Easl's page

I want to see more for Kineticist. More impulses.

I'd like to see a whole new set of 'gate' options that are NOT elements, and with some; if taken prevent you from taking element gates.
- To expand that game design into other ideas.

Me too; give us some outer planes gaters. Boneyard, Holy, and unHoly kineticists. Light and Darkness. Maybe a 1st world gate that has Force (or is that too strong?)

For more impulses, I don't think the core 6 elements need much more combat stuff; there's already many more damage-dealing impulses than any one PC can take. But I'd like to see the range expanded into including exploration and noncombat impulses. They'd have to be pretty good to get players' attention though. For combat, a class feat allowing the kineticist to choose if their blast counts as a strike would open up all sorts of new archetype combos, and maybe create some new buff/debuff opportunities so the class isn't so self-sealed.

Thanks for continuing the posts! 8 PCs and 3 enemies looks to be chaotic...and long.

Using a rune to teleport an enemy to somewhere they don't want to be sounded like an excellent and cool use of runes. Though maybe next time don't use it on a crossbow-wielder looking to escape....

Waldham wrote:

To Escape or interact action, the opponent must grasp the weapon, no ?

Still not wielding

Y'know, if Jackie Chan was stuck through with a spear in an action movie, he'd start swinging his body around to take out bad guys with it.

Hmm. Maybe require a disarm action on the part of the 'stuck' person to wrest control of it from the original wielder, before they can wield it?

An issue with "everybody gets their ancestry's Weapon Familiarity for free" is the ancestries that don't have one would be at a comparative disadvatage...

You also want to avoid "must take" ancestry/class combos, which giving each ancestry unique free proficiency to an uncommon martial weapon could create. The feat cost serves to balance the value of the access to a special weapon against the 'opportunity cost' of getting some other benefit.

IMO this is not a big issue with the current uncommons. They just aren't that better. So I don't think OP's suggestion would be problematic. But as content expands and more ancestries (and their weapons) are brought into remastered, it's something that devs would need to watch out for. "Oh, if you're going fighter you should take Grackle so you can get that sweet sweet d10 reach trip agile finesse lethal d12 grackle stick."

Ancestry Paragon’s got you covered there.

Clearly I need to read the GMG more, because I missed that. Very cool.

However I can't see either this or the OP's suggested change making a major change to how the classes play. The true driver for exotic weapon use is pretty much the same as regular weapon use: attribute+proficiency. I.e. an orc wizard in the OP's system is going to swing her free feat falchion exactly as often as she currently swings her dagger.

Str or Dex?

I'd go Str unless you have a compelling build idea not to. It's the 'general melee' stat useful for most weapons, it adds to weapon damage, and it helps with wearing heavy armor. Desna's favored weapon is starknife though, which is nice in that it works with either a Dex or Str build. So either way fits your deity.

Grandeur or Liberation?

{shrug} up to you. I think grandeur is a bit more offensive, liberation a bit more defensive.

Human, elf, gnome, or halfling?

In the first couple levels, human and gnome's 2 extra hp will be useful...but in the long run, that won't matter. Human lets you start with an extra class feat, which is a very good ancestry feat, but no ability to see in dim or no light, which the others give you. Gnomes can get spells and fae-related things. Elf gives you extra movement, halfling has a grab bag of movement, luck, and mental toughness type things.

Pick your favorite! They can all be good and really, this is very much a personal preference thing. You really can't go too wrong here and you can be an effective champion with any of them.

Maybe even a domain spell if Desna has one or two Champions might appreciate?

Desna has Dreams, Luck, Moon, and Travel. Moon is a combat spell; you probably don't want it unless you plan on keeping your Cha high. Travel would be very thematic if you picked Liberation but it helps you, not your friends. Pick Luck (subject rolls twice on a save) for a combat bonus for your friends, or Dreams (+1 to int checks for an hour after subject wakes up) for a less direct support for them.

I'd probably go Luck or Travel.

**

Here's an idea for a "freedom fighter, little tank" concept.

Ancestry: Halfing: Gutsy halfing, Halfing luck. You may be little, but people are surprised at how well you shrug off blasts and mind control type stuff.
Background: Farmhand - for that classic 'everyman' hero backstory.
Attributes: Str 4, Con 3, Dex 1, Wis 1
Deity and Cause: Desna, Liberation
Consecration: neither. Because you're all about the freedom.
Devotion Spell: Lay on Hands. Its just generally useful and doesn't lock you into sword and board (but if you plan on sword and board, Shields of the Spirit is a fine choice).
Class feat: Deity's domain, because it sounds like you're interested in that. Domain: travel. Spell: Agile feet.
Skills: you choices above start you with Acrobatics, Athletics, Lore: farming, Religion, + 2 open choices. For this example, we'll take Medicine because it's spectacularly useful and Thievery because it lets you pick locks and disarm traps, which is consistent with our freedom theme.
Equipment: breastplate, steel shield, wooden religious symbol, adventurer's pack, crowbar, grappling hook. That gives you 2gp, 8sp left for weapon(s). Starknife is Desna's weapon but you don't have to pick it, and 2+ gp lets you pick pretty much any other martial weapon you'd prefer. Let's say...Longsword or Starknife. But consider: this is a combat-focused equipment package, which does not have the healer's kit to support your medicine skill. That's probably easy enough to pick up after your first session or two, but if you want to start "out the gate" with a healer's kit, pick chainmail, a wooden shield, and a cheap weapon like a shortsword, hatchet, or spear.
Quote "Hey you! Stop bothering that merchant and come pick on someone half your size."
Walk on song: Winds of Change by the Scorps (...but I'm an old fogie...)

