Cozzymandias's page

I FINALLY got around to reading this, having bookmarked it when you first posted and then suddenly gotten very busy, and this is fantastic! The defensive, champion-y direction you took it in is really interesting and a pretty unexplored design space in terms of first-party material, with champion and, I guess, arguably monk being the only real examples. I wish I'd been present in this thread while discussion was going on bc there's some real refinement here.

I am curious, though, how concrete your plans to put this up on PFInfinite are. The reason I ask is because I'm currently working on a travel- and road-themed Infinite product, which, obviously, this design concept is perfect for, and I was considering a post-GnG update of my original version of the Drifter for that book. I'm planning on taking it in a pretty different direction than you did (focusing more on the big-damage elements as a midrange striker class a la the ranger), but its still the same thematic territory.

I don't want to just step on your toes, since you've put in the time on this, so I was curious how likely it is that you'll put this up on infinite and, if it is likely, whether you'd mind a similar design in my product.

(I would've just PM'd, but I couldn't find the PM button on your profile--I'm guessing its a bug because I couldn't find said button on the profile of anyone else here when I checked, and it seems unlikely that everyone on this thread has me blocked lol)

I appreciate the feedback! A response to some of your thoughts, in the interest of explaining my reasoning:

The combination of quick swap, Lightning Swap, and Lightning Maneuver mean that for the cost of one level 2 feat and two level 8 feats, you can get 3 attacks and 3 maneuvers in a turn. Generally, effects that would allow 6 attack actions in a turn are things like Impossible Flurry, which are much higher level, much more restricted, lower accuracy, and weakened by the fact that you must dual wield.

Good catch that those interact like that; I had not intended for them to stack, but rather be one or the other. I suppose they really ought to be discrete actions, instead of modifiers for quick swap.

Lightning Swap and Lightning Maneuver do not work unless you quick swap, and quick swap seems to require that you be holding a weapon...Assuming your hands do not need to be full, the ability to effectively draw and stow weapons "for free", combines with the ability to jsut borrow runes from your pack, means that you can stack a number of, say, unenchanted whips, which you can then drop as necessary to prevent critfails

Quick swap not working with empty hands is deliberate; I wrote it that way to prevent just such shenanigans. You're right that I should state that explicitly, though. Rune channeling is phrased the way it is for the same reason (only activating when you switch weapons with the archetype), to prevent doing something like quick drawing loaded guns and then just dropping them and effectively getting lightning swap two levels early.

The ability to do things like attack with your choice of standard 2H weapon or reach 2H weapon, then switch seamlessly to a setup that allows for dueling parry is really very strong, and I believe you're undercosting it.

This is something that I'm definitely going to have to look closely at when I playtest these, but I'm not convinced it's as strong as you might think. To benefit from that strategy you'd have to strike with the 2H weapon, lightning swap to your 1H weapon, then activate dueling parry. Your second hit being with a weaker weapon and spending your action on defense is a pretty major damage loss compared to say a second 2H hit and a demoralize, so while you are getting a benefit it's not without tradeoffs. Plus, you can do the same thing with any versatile weapon with no feat investment, and three feats by level eight seems like a solid opportunity cost to get some extra traits compared to that.

- Those who already have Cooking Lore get less out of this dedication.

- Prepare a Meal does not, apparently, require ingredients.
- Prepare a Meal has nothing that prevents it from stacking with the healing from Treat Wounds.
- No comment is made as to how logn it takes to eat the food, once prepared.

Good thoughts, I'll address those in my next editing pass!

- It's very early access to the ability to treat five targets at once.

This is true, but because it still makes them all immune for an hour it doesn't actually accelerate your healing if you'd need more than one meal to top everyone up. I guess it does make you a lot faster if you only need one heal, but frankly I think ward medic is pretty overcosted for what it does to begin with.

- Does not define "monster". Going by the definition available in AoN... did you mean to encourage people to serve up a nice roasted "Catfolk Pouncer" or "City Guard Squadron"?

