Brew Bird's page

What's up with the PDF being so large? 230-ish MB is way more than normal.

Am I missing something? It says that Blighted Boons allow saving throws, but doesn't appear to specify what kind.

Elemental Blast also has the impulse trait, which in turn grants the manipulate trait, so melee kineticists will be provoking attacks of opportunity on their strikes.

I'm just not sure what Elemental Blast as its own action is trying to solve. I don't think the Strikes are so powerful that they'd break Flurry of Blows or Haste? And if Paizo is worried about non-kineticists getting them easily, the multiclass archetype could just start with weaker versions of the blasts.

I understand not including burn as a core mechanic when it was so contentious, but I was definitely a fan in 1e.

I’d love if there was a way to include it as an opt-in, either through feats or even a class archetype.

A couple classes (or specific builds) can have 2 focus at 1st level. Pretty sure the Psychic is the only which can actually recover more than 1 before 11th level.

Due to a number of intersecting circumstances, I would like to cancel my Rulebook Subscription.

I'd also like to give my sincere appreciation to Paizo's dedicated customer service team, at what is certainly a difficult time. You folks keep things running, and deserve all the love!

Enduring should just be the default state of quick alchemy. Maybe even Perpetual Breadth should be a baseline option too (perpetual bombs would feel really good on a chirurgeon which can sometimes feel a bit aimless when nobody needs healing at the moment).

Quote:

I think the complaint is less "I dislike handing out items full stop" and more "people tend to decline items because it sucks up their actions."

I think it's a bit of both. You're right that the action economy can feel like a pain (especially for the chirurgeon), but there are also a lot of people I've run into who've been drawn in by the concept of things like the mutagenist and then really frustrated by its execution (i.e. really bad damage while also eating an AC and reflex penalty if you're a bestial alchemist or even worse damage if you're an energy alchemist).

My biggest hang-ups with the Alchemist have definitely been the lackluster performance of the Mutagenist. Feral Mutagen Alchemist was my favorite build in PF1, but such a character simply doesn't work with this edition's iteration of the class.

Thanks to inventor, I can pretend to be a character from Jojo's part 1!

Seriously, shout out the name of any weapon followed by overdrive.

LONGSPEAR OVERDRIVE
GREATCLUB OVERDRIVE
DAGGER OVERDRIVE

TELL ME HOW RIGHT I AM

Not to mention, "You failed to account for... this!" might as well be "Your next line is going to be..."

Then we just bring in the Summoner for Stands... Shouldn't be too hard to run a proper Bizarre Adventure.

I definitely agree that something like Running Reload ought to be a core class feature. The only thing worse than not having cool toys is having cool toys but not having the actions to really use them.

However, I think modeling this feature on Running Reload might allow for a more straightforward feat, while also avoiding potentially problematic corner cases. What if this proposed "Quick Reload" ability was an action like Running Reload, but had a small list of subordinate actions that it could be used with, which could be expanded by Ways and feats?

Something like this:

Quick Reload (1 action)
You reload your guns effortlessly, even while you do something else. You take one of the following actions: Seek, Stride, Step, Sneak.
Then you Interact to reload.

Special Class feats or Features might expand the list of initial actions you can take with Quick Reload

--

Then feats like Pistol Twirl could include text like "Add Feint and Pistol Twirl to the list of actions which can be used with Quick Reload".

My playgroup's been a bit busy this month, but we managed to get in a two-session playtest campaign. We hope to get in one more playtest session with different characters before things close, but here's a quick writeup of our thoughts so far:

I was GMing for a party of 3: a Sniper Gunslinger using an Arquebus, an Armor Innovation Inventor going for a melee build with a Dwarven War Axe, and a Swashbuckler just to round things out. All were level 7, with standard gear for their level, based on the "Character Wealth by Level" table.

The campaign only had 3 combat encounters. The first was a werebear and 3 werewolves, the second was by 2 Vrykolakas spawn, and the final encounter was a Vrykolakas Master. The first two encounters were one after the other in the same location, with only 10 minutes between them. The final encounter was effectively an ambush, but the party was freshly rested going into it.

The Gunslinger
It wasn't clear exactly how the tripod was supposed to work, so for the purpose of the playtest, I ruled that the tripod was something you set up in a square, and could then rest your weapon on it without any action cost so long as you stayed in that square. The gunslinger set his tripod up in the first encounter, but ultimately felt like spending the actions to move it wasn't worth it. He didn't really get a chance to deploy it in the final encounter.

