|
Ediwir's page
Organized Play Member. 1,651 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.
|


2 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Hi, I'm Troy McLure. You might remember me from such alchemical related guides like the Sceptical Chymist and PubAlchem.
I've recently gone through the newly released items, and while the reviews there are better followed elsewhere, I wanted to give my two cents to Paizo about a few that I found either confusing, conflicting, or just slightly off.
The definite:
Living leaf wave doesn't define its bonus value; breathtaking vapor doesn’t have a stage duration; choleric contagion says “the first time during per round the victim succeeds at an attack roll”, which reads jumbled.
The maybes:
A few items (egg cream fizz, soothing toddy, warding punch, diplomat's charcuterie, phantom roll, sprite apple, mender's soup, tracker's stew, cinnamon seers, ginger chew, and scholar's drop) all provide nonscaling +1 item bonuses, making them quickly irrelevant. For some, like Phantom Roll, that can be fine... but for many of these, it feels like they were meant to be circumstance bonuses (like the Colorful Coatings). Usually, when I read “a bonus to saves against a specific school of magic” or “a bonus to checks made for this specific action subtype” I expect to see it as a circumstance bonus, at least in previously published material. Especially at higher levels, when you're expected to have that bonus already. Could be worth a review, just to make sure you guys meant it this way.
The "probably fine but just checking":
Lv4 Mournful and Wyrmhide Fury Cocktails feel a little underpowered, but the higher level versions are amazing. Bone dreadnought is similarly a very good lv10 item, but requires a lv12 item as fuel to be used, which could be an issue.
The "please stop":
Can't help but see new incapacitation items. It’s a great trait for balancing spells and I am all in favour of it, but these items have static level and no success effect, so there is no positive benefit to it in this context. Even on items with multiple level stages, like gearbinder oil, the large level gaps wrecks the item hard.
All in all not that many issues considering the size of the chapter, and love the book. Thank you for all the good work!

12 people marked this as a favorite.
|
There's been a lot of good feedback on the Kineticist, and I'm not going to shy from it. I have held back because I wanted the time to properly test, run, experience, and examine the class as is, but it's finally time to sit comfortably, grab a drink, and go through a nice old classic wall of text.
First of all, a note on the good elements of the class. The flavour is great, and the idea of developing it with a mix of elemental strikes and active features definitely feels good thematically. Kineticist feels like a martial with a strong area of effect component and that's a good place to have it, if maybe with a bit more wiggle room, and the idea of rejecting spells is something I agree: Impulses are a new, exclusive feature, and should not be forcefully turned into spellcasting despite how close they might appear. However, there are some definite pain points which I would like to explore.
To do so, I will organise this thread in sections: the first will deal with the elemental feats, the selectable features, and the elemental distinctions in general; the second will go over chassis, core features, and those elements that unite all kineticists regardless of personal build; and the third will go into more detail about the general balancing and powering of the class.
As a note of favour for the reader, I recommend having the kineticist feat summaries opened on the side in order to focus on the relevant sections. As for general reference on experience, I have personally played a lv18 Universal Kineticist (to test blasting and overflow) and a lv3 Earth Kineticist (for a melee build test). I was not a major 1e kineticist fan, I did not play Legendary Kineticist, and while I like Con, I am neutral on Burn.
-------------Book One: Water
This book will focus on the more fluid section of the class, which is the the feats, because how they fit together and within a build will strongly determine playstyle, and the different elements chosen will alter the flow of gameplay.
First of all, I have been amazed by the amount of active feats in this class. Almost everything came as a new way to use elements directly in combat, either via auras, blasts, powers, or utility. I love that (my sheet loved it a little less as it was very hard to find the right actions mid play, but that's lv18 for you). However, there's several issues here.
In terms of utility, the Kineticist is more varied than I could make sense of. We range from at-will invisibility at level 6 to the power of raising the water level in a 20-foot burst... at level 18. One lv1 class feat allows the user to cast Light, a lv8 one to buff everyone's speed and damage. It's... confusing at the very least. I did love a few of these, especially those that seem to use the elements in new ways (namely: Whispers on the Wind, Clear as Air, Stepping Stones, Inner Flames, Veil of Mists, Voice of Elements), but I feel like everything else is either underwhelming or not very interesting. A few are clearly needed, such as the one granting people the ability to breathe water, and I'm not against the idea of using existing spells when they can save pagecount (this guy will need enough paper as it is). If anything, I could see a few of these feats allowing Kineticists to cast a short selection of innate spells, perhaps on the lines of those aasimar/tiefling feats that grant two casts per day out of three spells. Or just a selection of thematic cantrips for the low level feats.
Auras have been a mixed bag. Notably, we almost TPK'd to Winter's Clutch during our low-level playtest, because it was impossible to get away from it (our hydrokineticist got entangled in a web. Don't ask me about that day's rolls). The supportive or beneficial auras have been insanely good at all level of play, but anything aggressive felt like it strongly required the lv8 Aura Shaping feat - not a good design when the first aggressive auras show up at lv1. More on this in Book Two.
The Guardians/Summons are all amazing, even the fire one which doesn't do much. I like that it exists as an option, I just wish Fire impulses could take better advantage of it. More on this in Book Three. There's also a few shapechanging feats which I loved thematically, but were generally quite weird - the Fire one lasts one round when you get it, and burns one round just to cast it; the lowest Earth one gives you a new AC, but it's worse than what you'd have. Some have action economy benefits, but Sustain attached to it, and so on. I'd love to turn into an elemental version of myself, but it has to be worth it.
The Walls... are very uneven. This mostly emerges from the fact that the wall spells themselves are very uneven, and that Stone, arguably one of the best, has no Overflow. I think giving Wind some extra benefits and allowing Fire to scale should be at least required.
The healing is.... actually nice, in the fact that each element has its own spin on them. I could use a Fire healing that enhances people's attack or mobility (it's not like Earth isn't a combat heal already).
In general, and taking off from the last line about Fire, I like that each element seems to be trying to do similar things in different ways and with different benefits and outcomes. I think that's a good direction and I especially like that not all feats in the same element feel the same - I can read the feats from one element and feel that they're different from another element, but I can't say "this is the speed element" or "this is the hit point element". There's a hint of a good mix that still maintains distinction, and that is good flow - it just needs some enriching and rebalancing.
-------------Book Two: Earth
This book will ground us in the core elements of the class, namely the proficiency chassis, essential features, and early diversification that all kineticists share, to provide a solid foundation on which we can build.
This of course means that we will start with the core foundation of the class - the traits which govern its abilities. The first thing I noticed when I first opened up the playtest was that Kineticist abilities are based on strong exclusionary language - telling me what this thing is NOT, what it can NOT do, and what it does NOT allow. While I see the point in having impulses be neither spell nor strikes (I imagine because of multiclassing shenanigans, flurry of blows, spellstrike, and all that), it creates a lot of convolution. The Impulse trait having nested Manipulate also created some issues in game - my poor lv3 melee kineticist met a creature with AoO, which made me realise everything I could ever do, including basic attacks and raising my shield, provoked AoO. Not my greatest moment, I went down to a crit because I tried raising my shield (which interrupted the action, so I couldn't even block). I'm a lucky one.
The Overflow trait has been the subject of many discussions. Vanessa Hosking, in an interview with the Rulelord, compared it to a Swashbuckler's rythm of panache and finishers, and I generally agree for the most part - both classes are martial characters with a charge up that lets them do empowered attacks and can be burned off for a bigger impact effect. The primary difference I would note, however, is that Swashbuckler gains panache by doing something useful, while Gathering Elements is purely an action cost. There's a long series of observation on Gather Elements and Overflow made by Gust_of_Wind, which... you can read if you have time... but the short end of the parts I agree with is that it's overpriced, overbearing, and overpresent. Every offensive action has it, 65/96 feats have it, it always costs a future action, and... Honestly, it's not worth it. In my high level test, I used overflow extensively. But I had the power of the Avatar on my side, and several feats dedicated to using action economy tricks to lessen its impact. It felt weak, but not crippling. On my lower level test, I never used it. I wanted to, especially for my shield block, but realised it would have crippled me, because I could do nothing without a gathered element.
In my mind, these two issues are one. These traits are too general to be that impactful. One option that I see is letting Kineticist have access to their elemental strikes at all times (and make them proper Strikes which do not provoke AoO nor get disabled mid-fight), and relegate Gather Element to a recharge function similar to how Magus's spellstrike needs to be reenabled; Another is to add some meaningful payoff to Gather Element, such as tempHP to Gather Earth, ranged manouvers for Gathering Air, stepping for Gathering Fire, and some sort of ally protection for Gathering Water because all I can come up with is Katara. These are just examples. As for the overbearing of Overflow, that depends. If Gathering Elements can be meaningful and useful, then Overflow might just be slapped on everything, but personally I like the idea of it being placed on some feats which are exceptionally powerful, and letting most feats go without. Let's have frequent elemental uses, and then one big boom moment. Then we can decouple some traits, adding Manipulate to most impulses but not all so that there is a slight chance to play this class around AoOs. I believe we discussed the rock shield issue back when Parry was being smoothed.
(Also, as a side note, Overflow as a name doesn't really evoke an endpoint to me, more of a swell. Perhaps we should call it the Exhaust trait? Or something else that evokes the idea of your element getting burned off. Who knows)
Next in line is what you always feared, the key ability score. Let's start with reminding everyone that I like the thematic effect of Constitution representing your ability to withstand elemental forces coursing through you. That's cool. However, if your memory extends even further back... Logan, remember the Investigator playtest? At the time, I told you that I enjoyed the idea of an Int-based martial, but that Int wasn't doing enough for the class. So let me tell you now that I enjoy the idea of a Con-based martial, but that Con isn't doing enough for the class. No judgment, but I gotta call it out.
I believe it's possible to balance Kineticist so that Con-based attacks are not necessary. There's been some discussion in my group that Con might help determine the benefits of Gather Element, but I prefer a different interpretation (because it's easier to write, nothing more): Allow any kineticist to exclude people from their aura based on their Con, starting from level one, and use Shaping Aura as an optional but powerful high level feat that expands range only. That solves the low level aura problem mentioned in Book One and the mandatoreity of the feat in one fell swoop, while also having a powerful, important effect that reinforces Con as the key ability score.
Now we can look at the class features. The flexible feats are amazing and lovely, but I'm not married to the idea too hard and would understand if they were removed. The Adapt Element line, however, feels a little vague. It's basically elemental Prestidigitation - doesn't really do much, and is even counterproductive at times. Why is gathering from the environment slower than gathering from your gate? Why would someone ever do that? If anything, I would love a Kineticist that gathers elements freely when their element is particularly powerful - a fire kineticist fighting in the middle of a volcano should be at its peak, and so is an air kineticist in the middle of a storm. I guess a metal kineticist should find himself in a dwarven forge or in some sort of top-reinforced fortress to get the benefit, but you get my drift. Make me interact with the element.
On that topic, there is the matter of elemental resistance. Resistance to fire is solid, common, and classic... but everything else is so niche that it barely figures. What's the point? Sure, it'll be cool when it comes up, but I'd rather have Earth give me resistance to forced movement or something likely to come up than something that will come up maybe once in a lifetime. Again, make the element matter.
Finally I would like to talk about Gates. I played as both single and universal gate - and for the latter, I think it's great. Having flexible feats I can use to alter my build is great in the context of an ongoing campaign, and access to all the feats was a nice challenge to face and allowed me an amazing level of control and choice. I love it as it is, and in fact I could see the flexible feats as the Universalist's specialty. Single gate... was less awesome. In short, I did not feel like a specialist, just pointed one way. While I like that dual gate has a bonus feat from each (and possibly access to hybrid elements as their specialty), I don't think a third feat was enough to trade off the flexibility. Part of this is probably playtest related as we have less feats than final, but somehow I feel like dedicated gate needs a lv1 feature that makes it feel like a master. Stoke Element comes to mind as an easily resizeable solution.
All in all, the concept of the chassis is solid, but a lot within it needs to be readjusted and tuned. The class is extremely flexible on paper, but stiff as a rock in play, and as good as the concept is, the foundations are shaky.
-------------Book Three: Fire
This book will face the burning question of whether the kineticist actually delivers on its fantasy, as well as delve more specifically into why that may be and on how these assumptions can be used to provide a hopefully more engaging (and spectacular) result.
I will not, however, begin with the feedback. Instead, we are going to take a trip down memory lane all the way to my early conversion projects, when I was happily trailblazing (because it's Book Three, get it? Fire?) my way through unguided calculations and rebalancing, and especially monster crafting. Most of my early work was mediocre, but it did teach me a lot - and one concept that I ended up using over and over since then was the turn budget. A monster can be as overpowered as I want it to be, but so long as it is limited in what it does during its turn, all's fine (or close to). And action costs were an amazing form of control and power enhancement - giving creatures action-efficient abilities, or extra reactions, did wonders for an otherwise underwhelming creature.
I want to bring this up not because I'm going to sell you a monster, but because I think it's a valuable lesson we need to apply to Kineticist. When playing a kineticist, I feel the turn was not spent right. Overflow actions, most of all, feel like there is very little for my time, because they're in most cases 2+1 action activities which deliver a very underwhelming effect - an effect I can multiply via area and use near at will over the course of the day, but which is still incredibly underwhelming in a turn by turn basis. In my previous feedback thread, Psychic Impressions, I bemoaned how psychic felt too faint and low-impact because of its attempt to play a long-term impact character which just never really built up enough. The result was eventually a caster which nobody denies has definite impact, which was a major shift, and while I'm not after that kind of bang I am hoping it will be worth the bucks.
In terms of offensive abilities, the kineticist is underwhelming all around. The overflow impulses are extremely weak, comparable in raw damage with a 2-action Champion strike sequence (however the accuracy multiplier here is lower, because champion strikes against AC while we're looking at saves vs DCs, making kineticist blasts weaker than that). The basic strikes, while amazing for switch-hitting, have no inherent damage amplifiers, again presenting the Champion as the closest comparison. The class as it is is not a very strong attacker, neither as a martial nor an area blaster, and while it can do both and be very flexible, the value of switch-hitting does not come up enough to justify it (especially due to the many ability score requirements). In addition, the scaling on many abilities is so slow that it might as well not be there, marking the ability as low-level only. Aerial Boomerang, Storm Spiral, Ferocious Cyclone and The Shattered Mountain Weeps are the only abilities to cap at more than 2.2 damage per level (our chosen threshold of champion attacks), while Tremor, Rolling Boulder, Flame Eruption and Slippery Sleet cap at less than 1.5/lv. Now, sure, some of these add status effects, but is it truly worth that much? Is the damage even a contribution at that point? Are my two plus one actions as a lv20 character truly worth 24 points of damage and a square of dangerous terrain?
I say no. My two plus one actions as a lv20 character, if I'm looking at area damage against a save, are worth 70 damage worth of fireball, or maybe 82 from a Meteor Swarm. The third action is likely going to be sipping a cocktail or rubbing some lotion, because that's enough explosions to get a tan out of.
But of course we're neither casters nor pure damage dealers, so we should look for what we're good at. I just wish I knew what that is. From what I can read of the Kineticist, the pattern I have is very low damage, Reflex save (on a slightly lower DC), and then Stunned 1... with maybe a push or a shove attached to it. That last bit sounds like a saving grace - weak, faint, but something. I say prop up the juice to a decent amount and then focus on this flavour.
I mentioned in Book Two that I would like to see Overflow become less omnipresent. If so, then we can start to see kineticist impulses as low (but meaningful!) damage accompanied by status effects, with perhaps a bit more of a save spread, and overflow impulses as the showy stuff which make your turn shine. I'd actually prefer if the relationship between overflow and gather were reversed - giving a specific clause that your element is gathered only until combat ends would make Kineticists start the fight with only their strikes, Gather for more powerful attacks, and then fall back down to strikes until they Gather again. And yes, if this is what you want, what you really really want, we could make a feat that lets you burn hit points to Gather as a free action or something. As I said, neutral on that one as long as it's not mandatory.
One more thing. I mentioned in Book One that I liked the distinction between elements in the different ways of doing similar things, and that no element was easily summarisable. I'd like to walk that back one step - elements cannot be entirely summarised, but do have trends. Air has a lot of mobility, flight, and illusions. Earth has a lot of self defense, while Water has some big moments on ally defense (you were also thinking of Katara, I see). Fire is not the "firepower" element, which I like, but has some interestingly aggressive support abilities. I like seeing each list having a certain prevalence for some aspects, but I'd like to recommend one in particular: allow Fire to have more single-action activities than other elements (perhaps as Flourishes). Rapid fire is a good niche to add, especially since it seems to struggle in terms of... honestly almost everything, but combining agile low-damage strikes with a mix of quick flourishes and larger overflows could be a winning formula.
As a last word, the general feats seem all honestly good, and the utility gathering feats (cycling blast, gather amalgamation) were all insanely useful. I expect these to get some changes if my improved gathering idea gets through, but I take it mostly as confirming that the cost of Gather really impacts the class in a significant way.
These are my cabbages. Feel free to add your own thoughts and contributions below, and remember to play nice with each other. There's no war in Ba Sing Se.
3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
I'm still in the process of filling everything out properly, but I'm starting to have something and might as well drop the link.
This should be handy for comparisons and discussions, because let's be real the pdf is only handy up to a point. You can click the sliders to select the traits or elements you want filtered, or you can use conditional searches to run something more specific, such as "Text contains: Cone" or "Value greater than 3/lv".
Easiest way to change it up is while I'm still writing it, so chop chop tell me why it sucks. Or, y'know, if I got some stuff wrong.
>Link available here<