- Similarly, it does not indicate how one goes about rendering an Adamantine Golem palatable over the course of an hour of cooking.

I was deliberately vague on these; trying to boil down which monsters a gourmand "should" be able to eat would be a lot of hairsplitting which means a lot of page space, and I think most GMs are well-equipped to adjudicate what would or wouldn't work.

A bunch of stuff on Imbued Ability

All valid concerns, but I thought it was such a fun idea I couldn't not include it. Ultimately, needing a good deal of GM forethought is what the rare tag is for.

Hi all! I'm currently working on a pathfinder infinite product, the Wanderer's Guide, which will contain optional rules, magic items, archetypes, and a class, all based around adventurers who follow the road wherever it takes them. I've been posting my archetypes on reddit as I complete them, but now that I have a good handful that have already had one editing pass, I thought I'd post them here and get some more feedback, since this has been a good place to get really in-depth thoughts in the past.

Without beating around the bush, here's the link, if you're interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GVtrR6ihfbVpnc3dejXctIBTVEMwgsni/view?usp= sharing

If you need more enticement, a brief elevator pitch for each archetype included so far:
- The Arsenal, a weapon-swapping archetype for those who want to be a weapon porcupine without using ABP or be Dante from Devil May Cry
- The Monster Gourmand, a top-down archetype inspired by the manga Delicious in Dungeon which also offers an alternative to treat wounds for out-of-combat healing
- The Justicar, an aggressive divine archetype that offers big smites for those who miss their PF1e or 5e Paladin
- The Elemental Savant, an archetype that allows you to focus on specific energy damage types, band-aiding my complaints with the elemental sorcerer and expanding those options to martials
- The Wildspeaker, another top-down archetype inspired by things like Ghost of Tsushima's wind mechanic, which allows characters to cast flavorful divination spells a few times per day

I appreciate any thoughts!

It felt like a very second tier class that someone plays purely because the y like the concept, but would actively avoided by anyone looking for optimal play.

This is kinda true of every post-CRB class afaik, and I have a hard time believing it's not intentional on the part of the designers. It seems like their goal is that the classes powergamers seek out tend to be the core classes, which for the most part have a much wider thematic range of characters they can support. The idea being, I think, that people who want a specific concept can play the appropriate class, and people who want power still have a range of concepts to choose from, thus creating the biggest range of character concepts for the biggest range of playstyles.

Whether they go to far on this is up for debate, but IMO it's definitely deliberate to an extent.

It's honestly kind of a baffling gap in the system, which is I guess a holdover from a stricter divine magic paradigm in older editions where characters like angelic sorcerers or whatever were still arcane. But pf2 did away with a lot of the other weirdness tied to that dynamic so I don't really know why this specific thing is still there.

Honestly though the fact that the versions of those spells for true neutral deities tends to be significantly worse for no apparent reason is even more utterly baffling. I guess it's intended to balance being resilient to alignment damage, but monsters rarely do alignment damage because it's impossible to plan around what alignments a party member will have so that's not a great rationale tbh.

My tables pretty much all houserule alignment damage as positive/negative damage, which can be a little unbalanced with spells like searing light but it's not like divine blasters are a few extra d6s away from breaking the game open (esp. since most enemies you fight would be evil anyway)

Still, I wish there were no spells that required deities. I'd take it if the spells gave deity bonuses but to completely invalidate a spell on an already limited list just because of deity absence rubs me the wrong way, at least in context with the Oracle.

There is one spell that which gives me hope: Divine Armageddon. It still gates out casters with no deity but it's a step forward for true neutral deities.

I really wish there was a rule on a "generic version" of all the deity-based spells, for characters without a deity. It's possible to work around for sure, but there are still *so many* high-level divine spells that require a deity, and its a real issue for oracles and like, divine sorcs/witches/summoners. What I ended up doing when I played a diabolic sorcerer during the playtest was using the effects for Asmodeus since that was the source of my character's power despite not actually worshipping him, but it's an annoying workaround to have to deal with.