Though the gunslinger player really dug the flavor of the class, he seemed frustrated with the clunkiness of the Arquebus. One shot per turn with PF2's fairly bounded accuracy made for enough wasted turns to be annoying (in his case exacerbated by bad rolls). Coupled with the relatively low damage on non-critical hits, and he didn't feel he contributed much in combat. Big critical hits were cool the few times they happened, and definitely felt right for a sniper, but I don't think he liked the price he had to pay for them. Maybe a little too much risk for not quite enough reward.

The fact that you still took a penalty shooting from prone with a firearm was also pointed out as an oddity, especially for a Sniper.

The Inventor
The Inventor player seemed to have better time. He was able to get off a Megaton strike in the first encounter, and found an opportune time to use Explosion in the second. He was hesitant to use an Unstable action twice in an encounter due to the high DC, but that's already been addressed. Overall, his Inventor played as well as any martial, but with enough tricks to feel unique.

One complaint I did get at the end of the campaign, however, was that the Inventor player felt the armor innovation was not particularly defensively impactful. He was never hit by energy damage, so the innovation amounted to little more than a free breastplate. He would have liked to see some first level modification options that were less situational.

Next Time
We're going to try for one more session before February 5th, though this time I'll be playing a PC (I've decided on a Pistolero Gunslinger). I'm looking forward to seeing how it stacks up against the sniper, and hopefully I'll have better luck with the dice than my friend did.

I really feel like firearms should:

(1) do enough damage that you would want to use them even if you didn't have a feat that gave them bonus damage. Maybe you need to make them Martial for that - fine.
(2) don't actually have feats that boost damage. Math enhancer feats are lame. Especially...

Agreed on all counts, but specifically in regard to the first two:

I think being simple weapons is really what put crossbows in such a strange position. Most simple melee weapons have some sort of martial upgrade with the same playstyle, so if you get martial proficiency, you'll use that instead.

Crossbows, on the other hand, have a unique playstyle that only exists in simple weapons (in the core book), so there had to be some way for martial classes to keep competitive damage if they wanted to pursue that playstyle.

Since we're getting simple and martial firearms in this book, I'd be fine if a gunslinger would never want to pick up a simple firearm. Ideally, there should have been martial crossbows in the CRB that would have been the go-to for crossbow Rangers, in the same way a Barbarian or Fighter will always want a martial polearm over a longspear, and Crossbow Ace wouldn't have needed to be printed in the first place.

Perhaps our "Drifter" might be a "Wanderer"?

EDIT: Ha! Seems I wasn't the only one.

The GM-player dynamics certainly change when there's money involved, and there's definitely room for abuse. From that angle, I can understand why a forum would be wary of allowing it. Beyond any perceived "sanctity" of the hobby, there's probably potential for liability should something go south, and I would not want to take that risk were I running such a website.

Yeah, I'll echo Nyerkh's sentiment. I was definitely expecting a new blog post based on past experience, and the absence threw me off.

I had actually completely misremembered what day the playtest was starting. When I saw there wasn't a blog post about it yesterday (when I had mistakenly thought it was starting), I went back to the initial one to discover the playtest had been going on for a week without my realizing.

At this point, I’d pay for a book with an unchained alchemist. This slow drip of half-fixes is agonizing. I know it’s not Paizo’s fault, there’s only so much time that can be devoted to errata, and other issues have to be addressed too. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

A bit late to the conversation, but having just completed a playtest with the Summoner that focused on more exploration than combat, I concur that the duration of Unfetter Eidolon is absolutely too short.

A minute is just not enough time to accomplish much scouting, and that's really where this ability seems to be aimed.

Shared HP just feels like a more elegant way to do life link. My only issue right now (I've yet to actually engage in playtesting, since real life has gotten in the way) is that it feels weird for the Summoner to care about Con while the Eidolon can nearly ignore it.

I just find it strange that the cleric never gets expert in simple weapons and unarmed strikes, regardless of doctrine. Every other class that starts with simple weapon proficiency eventually gets expert, but in the shift to doctrines, it seems like that was overlooked.

It's sort of like the inverse of Spell Blending. Instead of sacrificing most of your lower level slots for a few extra high level ones, you sacrifice some of your higher level slots for a lot of castings of some low level spells through your staff.

