Claxon's page

I may have misunderstood Glass' original post, but I think everyone talking about "4 charges" misunderstood what glass was trying to say.

Chargeable wands are "spells in a stick" like PF1 wands were, except that a fully charged wand only has 30 charges. Actually casting a spell from one works like a standard wand, except there is no daily restrictions (there may be a once-per-round restriction). They cost quite a lot up front, but the a significantly less to add charges. Restoring any number of charges takes two hours (you can do four per day if you have nothing better to do).

When Glass wrote this, I think he was saying you could recharge your 30 charges by spending 2 hours of time. And he was saying "if you had nothing to do all day (8 hours)" you could spend your time (discharging and) recharging the wand 4 times.

Claxon wrote:

If you managed to gain some way to get an extra class feat, you could take it earlier. I'm not sure such a way exists, but it's possible.

Can’t humans get an extra class feat at first level via the Natural Ambition feat? As far as I know, that’s the only way.

Yeah, natural ambition gets you an extra 1st level class feat. So it's an extra feat, but definitely doesn't work to get Explosive Entry.

Now that you mention substituting it for air repeater I guess it make sense the way you decided to set it, since air repeater is 1d4 damage, 0 reload (but requires reloading a magazine after 6 shots).

I actually agree that thematically it sucks that casters, not just low level casters, will occasionally use simple weapon attacks rather than doing something magical. Although casters will try to find a better third action in a round, and that's rarely going to be a weapon attack because they're not going to invest in runes typically.

I don't like the idea of the attack being dex based, mostly because it's just a weird thing to do in a system of magic attacks that's avoided making magical things rely on dex based attacks.

Maybe you just do spell attack value, and there is no item bonus to be gained. So eventually it lags behind martial attacks. And maybe for a damage upgrade (psuedo-striking rune) you need a higher level staff.

If you managed to gain some way to get an extra class feat, you could take it earlier. I'm not sure such a way exists, but it's possible.

It is odd, but it doesn't hurt anything.

Edit: Looking at the archetype feats, it has feats a 4,7,8 and 12.

I actually think it might have been meant to be a level 6 feat.

Except that master rank proficiency requires being 7th level....so that's probably why.

It probably should have been a 6th level feat with only expert engineering lore skill.

Wouldn't you just choose to make you and your allies immune to the drawbacks of your Desert Wind? Allowing you and your allies to see you enemy, but still be concealed by them?

Why would you chose to make your enemy immune to the drawbacks?

Generally speaking, how is this better/different/equivalent to an attack cantrip?

Will it also scale every few levels to deal additional d4s?

Honestly looking at the cantrip attacks I'm wondering why bother?

Well...I guess because it's a single action activity that is thematically better than using a crossbow.

I would do maybe 1d4 of elemental damage (related to the theme of the staff) at 60ft range. Hand crossbow is 60ft, but we're doing energy damage which is better than physical. And I would allow casters use their spell attack roll. And possibly could have runes applied to it to improve damage via striking rune.

Kind of like merging a hand crossbow with a staff.

I had another idea, which keeps the wands themselves as they are in PF2, but adds other ways to improve them that are optionally bought into by specific characters. Maybe that will be better received than this idea has been: Behold, the Resonator Archetype.

(Well, a very sketchy first outline of the Resonator Archetype at this point.)

This is an interesting concept. I like the concept, specifics could really make or break it though.

Being able to use a wand of a high level spell 10 times per day is probably on the side of too good. Especially on classes that have notoriously bad class feat options (a lot of casters have class feats that aren't that interesting compared to buying a wand once and using it 10 times a day)

I can't wait for more dragons.

Like a Cyberdragon (Arcane) a dragon that chose to have it's conciousness and soul digitized and put into a machine body. with an electric breath.

A mutant Dragon, (primal) who's breath weapon is EITHER Poison, Acid, Fire, or Piercing, which is determined every time the breath weapon is recharged.

Do electric dragons dreams of digital hordes?

I see a least a couple threads a week, especially on bitcoin/crypto that are spamming the website.

Could we implement some sort of filter that if someone start a thread and their first point mentions crypto or bit coin that the thread is automatically locked and their account frozen for review by a human?

Maybe also add some sort restriction to new accounts being able to start new threads? I realize that one would kind of hurt, and I'm not strongly advocating for it. I'd just appreciate seeing some measures put in place to stop some of this stupid spam.

I agree it's not really given enough explanation, but agree with Xenocrat. The first is talking about hunting loose souls on the river to judgement. The second is consuming part of the soul of a living creature.

It's less a "devour of a soul" and more "steal soul essence from living creature that also kills the creature".

I am trying to achieve a lot of things, including having wands that do not suck (outside of very specific niches). The particular stone is aimed at a bunch of different birds.

I think this is your first problem. When making changes to the game system, it's much better to use prevision like a scalpel, than to use a shotgun approach. Trying to hit a bunch a birds at once means you might hit a lot of other stuff (unintended consequence that are disruptive to other parts of the game).

That takes Medicine from near-mandatory, to near-worthless. That's a rather large over-correction!