I played a flames oracle blaster with sorcerer MC (for extra slots and dangerous sorcery) to level 20 with no deity, and never had any issues just upcasting lower-level blasts in place of deity-specific spells. That said, blaster casters are a divisive topic on here (and in fairness I think I was helped by my GM tending to prefer lots of minions for high-difficulty fights over like a PL+4 boss), so YMMV.

I never played 1e so I may be off base here, but it seems to me like a Ranger class archetype could be a really good fit? A lot of the flavor of being good at pursuing targets and ferreting out secrets is already there, so all you'd really need is a set of class feats and maybe a unique hunters edge to pull in the divine flavor.

Note that not only is there no reason to use two-handed weapons, RAW, you are actively penalized because switching implements as a free action to activate their abilities only works for implements you are holding in *one hand*.

So, if you use the weapon implement with a bow or greatsword, you can't actually swap it out for your Lantern or Chalice with the feature.

IIRC you can drop a hand off a two-handed weapon as a free action, so you *could* still do this, I think; but it seems more like a jank interaction than an intended thing, especially since you couldn't hotswap the weapon back out. Could work okay for a bastard sword or something though, I suppose.

I think the way to go might be to make Flashing Parry/Counter more similar to the TWF Parry feats. I mean right now if you were melee why wouldn't you want to use Flashing Counter every time you can, unless you were about to die? Free extra attack why your attacked in melee? Yes please. Wait you mean I can also make the target miss? Oh and there a feat where I get additional reactions and +2 to attack with reactions?

That's just too good. It might be smoother to have Flashing Parry as the retort it is now. A Parry Stance which is no retort but + AC while inside, and Flashing Counter trigger on a crit failure against you with the option to spend Grit and counter as it is now.

That's more inline with current melee characters, Gunslinger as ranged should be fine.

While its true that flashing counter is much better than the existing dueling riposte/twin riposte, that was an intentional choice because those two feats are, frankly, terrible. Compared to other reactions that allow for an attack like AOO and paladin reactions, their trigger will almost never come up, AND you have to have used dueling/twin parry the turn before. So I designed flashing counter in line with AOO and friends rather than dueling riposte.

This to me, and maybe it's a bit harsh, is a rather boring rotation of events because there's no variability in it really at all. You're literally treadmilling your abilities so that you can get access to your actions.

That's a good point, so much so that I think its probably worth making potentially major changes to account for it.

Personally, I like being focused on reactions because it has an inherent interactivity since you have to decide which enemy attack/ability to use your reaction on (and the argument that it's stepping on swash's toes is kinda moot since they've apparently been removed from the final version). So I'm going to instead try to adjust the way Grit is used, rather than how its gained.

Having grit have a passive bonus like panache is definitely a good idea, but in addition to that I have another idea that might help: having spending grit be optional. Basically, grit actions would have a base version that you can use as long as you have grit but which doesn't consume it, and then they would have an additional effect if you choose to spend grit when you use the action. This allows more player agency and choice in deciding whether to keep grit for the passive buff and to potentially use >1 grit action in your turn, or whether to spend it to gain the additional effect.

I can probably also cut down on the number of class feats that are grit actions; there's probably a good number of them that could stand to just be flourishes instead.

I like [drifter's gambit], but I was just about to post that the math doesn't really work, and it's incentive is in being hit by weak foes.

Agree that the math doesn't work, I had a brain fart when I was doing the probabilities. I'll take another look at it (unless I end up changing DG as below)

Woah, as far as I can tell you don't get an attack.

If you did get an attack after taking damage, and the success of that attack dictated the reduction of your damage, that might be worth exploring:

As I wrote it it doesn't give an attack, no. I actually do like the idea of Drifter's Gambit giving an attack now that you mention it though--I think that's probably more thematic than reducing the damage. I'd probably have to cut the damage reduction since it might be a little OP even without it (you'd most likely be getting a free attack every single round), but it's definitely worth playing with.