You guys yourself demonstrate here that this only muddies things and needlessly complicates discussion.

I mostly agree. That's why I wouldn't base my GM decision on a treasure hunt through the rules beyond just what it says in the familiar and pet sections. Read those sections for what it says about abilities; apply the ability rules as makes the most sense for you or your table; be willing to adjust if actual play makes that seem like a bad decision. My 'best understanding read' is that the pet rules expect you can't take any pet ability more than once unless the pet ability itself says otherwise. But if some other GM read it differently, I'd certainly not object.

I would say that the 'same thing' is basically the same as saying 'the same source', is it from the same rule element? If so its a duplicate.

Isn't this exactly the situation with the Spellcasting ability though? It's a new day, you are doing your daily prep, and your familiar gets the Spellcasting ability. Then, it gets the Spellcasting ability. Then, if you're a witch, it gets the Spellcasting ability.

That is a duplicate effect, it is from the same source, and it references the same rule element. Yes?

Simply put. The two text for pets and familiars makes no mentions about picking the same ability twice. You could find it by reading between the lines but I feel like such a reading is extremely loose and most likely comes from our previous experience with the game as a whole.

My reasoning has nothing to do with the game. If someone tells me "choose two of apple, banana, orange" it seems pretty clear to me that they are asking me to pick two different fruits, and that they are not including the option of picking the same fruit twice.

So for me, It does read that you can pick the same ability twice, because you can. Or else you would not be able to pick Skilled twice.

Skilled says "You can select this ability repeatedly, choosing a different skill each time." So instead of being a counterexample it seems to me to reinforce the notion that you can't choose the same thing twice unless Paizo tells you you can. Why can I picked skilled twice? Because Paizo specifically said so.

Skilled is like if the fruit manager tells me "choose two of apple, banana, orange. You can select apple twice." The new 'you can select apple twice' add-on makes it more obvious that fruit guy does not mean for me to be able to select banana or orange twice.

It's hard to say if it's abusable or a balance problem to spend a bunch of familiar abilities on giving them a large HP pool, and keep in mind that this would need to hold up when familiars have low R spells via Spellcasting.

Since the familiar casts at the PC's spell attack modifier and spell DC, it's not just Bless or other 'auto-buff's we're talking about, we're talking about attack and save spells too. Or an extra 2a force barrage every round.

I don't want to say that "this looks so balanced I think it was the RaI all along" but it's surprising how well this permissive ruling seems to work considering that perspective.

I'm really skeptical it's RAI. But I agree it might work okay, which is why I said that if I were gming it, I'd let the player try it for a session or two before making a decision. Seems definitely in the realm of 'do what works best for your table.'

Feats and abilities by definition have an effect or benefit and there is otherwise no mention of limitations when picking selectable rule elements

IMO there is a mention of this limitation. PC1, page 259 "When you gain your pet, choose two of the following abilities..." A familiar is a pet with an expanded list of choices, but as a pet it still follows the "choose two of the following abilities" rule unless a specific exception is called out (as in the case of the witch familiar getting three). But again, I'd say reasonable people can disagree on whether "choose two of" includes "choose the same thing twice." It doesn't the way I read it, but maybe you read it differently.

The Spellcasting f.ability is perhaps most notable and worth discussing first, because for those PCs who do not regularly use their familiar's actions in combat, spending 1A to Command for a 2A spellcast can be seen as pseduo-action compression.

Choosing to slot that multiple times is costly, but the action time benefits seems to compensate for the much lower R spell limitation, especially for a turn 1 buff/debuff.

Familiars are pets and follow pet rules except where otherwise stated. PC1 p212 "You gain the Pet general feat (page 259), except that your pet has special abilities..."

The discussion of pet abilities starting on PC1 p259 says "choose two of..." which, in my natural language read, I would take to mean two separate things taken from the list.

So I would apply the 'choose two of' language to familiar abilities too, and say no double dipping the same ability. Just like a familiar couldn't take Tough twice, it can't take Spellcasting twice.

But this is just how I read it - I think reasonable people could certainly disagree. I'm also not sure how unbalancing a second round R1 cast is going to be on a L11 character (which is what Spellcasting gives, and because your first round cast is covered by the totally legal first take of the ability), so if I were GMing a home game and this is something a player really really wanted, I'd probably allow it for a session or two, see how it impacts the game, and then make a final decision based on empiricism rather than rules interpretation. One nice thing about familiars is that with the ability to change abilities each day, 'it no longer has the ability to cast both spells' is easily handled in-game, without retconning or story gymnastics.

Driftbourne wrote:

When you find options that work well for both roleplaying and game mechanics at the same time, this is what I'm calling Unified Roleplay Theory (URT)

I haven't had much to add after my 2 cp early in the discussion.

IMO, however, this should be the primary goal of playing or running a game. "Pure" roleplay divorced from mechanics or mechanical-only "builds"/"toons" divorced from roleplay miss the point: they are called roleplaying games for a reason; both the roleplaying and the game parts are essential.