There are a couple first level spells that are pretty spammable, True Strike being the most obvious choice.

A Crit from a Level 4 Fighter Power Attacking with a Striking Weapon is indeed beautiful to behold, but often ends up being overkill for anything other than the Boss.

It's about sending a message.

Upon read-through, and with a bit of mock combat, some notable issues with two abilities of the Redirection Faculty have become apparent.

Seeking Strike
Actually setting up Seeking Strike is a lot harder than it would appear at first glance. Because your cloud is relatively small, it's easy for an enemy to simply walk away from it, preventing Seeking Strike from being used.

Reconfiguring your cloud is possible, but that eats up the move action that Seeking Strike requires. What's more, in many cases, you are forced to move with your cloud so as not to cause it to end prematurely, meaning your whole turn is spent setting up your next turn's Seeking Strike, and you have to hope your enemy doesn't just move again.

It seems that Seeking Strike as written is only particularly useful when engaged in melee with an enemy, but in Starfinder, that's not a particularly common occurrence.

Bend Bullet
Bend Bullet is a cool ability, and I can think of lots of applications for it, but it's held back by Seeking Strike's limitations. It turns on when you use Seeking Strike, but does not seem to have any clause requiring you to actually target your nanites' focus. This means it's technically usable to snipe more distant enemies behind cover, but, because it still require some target to select for your nanites' focus, you run into the same limitations above.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that Bend Bullet only applies to weapons formed with your Gear Array. Because Seeking Strike also requires your Cloud Array, you're obligated to use your manifold arrays in order to use Bend Bullet. It's unclear if the effective Nanocyte level reduction has any impact on your Gear Array, but if it does, one would need to make their Gear Array their primary array to keep pace in damage. In such a case their Cloud Array would be even smaller, making it yet harder to use Seeking Shot.

A Final Observation
Overall, there seems to be a pattern in some (but by no means all) Nanocyte mechanics of significant restrictions and complexity for little payoff. I think the class would benefit greatly from a pass-over with the explicit goal of streamlining mechanics and bringing them into closer alignment with existing Starfinder paradigms. Conceptually, the Nanocyte is really interesting, but I think it's currently held back by mechanics that, while flavorful, ultimately make out to be solutions in search of problems.

I also hope none of this comes across as mean-spirited. That's not my intention at all! I really appreciate that Paizo continues to hold these public playtests, and my criticisms of the Nanocyte are by no means intended to be criticisms of the Starfinder team.

The Facial Reconfiguration knack seems really odd when compared to other options that affect Disguise checks. The fact that it can only reduce a specific DC adjustment seems like a needlessly clunky mechanic when most other disguise augmenting items and mechanics simply negate multiple DC adjustments completely. Further, while the quick disguise is nice, the ability overall seems to offer little else over a Holoskin, a very cheap item at level 6.

The 10th level knack Biometric Theft is likewise matched by a lower level item. The Doppleganger Morphic Skin, which has nearly the same mechanics, is a level 6 item, incredibly cheap with 10th level credits.

It would seem to me that these knacks ought to be dropped down in level. As is they don't seem worth taking when lower level gear provides roughly equivalent utility.

The text of Gear Array states that you begin play knowing 2 major forms, and that you learn a new one at 3rd level, and every 4 levels thereafter.

This conflicts with the number of known major forms listed in Table 1-1, which shows one more new form learned at 5th, and then a new form every 4 levels.

Which should we follow for the playtest? The rules, or the table?

This seems like another one of those problems that's caused by bad GMs, not bad rules. Are these kinds of obnoxious rules lawyers really the norm? If so, then it sounds like there's a much deeper problem in the hobby itself, one that no rulebook is going to solve.

While the Warrior muse does give you martial weapon proficiency, I don't know if it's going to be an aspect you'd want to build a character around.

Instead, the Warrior seems to really excel as a commander rather than a combatant. Instead of swinging a sword, a Warrior Bard will probably want to sit on the edge of combat, orchestrating the bloodshed. Courageous Advance, Courageous Assault, and Defensive Coordination all give your party a real edge in the action economy war, a much greater contribution than an extra trained weapon Strike.

It's still worth carrying a weapon, but it's likely going to be more for threatening squares to help your allies flank, or an occasional free Strike from Courageous Opportunity. Not really for getting in the thick of things like a gish might.

Already preparing my sacrifices to Haagenti in the hopes of getting some patches for the Alchemist.

