Burntgerb's page

Isn't Runic Weapon still one of the best go-tos in early levels until the party gets their runes?

I think the point is that they're never going to have *everything* but even just adding Benediction and Protection to their list seems like a new niche for Warpriests.

Class: Kineticist
Rule for which errata is needed: Clarity on how Channel Elements / Kinetic Aura is used outside of combat.
The issue: clarity would be appreciated if possible. Air skill junction seems like it needs aura to be active in non combat and the class description itself seems to imply it:

While Exploring...

Your innate connection to the elements hones your awareness of the natural world. In an environment full of an element you can channel, you're unparalleled, with the ability to repeatedly manipulate the element around you.

Some out of combat uses seem like they need the aura switched on in exploration mode. This would primarily dictate if Kineticists could begin a encounter and use a 3-action overflow on round 1 or if they have to wait until round 2.

We just wrapped up Age of Ashes where I took a bard from 1-20 and had a blast. Roaring applause, Synesthesia, Maze, Slow, Calm Emotions, Heroism and a few others were consistently better than doing 1/3-1/2 a monster's HP in damage.

I briefly looked at the remaster wizard when we were discussing new characters for the next AP and I was shocked that the Wizard (still?) felt so flat. I had presumed they would have gotten some added slots or flexibility with scrolls or wand tricks - but saw nothing that made me want to play one.

We're now 2 levels into Alkenstar and I'm having a lot of fun with a Kineticist. I'm sure there's fun approaches to the wizard out there, but I'm happy I don't have the paperwork and stress of a traditional caster to worry about anymore.

That's *fantastic* feedback, Trip.H!

I had planned on starting playing an Air/Wood Kin and the tree seemed like a great choice for a party with a Fighter and a Barb as frontliners.

Maybe it'll be too great of a choice.

We don't have a dedicated healer planned for this upcoming AP, so maybe my choice will be just right for our needs. Maybe it'll be too much. I had hoped to get a better sense of it before we start, but it seems like there's just too many hypotheticals to juggle.

I'm absolutely willing to adjust as we go if our GM feels like things are a little unbalanced.

EDIT:
The tree does only block *strike* actions - which I thought would be a big limiting factor since most enemies have specialized actions. Has that not been the case in your experience ?

But this costs an action to declare who's effected.

I don't see how it does. I've re-read Safe Elements three times - and I'm sure I'm missing something - but as long as you're not using Pacifying Infusion, I don't see any additional action requirement to designate targets safe.

If you're not built around stances then it becomes a lesser issue.

I can reliably spam an overflow and a blast on the same turn most turns. Sacrificing that only if I need movement.

If I add in 'safe elements'...

But is that how it works? To me, it only looks like Safe Elements only requires an action for the Pacifying Infusion part of the feat.

The first half just reads like you get to exclude people for no action - or as part of the qualifying action.

I just wanted to chime in and say that this is both fascinating and extremely helpful.

It's clear that the class reads one way and plays a multitude of ways depending on every imaginable variable.

My GM had initially said that all he had heard was that Kineticists were amazing and the new most powerful class in the game - and I'm glad that it sounds like (almost) universally that they aren't quite living up to that reputation by those that have had them at their tables - but that that they can certainly be challenging and great fun to play.

how much damage we did on a juiced up critical hit.

That's really the crux of this edition though -isn't it?

Yes, there's gonna be times where blasting will absolutely shine - and possibly even save the party - but the things I love about this edition is the success that teamwork can foster that no character can achieve alone.

Is there simple math to determine the damage output of a 7th level 3 action Magic Missile vs. 2 action and casting True Target? And how that changes as you have less casters in the party?

I think the idea of raw blasting in this edition needs a big asterisk next to it - as others have said that sometimes your highest spells might be best spent *not* blasting.

EDIT: Oh, and to the OP's question -
What about an Ancient Elf Wellspring Sorcerer with a Psychic dedication for Oscillating Wave? Can you do both? Pathbuilder mobile had let me do so. Wellspring ensures that you won't ever be stuck with just cantrips regardless of how much they want to keep pushing.