I got the impression from the OP that they were talking about combat scenes. I.e. complaining that reddit commenters were criticizing any build that focuses a PC's combat capabilities solely on damage, to the exclusion of other combat maneuvers or effects (buffs/debuffs, control, terrain effects, etc.)

For sure, a good PC and game system supports multi-dimensional characters that are effective in both combat scenes AND non-combat scenes. But I don't think the OP was saying that redditors criticize them for not taking enough exploration, social, etc. feats. The issue was what the PC does in combat.

I don't follow PF2E reddits so I don't know if that's true, but I don't see much of that criticism here. If you come on these boards and tell people you're trying to build a dpr monster, they will probably help you do it, the same way that if you come on these boards and say you're trying to build a debuffer, they'll help you do that. There are a few requests that will likely elicit a plain old "don't do that" opinion (illustrative example: "help me build a melee martial witch"), but all in all I have found the folks here try to help posters achieve their stated character build goals rather than second-guessing those goals.

This whole guide is not just about ranged Eidolon but about a way of playing the Summoner

Yep. Small quibble but I think the Str eidolon is still a very good choice, even for this way to play. Tactically, if you are successful at keeping both eidolon and summoner out of melee range then you may not need the AC boost from the Dex build all that much. And if you aren't successful and want/need to switch to melee attacks or trips on an opponent who has closed with you, Str is better.

Overall I find the feat a good choice to increase tactical flexibility. It adds a new damage type to help trigger weaknesses or get around resistances, and it lets you stay at range when that's a good tactical choice. With that, energy heart, and the right eidolon selection your eidolon can easily have 3 different nonphysical damage types as early as level 2 to compliment the summoner's spell trait flexibility. So in my mind I don't need to justify the feat choice by trying to get the damage as high as melee and then trying to go 'ranged only.' It's not about matching the melee strike. It's about the option to bring third (and fourth!) action pain in situations where melee is not a wise choice, or when s/b/p isn't a wise choice. Your class is already a gishy switch hitter, so revel in the switch hitting.

The distribution is not even a real factor in actual play.

For example, if I compare TTK of 3d6 and 1d12+4 damage (which are rather classic damage values)

That's not the sort of distribution type I'm talking about, when I say distribution is important. I'm talking about Claxon's example of vicious strike vs. two strikes. Vicious strike is a three-outcome, three-modal distribution: miss, hit, crit. The hit and crit humps are more normal (in the statistical sense, and compared to two strikes) because you roll an additional damage die. Two strikes has 9 outcomes (Miss miss; Hit miss, crit miss, Hit hit, etc..) with 6 modes (outcomes Hit Miss and Miss Hit create the same damage hump, merely increasing the probability of getting it. There are two other pairs like that), with a relatively flatter distribution within each peak because at early levels they only roll 1 die and at later levels they are still 1 die 'behind' vicious strike.

Agreed, for something like a 3d6 vs. d12+4 damage comparison, the average is a pretty good metric and I also agree that small differences in average may be negligible in terms of rounds to kill. That's good. If it wasn't negligible, players would gravitate to a smaller set of options and the game would be less rich in viable options, more 'win through build'.

Hopefully, 'rounds to kill' is also very similar in most circumstances for the more complex comparisons like 2 strikes vs. one big strike. Because that allows both styles of play to be reasonably effective or at least good choices in a given circumstances. If one completely blew the other out of the water at all times, then again that would make for a less richer game. But my main point when I was replying to Claxon is that with complex multimodal distributions like that, a player basing their choice on a small difference in average is missing a lot of information which could be important to them. Like "why does my character miss more than Bob's" or "why do I always seem to roll much more below my calculated average than Bob does." These aren't just about bad luck, which a lot of players think they have. They are about choices.

I agree with Teridax on this. I don't like that I cant fully theme up on lighting by picking the lighting domain without really losing out on most of its benefits while cursebound. The curse could have been something that doesnt clash with a domain given.

But then would it really be much of a curse, if it only gave you -2 on the spells you never wanted to cast anyway?

I think it's in a good spot; doesn't affect all the spells a "tempest themed" caster might want to cast (that would be crippling). Doesn't affect none of the spells a "tempest themed" caster might want to cast (that would be a badly designed curse not worthy of the name). Does affect some. Making the curse painful at some times but one that can be worked around. But I also know you are a big fan of lightning/storm casters. :) So I can see how you'd prefer a different sort of curse - maybe something similar to battle's -1 to saves.

Personally I still view it as much easier to manage than some of the other cursebound 2 states, because the player decides and controls when it comes into play. The player chooses whether their character casts an affected spell or not. Contrast with something like battle cursebound 2, where the player has no control over what spells opponents may cast on their character, thus the curse's impact on the character is - in that way - harder to manage or control.

Its not the first time this ability has been discussed on this forum, Will not be the last either.

Yep. So for the OP - the player base is not settled on this, and we have yet to hear from Paizo as to which is right. So for now, use what's best for your table and we'll all hope that Paizo issues a clarification statement in the Spring 2025 Errata.

Easl wrote:

Distribution is important.

Your example works only because it's extreme but you won't find actual play example that reproduce it.

Actual play can reproduce something like this all the time, people just rarely get a head-to-head comparison because you don't often have two martials with comparable weapons donig everything the same except for two swings vs. vicious strike.

If you swing twice with a damage value of 1 (2 on a crit), 50% then 25% chance to hit, crit on a 20, the contribution to "average" coming from all the critting outcomes combined is 27%. The most likely outcome after complete miss is Hit-Miss, which will happen 33% of the time for a damage value of 1 per round.

