Dan Koscinski's page

I'm really excited for the Hunter, I like the flavour and idea for the class, but it is trying to live up to some really kick ass parents and it still needs a bit more work.

First, 6-level divine casters have a lot more work to do than 6-level arcane casters, primarily because full 9-level divines are still 3/4 BAB. In its first iteration, the hunter can be seen as a druid who dropped its most powerful spells for the ability to mimic magic items on itself. Unfortunately, this does not compare favourably to the druid's ability to do the same thing, but better, through wild shape.

Coming from the other direction, the ranger still has full BAB on the hunter, bonus feats that enable it to perform better in combat, and favoured enemy which gives it the untyped bonus that define combat-based characters in Pathfinder. Furthermore, the favoured enemy also applies to a ranger's animal companion, allowing it to actually participate in combat due to the otherwise poor accuracy of animal companions. These untyped bonuses have come to define combat classes in Pathfinder.

Thus we can see that the ranger remains a better combatant than the hunter and that druids remain better spellcasters. This means hunters need to embrace a more hybrid role than either, but cannot do so. As it stands, the animal focus ability does not allow the hunter or his companion the ability to keep up in combat compared to the accelerated spell access of druids or the favoured enemy bonus of rangers. The hunter has less skill points than the ranger. It also has drastically less class features than the druid or ranger to better its skill use.

I'm fine with them being enhancement bonuses, but the core class feature of hunter compares poorly to the transmutation wizard's ability to grant itself larger enhancement bonuses. Furthermore, the ability scales poorly compared to magical items, or even just the myriad spells that grant the same bonuses, if not better, than those offered by animal focus. The bonuses need to be increased to be greater than the magical items they equate to or at least need to increase at a faster rate than them. As it stands, the animal focus ability still compares unfavourably to many of the druid's spells that offer similar buffs. The hunter spell list also lacks the ranger's spells that make it even better in combat. The animal focus ability is arguably less useful and less flexible than the Inquisitor's judgments because the latter is a rare form of bonus that stacks with the usual.

To make a viable hunter in my playtest, I tried to focus on being some kind of hybrid. Archery is quite sub-par when not in the hands of a high BAB character with feats to spare, so I made a mounted skirmisher. The goal of the character was to remain incredibly mobile and utilize spells to control the battlefield while I lined up my charges. By using only charge attacks, I mitigate the problems with having a low BAB by making a single attack at my middling BAB with charge bonuses. On the turn I charge, I swift to switch my bonus to Strength, which is nice in its flexibility, and on other turns I can swift to a more relevant bonus. Love it. Furthermore, the existing teamwork feats are very poor for increasing combat numbers, but are good for defense. Being mounted, I am always adjacent to my partner, so I get a safeguard against surprise attacks, a bonus to concentration checks, and I never provoke from enemies who do not have reach.

The class is fun, but unfortunately I was still a burden to my team. First of all, my concept could just as easily have been accomplished by being a druid. I would have had more powerful spells for myself, my party and my mount. The main loss to being a druid would have been the turns I had to buff myself for attacking, but with warning of combat I could have pre-buffed myself to negate that entirely. The playtest was only level 4, but at higher levels a druid can also participate in combat by shapeshifting into a combat form, or can better skirmish by shifting into a nigh-invincible elemental.

Second, my concept could just as easily have been accomplished by being a ranger. My charge attacks would have been more powerful through favoured enemy or just more accurate when it didn't apply. My animal companion would have been weaker against targets that are not my favoured enemy, but that would be negated at higher levels with Instant Enemy. At the current level, a horse is durable enough that it would not have gone down anyway. I would have lost some spells for the superior combat abilities, but I primarily made use of 1st level spells with my hunter anyway. The additional skills I receive from ranger would have also allowed me to aid more out of combat, further supported by my favoured terrain.

For a greater focus on hunting with an animal companion, I would turn to the huntmaster archetype of cavalier. Rather than get an animal focus, the larger pack of animal companions get the untyped bonus of the cavalier's challenge ability and a lot of cool tricks that make them more useful in combat. Rather than just throwing out superior numbers, they get the ability to make free combat maneuvers and better flank their enemy. Huntmasters also benefit from teamwork feats on top of this, and get access to useful abilities to enhance their ability to hunt: Swift Tracker at a lower level than both rangers and hunters, quarry and improved quarry (later than a ranger, but better than never on hunter). The full BAB and feats of the huntmaster also allow it to utilize whatever combat style it wants alongside its pets, who are there to enable the PC to be better in combat - something the hunter desperately needs.