I had been under the impression that the best thing you could do offensively for the party at those first few levels is cast Runic Weapon on the fighter until either your party finds the runes or you get fireball.

The math looks sound, but we've been in Age of Ashes AP since it came out (just hit lv 20!) and my party already was sufficiently outfitted by time I got the tip - so I haven't been able to put it into practice yet.

Living Bonfire on p.36
Doesn't state it's height, cover, or how it would effect a creature occupying or moving through it's space (damage/impeded movement).

It also states it conveys all the benefits of a normal campfire - would it follow the same rules of a normal campfire? If so, where are those rules?

Any details could help navigate any struggle between common sense and "the ability not doing anything it doesn't say" would be supremely helpful!

The living Bonfire Kineticist feat - *You conjure a bonfire in an unoccupied 10' space within 30'.*

How does that work in combat? There's no rules in the feat itself - and the rules for fire just look like it's difficult terrain and 1d6 of fire damage with a Reflex DC 15.

I don't intend to milk this feat for more than it's worth - I'm just trying to understand how much of a deterrent to passing through a 10' patch of *bonfire* is going to be for allies and enemies - all the bonfires I've ever been to are about twice as tall as they are wide but this doesn't say anything about that.

I imagine that it's something that's highly dependent on your GM - but I figured I could be missing out on some secret metatag info somewhere .

It seems like weapon infusion is a huge feat to have early.

With weapon infusion (thrown weapon) your 2 action ranged blasts add Con + Str (@30'max) and your 1 actions just add Str - right? I hope I've interpreted that correctly.

Starting with 18 con and 14 str seems like it'd be a huge help to your early level damage.

Awesome, this is all very helpful so far.

Depending on the player & element, I could see that you can get a ton of mileage from your base kinesis outside of combat - which could probably shore up some of those skill & utility shortcomings.

I've seen a lot of content around the Kineticist and have a good idea how it functions - but there's very little feedback that I've seen about how people are *enjoying* the class.

So those of you that have a few levels of real play experience under your belt, what do you like about it?

Any effect that masks your location - let's go with Invisibility for the sake of this discussion - might care if you've got "a boombox in your pocket"

You add a flourish to your composition to extend its benefits. If your next action is to cast a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round, attempt a Performance check. The DC is usually a standard-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances. The effect depends on the result of your check.

So does the extension of the duration only extend the benefits of the song - or the song itself?

That's awesome to hear - we're having a lot of fun with Age of Ashes.

When you said heightened spell effects were useful and game changers - can you clarify what you meant? Was this a spontaneous caster's signature spells?

AFAIK, all illusions are automatically believed as real by default until the viewers interact with it in some fashion (usually by spending seek or other actions vs a spell DC.)

Illusions

I should clarify that at 4-6th levels you're probably not going to need Faerie Fire or Liberating Command, but they're definitely handy for later on.

Additionally, Magic Missile is my Esoteric Polymath extra daily signature spell - so I could cast it from every slot at every level in a pinch.

If you get a chance to get a Staff of Divination (lvl 6), consider doing so - it's effectively extra spells per day - particularly for true strike. True Striking with Telekinetic Projectile or Biting Words on a frightened enemy often work out well for me when I'm feeling lucky. (I plan on getting Chromatic Ray (4th) next time I'm shopping so I can fish for those sweet crits). This will become a much better strategy at 9th when you get access to one of the best spell in all of occultism, Synesthesia.

Nearly 13th-level bard in Age of Ashes here - and playing a 2e bard has been a great time - but not without quite a bit of homework.

I've been playing an polymath / maestro bard - and I'll give you a few things I've learned.

Lingering composition from Maestro is huge for me. 3 or 4 rounds of Dirge of Doom without having to use a action on subsequent turns gives me the option to cast spells and move on those other turns.

At levels 3-7 I got a lot of mileage from heightened fear until I tried using Calm Emotions as my level 3 signature - and that thing **STILL** ends encounters when I cast it from a 5th or 6th level slot. It's incredible and I can't recommend it enough.
Fear also conflicted with Dirge of Doom once I got it - so keep that in mind.

