Kuroko-chan's page

Hello there! Trying to find the answer to a couple questions, if this isn't the right place I apologize.

1) Reading through the publishing license for OneBookShelf and Infinite, I noticed there is a second regarding the use of an author pseudonym. I didn't find anything in the infinite license but I'm trying to dig up an infinite account eula to check: are we allowed to use author pseudonyms for Infinite products?

2) A question regarding crediting Paizo for something not in default OGL license that isn't an AP. They have a section for adding any APs you might reference in your work, but what about rulebooks like the Advanced Players Guide or Secrets of Magic? Would those go in the AP section, or are they just not required to credited in the OGL?

Thank you for any information you may be able to share!

I believe the Gunslinger version of Assisting Shot is similar to the Fighter feat and has the Press trait. That means it can only be used if you have already made one attack in the round. So you should not be able to Reload-Assisting Shot-Reload. It would have to be Strike-Reload-Assisting Shot at MAP-5.

You are totally right, another thing I missed in the 3 weeks it took for this to get off the ground. Blegh, that makes it so much worse in the early game because of all the reload juggling. I probably could have used it 2 times total in the entire session.

Reload 1 is absolutely killing it.

As a slight bit of backstory: a friend of mine wasn't very interested in tabletops but really enjoys the cowboy/six-shooter aesthetic, so I thought I'd use the playtest to try and convert him while also testing how it feels to play myself. With that said, he (the Pistolero) has little experience with tabletops while I've been in a (mostly) weekly campaign for a bit over a year. The GM for that campaign put together a short one-shot for us to go through at level 2. Background out of the way, let's move on to the Gunslingers.

Ei (Venomtail Kobold)
Hunter Background / Way of the Sniper
STR: 10 / DEX: 18 / CON: 12 / INT: 14 / WIS: 14 / CHA: 14
Feats: Firearm Ace, Kobold Breath (Black Exemplar), Survey Wildlife, Assisting Shot, Battle Medicine
She had a Flintlock Musket and a Dagger, with Leather armor.

Jack (General Human)
Returned Background / Way of the Pistolero
STR: 10 / DEX: 16 / CON: 14 / WIS: 14 / INT: 10 / CHA: 14
Feats: Cover Fire, Firearm Ace (Natural Ambition from Generalist), Diehard, Battle Medicine, Quick Draw
He had 2 Hand Cannons, a Spiked Gauntlet, and Leather armor.
In addition, we allowed him to reload a single hand cannon as an action even when dual wielding them.

The other 2 party members were a Dwarf Ranger and a Human Witch. As a general comparison the Ranger always had a higher baseline damage, unless one of us crit (and didn't roll like crap for damage). The Witch generally played as a support role, with frequent use of Nudge Fate and Guidance. There were generally no restrictions on resting, but we never took a long rest to cheese out more recovery and spells.

Encounter 1: Plague Zombie + 3 Crawling Hands

Turn 1: Surprised by the enemies when we stumbled into a room with them. Sniper ran away, drew her musket, and then shot the hand that tried to attack her. Critical hit plus the bonus from One Shot, One kill (6 from crit, 4 from OSOK) downed the hand. Pistolero used Quickdraw twice to get both his Hand Cannons and attack the Plague Zombie. Both were normal hits (3 and 4), and his final action was to reload.

Turn 2: Sniper reloaded, and used Assisting Shot on the Zombie (1 + 2 damage from Ace). Her final action was to reload. Pistolero used Cover Fire from behind the door (2 damage + 2 from Ace), the zombie was not intelligent enough to dodge. He reloaded and used his Strike again, to the same result (2 + 2 damage).

The Witch ended up killing the zombie with a blowgun dart. Go figure.

Encounter 2: Cairn Wight

Turn 1: Surprised yet again by a zombie behind a door. Sniper drew her Musket, missed her Assisting Shot, and then reloaded. Pistolero used his free step to get closer and draw a Hand Cannon. He opened with Cover Fire, which missed due to the 10' range increment (Zombie was 20 feet away). He used Quick Draw to take a second shot, which also missed, before ending his turn with a reload.