So you have the Firearm weapon group, but not what its critical specialization is. My suggestion would be to make it the same as brawling weapons.

"The target must succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC or be slowed 1 until the end of your next turn."

Good catch, I'll update with that when I do version 3.0!

Probably gonna wait for a few more responses to roll in before I start discussing stuff, but one thing that already seems to be a pretty common thought:

I definitely agree that Lightning Draw was somewhat more flavorful than Drifter's Gambit, and it took me quite a lot of brainstorming to come up with something I was happy with for Drifter's Gambit in the first place. However, I just could not come up with a solution for Lightning Draw that was elegant and balanced--the more I thought about it, the more of a problem it was that you couldn't refresh Grit during combat at level 1, and the delay solution that was floated was a lot of awkward bookkeeping IMO since you'd be bouncing around in initiative every single combat.

With that said, I'm more happy with the thematicness and gameplay loop on the class paths with drifter's gambit than other folks seem to be. The Drifter gets to take the bullet and shoot back while incentivizing using high-power, multi-action attacks that might otherwise not be used due to the chance of missing, the Ronin gets to charge through the pain while helping with their positioning, particularly vs ranged combatants which is otherwise kind of rough for them, and the Outlaw gets to do a dirty trick while setting up their various payoffs for negative conditions (although I do agree that particular one is a little awkward).

Version 2.0 is done!

I would of course appreciate feedback on both the changes and the new stuff--For those who have been following this thread, there's a page listing all the changes at the back of the document so you don't have to reread the whole thing.

Some notes on this version: While I'm very happy with the changes to the grit economy, I'm not entirely pleased with the higher-level feats. There are a lot of feats shared with existing classes because they seemed appropriate, and not as many new ones as I'd like; There are also almost no high-level retorts. I'd appreciate suggestions in those areas so that I can fill them out some more.

Also, the In the Nick of Time feat is VERY experimental and there's not really anything existing like it, so it may not fit with everyone's table, but its super cool and thematic so I threw it in anyway.

A bunch of stuff re: Lightning Draw [...] TL;DR It's mostly the ability breaks the main paradigms of combat rules more than it is overpowered to me personally.

That's a fair point actually, I see what you mean. I'll have to think of a way to get that quickdraw flavor without having it be as oppressive.

suggestions on changing the Grit economy

That tracks on why Panache is harder to get than I thought. That said, I think I'm gonna try to adjust the existing Grit economy, rather than going with something like this, for a couple reasons:

One, I think the interplay between retorts between turns and grit actions on your turn works very well, because almost all retorts are in response to enemy attacks which incentivizes putting yourself in the middle of the fray so you can make sure to have an opportunity to retort every turn, which is I think a very flavorful dynamic for the mechanic to have.

Two, I hesitate to have both the level one retort AND grit action be tied to the class path (although if I have an awesome idea I'd definitely be open to having the grit action be universal and the retort tied to path, rather than the other way around) because IMO that would weaken the identity of the class as a whole, because so many of your abilities would be tied to your subclass.

Finally, having grit gain be tied to reactions means that it's impossible to gain grit on your own turn, which means that you can only use one grit action per turn. That lets me keep a tighter rein on doing shenanigans like spamming Deadeye.

IMO, I think saying Retorts only get you grit if the retort is successful will make it less trivial to get, in the same vein as Panache actions requiring a successful on-level skill check. For example Flash Parry would only give you grit if the increase to AC prevents an attack, Snap Shot would only give you grit if the attack hits, etc.

Regarding the Ronin path, giving two advance weapon proficiencies is very nice but I'm not sure entirely needed. Generally speaking there is some barrier to entry on them which requires a feat. For the Gunslinger path yes it makes sense but for the Ronin I'm not convinced.

What if instead they got heavy armor proficiency? It would be fit with the Rogue Samurai or Knight trope and help out characters that want to run strength and still do fine in melee.

