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It's a bit weird. The way the "Regardless of whether you can already cast spells or gained the ability from this dedication," is seperated out would imply that the prior paragraph is meant to only apply if you can't already cast spells. Which would then imply A. But I'm not super confident either. FWIW if I was your DM i'd let you use interpreation B because an extra cantrip is fun.
I mean then why are you asking, it's not like you need us to tell you what to do. Interpret or adjust the rules as you see fit for your table. That aside I really don't think it's going to be a problem either way you rule it. A thaum probably doesn't want to duel wield anyway, and being able to chose between which weapon your strike with is not enough of an upgrade to do anything. However, reading it as "holding a weapon, including a gauntlet, in their other hand disables the implement" seems like a pretty silly conclusion. The game normally explicitly calls out when you need a free hand. Edit: NVM, implement's empowerment does contain this language. I am the silly one who confused the reaction for implement's empowerment. I do think the gauntlet thing is splitting hairs though, as technically correct as it is.
There is a blood magic archtype from one of the APs: Sanguimancer. It's actually bit weird and experimental and when I first read it I wondered if it was a first attempt at trying something similar later.
Yeah I think it's worth considering the intent of the implements here. The implements are intended to be items held in one hand that (for the most part) block you doing things with that hand that aren't called out in your class or its feats. Though weapons are a bit weird with that given free-hand weapons are viable. Hence, things like shield boss + shield or fused tome are probably going against the intent. Now, would it be a problem if your GM let you ignore that, especially with the tome idea (which is a good idea, I like it), probably not. As Quidest said, that's a lot of investment for not much mechanical weight.
Spell DC will be a bit of a problem, but the occult list does have some great buffs that don't need a DC at all. I quite like time jump, for instance, though there's plenty of options out there. It's a shame you don't have the space and wis for medicine because organsight is always fun (and kinda horrific). I also agree with the above on directed audience, nothing you've got benefits super heavily from it. I'd probably swap that out for something else. If you don't want bard, I'd say marshal. It's really good.
I am getting concerned the more I hear about the working conditions. I wonder if it's something we should make a bigger stink about. I'm aware it's a common problem in gaming and similar industries but I'd love the people making one of my fave things to work proper hours.
Yeah +1 to devs not ad hoc correcting things. Go read sage advice for 5e and you'll see why I think that. No disrespect for jeremy crawford but it's very apparent he was firing off rulings with zero forethought. Maybe for real problems like you mentioned but otherwise.
This is something I’ve been wondering, and I’m going to type out a long response, almost as a way of getting my thoughts in order. I’ll break it up into sections.
What level of quality degradation would be a problem?:
This is the key thing to answer for me. What would “decreased quality” look like? I moved over from 5e in 2023, so it makes sense to consider what made me choose pathfinder over 5e. One was the fact WOTC attempted to destroy the industry, which I’ll get back to later. Thinking about it, there’s three major factors. - I can trust the books to not blindside me with something comically overpowered or disruptive. In my mind this would be something like 5e’s hypnotic pattern. A spell that allows a player to completely swing a fight without any real effort. - The books provide adequate guidance, inspiration and new mechanics for GMs to play with, rather than just being more options for players - I don’t need to excessively meddle with the system to get it to do what I want, and any homebrew I do want to make is simple to integrate and balance. So, has that happened yet? Points 2 and 3 still hold true. The only exception would perhaps be the mythic rules, which if you’re playing with certain class combos, you’ll need some GM fiat to get to work. The rest of the system however remains pretty good at eliminating ambiguity (certain options notwithstanding) and will often call out when something needs GM fiat. Uncommon and Rare are still being used appropriately with the possible exception of exemplar dedication, and that puts a lot of control in my hands as a GM, and I appreciate that. Option 1 is perhaps a bit more difficult to answer. Pathfinder does still have swingy options, but it always has. The closest we get to a hypnotic pattern would be spells in the vein of slow or synthesisa, but those aren’t post-remaster. Blister bomb comes close, maybe. But otherwise, there’s nothing I’ve seen that’s player-facing that is screaming at me to disallow. Spells are certainly starting to trend stronger but given how the number 1 complaint about the system is that casters don’t get to be powerful, I’m willing to play ball a little longer and see if this causes problems down the line. After impossible magic, I think I’m going to be able to form a more solid opinion on that, as we’re going to see SOM spell reprints, and seeing how those change will be informative. How have I found the products themselves?:
