbage, but also some great ones - but I just feel it would be better if there would be some coherence or cohesion.

Until something changes, that's how I'd describe it to a new player: the strength of the list is moar spells. 757 arcane vs. 613 (occult), 570 (primal), or 427 (divine). The kitchen sink, except for healing.

My gut inclination towards a theme would be to say 'keep force spells as only arcane or at least make them the lead in it', but (a) Paizo has mostly gotten away from one-list spells and (b) I can't really argue against that decision as a general thing.

Well, yes, except moar spell doesn't equate moar power. It has the smallest amount of tradition-specific spells, and is burdened by a lot of chaff.

It's great to have 757 spell, less great when most of them are useless like Bread Crumbs, Fold Metal, Mending, Unbroken Panoply and yet another part are redundant spells or spells who get upgraded after a few levels.

Fold metal is usable for ambushing an enemy camp folding up the bosses weapon before he picks it up and can find a use if one of the martials uses disarm enough to crit sometimes. So very situational but not useless.

But not all spells have to be combat spells to be considered worth learning. mending lets the caster repair shields or now guardian armor if they get that armor break feat for the martial even though they wanted to be good at playing guitars instead of crafting.
I do wish mending was a combat spell though. it could have been kind of like the arcane casters closest thing to a heal.

Take slow for example.
If another rank 3 spell can also make a creature eat up at least one action reliably but also has other benefits isn't it situationally better than slow against a high fort save enemy that will almost certainly at least get a success?

Granted
1. a wizard needs to know they will be up against this creature and the more info about terrain and the creatures abilities the better
2. a wizard needs to have learned other spells that can capitalize on the situation and the creares weaknesses and also eat up an action while doing it.

Are there other rank 3 spells that can be better than slow if the situation calls for it?

Bluemagetim wrote:

For the core argument of the thread I am thinking arcane does not need new spells that obviate existing ones. And if arcane only gets new spells that are good situationally I would think those additions make the wizard stronger and not the sorcerer.

basically what would be the benefit to the sorcerer be if the arcane spell list gained new spells that are not going to replace any of the core spells your sorcerers use now?

You have to think about PF2 to understand fully why the sorc does so well.

PF2 is a game of fairly short combats with impactful actions taken early and often.

Everyone is action starved. You have 3 actions to use per round. So the value of a class is based on what can be done with those three actions.

This leads to opportunity cost analysis. That OC analysis for casters is what impactful spell can I cast with this limited number of actions this round.

So if a new spell comes out that is better than an old spell, the sorcerer replaces that spell in their repertoire then uses it over and over again. So there would be no benefit unless the spells are better than what they have, but that would also impact the wizard as they wizard is even more stuck when it comes opportunity cost analysis due to prepared slots being set once prepared. So how many of the same spell do they prepare to ensure they are maximizing that spell slot for the day?

That's why I don't currently see a problem with the arcane list as all those spells mean nothing with the tiny number of slots casters get now. They are going to do OC analysis and take the best spells in as many slots as they can only adjusting if necessary to do so.

The real problem is the wizard's lack of competitive class features. Any wizard can fill their prepared slots with quality spells and feel effective using the same proficiency and maxed out casting stat as every other caster from the bard to the druid to the cleric to the sorc to the witch and so on. The basic mechanics of casting are...

What I don't really get is that your argument here makes the point for what i just said stronger but it seems like you disagree with my post?

Like you said, the sorcerer isn't changing their repertoire for situationally good spells when they can just use fear, slow, and the like and brute force them till they work.

A wizard can't afford to do that, its not their strength. They benefit from having a larger array of options and knowing which will provide the effect they want against the lowest save possible. You can only do this if there are multiple spells out there that can situationally get you a similar effect against different saves at different distances with different restrictions such that a sorcerer isn't interested in the spell but the wizard when they prepare it for the right fight are getting what they want against the lowest save.
The point you stated about opportunity cost analysis is what the wizard player needs to do all the time but with whatever info they have at preparation. And when you have more options to choose from to achieve an effect you want, and more information to include in your analysis like enemy saves, resistances, weakneses ect.. The better the wizard players choices for those days will be.
I guess I am saying I understand and agree with much of what you are saying. But I do see more arcane spells that sorcerers will not want but provide more specific outcomes as a benefit to the wizard who has the info and knows when to deploy them for the most effect.

