Dr. Aspects's page

I mean to me it’s obvious they’re going to nerf this in the future. The dedication is powerful and steals too much of the Exemplar’s class identity. So why not just tell your players you aren’t comfortable with them using the dedication until it gets fixed?

That way you still can allow them to play the class, but the dedication is off the table until it’s brought into a territory you - presumably the GM - finds acceptable.

No, it’s not necessarily fair to allow the class but not the dedication, but it’s pretty clear that the dedication as of right now would be too strong on a vast majority of martials with - as far as I can tell - only the Magus not getting much benefit.

But sometimes communicating an issue with your players is the only way to move forward. I trust Paizo to fix this if not immediately after release then fairly soon after. At that point, I hope it’s in a good state. If not, my players will understand and just not use the archetype.

I really, really like animist's whole deal. Animist, and the covenants that are releasing in Divine Mysteries, have me more excited to play a divine character than I have been in, well ever.

Ooh, I hadn’t heard about covenants yet, what are those?

I have yet to fully ban anything wholesale, with the expectation that your choices should fit the setting or story that we’re playing with. My players are particularly good about “characters first, opitimized second” so they tend not to take incredibly overpowered options just because they’re strong.

If I ban anything, it’s going to be some sort of overly broken build or a rare option that doesn’t fit the story we’re doing c and in the latter case it’s almost always more of a “justify this and we’ll go from there.” rather than “you can never do this, ever.”

LandSwordBear wrote:

I’m pretty disappointed with Dragon Transformation too. Being able to turn into a dragon just because you are upset is…a bit silly.

Let's not exaggerate here.

It's not just because you're upset.

"or after watching a marauding wyrm burn your village"

It's because you're REALLY upset.

Downright peeved one might argue.

Dr. Aspects wrote:

So you have yet to see the Exemplar yet? You are basing your opinion on it entirely off the dedication? Because what I very obviously meant by saying “widely considered” is that nearly everyone who DOES have their copy, and HAS seen the class, and are weighing in on their takes believe the class to not only be fine, but to be perfectly balanced.

Until you have read the class proper, your opinion on its balance is speculative at best and doomsaying at worst and is of no interest to me in turn.

More subscriber gatekeeping. "We got the book early, you can't have an opinion on it/your opinion is invalid until you get the book too." This crap happened with the Howl of the Wilds with the ancestries, where people listed the printed rules as already known fact by expecting you to be a subscriber just like them and have the same knowledge they do, and when it turns out you're not, you're labeled as something worse than a bottom class poster, and you get ridiculed and villified for it.

We really need to have a subscribers-only messageboard where you people can just keep these discussions to yourselves, since apparently our opinions and statements on said content is invalid simply because we don't have access to the content yet.

As I have said, you can have your opinion. I have no issue whatsoever with that. But as someone who has read the class properly, I have no interest in the opinion of the willfully uninformed.

The class has been reviewed by multiple YouTubers like Nonat1s, the Rules Lawyer, Wisdom Check and Phoebe Bane.

Perhaps you should check those out if my “gatekeeping” is ruining your experience. If you choose not to do so, that is your choice. Until then, I will continue with my “gatekeeping” and not argue with you on mechanics that you do not know or have read.

Thank you.

Dr. Aspects wrote:

The Exemplar Dedication is busted, as Angwa acknowledged. In fact, they acknowledged all of your points except one as a negative. The Exemplar class itself is widely considered balanced to other martials, so I would love to hear exactly how out of balance it is with something like a Fighter or Barbarian in your opinion.

As for the unaddressed point, +8 is supposed to be swingy at low levels. Thats the entire point of giving it to you at low levels. You can not like it, but to some degree mythic is meant to break the conventional math. There are issues that may pop up, but pretending like this is somehow unintentional or against the point of the game is missing the point of mythic.

Also Exemplar isn’t part of mythic. It is a base class that has mythic themes. You can use an Exemplar in basic play the same as a fighter, it just won’t fit as easily. Hence the rare tag.

How can a class that is only recently released to subscribers have a "widely considered" opinion about it whatsoever? It's not like the majority of Pathfinder players are subscribers, so that's not a realistic claim. The book hasn't even hit the streets yet, and we are somehow calling the class something that may not even be called that by the public, even if simply because nobody else has had their chance to draw their own conclusion. And no, playtesting and its consequential results don't count because the class may not be the same as that product. This is like a movie trailer with statements like "Critics are raving" and other similar false advertisements, and taking them for face value instead of waiting for the movie to actually be seen in theatres for the public to criticize it, whom will probably have a stark contrast viewpoint from it. And really, if we were to take the Exemplar dedication as a "teaser" for the main class, the expectation that the class will also be broken isn't an outlandish conclusion to draw.