I am going to count Player Core 2 as the start of the “post remaster” period, as any book published after that will have been written with the entirely of the remastered core in mind. Saying that, here are the books I’ve purchased since then. - War of Immortals - Battlecry! - Tian Xia Character Guide (+World guide but that was before PC2) - Divine Mysteries - Rival Academies The only book I have been disappointed with was WOI, mostly because I think the mythic mechanics missed the mark. The flavour is excellent but I’m not a fan of having the calling system. I would have rathered just pick the destiny at level 1, perhaps with destiny-neutral feats that relate to given skills. If we were to talk about slipping quality control, I think this is an example of something that really needed a playtest, because there’s so many small issues that needed ironing out, and because of how big they are, I don’t know if we’re going to see clean errata for it. Exemplar dedication is also a questionable decision, but I don’t allow exemplar dedication in my games, so I’ve never seen it in play. We’ve also seen playtests be used to great effect. Guardian was a fantastic 180 from its playtest state, and it does keep me optimistic for other class books, as it seems Paizo do listen to feedback enough to fix the biggest issues. Otherwise, I’ve adored every book I’ve bought, and I’m eager to get my hands on draconic codex. Whatever minor mistakes each book has, and there are some, I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary. Remember that arcane cascade didn’t work RAW for years. I also haven’t bought any starfinder books yet, but I have no major objections to anything that has been done over on that side. The classes are well done, and the errata was also mostly excellent and fixed some of my personal pain points with the system. Errata, Communication and other mistakes:
This, I suspect, was the impetus for making this thread. There have been some major stumbles in Errata. Spring 2025 was a major disappointment compared Winter 2024, which was generally excellent and fixed many real problems (Including some massive magus buffs, which I think people have forgotten Paizo did). Then, the lack of any Winter 2025 errata stung, especially since it seems Paizo didn’t feel there were any issues worth fixing. While I am normally on the side of “A lot of these issues are probably not that big a deal”, there are a couple of issues like Oracle Spells that are not so clear cut. The handling of imaginary weapon has also given me pause, because it doesn’t feel very intentionally done. I feel like three fixes were proposed and all three were thrown at the problem, rather than taking the cleanest option of disabling amp cantrip + spellstrike. Communication has also been annoying. Maya has done a great job since she joined the team, but even then xe can’t really tell us what we want to know sometimes. (No disrespect to Maya there, it’s the nature of the job. If Xe spoiled everything, or told us things that are in progress, it’d be a bigger problem), especially in relation to the things we really want to know, such as what’s going on with Tech Core and the Starship playtest, or whether certain pressing errata candidates are being considered. The worst offender for this was rogue saves, which really needed to be cleared up much sooner. The fact that announcements often do not go up on the website until days after Paizo lives is also frustrating. Twitch is not a good medium for scanning for specific bits of information, and as I refuse to use reddit, I’m often out of the loop for a few days. Paizo as a company:
There’s also been a couple things Paizo the institution has done. The CUP scuffle was unnecessary and while it ended okay, I’m still side-eyeing that entire situation. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that it was an OGL-imposed hasty decision, but I do not owe companies my loyalty and it is something I’m going to keep an eye on. I don’t use the store at all, but the second-hand opinion I’ve gained of it is also poor. The Opt-out instead of opt-in for the subscription is bad and doing it before a book people may not want to buy is scummy. I’m also alarmed by the comments I’ve read that Paizo staff are working 11 hour days, and I think that should stop. Businesses need to make money, and I understand that, but this shouldn’t happen, and if it costs us an extra book a year, that’s fine with me. This is probably the thing in this post that would make me quit soonest, as it’s already in an unacceptable, though tragically common, state. So, am I worried? I don’t know. I am genuinely delighted with probably 90% of Paizo’s output, but the concerns remain around that 10% which gives me a lingering sense of doubt. I would be curious to hear from some of the long-time players around here, as I suspect by the standards of the forum, I am quite young, with a tiny TTRPG career. Are these concerns things that have happened before? Not to overshare on a forum, but I'm a very anxious and paranoid person, so I'm very much prone to thinking everything is about to go wrong, but this writeup seems to me to not be the most dammning indicitment. As I said, I'm conflicted.
I don't think its as unlikely as it used to be. We're definetly seeing an increased amount of post-release support for non-core classes in the past few books. Magus, Inventor, Thaumaturge and Summoner have all got stuff in the past year. That's not bad, by paizos standards anyway. (Also non-core ancestries have been thrown bones, that's really good to see). I would urge caution against hoping for new options to fix the class, we'll probably get new stuff eventually but it's not going to solve a lot of people's pain points.
A Regenerating your vials aren't an exploration activity, you don't need to declare you're doing it, and in narrative you are picking plants or mixing vials every now and again. There's no reason that would significantly slow you down. It is no different to other abilites that naturally return over time. We're not "ignoring" the bolded text, it just doesn't apply here. In addition, there's no reason to limit it, and limiting it is a massive nerf to alchemsists that just isn't warrented. This would also make having an alchemist in the party painful, and actively punish the party for it.