Your hunch is correct regarding knowledge and bards - I haven't found that there's enough impetus to make bard knowledge worth pursuing. It is a lot of effort and feat tax and very little payoff. Combat reading has proven better to me - it all keys off of occultism and it tells me the important stuff. (I think a flaw in the system was that knowledge was intended to be necessary, but it's seldom better than metagaming/guessing and often worthless - but that's a whole other thread.)

You're definitely going to get more mileage from doing buffs/debuffs and battlefield control. I'd say to keep Magic Weapon on 1st or 2nd sig for the time being and consider something like Calm Emotions as a signature also - it's worth the sustain. Also, don't scoff at the power of illusions in this edition. They're definitely worth having in the arsenal.

At 12th, my first three levels of spells are these:

(1)
Lose the Path
Liberating Command
Magic Missile
Soothe(S)

(2)
Faerie Fire
Illusory Object
Dispel Magic (S)

(3)
Calm Emotions (S)
Time Jump
Slow

You'll find that in time you'll need to repurpose your lower level spells for general utility - and the Esoteric Polymath feat chain has been a huge time saver there. As the party gets access to funds, you'll have the ability to grab some scrolls. Don't be afraid to grab one or two of the niche utility spells in case you need them. By time you're out of them, you'll like be richer and in the next town over.

Reading the Bard guides has helped me some - but I've found at points, there were places where our experience differs. Definitely check them out - if not for anything else other than a sense of planning how your character will develop.

I pointed that out in Archives of Nethys. He said it didn't say anything on that page - but I presume there's something about it elsewhere in the module.

My group just successfully wrapped up Tomorrow Must Burn and I was hoping to get access to Spiritual Anamnesis during the adventure or upon it's completion. I'm uncertain if we could have gained access to it at some point - but our GM didn't seem to find a page where it said we had access to the spell. If it's a specific award for something we missed

I just asked your question in the YouTube Comments. We'll see if it gets a response.

The Slime Whip is precedent for a non-nonlethal (just regular lethal?) whip. Perhaps you could acquire that or craft something similar?

Other than the GM outright telling you, is there existing rules support to allow a caster to know if an enemy critically failed it's save?

Some applications of this would certainly be more obvious than others - for example, in my game it's an enemy that crit failed a Calm Emotions spell.

Would a caster just *know* that information?
I couldn't find rules support for this in the CRB.

Or is this all simply up to the GM?

Here's what I'm using.

Bard 11 Wellspring Gnome
Perception +20 (+2 initiative); Low-Light Vision
Languages Common, Elven, Gnomish, Sylvan

Skills Acrobatics +18, Arcana +14, Athletics +0, Diplomacy +20, Lore: Dragon +18, Lore: Fiend +18, Lore: Azlant +14, Nature +16, Occultism +19, Performance +22, Religion +16, Society +14

Str -1, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +1, Wis +3, Cha +5

Items
Pendant of the Occult, Goggles of Night, Pathfinder's Pouch, Boots of Bounding, Crafting Formulae, Scrolls, Writing Set, Spellbook, Horn of Blasting,

AC 29, Fort +20, Ref +20, Will +21; Resolve
HP 151

Unexpected Shift Trigger You would take damage from an attack, spell, or other effect. Your supernatural connection sometimes causes you to phase from reality when under threat, disappearing for split seconds before reappearing—often surprising you as much as your enemies. Roll a DC 16 flat check. On a success, you gain resistance to all damage equal to your level against the triggering effect, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to saving throws against that effect until the start of your turn, and you gain the dazzled condition for 1 round.

Speed 35 feet

Quickened Casting (Concentrate, Metamagic) Frequency once per day If your next action is to cast a cantrip or a spell that is at least 2 levels lower than the highest level spell you can cast, reduce the number of actions to cast it by 1 (minimum 1 action). Special This can only be used on a cantrip or spell from the class matching the one you gained this feat from.