Eldritch Archer requires expert prof in a bow so you cant meet that prereq with Ancient Elf.

This is about the Eldritch Trickster, a rogue racket.

The Daikyu has "Reload --", instead of "Reload 0" as other bows do.

It also has no weapon traits, which, while not necessarily an error, does seem highly unusual for an Advanced weapon.

Robbgobb wrote:

Also can you pick something that can't make at the moment waiting for either waiting on level (such as picking non Corebook level 2 item) or more credits to add to Nanite Investment?

Currently, you can't. The nanocyte survey does have a question specifically addressing that possibility, however.

The fact that you can't seems to lead to some weird situations. Since you learn your new Gear Array forms at level-up, you won't yet have had a chance to break down an item appropriate for your new level. So you'll effectively always be a level's worth of credits behind in what you can create, won't you?

PF2's such an improvement over the previous edition that it's hard for me to even consider going back.

It's not without its issues. I'm not pleased with the current state of the Alchemist, and regardless of power level, casters don't feel as fun to play as martial classes right now. I'll also echo the concern about how restrictive proficiency can feel when trying to step outside of your class's comfort zone, but that can easily be fixed by future archetypes.

The foundation of the game is infinitely more solid than 3.5/PF1, though. The 3-action system and the +/-10 for criticals run so smoothly that I have a hard time seeing how I ever put up with the old 'full/standard/move/swift/free' hierarchy.

I'm going to bet that the use of the term "burst" is just an oversight, not intended to carry rules baggage. The same way the "Heal" spell uses the word burst.

As for the dice, because you're not actually casting the spell, I'm inclined to say it'd just be d8s.

Personally, I don't get the negativity around the oracle. Playing to the advantages of your curse seems to get a lot of great bonuses and the disadvantages of the curse can either be mitigated with planning or effect things that you wouldn't want to do anyways with your character build. I'm pretty excited to play an oracle when I can.

Risk/reward mechanics are always going to be contentious. They're hard to balance as a developer, and every player is going to have a different idea of what a "fair trade" is when it comes to taking a penalty in exchange for a bonus.

I'm also excited to play an Oracle, and I think it's too early to make a strong judgment on the class. A holistic review of any rules element is difficult without some actual play experience.

Here's the thing: by many accounts, the Bard is the strongest casting class in PF2 at the moment. Maybe strongest class, period. If I were a design team, I'd be aiming for somewhere in the middle of the caster pack. I'm not saying the Bard should be nerfed or anything, just that I wouldn't be surprised if they were more cautions with Witch design, and figured that if they needed to give more oomph, they could do so down the line with new class feats and focus spells.

Having played a number of casters now, I'll say I wish they were all like the Bard. That is, a set of unique cantrip spells, with Focus serving to augment the class's existing at-will abilities. None of the existing stock feel like they can engage with the new action economy and adventuring day paradigms as well as the Bard can. Irrespective of power level, the Bard is just more fun to play.

Brew Bird wrote:

I'm more than a little disappointed Witches only seem to ever get a single cantrip hex. I recognize that that's design space that can be explored in the future, but when players decided during the playtest that they'd be willing to give up spell slots in exchange for at-will hexes, I think there was an expectation that we'd be getting a potential suite of class-defining powers akin to the Bard (or the 1e Witch).

In fairness, Bards only get one composition cantrip naturally too. The rest all come from feats which, as you've pointed out, is design space they can expand on in the future.

The bigger problem is the rest of the kit, imo. This is pretty much always what cantrip hexes were going to be.

My frustration stems more from the fact that it feels like what was expected to be a core part of the class has to await future feats. I'm confident that those feats will come, but if cantrip hexes are going to be the new direction of the class (as I think people wanted after the playtest), shouldn't that feat support have been included at the time of publishing?

I know development operates on a tight schedule. Perhaps it wasn't really possible to implement a new category of feats in time, and I don't want to place any blame, but either way it's an irritating situation.

I'm more than a little disappointed Witches only seem to ever get a single cantrip hex. I recognize that that's design space that can be explored in the future, but when players decided during the playtest that they'd be willing to give up spell slots in exchange for at-will hexes, I think there was an expectation that we'd be getting a potential suite of class-defining powers akin to the Bard (or the 1e Witch).

As is, I think I'd have preferred keeping the extra spell slots.

Be there anything that would help an ol' Gentleman of Fortune forge his path on the open seas?

