Bluemagetim's page

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.

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.

I mean we are sitting here anecdotally comparing two or three spells and they have a complete map of their spell terrain looking for where this spell is going to fit in the system.

No offense, but at this point I want to believe you are trolling lol.

I said this in the other thread but I'll say it again; If Paizo were the omniscient gods people seem to think they are when they mention stuff like "Paizo knows better" and "Paizo sets the standard" then why errata exists? Why did the classes that received changes in the remaster received them if Paizo "knows better"? Wouldn't Paizo have made those initially and not in the remaster if they truly knew better? Why do we have playtests for new classes if Paizo alredy knows what's the best for the system?

The Paizo employees are people, and like people, they make mistakes. The changes made to the psychic in this book were a mistake and that's fine. This book clearly wasn't something Paizo was taking their time to properly tune but rather something they just wanted to be done with and finally focus on new content while leaving the remaster era behind. Let's not pretend PF2e is a perfectly tuned system where everything is equally as good. Yeah, its better than PF1e and other systems, but the system isn't perfect. I love Paizo and their books but I'll speak up if I think something they made wasn't of the standards I expect from them.

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.

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.

But they're not; you are. You are looking at a set of changes that by all rights are haphazard, ill-conceived, and poorly-executed, and extrapolating conclusions from them that are not supported by other game elements. I am telling you that by the standards Paizo themselves have set with gouging claw and fire ray, the old imaginary weapon was fine on the Psychic, and its new version is weaker than alternatives.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I mean we are sitting here anecdotally comparing two or three spells and they have a complete map of their spell terrain looking for where this spell is going to fit in the system.

You might be doing that, but I am taking look at the breadth of spells that are already in the game, and pointing you to specific examples that disprove your point. I have yet to see you cite any concrete examples, let alone any developer confirmation of the intent you are imputing them. Although it can certainly be possible to extrapolate design and balance standards without a developer explicitly listing those standards themselves, the criticism I and others have been making of your claims is that they are unsupported by in-game evidence, they are simply conjecture. I am inviting you to consider the alternative hypothesis that the developers simply bungled this particular update, and rushed their way through with no regards for the Psychic's current state, their place in the game, or the deeper expectations players had for the class's remaster.

Fire ray cant benefit from psyche unleashed, has many creatures resistant to fire. Only targets one enemy. but gets good range and a good ground effect. It occupies a different space than damaging two targets at the same attack bonus, push crit rider, gains 2xspell rank to damage from psyche unleashed. has to be used in melee. Can be amped differently if damage isnt the main goal that round.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Teridax wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Thats is because Imaginary weapon was overtuned at d8s. It was a downgrade for system consistency.

Try that same analysis with contemporary focus spells for the ampted version of IW as it is now rather than comparing it to the d8 version we know was overtuned to the point magus players saw it as a holy grail of focus spells.

Okay, so by that standard, we should nerf gouging claw, which deals as much damage as imaginary weapon pre-nerf. Similarly, we should nerf fire ray, which was not far off from an amped imaginary weapon pre-nerf, and now deals as much damage while also having 60 feet of range and its bonus rider of creating burning ground, the latter of which occurs even on a non-critical miss. The argument that a d8 of damage is too much for a cantrip that is meant to be among the best in the game has, by my view, strictly no basis in fact.

I think graystone is right: whoever was in charge of this nerf likely saw all the Magus discussions, and decided to take this bazooka approach to balance where they turned off amp Spellstrikes (while also accidentally turning off reaction amps), which would've been enough to kill that combo, but then also nuked the MC archetype from orbit, and then overnerfed IW for good measure. The cantrip was never strong on the Psychic, an exceptionally squishy caster who would never normally put themselves within melee range of an opponent, let alone two. The Psychic was never going around doing too much damage, despite being designed to blast with certain subclasses, so I see no reason to nerf a cantrip they already synergized with poorly. I could have perhaps stomached the nerf better if the cantrip were given range or some other form of safety, but as of now there are options that deal equal or better damage without putting the class in nearly as much risk.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Is it really supposed to work like a spellshape free action? I

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How much damage is it when used with psyche unleashed?

Bluemagetim wrote:

Thats is because Imaginary weapon was overtuned at d8s. It was a downgrade for system consistency.

Try that same analysis with contemporary focus spells for the ampted version of IW as it is now rather than comparing it to the d8 version we know was overtuned to the point magus players saw it as a holy grail of focus spells.

Okay, so by that standard, we should nerf gouging claw, which deals as much damage as imaginary weapon pre-nerf. Similarly, we should nerf fire ray, which was not far off from an amped imaginary weapon pre-nerf, and now deals as much damage while also having 60 feet of range and its bonus rider of creating burning ground, the latter of which occurs even on a non-critical miss. The argument that a d8 of damage is too much for a cantrip that is meant to be among the best in the game has, by my view, strictly no basis in fact.