Bon Mot (Auditory, Concentrate, Emotion, General, Linguistic, Mental, Skill) Prerequisites trained in Diplomacy
You launch an insightful quip at a foe, distracting them. Choose a foe within 30 feet and roll a Diplomacy check
against the target's Will DC. Critical Success The target is distracted and takes a -3 status penalty to Perception
and Will saves for 1 minute. The target can end the effect early with a retort to your Bon Mot. This can either be a
single action that has the concentrate trait or an appropriate skill action to frame their retort. The GM determines
which skill actions qualify, though they must take at least 1 action. Typically, the retort needs to use a linguistic
Charisma-based skill action. Success As critical success, but the penalty is -2. Critical Failure Your quip is
atrocious. You take the same penalty an enemy would take had you succeeded. This ends after 1 minute or if you
issue another Bon Mot and succeed.

Goggles of Night (Invested, Magical, Transmutation) Activate Interact; Frequency once per day; Effect
Rotating the lenses 90 degrees, you gain darkvision for 1 hour.

Pathfinder's Pouch (Abjuration, Extradimensional, Invested, Magical) Activate Interact; Effect You switch the
pouch to allow access to its extradimensional space instead of its normal space, or vice versa. This lasts until
you next activate it. Items in the other space are inaccessible and hard to find until you switch the pouch back.

Horn of Blasting (Evocation, Sonic) Activate Interact; Frequency once per round; Effect When you activate the
horn by blowing into it with destructive intent, you create a blast note targeting one creature or object within 30
feet. The blast deals 3d6 sonic damage. (DC 28 basic Fortitude save).
Horn of Blasting (Evocation, Sonic) Activate Interact; Frequency once per day; Effect You can blow even
louder to create an intense blast wave in a 30-foot cone that deals 8d6 sonic damage. Each creature attempts a
DC 28 Fortitude save with the following effects. Critical Success The creature takes no damage. Success The
creature takes half damage. Failure The creature takes full damage and is deafened for 2d6 rounds.

Occult Known Spells DC 30, attack +20
6th Phantasmal Calamity (Sig), Wall of Force (2 slots)

5th Synesthesia, Shadow Siphon, Magic Missile (H+4) (Signature), Soothe (H+4), Calm Emotions (H+3), Dispel Magic (H+3) (3 slots);

4th Spiritual Anamnesis (Signature), Phantasmal Killer, Silence (H+2), Soothe (H+3), Dispel Magic (H+2), Calm Emotions (H+2) (3 slots);

3rd Calm Emotions (H+1) (Signature), Hypercognition, Comprehend Language
(H+1), Dispel Magic (H+1), Soothe (H+2) (3 slots);

2nd Telekinetic Maneuver, Invisibility, Dispel Magic (Signature),
Soothe (H+1) (3 slots);

1st True Strike, Liberating Command, Illusory Object, Soothe (Signature) (3 slots);

Cantrips
Chill Touch, Telekinetic Projectile, Light, Read Aura, Prestidigitation
Arcane Innate Spells DC 30, attack +20 Cantrips Electric Arc
Arcane Innate Spells DC 30, attack +20 Cantrips Ray of Frost

Focus Spells (3 points)
Counter Performance Area 60-foot emanation Your performance protects you and your allies. Roll a Performance check for a type you know: an auditory performance if the trigger was auditory, or a visual one for a visual trigger. You and allies in the area can use the better result between your Performance check and the saving throw.

Inspire Courage Area 60-foot emanation Duration 1 round You inspire your allies with words or tunes of encouragement. You and all allies in the area gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and saves
against fear effects.

Lingering Composition You add a flourish to your composition to extend its benefits. If your next action is to cast a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round, attempt a Performance check. The DC is usually a
standard-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances. The effect depends on the result of your check. Critical Success The composition lasts 4 rounds. Success The composition lasts 3 rounds. Failure The composition lasts 1 round, but you don't spend the Focus Point for casting this spell.

Dirge of Doom Area 30-foot emanation Duration 1 round Foes within the area are frightened 1. They can't reduce their frightened value below 1 while they remain in the area.

Inspire Heroics You call upon your muse to greatly increase the benefits you provide to your allies with your inspire courage or inspire defense composition. If your next action is to cast inspire courage or inspire defense, attempt a Performance check. The DC is usually a very hard DC of a level equal to that of the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances. The effect of your inspire courage or inspire defense composition depends on the result of your check. Critical Success The status bonus from your inspire courage or inspire defense increases to +3. Success The status bonus from inspire courage or inspire defense increases to +2. Failure Your inspire courage or inspire defense provides only its normal bonus of +1, but you don't spend the Focus Point for casting this spell.