For the core argument of the thread I am thinking arcane does not need new spells that obviate existing ones. And if arcane only gets new spells that are good situationally I would think those additions make the wizard stronger and not the sorcerer.
basically what would be the benefit to the sorcerer be if the arcane spell list gained new spells that are not going to replace any of the core spells your sorcerers use now?

Bluemagetim wrote:

Thank you both.

Gobhaggo, Teridax those are much needed and appreciated suggestions!

Cleaned up the language a bit. Now the initial focus spell has a heightened effect to keep it relevant.
Changed up the limitation on the advanced spell and made it play nice with spell substitution. With this version you can change up lower rank spells several at a time or several times a day but an on rank spell will always be once a day unless you have spell substitution.

Initial spell: Bend Entropy - Focus 1 - 2 actions - You have studied the ebb and flow of time knowing how to bend it slightly to your will. Choose a target within 30ft, that creature either gains the quickened condition for 1 round or becomes slow 1 for 1 round with a Will save against your spellcasting DC.

Heightened +2- you may choose an additional target within 30 feet to either quicken or slow.

Advanced spell: Draw on Future Selves - Focus 4 - 3 actions - Your future selves lend you their aid going back in time advising your past self on a spell to prepare changing spells you prepared that day. Choose a number of your unspent spell slots totaling up to the value of your current highest spell rank, select eligible spells from your spellbook for those spell slots. Change the prepared spells to the new selected spells.
Once you have selected enough spell slots to equal the value of your highest spell rank this spell cannot be used again until the next day.
If you have the spell substitution thesis you may select spell slots totaling in value up to double your highest spell rank instead.

Still not a big fan on Draw since it'd take quite a bit of time to do mid-combat while also being complicated but if you're deadset on it I suppose this works well.

Bend Entropy is very nice, a good 'slot replacer' kind of spell

Im glad bend entropy came out well.

Yeah maybe I wrote the rules for draw on future selves more complicated than needed. I think it will be pretty simple in practice just need to keep track with something like 0/7 ranks swapped(If at level 13)
As usual for me I worry about over tuning, thats why I went for 3 actions when used in combat.
If this was a 1 action spell it would enable casting the swapped spell immediately which would be very powerful and cool but if I went that way maybe it would need some serious drawbacks like the toll is slow 3 for one round.

I'm super down for a chronomantic spell school.

Might I recommend Summon Irii as your 8th-rank Incarnate spell instead of Clockwork Devotion? Irii are beings expressly tied to the timestream, and it's also a rare spell, which makes it feel a bit more special.

Also, have you considered looking at SF2E's spells at all? Cantrips like Injury Echo would really fit a spell school like this; there are a few other time-based spells in SF2E's Player Core, though I can't think of them offhand.

That summon spell is interesting.

Thank you both.

Gobhaggo, Teridax those are much needed and appreciated suggestions!

Cleaned up the language a bit. Now the initial focus spell has a heightened effect to keep it relevant.
Changed up the limitation on the advanced spell and made it play nice with spell substitution. With this version you can change up lower rank spells several at a time or several times a day but an on rank spell will always be once a day unless you have spell substitution.

Initial spell: Bend Entropy - Focus 1 - 2 actions - You have studied the ebb and flow of time knowing how to bend it slightly to your will. Choose a target within 30ft, that creature either gains the quickened condition for 1 round or becomes slow 1 for 1 round with a Will save against your spellcasting DC.

Heightened +2- you may choose an additional target within 30 feet to either quicken or slow.

Advanced spell: Draw on Future Selves - Focus 4 - 3 actions - Your future selves lend you their aid going back in time advising your past self on a spell to prepare changing spells you prepared that day. Choose a number of your unspent spell slots totaling up to the value of your current highest spell rank, select eligible spells from your spellbook for those spell slots. Change the prepared spells to the new selected spells.
Once you have selected enough spell slots to equal the value of your highest spell rank this spell cannot be used again until the next day.
If you have the spell substitution thesis you may select spell slots totaling in value up to double your highest spell rank instead.