1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
This class has vaguely intrigued me for a while, ever since Paizo split the spells in four lists. The thought that Psychic could eventually claim the reign of Occult spells was very much on my mind, and while most spells theme did fit, I was curious as to how it would end something different from a Sorcerer or occult-swapped wizard. This playtest definitely delivered on the difference, but raised other concerns. As usual, let's take a seat.
First of all, the Psychic is an occult caster. Or is he? The narrow amount of spell slots seems to bring this very much in a conservative gameplay mindset, where spells are mostly utilities and only used occasionally. The weight of the class rests on the abundant and sustained use of cantrips, to whom the Psychic can grant additional and enhanced effects. This is, in my opinion, a good thing - a unique niche that separates him from other spellcasters. However, it raises an important issue - those cantrips that form the bulk of Psychic's gameplay must, by necessity of use frequency, be powerful enough to support Psychic's role, while at the same time not as unlimited as most cantrips are. There's rules that pin these concepts in, but they don't seem to be in the right places right now, at least from what I could see.
First of all, there's the matter of role direction. Depending on his Conscious Mind, a Psychic can take the role of damage dealer, supporter, or utility caster. Specifically, I can see Distant Grasp having a wide selection of attacks and potential for defense, and Infinite Eye having some support and utility, Silent Whisper being a massive utility powerhouse with a bit of damage potential. That can be fine, but relegating class role direction to three or four spells makes for repetitive turns, especially when some of those options overshadow the others - which is a matter of relative internal balance. The amps are pretty much all over the place, and not necessarily in tune with the spells they support. Message granting someone a free Step, in particular, was constantly used to deadly effectiveness in the games I witnessed and pretty much became the Psychic's one trick, while damage amps tended to be overall disappointing. With the general state of single target damage spells, this was not too unexpected, but we are talking class role here. Nobody expects a wizard to outDPS the Fighter on single targets, but when one third of your class path says "you do better single target damage", you should expect at least to get close.
I believe the tuning point for Amps to be somewhere below the highest spell available -which is normally fine for Focus powers- but a bit low for Psychic, at least where damage is involved. The main problem with this, however, isn't balancing (IMO), but the fact that focus powers are thus balanced because of two reasons: their limited nature, and their unlimited nature.
A focus power can be used unlimitedly across a day. This means it cannot be as powerful as your regular, limited spells, because of a simple cost/effect nature. But at the same time, focus powers are limited across an encounter (or sometimes across multiple ones), so they need power behind their punch. There is a sweet spot and that's fine. HOWEVER. Psychic doesn't play by the same focus rules.
With Psychic, focus powers are still unlimited across a day. This means they cannot be as powerful as regular, limited spells. Fine. BUT Psychic has Unleash Psyche, which grants them effectively unlimited focus points across an encounter. This is an apparent benefit which I feel plays a lot against them, as that balancing factor that normally allows focus to "be worth the expense" is now removed. The drawback is heavy, sure, but when so much of the class relies on a limited resource which then becomes unlimited, the choice between benefit and no benefit feels very one-sided.
Key Issue
As good as it is and as welcome as it may feel, I believe that the free Amp from Unleash Psyche is holding Psychic back. While most casters can have their baseline and their punch, Psychic only has the punch - a diluted one which feels too faint most of the time. Removing the free Amp allows for Psychic to establish a new baseline: a Psi benefit which could become part of their Conscious Mind, without requiring a resource expense, and an Amp benefit which is powered by their Focus resource, allowing them to punch through when needed.
The concept of Unleash Psyche as a powerful mental state that affects spellcasting can then be maintained as a strong cost/benefit effect which alters playstyle and adds variety to gameplay, aiding the still-present dependency to their narrow cantrip selection, but without the dependency on it to enable class identity. It also allows for more push towards mixing between cantrips and spells, as there is now a ticking resource which can be saved up rather than a free one to exploit.
There is also some potential for extra variation in adding generic riders to each cantrip in the form of a side benefit - taking inspiration from Sorcerer's Bloodline, something generic which affects either allies or enemies based on character flavour. In short, this class needs more impactful moments as well as more play variety.
Notable Changes
I've kept to a generic line so far because the main change I'm suggesting is fairly wide, and even my walls of text have to end at some point, but I did want to address a handful of specifics:
Message, as I mentioned earlier, felt overwhelming and stole the spotlight quite often. While I said Psychic needs more punch, it does not need to be via a single class-defining action taken every single turn regardless of the situation. Granting a free Stride to a character of choice is powerful, notable, and versatile - there will always be someone in need of an extra Stride that can spare a reaction. While I recommended higher baseline / narrower boost, I don't necessarily expect it will happen, so hear me out. Even if my suggestion isn't any good, Stride on basic Amp is not a good element. Instead, try things like Interact, Seek, or Take Cover. These are good actions which fit the idea of coordination, while at the same time being much less universal. And if my suggestion does strike the right chord, use those as Psi benefit, and keep Stride and Strike for the Amp.
Some of the utility cantrips, like Mage Hand or Detect Magic, end up feeling way too niche or unapplicable. Mage Hand requires specific conditions to be useful, Detect Magic could use some way to lend the bonus around, Guidance is... a benefit you don't want to use, and Daze's Amp is an interesting debuff, but the Will penalty could afford to be more significant considering the short duration. Damage cantrips also need adjustment, but the benchmark very much depends on their intent - and on how much each class path is meant to fullfill a damage role.
Lastly, Unleash Psyche has a pattern of "charging up". This is an interesting nature to it, and I don't dislike it, but I find that at times it is very much forced. I'm very, very wary of saying this, because if Godwin's law reminds us that arguments fade into meaningless after a certain point in the discussion, then I'm about to hit the RPG correspondent and possibly invalidating everything I typed, but I have to say it. Spoilered for sensitivity.
There, I said it. There are so many better ways to implement a delay. The playtest document itself contains several good examples - You’ve cast two beneficial spells on yourself or an ally this encounter, each on a different round. You have 0 Focus Points, and you don’t have a psyche unleashed.. You’ve used two emotion effects since rolling initiative, each on a different round.. You’ve cast two damaging spells since rolling initiative, each on a different round.. While the parts discussing rolling initiative and rounds sort of feel mildly annoying, it's not on the same level of "My character has a little notebook on which he counts seconds", and even a mild change can remove this issue - try " You’ve cast a spell with a sustained duration during this encounter and then Sustained it on your next turn to extend its duration" against " You’ve Sustained a Spell to extend its duration during your last turn". Same mechanic, no immersion issue. I realise it's just a feel problem, but hey, it's important to me. And I hope it's still important to at least some of your older base.
Feats and Direction
There are several feats in Psychic which leverage the concepts and themes of psychics through media, from Strain Mind's nosebleed for power to Mesmerising Gaze. There's tons of flavour there and I love it, allowing players to focus on their favourite themes. Two emerging patterns show up - additional Amps, and mental states that alter Psyche. While I discussed a lot the Psyche and believe there is good variety in the playtest (as well as the general trend of this thread that Psyches need to be reworked to be more focused on their specific benefit), the Amps are a Psychic's form of metamagic which I would love seeing, as they add variety and flexibility. Would love, because as of now most Amps are either too good in the base form (Message) or not really worth the feat (Spontaneous Ignition, for example, alters damage type instead of increasing it). The latest example is particularly notable - we established that the class's power relies on Amping, but these feats are used in place of Amping, so they should be worth the same amount of power when applied to a base cantrip... and between doubling Telekinetic Rend's damage or changing half of it to fire, I know which option is worth a feat and which isn't. It's not the only case, but it's the most obvious. We need some adjustment there.
Side note: Deeper Psi cantrips are good, but right now compete heavily with the free points from Lingering Psyche... odd how we keep coming back to this, huh?
All in all, I like the idea of a cantrip-based, stance-like spellcaster, but I am concerned about the power levels and the variety in turn-to-turn gameplay. Overall, the class can use some buffs, except for a couple of outlier options which dominate gameplay. Some issues with wording and immersion, general need for tuning, thumbs up on flavour options.
A level playing field within class path helps variety, even if not all class paths have the same damage output. Not every cantrip needs to be on the same treshold, but each path needs cantrips on a similar level.
Interested to see what comes up.