I agree that would be an overcorrection, hence why I said too easy. Again I refer you back to the optional Stamina rules. Stamina reduces your hp, in the sense that your HP pool is now only half your normal class amount. And you get another pool of Stamina equal to half your normal class amount + con modifier. So everyone will have a bit more Stamina than HP. Stamina can't be healed by magic or by medicine. A night's rest restores stamina, as do some other methods involving resolve point. You get resolve equal to your key ability modifier, and can spend it (+ 10 minutes) to regain all your stamina. This last bit put a limit of how much you can endure in a single day. It's a great system for doing what your trying to do with regard to healing, but you seem to refuse to even look it.

What "way [my] proposal does"? You keep talking like it will be a game balance disaster, but you've been extremely short on specifics.

Allowing wands to function as 30 uses and rechargeable, even when limited to 4th level spells, means casters effectively have unlimited (low level) spells. in PF1 this wasn't so much a problem because low level spell just didn't do much at high levels. The damage didn't scale and the save DC was a set low value. In PF2, the DC depends on the character not the item. And if you don't implement the level restriction on the wand, now you have a source of spells that hugely increases the available spell cast to a caster. That is hugely imbalancing. Bear in mind that spell casters are meant to use their cantrips at time, and not always be casting from their limited spell slot. Modifying wands in the way you propose also has the consequence of making scrolls a "why bother" unless it's something you only expect to cast a couple times while playing the character.

It would have to be more like 1% IMO, but even if I did that we'd still have scaling issued, leading to the aesthetic problem of people using dozens after each fight at higher levels. Unless we changed the scaling too, but that would just invert the problem rather than remove it.

Yes, the aesthetic issue is a big reason I dislike your proposal honestly. Whether it's spending 10 minutes casting from a wand or using consumables, all of it aesthically displeasing to me. It's just that adjusting healing consumables is less disruptive to the game.

If you want to make wands more usable, as a separate issue to address. I would go about modifying the overcharge rules. Make it a DC 5 flat check the first time. Each Additional attempts increases the DC by +3. And on a failure the wand breaks and can't be used again that day. Attempting to use it without repairing it destroys it. In this way you have a reasonable shot of getting 2 to 4 uses per day, but it's variable and not guaranteed. I think something like this is how you make wands more relevant/useful without a huge imbalance. Using a scalpel, not a shotgun.

The main problem with medicine is just that ward medic and continual recovery are feats instead of built in. So in order for the party to rely on medicine (which it has to unless someone happens to have right focus spell, or multiple people for some focus spells) some poor SOB has to pay the skill feat tax.

Honestly you get 10 skills feats on a character. Spending 2 of them on medicine isn't that big a deal IMO. It's honestly more than you need to spend skill proficiency increases that is a little harder to stomach.

RAW yea that seems right, thank you for the clarification. Seems odd that a fire attuned attenuator would help with water impulses, but it makes it a lot more convenient so no complaints here.

It may seem odd, but the alternative is that anyone using multiple elements is kind of screwed. A major gate attenuator costs about twice what a weapon potency rune cost (although only about 1/3 of what weapon potency and striking rune cost together). Still the cost is significant enough that you couldn't afford to do more than like 2 elements realistically. And the cost is why they hand to have items like doubling rings for two weapon fighters.

Item description:

Gate attenuators are typically worn near the body's core and are shaped like portals or passageways, making literal the elemental gates kineticists possess within their bodies. The appearance can vary from a simple disk with a hole in the middle to a design matching a city gate of a particular settlement. If you're a kineticist, the attenuator grants you a +1 item bonus to your impulse attack modifier (but not to your impulse DC). When you invest a gate attenuator, attune it to one element of your choice. Designs on the attenuator's surface transform to match that element, and the attenuator gains the element's trait until it's no longer invested or is attuned to a different element.

While confusingly written, the item bonus to your impulse attack modifier isn't dependent on having it attuned to the element.

The attuned element bit is actually only important for the below action (as far as I can tell), which is an extra ability provided by the attenuator [that is usually overlooked]:

Activate—Elemental Spell [two-actions] (concentrate); Frequency once per day; Effect The gate attenuator casts a 1st-rank spell, with a spell attack modifier of +7 and spell DC of 17. If you're a kineticist and the spell's element matches one of your kinetic elements, you can use your impulse attack modifier instead of the spell attack modifier or your impulse DC instead of the spell DC. The spell corresponds to the element the item is attuned to, and it gains that element's trait if it doesn't already have it: air gust of wind, earth pummeling rubble, fire dehydrate, metal thunderstrike, water snowball, or wood flourishing flora.

I guess viewing it in that light, we simply lost some spells that used to not require a verbal component but had manifestations (which saddens me but works).

Now we just have a default requirement that all spells require speech to cast, and the subtle trait removes both the required speech and manifestations.

While I had read the update to casting a spell in the description, I guess I was taking it as a very general statement, but I guess I was too mired in the past of wanting to see the verbal component tag that I couldn't take it for what it actually was.