Forgot to add the restrictions on the quickened action gained from Bend Entropy. As a twist maybe it allows stride strike or spellshaping?

Thank you both.
Gobhaggo, Teridax those are much needed and appreciated suggestions!

Cleaned up the language a bit. Now the initial focus spell has a heightened effect to keep it relevant.
Changed up the limitation on the advanced spell and made it play nice with spell substitution. With this version you can change up lower rank spells several at a time or several times a day but an on rank spell will always be once a day unless you have spell substitution.

Initial spell: Bend Entropy - Focus 1 - 2 actions - You have studied the ebb and flow of time knowing how to bend it slightly to your will. Choose a target within 30ft, that creature either gains the quickened condition for 1 round or becomes slow 1 for 1 round with a Will save against your spellcasting DC.

Heightened +2- you may choose an additional target within 30 feet to either quicken or slow.

Advanced spell: Draw on Future Selves - Focus 4 - 3 actions - Your future selves lend you their aid going back in time advising your past self on a spell to prepare changing spells you prepared that day. Choose a number of your unspent spell slots totaling up to the value of your current highest spell rank, select eligible spells from your spellbook for those spell slots. Change the prepared spells to the new selected spells.
Once you have selected enough spell slots to equal the value of your highest spell rank this spell cannot be used again until the next day.
If you have the spell substitution thesis you may select spell slots totaling in value up to double your highest spell rank instead.

Noticed there is no arcane school with haste and slow and this would be a concept to throw them in with. So here is a homebrew I would use for a time and to a lesser degree space themed school.
Theme is around bending time and space to your will. A lot of spells fit the theme if looked at with the right angle. Surestrike fits if thought if as your targets movements seem to slow allowing you to see past their defenses with ease. Blur fits if its thought of as your phasing in and out of the current moment in time leaving waves of visual residuals. Others like time sense or synchronize fit on the nose.

If youve taken the time to create a school yourself youve seen why RAW they are not strict lists of exactly what is written. As you go through spells to pick only 2 at each rank beyond 1st you notice more than 2 usually fit well into the themes of the school. GMs and players are supposed to work together to add or swap in spells that strongly fit the theme but didnt get to be one of the two listed spells.

Curriculum Spells

Cantrip: Time Sense, Warp Step
Rank 1: Surestrike, Synchronize, Fleet Step
Rank 2: Blur, Loose Times’s Arrow
Rank 3: Haste, Slow
Rank 4: Morass of the Ages, Vision of Death
Rank 5: Quicken Time, Rewinding Steps
Rank 6: Cast Into Time, Necrotize
Rank 7: Contingency, True Target
Rank 8: Clockwork Devotion, Quandry,
Rank 9: Foresight

School spell
Took a crack at focus spells.

Initial spell: Bend Entropy - 2 actions - You have studied the ebb and flow of time knowing how to bend it slightly to your will. Choose a target within 30ft, that creature either gains the quickened condition until the end of their next turn or becomes slow 1 until the end of their next turn with a basic Will save.

Advanced spell: Draw on Future Selves - 3 actions - once per day- Your future selves lend you their aid going back in time advising your past self on a spell to prepare changing one spell prepared. Choose one of your unspent spell slots select a different eligible spell from your spellbook for that spell slot. Change the prepared spell to the new selected spell.

Bluemagetim wrote:

The level 5 example I gave looks to me to clearly be better as a wizard with 6 level 3 spells to cast in that extreme encounter than the sorcerer that only has 3 of them then has to use lower slots for the last 3 rounds or more if it takes longer because they have to use 2nd or lower spells after round 3.