11 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Slight premise: I understand Recall Knowledge is based on the DC of the task rather than the encounter, I can see creature weaknesses are much higher than half level, and I read the high level feats note on not applying to custom weaknesses. While these could benefit from a clarification, this thread will not address them as issues.
As soon as the class was announced and the first bits of info started to come out, I was hooked. The idea of creating my own magical effects, playing with the relations of concepts, and making up my own connections while being validated in-game as a player opened up the door to an infinity of concepts, and I wanted them all. That said, in my own playthrough, I went with a very stereotypical concept - fey magic. A tiny sprite who always speaks in literal truths, improvises magic with everyday natural items, grants blessings to those who share meals with her, and the like. I tried my best to squeeze out every little bit of flavour from the class, from the little firefly which represented my Lantern to the layer of soot I coated my blade in when we met a creature who fled from light. I went into this with full power to roleplay. And I was thoroughly disappointed.
While the class description rumbles and roars with the power of a thousand dragons, the effective playstyle hit the table like a rubber chicken. I have ran a few different playtest games as both gm and player, as well as poking a few of my regular groups for their own playtest experiences, and the short end of it was... all thaumaturges play essentially the same, no matter how they're built, and while they are extremely valid martial characters, they do not act like the fantasy of them appear to suggest. Of particular note, I'll quote: you [...] scavenge the best parts of every magical tradition and folk practice to glean deeper laws of the universe, like the rule of three, the laws of symbolism, and the chains of sympathetic connections. [...] carry a special implement whose symbolic function aids you in manipulating the world around you [...] deftly turn them all to your advantage [...] you work wonders.
It's a great premise. It stimulates imagination and depth. It is rich in potential and variety. It... does't show up. Instead, the section that does show up is capitalizing on the weaknesses of any creature. Near every action undertaken by Thaumaturges I witnessed or heard of focused on either Striking or setting up extra damage for a Strike. Utility of any kind, even the basic level I am used to see from Fighters or other main martials, was foregone because of the overwhelming strength of flat damage increase. One sentence sums up my experience here, and it is "Watching the Thaumaturge match the Barbarian strike-for-strike was something." Barbarian was the most common comparison, with Ranger being a close second, despite the chassis suggesting Rogue was probably the nearest intended cousin. A Thaumaturge picks an enemy, walks up to it, and whacks it for 1d6+ton. Every time. Every turn. There is nigh to no thematic exploit, freaky feature, or trickstery involved, and even the few flavour abilities only do so in order to boost your strikes in a way that is subservient to the greater good that is that massive damage boost of this pseudomagic rage.
Have I, with my weird concept and odd picks, gotten out of that cycle? No. In fact most of my attempts at crazy magics found place outside of combat, with handing out magical charms, attempting odd skill feats and taking the occasional Sprite utility. Very little of that came from the class itself. In fact, I'll note that the most in-tune ability I picked up was probably Root Magic -a skill feat- because even those thaumaturge feats which encourage esotericity and utility are incredibly narrow in application and slim in effect, and missing out on a Strike to do something interesting feels very discouraged unless it is to make said Strike more reliable or crittable.
Now, this might sound a bit like a slam, and it kinda is -I don't like holding back on playtest feedback- but at the same time I do want to add something constructive after tearing this all down. Just hold on for a bit. The core of the issue here is clearly Esoteric Antithesis, and its overwhelming dominance of class economy (power, actions, features). This does not just show in gameplay, but in theorycrafting as well, as feats tend to lean towards it for usability (see the various Share Antithesis and the like), gain additional weight due to it (Rule of Three is a very good feat, but it's Antithesis that makes it a great feat), or be devalued for it (why would I take a lv12 feat when I can take both Share Antithesis and Twin Weakness?) and are in general not as impactful as they should be in personalising your character, as the playstyle does not change based on feats or implements. Yes, implements also didn't feel too relevant (I picked them last because I just didn't feel like they made a big enough difference). While the shielding effect of Amulet was good to have, the healing from Chalice is neat, and the utility of Lantern is occasionally great, these are (intentionally I believe) relatively small features which you pick up along the way, and do not feel like dictating a direction.
Let's take a small detour here to elaborate. I said direction. There was a few weeks ago a discussion somewhere where one of the devs mentioned subclasses or class paths as something that defines your character's direction, and went on to elaborate about the Cleric, saying the proper class path for the class isn't the Doctrine but the Deity, as that determines a lot more gameplay-relevant elements than the comparatively small initial benefits of a Doctrine. I liked that post quite a bit, and I think there's definitely something there. In that perspective, I tried to define the Thaumaturge's class path by having a look at its early features:
* Implement's Empowerment makes Thaumaturge a martial class. Specifically a one-handed martial class, which frees up space for utility and item usage. It's not a choice and shouldn't be one - Thaumaturges are martial characters.
* Implements are small-scale features which get picked up along the way and eventually improve. This might seem like the intended class path, but again, it doesn't impact that much. The easiest comparison is Champion - if Paladin is a class path, then Amulet, Chalice and Weapon are its individual components, plus a little extra thrown in for usability... but we don't get that. We get one, and then improve later. If it's the path, it's very weak, and it shows as it's not enough to change our direction.
* Find Flaws / Antithesis. This defines gameplay. This is used against every enemy, supports several feats, and pushes the action economy strongly. This is the class path, and we have only one.
How do we get out of there? Well, ideally, we offer alternatives. However the power of Antithesis is so massive that alternatives risk unbalancing and dominating gameplay, turning Thaumaturge in something other than a martial character. So, before offering alternatives, we'd have to funnel some of Antithesis' power into other features. Implements are likely the option of choice here, but some of the utility feats also feel like they could use some love (I'm looking at you, non-scaling +1 to Diplomacy for telling the truth). There is also some finickiness in the way the action works which could be cleared up, so let's try something here and write the feature out in text rather than trying to express my feelings.
top of my head wrote: Esoterica [feature 1]
You have a collection of esoterica; objects with symbolic significance; bits of various materials known for supernatural affinities; and items used in folk practices. These might include cold-iron nails, scraps of scrolls and scriptures, fragments of bones purportedly from a saint, and other similar objects. You wear your esoterica in a small bag or pouch somewhere on your person that makes it easy to access. While you can eventually learn to use your esoterica for a variety of benefits, the first technique every thaumaturge learns is how to understand their esoterica's relations with the world and other creatures. When using any skill to Recall Knowledge about a creature you can perceive (either by sight or other senses), you can use your Charisma modifier instead of the usual ability modifier for the skill you're using.
You also gain your choice of Esoteric Knowledge action, chosen from the list below:
Esoteric Antithesis (lv1) (1-action)
[esoterica] [ magical] [thaumaturge]
You search through your esoterica to find the right trinket that will apply a weakness to your attacks against a creature. You must have some sort of knowledge of that creature to do this, for example due to a successful Recall Knowledge or previous research.
You Interact to apply specific esoterica to yourself and your weapons; you can perform this Interact action with the hand holding your implement. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature become magical if they weren’t already, and you cause them to apply some of the creature’s weaknesses even if they don’t deal the correct type of damage. If the creature has a weakness, your strikes apply half of the creature’s highest weakness. Otherwise, you create a custom weakness with a value equal to half your Implement's Empowerment; this weakness applies only to your Strikes. For example, against a tyrant, you might attach a chain broken to free a captive. This effect lasts until you use Esoteric Antithesis again.
Esoteric Interference (lv1)) (1-action)
[esoterica] [ magical] [thaumaturge]
You search through your esoterica to find the right trinket that will interrupt a creature's link to its inner strength. You must have some sort of knowledge of that creature to do this, for example due to a successful Recall Knowledge or previous research.
You Interact to apply specific esoterica to yourself and your weapons; you can perform this Interact action with the hand holding your implement. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature become magical if they weren’t already, and you sap the creature's strengths with it. When you successfully Strike the target creature, you can choose to make it Enfeebled 1 or Stupefied (Enfeebled 2 or Stupefied 2 on a critical hit) until the start of your next turn. If the creature has a particular vulnerability (such as a Babau's vulnerability to witnessing healing) you can take a single action to trigger it after a successful Strike. This effect lasts until you use Esoteric Interference again.
Esoteric Leverage (lv1)) (1-action)
[esoterica] [ magical] [thaumaturge]
You search through your esoterica to find the right trinket that will aid you against a creature. You must have some sort of knowledge of that creature to do this, for example due to a successful Recall Knowledge or previous research.
You Interact to apply specific esoterica to yourself and your weapons; you can perform this Interact action with the hand holding your implement. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature become magical if they weren’t already, and you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Deception checks, Intimidation checks, Stealth checks, and any checks to Recall Knowledge about the creature, and a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against that creature’s attacks.
If you have master proficiency in Deception, Intimidation, Stealth, or the skill you use to Recall Knowledge about the creature, increase the circumstance bonus against the creature with that skill from +2 to +4. If you have master proficiency with your armour, increase the circumstance bonus to AC against the creature from +1 to +2. This effect lasts until you use Esoteric Leverage again.
Esoteric Warding (lv1)) (1-action)
[esoterica] [ magical] [thaumaturge]
You search through your esoterica to find the right trinket that will protect you from a creature's attacks. You must have some sort of knowledge of that creature to do this, for example due to a successful Recall Knowledge or previous research.
You Interact to apply specific esoterica to yourself and your armour; you can perform this Interact action with the hand holding your implement. Your clothes and armour are treated as magical against the creature's attacks if they weren’t already, and you gain a +1 status bonus to Armour Class and saving throws against the creature. This bonus increases to +3 against effects that would control you, incorporeal attacks, or spells that directly affect your soul. This effect lasts until you use Esoteric Warding again.
Three things here. One, we removed the variable action feature. This is entirely a 1-action activity, whether you know something or not, but allows you to set it up beforehand, favouring exploration, planning and research (and, because it is not as powerful, it's less of a nerf when you get caught by surprise - running a turn or two without Esoteric Knowledge is painful, but possible). Two, we have variety and playstyles. Yes, my suggestions are not the most imaginative or best balanced (let's be honest, I ripped off Outwit from the ranger and you know it), but this brings me closer to what I wish we could have - a class that can whack hard but also choose not to, and fight smart. Three, because we must have a rule of three somewhere in here, we don't have a limit of single creature on our requirement. While each Esoteric Knowledge enables the feature on a single creature, the wording doesn't prevent Thaumaturge from moving onto a new creature without having to RK on it again. You face two trolls, you can RK on one and then set your EK on either of them with the next action, because the knowledge is generic for trolls. Setting the requirement to "you know something you can exploit" avoids the weird issue of having to roll knowledge again for the same results which many people are having, without removing the action balancing cost.
A more varied approach allows Thaumaturge to be a clever martial rather than a mystic barbarian. Less reliance on the weakness means more space to expand and improve the class. And separate versions of Esoteric Antithesis open the way to further features or feats that build upon it, without them having to be a forced path of uniformity.
The class advertises like a cunning exploiter which carves their own path to success, but plays like a heavy beatstick. Utility is almost assumed on a first read, but nowhere to be found - If I could Rule of Three to help the city guards get out of the opposing wizard's mind control (totally not a reference), that would be extremely in theme. If I could pick a safe using a finger cut from a famous thief, I would feel like my creativity is encouraged (design note, this sounds like a feat-based expansion to Esoteric Leverage).
There is also a trove of wealth to be explored in the concept of specific flaws, which I believe should be a running theme for the class - while Divine Disharmony has a hint of that with the +2 on certain creatures, I would rather have a baseline "low" effect and a more narrow "big" effect, such as flatfooted vs stunned (but maybe not at lv1). If several Thaumaturge feats followed such a pattern, I would definitely call it a success.
Finally, the Implements could use specific active features that affect the creature you're using Esoteric Knowledge on. Alchemic_Genius wrote something to that effect in another thread which I feel would fit here, and help fill the vacuum left by the Antithesis resizing. I especially found myself struggling to effectively combine my Amulet and Lantern as the latter had no active effects I could use to draw it freely once my turn started again. Combining implements isn't a bad concept, but I feel like they need more active presence rather than further empowerment.
Mark, your concepts are always great. This is not always a good thing, because now you set your own standards way up there.
You're a big part of why Pathfinder is the most tactically strong TTRPG I know of in today's market, which in turn is why I keep playing it, and now you told me a story about a cunning, mystic martial class.
You cornered yourself.
Now you have to give me the mechanics that go with it.
I was looking at Implements and it struck me.
The Lantern gives knowledge and reveals that which isn’t true.
The Chalice nurtures and heals.
The Weapon (which might very well have an Edge) involves battle and struggle.
We have a protective implement, which fits the Heart, and a magically destructive one which fits Forge.
Are the four missing implements by any chance related to the Moth, Winter, Knock and Secrets? Because I would absolutely love that.