Additional Feats Additional Lore, Dirge of Doom, Esoteric Polymath, First World Magic, Fleet, Fortutious Shift, Incredible Initiative, Inspire Heroics, Lingering Composition, Magical Shorthand, Multifarious Muse, Quick Identification, Toughness, Versatile Performance, Virtuosic Performer, Wellspring Gnome

Additional Specials Great Fortitude, Multifarious Muse (Polymath), Muses (Maestro), Signature Spells, Wellspring Magic Type (Arcane)

Notes:
No carried weapons, Equipment is minimal and in the pouch, Armor is +1 resilient studded leather. Feel free to re-choose gear, but Horn of Blasting is key (it's a 1-handed instrument with two good activations). Choose some consumables before play. Also check with DM for Spiritual Amanuensis before play - it's an uncommon spell that's awarded around this level in Age of Ashes. If disallowed, replace with fly, dim door or enervation.

Do you have the paid version of Pathbuilder? I could shoot you a link to a great singing and spellcasting bard.

For what it's worth, Moonlight Bridge sounds like it does something verrry close to what you're asking about.

If I were the GM, I'd read this first before adjudicating - and be disinclined to allow your wall to be used in such a fashion.

They're certainly more complex.

And through 10 levels of my play experience so far, even the basic classes have a bewildering array of choices to make with only a select few being 'optimal'.

I think these APG classes are even more complex - and with more knobs and dials, there's more opportunity for any build not being perfectly tuned - not to mention the complicating factor of what the rest of the party consists of. I think that as we learn the system better, time will be the judge of what's the best.

My opinion is that the mechanical complexity might get in the way of the enjoyable narrative experience.

If a hazard or trap has the magical trait but doesn't mention Dispel Magic under it's Disable block nor does it have a counteract level - can it be successfully dispelled?

Does the Magical trait inherently imply that Dispel Magic can counteract it? Or does it need to be specifically called out in the hazard stat block that it can?

This thread really got off track!

It sure did! And I still don't know if I'll take Quickened Casting or not!

I suppose Slowed and Stunned is just something I haven't seen much of (coming the party's way) yet - but you've certainly got a point there.

Re: Other feat choices I have available (no dedication feats):

Combat Reading
Call and Response
Soulsight
House of Invisible Walls
Symphony of the Unfetterred Heart

Unfettered Heart is a almost a non-starter. As a composition, it cancels my other compositions, costs a focus point and is probably inferior to Liberating Command (which is one of my 1st-level spells).

I'm playing a 9th level (Maestro + Polymath) bard in Age of Ashes - and I'm currently determining if Quickened Casting is actually my best feat option at 10th level. Myself and the Cleric are the only casters in the party - so I've assumed the role of primary offensive caster for the party. I'm tempted to take Quickened Casting despite how the guides indicate otherwise - there just doesn't seem like a more ideal option available.

I understand that it's usage is only 1/day - but climactic boss battles are pretty evident (and often easy to anticipate to be fully rested for), but it's potential to almost immediately tip the scales in your party's favor without having to even fire off your highest level slots (I'm looking at you, Spiritual Anamnesis...) seem too good to pass up. We don't typically have 15-minute workdays, but the rest of the party does understand the value of having the casters close to full power - and this version of the game seems to understand that you'll be near full power for most encounters.

It just seems that once I hit 11th level, being able to cast two massive debuffs or sing, move (to the champion) and cast greater silence on him in the first round of battle seem as though they'd be tremendously helpful often enough to be worthwhile.

Used judiciously and carefully, I think that despite it's spell level and 1/day usage limitations, it's still to me well worth the investment to help your caster have more capability to overcome encounters.

Not all spells will be equivalent to other 10th level spells when they're heightened to that level. That's why you get them far sooner.

That said, if you're in the occult list Phantasmal Killer is definitely one of the best spells in your arsenal - and when you can first cast it at 7th level, 4d6 + frightened 1 on a save is close to what you'd get if they failed their save on a cantrip. It's also got great long range potential as well.