If you swing once with a damage value of 2 (4 on a crit), same circumstance, the contribution to 'average' from crits (only one crit option, much simpler) is 22%. IOW less of the "average damage" is bound up in critting outcomes. Also, the most likely outcome after complete miss is Hit, which will happen 45% of the time for a damage value of 2 per round.

Crit hunting by swinging twice is just like my first die, vicious strike is like my second die. Just less extreme.

So why do some people not know this? Because folks who do the math typically only pay attention to averages and ignore distributions.

Bluemagetim, it's not quite about deviations from the average because these are not single peaks. A single attack is trimodal (with a 0 damage peak at miss, a damage distribution at hit, and another damage distribution at crit). While two attacks has something like 9 distinct possible outcomes (because damage is the same regardless of chance to hit, outcomes like Hit-Miss and Miss-Hit just add together), 8 of them being damage distributions, with some overlap. But this is why 'average' is not so useful; any time you have bimodal or multi-modal distributions, the "average" will be some value that sits between peaks and thus will be an outcome that you get a lot less often than many other outcomes.

Because the effect is so extreme of feat #1 in the example, it's not really a useful comparison because we need also need to look at the probability distribution (which is not a part of typical DPR)

Agreed, my toy example is extreme and much simpler than most real-game cases. But it shows how an odd distribution can result in dragging the calculated average higher than most likely value.

This could feel bad for some players. They'll get a "that guy on the internet told me what my average should be, but I never seem to roll my average" experience, which will disappoint them, and they won't understand why it's happening.

DPR calculators are immensely helpful when evaluating two specific character options.

For example, how will Vicious Strike (formerly Power Attack) impact my characters abilities...

The vast majority of calculations I've seen done merely calculate average. Now that's useful, but not the end of the story. Distribution is important. Multiple attacks vs. vicious strike is a good example; because multiple attacks derives more damage from crit hunting (and lower chance of complete miss), you can get situations where it's calculated average is higher but the most probable damage amount you get in any given round is lower.*

Using "average only" to decide what feats or strategies to use is particularly problematic given that you may only make 9-12 attack rolls per session. Thus, basing your feat choice or combat strategy decision solely on the average is to somewhat fall for the small numbers fallacy. I mean, it's a definite step up from no information at all, but it's not necessarily giving you the optimal strategy for every situation or every play style.

*For those who don't understand this, here is a toy example: imagine two feats each of which lets you roll a d20 and apply some damage. Feat #1 says: a roll of 1-18 causes 1 damage, a roll of 19-20 causes 22 damage. Feat #2 says: a roll of 1-20 causes 3 damage. The average damage of Feat #1 is 3.1, which is higher than Feat #2's average of 3. So all those calculations people run? They're going to tell you to pick Feat #1. Every time, all the time. No matter what. Because they only consider the average and base everything on it. But if two PCs are using these two feats head-to-head, the PC who picked feat #2 is going to do more damage most of the time i.e. on most rolls. So depending on your play strategy and the sort of combatants you face, Feat #2 could often be your preferred choice. The average is not the end-all, be-all of metrics.

Flame, Cosmos, and Tempest have effects I can stomach, though Tempest would be very situational. You definitely don't want to be getting hit by electricity while your curse is up.

Flame struck me as worse than battle. Battle may make enemy casters more dangerous to you, but Flame...if combat ends and you can't immediately refocus, Flame kills you in a matter of minutes. IMO it shoulda been something like "take damage when you cast spells."

It's a good thing the class is Cha/divine rather than Wis/divine. Can you imagine if your after-combat medicine guy can't stabilize a dying PC or heal anyone up right away, because going 10 minutes without refocusing deals them 100-400 points of damage? Stopping when they go unconscious, sure, but that's still bad.

What about 2 handed weapon fighting, like a maul? If there’s nothing good for that might stick to warhammer and shield.

Both are fine. I second Finoan's advice that...

you can't 'win the game' during character creation.

Build a character that is interesting to play...

You can discuss with your party if they want someone more tanky to take hits (warhammer and shield) or do big damage (2-H), but if you have a personal preference I'd just go with that. In the vast majority of parties either fighter build will be welcome, effective, and useful.

If you can't decide right now there are plenty of 1st level fighter feats that work with both. Combat assessment, exacting strike, and Sudden charge work with any melee combo. Buy a 1-H, a 2-H, and a shield and try out different styles in your first few combats, see what you like best. If you still can't decide, then at level 2 you can pick Lightning Swap and switch back and forth between 1H/Shield and 2H any time you want for a single action.

Last thought: Pathfinder lets you retrain your feats during downtime, so while taking these things may not optimize a single combat style at early levels, once you settle on the style you like best you can swap them out for different level 1-2 feats that support that style (assuming your GM gives you downtime...). So I'd say don't be afraid to experiment.

Once you've read through the character creation section and got the basics down, I recommend trying Pathbuilder (available as phone or desktop app) to create a PC. The free version covers pretty much all of what you need unless you plan on having an animal companion, and it will give you the remastered version of choices that have been changed (for a dwarf fighter, I doubt there's much difference).

You will probably want to keep your book handy to help you select your general and skill feats; I find dead tree browsing for long lists like that a bit easier personally.

You can also come back here and post your PC, and people will happily give you feedback and tips on how to improve it ('oops, you took a ranged feat for a melee character' sort of thing).