10 people marked this as a favorite.
|
After a bit of consideration and gameplay, I have a few notes that I want to put together, and at least in regards to Gunslingers, there are some very good points, some issues, and a few oddities, which I'll try to highlight. Let's start by saying I ran one session using reloading strike as a two-action activity and I felt pretty dumb after, so that won't count.
The Ways
Premise: I like all three and I think they function well mechanically, with Sniper possibly being the most close-to-end as far as I can tell. They are well distinguished and mechanically different, all working well to offset the action cost of reload and provide benefits that fit each theme. There are, however, two issues of style.
First, no matter how we tried to handle it, Rebounding Assault felt weird and cartoonish. I understand there's some sort of movie reference there, but it's not pervasive enough to make it a "classic" move, and it was mostly taken as a "nevermind the flavour, just test the mechanics". Thing is... even the mechanic kind of gave some issue, as the move is a bit of a mid reward, high risk. While you ignore MAP, you need two successes to deal 1d6 extra damage, and if either of those miss you lose your melee weapon and the extra damage. Personally, I wouldn't mind losing the thrown weapon either way (sometimes you want to have a free hand, sometimes you need a big finisher) as that would fix both flavour and risk (by making it default), in exchange for a slightly higher reward (scaling bonus damage? Some debuff as the blade is stuck in the enemy? An extra dice on crits? Or even just nothing, the move is not weak right now). Bypassing MAP is definitely the highlight of this deed, but the required suspension of disbelief is a little off.
Second, the way of the pistolero is in an odd place. I mentioned in the live interview how Pistolero didn't feel like the one-weapon way it was intended, and that is because the two-weapon deed is not optional but baked in. In my opinion, Finish the Job makes for a great feat for those slingers that want to delve into the world of TWFing, but isn't very appropriate for a style that supposedly supports single-weapons. While it may be seen as a Drifter must-have, I th- you know what, why not making it the lv9 Drifter deed? Yeah it's powerful but we said it right above, removing MAP is Rebounding Assault's highlight. This isn't far off. Anyways, that was extemporary while I was typing, I still feel like it's better off as a Drifter option or a feat and not a baked Pistolero deed.
Sniper felt amazing in play and we had a lot of fun trying to set up Vital Shots and working together to get the best out of it. This is the way.
The Feats
Most were fairly straightforward and pretty neat. A few seem very undertuned but they're far and inbetween, and I will address those, but one that stands out is Firearm Ace because it's not very immediate. Firearm Ace is clearly a parallel to Crossbow Ace (and I expect Crossbow Ace will return in a Gunslinger form), but carries two important differences: first, it lasts until the end of your turn rather than next turn, meaning reactions will not benefit from it. Considering how many reactions gunslinger has, this is notable. It might not be a real issue, because gun reactions are likely crit and crits stun and stun disrupts turns, so the damage is not the relevant part, but it's there. The other, however, is the dice increase on guns. See, a major component of gun damage is Fatal, and Fatal does not increase with this feat, and as a result the damage boost from this is much more reduced than it would seem. The two notes combined mean that Firearm Ace is much weaker than Crossbow Ace, and I feel like there's some issue there.
Amazing feats were Hit the Dirt (and its upgrade, Return Fire), which is a bit narrow but rich in flavour and benefits, Sword and Pistol, which enabled a lot of interplay between attacks, all of the Misfire feats (more of those pls), Pistol Twirl, Alchemical Shot, Called Shot and many more. One particular note was that there was a lot of discussion on Dual-Weapon Reload being added as a core feat for all gunslingers, and personally I agree. While reloading aids were abundant, a way to circumvent hand requirements is still needed at times, and right now that is locked behind Reloading Strike (Drifter only). Especially with the Pistolero issue highlighted above, or even if that was turned into a general class feat, we'd need one for everyone. Drifter can have the best, but not the only. My one session of playtest where I played with 2-action Reloading Strike has shown that just ignoring hand requirement is not very powerful, but still incredibly useful (don't worry, 1-action reloading strike is perfectly fine as it is).
There are also some notably undertuned feats. Cover Fire (narrow usage, lowish benefit), which could benefit from requiring only that the enemy is capable of taking cover, allowing it to work on enemies adjacent to columns or table without requiring them to be behind or under them, or to not give them the choice (as it is, the enemy can just choose to ignore it); Warning Shot allows you to circumvent the language trait, add 10-20ft to the range... and little else, in exchange for a bullet and a reload action. If it allowed multiple targets, or even to apply the weapon's item bonus to the check, it might feel a bit better; Blast Lock and Cauterize feel like narrow utility feats to use firearms instead of skills - which is neat, but definitely on the low end of class feats. Perhaps they could be implemented as Uncommon skill feats, with a slinger class feat allowing you to gain both at once (or several similar feats, and one feat to pick two, or various class feats giving two each), or just be different usage of a single unified Firearm Utility feat. Note that Pistol Twirl is definitely skill-based, but combat-oriented enough that it fits neatly in the power budget, especially when combined with Vital Shot.
High level feats seem in a pretty good spot, only exception being Perfect Readiness which, while allowing free action reloads, does so at a point where slinger has a TON of options for improving her reload-based action economy. Perhaps something to consider.
The Guns
A long time ago, when the CRB just released, I had written my own draft of gun rules, like many more.
Time to quote myself:
Ediwir wrote: Firearms in PF2 discussions seem to follow mainly two lines of thought. On one side, they have to be easy to use, just imprecise and prone to mishaps. On the other, they're rare, so difficult to handle right, but great if you learn. I'd have to say I fall into the second camp, mostly because we've seen how negative traits have been received with Volley and the armour discussions It was an interesting realisation to see that paizo falls into a third camp, where guns are easy to use (point and squeeze) but have no major drawbacks. I like that. It was also interesting to see the dichotomy of low damage regular strikes with high damage, devastating crits. I also like that. The critical specialisation is insanely powerful and can massively disrupt a turn in a reaction, but reactions with guns tend to be a gunslinger thing, so that's a class boost and I still like that.
I... don't like the versatile trait on them. While bullets are hard to place between bludgeoning and piercing, versatile tends to be a little hard to justify after shooting, which is why I'd rather have the Modular trait applied to all of them, with the text changed to something like "when reloading this weapon, you can determine the type of damage it will deal".
Additionally, the Sniper trait is nothing but a reprint of Backstabber, and we've seen Backstabber ranged weapons before (I play with an Assassin in my group, so they show up). We're reinventing guns, not wheels. Keep it simple.
If I had to suggest any extra traits, I would probably go with something that lets guns ignore or reduce the penalty from firing prone. It would fulfill the fantasy of sniping from prone and combine well with Hit the Dirt.
Next on the ticket is Misfire. Misfire as it is now only enters play when a weapon is used on a risky effect by a Gunslinger, and fails. It's a drawback for a risk/reward mechanic and does that pretty well. That's good. Misfire also has a lot of text that basically tells you not to read it. That's bad, especially because it also calls for you to make a roll before making an attack (or more accurately, it tells you not to make it). It can be rewritten to the effect of "when a weapon misfires, the attack becomes a critical failure and you must spend an Interact action to clear the jam before you can reload and fire again", and work exactly as presented. And... honestly, I wouldn't mind. While I know some people want guns to be unreliable jamming messes, there is no point to them having a jamming mechanic unless it's usable. Scratch that, there's no point in a mechanic unless it's used, and nobody will want to use it unless there's benefits to it. Hence, no point. Guns work fine as they are, with no need for extra text. If you truly want a Misfire effect, tie it to guns being submerged in water or exposed to live flames such as ongoing fire damage. Anything that has a chance of actually happening.
Last is Blackbeard. Again, for clarity, Blackbeard. I have to be able to stat this guy, and the only way to do that is by letting the "consumable gun" style of play function at any level that is not just first level. We need Guns&Gears to give a response to the age-old question of enchanted one-off weapons, beyond the boring "pay this Returning/Reloading rune and ignore the bad rule". No, I don't want to ignore reload, and I don't want a self-reloading gun or a reloading mechanical spider (tho they may have their place in some form); I want 'reloading using gunslinger feats' and 'going through a number of guns' to be roughly on a similar playing field. And, if we have this chance, I'd love a similar take on thrown weapons, because right now returning thrown knives do not even work (they're Twin, meaning if you have a returning knife you won't get the benefit - they're literally built to have a number of them). I wrote something about this, suggesting the Bandoleer of Expendable Pew Pews for granting short-lived benefits to a narrow group of weapons, giving way to a concept of ignoring reload for a few shots before falling back to having to reload. Perhaps that's the right path, perhaps it isn't, but we need to get somewhere close. No teleports or connections to the elemental plane of gunpowder, pls. Just let me drop my empty guns.
All in all, I love the slinger, I like the mechanics, and I love the flavour. Keep it up and smooth out a few edges, we have a great class in the making.

8 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Think about it. There’s a certain imagery in having the rugged pistolero draw gun after gun, dropping them behind after the charge has been spent.
At the same time, feats like running reload or reloading strike alter the game dynamic significantly and end up being very strongly required. A similar issue exists for the Returning rune.
So why not doing for ranged weapons what handwraps do for unarmed attacks?
Hear me out:
Bandoleer of Expendable Pew Pew +1 [item 2+]
Invested, magical, transmutation
This bandoleer carries magical runes etched into it as if it was a weapon, and can carry up to 3 bulks of weaponry. When you draw a weapon from the Bandoleer of Expendable Pew Pew, the first attack made with the weapon before the start of your next turn gains the effects of the etched runes. You cannot conceal the Bandoleer or the weapons in it.
This gives a viable way to play characters with thrown weapons, thousand daggers, discardable pistols and all sort of one-off shenanigans, without invalidating running reload, quick draw or reloading strike (the bandoleer has limits!) but just making them less mandatory.
Do consider it. And also, the name is a must.
5 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So, here's what happened.
I was asked to join a D&D group by some old friends. After a brief discussion, I managed to shift the main topic of conversation from "you could GM for us again in 5e" to "damn yeah ok this is really cool, I guess I could GM Pathfinder2 with it". It's all about flavour choices.
This put me in the position of making a new character, and that implied choices. No biggie, I can whip one up.
Then for the next three weeks the starting game got delayed. This gave me the chance to revise my character, rethink my choices, reconsider my options... And I put way too much thought into this. What started from "how about a list of options" ended up as a guide.
So, I might as well format it and share it. This is PubAlchem, a guide to alchemical items and options that rates and reviews each one to help you sort through your options.
Have a read, and enjoy.