The hunter is in stiff competition with these classes for its position, and needs to be careful in carving out its niche. The description of hunter makes it want to be a pet class above all else, and this is fine since it does not step on the toes of any of the above three classes. Now the hunter needs some way to make its pet unique and relevant. Though it should be noted that their animal companion will be strictly worse than the Summoner's, because Eidolons are fully customizable and have a better stat-line to begin with.

I like animal focus for its ability to adapt to changing situations, making it a swift action is key to making it a useful class feature. I think it needs two definite boosts in power: (1) it needs to scale more quickly, and possibly to greater numbers to make it equal to or a step above the large list of things it competes with (permanent magic items, limited magic items [potions, scrolls, wands, staves], and spells with the same effect [most of which offer a better effect earlier, and with a longer duration]); (2) an expanded list of animals and effects, just looking to the spell Animal Aspect offers a wide selection of abilities that would be great to have as a swift action. The latter I expect to come out eventually, though one immediate bonus I would like to see is a boost to wisdom. This would allow the hunter to shift into a casting stance more quickly, and would help at lower levels by boosting the hunter's spell DCs. As it stands, a druid can better increase the power of their animal companion through quicker access to more powerful spells and by disabling their enemies with offensive spells, and they eventually access spells that the hunter will never touch. With more power on demand, the hunter will be better able to adapt himself and his companion to changing situations, which none of the other classes are capable of doing.

If you want to avoid making animal focus an untyped bonus, then perhaps consider adding in very specific bonuses for combat or skill related tasks. A bonus to CMB and/or CMD for a select list of maneuvers (Magpie: steal, disarm; Gorilla: grapple, reposition; Auruchs: bullrush, overrun), for instance. This still competes with spells, but given the direction you insist upon for the ability it will still be a boon to hunters because they can activate these bonuses as a swift action. For skill based animal foci, I would consider offering new movement modes to make them more useful or scaling their bonuses more consistently as well. A hunter can acquire a climb speed and its attached +8 bonus to climb checks well before 16th level.

The other problem with animal focus, specifically regarding the skill bonuses, is that a lot of these bonuses will need to last for more than 1/min per level. Tracking something by scent, sneaking through an area, or climbing over an obstacle can all take more than a minute, sometimes more than an hour. In recent sessions of my ongoing game, my players have had to track something to a farm 30 minutes away from the village where the tracks began, they've had to trek across an enormous mountain range over 4 days and have avoided packs of terror birds whose territory took a day's travel to pass through. The hunter's animal companion may have been of use throughout this, given its permanent animal focus, but the hunter himself would only be able to 'spike' his checks for certain sections of the journey. Given the length of time, I wasn't having them roll checks in 1 minute intervals either. It seems the hunter would be better off investing gold in magic items that provide the same bonuses as some of his animal foci, but have a permanent duration. In the same scenario, a druid is superior because they can wild shape into something that can completely circumvent these challenges and their ability lasts for hours. The relatively minor bonuses from animal focus could use a duration buff for the hunter themselves, or just make them last the entire day and be swappable as a swift action. This allows the ability to more safely compete with magic items.

Master Hunter should also gift the third focus to animal companions, rather than just the hunter. As it stands, this end cap ability is pretty lackluster.

With these buffs to animal focus, the hunter and their companion are still not on par with the three classes previously mentioned. The teamwork feats are nice, but more often than not are not more powerful than combat feats. Without granting untyped bonuses to allow the hunter and their companion to keep up with combat characters, they will need to rely on circumstantial bonuses: tripping opponents, blinding them, flanking, etc... The huntmaster and his companions already improve on many of these abilities, on top of the damage bonus they draw from his challenge ability. Rather than retread on the same ground, I think offering the hunter an ability to 'mark' targets for his animal would be more interesting for the class. To keep with the hunter's adaptable motif, I think the bonus should apply to any opponent damaged by the hunter, likely in the previous round. A +1 bonus on attack rolls at level 1 and every 5 levels thereafter shouldn't step too much on anyone else's toes, and the ability to mark multiple opponents at once shouldn't be too powerful because the animal will likely only be able to attack one anyway. This also allows the hunter to choose what they will do with the bonus, rather than the huntmaster being 'forced' to follow an attack with specific maneuvers.