Pathbuilder will also print out your PC in a couple different styles, so that saves that hassle too.

I don’t know why the person from the email couldn’t just point me in that direction

The errata's release was very recent. Paizo staff also generally don't directly answer rules questions. They use the Paizo blog and (now) bi-annual errata releases for that.

They should still probably update the pdfs sooner than later and offer free PDFs with corrected pages. Especially with so many errors. Yikes!

Not sure of the pdf update schedule. But yes, if you bought Player Core 2, you will receive the updated version for free in your Paizo downloads area when that updated PDF is released.

My assumption, and the assumption of the majority of players I think, has been that this was also an error, but I am less confident now that it was not addressed in the errata. It's becoming a point of conflict at one of my tables, so I'd really appreciate some guidance!

Good catch....maybe.

The sentence your refer to is talking about spells selected for your repetoire, not spell slots. The table refers to spell slots. So without any correction, the sentence you refer to combined with the table would mean that at gaining level 3, an oracle PC selects 2 2nd-rank spells to add to their repetoire but can cast 3 2nd-rank spells per day.

Is that what Paizo intended? I dunno.

CRB has a lot of content in it which was remastered into the GM Core. So if you don't plan on buying GM Core, but you want access to it's approximate contents, your CRB is good for that.

Based one what you've all said I should definitely start with the GM Core and probably the Monster Core (it's a small group so guides on scaling will probably be useful, for instance, and I firmly believe you can never have too many stat blocks).

Gentle reminder that Archive of Nethys has ALL the monster stat blocks. For free. With lots of search filters you can use if you have a vague idea of what you want (e.g. "what does Paizo have that is level 3-5 with the fire trait"). I fully believe in supporting Paizo by recommending purchasing their content, however depending on how you run your games I would likely prioritize Player Core 1 over Monster Core, since PC1 has all the basic 'how to play' rules that your players may need to reference. This is especially the case if you plan on running Paizo Adventure Paths, because they will come with the relevant monster stat blocks "in the box."

I also give a thumbs up to Raven Black's suggestion that you try out the Pathbuilder app. It makes it super easy to build 90% of PCs. And if YOU know it, it makes it easy for you as the GM to walk a newbie player through character generation with practically no references to the books at all. That's what I did for my son, who was coming from D&D. No books, just pathbuilder + my guidance and he had a good starting character in about 20 minutes (Orc Wood/Fire Kineticist. He's loving it). The main caveat I'd make is that someone (you, probably, as GM) should familiarize yourself with the general and skill feats before you start, because those can be very long lists for players to sort through and it's probably good to prepare a 'short list' of feats they should consider to prevent analysis paralysis.
Pathbuilder can also export to Foundry, if you use that for your games.

I appreciate all your advice on the topic, thank you :)

Happy gaming, and happy holidays!

Player Core 1 and 2 have the key remastered classes and archetypes and key stuff to play a game, like action descriptions and equipment. I'd go with those if you plan on being a player in a PF2E game.

GM Core has pretty important stuff for GMing, but probably not necessary if you think you will be a player not a GM. I'd say ditto for Monster Core.

If you are on a tight budget I would browse around Archive of Nethys and see where that fulfills your support needs. Then make your purchases based on where it doesn't scratch your itch. Like maybe you're good with the class support it gives so Player Core 1 doesn't make sense, but you want a more expansive world description so you instead use your money to buy Howl of the Wild or War of Immortals.

I would personally choose not to invest in 'pre-remaster' individual books at this point. NOT because I think they are poor options - many of them are great - but because Paizo regularly throws a bunch of them into Humble Bundles, which come around 2-3 times per year. So for the older books, you may find yourself able to get a whole ton of them (in pdf) for a cheap price, if you are willing to wait for the next bundle. The newer material is unlikely to show up in those bundles, so that's where I'd focus my individual book purchases. But, that's just me.

Can you explain how you do interpret Breaker's 2A Trans ability? I honestly do not know how else to read it.

You read "4 plus an extra die of weapon damage" as a literal 4 damage plus an extra die. That isn't hard to do. At least I didn't think so.

Yes I agree, the "increase" word makes the reader want to link the transcendence text "...4 plus..." to the immanence text's "2 additional spirit damage per weapon damage die" to get the unstated effect "4 per weapon damage die plus...". On the other hand, "4 per weapon damage die plus an extra die of weapon damage" would be how to write what you are arguing for, and that's not what Paizo wrote. They wrote, simply, "4 plus".

Which is why I said the combination of the "increase" text but lack of "per damage die" text is a bit of a parsing problem, and that I would welcome Paizo telling us which one it is. I don't have a big dog in this fight, we don't have any exemplars in our game and are unlikely to get one. I responded because I thought your "zoom out" idea was a really good one, so I went ahead and did that, but my conclusion based on zooming out was that there's zero evidence Paizo intended the transcendence power of Titan's Breaker to be a scaled upgrade of the immanence power. They never do that with any other similar ikon. Rather, the argument for zooming out is that the transcendence power of Titan's Breaker being qualitatively different from it's immanence power is perfectly in accord with the way Paizo designed all the other similar ikons.

These days, I've learned that the first thing to do when reading something that seems unclear is to zoom out one level and read the surrounding rule context.

When you read Exemplar's other text around their Immanence damage, Tridus' reading is clearly the intent.