11 people marked this as a favorite.
|
First things first, let me preface this by saying I want this to be the very best. Also, there will be memes.
I have ran a game as Summoner finally, and am pleased to say the general playtest feel mostly aligns with my impressions, which were overall positive. However, where I found Magus to be flavorfully satisfying but mechanically lacking, Summoner is the opposite - mechanically great, but could use some extra salt.
Context first: We ran a lv9 homebrew adventure, using two magi and two summoners. For the summoners, we went in very different directions - I ran a pokemon master style summoner focused on summoning and buffing, while my buddy was a tag team melee summoner. Each had its own positives and negatives.
The styles
My "pokemon master" was a smol gnome summoner with angel eidolon (TK & Angemon from now on). Some asked me if Angemon felt lackluster because the angel abilities seem much more passive, but no. It felt very much as strong and useful as BYWD. The passive abilities simply meant there was less variety in my attacks, and what little edge BYWD had in area effects I covered in immunising people from flanked. Boosting was done almost all the time, and my magic was tendentially kept on the down low and only used when specifically convenient (such as by using Holy Cascade on a group of undead).
My buddy was a tall slender elf with a dragon eidolon (Kaiba & BYWD from now on). For most of the time, they played as a tag team, giving each other flanking and fighting. Eidolon Boost was not as used, but they worked effectively and managed to pull some neat trick (Act Together with Intimidate, for example, or to grapple). Magic was, again, used sparingly.
I have generally found that most of my actions were used towards the Eidolon side, with TK being normally reduced to a single action (Boost Eidolon from Act Together) and only taking more when in need of repositioning or when occasionally casting a spell. I don't mind this, because it was a deliberate choice and I saw Kaiba being a lot more balanced in his action distribution, but there is little encouragement for a third, "summoner-centric" style in the playtest. Synthesist could probably be meant to fullfill this niche, but it was not playtested, and from plain reads it does not feel like it would - if anything, it removes the summoner element, and looks generally like a high price to remove the vulnerable half of your character at the expense of boosts and magic.
The Eidolons
Both were effective, strong, and valuable in their own way, and they fit their role very well. In fact, they fit their role almost exactly in the same way.
While there is value in having standardised statlines (no Eidolon is straight up better than the other), the abilities are not enough to distinguish them, and the evolutions tend to feel either too minor or too situational to truly make them stand out. Having two summoners felt like having two characters, but having two eidolons felt like sharing the same feature. In particular, Angemon and BYWD's attacks shared the same attack modifier, damage (with 1 situational point of difference) and traits, and no evolution allowed to distinguish them in a meaningful way. Unarmed Evolution seemed to be a step in the right direction, but Disarm is very niche, Nonlethal suffers from murderhoboism, Shove and Trip are much less effective when talking about an eidolon which likely has hands, and versatile helps making up not having secondary attacks, but eidolons have secondary attacks. These traits would fit well as a second choice if the feat gave a more meaningful first option, but that's not the case.
The shared action and HP pool were perfectly fine and I did not mind them at all, but there was some question on treat wound multi-targeting and the occasional odd interaction. One thing that I definitely learned was not to walk both summoner and eidolon through a wall of fire.
Conduit Spells
I abused the hell out of Boost, and Kaiba managed to still do well without spamming it all the time. Evolution Surge was used for gaining reach and a good way to fill a turn, and while not exactly top tier it's a good baseline power. Reinforce also seems solid, and Unfetter is more of a situational deal which I could see as good for a sneakier eidolon or the like.
If anything, we could use more powers -perhaps something a bit less situational- to justify the existence of multi-focus feats.
Feats
There was some question on nesting Tandem action (ex. can I Tandem Move while Acting Together?) which the doc does not address very well. Some feats seem to be made to work in a certain way but suffer from poor interaction, such as Ostentatious Arrival, which specifically refers to manifesting an Eidolon - but Manifesting has no range, making it a pretty poor choice to trigger it. A lot of evolutions are good but minor, and struggle to find their power. The higher level feats seem to be a lot better off, and there is a pattern of lackluster low-level caster feats in most casting classes, but Summoner is not a pure caster and should probably be made to feel a bit more impactful, especially considering what noted above. The lack of any benefit from Large eidolons was particularly disappointing (but Huge grants reach so that was good).
4-spell progression
I stated that the 4-slot progression felt fine on Magus as it gave impactful magic. It does not feel as good on Summoner.
The reason is that Magus is a prepared caster, and if needed he can alter his spells to fit a different situation, or use situational spells. Summoner is not prepared, and does not have such luxury. Even what little secondary casting I could get (Magical Evolution) is much weaker than the Magus' correspondant (Martial Caster). The combination of narrow spell selection and small spell pool contributed to both generalism and potion syndrome, meaning I felt discouraged to choose narrow application spells but at the same time from using them too often (or at all, really). A similar feeling seems to have led Kaiba's choices. Staves, while normally a good way to expand a spontaneous' repertoire, were used in basically standard form, because I certainly did not have the slots to spare.
As an additional note, Angemon gave me the Divine spell list. I ran a Warpriest before, and the biggest value I found in Divine spells back then was in leveraging self-only buffs (mostly defensive ones) to support my frontline capabilities. I could not do so with Summoner, because my magic was on TK and my frontline was on Angemon. Being able to use self-only spells as Touch on an Eidolon, even as a feat, could very much help in expanding the applicability of the various spell lists.
As I said, this was mechanically a very good class to play and very interesting.
It just needs to also generate a more individual character, and gain some personal flavour.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
"They took it! At the tip of a wand! I'll do it with a lance."
I have refrained from full on comment until I could manage to run a game with the new classes, but it's time.
I have not played Magus myself, but I have participated in a game where two magi (A Slide Caster and a Sustained Steel) played alongside each other, and experienced some of the gameplay. Quite a few things emerged, some confirming my previous evaluations, some not. I'll focus on Spellstrike, Synthesis, Battle Spells, and a handful of choice feats.
Spellstrike
Let's start with the obvious: Spellstrike does not often play out as one would expect. In the first half of the game, players attempted to use it like PF1 spellstrike -walk up, cast+strike, love it- and just... didn't. The Slider managed once, but generally speaking they fell in one of two issues:
-action economy. Spell strike is slow, and with good reason. Two actions to set it up and one action to strike usually mean that the move will be taken in one turn but split in two parts. While slider often overrides this limitation, this is not necessarily a point in his favour - in fact, the action economy advantage was perceived as much more meaningful than the defensive buff from sustaining steel. This is probably mosty a perception issue, because...
-you're gonna miss. Ignoring MAP on spell strike is nice and good, but you can always whiff, and more likely you'll try your discharge on the next turn. Now, you've got a great hit chance on weapon, but you need to roll two dice to discharge a spell, and the second one is on a lower modifier. Unless you crit (which is great, but not gonna happen all the time), your failure chance is compounding on your rolls. Remember why Quiet Allies is good? It's also why Spellstrike is bad.
The positive, of course, is that spellstrike feels strong and impactful when it works. Especially if you got lucky enough to crit on a spell slot. While hit chances were not terrifyingly bad, they're bad enough to give a negative feel to the class and hamper enjoyment.
My improvements?
Not entirely sure, and it'd depend on which direction this is to be moved. I have considered the Eldritch Archer way of joining both effects into a single roll, which would aid gameplay as well as reliability, but it's unlikely that the action economy cost could work on a melee character. Another idea was focusing even more on the action economy issue and turn it into a feature, where Magus could spend an extra action to cast the spell into his weapon but with the ability to hold for a minute. This can lead into crit-fishing and might be off balance, but would avoid the frustration of not being able to spellstrike in a single turn - rather than it being disappointingly difficult, it would just be not an option. There is also the already well-known way of joining the roll and giving a save penalty, from published adventures, which... is not as crazy considering the math.
The one consistent point I have is that the multiple roll on spell strike is an issue, not a feature.
Note that, despite someone suggesting to reduce the action cost, I doubt that option. Our Sustaining magus was slow, yes, and had very little in the way of mobility, but worked, and it fit theme. That to me spells function, despite the other issues.
Synthesis
First things first: needs renaming, I got constant confusions with Summoner.
Slide Casting emerged as a major outlier as the action economy advantage works in complete favour of spellstrike and its current issues. I don't however believe it would be too strong if spellstrike was less tricky - in fact I don't mind the action economy issue beyond its psychological effect. A slower Magus can exist. It just needs to shine less relatively to the other two.
Sustaining Steel was disliked but I can see its use. Frequent tempHP are a good buffer and improve the magus defense in a good way. I would perhaps buff this a little, as action economy advantage tends to be much more valued (and often valuable) by players. A save bonus against magic, perhaps, could help highlight value without harming combat balance.
Shooting Star was not even considered. Having to pick the shortest range, on top of other spellstrike issues, without getting any direct benefits (yes ranged is safer, I know, I play an archer, it still feels bad that your only feature is "you can use your key feature with a bow but you specifically do not get benefits"). If I were to retweak this I would at the very least match the range, and perhaps add a bit about excluding touch spells.
Battle Spells
Hasted Assault and Spell Countermeasures look good and useful as well as fun. Fit the idea of a martial who is experienced in magics. However, I did not see them in play.
Runic Impression was seen and used any time it could be used, as it fits the specific magus fantasy of enhancing your weapon with magical energy. It is the perfect Magus spell and I loved seeing it used.
Magus Potency is problematic.
At the level I played, it translated to a +1 to hit. Runic Impression was more interesting, useful, and thematic. However, at many other levels, it translates to no bonus at all - unless you're purposefully avoiding upgrading your weapon, I suppose, in which case it acts as a... temporary negation of the penalty you gave yourself?
Seriously, imagine this ran under ABP: lv2-6, lv10-12, lv16-20: no effect. lv1, 7-9, 13-15: +1 to hit. That's 13/20 levels with no discernible effect, on a baseline ability. Now sure we don't all run ABP, but we do upgrade weapons whenever possible if we're offensive martials.
There is, however, a potentially simple fix.
Runic Impression becomes the baseline power. Under this, the lv1 version grants a +1 potency rune, and the heightens add other abilities, starting with striking and basic properties and then scaling up to the current version. It fits flavour, it satisfies the same low level balance space as Magus Potency, and it will be appreciated and used, even if it has to be slightly weaker. Using property runes also means it does not compete with other options.
Other ideas include making it a burst damage enhancer (see Zeal domain), going all the way into backup territory by including the ability of materialising a weapon of choice, or turning it into a standing buff (for 1 minute, +2 damage, or whatnot). A basic attack power that can be spellstruck also works. Generally speaking, if it's a power that you must have, then it must be usable - not necessarily strong, just usable.
Feats
I absolutely love the flavour of most of these. Please give me a bajillion more. Capture Spell had me wide-eyed for a good full minute. Parrying a spell and capturing it in your weapon so you can slap it back at the enemy? Take my money.
Also, Martial Caster. It seems like a good way to prop up the 4-spell progression, tho I'm not fully sold on it capping at lv11 and about the inclusion of Mage Armour (which, to give active benefits, should use your high slots). I still like it, I'm just a little puzzled. Same on Magic Weapon (are we getting a heightening entry for it?).
4-spell progression
Currently looking for a better name, but all I can think of is beer foam casting and while it's fitting that's not exactly professional. I believe it works in creating the feel of few powerful spells, and fits well the prepared nature of Magus. The Arcane list also works well with the concept of magus. I have no qualms, if not for how much Martial Caster gets indirectly encouraged, and the fact that the scaling could use a 10th level slot (10th level spells are still Uncommon, so it's not like we're talking Wish). 1/2/1?
That's my Magus thread. If you expected something longer, wait for the Summoner one.
I am not particularly satisfied by this version of Magus, but I am confident in the upcoming changes.
Added for general convenience, this is the official megathread dedicated to Summoner feedback in the Pathfinder subreddit. It links directly here as well.
Come and visit ;)
>link here<
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Added for general convenience, this is the official megathread dedicated to Magus feedback in the Pathfinder subreddit. It links directly here as well.
Come and visit ;)
>link here<
Ok so, it’s a little early, but I’m having a discussion and it kinda hit the “maybe we should bring this up” point.
Also, RELEVANT NOTE, I am not answering any APG question, mostly because I don’t have the book, I’m not a subscriber, and I am not going to redirect questions.
Focus Cathartic is an elixir which has various uses, one among which is to remove Confusion.
Confused prevents taking any action other than attacking or casting offensive spells.
So, uh, how does it remove Confused? I’m Confused.
This seems to follow a couple similar incidents where a condition prevents the use of an item meant for it - like alcohol preventing you from getting blackout drunk or greater merciful elixir removing sickened as long as you can drink it (you can’t).
Is there something we’re missing, or is the APG errata already growing?

3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Good news, everyone!
A while ago I had posted about the Series of Dice-Based Events adventure conversion project, and now I'm here to deliver some results.
While this is mostly my work, I have to thank several contributors, testers and reviewers who have helped me get to this. I hope this made the documents more readable, balanced, and enjoyable.
Download War for the Crown second edition conversion - book 1
This folder contains not only conversion of all the encounters, loot tables, subsystems and social mechanics of Crownfall, but also customised campaign backgrounds, heritages, and general subsystem rules that will be used in the following books, as well as campaign advice based on my own experience running the game.
While I have only book 1 formatted for the moment, I am currently working on the reformatting for books 2 and 4, and should be able to deliver completed conversions for those books much earlier - hopefully in time for groups to keep playing the adventure smoothly, if things go favourably.
More content from a Series of Dice Based Events will be coming soon, among which:
- Tyrant's Grasp adventure path
- Hell's Rebels adventure path
- Rise of the Runelords adventure path
- Crypt of Everflame module
- Mask of the Living God module
And many more :)
disclaimer - this is not a substitute product but only a mechanical conversion, you will require the original adventure path module in order to run it
11 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Near the end of playtest period, I began experimenting with adventure conversion. It went pretty well, and now I am starting to notice more and more people taking it up. I wrote a short guide, reviewed my formatting, and... Started realising there's way too many things I want to convert.
So, this is my next step. I'm opening up a converting community. Small Discord server for now, hoping to grow it a little.
If you're interested in converting, learning to convert, or helping out with some ideas, hop on A Series of Dice-Based Events and you'll find resources, help, and likeminded GMs. We don't have any completed work for now, but ideally everything is aimed at publishing once completed, free of charge.
There's twenty APs in first edition. Let's bring them up to date.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
So, I have had some time to look into this and it keeps standing out as a series of power inconsistencies, mostly due to the fact that the benefit you originally purchase with your feat investment (say, Weapon Training to get martial weapons) does not carry over and instead somehow drops for no real reason. I could understand if the feat originally gave you a penalty, and maintained that penalty as a static presence, but that's not the case.
See the Simplified caster martial weapon output and Simplified martial advanced weapon output tables for some visual aid.
So I remade a few things. If you are a multiclass, gish, or following some specific dedication, this is for you.
Also, I know this comes through as a straight up buff to some feats. For some, it is. For the proficiency itself, it's not. The feats grant you wider variety of weapons at the same precision - and keep static rather than falling off. That's all. Everything else is substitutive benefits.
Proficiency changes:
All the Ancestral weapon feats are unchanged, as they already scale with class proficiency. The lv13 feat simply allows to extend specialty proficiencies (such as Warpriest’s and Fighter’s) to ancestral weapons.
A new ancestral feat is added for humans.
Wizards are trained in all simple weapons, and their wizard weapon expertise applies to all simple weapons.
Canny Acumen is still a work in progress.
The following feats are altered:
Human feat changes:
Unconventional Specialty [Human] [Feat 5]
Source Ediwir’s houserules pg. 6
Prerequisites Unconventional Weaponry
You’ve learned specific techniques to get the best effects out of your chosen weapon. Whenever you critically hit using the weapon you chose for Unconventional Weaponry, you apply the weapon’s critical specialisation effect.
General feat changes:
Armour Proficiency [General] [Feat 1]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 258
You become trained in light armour. If you already were trained in light armour, you gain training in medium armour. If you were trained in both, you become trained in heavy armour.
Your proficiency level in the armours granted by this feat is the same as your unarmoured defense proficiency.
Special: You can select this feat more than once. Each time, you become trained in the next type of armour above.
Weapon Proficiency [General][Feat 1]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 269
You become trained in all martial weapons. If you were already trained in all martial weapons, you become trained in one advanced weapon of your choice.
Your proficiency level in the weapons granted by this feat is the same as your simple weapon proficiency.
Special: You can select this feat more than once. Each time you do, you become trained in additional weapons as appropriate, following the above progression.
Multiclass archetype changes:
Champion
Champion Dedication [Archetype] [Dedication] [Multiclass] [Feat 2]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 223
Archetype Champion
Prerequisites Strength 14, Charisma 14
Choose a deity and cause as you would if you were a champion. You gain the Armour Proficiency general feat for up to medium armour. You become trained in Religion and your deity’s associated skill; for each of these skills in which you were already trained, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You become trained in champion class DC.
You are bound by your deity’s anathema and must follow the champion’s code and alignment requirements for your cause. You don’t gain any other abilities from your choice of deity or cause
Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the champion archetype.
Diverse armour Expert [Archetype] [Feat 14]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 223
Archetype: Champion
Prerequisites Champion Dedication, expert in medium or heavy armour
If you have expert proficiency in medium armour, you gain the armour specialisation effects of medium armour. If you have expert proficiency in heavy armour, you also gain the armour specialisation effects of heavy armour.
Fighter archetype changes:
Fighter Dedication [Archetype] [Dedication] [Multiclass] [Feat 2]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 226
Archetype Fighter
Prerequisites Strength 14, Dexterity 14
You gain the Weapon Proficiency general feat. You become trained in your choice of Acrobatics or Athletics; if you are already trained in both of these skills, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You become trained in fighter class DC.
Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the fighter archetype.
Diverse Weapon Expert [Archetype] [Feat 14]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 226
Archetype: Fighter
Prerequisites Fighter Dedication, expert in any kind of weapon or unarmed attack
You gain access to the critical specialisation effects (page 283) of all weapons for which you have expert proficiency.
Rogue archetype changes:
Rogue Dedication [Archetype] [Dedication] [Multiclass] [Feat 2]
Source Core Rulebook pg. 229
Archetype Rogue
Prerequisites Dexterity 14
You gain a skill feat and the rogue’s surprise attack class feature (page 181). You gain the Armour Proficiency general feat for up to Light armour. In addition, you become trained in Stealth or Thievery plus one skill of your choice; if you are already trained in both Stealth and Thievery, you become trained in an additional skill of your choice. You become trained in rogue class DC.
Special You cannot gain another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the rogue archetype.
Other archetype changes:
Hellknight archetype changes:
Hell's Armaments [Archetype] [Feat 12]
Source Lost Omens Character Guide pg. 84
Archetype: Hellknight
Prerequisites Hellknight Dedication
You’ve trained with your order’s weapon and your Hellknight plate long enough to apply your expertise from other weapons and armour. If you have expert proficiency in any weapon or unarmed attack, you gain expert proficiency in your order’s weapon as well. If you have armour specialisation effects in any armour or unarmoured defense other than hellknight plate, your resistance from the armour specialisation of Hellknight Plate is 2 higher than normal.
Hellknight Signifier archetype changes:
Signifer armour Expertise [Archetype] [Feat 12]
Source Lost Omens Character Guide pg. 85
Archetype: Hellknight Signifer
Prerequisites Hellknight Signifer Dedication; expert in medium and heavy armour
You’ve spent enough time helping your comrades equip medium and heavy armour that you spread your own expertise to those armours as well. You gain the armor specialization effects of medium and heavy armor.
Knight Vigilant archetype changes:
Knight in Shining Armour [Archetype] [Feat 12]
Source Lost Omens Character Guide pg. 94
Archetype: Knight Vigilant
Prerequisites Knight Vigilant; expert in heavy armour
As a knight in shining armour, you train daily in the heaviest armour, expanding your expertise to heavy armour. You gain the armour specialisation effects of medium and heavy armour.
There might be some more feats that appear to have been in need of changing. It might even be true - for most of them, however, they are intentionally untouched, such as Aldori Dedication. The way it's written, it doesn't run off general proficiency, but off any proficiency, meaning a Fighter/Aldori who is Expert in all weapons and Master in axes would get Master in the Aldori sword. That's neat enough.
Have fun and enjoy, if it's worth the attempt. Any questions or comments, I'll be around - it's good to have people poke at my stuff, I always forget something.