So you have yet to see the Exemplar yet? You are basing your opinion on it entirely off the dedication? Because what I very obviously meant by saying “widely considered” is that nearly everyone who DOES have their copy, and HAS seen the class, and are weighing in on their takes believe the class to not only be fine, but to be perfectly balanced.

Until you have read the class proper, your opinion on its balance is speculative at best and doomsaying at worst and is of no interest to me in turn.

I have no interest in arguing the point further. Ultimately this is your opinion on the matter, and you are obviously far more passionate in this than I am.

Angwa wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Any particular reason for that?

Well, we have the precedent from PF1, where Mythic broke an already broken game in many other ways. We have the speculation and posts from others on the forums here in regards to currently published Mythic options that either obsolete or hamper expected gameplay elements. And we also have personal stigmatisms for what the system is meant to accomplish being in direct contrast of what the stated design goals of the new edition was, which was to keep things in balance, not throw them out of whack. Put it all together, and you have a reasonable concern behind the system in question.

Eh, that seems a bit hyperbolic. Mythic hardly breaks the game.

Mythic stuff that needs a fix because it impacts too much of the game:

- Exemplar Dedication is indeed too crazy powerful. Martials benefit more, but there is OP goodies for all. Just disallow it for now or give it to all your players.

- Mythic Resilience I would for now give the same on/off treatment as Resistance, namely mythic characters automatically bypass it. Casters are screwed over more by Resilience, but honestly, this is just anti-fun for everyone at the table. Almost every character has abilities which require an opponent to make saves.

Mythic stuff with a smaller impact on the game but that could use a second look:

- Kineticists. Either some Mythic feats below lvl 12 specifically for them, or added text on enough existing feats allowing for their blasts and impulses to benefit. Perhaps even a Destiny specifically for them as their mechanics are so walled off from the rest of the system.

- Rewrite Fate vs Calling's mythic proficiency boosts. Your Calling should define your signature bad ass area of expertise. My current fix would be to only let those boosts cost a Mythic point if you get a success or higher.

Really? So features that outright nullify spellcasters and other save-based effects are A-Okay? And...

The Exemplar Dedication is busted, as Angwa acknowledged. In fact, they acknowledged all of your points except one as a negative. The Exemplar class itself is widely considered balanced to other martials, so I would love to hear exactly how out of balance it is with something like a Fighter or Barbarian in your opinion.

As for the unaddressed point, +8 is supposed to be swingy at low levels. Thats the entire point of giving it to you at low levels. You can not like it, but to some degree mythic is meant to break the conventional math. There are issues that may pop up, but pretending like this is somehow unintentional or against the point of the game is missing the point of mythic.

Also Exemplar isn’t part of mythic. It is a base class that has mythic themes. You can use an Exemplar in basic play the same as a fighter, it just won’t fit as easily. Hence the rare tag.

Ok, I haven't seen the specifics yet, but are you saying that the book explicitly prohibits Kineticists from participating in Mythic play, or are you saying that it merely doesn't specifically mention the class in the book. (i.e. it doesn't feature a class archetype like it does for ranger/vindicator)

Because my understanding is that it presents new mythic archetypes, a couple new classes good for Mythic but not necessarily requiring it, and some new class archetypes to give classes some Divine spark to them.

It wasn't my understanding that Kineticists should be prevented from being able to participate in mythic play, but it doesn't surprise me that they didn't get a featured class archetype in this divine book. I don't think it reflects at all saying that Paizo won't provide new content in the future for Kineticists that makes sense in the future.

Every book in the future won't have a piece for every part of every past book. Otherwise future books would never have enough room for any kind of real theme, nor likely enough room to actually make any growth feel like it is really even significant.

As it is, as the game gets more mature, it will mean the newer classes may need to have larger starting page counts to compete with some of the options available to older classes. I think with Rage of the Elements being a pre-remaster, but remaster-compatible at publication it will definitely get future support, when and where appropriate.

Basically the biggest issue is that there’s no specific mention of where Elemental Blasts or Impulses work with the archetypes presented.

As a Kineticist doesn’t strike or cast spells, there’s no way for them to really take advantage of feats that require one of those with their main weapons.

It’s less “can’t play mythic” and more “have no consideration in the text for their specific thing”

Dr. Aspects wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

I'm positive it needs errata.

They’ve already stated it will have errata in the fall.

I would like to know where you read this from. I need something to get my hopes up.

The alternate mythic rules document contains some minor errata and at the top of that page it says that errata for WoI will be released for Fall 2024 Errata cycle.