Turn 2: Sniper opened with Assisting Shot, dealing 1 damage*, followed by a reload and a normal Strike (7 + 2 from Ace). The Pistolero reloaded his other Hand Cannon before firing (1+2), and finishing his turn with a gauntlet strike*.

Turn 3: Final combat round. Sniper reloaded, used Assisting Shot (3 + 2), and then reloaded. Pistolero reloaded his empty Hand Cannon before firing with the Ace and getting a crit (12 damage + 4 from Ace), and then ended with reloading the spent firearm.

Notable moment was Assisting Shot being the difference between a miss and a hit for the Ranger. The Hand Cannon crit was the the first time we'd seen a high roll, and it blew any other single attack from the party out of the water.

Encounter 3: Ghast + 2 Ghouls

Final encounter of the one-shot.

Turn 1: For once the kobold learned that things are not nice down here and started with her weapon drawn. She opened with a crit Assisting shot (14), followed by Tail Toxin and Reload. Pistolero opened with a shot from a drawn Hand Cannon (3), then Quickdraw (4), and finally a missed punch*.

Turn 2: Sniper opens with her poisoned bullet on an Assisting Shot (2 + 2), unfortunately everything in this combat was immune to poison so Tail Toxin never came into play. Her final action was Kobold Breath, dealing 2 acid damage to the Ghast. This would unfortunately be her last turn, as the Ghast would later attack back and she failed her save against Paralysis. Unfortunately my records for the Pistolero's turn were wiped. All I can remember after the fact was they used a Battle Medicine as an action.

Turn 3: Sniper is too busy being frozen. She makes her save at the end of the turn. Pistolero uses reload, and then crits the reloaded Hand Cannon (14+4), and finishes the last Ghoul.

Assisting Shot again turned a miss into a hit, as did Nudge Fate. I wasn't paralyzed for 3 turns like in the campaign, which was nice. Ranger and Pistolero did most of the damage to finish the encounter.

*We did make a few mistakes in this session. I forgot to apply an Ace to damage. Due to various circumstances the session was delayed for a few weeks, and by then I forgot that the gauntlet can't be used to strike if you have something in that hand, only remembering it counts as a free hand you can use to hold things.

Post Session Thoughts:

I suppose we should start from the most basic place, Firearms felt very swingy and generally unsatisfying on their own. Because of the lack of any outside modifiers, low rolls on damage feel really bad, even on a crit. This was generally offset for me by the flat bonus from Firearm Ace. Getting a 1 for damage doesn't sting as much with that bonus 2 in there, and it really helped normalize the damage. Naturally a good damage roll on a Fatal crit at this level and you feel like a god.

I didn't really mind the swing when Firearm Ace was in play because of that flat bonus keeping the damage floor a little bit higher. However, I'd be totally fine with the ceiling coming down if it meant the floor was always higher. One Shot, One Kill was fun the first time and then quickly dropped off the face of the earth for the rest of combat. Especially if you miss your opening shot. It might be interesting for each of the Ways to have their own built in firearm damage bonus to keep the damage floor up, especially if it can be a persistent bonus.

Then comes Reload. I was honestly not ready for this to be as big of a drag as it was. Especially at low levels your turns just melt into intermittent actions surrounded by reloads, which makes the class feel really bad to to play. In the worst case of Reload - Fire - Reload, you've essentially spent most of the turn doing nothing without a strike hack. Going into this session I didn't think Risky Reload would so needed but I definitely felt not having it. Reload 1 might be alright if there are very low level (or baked into the Way as 1/turn) reload hacks, but as is I can't imagine playing a low level Gunslinger for any length of time with Reload 1. It just sucks all the fun and options out of your turns. This got even more amplified by the Pistolero, who would have had to spend even more actions Stowing a Hand Cannon first or dropping it and having to pick it up later. I know its just fluff but the Pistolero does mention Dual-Wielding gunslingers, so it would be nice to see that getting some support as well.