17 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Playtest has been out for a little while and, as you all know, it was just a matter of time before I wrote a wizard thesis.
I have led a playtest session in a converted version of Tomb of the Iron Medusa (lv14 module), and players being players, they walked right into the final boss. Can’t make this stuff up.
I won’t focus much on the small pre-boss encounter because half the party got blinded by shining children. I won’t focus on Witch because he did great. I won’t focus on Oracle because that needs its own thread. I will, however, point out one specific issue that is common to both Investigator and Swashbuckler.
The two APG martials are single-target focus specialists. They pick a target, use their skills to get an advantage, and gain strong single-target benefits (damage burst or the like). The problem that the test highlighted?
They suck against single targets.
Let me backtrack for a moment and show what I mean.
These classes use a system based on skills (perception, acrobatics, athletics, deception or intimidate) and attempt to beat a save DC (Fortitude, Reflexes, or Will) to gain an advantage.
When the encounter features multiple creatures, this flows smoothly, they gain access to their perks and engage in entertaining, positive mechanics that define them and make them unique.
When the encounter features a single enemy of higher level, however, those checks feature a very high chance of failure. Especially in the test exam (fencer swashbuckler), the target saves were Will and Reflex, both tendentially high for villain characters (spellcasters or skirmishers are common end-game villains - it’s rarer to face a big soldier). This led to my testers finding their core class abilties very hard to access (<20%) and unlikely to function at their best, in the very situation they would have benefitted from them the most - an epic duel, or a single powerful enemy whose weak point they needed to exploit.
Yes, they won, but in the words of three separate players, “I feel like I can’t do anything”, “I am completely shut down” and “can’t believe we won without breaking a sweat”. If that makes you feel like something’s off, you’re not alone - the witch and oracle almost took her down on their own.
Having class core mechanic be dependant on a skill check related to enemy does create this kind of edge situation - most enemies are under-level, but when someone is superior to you, he becomes extremely superior.
I feel like this also plays somewhat against flavour. Investigator should be aiming at proving his cunning against a clever opponent… who usually has high Will. Swashbuckler should be most intrigued by fighting an equally nimble opponent to prove his worth… but he’ll likely have high Reflexes. The target that should make them shine the most are also the least favourite to fight. Sure, there’s value in a strong challenge, but there’s a difference between challenging and unfitting.
We had a talk about this, and came up with a couple ideas on how to handle the problem. One idea was to give Swashbuckler a way to interact more with the environment, using a capped DC (hard for level, or the like) to perform acrobatics or boasts and gain Panache when confronted with superior opponents. It may have merits, but it’s a fallback rather than a solution. Another was to switch the target number for Investigator - rather than a Perception vs Will (why will?), to have a Recall Knowledge check, and substitute the Study benefits to the normal check result, thus using the Recall Knowledge skill check and DC. This part even feels better for theme, and decreases the DCs enough to keep it useful against higher level opponents. Another, because the abilities are so central to the classes, was to remove the check - but while that could work for Investigator, I don’t feel Swashbuckler would benefit from an always-on panache at all.
Regardless of what’s done, classes that focus on a particular opponent should perform well in single opponent conditions.
-Archvillain Ediwir

Let's get started.
The Familiar witch feature (p.36) states:
Quote: Your familiar can also learn new spells independently of your patron. It can learn any spell on your tradition’s spell list by physically consuming a scroll of that spell in a process that takes 1 hour. You can use the Learn a Spell exploration activity to prepare a special written version of a spell, which your familiar can then consume as if it were a scroll. Am I right to understand that this means Witches learn spells in a fixed time without any skill checks, but can never benefit from skill feats such as Magical Shorthand?
And if that is so, how does the second part of the text play out? Is this in regards to spells encountered in non-scroll form (such as from a borrowed spellbook)?
As a Necromancer I have recently taken Magical Shorthand to gain the ability to learn spells mid-adventure, and while it's not a common occurrence, it will also allow me to learn large amounts of spells at higher levels. Having a fixed 1-hour time restricts spell gain to downtime and limits the amount of new spells that can be gained in one day.
Think, if you will, about a wizard visiting town after a long adventuring arc before heading back out. In one evening, with Magical Shorthand, she could learn a couple dozen low level spells, easy. A Witch would be limited with a handful. The economy and finance of the game encourages this kind of "collection" behaviour among spellbook casters, but the mechanic seems to hinder it.
I believe the feat should be something Witch can benefit from.
While waiting for the APG class playtest, I decided I'll run some high level testing and set up a module conversion for it.
It's moderately simplistic and nothing too fancy, but I wrote it in a format that is shareable and usable (as long as you have the original adventure).
I picked Tomb of the Iron Medusa because it has some implication for my running campaign, which I am also converting in the same format (but not releasing yet).
If you want to give it a try, here's all you need:
-Tomb of the Iron Medusa, second edition-
-Tomb of the Iron Medusa, paizo store-
-Wololo Conversion Guide-
Guide linked in case you want more insight or to make your own. Have fun!
21 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So, I eventually got around to writing this thing.
I'm still very much working on it, but I thought I could use some good feedback. If any of you have worked on adventure conversion, please, point out flaws, add your own ideas, and feel free to help out.
I'm open to hearing your contributions. Have a look.
The Wololo Adventure Conversion Standard Guide
16 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Converts easily and plays so smooth! Thanks for the blog, Mark!

4 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So I’m guessing some people already expected this. For everyone else, you probably haven’t seen me ranting about mandatory item bonuses for a while as I was waiting on more details, but here we go.
Today on Oblivion Oath, we saw a +1 weapon. It’s a magical weapon that gives +1 to hit.
Now, that is exactly the role Expert weapons had in the playtest, but while I ranted long and hard about mandatory magical bonuses, I left weapon quality alone (and in fact I wanted to expand on armour quality) because I found the idea flavourful and positive. The idea of well-crafted items being better at their job (applied to toolkits as well) was still a very important part of bonuses and modifiers, and could be seen as needlessly mandatory, but it had that interesting component to save it, and so I was happy enough once the overlap was gone - but I was hoping it’d be in favour of the interesting part, not the bleak one.
So, basically, what happened to item quality? Was it a name issue, and couldn’t it be renamed if that was the case?
And, as a side question. With magic weapons being what likely seem to be lv2 items and thus “everyone has magic weapons” being hit that much earlier, is there still such a thing as resistance to nonmagical damage? Does this still screw Alchemists?
I’m a bit bummed. Mark, come tell me it’ll be fine.

4 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Alchemist
01- Perc (E), saves (EET), simple/bombs/unarmed weapons (T), light/unarmoured def (T), Crafting +3 skills
07- iron will (Will E), simple/bombs/unarmed weapons (E)
09- Class DC (E)
11- juggernaut (Fort M)
13- light armour expertise (light, unarmored E), weapon specialisation (?)
15- evasion (Ref M)
17- Class DC (M)
19- light armour mastery (light, unarmored M)
The alchemist class paths (field discovery) does not increase proficiencies in any way that I could notice. We know some do.
This was the only class I managed to get a good read, but some tidbits tell me for example that Barbarian's class DC (and presumably most martial) scales a little slower, reaching Master at 19, but armour proficiency scales the same and so does the medium save (Will and Reflex respectively).
I expected Fortitude to reach Legendary, but couldn't find when. Same for Barbarian's high levels (readable enough). My suspicion is a high-level general feat might grant it. Not sure. All Master saves upscale success into crit.

Yep, it's that time again. I made a thread. Sorry everyone.
So, Jason finally delivered and dropped someone. With a single fall of course we don't yet know everything about the dying rules, but we have had quite a few snippets, and... I don't know if I'm on board. Then again, someone did yell "abandon ship".
As a brief recap, here's what we know about the dying rules in final:
-Once you reach 0hp, you are Dying 1 (Dying2 if downed by a crit).
-Initiative is moved, player makes Recovery roll on his/her/their turn. DC 10+Dying, CS/S/F/CF are Reduce Dying by 2 / Reduce Dying by 1 / Increase Dying by 1 / Increase Dying by 2. This is a mix of stream information and chat discussion with Jason.
-Can burn all hero points to remove Dying/Wounded and remain unconscious at 0. Probably doable after the roll, but maybe not.
-You die upon reaching Dying 4.
-Doomed is still a thing because Jason can't be mean and take away my Christmas present.
-Wounded has been mentioned as being a thing.
Now, there's a bit of speculation on my side. Here's some possibilities.
A- Wounded equals the highest Dying value achieved and resets on Treat Wounds (as in some adaptations)
B- Wounded equals the number of times you fall unconscious and resets on Treat Wounds (playtest)
C- Wounded equals the number of times you fall unconscious and scales down on Treat Wounds (harsher)
D- Wounded equals the number of times you fall unconscious and resets on rest (hardcore)
E- Wounded equals the number of times you fall unconscious and scales down on rest (last azlanti mode?)
In case A, Wounded is bit too dire. While it does create danger and tension, you could be downed by a crit and then get critted soon after before having the chance to Treat Wounds. It happened twice in my AP conversion already (to the same person, a shield fighter with the best AC and the worst luck). A system like this would rely heavily on hero points to avoid death - and if someone remembers my rants, hero point short-circuiting was a pretty nasty issue for me, as it led things towards a very binary situation of whether or not someone had their get out of jail card ready. Add to this a free hero point per session, and the ruleset will likely be something people never need to learn and can just check the one time it shows up.
In case B (and other cases up to E), Wounded is just a little milder, as it can accumulate and create a lot of risk if left unchecked. However, this version means you only reach the "danger zone" of instant kills if you fall three or more times before the value goes down. Still, the issue remains - hero points mean you don't get Wounded, so back to square zero (and if hero points clear Wounded, as it looks, you might just wipe away everything at once).
I'm honestly not sure how to feel. My players have asked to edit the dying system to move closer to final rules, but if this is the direction, I feel like creating tension might be a pretty hard task.
For comparison, this is what I currently use:
-Once you reach 0hp, you are Dying1+wounded (at least Dying2 if downed by a crit).
-Initiative is moved, player makes Recovery roll at the end of his/her/their turn. DC based on Fortitude proficiency (TEML 12/10/8/6), CS/S/F/CF are Remove Dying/Wounded and wake up with 1hp / No effect / Increase Dying by 1 / Increase Dying by 2
-Can burn three hero points to remove Dying/Wounded and wake up with 1hp (hero points reset on levelup, can be used for reroll/extra action/healing)
-You die if any effect would increase your Dying while you are Dying 4.
-Doomed is my baby.
-Wounded is your Dying value before waking up and is removed by Treat Wounds.
Does it feel better? I don't know. I know it feels. I know I use it.
Final rules?
Dunno.
This might be the first bit of news I feel iffy about.

