C_bastion's page

That's a very good point, allowing a grab bag of interesting weapons that can be swapped out freely, instead of locking in on only your one weapon would really open up the playing field.
I could imagine something along the lines of a universal upgrade item that made that all swappable, an advanced targeting system that was attached to you instead of the weapon or something.

Undead Master and the Zombie is pretty cool, that's what I've been trying out for my playtest build.
You're right that you're very action starved, but if you can manage to position a Zombie Support action correctly, the amount of flanking, damage boosting to your Thrall hits, and general bag of HP is pretty nice to have around.

So from the rest of this thread, one of the big issues with Magus seems to be that Conflux spells aren't juicy enough, and part of that problem is that there really aren't enough of them.

They don't offer up many different options, some of the hybrid study spells are noticeably weaker than others, there's just not that many of them, and it costs a feat to pick up another one.

Maybe there could ba a pool of general conflux spells that you could prepare alongside your main hybrid study spell.
We'll say, three for now, that you could have prepared for the day. Maybe it wouldn't even give you an extra focus point because of how they're prepared differently then most focus spells.

You could have something along the lines of the laughing shadows teleport and strike (it's so useful that I'd like to share the love and then make a different hybrid study spell for laughing shadow)

Another one that applied a defensive self buff, maybe a single mirror image and strike, the mirror image could even automatically step in for you during spellstrike getting hit with an AOO.

One more that gave you an offensive self buff, something like adding additional reach until the end of your next turn and striking, or a blade blast to swing your weapon to deal weapon damage at range and add some extra elemental damage to it from your arcane cascade.

I feel that if you had some more options to pull from, and they were able to modify your combat options, you wouldn't feel like you could spend them so easily on out of class focus spells.

That does seem like it would fix things, and might even make it easier to grok in the process.
Having limited slots that you can fill out on enemies and allies makes the combos clearer, instead of feeling like you could add anything to anything.
Some limits can make mechanics feel better, if applied appropriately.

So on the number of Thralls created issue, do you think up to 6 thralls at level 1 would be too many?
I was wondering if something along the lines of "if you have no Thralls created by this spell, you make 1 additional Thrall when casting" would work?
That way you can't spam out too many bodies easily, but you can get the ball rolling.

So I'd been thinking about how the class interacts with focus spells, and they're almost at a good point mechanically considering you have to decide wether to spend 1 of 3 points on your conflux spells to recharge, or just using them to blast. I think if you applied more pressure to use conflux spells, it could help mitigate the focus on focus spells.

What if you had to use a conflux spell to recharge your spell strike while you have focus points in your pool, only getting to use the single action recharge once you're empty?
This would slow down the use of focus spells just a little bit, and would be easy enough to add onto the class without major disruption.
Of course all of the conflux spells could use a balance pass, as has been mentioned already.

I was also looking at making it so when rolling initiative, you could choose wether your start the fight already in arcane cascade or have your spell strike charged, which would give you options right off the bat for how you'll tackle a fight.

What if as a very small and fairly balanced change, you could either start the fight with your spellstrike charged like normal, or start with your arcane cascade turned on?
Then it can tactically depend on if you'd want to lead with a move+spellstrike combo, or a move+conflux spell combo with an action to spare.
It would help make your beginning gambit feel different fight to fight, and then the rhythm from turn to turn would change a little bit too.

I enjoy these write ups and find them very interesting from a game design perspective. I really like the General Ranged Adjustments to Combat Engagements (GRACE) that you posted, and I'm thinking I'll include them in my regular PF2e game, just to spice up ranged combats and make them more then just basic pot shots until people can close into melee.
I really hope to see more posts like these from the community at large, but I know how much time that takes, and I'm sure most are just submitting regular feedback.

You know I think you're onto something there, a suite of base feats for all characters participating in SF2e.
That way, when you port your barbarian or your magus, they also get the feats, it would help with general ranged combat feel and be removed or even added to PF2e games. I'm not sure that's really Paizo's style, but I like the idea myself.

I don't think you'd need a lot of them, maybe two or three at most.
Something to help with cover, something to help with strategic placement. And then maybe something that could make guns spicier, not really sure on the last one.

I theory crafted a pretty cool combo with a tyrant champion FA. They've already got great defenses, so that makes your swarm very tough. If they attack you, they have to take damage or go prone, if they attack the swarm with a strike, they do reduced physical damage which is a loss.

Also if they're prone and they get immobilized by webbing, they're stuck now!

And while it is really slow, you could almost lean into that and once you get Carried With The Swarm you can double down on ac with a fortress shield and let them move you.

It's also really cool if you can pick up the swarm domain for flavor, really makes you the king of swarms.

Wow, seriously that's a nice map I never would've found without this thread! It would be pretty cool to own a stand alone version of it.

I'm kinda hoping they consider making it so the Guardian can use 2 handed weapons with a shield, or a one hander and shield while acting as if they had a free hand for athletics.
Basically hold a shield for free.

The more I think about this the more I like it. If the enemy goes for you, they risk getting a critical hit, but if they go for an ally with lower AC, then you have an even higher chance to waste a critical hit on the Guardian. That would really feel satisfying as a defender, baiting a huge attack and then turning it into less than a regular hit.
You'd still need good AC too, because you don't want to take too many regular hits.

What if mitigate harm had much higher resistance to critical hits, enough that scoring a critical hit against them was actually a bad idea. High enough that you could end up doing less damage than normal if you didn't roll well on the damage. Than it would be like you really taking the big hits for the team, almost no selling crits sometimes.

You know, that's a really great way of looking at these upcoming classes. I do still like the varied options more general classes can provide, but it's cool the game can really support both types.
Like instead of the monk being such a mix of styles and ki feats, you could have two classes that could focus on each one.
A brawler and a ki mystic.
But that approach might take up a lot more book space trying to get the same thing done, or the classes could end up limited in scope.

What if instead of applying the (possibly) necessary increase to the chasis directly, it was applied through gear selection?
If that could be done, making a number of the defensive options equipment based would then the increase interoperability of Pf2 And Sf2 classes.
So something along the lines of Tech armor coming with HP add-ons based on your hit dice, giving a weighted bonus to lower hit die in order to give them the defense they might need for ranged combat, or possibly have some bonuses added to armor types that grant extra defenses against ranged attacks.
There's options in the future to make equipment matter more, and it makes more sense IMO according to the fiction.

Yeah, I get that. I hadn't really thought about the comparison to clerics and the avatar option they pick up later, that makes sense.
I think I just really want a class that can shape-shift into different forms that offer unique tactical choices, but animist probably isn't the design space for that.

I'd been wondering why such a cool feature was locked so late in the class too.
I could see a practice being based around the idea of a more physical embodiment/possession of your spirits.
That at least sounds more unique then the current Sage option, and maybe it could be an option that limits your magic flexibility for some martial flexibility, although the class is pretty loaded with flexing options already.

I wonder if maybe, and you can call me crazy or wrong I accept that, the two essence per tradition rule isn't that hard and fast of a rule.
Like each tradition focuses on their two primary attributes as indicated, but they pull in the other two as minor attributes.
It's not a full split, but a specialization, that could explain why fear pops up everywhere.
Doesn't change that occult has eaten a bit too much out of the other slices of pie, but it does help to frame the situation and make more sense.
I also think that if they were to focus on the essences, maybe you could end up with an opposites type of tradition or list, combining the essences that sit across from each other into something new.
I do feel like there's a bit of a hole left where spell schools used to be, but I'm really interested in what they do going forward.