Now, the cool thing with leaving it as 'damaged by the hunter' means the hunter doesn't need to be focused on mundane, physical combat either. The animal would also be adept at capitalizing on the hunter's use of damaging spells as well. By not being a specific action, the hunter is also more flexible than its competitors since it does not need to limit itself by spending an action to taking down a single opponent or a favoured enemy. The bonus also means that it can compete with a druid's high level animal buff spells, especially when combined with the hunter's own buff spells. Furthermore, it means the animal doesn't need to have the Bull or Tiger animal focus up in combat, and can remain a sentinel against additional enemies or a harrier with improved move speed. Alternatively, it means that an animal with the Bull or Tiger animal focus up can make a difference in combat. This allows the hunter to control the flow of battle, rather than having to constantly be a step behind their enemy when adapting to changing circumstances.

One more ability I would add is something to improve the bond between the hunter and their companion. To keep things simple, I would insert a class feature that allows them to aid each other more effectively, reducing the action required to aid another and increasing the bonus received when the two use it on each other. This is primarily to improve their skill use out of combat, but it also allows for greater flexibility in combat, particularly in situations where the animal companion cannot contribute effectively.

I hope the ideas here are of use in the development process.

Cheers!

I like how the bloodrager spell list invokes a more savage form of casting. Subtle spells make less sense when casting in a fit of rage, and I like that the spell list reflects that. Like others, I feel that bloodragers need some way to buff their spell DCs.

My suggestion would be to grant them their Constitution modifier to spell DCs while raging. This is a powerful ability, but in the hands of a 4 level caster will not break the game, especially since their spell list is predominantly evocation spells in terms of offense. If concerned about it, you could also limit the DC boost to spells that deal damage, or simply evocation spells. This would curb future abuse if archetypes or feats offer ways to get 'save or die' spells on their list.

In our 12th-level playtest, the bloodrager only took buff spells. This is because evocation spells tend to compare unfavourably to the damage output of a fighter-type anyway, so the class will need to do something to make casting a spell a competitive option. Even if unable to make a full-attack, our bloodrager was regularly slashing an enemy for 3d6+32 damage, which is better than many evocation spells. This changes somewhat against large numbers of weaker foes, but the typically low DCs coming from bloodragers means their meager 4-spell levels of AoE spells won't be hitting very hard.

The only damaging spells a bloodrager will currently want to take, in a 'power-gaming' sense, are ones that have a very important secondary effect, such as forcehook charge's distance crossing power or vampiric touch's life gain. For bloodragers who do not want to worry about carrying a ranged weapon, you will also see some long ranged spells like scorching ray (which also does not allow for a save, so is more useful to a combat-caster).

The other way to make these spells more viable is to allow bloodragers to quicken spells from their list while bloodraging. This means the spell is not competing against full-attacks. This ability can come in a few forms: limited times per day while bloodraging, once per bloodrage, or maybe when they confirm a critical hit while bloodraging. This makes it more enticing for a bloodrager to vomit gouts of fire while raging, which makes for an awesome image. My concern here is that it is still more likely to be used for self-buff spells, even with greater bloodrage's free 2nd level or lower buff spell during a rage.

To appease people who feel the spell list lost too much, you could offer a feat much like Unsanctioned Knowledge for Paladins. This would show the particular bloodrager taking more time to master their innate magical abilities rather than relying on the emotionally-charged spells that usually come about during their bloodrage.

Overall, I love the feel of the class and I'm actually happy that it doesn't have the same level of flexibility other spellcasters have innately. My group of players also has a love for barbarians, and they don't feel the bloodrager has replaced its parent. Barbarian still has strong uses and remains very effective in its own right from all the comparisons we have done to our previous barbarians. Sorceror is obviously it's own power still.