I agree with your first sentence but disagree with your conclusion. I went back and read a bunch of the other ikon entries that have "+X per weapon damage die" immanence effects, and in none of them does the transcendence effect provide a linear or simple upgrade to the immanence effect. Not Barrows. Not Gleaming. Not Hands or Harvest or Branch or Sheath or Starshot or Unfailing. In every single case, the transcendent power uses very different mechanics from the immanence power. So I would argue the reverse of what you're saying, in fact: if we zoom out and look at how Paizo relates transcendent to immanence effects in general, they do not intend for transcendence to be simply bigger immanence, because they never write transcendence powers like that anywhere else. So I see your "zoom out" suggestion as actually supporting the opposite conclusion - i.e. the transcendent formula being a completely different one from the immanence one, and a switch from "+2/die" to the very different "+4 flat plus die" seems perfectly in keeping with the immanence-transcendence differentness shown by the other damage-focused ikons.

But, I would definitely agree with a suggestion that Paizo tell us what they mean, because the inclusion of the word "increase" combined with the omission of "per weapon damage die" text is a bit of a parsing whopper. The sort of description that reasonable people can read differently.

You outright cannot perform game balance with multiple "specialists" getting different power levels from the same thing.

So I think when it comes to Necro and Runesmith what you would look for to flesh out (heh) "specialists" would be expanding their roles, not their to-hit or damage.

So just to create some illustrative examples off the top of my head, Paizo could for instance give the bone necro a bunch of feats that make it good at battlefield control - walls of bone, creating difficult terrain, creating concealment opportunities, etc. - while giving the blood necro feats that make it good at information extraction or manipulation (read the blood, making people angry or draining their emotions, etc.). And spirit necro could then be all about spirit interaction feats.

It's worth pointing out that we don't know Paizo hasn't already done something like this, since the play test freebie contains only a limited selection of the total feats that will be released.

Not sure what you could do for runesmith because the theming around it does not have so many easy tropes to draw from. But I like the suggestion above to go more Kineticist-like. Maybe make something similar to Impulse Junction and Gate Junctions; i.e. if you pick your next feat from the same grouping as your previous feats, you get some sort of bonus ability. But again, not something that increases to-hit or damage, but adds to movement, or to a skill, or some other secondary thematic concept (e.g. an Arcane runesmith gets a bonus to Arcane checks, or maybe has an easier time identifying Arcane spells and objects, or maybe can craft arcane magical items even without knowing the spells required). This can be balanced through the tension/desire to take 'the best feats of every group, and now I can do a lot of different things' vs. 'by specializing in one group, i might give up those other juicy feats but I get some bonuses to things which are not attacks or defenses.'

To get the hardness of an adamantine shield you should use the hardness given for adamantine shields on GM core page 233.

To reinforce, follow the GM core p232 guidance: ...every reinforcing rune includes maximum Hardness and Hit Point values. Since the runes work by increasing the structural integrity of a shield by a certain amount, they can’t increase the durability of a shield beyond a listed maximum value.

So for example, the L8 standard grade adamantine shield listed on page 233 has a hardness of 10. A L7 Lesser reinforcing rune adds 3 but only up to a maximum hardness of 10, so it would not add to the L8 shield's hardness at all. But a L10 moderate reinforcing rune could add it's +3 to that standard grade shield, because the shield's 10 + the rune's 3 <= the rune's maximum hardness of 13.

At least I think...

Teridax wrote:

Not directly related to the OP, but wouldn't it be simpler for the level-heightening on those runes to just be +1d6 per level, instead of +2d6 per 2 levels?

Kineticists uses the same basis. The most probably reason is to not make a progression different from spells (that most of them heightened every 2 levels). It's just a convention IMO.

With Kineticist they're all slightly different but as a general benchmark, they seem to have gone with 1d8 + 1d8 at odd levels, ending up at about a 45-55 ave damage for a 2-action, overflow impulse with some type of multitarget capability at L20. End game fire impulses go higher. The few non-overflow impulses are about half that, and the double effect impulses (i.e. gives damage and movement, or damage and healing, etc.) impulses also stay a bit lower.

But Kineticist was specifically designed to be about 1 rank behind max rank spell damage. 2d6 per 2 levels is more like the benchmark for max rank spell damage. Which honestly would not really be a problem, except that as Bidi points out the runesmith can apply 2 per turn, whereas casters and kineticists can at best do 1 big blast a turn maybe supported by a 1a much lower secondary blast.

If playtesters do confirm Bidi's concern about OPness as a real thing, then maybe making the secondary blasts lower is a way to fix it? I.e. Make a rule that if a single target is affected by multiple (different, of course) damage-dealing runes from the same Invoke action, they only take half damage from every one after the first. "The runes interfere with each other [magibabble magibabble explanation.]"

C_bastion wrote:

So on the number of Thralls created issue, do you think up to 6 thralls at level 1 would be too many?

I was wondering if something along the lines of "if you have no Thralls created by this spell, you make 1 additional Thrall when casting" would work?
That way you can't spam out too many bodies easily, but you can get the ball rolling.

I like the basic idea but tracking which thralls were created by the spell and which by abilities like Inevitable Return might cause too much headache.

How about making one extra thralls that's (even more) temporary?

Here's an alternative idea: create a "maintain thralls" exploration activity which keeps 2 thralls up and running. That way, Necros can begin combat scenes with some thralls on hand, but the mechanics of how to produce them doesn't change.