Understanding that, it does clear up how the Auditory trait is supposed to function (it means the target needs to hear you or at least you need to provide speech [that isn't part of casting a spell].

But as previously noted, it seems like the auditory trait has been used in a confusing fashion with some spells like Illusory creature technically being useless against the deaf.

Auditory as a trait means the caster has to be able to talk AND the target has to be able to hear for the spell to work, but is misused in many spells. Illusory creature, for example has the auditory trait probably because it is capable of making sound, but RAW a deaf creature cannot be affected by an illusory creature. It is a trait GMs have to really think around and is not a good judge of how spell casting works for anyone, much less the psychic.

I agree a little bit, in that the GM has to think about what the spell is doing to determine how sound is involved. And there was one thing I did forget, which is the Sonic trait exist, so stuff that produces sound waves and doesn't care about whether a target can hear is Sonic trait, not auditory.

But Auditory explicitly says:

An action with the auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or otherwise produce the required sounds.

Technically, spell lacking this means you don't actually need to speak to cast the spell. (Actually this is a little complicated, because with the loss of verbal component component call out and spells being reworked you could look at the description on Cast a Spell action, which mentions speech, but we also know that it didn't apply to all spells. It's also more complicated because the Auditory trait could mean you need to speak for a spell to function, or that the target needs to hear it for it to function, or both, and we don't have a good way to determine. I consider this a rough edge of the system, but it doesn't come up that much.)

And while the concentrate trait was placed onto a lot of spells so that other things could interact with it, and it kind of feels like a replacement for verbal components, it doesn't actually requiring making a sound.

Edit: It may just be that any spell lacking the Subtle trait should be assumed to require some sort of speech associated with the casting, but honestly it's altogether unclear [in my opinion] since the loss of the verbal spell component trait.

It's also in my mind, slightly problematic to assume anything without the verbal trait in the old rules should have used Subtle, since Subtle is more also means no manifestations, making it hard to notice. But there were spells that didn't require you to speak, but also had manifestations.

Ultimately is honestly mostly doesn't matter much from a game play standpoint, but it is annoying when I think about it.

There are probably other spells that are problematic on anything other than a critical success, if those spells are spamable.

Ultimate you're trying to put in bandaids that cause problems in other parts of the system when ultimately what you're trying to achieve is "with [enough] time everyone is back to full HP".

So you could start there. A 10 minute rest, everyone is back to full health. Although that is a little too, easy in my opinion.

So make is a little more challenging, and with some limits, and you're going to end up in a place that looks a lot like the optional Stamina rules. Without messing up game balance in the way your proposal does.

Because Wands, Scrolls, and Staves cast spell at your DC, it means they can be used offensively. It's their cost/low use limit that keeps them from being utilized a lot. If you remove or severely reduce the use limit restriction, you're just opening up the game to other problems.

I agree that wands and staves kind of suck as implemented. I'm not sure that there is a good solution that doesn't break other things. Although combining the effects of staves and wands into 1 item as I described earlier is a start.

An item that:
1) Works as a spell slot battery
2) Provides access to a certain spell (or closely related spells)
3) May have some related minor benefit (like Staff of healing)
4) Gets one free casting of a spell per day
5) Could be Overcharged for more use, but at great risk to the item.

Like, all of that combined together at least makes them kind of attractive.

Edit: Honestly, the least disruptive solution that kind of does what you want is to take healing items (like potions and alchemical items) and just change the cost. Now people stock up on potions of healing, soothing tonic, and healing vapor. Reduce the cost to 10% of the original, but non-healing items cost remains unchanged.

Double Edit: Like the only reason people used wands of CLW in PF1 is because it was literally the most low level cost effective (ignoring Infernal Healing) healing thing you could do in game. And chances are you had someone who was going to have access to the spell on their spell list.

In PF2, medicine is class agnostic (it literally requires 0 class resources) and minimal character resources (skill feats/proficiency) but is free (GP) and effective.

The devs didn't want items to be the main source of out of combat healing. But if you really want to bring that back, reducing the price of healing consumables is the best way to do it without having other impacts that throw off other parts of the game.

I do feel that if wands simply let you convert your spell slots into their specific spell on the spot, instead of giving you free casts, the above problem could be avoided entirely, as you'd only have as many charges of synesthesia in your back pocket as you'd have spell slots of the appropriate rank to use. I know it's been said above that this might be similar to staves, but I don't think a Resentment Witch or the like expending a bunch of spell slots to cast synesthesia five times in a day is something a staff would ever achieve, nor is meant to.

I agree that there is probably room for some kind of item that just lets you spontaneously cast a spell (at a specific rank) if you're a prepared caster or gives you an additional spell known at a specific rank if you're already a spontaneous caster. Maybe limit it to only one invested item of this kind at a time.

Claxon wrote:

My framing and thought comes from this perspective, imagine the medicine skill and related feats didn't exist in game. Or was basically the same as PF1's version of the heal skill (where max you were going to heal like 20hp a day).

If you just took away Medicine, and left everything else the same? I am imagining TPK after TPK, until eventually you either house rule something back in or give up in disgust.