I think graystone is right: whoever was in charge of this nerf likely saw all the Magus discussions, and decided to take this bazooka approach to balance where they turned off amp Spellstrikes (while also accidentally turning off reaction amps), which would've been enough to kill that combo, but then also nuked the MC archetype from orbit, and then overnerfed IW for good measure. The cantrip was never strong on the Psychic, an exceptionally squishy caster who would never normally put themselves within melee range of an opponent, let alone two. The Psychic was never going around doing too much damage, despite being designed to blast with certain subclasses, so I see no reason to nerf a cantrip they already synergized with poorly. I could have perhaps stomached the nerf better if the cantrip were given range or some other form of safety, but as of now there are options that deal equal or better damage without putting the class in nearly as much risk.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Is it really supposed to work like a spellshape free action? I think if they meant to do that, they would actually name the

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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.

I mean we are sitting here anecdotally comparing two or three spells and they have a complete map of their spell terrain looking for where this spell is going to fit in the system.

Thats is because Imaginary weapon was overtuned at d8s. It was a downgrade for system consistency.
Try that same analysis with contemporary focus spells for the ampted version of IW as it is now rather than comparing it to the d8 version we know was overtuned to the point magus players saw it as a holy grail of focus spells.

Compare it to what else they could have now. Did they overcorrect? Possibly. Does it have a lane of its own? I think so.

I think I will just houserule Flurry of claws and Gluttonous Jaws double on crit. I don't think we have shown had a good reason for them to not crit.

Ok let me give you a scenario I know happens(maybe not to you, but I have seen it).
Your party is facing a creature. You don't know what it is, no one RKed to bother finding out. You just know how the GM described it to you.
Its medium sized crab like thing but deformed looking.

If you attacked this thing with gouging claw and chose piercing you would have hit resistance 10.
So now you know. Ok you try it again but with slashing but again resistance.

meanwhile if you were tangible dream and had IW you didn't play that game you just did your full damage. In fact you pretty much never have to RK to know if your damage will go through.

Force does not play RK. and not playing RK is a damage increase where it matters.

Creature was a Gongorinnian this time. Next time it could be a demon or a any number of undead and for some reason we are talking about how few creatures have resist physical or resist both piercing and slashing when these kinds of creatures are exceptionally common in a lot of campaigns.
And yes the ghost or construct are less common in terms of quantity that show up but they usually are there, people and APs do like throwing them in. And those are the fights you either are prepared for or struggle with. IW is always prepared cause it dont play RK.

Since I see some people referencing gouging claw's bleed as a crit rider, I'd like to mention that it is now a baseline effect.

Meaning that gouging claw does more damage to a single target than IW to begin with before resistance/immunities.

Thanks for the correction.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I do agree that you can't rely on it. Just the same you can't rely on the bleed.

It's dishonest to put these two in the same category of unreliability.

Would you care to spell out why?

Bluemagetim wrote:

If were talking about a spell attack crit rider then we really shouldnt be considering either the bleed or the push.

What I see as the benefit of push on IW is that when it does happen you get either some safety after having taken a chance and moved in to use it. Or you get some more options for a third action now that the thing is 10ft away. Also if an team mate has reactive strike I am going to push them that way so if they do want to come back to me they are going to get hit.

We absolutely should be. The crit rider on Gouging Claw is extra damage. This may not work if the enemy is immune to bleed, but it's usually more of the thing you wanted to do and at worst it does nothing. It's a bonus if it happens and nobody has to try to plan around it.

The push on IW might be useful, or it might actually be detrimental if you just pushed an enemy out of a spot that someone else in your party wanted them to be in. You can't rely on it for defensive or positioning purposes because it usually won't happen. At best it makes you safer, but you already needed a plan to be safe because you can't rely on it. At worst, it actively hinders someone else on your team.

These are in no way equivalent and not considering them happens to work in IW's favor... just like when people were talking about resistances and ignoring both weaknesses and how often that resistance doesn't come up did. Bit of a theme, there.

Anyway, the net result is Gouging Claw gets more damage on a crit, so it's overall damage potential is higher. Since you always want that and don't always want a push you can't do reliably, it's a point in Gouging Claw's favor.

I have to disagree. Most situations are going to be ones where you do want that extra 10ft, its a psychic not a heavy armor martial. With that extra space you now can decide to shield an ally, or move back even further if that would net a two action distance for the enemy. it depends on what you pushed and how aggressive you can be against it. (if you couldn't afford to be in melee range at all against the thing no melee cantrip is worth using)

Adding to clarify: I dont disagree with everything you said. I do agree that you can't rely on it. Just the same you can't rely on the bleed. When either happens, great. Push though opens up options, bleed is damage. My point from the beginning is they are aiming at different things but I dont value one over the other universally.