Good thought! I initially gave them that because I forgot that katanas and naginatas were martial weapons and wanted to make sure you could start with them--I think a simple switch to gaining an uncommon weapon proficiency instead of an advanced one would be fine. Giving heavy armor is a good idea actually, but not universal to the wandering ronin trope--I think it might be a good fit as an early class feat.

I don't know if an animal companion feat line is necessary, since there are animal companion archetypes coming out. I would avoid it personally.

I totally forgot that archetype was coming! I agree that having that available probably fills that gap.

Also, as far as my next draft goes--

Would there be an interest in my posting my second draft here? It seems like this is a pretty popular idea, so I think its worth my editing it and doing the last 10 levels.

Additionally, while I was writing it it occurred to me that I should maybe include the animal companion feat line, since the "A man and his dog" and the "A man and his horse" tropes are both pretty core to the genre I'm shooting for here. Do people think this is a good idea? My only concern is it might have a butterfly effect on balance in allowing two powerful moves per turn, since so many of the stronger grit actions are 2 actions.

Wow, I didn't expect this kind of response! A lot of this is fantastic feedback since this is my first homebrew for PF2 so I don't have a perfect grasp of the balance yet.

Some thoughts on people's suggestions:

Regarding Lightning Draw, what if it conferred Slowed 1 for 1 round on you when you use it? That way it's not breaking the action economy so much as giving you a first round action upon rolling initiative rather than waiting your turn.

I REALLY like this idea--it seems pretty clear from people's feedback that lightning draw is overtuned (although I'm still not sure why, since as far as I can tell it boils down to 1 free attack per combat, which is less mileage than I saw my party's fighter get out of AoO at level 1). I think I'm definitely stealing this for my next version of this class.

Everyone else has generally my same thoughts on the mechanics of the class, so I'll address the items.[...]

Thanks for this, weapon balance is probably one of the aspects I have the least handle on so this is super helpful.

Grit is too easy to get!

This seems to be a pretty prevalent opinion, and I'm curious why that is? On my reading of the swashbuckler, it seems like the actions they use to get grit are usually things you'd be spending your third action on instead of an attack anyway, and they'd likely also be getting Panache every turn--and furthermore Panache grants some pretty strong passive buffs while you have it, which Grit doesn't do. Perhaps it would be more balanced if retorts only restored grit if the action is successful? This might also help bring Lightning Draw more in line, since it would mean you only start the combat with grit if the attack hits.

[...]but it's worth mentioning that I do agree that Warrior-Poet shouldn't just grant a straight skill increase.

I agree, I just couldn't come up with something better when I was writing this first draft. I like your idea, and might go with something similar.

oh one I forgot--

Flashing Parry - I like this, but I also feel like the weapon should have the Parry trait. That does seem to discount the traditional Katana, so I can see why it's not there. It's more or less the same power as raising a shield, so perhaps this should just be that but you can do it when wielding a weapon in two hands? Maybe it's fine as is.

This is just the rogue feat Nimble Dodge (which I've heard called pretty weak by-and-large) reflavored to allow for a more logical for flash counter, so I think its probably fine balance-wise. Flavor-wise, yeah I left out the parry trait so you could do it with a katana/nodachi/whatever.

Appreciate all the feedback so far! I'm probably going to hold off on making changes until replies here tail off in a day or two, but I wanted to reply to some specific comments that jumped out at me:

My first thought is that Paizo dropped the retort reactions, because they clogged things up. Thats a strong possibility here. Secondth, Lightning Draw is way too strong. Being able to strike as soon as initiative is rolled seems way out of the ballpark for a 1st level ability. Just drawing would probably be a reasonable ability though.

I agree that retorts clogged up the swashbuckler, because they were weirdly tacked on to the main thing of the finisher actions; here, they're part of the main economy of the class. Re: Lightning Draw, just drawing on initiative was my initial idea, but imo making an attack is much more thematic, and this is just Quick Draw (a second level feat) once a combat so it doesn't seem too bad, especially since I nixed the first-level class feat to account for Lightning Draw's strength.