Yes, if you took away medicine and people didn't decide to play the classes with built in healing options, TPKs would very likely be common. That or you might have to limit combat to like twice per day before resting to get back to full. Even that second fight could be a high risk.

Now think about what you would need to do in PF2 if that were the case? You would require healing focused characters in every group, and back up healers. You'd probably want like a cleric and champion in every group for healing. So, from my perspective the Medicine skill is a generous change from PF1.

True, you didn't need 2 healing "dedicated" characters in PF1, but in PF1 even a cleric and a paladin didn't actually guarantee enough healing (unless the cleric really just wanted be a bandaid and not use their spell slots for other things). It boiled down to HAVING to use a wand.

All your doing is suggesting replacing the necessity of Medicine in PF2, with the necessity of using wands (again) which I honestly feel is a worse and backwards solution.

Again just use the Stamina rules if you really hate medicine. Don't try to implement this wand change, which will greatly imbalance other portions of the game.

Edit: As an aside, I absolutely hated the CLW paradigm in PF1. It was too cheap and effective and I hated the imagery. Yes, Medicine does require someone in the party to make some investment of their character. It's going to take 2 to 3 of your skill feats (you get a lot) and 1/3 of skill increases to keep it relevant. As opposed to playing a specific class or other hoops to go through to use a wand of CLW. From my perspective, the CLW wand was far worse than what we have with medicine.

@Tridus, the new "Recuperate" action your suggesting is basically just the alternate stamina rules that I've suggested before.

But yeah, problem with cheap spamable wands in PF2 is that since the spells use your DC, offensive use would be viable. And even with a bad DC, as long as people aren't critically succeeding, a spell like Synesthesia being able to used as often as desired will trivialize a lot of enemies/encounters.

I just see it as a big problem to implement a change that gives a lot of uses of a spell for a low-ish cost.

Claxon wrote:

I don't think concentrate replaces verbal components.

Auditory specifically mentions needing to be able to speak, while concentrate talks about only mental focus.

But really it doesn't matter to the overall discussion.

*Although there is a problem with the auditory trait that it doesn't sufficiently differentiate between needing to be able to speak, needing the target to hear something, and something that generates sound waves that have an impact regardless of ability to be heard.

Examples, sounds waves causing damage. A spell that exerts control on someone (command), and casting a spell (speaking).

Verbal components used to have the concentrate trait. So when they took all the verbal components off spells, they replaced them with the concentrate trait.

Auditory trait generally means you need to be able to make sound. I can see how you thought that was the replacement for verbal, but very few spells have the auditory trait.

Almost every spell (maybe every one) that used to have a verbal component now has the concentrate trait as a replacement.

I still disagree with your conclusion, but it mostly doesn't matter on how the game is run or played (because the remastered spells are relatively clear with their new traits) so I'm just going to drop it.

I don't think concentrate replaces verbal components.

Auditory specifically mentions needing to be able to speak, while concentrate talks about only mental focus.

But really it doesn't matter to the overall discussion.

*Although there is a problem with the auditory trait that it doesn't sufficiently differentiate between needing to be able to speak, needing the target to hear something, and something that generates sound waves that have an impact regardless of ability to be heard.

Examples, sounds waves causing damage. A spell that exerts control on someone (command), and casting a spell (speaking).

Claxon wrote:

I've always viewed the idea of the manipulate trait as leaving ones self open (for an attack). When viewed that way, whether it represents material or somatic components, or even just mental focus, it makes sense (to me) that psychic spellcasting would still leave one open to Attacks of Opportunity.

I think that it's definitely a gesture, not just intense concentration for 2 reasons:

1. That matches the description in spellcasting rules and in psychic spellcasting.

2. You *also* have mechanics that constrain movement and add a flat check to Manipulate actions.

Ultimately it doesn't quite matter how we envision it as long as we acknowledge that some spells (most really) have the manipulate trait, and psychic spell casting doesn't do anything to get rid of it. Pyschic spell casting substituted verbal and somatic components, but remaster spells don't have that. They have auditory and manipulate. Which honestly works just fine.

That is a fairly reasonable in world explanation to explain why some members of an ancestry are good at something, and others are not.

It's kind of like how humans "super power" was long distance running. Because of our bipdeal upright walking we can breath better and run more efficiently over very long distances. In fact, that's how ancient humans hunted. We wouldn't fight animals to our or their death. We would scare them and chase them. And scare them and chase. For miles. Probably days. Until the prey was too tired and just collapsed. And then we'd show up and finish it off.

But a lot of modern humans wouldn't have the persistence (because there are easier ways to get food) nor the physical condition to run/walk for days.

It's certainly possible that the intention for whispers of the void could go either way (enemy only, or everyone).

Dev's like it or not, people discount flavor text and they need to be more precise when using game terminology.

As you mention, it could have been as simple as editing the text to say:

You whisper baleful secrets that transcend language and carry magically to the ears of your foes. The words take physical form, weakening the life force of the enemy, each of which must attempt a Fortitude save.