Have we just backdoor turned kineticist into a variant class by locking it out of the mythic rules?

Or is the panic I keep seeing passed around groups and chats I'm in unfounded and the class actually does work with the mythic system?

I'd worried when Rage of Elements came out that this would be a 'one and done' book and Paizo would thereafter act like the class never existed. It does get mention in newer APs on the 'what class is appropriate or not appropriate' for this or that adventure. But if that's the extent to which it ever get mentioned again, is it essentially 'done' and not actually part of the 'game canon' anymore?

Do we need errata, or just someone to re-read the mythic rules and explain how it wasn't actually left out?

The Kineticist as RAW is, as far as I can parse, not compatible with mythic play. I’ve seen some good homebrew for it, but until either Mythic or Kinet get an errata to fix the EB issue, there’s nothing for the Kineticist to utilize with their impulses or EB.

Oh I know people in general like the book, obviously they wouldn’t be so passionate about it if they didn’t, but it does feel like the negative talking points have strongly outweighed the positive.

It seems like the negativity is effecting those that don’t currently have some way to access the book into dreading its release whether because the mythic stuff is disappointing or because the exemplar dedication is overturned, or any number of talking points that come out.

I do think that there’s a lot the book could do better, but I want to balance the discussion a bit. That way people can see what’s great about this book - like the lore, the class stuff, the combat fishing pole - and balance that against the negativity.

Again, I’m not looking to disarm valid criticism, but valid criticism without equally valid praise makes the whole product look worthless for those from the outside looking in, if that makes sense?

Hey guys! So I noticed that on here and on the subreddit there’s a rather massive amount of negativity surrounding this book, and it seems like it’s causing a sort of negative echo chamber feedback loop so I want to try to break that up a little!

So what’s some positives for War of Immortals? What do you like? What is your favorite thing about it? I’ll start!

I love the Animist! Genuinely one of the coolest designs I’ve seen for anything in a tabletop. In fact I think both classes are absolutely masterworks of game design.

And I know this is probably controversial, but I actually really like the Vindicator! It’s a bit clunky mechanically but I’ve been playing one with my roommate who has his pdf copy and it’s absolutely so much fun to roleplay and I’m doing really good damage!

I know this book isn’t perfect, but I also just want to know what people like after the last week or so of hearing every negative opinion a person could have on the book from every community.

Let’s hype up the community for what is - for the most part - a pretty great release as we wait for the full public launch!

Wait. Enthrall isn't an emanation. It has 120 feet range and targets "all creatures in range" instead of "any number of creatures." Does that mean the caster can end up fascinated with their own spell?

I am almost entirely certain that is not RAI, but I guess if that’s how you want to run it?

Squark wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

There is no art, it's presented as the chapter opening for the Mythic Vault part of the book.

** spoiler omitted **...

You’re a gem! Thx!! And RIP ** spoiler omitted **

You can also press F to pay respects for:

** spoiler omitted **

I'll say one final thing I found funny, leave the rest for when the book comes out: several people in Razmiran have been empowered by the Godsrain and are challenging good ol' Razmir, but the man has not stepped out to fight (yet).

Good. About time that faker finally got some come-upits for his scamming.

Tactical Drongo wrote:

So I guess the Osiriani people now have to pick up regular inner sea faith

Eh, wouldn't be surprised if some of those faiths already had a presence there. Sarenrae through contact with the Keleshites; Anubis is mentioned to have a connection with Pharasma, so I could see his priests switching over to her or one of her Ushers.

And I'm sure Rahadoum is sending people to offer aid to a nation 'abandoned by their gods' while distributing literature about the Laws of Mortality.

Rahadoum is busy having an existential crisis. People randomly getting divine power from rain has caused a lot of controversy.

I'm not so sure it'd be that big a deal, at least, no more so than elsewhere. The position of the laws of mortality isn't that "Gods don't exist" it's that "Gods aren't worthy of worship".

If anything, the heavily armoured god of war being shown to be as vulnerable to death as any mortal is a good advert for the laws.

shroudb wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Well, given that it is Spirit damage, it won't do anything to constructs, so they have an innate weakness to them that other classes don't.

So... Precision Ranger, a very common edge, has a "weakness" vs stuff that are immune to precision damage?

The Vindicator's edge will also boost the rest of your spells vs the constructs, so stuff like fire ray and such taht aren't spirit damage do get benefits from the hunt target.

Plus, even vs constructs, the Vidndicator's mark still gives the flat damage boost (since that's just "additional damage" and not spirit damage) while the Precision ranger has nothing.