24 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Notes:
What’s written here is confirmed from the live play, unless I got it wrong which could totally happen.
Bold notation indicates changes from the playtest.
Italic indicates uncertainty or detail, personal notes on what is known and what isn’t
General mechanics:
-critical success / critical fails as per PRB, DC+10/-10
-initiative is as per PRB, any skill if the situation allows
-even in P2, 7 is still a number
-Shields still need to be raised as an action and have HP, no dents, and take all damage past Hardness
-Proficiency extrapolated as lv+2/4/6/8. Showcased attack values and AC lines up with expected values.
-MAP (multi-attack penalty) still -5/-10 or -4/-8
-armour speed reduction can be mitigated by having a high Strength value
-ooc Medicine use Treat Wounds: spend 10 mins, take Medicine check, on success heal 2d8 and bolstered for 1hour (immune to Treat Wounds). Higher levels heal more or more often.
-extrapolated after long overthinking: touch AC might be gone. Kyra had a +7 to hit with a ray, meaning +4 (wis) +3 (lv1Trained), and attacked against what sounded like regular AC.
Champion:
Subclasses confirmed as paladin/redeemer/liberator based on alignment, each with their own powers.
Retributive Strike: if enemy attacks Paladin’s allies, Paladin can take aoo and reduce incoming damage
Cleric:
Subclasses confirmed - Kyra being a Warpriest, thus getting better armour proficiency and combat-related benefits. Other versions, specifically one getting better spell casting, have been mentioned but not by name.
Heal is 1d8/1d8+8/area1d8 depending on actions spent. Specifically the second action adds a maximised dice.
Bless lasts 1 minute, +1 to attack rolls. If you concentrate, it gradually expands to a larger range, centred on the cleric. Starts as a 5ft bubble.
We are not meant to find Kyra touching Valeros’s sword awkward (but magic weapons brings damage to 2d8 and gives +1 to hit. Unclear if damage is +1 dice or “fixed to 2d8”)
Fighter:
Fighters do not have subclasses, they just learn whatever fighting technique they want to learn.
Sudden Charge (feat), 2 actions to move twice and take a melee attack
Starts as Expert in weapons
Has high bonuses, but rolls terribly
Rogue:
Subclasses confirmed (racket), with Merisiel being the Thief - add Dex to damage. Other subclasses are Str-based and Cha-based.
Pretty much what you expect
Conditions:
Sick gives penalties to pretty much anything and can be removed by attempting further Fortitude saves via the Retch action. You cannot eat or drink while sick.
Extra Goodies:
Core Rulebook contains no archetype beside multiclass, but the World Guide has 10. These archetypes are not class specific but it’s possible some future ones might be.
CRB has 25 pages on Golarion’s setting, aka the secret chapter.
World Guide has 10 regions, each including several backgrounds and an archetype.
And that’s all, folks!
Ps:
-The feat Assurance lets people take 10 (plus bonus). Can be done in any situation but is limited to one skill. Scaling unspecified and unconfirmed, feel free to speculate.
So, with Oblivion Oath soon to begin, we are going to have an early look at the final rules. For example, we will finally see what final form the dying rules are going to take, most likely in session 1.
What are you guys looking forward to see?

17 people marked this as a favorite.
|
It seems like there's a new trend now that the playtest has officially ended, and that is to write down a 'final consideration' or 'final thoughts'.
I don't like trends, but I'm also bored, so let's do the same thing everyone does in a slight different way.
I have enjoyed the playtest and many of the systems. Incredible as it may sound, I was even one of the few who appreciated Resonance (or at least part of its core concept: I am pretty disappointed that we won't get rid of multiple tracking for individual item uses, but also relieved I won't have to pay a point every time I drink a potion), and I have found several changes to the game to be heading towards a smoother play experience and better functioning high levels. So, overall, I'm waiting for the official release (whether it's called P2, Pathfinder Forever, Found The Path, or Pathfinder vs Predator) with the intention of being part of the new edition's early generation of players.
(who am I kidding, I'll GM. ForeverGM.jpg)
There are, however, a few concerns.
A few points where the playtest rules have failed to meet any of my expectations, the points where I can see the most stess vulnerability as of now. It's what will either be fixed, or feel terrible and eventually break down. This is, in short, the first couple of things I'll be looking at in the new handbook, and it'll either make or break the new edition for me depending on how it's solved, or how hard it is to houserule it if I still find it partially lacking. I know many of my protests have been either addressed or are scheduled to be, so I'll stick to the few that are still around, starting from the biggest concerns.
-Mandatory Item Bonuses.
I know, I know, I posted this in every single thread I ever joined. You saw it coming, so don't complain. I have a contractual obligation. That said, the developers already announced that the new proficiency system will allow for a reduction of item reliance, and that is very appreciated. A little less clear is how weapon damage will work, but by digging twitch interviews, it sounds like there will still be a 50-60% damage contribution from runes. I hope that they were just numbers in the air and that they included things like flaming and such, but still, that's something that I'll look at very closely despite any assurances. I did appreciate the EML tool qualities, so that's actually something I hope will stay - it's not mandatory if it's only a small part of your variance, after all, and even on the dice, +15% success isn't nearly the same as +25%.
-Clerics, Channel, and the Divine list.
This is complex and multi-faceted, as it also includes Sorcerers and a few more tidbits. In short, we have been given a playtest version of Cleric which benefitted from a massively overtuned healing potential, but suffered the worst spellcasting ability/list in the game as a balancing factor. This caused issues for Sorcerer, who got the spellcasting but not the channel, for any other healer, who did not have any chance to catch up, and for all non-cleric parties, who could not keep up with encounters that were clearly balanced around the Cleric's presence. Paizo's response has been, so far, to cut down Channel (and mention they'll improve spellcasting). To me, this is... still a bit off. I am uneasy with Channel as a flat bonus max level slots, as it still keeps Cleric up above in terms of healing regardless of investment and because of that might still warrant a power reduction in other departments, which in turn will reflect in other parts of the game that relate to Clerics and Divine. There have been several good suggestions over what to do with Channel, from making it scale with feats causing an opt-in effect to making it a tool to turn Cleric into a hybrid prepared/spontaneous caster (my favourite so far). Whichever direction Paizo takes, I truly hope that it enhances Cleric's role as the most fruitful class from a roleplay perspective and not just a near endless source of hit points for the group.
-Armour.
Despite six updates, it's still spelt "armor". On a related note, there are also absurdly high penalties for heavy armour that are balanced by absolutely no benefits, besides the shoehorning of a few select classes into the concept of "you only get these benefits if you wear horrible equipment that gimps you a little less than normal". I am not sure how Paizo managed to create a trait system that gives different bonuses to weapons creating flavour and variety, and then made a trait system for armour that gives nothing but massive penalties. There should be a reason to want heavy armour over light armour, something that's not just "I have low dex" but more like "it protects more". If it can't be more AC, then it can be a secondary benefit - damage reduction has been suggested since forever, but it's not the only option. But mostly it should be called armour.
-Alchemist.
First of all thank you for the alchemist specialisations. While some concerns have been raised over mutagens, it's the feat variety that concerns me the most here, as virtually no feats have been released to support paths other than bombing. I am hoping plenty are on route and we will see them soon, but that aside - Alchemist has an odd feel, in general, and that is because of the items. Alchemists being separated from the magical system is a great idea and a major thumbs up, but if that's the case then the items need to be good enough to compare - if not directly, at least indirectly. I don't need an elixir of fly, or even a steroid boost that lets people jump a barn, but I would definitely welcome a gluey paste that lets people climb any surface. I don't need a thrown healing potion, or a filter that resurrects people, but I can definitely imagine a vial being unstoppered and releasing a hovering cloud that slowly heals and toughens everyone in a small area - friend or foe. In other words, while I love the idea of fundamentally different effects, they need to keep up in some way if Alchemist is to be a nonmagical utility character in a world of magical utility characters. (also, alchemist vs incorporeals is a MAJOR weak spot).
-The power feel.
So many feats feel like they are just "the least worse option". Some feat chains feel like they've been written with retraining in mind, something like "once you're lv18, retrain your previous feat to take the whole chain at once, 'cause there's no point in the previous stuff". So many times you take a feat just to let your numbers keep up, and not to actually have anything get better - just an option you previously would've never used that now, finally, becomes as good as the rest of your stuff. We were initially told how feats were moving away from minor numerical bonuses and towards meaningful options. That'd be nice. Please make it so.
That's my final PF2 feedback, I suppose. I am currently GMing a P2 War for the Crown, starting next week, and I love the system (despite a ton of houserules) - but as I said, there's much that needs to be addressed. I hope it'll happen. I hope it'll be great - it has the potential to.
To the testers, thanks for working through this. It's been a blast.
To my players, you guys wrote more characters than I ever got to play in a decade. Have some rest and enjoy the Exaltation Gala.
To the devs/designers... My posts might be mean but it's just tough love <3 I wouldn't bother yelling at you if I didn't think you could do wonders! (also sorry if I've been mean, ilu guys)
See you all in queue for the book once it's out ;)

3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
The bells and jingling, the rides are fun, and the sleighs are one-horsing, and the Playtest period comes to a close.
Similarly, on Golarion, the heroic adventurers are rotting on the floor of Ramlock's laboratory and the stars are disappearing as Aucturn prepares itself to assimilate all life and destroy all civilisations... But what happened before that?
Years before the planet was bound to die, a group of slightly more competent heroes has taken part in much less cataclismic events. Their tale, however, is still one deserving to be told, and this is what my next project will be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So as someone might've noticed, I got to the end of Doomsday Dawn with my group (in a less than optimal manner, unfortunately).
Having spent the last few months running adventures as scripted and working mostly on players' feels on the rules, I now find myself wanting to do something different: I want to see how the rules of Pathfinder Playtest offer themselves not just to GMing, but to adapting existent material into the new ruleset. I want to see how long it takes me to set DCs, decide on attack bonuses, abilities, challenges, interactions, loot, finances, and how well that lines up with the actual successes and failures. I want to run this with my best poker face and then ask players how it felt. I want it to look smooth no matter the amount of notebooks I have to run through, and then count how many notebooks I used.
I will run the War for the Crown AP.
This is mostly because I am currently in Book2 with a PF1 group, and am familiar with the story and areas. It'll help reduce my workload and give me a way to compare PF1/PF2 once I had a couple sessions. It also is an AP that relies heavily on skill checks and downtime, so there will be ways to get those involved. Skill feats might be less impactful with the social mechanics the campaign offers, but I am confident that the off-social parts still have quite a few skill challenges I can use to get them to a valuable level.
As this is a test for the GM side of things, I don't care as much to keep player rules as written. As a consequence I have allowed a few houserules and edits on player side. They should not impact the GM side of things as much (the edits change the way people get values, but not the values themselves). We are also using a variation of Focus and a couple other things.
My first challenge, as I start into this, is to adapt the Campaign Traits into valid Backgrounds, and the Noble Scion feat into a worthy Human Heritage. Time to see how long that takes and how well it turns out.
I hope this can be of interest to someone and that it'll be entertaining for the players.
As a last note, this WILL contain spoilers from WftC, so y'know, SPOILER ALERTS and all.

3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
After months of playtesting, me and my group finally got to the end of Doomsday Dawn (and shrieking peak).
Ultimately, however, the party could not overwhelm the otherwordly power of Ramlock and the Veinstone Pendulum, and was defeated after a bloody battle that saw mind controlling spells, buffs and dispels, burning chitin, and even a mid-fight Resurrection being thrown around in a desperate attempt at victory.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the ease with which P2 handles high level enemies and especially how simple it is for me as a GM to move between enemies with highly different styles without having to re-learn the intricacies of 4 classes and the new archetypes they introduce. Running Ramlock was a breeze.
I know I have often ranted about all the things I find are off about P2, but this isn't that kind of thread. The system, for all its faults, runs pretty smoothly and works fine even at high levels, as long as people can keep track of their own stuff. There is enough variety and options to make combat strategic without having a bunch of tiny +1s, conditions are impactful, and while tracking can become a game in itself I wouldn't have it any other way as it adds to fluidity and change. (yes conditions are tiny +1s but they are imposed or gained rather than static parts of your build)
In other words, thank you for Doomsday Dawn, thank you for working on P2, and thank you for still being at work ironing out the mandatory item bonuses that plague what would otherwise be an edition rich with poten... Darn, I started again. Sorry, disregard that (actually don't).
TLDR: Party died at Ramlock's. Playtest over for me. Thumbs up with reservations.