Not to mention if the situations and encounters the party faces while spending those days tracking the creatures through some set terrain are ones the wizards extra spells known can be leveraged the wizard can alter their slots to maximize the amount of casts of them.
A thick forested area might yield special passages to a wizard prepared with 4 or more shape wood. Or maybe the party can better evade enemies by using humanoid form on each member then keeping enough distance to look like just another raid group. Or attempt it with invisibility on everyone. Or marvelous mounts for everyone when that kind of travel is expected. Or maybe shrink everyone to move through unexpected spaces. Or mabey tou used create food for a small village to eat for the day in exchange for guidance through a dangerous or hard to navigate area. Or you used cleanse air to create safe spaces to move through a poison clouded marsh zone for everyone taking several casts to clear through.
These are some off the top of my head examples of things a single scroll will not do and is very low commitment for a level 5 wizard to set uo to handle. A sorcerer could do any of these things too but at a huge cost. A single wizard might even have several of those rank 2 spells they can change between on days where the party wants to avoid conflict and them back to the fireballs/slow and fear on the days they expect to engage.
And if the party does encounter a fight anyway the wizards top slots were not being used for any of this stuff so those are still ready to fight. They just didnt blend up that day for more top slots. Thats still 4 top slot casts on a day set up to give up 2 rank 1s for an extra rank 2 and

...

Blue_frog I wanted to come back to this point because I think the arcane sorcerer is actually really bad at doing what you suggest. And in my assumptions I wont be charitable to make the point. I am assuming this arcane sorcerer doesnt care to use recall knowledge and left int at 0 to maximize con/dex/wis/cha. They also are focusing in cha akills so they leave arcana at trained and never picked up magical shorthand. At level 5 they have an arcana of level + trained so 7 total. The DC of all those rank 2 spells in my example to learn is 18. That means on an 10 or under they fail to learn the spell and cannot try again till they level up. At this level of investment its not a reliable way to get scrolls and learn unlearned spells with arcane evolution to solve problems. They could have invested more into it and reduce the chance of failure but a wizard is made to do this and already has the int at +4 along with the defensive stats con/dex/wis and is more likely uses arcana for RK so they bumped it to expert and might even have spellbook prodigy making success a 4 or up. Thats not a trivial difference in chances of success or failure.

At least wizard can get fortell harm and probably should given the feats in class.
I would be curious to see a level by level comparison of optimal builds including optimal dedications.

Bluemagetim wrote:

consider the wizard at level 13 can casting group haste and eclipse burst in 3 encounters straight, a sorcerer is making choices with the 3 rank 7 casts they have the wizard is choosing to do both every encounter.

It's not the first time you said something like this, you also mentioned it earlier:

Bluemagetim wrote:

The level 5 example I gave looks to me to clearly be better as a wizard with 6 level 3 spells to cast in that extreme encounter than the sorcerer that only has 3 of them

Unless I missed something, at level 5, a spell blending specialist wizard has 2 regular spells + 1 specialist spell + 1 blended spell + 1 arcane bond spell.

That's 5 slots, not 6, to the sorcerer 3.

At level 6, he'll indeed get 6 slots but then the sorcerer has 4.

Likewise for your level 13 example.
And since you're a specialist, you only have one arcane bond per day so at level 13 your list looks like this:

1 - 2 spells
2 - 2 spells
3 - 3 spells
4 - 3 spells
5 - 3 spells
6 - 5 spells
7 - 5 spells

In comparison to a sorcerer having 4 spells everywhere and 3 level 7. So the difference is not as big as you make it out to be. I did tout that in my guide, but the remaster changed everything.

And even 6 top level slots aren't what they used to be.
- A divine or primal sorcerer can get 5 slots as early as level 4 and 6 slots at level 16 (+1 n-1 slot).
- An oracle can get 5 slots at level 6 and 6 slots at level 18 (+1 n-1 slot).
Sure, one of them is fixed, but the other ones have 13 or 14 distinct choices per slot, giving them flexibility the wizard can only dream of. And they also have a dozen more lower level slots which, while not as impactful, are nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks for correcting me. I didn’t notice spell blending says each bonus slot must be of a different rank so you cannot blend up both 2 rank 1s and 2 rank 2s into 2 rank 3s

Bluemagetim wrote:

i posed that scenario to show sorcerer is not always better than a wizard at all levels and in all situations.