Grit - No duration on Grit that I can see, which means that since they get this every initiative they always have Grit. While they should be able to trigger it reliably, not sure "always" is a good idea.

Grit is supposed to go away whenever you use a Grit action, I forgot to include that clause in the rules--good catch!

This is Recall Knowledge but more structured. Not sure it deserves a feat on its own, probably could be expanded though. Perhaps enhancing the use of Recall Knowledge is more thematic (and that helps lean into the "Monster Hunter" theme too)

This is straight up an existing rogue feat, so take it up with Paizo :P

Full Metal Jacket - penetrating shot still in the description but it’s already good on its own since it avoids map and costs one bullet. Think the end part about hitting more people is probably not needed, but it’s probably fine for 10th Level. Might just change it to some form of “adjacent” instead of the lesser cover requirement and then just state “lesser cover provided by either creature does not apply to this attack”

I agree the wording here is kinda awkward because I based it on the phrasing in Penetrating Shot, probably worth my taking a second pass at. I wanted to give an extra thematic ribbon over penetrating shot since its a grit ability, and the part about hitting more targets on lethal damage a la cleave seemed like a good choice bc it's really cool if you can pull it off, but it'll almost never actually happen because 3+ enemies will so rarely be in a straight line.

I found some of the ideas re: the Drifter class pretty cool, and threw together my take on it over on the homebrew forum if any of y'all are interested

There's been an idea going around the forums for a couple weeks of a Drifter class which combines the fantasy of gunslingers, samurai movies, and other themes into a single grit-based class. I found this idea pretty inspiring, so I decided to try my hand at putting it together as a sort of reverse-playtest-swashbuckler that uses special reactions to gain grit, then spends it to use various special attacks.

Only the first 10 levels so far because feats take forever to right, and I think the balance of some of the feats might be a little on the high end at the moment, but overall I'm happy enough with it to look for feedback.

Also, I decided to take the path of least resistance on guns and just make them essentially advanced-weapon crossbows instead of something fancier, since they aren't realllly the focus of the class.

The full class is here, thanks for taking a look!

In fact with one of the paths within the archetype, you can choose your halcyon spells from *any* list, which is definitely worth the reduction in max spell level.

I hope those slots go up to at least level 6. I mean i find the flavor cool and all but only gaining a level 1 spell with a level 6 feat seems a bit weak specially if compared with basic spellcasting.

They go up to 7th level spells

Off the top of my head raging intimidation gives two free skill feats as soon as you meet their prereqs

It's worth noting that all of the archetypes that grant spellcasting in LOWG (red mantis, runescarred, and lion blade) only have basic and expert spellcasting, i.e. only go up to 6th level spells, which imo sets a pretty strong precedent for half-casters to exist later on in the games life as classes.

What about a divine Sorcerer casting one of the divine battle form spells (righteous might, avatar, the other one I can't remember atm)? None of them explicitly require you to have a deity, but all of them (except righteous might iirc) have different effects depending on your deity. Do you just choose one of the options as a non-worshipping character?

As for the main thrust of the thread, I used to be in the camp that all characters should be able to get expert in any armor or weapon of their choice, but having thought on it I think the math as it stands make sense.

With fighter dedication and racial weapon feats it's not super hard to get expert in whatever weapon you want (worst case scenario you take adopted ancestry (human) into their ancestry proficiency feat line which can be for any weapon).

Expert proficiency is honestly fine for a weapon-using character. Just expert proficiency will have you hitting on a ~12 against same-level enemies, and most spell lists have some kind of buff that can make up the difference - tossing Heroism on yourself, for example, will always have your to-hit equal to or better than a non-fighter martial of the same level.