Same with Rogues. Plants and Oozes are their bane; I should know, I've fought them before, and they absolutely tanked my damage.

So the solution becomes "Just use a different focus spell." Meanwhile, the rest of your damage options absolutely tank as a result. Granted, I suppose that might be a fair price to pay, given that they have the absolute best proficiencies in the game (Legendary Perception, Legendary Reflex, Master Fortitude, up to Master Will, Master Martial, Legendary Spellcasting). Legit, the only thing they are missing is the skill feats/training from Rogues, and they are the most broken subclass there is.

I’m not sure that the other damage options tank necessarily. As was already stated, the only Spirit damage on Vindicators Mark is the initial hit, and the 2d6 from dismissing it so your bow or deities favored weapon of choice will still be dealing an extra +2 damage.

If you make your wisdom your secondary stat, you should have roughly the same to hit chance with focus spells on your prey as your weapons for the first few levels at least.

Spirit is also among the least resisted damage types in the game as of right now, which makes it ideal in such a wide variety of circumstances that constructs being immune is hardly a major drawback.

You can also grab domain spells as Warden Spells so say you’re a Vindicator of Sarenrae, just take Fire domain and you get plenty of options.

Is it an absolutely broken class? No, but I hardly think it’s unplayable.

So I guess the Osiriani people now have to pick up regular inner sea faith

Thankfully they at least have Nethys and (according to Mummy’s Mask) Pharasma to fall back on!

I’m not entirely certain this is all that bad outside of the inherent MADness of being a Warden Ranger.

The spell isn’t a sustain, so you cast it once on the boss and the rest of your turns are almost free. On top of that, if your DM lets you use Hunt Prey out of combat (Basically just give you a way to track your enemy), the two action spell will still leave you with an action left!

On top of that it has a 60 foot range. So you don’t have to be close to use it. I think that for the most part, the action economy is a bit front loaded, but it’s hardly crippling.

I don’t think there’s really a canon answer to this, but for me I think the Chalice just fills when you’re able to use it. Like, it’s empty when you drain it or when you have no intention to use it and then it fills on its own when you intend on using it.

In my head it’s something like… the implement can sense your need through your thaumaturgical resonance and automatically fills with the life giving liquid, but only once every ten minutes and it disappears if you have no intention or need for it.

A savage pack of wolves looking for easy prey might target the weak seeming familiar over the heavily armored fighter, but generally genetic bad guy #43 will ignore the pesky cat unless it makes itself a problem in my games.

So I’m not a balance expert or anything so I won’t come at this from that angle. But I do think I have something valuable to add in that; as someone who came from the Fifth version of the Dragon game, as both a player and a GM, I don’t think player characters should have crazy high resistances or even immunities unless they’re paying a decent cost for it.

In my experience as a player, those resistances will just make GMs not use the types of monsters that would affect them and as a GM, I found that they often trivialized encounters for that one character if I did use the monsters that would target their resistance/immunity. Based ENTIRELY on personal vibes and experience, I am perfectly okay with the cheap resistances being somewhat weaker.

Can I get some details on some of the new apparitions? Specifically the Crafter in the Vault, Echo of Lost Moments and the Monarch of the Fey Courts?

What new apparitions are there? Just titles are fine, I’m not sure how much you’re allowed to share.

Honestly I’ve enjoyed my time on the forums so far. I only joined last week but I’ve felt that for the most part it’s a significantly friendlier community than the subreddit or the discord, though maybe that’s just my lack of experience here so far.

I often feel dogpiled on the subreddit and the discord is so active it kind of scares me off since I can’t really get a conversation going unless I have time to do so.

I will admit that the archaic site design is bothersome though. Hopefully they update that soon.

It appears that the spell lets you use the dragon to do a ranged strike with its action, so as far as I can see; yes. Yes it would!

With mythic spell, can I raise an entire island from depth of the ocean, just like Aroden?

Well if not, you can at least raise an entire ocean from around an island!

I’m not sure if this is the right place for asking about this, but I don’t think it really cleanly fits anywhere else, and I’m curious.

So to me one of the biggest advantages of pathfinder 2e is that you could play multiple characters of the same class and still manage to make two wildly different characters.

And as I have been attempting to make a solo game for myself for some time now, I wonder if I might be able to take this to its logical extreme and make an entire party off one class.

And I think I want to do so using what is generally thought of to be one of the weakest classes in PF2e. So I have a question that I may post on the subreddit as well.