So what spell ranks would you consider ones where what you gain at that rank is game changing? If having double the casts at that rank at the level you gain it isnt a worthy and equalizing class feature then those spells are not actually gamechanging in the first place.
I used rank 3 spells as an example and its a good one. But what about rank 6 for chain lighting, or rank 7 for group haste? With 6 casts at the level the new rank is gained the wizard can reasonably open every encounter every day they want with that new rank gamechanging spell while the sorcerer might hold back and open with lower rank spells in the days first encounters so the 3 top slots can be saved for possible harder fights later. When to use top slots can also be a possibility point for misjudgment and a wizard with 6 of them isnt worried about it.

Look, when we are starting to talk about being to cast rank 7 spells like for group haste the wizard will be behind if we compare to sorceror. I did not pick that lvl 13 cut-off point I mentioned earlier out of the blue. We might try to imagine some contrived scenarios for adventuring days where that might not be the case, but I certainly have not ever seen those actually happen.

That potential Sorceror our Spellblending wizard is competing against will have anoint ally and explosion of power if we want to call them optimized. Let's try to get a bit more concrete:

Their rank 4 spells will be on average 6d6 behind your rank 7 spells if we compare +2d6/rank spells. It's easy to trigger blood magic twice for our optimized sorceror with 1 action focus spells. That's an extra 11d6 damage thrown in the mix, for 3 rounds at least. Granted, at level 13 it's probably just Primals who can trigger twice while going R-3. Arcane Sorcerors will be better of with triggering once, like with Ancestral Memories, but that's still +7d6.

Yes, yes, just on...

consider the wizard at level 13 can casting group haste and eclipse burst in 3 encounters straight, a sorcerer is making choices with the 3 rank 7 casts they have the wizard is choosing to do both every encounter.

Bluemagetim wrote:

The level 5 example I gave looks to me to clearly be better as a wizard with 6 level 3 spells to cast in that extreme encounter than the sorcerer that only has 3 of them then has to use lower slots for the last 3 rounds or more if it takes longer because they have to use 2nd or lower spells after round 3.

Not to mention if the situations and encounters the party faces while spending those days tracking the creatures through some set terrain are ones the wizards extra spells known can be leveraged the wizard can alter their slots to maximize the amount of casts of them.
A thick forested area might yield special passages to a wizard prepared with 4 or more shape wood. Or maybe the party can better evade enemies by using humanoid form on each member then keeping enough distance to look like just another raid group. Or attempt it with invisibility on everyone. Or marvelous mounts for everyone when that kind of travel is expected. Or maybe shrink everyone to move through unexpected spaces. Or mabey tou used create food for a small village to eat for the day in exchange for guidance through a dangerous or hard to navigate area. Or you used cleanse air to create safe spaces to move through a poison clouded marsh zone for everyone taking several casts to clear through.
These are some off the top of my head examples of things a single scroll will not do and is very low commitment for a level 5 wizard to set uo to handle. A sorcerer could do any of these things too but at a huge cost. A single wizard might even have several of those rank 2 spells they can change between on days where the party wants to avoid conflict and them back to the fireballs/slow and fear on the days they expect to engage.
And if the party does encounter a fight anyway the wizards top slots were not being used for any of this stuff so those are still ready to fight. They just didnt blend up that day for more top slots. Thats still 4 top slot casts on a day set up to give up 2 rank 1s for an extra rank 2 and

...

i posed that scenario to show sorcerer is not always better than a wizard at all levels and in all situations.