As for the Gunslinger Feats themselves, I think I got my thoughts on Firearm Ace back in the firearms section. I did generally like Assisting Shot for the fun little bit of supporting power it brought. Managed to turn a couple misses into hits, and I imagine with enough combat rounds would have turned some hits into crits. Cover Fire was taken by the other Gunslinger and never really contributed anything to the encounter. It just seems way too niche to be able to get a lot of value out of. I really wanted to see if Running Reload would help with the action economy problem, but never got a chance. The other Gunslinger took Quick Draw and it seemed mostly fine, but precludes the ability to use any of the Gunslingers neat utility like Assisting Shot or Warning Shot.

Something at entry level needs to be adjusted, either Firearms or the bonus from the Gunslinger class. A lot of things come together at low level to make the turns a slog to get through. Higher level play still seems interesting, but as is I wouldn't really ever want to start a campaign as a Gunslinger. Hopefully a lot will be addressed in the final release, because the fun parts are quite nice... just surrounded by a lot of things that drag the experience down.

As written, unmanifested eidolons may not exist anywhere. They are not dragons, angels, demons, beasts, whatever; they are beings formed from essence that resemble these creatures.

While they are manifest, they are the thing you believe they are. While not manifest, they might just be in your head, or maybe a pocket dimension

"Your eidolon is a celestial messenger, a member of the angelic host with a unique link to you, allowing them to carry a special message to the mortal world at your side.

[...]

The two of you are destined for an important role in the plans of the celestial realms. Though a true angel, your angel eidolon’s link to you as a mortal prevents them from casting the angelic messenger ritual, even if they somehow learn it."

At the absolute least, the Angel is a real angel, not something made up in the image of one. There's no reason to believe when not manifest in the material realm they don't just go back to whatever plane they originated on. Considering you have to have it physically manifest for it to project its sense with Share Sense would imply it doesn't live in your head. So either a pokeball or it just goes home.

PF2 has made it so that eidolons are not creatures until the Summoner creates them. And similarly, because the Summoner is just manifesting them with them having no home plane, they are more like figments created by the Summoner.

When I said that Eidolons are like figment familiars but with less customization I was not kidding.

Ok, did you actually read anything about the Eidolon that is in the playtest, or did you just make up some headcanon to be angry about? The basic description lists whatever plan a certain Eidolon is native to, such as Astral plane for Dragons. One of the 20th level feats not only gives you a 1/Day free teleport to your Eidolon's native plane (their exact wording) but you also automatically get a free critical success on Commune rituals with any native creature that your Eidolon is friendly with. It exists separately from you.

Look, you can hate this incarnation of Summoner all you want, but blatantly lying makes your position and argument borderline worthless. The Eidolon has a native plane. That is an objective fact. In every case presented by the playtest, it existed before you made a contract with it and exists independently from you when not summoned.

At the very least if you're going to lie to make a point, do it in a way that isn't so easily disproven.

You can also flip that and have a Summoner than hates the Eidolon and only bonded with them for power. There are a lot of ways you can work the bond between the Summoner and Eidolon to be positive or negative, shared HP doesn't really impact that. It does prevent you from treating the Eidolon as a throw-away tool, but it doesn't keep the Summoner or Eidolon (or both) from being evil.

Eating a spellslot for an effect could be a pretty cool Synthesis feat, if we never get the ability to use them while merged.

Manifesting the Eidolon is probably too much of an punishment after you've gone down since you're spending your entire turn just to spawn it (it doesn't get any actions, unlike Summon X spells) so you have to spend your entire turn just getting it back to stand around. You can't stand up if you Manifested so you're still prone and in a really bad place. Even if you spend your turn to stand up and run away you're still staring down the barrel of a 'dead' turn.

I think rather than having a feat or similar focus spell be the answer dropping it to 2 actions and adjusting what you can do with Manifest Eidolon might a little smoother for gameplay. That way you can at least crawl away or stand up to get rid of Prone before summoning, or summon it while down and still have an action for it to strike an enemy or protect you (such as Summoner Shield Evolution).