This week's game session began at Oda's Wondrous Creatures in Nantambu...

Very cool, thanks for the write-up. Doesn't sound like you got to flex your muscles too much this session, but I'm looking forward to the next installment!

I feel like Runesmiths are very much designed as a "support martial", ala the SF2E soldier. I'm kinda surprised to not see people engage with the class in the same way.

Am I off base? How have you thought of the Runesmith's role?

With only four in a party it's unlikely there will be a perfect other martial for every rune you have. Yes it's possible there's a Fighter in the party and it makes more sense to etch damage for them than for yourself. Or a Champion in your party who it makes sense to etch the shield rune for. But that won't be every party. In many cases, you might be "that guy." So the runes that buff shield, athletics, etc. should absolutely be written for both self-use and friend use.

But you sort of bring up a good point, which is that if they do want the Runesmith to be a support PC using runes on their friends, then could we see some runes focused on ranged combat and casting, so those party members can be supported too? Also, personally, I'm hoping the final version will have a few more non-combat or tactical/battlefield control runes. The game already has a ton of ways to buff damage, AC, etc. Give me more (somewhat) unique things like Homecoming.

Easl wrote:

Bidi I thought your considered the 1a melee tracing to be too OP that it breaks the class!

These are 2 completely separated problems.

No, they're not. One is the cost while the other is the benefit of the same play style.

Now I from what I can understand of your comments, it sounds like you would prefer if Paizo got rid of both. Or maybe the entire 'in your face rune caster' play style itself. Fair enough. But for those of us who don't want to get rid of both (or at least are waiting to see what playtesting reveals before supporting your nerf), they are absolutely related in that getting rid of either without the other leads that play style to be less balanced - it either becomes much stronger if it has all the dpr but none of the risk, or much weaker if it has the risk but dpr gets nerfed. Thus, related.

SuperBidi wrote:

As of now, the Runesmith optimal playstyle is a maelstrom of tracing/invocation with no Strikes.

And that is exactly what I want from the class for example. I don't want just another martial with a little trick here and there. I want to fill everything around a character with runes :)

I want both. :) That's what I like about it now. I.e. I want the class to have the flexibility to support multiple playstyles, from "regular tank with some pre-buffs" to "runecasting ranged wizardy type" with some "I'm a Gish that does a bit of both" stops in between. That, to me, makes for a great class.

I'm hoping that the folks who get a chance to playtest it report on all those styles, so Paizo can balance them out to be mostly equally effective. I would not like it if they made it only one thing or the other.

Players have complained a lot about Spellstrike triggering Reactive Strike. I think it's a clear information that there's no fun in that. Tracing Runes shouldn't trigger Reactive Strike somehow.

Bidi I thought your considered the 1a melee tracing to be too OP that it breaks the class! Now you are complaining that it's an unfun option because leaving the PC open to reactive strike is too punishing? To me that sounds like a high-risk high-payoff option where the risk and the reward are both big. Which may be fine (I'll hope to hear from the testers on how it works out in actual play).

But if we're whiterooming changes to make the class more fun without giving away that large damage potential risk-free, maybe a tweak could be: "you can increase the action cost of tracing by 1 to create a rune by sheer force of will, removing the manipulate trait." So 2a melee no-manipulate becomes another tracing option.

If you'll pardon my playing devil's advocate for a moment; The 1st-level Magus feat of Magus's Analysis does combine Recall Knowledge with recharging, with the caveat of recharging your spellstrike being contingent on a successful recall knowledge roll. I personally have not met the magus player who likes this feat, myself included. What would make your proposal different?

If they had changed the feat to give you cascade on any try (i.e. regardless of success or not), that would be sufficient at least with the people at my table. With us, someone RKs pretty much every combat with a new foe, so getting cascade when you do it would work with our standard tactics. I'm certainly not opposed to Kalaam's idea of having a couple more "do x and you get it" actions either, though just my personal preference, if I had to choose between "make it +2" or "make it easier to trigger" I'd go with the former.

Cool. Come back and give us the playthrough on a session or two!

I like your Zohk idea. Also good for sending someone way forward and then pulling them out of trouble. I don't know how all these runes will work out in play, but that one may have some shenanigans potential.

Easl wrote:

It works, but as I said above I don't think it yields anywhere near 'twice the output' of a fighter - not even one just using two actions to strike.

Graph with tracing trance (half of what you'd deal in 2 turns)

Why did you use AC high and Fort save moderate? That seems to be rigging it a bit, don't you think?

You can trace the same rune multiple times, but youc an only suffer damage from a given rune once per invocation.

Bidi's scenario is probably "trace Atryl (1a), trace Ranshu (1a), invoke both for 2d6 fire + 2d6 electricity".

It works, but as I said above I don't think it yields anywhere near 'twice the output' of a fighter - not even one just using two actions to strike.

Every round, you can Trace 2 Runes and Invoke them for 4d6 damage per "rank". That's way beyond Disintegrate (2d10 per rank) and doesn't cost any resource (even if it is only usable at melee range).

Someone forgot to make their math homework. As is, the Runesmith has twice the Fighter damage output.

At L1 with save chance set at 50% I get it coming out at ~10.5 dpr average, for 3 actions. That's good, but it's only about a point or two above several different martial configurations using only two actions to strike with to-hit chance set at 50%. And it's a point behind Arcane Sorcerer using a 3a force barrage on one target. Plus that strategy requires using constant manipulate actions in melee range, which I gather some players really hate to rely on due to the chance of being hit by reactive strike.