I think it might be a mistake to be heightening PK to 10th level and expecting it to keep pace or outperform the highest level spells.

My Bard is currently 9th level and we just started Tomorrow Must Burn and looking forward to gaining access to this ASAP. It's good to hear that it's as good as it looks, despite it's narrow-ness.

It sounds to me like your character would be attempting to disbelieve the illusion by doing that.

Sometimes illusions allow an affected creature a chance to disbelieve the spell, which lets the creature effectively ignore the spell if it succeeds at doing so. This usually happens when a creature Seeks or otherwise spends actions to engage with the illusion, comparing the result of its Perception check (or another check or saving throw, at the GM’s discretion) to the caster’s spell DC. Mental illusions typically provide rules in the spell’s description for disbelieving the effect (often allowing the affected creature to attempt a Will save).

If the illusion is visual, and a creature interacts with the illusion in a way that would prove it is not what it seems, the creature might know that an illusion is present, but it still can’t ignore the illusion without successfully disbelieving it. For instance, if a character is pushed through the illusion of a door, they will know that the door is an illusion, but they still can’t see through it. Disbelieving an illusion makes it and those things it blocks seem hazy and indistinct, so even in the case where a visual illusion is disbelieved, it may, at the GM’s discretion, block vision enough to make those on the other side concealed..

As far as who's affected, you have to look at the Visual Tag:

A visual effect can affect only creatures that can see it. This applies only to visible parts of the effect, as determined by the GM.

I guess that also means that using shadow siphon on a green dragon's breath weapon in an unlit cavern would technically be ineffective as well?

Although - if my enemies want to spend their turns screaming with their eyes closed, they can be my guest.

I play a bard as well - and while the concept of this gross wall of flesh is certainly visually arresting, I think it complicates combat - particularly in smaller battlespaces.

The question I put to myself was "What does this do in a novel way that would help my party?" And I simply couldn't justify taking it. I already have Calm Emotions as a Signature that I can cast that I feel would do a better job of disrupting combatants more securely. (I'll probably take wall of force at later levels.)

So, I took Synesthesia and a Heightened Charm as a Signature at 9th level and anticipate taking Shadow Siphon at 10th. Does this open me up to overloading on mental and emotion effects? Probably - but it's thematic and I'm fine with not having an answer for every possible situation.

Yes, Bon Mot isn't physical hostility.

Yet if applying penalties isn't hostile, that opens up a can of worms re: many spells. Heck, even Grapple, Disarm, etc. don't harm or damage.

Setting a target up for an aggressive spell seems like indirect harm, even if hit points are not involved. It's similar to tripping an enemy so you or an ally can smack them.

----
Stepping back a bit, you could have a PC ally (that the target doesn't know is your ally!) perform the Bon Mot and you're golden.
Well, unless initiative interferes.

But Grapple, Disarm, Trip, Shove, etc all have the Attack trait. Bon mot does not.

To me, indirect harm is more akin to luring them to use an illusory bridge over an environmental hazard. If you were to use Bon Mot on someone and walk away, odds are no further harm would come to them.

Back to my original question: Say it's use doesn't count as a hostile action - Charm states "threatened or used a hostile action". Could this be construed as a threat? There is no definition of threatening in the CRB that I could find.

I think there's plenty of room for discussion about whether or not Bon Mot is a hostile action - when do simple words equate to the same thing as fisticuffs? Does the line get crossed only when one escalates the situation to actual physical violence?

A hostile action is one that can harm or damage another creature, whether directly or indirectly, but not one that a creature is unaware could cause harm.

I (personally) don't see how teling someone "The jerk store called - they're runnin' out of you!" harms or damages them directly or indirectly (in game terms) - but I could see how it could be interpreted as such - and there is that disclaimer that it's ultimately up to the DM to decide these things.

My question is about using Bon Mot before casting Charm:

A successful usage of Bon Mot will lower an enemy's will save by 2 or 3.

You launch an insightful quip at a foe, distracting them.

And Charm has this relevant text:

It must attempt a Will save, with a +4 circumstance bonus if you or your allies recently threatened it or used hostile actions against it.