Remove the word targets (because its' an burst spell which doesn't have targets in the first place) and replace with the word enemy, and now it's clear that it only affects enemies. Not even a word count change.

Is that the intention for how it should function? Maybe. It's not clear to me.

As written, I would continue to have it affect everyone in the burst. Being a 10ft burst, it can likely be positioned to only affect enemies, though you may struggle to get more than 1 enemy without also affect an ally.

I think the reason people aren't big on RAI (rules as intended) is because in many cases it's not clear what the intention is, although Too Bad to be True or Too Good to be True "test" can help guide us.

A buff spell like Bless? I would say it's pretty clear (also the text is actually clear and you were providing an example of something that could be made unclear by removing certain text) that the intention isn't to make your enemy also more accurate. But something like an area of effect damaging spell? Much less clear if it should or shouldn't impact allies in the area.

It is true, that as written the summoner feats losing the autosuccess feature of those feats was a significant hit, especially since summoner and eidolon share skills.

I think originally that was done to prevent Summoner's getting effectively 6 maxed out skills compared to other characters which typically get 3, or the most skillful of classes which get 5.

I hope in the remaster we see Eidolons simply get assigned skills, or have a reduced set of skills to choose from.

I really like the assigned skill option though. For example, you could specify that an angel eidolon has Lore: Angels, Acrobatics, and Athletics.

I don't think Eidolons should ever add any kind of information based skills (mostly because its too powerful) nor do I think they should have access to diplomacy, and Intimidation shouldn't be able to coerce.

Anyways, I agree that summoner shouldn't have to spend their skill upgrades on athletics to enable their Eidolon to be good enough at it to make those feats worth having. And that probably means assigning skills, or at least assigning a group of options to be chosen from. Hopefully we'll see something like that in the remaster.

As a GM, I probably wouldn't let you use the old version of the feats (with the autosuccess) but I would let the Eidolon act as though it had proficiency in Athletics that scaled appropriate to the character level. Autosuccess was too good.

I've always viewed the idea of the manipulate trait as leaving ones self open (for an attack). When viewed that way, whether it represents material or somatic components, or even just mental focus, it makes sense (to me) that psychic spellcasting would still leave one open to Attacks of Opportunity.

Weighty Impact adds the Knockdown action (it requires the Eidolon to spend 1 action) to the limb. After a successful attack with the limb (that is required to have the trip trait) the Eidolon can then spend an action to do Knockdown. The main benefit of which is that action doesn't suffer from or increase MAP, meaning no attack penalty to the athletics check to trip nor does it increase MAP for other attacks.

So yeah, it's the second one.

I know developers and others try to say don't ignore what some people call flavor text, but in many cases it results in confusion and not clarity.

If we ignore the first sentence, then everything else is consistent with expectations. The spell is a 10ft burst, that would hit everyone in that area, not only enemies.

Re Medicine checks:

Claxon kinda said that they were not compulsory, and then outlined the the reason why I, and others, feel that they are. PF2 is an unforgiving game - if you don't get your hp back after one fight, you are probably going to die in the next one. Other methods of getting your hit points back are not good enough to get your hp back after each fight, which means they are not good enough, full stop.

My framing and thought comes from this perspective, imagine the medicine skill and related feats didn't exist in game. Or was basically the same as PF1's version of the heal skill (where max you were going to heal like 20hp a day).

Now think about what you would need to do in PF2 if that were the case? You would require healing focused characters in every group, and back up healers. You'd probably want like a cleric and champion in every group for healing. So, from my perspective the Medicine skill is a generous change from PF1.

It's true that PF2 kind of assume players will be at full HP for every fight, though there are some places that offer guidance on how to run multiple fights in a row without allow players time for healing (hint, you make them fight multiple combat at or below party level).

And as I mentioned before, I feel it's a generous change for Medicine because PF1 had the same dynamic, no one wanted to go into a fight below like 75% health because, why would you? Everyone just grabbed a ton of wands of CLW and spent ~10 minutes bopping party members.

Anyways, as I suggested before if you don't like the medicine skill being so useful and prevalent, try the Stamina rules.

Re staves:
I don't have a lot of experience with them, but my impression is that they are kinda crap (which may be why I don't have much experience with them - nobody buys them, and people who find them rarely bother or remember to use them).

Basically, AFAICT they're basically wands with a choice of spells rather than just one, and a couple of cantrips. They do have a slight advantage in that they they scale to your slot rank without spending extra cash on them. I think.

Staves in fact do not function much like wands. Wands are "cast this spell once per day". Staves are a magic battery (you store you spell slots into it) and then can cast certain spell from it (based on the kind of staff it is) using that battery. Some staves also have certain benefits whenever you cast appropriate spells (like the Staff of Healing gives more HP).

And if we feel there's no meaningful difference between the two we might as well combine them into one big item group.

I honestly feel there isn't too much difference in PF2, after wands were limited to only reliably being used once per day. Since staves will give you at least 1 casting from the battery per day. Although the fact that you have to charge staves from your spell is the biggest difference.