The level 5 example I gave looks to me to clearly be better as a wizard with 6 level 3 spells to cast in that extreme encounter than the sorcerer that only has 3 of them then has to use lower slots for the last 3 rounds or more if it takes longer because they have to use 2nd or lower spells after round 3.
Not to mention if the situations and encounters the party faces while spending those days tracking the creatures through some set terrain are ones the wizards extra spells known can be leveraged the wizard can alter their slots to maximize the amount of casts of them.
A thick forested area might yield special passages to a wizard prepared with 4 or more shape wood. Or maybe the party can better evade enemies by using humanoid form on each member then keeping enough distance to look like just another raid group. Or attempt it with invisibility on everyone. Or marvelous mounts for everyone when that kind of travel is expected. Or maybe shrink everyone to move through unexpected spaces. Or mabey tou used create food for a small village to eat for the day in exchange for guidance through a dangerous or hard to navigate area. Or you used cleanse air to create safe spaces to move through a poison clouded marsh zone for everyone taking several casts to clear through.
These are some off the top of my head examples of things a single scroll will not do and is very low commitment for a level 5 wizard to set uo to handle. A sorcerer could do any of these things too but at a huge cost. A single wizard might even have several of those rank 2 spells they can change between on days where the party wants to avoid conflict and them back to the fireballs/slow and fear on the days they expect to engage.
And if the party does encounter a fight anyway the wizards top slots were not being used for any of this stuff so those are still ready to fight. They just didnt blend up that day for more top slots. Thats still 4 top slot casts on a day set up to give up 2 rank 1s for an extra rank 2 and having those rank 2s dedicated for spells a sorcerer might not ever consider putting in repertoire.

Deriven Firelion the point wasn’t that lower level spells are never good at anything or that they wont have uses. Its that a wizard when they can identify what they will need with spell blending can blend away ranks they know wont matter that day for more higher ranks they know will be used.
Take the example of the party spending a few days tracking a specific set of creatures. The wizard is capable of having a different loadout of spells and decide if they want to spell blend if a higher rank spell is needed more than lower ones. Maybe the first day will be similar to the sorcerer. But after that days encounters the party has a good idea of what they will encounter further into the area, now the wizard starts specializing the daily loadout. The sorcerer isnt able to do this.
Once the party knows they are close to the creature theyve tracked down that last day might just be the one encounter and possibly something unexpected. Thats when the wizard blends up to as many highest slots they can knowing they will not have enough turns in combat or uses outside combat knowing for that day every turn they get to do anything will be filled with a high slot cast.
Lets put it into perspective at different levels. And I am cherrypicking to show sorcerer will not always have a clear advantage all the time. This set of encounters the party either has the wizard or the sorcerer.
Lets set the party to level 5. Lets say they know this day will be between a severe and extreme encounter with a strong boss with several adds.
Sorcerer plans to use 1 cast of fireball to open combat from a distance, 1 rank 3 fear as the enemies come
Into range and 1 slow for on the boss for that last fight where the party has finally caught up to the creatures. They will get an extra 3 damage on that fireball.
The wizard is from the battle school whixh has great spells, gives force barrage fireball and later chain lighting and we went with spell blending. On the day we know we are catching up to the creatures we are trading up to have 5 3rd rank slots going 1 slow, 1 rank 3 fear, and 2 fireballs, plus another rank 3 spell they know! At this level a wizard can set up to have double the 3rd rank spells ready for the day.
The wizard also has their arcane bond up their sleeve for a recast of any of those spells.
If there are 6 rounds of combat the wizard is casting a rank 3 spell every round. The sorcerer is is down to rank 2 and 1 after 3 rounds.
This is a big difference especially if the slow crit failed or the fear didnt take as well as they would have liked on the adds. Wizard has arcane bond to try again and with so many top slots its not a bother, sorcerer trys again but at the cost of using one of the other spells they planned for the fight. They planned to get off a fireball a group fear and a slow, the sorcerer cant afford bad outcomes with only 3 casts. That difference also means if the party engages from 500ft with fireball the wizard will have more turns of casting it probably making the fight much less difficult by the time the enemies can fight back.

In my experience a fight that is closer to the extreme range can easily last 6 rounds and be deadly even in later rounds. I had given an extreme encounter once where the party rushed and took out a caster boss but were left with so few hp and resources that facing down the adds afterwards was still dangerous.

If you dont want to change up things day to day a wizards abilities will feel useless to you.
Its really that simple.
The whole thing with wizards is manipulating and customizing not only the spells they bring but even the allocation of slots.

So yeah sorcerers need to pick spells they know they will use everyday especially as they first get a new rank of spells while wizards get to try out more the arcane list since they have the ability to learn and the ability to swap daily.