I believe it's intentionally left up to the DM to determine what's threatening or hostile - but I'd like to see if it's a reasonable expectation to believe that a usage of Bon Mot would constitute as a threat or hostile action. I could see arguments for it either way.

What do you think?

I'm reading the Bard's 4th level feat Combat Reading in the APG, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it - what are it's (non-obvious) differences from Recall Knowledge and if that makes it a better choice or a trap - and should it replace recall knowledge if you can afford to?

Looking at the stats at a random sampling of lvl 8-10 creatures, they've got recall knowledge dcs of 26 - 29 and stealth and deception scores from 18-22. More than once in the Age of Ashes my party is playing, Recall Knowledge has been a wasted action.

My 9th lvl bard has an Occultism of 17 - so it's about a 50/50 shot at that point to get a crit success for two pieces of vital info on the baddie your party is fighting and close to 85+% for a success. In my experience, we don't get creature level or any other ancillary info on a recall knowledge check - basically the info we as a player already know and one of the above. It's sometimes stressful on play for the GM to stop, read the stat block and determine everything known by a knowledge check - it'll derail combat frequently.

So am I right in understanding that Combat Reading - for the cost of a precious Class Feat - can likely replace needing to use recall knowledge in combat with a drastically lower DC, a lighter burden on the GM and a far smaller skill investment? I feel like I'm missing something here as 2e still has a lot of nuance that isn't immediately evident.

Yeah, I definitely was in the camp of not liking Incap when I read the rules, but after seeing it in play I definitely wouldn't play without it.

Forget Charm - if not for Incap, the bard in my party would currently be using every single one of her 5th level slots on Synaptic Pulse and trivializing three encounters a day without touching her higher level slots.

As an about-to-be 9th level bard, incap spells started out better than I thought (before I understood the tag) then worse than I thought ( after I understood the tag) then actually really well balanced once I used Calm Emotions as a signature Spell and actually used it in combat.

It gives you some great utility and easy ways to deal with mobs - and it'd let me save my higher-level spells for single-target stuff like Synesthesia. My point is is that incapacitation spells are hard to determine on the page - you really need to see them in play to understand their niche.

The strength of the Warrior bard doesn't seem like it's being able to use your actions for your weapon attacks - it's to be able to spend a single action (and their reaction) for your best melee basher to take a big 'ol swipe at the baddie.

That's presuming that a good melee character's average damage will outweigh even the best cantrips.

I'd guess that Bon Mot is. It's a super demoralize that sets up potentially huge swings for phantasmal killer, Synesthesia or even worse.

Sure, it's got the most tags I think I've seen on a feat - but I get the hunch that it's going to be hugely useful.

Could you make a 10' x 10' Vault door a legal target?

What about a huge-sized Adamantine tower shield?

If either of these is true, you could certainly make some Wile-E.-Coyote-style hi-jinx ensue by running through a doorway, closing it behind you as your pursuers hilariously crash into the invisible barrier and each other at full-speed.

Additionally - if you continue with the invisible tower shield concept, I can't imagine how a DM would adjudicate creatures learning that they have line of sight but not line of effect to a creature taking cover behind an invisible tower shield.

It's basically a bladed fan - common in many eastern-themed settings. I imagine that when held loosely - or perhaps if it has a free-spinning pommel - it can be used to indicate wind direction - just like a weather vane. Here's a super-basic sketch of what I envisioned it looking like (with a spinning pommel)

Galeblade Sketch

Bard Focus spell feats don't appear to have the boilerplate "Adds 1 focus point to your pool if you have less than three" language bard focus spell feats had in the CRB. Unsure if this is an oversight or intentional design.

Some abilities allow you to increase the Focus Points

in your pool beyond 1. Typically, these are feats that give
you a new focus spell and increase the number of points
in your pool by 1.

So it looks like the CRB left room for this to be a possibility - but it certainly breaks the trend of how these feats had functioned in the CRB. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a mistake.

Bon Mot looks extraordinary. -3 to an enemy's will saves & perception for up to one minute for one action?

Bards and other occult casters seem like their go-to move will be Bon Mot the boss + Synethstesia or Phantasmal Killer.