How would you make an entire party of alchemists? I’ll be playing with the rules my group nearly always play with since that’s just how I like playing, so the rules are you can use ancestry paragon, free archetype, and gradual ability boost. Each member should use any of the different subclasses, but no duplicates. And they should fill a different role for the party. I don’t want a bunch of bombers or mutagenists. Oh and remaster rules only.

And before I get comments, I do understand this is ridiculous and unbalanced. That’s the point to an extent. I want to see how far this can be pushed with one of the most underpowered classes in the game.

If this fits somewhere else, please let me know. I’m new to the forum and I’m not entirely certain where this should go.

Thank you in advance for your replies!

Castilliano wrote:

One might also think of Figment like a photo, where putting a torch image in shadow is as disjointed as if putting it underwater. It looks like it's there, but it isn't interacting as one might expect.

Well, if we are talking modern comparisons, an illusion is a 3d model which doesn't have correct lighting in a computer game :) And no physical interactions.

Oh so whenever I code something, I’m casting Figment. Now I just need to learn how to cast something else…

As a player who chose the Magus as their first class, I can confidently say that I saw some slight issues with it. The action economy was in fact slightly cumbersome for me.

If I wanted to fit in any of the neat actions like Recall Knowledge, shove, trip etc. I had to sacrifice either my Spellstrike itself or my movement, and that did feel kind of crummy.

These days? As a more experienced player, I definitely see the Magus as a great class that desperately needs some way to use their intelligence and vary their turns.

I think not casting spells that require saves or attack rolls is fine, but to be honest it does hurt my idea of the class fantasy that the spellblade who studied both the blade and the spell tome effectively only needs to be slightly more intelligent than average. And that’s only if they become psychically attuned at a higher level.

I do also find their class turns repetitive but I don’t know maybe I just haven’t played one enough to find a good turn rotation outside Spellstrike, step/recharge, repeat.

I doubt Imp will be a lineage.. but if they did do it, it would be extremely funny and quite wonderful if it makes you small sized(or maybe one size smaller) regardless of ancestry. You are just a small fiendish version of your ancestry.

I love the idea of a party of adventurers hearing that their new member is a Minotaur with fiend blood, and they’re imagining a massive brute only to get a member that’s shorter than the dwarf.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but illusion spells specifically target the mind, yes? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t it make more sense that it’s just triggering parts of your mind to make it seem like physical stimuli? In which case, it wouldn’t be creating light or sound so much as tricking your brain into thinking there’s light or sound.

With the 5 feet being louder and 15 feet being faint a trick to make it even more believable as physical stimuli. It’s magic pretending to be not magic. It’s trying to pretend to follow the laws of physics by manipulating your brain into accepting that it is.

So I wonder if "optimized" characters are really that optimized or if for most of them it's just a measure of accessibility.

I think this plays a bigger part in it than most people maybe realize. Complicated characters are - obviously - harder to play and thus require a higher level of system mastery to make feasible, let alone optimized.

A new player is most likely going to have a hard time making say an alchemist work over something like a fighter. But I’ve seen both played incredibly well.

I liked premaster Oracle because it made me really consider my actions in a way the other spellcasters don’t. I like melee magus because to get the most out of my class I have to really work for it.

I think it comes down to player preference in a lot of ways, and while I’m certainly not an expert in optimization I haven’t seen anything that was genuinely unplayable for me - well, premaster alchemist definitely pushed me in that direction but.

You can play almost anything in pathfinder 2e and as long as you have a basic understanding of your class, you most likely won’t be unplayable.

I always interpreted destroyed as there is nothing left.

else i see no reason to use distinction from normal.

I definitely interpreted this as more of a “the body is too far gone to be reanimated” thing rather than a “the body is gone” thing. I mean it makes sense for vampires and some other forms of undead, but all undead are destroyed when they die.

Does a skeleton leave no physical remains? What of a zombie? I mean vampires have lore and alternate media to support this, but many other types of undead do not. Just my two cents here though.

Can’t wait for WOI!

There's a 1e book called Lands of the Linnorm Kings that has encounter tables for all the different regions starting on page 53.

Thank you! Would this be roughly usable for 2e? I imagine that it would be for the most part, maybe some names or levels changed?

I’m looking for creatures/monsters that would be appropriate for a game set in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. Obviously Linnorms, and I think giants and their kin are common. What else could I throw into an encounter table?

Also what ancestries would be appropriate? Any class restrictions I should think about? I’m trying to make this as lore friendly as I can. Any help is appreciated!

Animist and by extension War of Immortals is my most hyped release of all time for Paizo. I really hope it’s as good as it looked in the Playtest! It sounds like an absolutely perfect way to make a unique caster class, and as someone who’s favorite class is the pre-remaster Oracle, I am down for a unique caster!