I have no idea where you're getting the idea this "destroys" any kind of evil summoner, and I especially don't get how on earth you think this destroys an Aberrant Summoner. People making a deal with the outter gods for power/knowledge is a common theme. People contract with the unspeakable things all the time in lovecraftian works (even if it usually ends poorly for them). It's far from rare in fiction.

Likewise a blind pursuit of power can lead some to contract with anything. It's not like the Eidolon is king in the relationship either, since it can not exist in the material world without you being alive. Even if the Eidolon is pure evil it has a vested interest in keeping you alive as a means to an end.

Lifelink doesn't stop you from using any of those creative ideas.

I have a MIGHTY need for an Aberrant Eidolon. I'd dying to do a (with more support in release) Synthesis Aberrant build. Visual image of something like Abigail or Yang Guifei from FGO and having tentacles slap the hell out of everything while the Summoner just strolls around. Occult tradition, obviously.

One ability I'd like to see is something that plays off that creeping madness theme, like, lingering madness: whenever your Eidolon strikes an enemy it takes X penalty to resisting mental effects until the start (end?) of your next turn. Something like that somewhere to set up some neat combos.

Or, you know, just Reach like the Sorc initial Aberrant focus spell. I'd take free reach for maximum slappage.

Some kind of fiend or devil Eidolon like others mentioned might be fun to roleplay out as well. Also super excited about the possibilities for a Fey Eidolon. A lot of neat things you could do that.

The flavor reason that they share an HP pool is that the Summoner has such a significant bond to the Eidolon (anchoring them into the world) that they can summon and unsummon them at will, coordinate with them beyond the capabilities of any other companions, and grow with them as equals. And an Eidolon can totally still protect the Summoner with their higher defense and general tendency to be big and imposing.

I totally agree with this, the shared HP mechanic is a great way to mechanically incorporate the Summoner's fluff. The Eidolon literally can't exist in the material world without its link to you. It makes sense that link goes both ways given how tightly entwined Summoner and Eidolon are. If you go down that link is severed and the Eidolon is forced back its home plane. If it goes down you have to deal with the fact someone was beating up something so tightly tied to your lifeforce.

I never had trouble establishing the Summoner and Eidolon as two different entities even with the shared HP, with the sole exception of when I tried a Synthesis build (which is fine since you're combined anyways). Right now it feels like the main hold up is the shared actions and spellcasting making things awkward to do together rather than anything related to the hit point pool.

I have to agree with OP. Spellcasting in this incarnation just feels like a drain that could be spent somewhere else to make the Summoner more interesting, especially given how extremely restrictive it is.

Cantrips really don't feel good because they really hinder the action economy for using the Eidolon, which is the core feature of the class. Spells are so limited and such a pain to change you're heavily pushed into only the most general spells (like buffs) so you never have a "dead" choice in your 4 options.

From what I've played, it just doesn't feel fun, and being relegated to the party's exclusive buffbot at higher levels isn't very appealing when any other caster could do that while also having significantly more flexibility.

If spellcasting is an absolute necessity Focus Spells are a better solution to fall back on, in my opinion. They limit the amount of things you can do in any particular fight without harshly limiting what you can do over the course of the day. If it's going to be a spellcaster I'd like to see more spells that interact with the Eidolon anyways (Distracting Summoning is a good example), and Focus Spells can be custom made to work around that. You'd be able to see those effects a lot more as well since you can cast a lot more than 4 focus spells in a single day.

Would you trade your 4 spells per day for wizard level caster proficiency on your cantrips and offensive focus spells ?

Yes. I'm honestly shocked Magus playtest didn't have any offensive focus spells in the first place.

Would you be happy with a magus who mainly spellstriked with cantrips apart from 1 to 3 times per encounter where he spell strikes with focus spells ?

I'd like to see more striking spell reworked in general (getting rid of critfishing for stability is a big one), but having full caster progression would make it more satisfying.

Would you like focus spells that mimicked the old magus calling card spells shocking strike, frostbite etc ?

Offensive focus spells would be great in general. I like Ressy's idea for incorporating a spellbook into focus spells. That might make it a weird pseudo-spontaneous with an enormous spell list, though I do like the idea a lot.