Clockwork Spy

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The thing that no one is bringing up is that no skill is based on Con. If you have to pump up two ability scores, and only one helps you with your skills, you are going to be lacking otherwise. Even if you fix the combat part, this still remains. And I agree that without the burn mechanic, it would make sense to make this a wis based class. But I wonder if they shouldn't just go the monk route of having the kas str or dex, and have the class dc based off of wis.


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And seriously, though, these playtests are genius from a business point of view. They not only allow you to make better product, they not only allow fans to feel like they are apart of the design of their game, but they are great marketing for the book that the playtest material is going to be apart of. That might sound cynical. But when people can make money by actually doing the right thing, they should be congratulated for it.


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Michael, I am glad to hear it. Both the inventor and the Thaumaturge came out of nowhere, and I love them. Don't stop these theme books. They are great (although, I wonder how much a non-themed book would have sold with those new classes in them). And I am glad to hear that there is more support for past content coming. Pathfinder 2e is not perfect, but it is my favorite game in the d20 system of games. It is a great problem to have that you like the game so much that you care about these niche options within it.


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I am surprised at just how many responses I received on this post, and am glad that we have managed to stay constructive (and there is a difference between constructive criticism and being negative). The difference between Paizo and WOTC seems to be that they actually listen to feedback from fans, and use it to improve their game. My intention was that this feedback might somehow get back to the developers.

But much of this thread has just convinced me that my initial hunch was right. Paizo is a creative company, and all they need to do is to create the space to let that creativity flow. This started for me when a gm decided to convert our game to Free Archetype, and suggested that I become a Ritual Caster. I liked the idea. It fit my character. But looking at the ritual list, I couldn't justify it. Then later I noticed the difference in amount of feat choices I would have when I was deciding between making a different character either an elf or a sprite (and Pathfinder 2e does need more high level options for pretty much everything). At this point, I just started to notice this situation popping up again and again.

As for analysis paralysis, it is our responsibility as people trying to bring new people into the hobby to help people past that (and yes, practically forcing people unto Pathbuilder really helps), and to be open to letting them change out things that don't work as they thought it would. And the great thing about 2e is that no choice is going to completely render your character useless (beyond choices of Stats). That was a problem with new players in 3.5/Pathfinder and even 5e to some extent. I say this as someone who started gaming in 90's. Where even in a deep blue part of the country, people thought DND was a form of devil worship.


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For those of you that didn't hear, Paizo considers the six "core set" of books to be the Core Rulebook, the Gamemastery, the three beastiaries, and the Advanced Player's Guide. They did say that they want each other book to be a contained, themed book. So if say people want to do a campaign about undead, they just pick up the book of the dead and can ignore everything outside the core set.

And back during the Dark Archive playtest, they said that they were slowing down new classes to come out at a rate of one new class a year, rather than two.


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Like I said. I generally love 2e, and the creativity that we are seeing coming out of the design team in these themed books, and I do not want this to stop. But I am starting to notice that it feels like things get released and then almost forgot about. Especially if it is not apart of the core set. You can see this in the amount of options for core vs non-core classes or ancestries (poor Shoony), And even in things like entire categories of items/mechanics (like grimoires and ritual spells).

I like how these themed books are pushing creativity in ways towards the theme. But I wonder how much it might be stifling creativity in other ways. One of my favorite things about Pathfinder 1e was all the quirky, almost random seeming archetypes that existed for each class. Now I wonder if we will see these kinds of class options, because they happen to never fit the theme of the books coming out.

So basically, I don't want the theme books to stop, but I wonder if there shouldn't be some non-themed random books as well. Books that are allowed to build more on what exists in the non-core set, even though it goes against the current business philosophy of Paizo. I love what Paizo has been doing, and I don't want these great ideas to just get buried under the next set of great ideas.


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I think the thing that you both are missing is that this gives the design team at Paizo the chance to really flex their muscles at creating a class that can bend their spells in different ways. For an example of how this could work, look at the Warp Space feat that the Psychic can already take. To my knowledge, this is not something that any class can do.This is how the class I suggested feels interesting. I have faith in Paizo that they can make this work, while pushing the game forward.


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The problem I see with the Psychic class is not that it doesn't have any good ideas, but that it has too many. And by trying to put all of them into one class, none of them have the space to feel flushed out.

There is of course slotted casters. The Psychic doesn't get enough slots to feel meaningful. And there is the idea of slotless casters. But the Psychic doesn't get enough unique choices here for that to feel interesting either.

And of course, you need some kind of cool new mechanism to make the class feel even more unique (something you guys have been hitting out of the Park with in P2e). The Psychic has two: the Amp system, and the rage-like forms.

This class should really pick one from each category, and try to flush them out to make them more interesting. What I would do if I were you is to make the Psychic a full slotted caster with the Amp system (turning the amps into something more akin to metamagic, but that take no actions). And take the slotless idea, mix it with the forms, and come up with the best anime inspired kineticist you can.

By doing so, you can take the time to make these separate ideas really shine. Oh, and add a Wis based Psychic, of course. I really want to play my Psychic Monk.