Bluemagetim wrote:

If were talking about a spell attack crit rider then we really shouldnt be considering either the bleed or the push.

What I see as the benefit of push on IW is that when it does happen you get either some safety after having taken a chance and moved in to use it. Or you get some more options for a third action now that the thing is 10ft away. Also if an team mate has reactive strike I am going to push them that way so if they do want to come back to me they are going to get hit.

That's the thing. The push from IW is situationaly useful (and actually harmful in others). The bleed from gouging claw is always useful, unless the enemy is inmune.

What situation does a 6hp caster not want extra distance at the end of their turn? It just adds to the defensive layering they need to not die.

If were talking about a spell attack crit rider then we really shouldnt be considering either the bleed or the push.
What I see as the benefit of push on IW is that when it does happen you get either some safety after having taken a chance and moved in to use it. Or you get some more options for a third action now that the thing is 10ft away. Also if an team mate has reactive strike I am going to push them that way so if they do want to come back to me they are going to get hit.

Edit:and you can choose not to detonate causing the push if you want.

Bluemagetim wrote:

For gouging claw are you including the crit rider, cause imaginary weapon has its own crit rider its just not for damage.

I am indeed including the crit rider. Doubled regular and bleed damage by my books is significantly more reliable than pushing a melee opponent away when it means needing a crit to create safety for yourself.

You don't like push effects?

Squark wrote:

Psi cantrips being better than other cantrips I'll grant you (Although that rapidly loses relevance once you have enough spells to cast multiple ranked spells per combat). But I've never bought the idea that Amped Psi Cantrips are better than Focus spells apart from maybe 4 outliers (Shatter Mind, Guidance, Message, and the old Imaginary weapon). I guess I can see where the reputation came from when bery few classes had access to good focus spells. But that seems to be more a case of them finally nailing down what they want focus spells to be able to do woth psychic, and most focus spells from then on being at roughly psychic's level.

I think context is key here, because focus spells premaster were generally a lot weaker: compare, for instance, ancestral memories to what it used to be. Back when that was the standard, the Psychic's amps were significantly above the curve. In general, the defining aspect of the Psychic's current weakness is that it's not that they changed in the remaster, everyone else did: every caster got to Refocus to full in-between encounters, nearly every caster got better focus spells, and nearly every caster got substantial improvements to their class features, with divine casters also receiving major improvements to their spell list. Although the Psychic was never the strongest caster around, they had distinct qualities that have now become the standard for virtually every other caster, so now their unique features are nothing special.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Well shield as a psy cantrip gets to target others in 30ft so its better than shield not as a psy cantrip.

Yes, and imaginary weapon is now straight-up worse than gouging claw in all but a handful of circumstances. What you are presently demonstrating is that not only was your prior argument false, the balance between psi cantrips is inconsistent. In neither case is offering just one of them in the dedication enough, in my opinion.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Really

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For gouging claw are you including the crit rider, cause imaginary weapon has its own crit rider its just not for damage.

That 10ft restriction doesn't play nice with how they partitioned diagonal costs. that is pretty restrictive. IF they made if 15ft or at least allowed the distance to increase at some heightened level that would be better.

Bluemagetim wrote:

As far as I can tell the designer intent is shown in this release. It is what they meant it to be.

Sure, and in both the original release and the remaster, several of the Psychic’s psi cantrips are regular cantrips with upgrades layered on. I think that is a pretty clear statement of intent. Given how the remaster fails to account for the existence of reaction amps or the unique relationship between amps and Focus Points, I’m going to hazard the guess that the changes we’re seeing are less the product of sound decision-making, and more a cautionary tale of what happens when you burn out your developers and give them too little time to do the research and playtesting needed to update a class properly.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Think about it this way, the same expenditure of class feats elsewhere is now a comparable investment, before it was not.

As someone who called for the MC archetype to be nerfed, and argued bitterly with people on here over it, I think the archetype is weaker now than other caster dedications, and by a lot. If what you say is true and psi cantrips are on the same level as any other cantrip, then only receiving one such cantrip in the dedication is a worse deal than any caster dedication that gives out two cantrips. If amps are meant to be just run-of-the-mill focus spells, then having to wait two levels later than other caster archetypes to get a focus spell, and then not even get a Focus Point for it if you already have a focus pool, is a worse deal than other caster archetypes. I don’t think there is any consistent logic here to justify what was done to the Psychic in this remaster.

Well shield as a psy cantrip gets to target others in 30ft so its better than shield not as a psy cantrip.It also has the amp feature, its just locked by the the level 6 archtype feat now.