As for armor being impossible to get expert in unless you're a champion, that's a more concerning issue, but honestly even then it's not as bad as it seems - if your dex is 3 or lower, wearing medium armor you're trained in is as good as going unarmored that you're expert in, and if it's 1 or lower, heavy armor is BETTER than going unarmored even if the first is trained and the second is untrained.

I think the issue is more one of the system *seeming* unbalanced, which honestly can be as bad as it actually being unbalanced from a game design perspective.

However, if you choose to play it in a good campaign, you can simply not take that bloodline feat. Which seems fine to me as sorcerers have so many good feat choices anyway.

That's my current plan, yeah. My character is multiclassed into fighter so I have plenty of solid feat options.

I was just hoping I'd missed something because Diabolic bloodline has a solid offensive blood magic (+1 fire damage per spell level) and I was hoping Hellfire Plume would be usable since the bloodline spell list only has two damage spells on it, one of which is 9th level.

So I'm creating a Diabolic Sorcerer as my first PF2 character, and as far as I can tell, there's no reason why you'd ever take Hellfire Plume unless you were in an evil campaign.
Half of the damage it deals is evil damage, which ONLY affects good characters which you'd rarely by fighting in most campaigns. So for all intents and purposes, it only does 4d6 fire damage as a 5th level focus spell, which is abysmal.
Is there something I'm missing, or is this spell only intended for evil campaigns? (If so, embrace the pit has the same problem in such a campaign, due to the enormous weakness to good damage).

I seem to recall seeing somewhere one of the devs explaining why MC archetypes seem lackluster at first glance.

I don't have the exact quote, but the gist was that broadly speaking, class features give additional power and feats give additional options. Since an MC archetype is trading feats and not features, they are designed to give additional options but NOT additional power--since you still have full progression in your base class, you should always be on-curve in terms of raw DPR just from that.

This is why, for example, rogue MC sneak attack only goes up to a d6, Barb MC rage damage doesn't scale, etc.--its EXTRA damage on top of what your class already gives, not trading damage (or healing or whatever) from your class for damage from a different class.

It calls out crane stance and ironblood stance because BOTH have a requirement that you only use a specific unarmed strike, making them incompatible

There seems to be a lot of discussion about when classes can get weapon proficiency bumps. Can you summarize what level different proficiency bumps come online for each class?

Personally I want an archer bard, so likely a dip in fighter for archery feats anyways (since they seem to be class gated), but will I be behind the non-fighter curve having come from a caster class? When do other martial classes get master proficiency?

Yes, you'll be behind the non-fighter curve. It's impossible to get better than expert proficiency in weapons if your main class is a caster, and they don't get it til level 11 (and you can't get expert in weapons your class doesn't give access to til 12). That said, from what I've seen expert prof with level-appropriate magic weapons will still hit on like an 11-12, and you can make up the difference with buffs/flat-footed/etc, so a gish with caster as the main class can still do ok.

It's worth pointing out that while people are straw-man-ing about asking for pure casters to be as good as martials, this issue applies even to casters who multiclass into a martial class that isn't fighter.

A wizard who takes the barbarian multiclass will do *more damage* with a staff than a cool, thematic barbarian weapon like a greatsword, because not only will they be more likely to hit with it, they don't get weapon specialization damage because they're not expert, so a d8 weapon you're expert in does the same damage as a d12 weapon you're trained in.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask that someone who has put significant resources into being barbarian-y be as effective with thematically appropriate martial weapons than with whatever different sizes of sticks paizo thinks wizards should be able to use.

Did the Rod of Wonder make it into the game?

Yes, it did. Can be used every 1d4 hours, list of effects are unchanged from the playtest afaik. A pretty cool item, I didn't see it when I was flipping through the playtest!