I would certainly get behind combining them. A new item that gets one cast per day of any spell on it's list, that could be charged from your spell slots for additional casts, has certain additional benefits depending on type, and could be overcharged with extreme drawbacks.

Yeah, I think wands and staves should've been combined.

I could be that Effortless Concentration was deliberately worded such that Witches wouldn't gain the benefits associated with Sustaining without spending the actions...though that would suck.

I think we don't know what the real intention is.

I would however lean towards allowing Effortless concentration to function as though you had sustained.

In my own experience, I don't see scrolls get used super-often for top-rank spells, but I've seen them used frequently for lower-rank spells at a point where they're so cheap that it's easy to stockpile lots of "just-in-case" scrolls that are otherwise not seen as worth preparing or having in a caster's repertoire all the time. This, in my opinion, is meaningfully different from staves, which offer a reserve of spells to expand on the spells you can already cast, should you choose to commit the resources towards them. This, in turn, I think is meaningfully different from an endlessly reusable pipeline that transforms spell slots into a single spell, without any preparation needed or any upper limit beyond your own spell slots. If you purchased lots of wands then sure, you could sort of replicate the functionality of a staff by being able to cast lots of spells, but at a far greater cost in currency and action economy, in the same way that purchasing lots of scrolls of the same spells you expect to cast every day would not be cost-efficient relative to a staff or even just a wand with those spells.

Well, I should maybe rephrase.

It's not that they use top level scrolls frequently (as in every adventuring day) but I see them used frequently on days the party is expecting a long adventuring day or challenging fights. They will either acquire them while adventuring or stock up before a specific known challenge. It happens multiple times a campaign (usually in an AP each book final boss is well telegraphed). So while it's not an every day thing, it is a common tactic for more firepower for a specific time frame.

I also see spontaneous caster with them for low level spell that they want access to, but don't want to spend a spell known on because they don't need them that frequently.

I mean, I guess one could view that way. I just view what you're talking about as being functionally closer to what Staves do than wands.

IME, both staves and wands in PF2 aren't something I see get used a lot (outside of the edge case of long duration spells being used with wands). Scrolls get used a lot to expand a casters "top level spell slots" for an adventuring day. Especially on a day where the party expect to fight bosses or something, having scrolls to dip into is very popular.

Seems like maybe an issue with that printing and the conversion from older versions of the spell (prior to remaster, where for example Remove Disease has a 10 minute cast time). I don't know if this was errata'd although I assume so because...

In Archives of Nethys (official Pathfinder rules resource) Cleanse doesn't list a 1 minute cast time.

Claxon wrote:

I'd also add, Scrolls in this edition are the "i want to cast a lot of a spell" vehicle. Although, they're not very cost effective for healing.

There's also potions, but again while they're good in an emergency, they're not cost effective for out of combat healing.

There are staves, which is almost what you're describing, but simply put your proposal for "chargeable wands" is straight up better than staves. Personally I view that as a big reason not to do it.

I think this kind of gets at why wands feel a bit out of place in 2e: there's a ton of different options for casting a particular spell or getting a particular effect, and the one thing wands are good at are letting you cast the exact same spell once every day. This causes wands to naturally lend themselves well to casting long-duration buffs that you only need once a day anyway, but poorly to most other things.

Personally, I'd be keen to try a model where wands simply let you expend any appropriate spell slot you have on the spot to cast the wand's spell: this would lend itself particularly well to healing, because you wouldn't need to have healing prepared or in your repertoire; you'd just need the wand for it, the spell in your list, and you'd be fine. Ideally, the wand could still give you a free cast once per day, but even without that, wands would be able to differentiate themselves from scrolls and staves by letting you draw directly from your spell slots to cast the same spell over and over. This could be a big help to prepared casters looking for a reliable fallback option in particular, and would basically offer an extra spell in a spontaneous caster's repertoire.

That's kind of what staves do, although not quite that flexibly because you have to sink spell slots into it ahead of time. I think making it so that with staves you could simply expend a spell slot of the appropriate rank, to cast the spell would be an improvement. Prepared casters don't have to prepare that specific spell and spontaneous casters wouldn't have to know the spell. And you could let higher tier staves cast the slots flexibly, in the since of you could let a Major Staff of Healing cast the heal spell at any rank up to 5.

It doesn't give you more spell slot resources, but does allow for a lot of flexibility.

I'd also add, Scrolls in this edition are the "i want to cast a lot of a spell" vehicle. Although, they're not very cost effective for healing.

There's also potions, but again while they're good in an emergency, they're not cost effective for out of combat healing.

There are staves, which is almost what you're describing, but simply put your proposal for "chargeable wands" is straight up better than staves. Personally I view that as a big reason not to do it.

I don't personally view "medicine checks" as mandatory, but rather as generous compared to other options for healing. Comparing to many other options, medicine checks are better for out of combat healing (assuming you take the feats to support it). Which really just means continual recovery and ward medic (and battle medicine might as well). It's honestly a pretty low amount of investment (I guess I should mention spending skill proficiency advancements too).