And about the school slot, its identity forming. Why even pick a school that has a list you dont want to use? And if all the schools have lists you dont want to use work with the GM to adust one thats closest. Adding or swapping spells for others that also fit the theme of the schools is RAW. At that point having a list you mostly like is no longer a drawback.

I just feel the wizard fantasy that sounds the best to me is the kind where magic is normsl for them.

Give wizards a class ability that lets them cast any spell from their spellbook as a 10 min activity. No slots used to do this. Maybe they can use this ability a number of times per day equal to this formula
Top rank 1/day
-1 is 2/day
-2 is 3/day
4/day for any spell -3 or under

Slots get reserved for combat uses and any spell you want to use for utility.
If the number of uses of the ten min spell activity is too much give them less to start and let feats unlock more uses to spec into a more utility capable wizard build.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Back in the day a friend cast fireball at enemies that boarded our ship while at sea....

You can guess what happened to the ship.

The sails and ropes caught fire?

It's not that easy to catch wood on fire with instantaneous heat like a fireball.

It was 2nd ed advanced dnd.

Back in the day a friend cast fireball at enemies that boarded our ship while at sea....
You can guess what happened to the ship.

With all the in class options Im not sure archtyping is the best way to go unless you are playing FA.

You could do this convention if you want sets of opposed elements.
Really I'm just making this up but if it people disagree with the sets the discussion will probably end up with what you are asking for.

Fire/Cold
Void/Vitality
Electricity/Water
Wood/metal
Mental/Force
Acid/Sonic (Castilliano mentioned it as a long shot but why not go for it)

There is another possibility we could understand that when they say punch its allowable to re-flavor it as any unarmed attack as a thing we just do in this game. If can be descriptive and inform what happens without being literal.
Piercing the the arrogant eyes of the gods can be alluding to jumping higher than mortals should be able to effectively sticking it to the gods.
So it can be allusory and descriptive at the same time.
But we still understand what its saying someone who uses the ability can do.

This ability taken raw opens the user up to serious risk.
Rolling 5 times gives plenty more opportunity to crit fail and land prone.
I would not run it that way.
It is more reasonable to roll once, check it against every targets DC and resolve each except the choice to move would be given once after all pushes effects are done. If that one roll is a crit fail against any they get the crit fail effect of shove. This makes a high roll a high roll against all targets. Also a bit more fair than having 5 chances to crit fail.

Just speaking for myself, I was playing my Life Oracle more as an HP tank than anything else. I had access to really big heals, buffs, and bits of healing while buffing thanks to the curse, but the character also had Wellspring Mage and another archetype for flavor reasons, so the biggest and most interesting thing was taking damage for everyone and being a good target to consolidate healing on.

The remastering of the class didn't offer any kind of replacement for the extra HP or big/convenient heals (especially the AoE ones and healbuff combo), it removed the curse when using focus spells, and the actual curse for using cursebounds was ultimately harsher for my playstyle. Instead I got extra caster resources which weren't part of the character concept and antisynergistic additions.

So if not for deciding Wellspring was too conceptually important to give up, the best thing to do would've been switching to Champion with the Oracle archetype and item resources for support spells, flavoring the other magic resources as going to auras and the reaction, because the HP and curse-free Life Link were the most important things and mean the class (among others) arguably does the HP Tank playstyle better than Oracle itself now. ¯\_('v')_/¯

I didn't do that, electing to keep Numbing Tonics on hand for HP and heavily leveraging all those new spells for slower defense and support, but there's still holes I don't have much of a way to fill and compromises I had to make to stick to my character concept as best as I could. This is all particular to that character focus, of course, but Life Link is such a unique and powerful spell which gets relatively little support from the new class (just False Life, really, which only scales so much and still takes resources), so it's a notable example. Cursebounds are a big thing for those wanting to use or center on them too, since they're at full strength regardless of subclass or class.

(Oracle is pretty buffed as raw caster power goes, and it's a...

With the example of your life oracle from premaster I think one design decision was to roll back something they may have thought of as a mistake. ofcourse I dont know if thats it, but it looks that way to me. The oracle was doing things they felt spell casters should not be doing. Like with your idea of taking champion and oracle dedication as a way to do what you did premaster it really seems like the statement is that oracle should not have filled some of the roles their curse benefits enabled premaster.