Arr! The Pirate archetype be what yer looking for! Feats fer rope-swingin' and plank-walkin' abound, and any who swear themself to the pursuit o' plunder can learn the art o' the cutlass, whip, an' boardin' ax. (Or 'scimitars and rapiers', whips, and 'hatchets' as the landlubbers call them)

Is there a problem with the image links or something? I'm getting hypertext links, but I'm not seeing images for the characters being presented.

I've been having issues with images not loading for a while now.

So I have a character idea.. Swashbuckler with a mustache that attacks foes using the hair attack ability from witch.

What level would make this possible?

Level 4 is going to be the earliest. The Living Hair feat is only level 2, so it can be picked up with your first witch multiclass feat after the dedication.

Thanks for all the info gang, so the new classes are quite different than the playtest or just tweeked a bit in your opinion Porrige & Orb?

Also how are all the new spells? Hoping my mantis dude gets a few more to pick from as the list now is pretty slim specifically, but in general as well overall.

Thanks

Tom

The Orb hasn't had a chance to look over the Investigator thoroughly, but shall comment on the other three.

Another thing that I don't think has been spoiled anywhere (just a quick blurb during the APG panel at paizocon that didn't reveal much), what's the new druid order? The blurb said something about using seeds to empower weapons and spells or something similar?

Any info on bastion and viking archetypes

Porridge-san! Can you confirm whether the duskwalkers are "descendants" of psychopomps as implied in steams or foundlings like the ones described in the Bestiary? So much curiosity!

I really love this depiction of the Oracle. It kind of turns magic as practiced by other classes on its head. For an Oracle, calling on the magic is easy. The hard part is making sure you aren't obliterated in the process.

The Charisma dependency has been kind of "patched" by the Soulfire weapon fusion. With that, the already high damage Solarian can become a DPR monster.

It's definitely true that the Solarian has more hoops to jump through than any other class, but if they jump through those hoops, they're a force to be reckoned with.

Decimus Drake wrote:

I wonder if those who dislike the "modern" sound of kineticist are a suffering from some form of the Tiffany problem?

There's a distinct lack of some je ne sais quoi quality that the name does not possess, regardless of its etymology. I literally asked my girlfriend and her friends (none of whom play tabletop RPGs) right now which classes they would be interested in playing, if they were to play a game, from a list of the core classes and the occult classes from 1e. Kineticist ranked near the bottom...

I had no qualms with the kineticist's name going into this thread, but this is a good point. Most classes have a name that clearly suggests the fantasy archetype they emulate. Branding is important, especially when you're selling your game to new players. Perhaps the Kineticist would be better served by a name that better explains the fantasy. "Elementalist", maybe?

Interesting.

So the Formians are now native to two different solar systems?

Based on their bestiary entry in PF1, the Formians were colonizing new planets long before just about any other species. That's probably why they're all over the galaxy.

I've been wanting to run a starship race campaign a-la the Great Race of Oban. Will this have anything useful for that kind of thing?

You certainly like to go onto advice threads and say "I suggest playing with my house rules instead". When you haven't even played the game yet... I don't know. It leaves an odd taste in the mouth.

...Specifically players who were into 5e, but gradually got turned off by it's lack of character customization, it's release pace, it's affection for constant reflavor instead of cool options, and it's dearth of support for magic items, downtime, and exploration.

This has largely been what's kept me from touching 5e. Just recently I took a look at 5e's Ravnica book, being a big fan of Magic it seemed like a cool crossover, but I was pretty disappointed. It was mostly fluff (things any Vorthos already knows), and the mechanical things were a few creatures and lists of things like "these classes and items from the core books work well for these guilds".

Could you imagine if Paizo released a setting book that had something like "You can use a Fighter with Rogue multi-class to represent a Red Mantis Assassin" instead of any actual new prestige classes, weapons, or feat chains?

Is Paizo still working on another round or errata? I know it's safe to assume there's always something in the works, but I'd imagine a lot of resources are necessarily devoted to things like the Advanced Player's Guide right now. Has there been any talk about more errata/FAQs any time soon?

If a class is supposed to be defined by an ability, it needs to matter for more than one round per combat. Tying the Oracle's primary class feature to the focus mechanic really limits a Revelation's ability to meaningfully change the feel of a class. I think the Oracle needs considerably more revelation spells per combat if it's going to feel properly unique.