You can use a shield, traced runes, and a (held) weapon. Unless you commit to a buckler you can’t use them all at once. There’s nothing wrong with this anymore than a targe magus having to decide between the shield cantrip and 2H or 1H and real shield. Or fighters getting both shield block and an incentive to use 2H reach weapons with RS. Having multiple tools that are somewhat incompatible is good flexibility in build options.

This is how I've been reading the class. It is not set up so that everything works simultaneously, it is set up to support several different rune-use configurations.

One is: you are a "fully hand-loaded" martial that primarily relies on your engraved runes in combat.

One is: you are a light gish with either unarmed + shield or 1-H + empty/buckler and some use of tracing.

One is: you are a switch-grip martial (bastard sword, bow, etc.) who incorporates some tracing.

One is: you are a ranged "blaster" whose standard rotation is a 2a 30' Atryl or Ranshu trace on an enemy each round, with an invoke/detonation either as your third action or after you've built up a few.

RuneSinger is the blaster's "focus spell," good for one use per combat. Though any of the other configurations might find it useful. Backup is for the fully armed smith who wants to focus on letting their weapon attacks do most of the damage, the Gish might prefer Engraving Strike to let them strike+trace+move each turn, and remote detonation is obviously there for a ranged attacker configuration.

I'm not necesseraly against the stance costing an action, if there is more things to make it worth it. More possibilities once you're in that stance, like monks getting special actions tied to specific stances (Dragon Roar for example with Dragon Stance)

Well there are feats that require you be in it, but I guess players don't think they are worth it? The idea you suggest has the advantage of not requiring Paizo to change the mechanics - they could just add feats to the class that either give some big benefit for being in cascade, or give you an action that puts you in cascade in addition to whatever else the feat does.

TheTownsend wrote:

Am I stuck using gauntlets and other free-hand weapons (or taking Engraving Strike) if I want to take advantage of my full defenses and still use my main class feature?

Either that ot use a buckler with your choice of 1 handed weapon.

A "1+" would work too, right? Bowsmith for the win?

I think Cascade is only "dead" because the action economy make it either situationaly worth it (ennemy with a weakness to exploit) or just well... inconvenient.

Absolutely it's situational. +1 damage per strike for 1 action, in cases where you're not triggering a weakness, is only worth, what, 4-6 total HP of damage in a typical combat? Lots of 1a options will end up contributing better than that. But the same "it's only situationally useful" criticism could be leveled at animal companions and familiars, or Sanctification, or or or... Classes do contain situational class features. That's not necessarily a problem. But I agree, this one is weak. Bumping it up a point or making it a free action if/when you do something else (cast a non-spellstrike spell?) is the sort of change I think would work. +2 seems to be the 'new normal'. Exemplar, Swashbuckler, Runesmith, basic Rage (before instinct) bonus...they're all +2 or +1 with something additional.

"Death Knight" is pretty firmly in D&D's camp, or Warcraft's, and graveknights already exist as a specific undead in Pathfinder. IIRC, graveknights are called graveknights because Paizo didn't want to get into any trouble using the term death knight.

Maybe Bone Knight, in reference to The Boneyard. When a psychopomp needs to bring the heavy, they call upon....

IMO If the party is asking you to take on two significant out of combat roles, they should be willing to protect you somewhat in combat. So while lots of people have given build advice, I'd say take the skills, attributes you want to take but then lean hard into coordinating with the other PCs on group tactics. Work with the party so that they use tactics that make the enemy go after them instead of you. Stay back. Have them get between you and the opponents. Ensure you have some 60' range attacks not just 30'. (Have someone) throw down difficult terrain when they can. Etc.

Back in the Pleistocene I played a noncombat specialist mage in GURPS. It was extremely rewarding both in terms of my play experience and what the other players got out of me being that specialist. But, it did require that the party be on board with that, so that they knew to protect me during combat. I hid behind things a lot. :) It was also a home campaign with probably at least one non-combat scene every session. If your group runs more towards dungeon crawl run-and-gun or you're playing an AP like that, then you are probably better off going with what many other posters have suggested: a build that does the OOC stuff tolerably well but not excellent, but doesn't sacrifice AC or HP. Maybe just build attributes for combat, take the social/intellectual skills your role requires, bump them up when you can, and use your FA selection for something like Dandy or Loremaster.

Reflex saves, however, are based on your reflexes, but when the spell detonates the millisecond you get Spellstruck, there's no way you can evade this.

It's literally the "Dodge this!" scenario from The Matrix.

No, it literally isn't. A 1a "action" in Pathfinder comprises about 2 seconds worth of doing things, not milliseconds. That's tons of time to dodge.

It's a common ttrpg problem: ttrpg "actions" and "rounds" tend to be much chunkier than our minds-eye-view of them as instantaneous arm-movements or single trigger pulls. This can lead to arguments from minds' eye realism (like what you're trying to make) getting greatly out of synch with arguments from mechanical game balance.

IMO game balance arguments are far, far, more important, and I would disagree with the notion that either the magus is underpowered, that it's unbalanced in a negative way, or that an optional level 2 feat should be given the power of a tgtbt mandatory straight upgrade to a core class feature, which is my perspective on your ask.