As someone who both has the book and is currently playing a Sorcerer/Barbarian in the playtest, I think that things are generally fine as they are for weapons, but that there really needs to be more ways to get better than trained in armor your class doesn't give access to. There's a fair number of ways to get expert in weapons that your class doesn't give proficiency in, and if you're doing a gish build then there's a good number of buffs that can make up the difference in to-hit (personally I use heroism). However, the ONLY way to get better than trained in armor your class doesn't give proficiency in is to MC champion, which doesn't work thematically for the vast majority of builds. If your class doesn't start with armor proficiencies, the earliest you can get heavy armor if you're not a human is level 11, and at that point you'll have more AC unarmored when you get expert proficiency in unarmored defense in 2 levels. It's pretty ridiculous that pretty much any gish WILL be wearing no armor because armor would reduce their AC.

nohar wrote:

i still don't quite understand how xp works in the new system...the playtest rules didn't explain it well to me and since doomsday dawn didn't award xp i never got to see any examples in action...hopefully the final rules will do a better job of making me understand...

I'm a bit confused about it as well. I was hoping Stephen would go into more detail about that, but it got skipped for juicier parts that would be interesting to more players.

It seems weird to me that it only takes 1000xp per level instead of an increasing amount each level.

Assuming it works the same as the playtest, XP is now based not on the actual CR of the encounter but rather the encounters CR relative to APL. So for example a CR 5 encounter would give a level 3 party 400 XP (or whatever) while the same encounter would give a level 7 party 200 XP. this way, you get more XP for punching above your weight, but the amount needed to level up can stay at a nice neat 1000 XP/level.

It's also worth noting that most systems that incorporate failing forward do not have a binary pass/fail system - it's not "succeed vs succeed anyway but at a cost" as many here are suggesting, but rather "succeed vs succeed but at a cost vs totally fail", where failing forward falls largely into the middle category.

That said, most games that use a system like this also have a mechanic in place to prevent "stagnant failures". For example, in PbTA games, on a total failure the GM is directed to take a "hard move" introducing a new, pressing, and dangerous wrinkle to the situation.

To use the example of picking the lock on a door, a total success would be picking the lock, a partial success would be making noise and guards opening the door to fight you, and a total failure might be something like failing entirely to open the door, and being attacked from behind by guards you had previously snuck past.

Another interesting take on Witch hexes might be to have them function similarly to many class abilities from Starfinder, with an at-will effect and then a stronger version of that effect that requires spending a Resolve Point (or in this case a focus point).

Speaking of Starfinder, I'm currently working on converting the system as a whole to use playtest rules (to be updated to the full rules when I have them), and it's surprisingly easy! Almost all the classes have a "choice of feature every even level" chassis that's pretty trivial to map onto class feats, and very few of those features reference numbers much so there's not a huge amount of rewriting to be done.

Title, pretty much. They have almost identical damage scaling and similar fluff, and it might help broaden both the utility of weapon crystals and how many different things you can do with a vanguard.

First, let me preface this by saying that I am a big fan of the majority of PF2, and in particular of the tighter math therein.
However, as I read through the CRB, I realize more and more that there's a huge design flaw in that tighter math, which is that virtually everything has been reduced to a +1 or 2, (which, again, I like), EXCEPT for the fact that your level is added to pretty much every roll you make.
This means that your level is orders of magnitude more important to your rolls than your actual character decisions-- a 20th level fighter with 8 intelligence who is untrained in Arcana is three times as good at arcana than a 3rd level wizard with 18 intelligence who is an expert in it.
In my opinion, and I will likely be enacting this as a houserule and adjusting DC's accordingly, this rule should just be removed entirely, and the proficiency bonus should instead be a simple -2/0/+1/+2/+3.

As much as I agree with the fact that this reading would make it kinda underpowered, I think it definitely does the damage removed (i.e. 1 at level 1), first because that's the way the rules text reads to me and second because that seems to fit the ability's fluff better; you're sharing the pain with the enemy, so you're removing damage from yourself and putting the same damage on them.

Can anyone who's already recieved their pdf give us some tasty details? I'm going crazy waiting for my order to ship!

Please cancel m Starfinder core products subscription
Thanks