What i really meant by not being better was that it seems the designers are obersving damage caps that this cantrip was not in line with. Compare it to amped melee Ignition or flurry of claws or fire ray.
Or compare it as a cantrip to non amped melee ignition or gouging claws.
They are much more comparable now.

I wouldn't be surprised if Flurry of Claws and Gluttonous Jaws writer conflated rules when they wrote them. That could be an honest mistake and especially if they are well trusted it could be overlooked on second or third editorial passes.
I'm sure it will get an errata pass if its added to the errata thread.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Basically the option was not in line with damage from other cantrips. that you can see.

When it was amped it wasn't in line with any other focus spell. Easy to see.

I don’t think it was ever meant to be. The whole point of psi cantrips is that they’re upgrades to regular cantrips, and amps are better than most other focus spells. While I do think there are issues to poaching amps, spending class feats to have an above-average cantrip I don’t think is unbalanced when you have focus and slot spells.

As far as I can tell the designer intent is shown in this release. It is what they meant it to be.

Think about it this way, the same expenditure of class feats elsewhere is now a comparable investment, before it was not.

Kitusser, in regards to the conversion we have in the other thread.

Basically the option was not in line with damage from other cantrips. that you can see.
When it was amped it wasn't in line with any other focus spell. Easy to see.

If they had made it a physic only class feature then it would have had a different set up design balance points it would have needed to clear. but as a modular feature any class can obtain it cannot obviate other options and it needed to have a place among other options.

Before this remaster version it was out of place.

Bluemagetim wrote:

By necessity it had to be a bad deal. Went from an overtuned option to something more in line with design expectations for a cantrip and and amped version.

I think if we are going to make comparisons I would think of it this way. If IW stayed with its former damage types but at the d6s(which was going to happen) it would not have been a comparable option in non amped form to gouging claw which has a bleed rider on crit and can be any physical damage type.
Now that its force the spell has a place that occupies a different space than either ignition or gouging claw.

A psychic could have imaginary weapon, gouging claw, ignition, and shield for example. With that they have physical options, fire, or now force in melee.

I disagree it was overtuned. It's designed for the psychic, which is a 6hp no armour prof class, and it's a melee cantrip/focus spell, on the class that is supposed to have better cantrips/focus spells.

That could have been true if the spell was a class feature no one else could take. Instead it was modular, any class could have it so it had to be balanced against every other thing any class could have.

By necessity it had to be a bad deal. Went from an overtuned option to something more in line with design expectations for a cantrip and and amped version.

I think if we are going to make comparisons I would think of it this way. If IW stayed with its former damage types but at the d6s(which was going to happen) it would not have been a comparable option in non amped form to gouging claw which has a bleed rider on crit and can be any physical damage type.
Now that its force the spell has a place that occupies a different space than either ignition or gouging claw.

A psychic could have imaginary weapon, gouging claw, ignition, and shield for example. With that they have physical options, fire, or now force in melee.

Wis governs instincts based on what I can see. And there is only one creature printed that has a wis below -2. Living Sap, that thing is the int -5 and wis -5 example, it just exists and anything ending up in its path it consumes.

I am thinking it was an oversight, I am not sure balance is the concern.
There should be crit effects in a general sense for things, otherwise they dont really interact with the that area of the four degrees of success and that's just not as fun.

Bluemagetim wrote:

The equalizer in the stat block is -5 int and a GM realizing this affects how to run it.

The problem with that is that it's vague. It's similar to the question of just how dumb a mindless creature is. If there's a pit in between you and a mindless creature, will it walk around it or straight at you? If you Hide and Sneak away so you're Undetected, does it forget you were there at all?

My experience with GMs playing monsters "dumb" is that it's really really hard for GMs to really do to a significant degree. Even if they in the abstract agree that it's appropriate.

It's great for comedic effect. It's just not something you can really rely on to balance out hard numbers or an ability with poorly defined limitations.

Int -5 is a hard number too though. It seems the implication is that int is a meaningless undefined stat. But looking at the definition of the stat for the game we can take it that a mindless or near mindless creature cannot establish the cause and effect that would be needed to understand if they spit as high as they can it will fall and falling from that high up will make it stop moving and easy to eat. this is reasoning ability they lack at a -5. And I am pretty comfortable with that understanding of -5 int from the actual entry descriptions of the worm backing up that they operate on very basic instincts like hunger.

Intelligence
Source Core Rulebook pg. 19 4.0
Intelligence measures how well your character can learn and reason. A high Intelligence allows your character to analyze situations and understand patterns, and it means they can become trained in additional skills and might be able to master additional languages.

I think where I am at on this is that the issue is at the GM level if they run one far smarter than the stat block requires. Is an issue at the GM level typically a reason to adjust a stat block?