They made it force damage and dropped it one damage die, and it is only one unique cantrip that never worked as a “bread and butter” combat spell (for the psychic). Its adjustment barely affects the psychic at all. If you want to be a blasty psychic you go oscillating wave. Shield is the powerhouse psi cantrip of tangible dream. I don't nessercarily agree with dropping the damage but force damage is just not resisted by 99% of creatures, which is why force options tend to have decreased damage.
I am hopeful that the returing spells will see some pretty liberal revisions. If we're honest, there's a lot of spells in secret of magic that are just... bad... But yeah I'm a little apprhensive about how much of this will be "new" stuff. If Magus and Summoner are reprinted mostly as is (and I'm going to be honest with everyone, I really think that's what's going to happen.*) it's going to sting a little. *Magus and Summoner have both had stuff added in the past year, and I don't know if that's something Paizo would do if they're planning drastic overhauls to the class within the year.
We do already have canon alternate timelines in both Starfinder and Pathfinder. A lot of the time themed spells refer to them. There might be a fun precog character in there. Someone who zooped over from pathfinder to starfinder. "no no no you don't get it, nocticula is a good person now, trust me"
I think you've misunderstood the special text. The special text isn't saying "You can take this feat more than once", or "the feat has additional effects as you level" it's saying "Unlike usual for feats you can't retrain, this feat can be taken above first level" All this feat does is change your size catagory whenever you take it, and you then can't take it again, as usual for feats that don't explicitly state you can retake them.
If you do get players, don't be afraid to ask them what they want! It's helped me a lot when it comes to working out how complex to make a subsystem like navigating tunnels.
Keep in mind that Nocticula, despite being called the Redeemer Queen, is not a goddess of redemption. I mean... Looking at her description on Archives, it does explicitly call out her differing view of "redemption" mostly just being not doing bad stuff anymore so it doesn't hurt you. Something tells me the people/demons she's harmed don't feel she's very redeemed.
Master Chymist would be fun. I'd quite like an alchemist that's much more down-and-dirty. I'd imagine you'd trade some versitle vials for the ability to transform into your alternate form which has true martial scaling on its melee attacks. (Maybe even fighter if they want to get real spicy). I'm sure there would be more to it, obviously the transformed state would need some downside to it, perhaps the loss/restriction of quick alchemy so you're incentivised to swap in and out.
Also WRT to iruxi necromancer I'm super glad that's what Paizo went with. It's a good way to have a "good" necromancer, since Iruxi have strong traditions about using the bones of their ancestors for good. It's definetly going to help give players inspiration for their own "good" necromancers. I was a bit worried when it was revealed it would end up like certain DnD subclasses that attract ... particular ... players. I have stories about conquest paladins I could tell you all.
I would caution getting too hyped about the next playtest being classes. While we are due this years pathfinder class playtest sooner or later, there is still the starship combat playtest that was mentioned. If Paizo haven't changed their mind (and I really hope they haven't, I'd love them to stick the landing on the rules), that is probably the next playtest.
I'm looking at my copy of SoM and the sidebar and steed form are one page turn apart. This is a complete non-issue and I'd be shocked if anyone ends up being legitmately confused as to what steed form does once they've read both pages.
Yes, that's why I said it wasn't ideal.
There is no contradiction. Without steed form, you get 2 actions, as you're riding a sapient creature. Steed form overrides this and gives you 3 actions.
"Impossible magic" could also be magic that violates setting rules. I'm still tantalised by the godsrain prophecies mentioning nethys trying to make two new schools of magic. I don't think Paizo would be so bold as to print two new traditions, but maybe you could have spells in traditions that do things that tradition normally can't.
Oh yeah it's not ideal. I had a player that wanted to mount an eidlodon and I just them make their eidlodon large with cavalier dedication. I think steed form could easily let you treat it as large for the purposes of mounting and then you take up the usual 2x2 when mounted. Large PCs... I don't know. Now that we have large-by-default characters it wouldn't be as big a deal to have a large eidlodon, but I feel like 2 large characters that can work together could end up being opressive. That's a lot of battlefield space you can control, but then it's not like you can't just have two large PCs for a similar effect.
Dark Archive remastered is out soonish. Isn't spiritualist just a phantom eidlodon?
Ah... weirdly, I'd see Nex as on the side of Cheliax. The nation of Nex's idea of Knowledge is worth anything at any cost. There being no taboo regarding demon summoning/binding. I can see it, but I can also see a scenario where Nex look at the conflict, and determine Cheliax is on the losing end, and join the opposing side as to limit the good graces Geb is able to achieve relative to them.
Depends on your players and what they've got acccess to. I know mine would prefer a bit more than just rolling a skill check but yours might not. Do you have a group right now or is this just hypothetical? |