Compare that to other healing options, it takes a lot more of a characters class power to do, or more time, or isn't as effective. Champion's lay on hands can only heal one at a time and is limited by focus points for instance. Torrent in the Blood (Water Kin) is limited to 10 minutes, and took a class feature (impulse choice) which are more limited. Sure it's better than medicine, except for the class resource cost.

Medicine is the class agnostic, build agnostic healing resource that can always be available.

I honestly don't understand the idea that medicine is annoying.

I guess compared to cheap wands of CLW that were used in PF1 it could be annoying, but I found the wand paradigm in PF1 to be annoying. Ignoring time, level 1 wands of CLW were the most cost efficient method of healing, barring some "broken" items that gave infinite healing. Honestly even those were kind of worse for the character because you had to keep wearing that item as opposed to wearing another item in that slot.

Personally I like the paradigm that class healing options are available and effective for in combat healing, some are decent options for out of combat healing, but everyone has the choice for a good out of combat healing option via medicine skill.

But if you really hate the medicine skill, I wouldn't suggest trying to do what you're doing with wands. Instead, I would just implement the Stamina variant rules.

Claxon wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.

RD, I think this statement might be untrue.

Quote:

Heightening Spells

When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.

The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.

If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.

I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.

In the remaster, it was made explicit that they can do this, in the last paragraph of the Heightened Spontaneous Spells heading.

Quote:

As a spontaneous caster, you can also choose to cast a lower-rank spell using a higher-rank spell slot without heightening it or knowing it at a higher rank. This casts the spell at the rank you know the spell, not the rank of the higher slot. The spell doesn’t have any heightened effects, so it’s usually not a very efficient

...

Great, thanks for that clarification. Do you happen to have a AoN link handy for that? I went looking in the Sorcerer class description and didn't see it there.

Edit: Never mind, I found it under the rules chapter for spell slots. Unfortunately, already being generally familiar with the rules I hadn't thought to look in the (admittedly obvious) place for such a change.

I would however say, without this clarification that was made in the Remaster, that it wasn't permitted (although seems to be that it wasn't intended since they did change it, and was purely bad wording of the rules).

Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.

RD, I think this statement might be untrue.

Heightening Spells

When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.

The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.

If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.

I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.

I like Mathmuse's solution (as a GM) that if someone had bothered to take the breath control feat, I would let them count as one step better than their training in athletics for reaching acclimation. I might even extend it to acrobatics training as well (if we're homebrewing solutions).

That said, the Vital Earth item is kind of amazing for what it does at it's price point. Removing the need to breath or drink for 1 day is pretty handy.

I repeat my point. Animated the dead bones and flesh of others to use against other monsters. I don't mean constructs. I do mean mindless undead. It is a tool like any other when you look at it as a tool. An archer who doesn't practice care can misaim and hit an ally. A fighter loses grip of their weapon and if stabs an innocent. A wizard doesn't consider their fireball is to close to a thatched roof and it starts a massive fire in a village.

These are not even acts. These are negligence.

I might agree with you, if we didn't know that the creation of Undead destabilizes the cycle of souls which is what keeps the multiverse from collapsing in on itself.

If you ignore that bit of the setting, then yes you can make a stronger argument that it's morally neutral. Aside from ya know, how 99% of canonical examples of undead and people who create undead were evil/unholy.

I get it, you don't like the setting stuffs necromancy into a box with a label like evil. But I DO like it.

Madhippy3 wrote:

. What remains after death is a resource which can be used instead of manpower.

Maybe this means intelligent undead aren't ethical and conjuring souls is icky too, but skeletons and zombies puppetted by magic and put to work to defend the living is hardly evil and if Pharasma has a problem with that I am going to point at Drift travel and tell her to stop being a hypocrite.

That would be animating bones. And that is not evil.

However, mindless undead animated by the void energy are not just animated bones. They have an instinct to kill the living. Creating permanent undead who can attack people is thus evil. Because the blood they shed when (not if) they escape control and attack people will be on their creator's hands.

Great point, it is possible to animate bones and even a body into something that it a gruesome construct, but a construct and not undead. Undead are fueled by void energy and affect the soul of the mortal from which the undead was made.

It's not just "animating bones". Here is an example of animated bones. Pharasma doesn't have a problem with that sort of thing.

Also this

Yeah, you have to read very carefully what different dedications actually grant you. Many class dedications are actually pretty bad choices.

Now, I'm not saying sorcerer dedication is a bad choice, but if you're only after the bloodline powers, you will be disappointed.

Another example is fighter. If you're looking to improve your weapon proficiency, fighter dedication doesn't do much for you. It will only get you up to expert (and required a level 12 feat to do so). It's pretty terrible if you wanted to get to master or legendary, because you simply can't.

It sounds like you're saying it's less about the ability to breathe thin air in general and more about acclimation to Akiton's atmosphere as a whole. Sort of like comparing it to high altitude climbing or deep-sea diving, where supplemental oxygen only goes so far. Is that right? (Then again, we are talking about technically-survivable fantasy Mars.)

Thanks for your detailed and logical thought process! I'm curious to see whether other people have different opinions.