OK Ive started reading the section and I noticed a few things that popped out.
Page 159 has a sidebar that explains what they were going for with this subsystem. They talk about the scale of these battles.

So it does seem like there is a new lever for encounter budgeting in how we pair troop level and leader level. giving the party higher level troops would add even more experience to budget than giving them on level troops for example, leaving more to work with for the enemies.

I also like that you can throw in some big creatures like a Dragon or something and they can be a threat on their own without a troop.

Another interesting angle is a troop having two leaders taking turns leading the troop and making so that troop can completely switch up the leader side of the actions mid fight.

Bluemagetim wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

I'm also just starting to go through my copy of Battlecry!

So far the guardian looks amazing. Even the dedication looks great.

I also want to have some time to really look at those skirmish warfare subsystem. It seems like a great way to keep the focus on the PC characters while bringing in the sense of a larger scale conflict.

i am a bit dissapointed in the skirmish system not having anything for the rules that KM uses for battles though.

Unless there's a way to convert the "armies" to troops, the two systems cannot be combined.

---

Overall it feels very "weird" that they decided to have 2 completely different systems for warfare.

The skirmish rules look like you are still taking actions on a personal PC level as part of the 5 action turn with a troop.

I havn't ran Kingmaker or used those war rules but don't they represent battle at a larger scale?

yes and no.

the skirmish rules are suppossed to represent things that characters can perform alongside an "army" fighting against other "armies".

to help with that, the skirmish rules introduce a plethora of different troops that act as armies.

the idea, as desribed in the book, is to facilitate army warfare that your character isn't irrelevant but fights alongside their troops.

on the flipside, KM has the same army vs army fights, but the statblocks of said armies are completely different than those of a Troop, or of any other regular "creature" to speak of.

While in KM army battles are army vs army, there are times that your characters may be nearby, but albeit, there's no way for the character to directly interact with the fight since it uses completely different rules. (outside of obvious GM houseruling stuff on the fly that is)

---

So, while the Skirmish rules offer neat tools that allow a character to bond and train with an army, and gives them unique edge in said warfare, those same actions cannot be translated into the KM...

Oh i see.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I'm also just starting to go through my copy of Battlecry!

So far the guardian looks amazing. Even the dedication looks great.

I also want to have some time to really look at those skirmish warfare subsystem. It seems like a great way to keep the focus on the PC characters while bringing in the sense of a larger scale conflict.

i am a bit dissapointed in the skirmish system not having anything for the rules that KM uses for battles though.

Unless there's a way to convert the "armies" to troops, the two systems cannot be combined.

---

Overall it feels very "weird" that they decided to have 2 completely different systems for warfare.

The skirmish rules look like you are still taking actions on a personal PC level as part of the 5 action turn with a troop.

I'm also just starting to go through my copy of Battlecry!
So far the guardian looks amazing. Even the dedication looks great.

I also want to have some time to really look at those skirmish warfare subsystem. It seems like a great way to keep the focus on the PC characters while bringing in the sense of a larger scale conflict.

You know I like that this system enables this in an easy way.

Thats good to know. Thanks for the responses.

Castilliano I am using foundry for the game so enemy adjustments are pretty easy as long as I already have the a base creature and art assets ready to go, I can search drag and drop existing actions/activities on to a creature. Or if I made the creature using PC rules I can drag and drop class features.

Finoan and PossibleCabbage with what I had in mind it would be based on player choices. if they sandboxed to one town instead of another or made this alliance instead of that one I was thinking that would dictate what was available to train into. That would lead to asymmetry though but make incorporating things into narrative easier since I would be fitting in NPCs/ancient manuscripts/or whatever it is in places where they make sense to put them.

I was thumbing through my copy of Battlecry! since It just came in and there are quite few really cool new archtypes that my players would thing are amazing rewards to pursue especially if they know they are getting them above and beyond normal level progression. Lol its probably me more excited to use the new stuff than anything else so far though.