Yep.

Like if you were suddenly exposed to a thin (or no) atmosphere for a brief period, breath control might mitigate that.

Suffocation rules are normally that you can hold your breath for 5 rounds + con mod. And that you tick down 1 per round, unless you attack or cast a spell in which case it ticks down by 2. You also lose rounds if you're critical hit or critically fail a save. And that speaking causes you to lose all remaining air.

So like, suddenly in no atmosphere. With a +3 con and breath control you have like 200 rounds (~20 minutes with limited activity) that you're fine...but after that you would suffocate. On Akiton you won't suffocate, but you'll be out of breath eventually. Perhaps it takes a few hours for you feel the affects, it's not really clear because as written breath control doesn't actually interact with thin atmospheres.

As a GM, I might say with Breath Control you have an hour on Akiton before fatigue sets in. That's unlikely to be helpful, but it might matter.

Even if it does apply, we don't know what the effect is or would be.

Let's ignore (for a moment) the sentence saying "You can breathe even in hazardous or sparse air".

The next sentence is "You can hold your breath for 25 times as long as usual before suffocating". Well, you won't suffocate on Akiton, so it doesn't apply.

The next sentence is "You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against inhaled threats, such as inhaled poisons, and if you roll a success on such a saving throw, you get a critical success instead." But again there are no inhaled threats, so none of this applies either.

So all you have to go is "you can breath in....sparse air". Well, you can already breath on Akiton, it just has penalties (fatigue) if you're not acclimated. The feat doesn't mention anything that would interact with that, so even it Breath Control is meant to interact with it in some way, it's not clear what it would do exactly. Completely negating the fatigue without mentioning anything related to it seems unlikely.

And then there's the idea that Breath Control is about being able to hold your breath. But even if you hold your breath, eventually you need to breath on Akiton. But the atmosphere just doesn't contain enough oxygen so you're left a bit out of breath (fatigued).

In my opinion, Breath Control will do nothing for it.

There is an inconsistency in the allegory as we have two fossil fuel allegories but one is treated a lot worse than the other. I am sure there will be very well thought out reasons given how undeath is objectively worse than Drift travel but in the most macro of scales, the lifetime of the setting, the distinction is trivial. Both lead to the destruction of the multiverse. One by the expanding maelstrom, the other by unknown means.

There's actually a big difference.

The cycle of souls prevents the entire multiverse from collapsing and the whole of the multiverse ceasing to exists. Undeath removes souls from the cycle and erodes and undermines all existence. That's why Pharasma cares, because she wants existence to continue.

The drift on the other hand, won't cause all of reality to collapse. Simply change how it exists, what it looks like. Pharasma doesn't care so much about this because she tries to remain neutral about things, with a special concern about reality as a whole not collapsing.

Now personally, I consider undeath and use of the drift evil. But much in the same way I can't stop using my car or fossil fuels (as the source that provides electricity for my home) it's a little evil on the part of the majority of people (although arguably a big evil for the people in power who could changes things to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels).

Fossil fuels are bad because they will destroy our planet.
Imaginarium X is worse because it will destroy the universe.

Drift travel is bad because it will cause damage to planes while increasing the maelstrom.
Undeath is worse because it will hasten the destruction of all the planes.

QuidEst wrote:

JiCi wrote:

Yeah, a dragon for the Planes of Metal and Wood, the Astral and Ethereal Planes and the First World would round up thing nicely; Umbral Dragons are already in the Netherworld and while Forest Dragons are living in the Plane of Wood, they... are Imperial Dragons, not Primal.

I would expect that imperial dragons fall under primal dragons in the new categorization. That seems to fit them better than arcane, divine, or occult.

Is... that the plan?

Is Paizo dropping dragon categories altogether?

I'm out of the loop...

I don't know about that, but I know they're deemphasizing the old chromatic/metallic dragon thing in favor of new dragons.

Well, there are a myriad of ways to heal that don't require a dedicated spell caster. The easiest of which is to have some with the medicine skill patch you up between combats. And looking at the skill feats available to you, Battle Medicine is the 1st skill feat that makes sense to grab (from the Medicine skill).

But also, as others have noted APs are written assuming a 4 person party. If you have less than that, the GM should be reducing the enemies in some way to compensate.

Even if you had a cleric, they wouldn't be able to keep up with the healing needs by spending spells or even healing fonts. These are good for keeping someone from going down in a fight, but not for topping people up between fights (which is the general expectation for combat). All of which is to say....I get that it breaks immersion to need to rest between fights, but that's more an issue with the way the adventure is written for such low level characters.

Or perhaps, you just need some mental reframing. Yes, you're in a hurry. You want to save people. But you also know that doing so recklessly will just get you, and any survivors killed.

Yeah, it may be hard to narratively make sense of it, but mechanically you make a save (are possibly frightened depending on the result) and are the immune to the presence for 1 minute. After a minute you'll need to make a save again.

You could add a bonus to saves against frightful presence for "reoccurring " instances (assuming it even came up, most fights are probably over) to represent becoming more used to it.