2 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So let's start by saying I am pretty sure the main aim here was to reduce the issues given by people falling to the ground and bouncing back up with a spring. And yes, I have a Sorcerer in my current group that does exactly that (not sure why he keeps being in front) and it's quite annoying, so, big fan of that.
However.
I am also a big fan of the idea that death should be a bad thing.
The perception of risk is what makes people feel relieved when they make it. It's what makes heroes heroes. It's what makes you proud of the character you made. It's what pushes you to cooperate and struggle.
If death is too easily reversed, or if it never even happens, the threat is seen as meaningless and the perception of risk vanishes, diminishing satisfaction.
(to my players: this is why I hit you and curse you and try to disintegrate you. It's just tough love)
Past this premise, I have a couple of issues with the current death&dying rules that relate to it (and one that's just about tracking).
Firstly, Dying and Wounded do not feel right in some way. It feels like I am just changing the name to the condition, rather than having two distinct ones. I would feel better if Dying didn't have a value, and you just took Wounded 1 or 2 when you got knocked down. A lethal blow would also give you Dying - which at this point becomes a condition that increases your Wounded value over time.
This makes tracking smoother for players or GMs, and allows one to remain Wounded 3 but not dying without any tweak or changes once they stabilise.
...speaking of which...
Random stabilising isn't particularly interesting. Swingy, yes, uncertain, yes, but it gives the feel that it's entirely up to the dice. At this point, I'm almost thinking it should just advance automatically if not removed, and characters could die at Wounded 6 instead. But giving the character some way to reduce their chance of bleeding out would be a good thing.
...unless...
Remember how I mentioned death should be a bad thing? How it loses value if it never even happens?
Who got the bright idea of making the basic function of an ever-replenishing resource to remove any trace of danger or risk of death or any lingering consequences?
Hero points removing Wounded cause the most ridiculous, instantaneous, ever-present rubberbanding I have seen in years of gaming. A player goes down (after the party runs out of Channels) and he's immediately back on his feet, heading back to get his potions and chatting about the weather, not a trace of deadly wounds on him, "because he's a hero".
I could see this as a 3-point, massive turning point, big hero thing. But basic 1-point functions flying in the face of a whole mechanic? why?
This, to me, feels like the whole system is nullified by a basic power. This is the reason I haven't given real feedback on the dying system until now - I really, honestly couldn't. It was almost never used. I read and understood it and liked it on paper, but it never made it to the table.
I am hoping this gets addressed before playtest is over and we get a final version, but this is going to be a big one for me. There is no merit without risk, and there is almost no risk with these rules.
Note that I don't want players to die more often (as much as it might sound like it): I want players to RISK dying more often. I want someone to tell me "damn, that was close", not "well, what's next?". I want a hero to jump in and rescue his dying teammate, not the teammate to get up and dust off his shirt. I want a heroic story. This isn't it.

Morning everyone, I had an issue recently and realised I made a ruling on the spot but never discussed it afterwards.
Our guest of honour, today, is the lich, a lv12 spellcasting monster who has Dispel Magic prepared.
For ease and friendliness, we'll call her Lucy.
Lucy's Spell DC is 29, her spell attack is +22. She has +6 Int and is a lv12 spellcaster, but not proficiency is given.
Lucy wants to dispel the Fighter's Fly spell so that she can keep raining death and ruin on the party's head like a good lich should.
She then casts a lv3 Dispel Magic against a lv3 Fly, and needs to take a spell roll against the spell's DC (with a +0 modifier as they are the same level).
What's the spell roll bonus?
As a monster, she doesn't have one.
Is it the same as the spell attack, and so +22?
Is it her DC -10, and so +19?
Is it her level + int, and so +18?
Is it an arbitrary number that I feel like including, and so +20?
I might have missed a paragraph that explains what to do in this situation, but cutting player's legs is a staple of spellcasting monsters, and so I would love to really understand what I'm supposed to do in this situation.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Hi all, I just finished... treating my players to a, uh, exciting heroic battle... yeah whatever you know what happened, ANYHOW, I have been made aware that the Player Survey for Heroes of Undarin is missing the Rogue Archetype as an option among "what archetype did you select for your character?".
Is that gonna be fixed? Is it not meant to be?
What do I tell my guys to do?

15 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So many red flags on this stream.
Top 5:
5. Stances: no more Open trait on stances (still 1/r)
4. More class options. Rangers get early level “ranger edges” (flurry, precision, stalker). Rogues get “techniques” (finesse, brute attack, feint)
3. Monks get more Ki powers, buff on Ki strike, everybody was kung fu fighting, more flexibility on abilities.
2. ALCHEMIST. Lots of stuff. Big deals include: removal of resonance alchemy, replaced with infused reagents similar to resonance playtest version. ALCHEMISTS GET RESEARCH FIELDS like bomber, chirurgeon, mutagenist (lower level mutagens will be a thing), poisoner.
1. PALADIN. Removed from the game. That's what Stephen (senior designer) said, I swear to Asmodeus.
Someone read my alchemist rants <3 happy me.
This thread is still being edited and added to at the time of posting.
Also notes:
Some more minor updates COULD happen but will not follow a schedule and will not be of this magnitude.
"X Form" spells that use bestiary stats cannot be a thing because bestiary uses different creation rules that are not fitting for the PCs and would end up in cherry-picking monsters (Personal note: 3.5 Hydra form wizard with shared spell familiar anyone?)
1e to 2e conversion was talked about mostly in monster terms but republishing old adventures in 2e won't likely sell much.
Once the playtest ends in December, some information blogs on final 2e will come out - the proper form of this is still in the works.
LV12 bunnies issue: On one side, a GM creating an adventure will set a DC to challenge a party if the situation demands it. On the other, a GM creating a world will set level challenges regardless on when players meet them. Meeting the two is the issue and they need to work on conveying that idea. The chat demands a shrubbery to climb.
I tried to ask about mandatory item bonuses (working the question in a little less loaded way) but it wasn't picked up. There's a bit more discussion I didn't jot down, so feel free to check the stream if you want more details!
STREAM ENDED AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE ADDITIONS

19 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Looks like my latest megathread is going to focus on the removal of potency runes. It's a topic that seems to have very polarised factions, with some extremely dedicated fans (hi there) and, apparently, a lot of opposing voices from the surveys. As survey data indicates that this is not a popular variant, I decided to have a look into it and try to run some numbers.
Firstly, I calculated wealth by level from the Treasure section and removed weapon potency runes from the values (this was easy, because I am also working on AP conversions and I needed the financial ratios. hint: that part is NOT easy). Then compared the new total to figure out how much to subtract. Then worked out what else needed to be done, particularly in relation to Item bonus.
...At this point, I might've started overdoing things.
I took the chance to address Item bonuses throught the book, be it saves, skills, attacks and other bits. I included adjustments to certain classes. I added caveats for warpriest wannabes. I boosted spellcasters, I have no problems in admitting it. I removed steep DC growth from auto-scaling checks. I remade 10.2 to address the new bonuses. I drew guidelines for bestiary conversion. I got annoyed at how my proofreader thought images were clearer than formulas and did something terrible out of spite. I adjusted AC values to account for the reduced economy. I added a Heighten feature to Magic Weapon because I thought it wasn't really needed but it kinda deserved to have one.
Basically, I've done a lot of work that probably wasn't strictly necessary and that will soon be invalidated by playtest updates, and the fact is, I don't care. I did this in two hours because I wanted to.
I truly believe that ABP was the right thing to do in 1e and that a second edition without mandatory bonuses would only benefit.
I will keep updating this anytime an update would invalidate my writings, I will try to improve it each time, and I will more than likely play with ABP once 2e hits release.
I can only hope this is NOT the version of ABP that I will use, because there will be one in the book (or because someone will make a better one). But if that doesn't happen, here's what I'd do as of now.
Note that +5 weapons are not supposed to show up before Epic Levels in treasure progressions as of now, and they do not under ABP either.
Part I: Finances
-All currency, financial gains, loose change and additional wealth are reduced by 30%, except for starting wealth.
-Characters created at higher level are assigned treasure by reducing all item values by 1: for example, a lv10 character will gain a lv8 item, two lv7 items, one lv6 item, and two lv5 items (rather than one lv9, two lv8, one lv7, two lv6). Additional wealth will be reduced by 30% as per the previous point.
Part II: Weapon Damage
-Potency Runes are removed entirely, as well as the lv3 Doubling Rings (and the secondary function of lv11 Greater Doubling Rings).
-Handwraps of Mighty Fists only exist in their nonmagical form of Expert, Master and Legendary quality (and allow weapon trinkets attachments). They allow characters to apply their item bonus to unarmed attacks.
-A character’s proficiency total determines his weapon damage. Characters gain one additional damage dice every 5 points of proficiency total (for example, a level 3 fighter with Sword Mastery would deal 2d8 damage with a Longsword, but only 1d8 with a Warhammer).
-The penalty from the Enervated condition applies to proficiency for the purpose of determining damage.
Classes (but not multiclass archetypes) receive the following modifications:
-Barbarians treat their proficiency as 2 points higher for the purpose of determining damage during a rage.
-Clerics and Paladins treat their proficiency as 1 higher for the purpose of determining damage when wielding their deity’s favoured weapon. Weapons inscribed with Emblazon Symbol or aligned with Aligned Armament are considered to be their deity’s favoured weapon for the purpose of weapon damage and the Warrior Priest feat.
-Rogues treat their proficiency as 1 higher for the purpose of determining damage when striking a target subject to afflictions or negative conditions (such as, for example, fatigued or poisoned, but not friendly or quick).
Part III: Saving Throws
-Armour potency runes are removed entirely.
-Characters do not receive Item bonus to Saving Throws.
-Fight me.
Part IV: Items
-Weapons work as advertised. Armours further allow characters to add their quality Item bonus to AC.
-Quality-based nonmagical item bonuses are unchanged and work as per the Core Rulebook.
-No new nonmagical items or tools are introduced, and while GMs have discretion to add them, I personally advise against it.
-Magical items that confer bonuses to skills or checks are reduced to granting a +1 item bonus (for all items granting up to +3 bonuses) or a +2 item bonus (for +4 and higher).
-Note that item bonuses to damage rolls or healing are unaffected.
-Bracers of Armour's prices, effects and levels change to I: lv2, 35gp. III: lv6, 245gp. V: lv10, 1000gp. VII: lv14, 4500gp. IX: lv18, 18000gp.
-Handwraps and Bracers can be inscribed with property runes.
Part V: Spells
-Mage Armour grants no bonus to saves. Heightening is changed to Heightened (+2): The Item bonus to AC increases by 1.
-Magic Fang and Magic Weapon are altered: The weapon/natural attack is magically empowered, gaining a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and dealing always at least two damage dice regardless of proficiency. The spell also gains Heighten (3) The weapon/natural attack always deals at least three damage dice; Heighten (5) The item bonus increases to +2, and the weapon/natural attack always deals at least four damage dice; Heighten (7) The weapon/natural attack always deals at least five damage dice; Heighten (9) The item bonus increases to +3, and the weapon/natural attack always deals at least six damage dice.
-Weapon Surge is functionally identical but language might need adjusting.
Part VI: Bestiary
-Reduce all checks and DCs (but not spell DCs) by 1 for all creatures and hazards level 12 and higher, and by 2 for all creatures and hazards level 20 and higher.
-NPCs are subject to a similar penalty, but in addition their weapons and armours are converted to Expert (for +1 and +2), Master (for +3 or +4) or Legendary (for +5) versions.
-Opponents' equipment should be treated carefully, as under the new ABP economy they might have too much wealth on themselves (but their items are part of their challenge). Don’t be a bad GM and use their allotted things.
Part VII: Table 10.2 remade
Referencing Update 1.4, table 10.2 is altered as follows:
Easy checks DCs are equal to 7+level.
Medium check DCs are equal to 12+level, with an additional +1 every 10 levels.
Hard check DCs are equal to 14+level, with an additional +1 every 5 levels.
Incredible check DCs are equal to 16+level, with an additional +1 every 4 levels.
Ultimate check DCs are equal to 17+level, with an additional +1 every 3 levels.
A visual version of the table is available >>here<<, but it’s in Comic Sans to encourage a purer, more mathematical approach.
As usual, I encourage discussion and questions. I have a reason for everything I do, but it might not be the right reason, and questions are the best way to find out, so please ask.

12 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So, after concluding Mirrored Moon, I ended up getting a lot of feedback specifically on Cleric by my players. One of them rolled a Cleric in Lost Star, being his favourite class, and now he has played Cleric three times fully.
It's not very good.
Premise and confession: I, as GM and as player, have repeatedly expressed the opinion that Clerics in their current iteration are too powerful and cause issues in encounters, because of the excessive healing and of how easily they can throw down a massive heal spike with no real loss of resources. I have posted in these boards previously claiming nobody else has access to that much power, telling of how I feel like I cannot make encounters feel meaningful or threatening as long as the cleric is alive, and comparing P2 Clerics to Gestalt characters because of how they end up casting more than double everyone else's high level spells.
This is not a backflipping change of mind, but an added consideration.
My criticism was not about Clerics as a whole, but actually about Channel Energy.
Channel Energy grants Clerics an additional 2-7 (or even 9) casts of their highest spell slots, basically giving them a second and third character that exclusively heals, and can be further enhanced and improved by their feats and features (specifically Domains). I see people making Clerics because there is just no other way to keep up with healing and damage in any way that can hold a candle to it. I see lots of players even outside my group picking the Healing domain because "it's the best", and they manage to cast so freakin' much, I forget one core problem:
That while the channel is so extremely powerful that it eclipses every other player at the table, the cleric that carries it around is actually pretty bad.
Low casting (for this edition). A very restricted spell list, most of which is highly situational. Spells that depend on your god's alignment, but with no compensation for neutral gods (my guy is a Pharasman because of flavour reasons. He feels terrible about it now). The casting aspect is swingy, with great moments when the encounters fit your spells and great "well, I guess I'll heal someone" when they don't. Domains and feats that often rely on Channel to do anything, further pushing Cleric into the role of healer. Low weapon accuracy and proficiency. While the defense is fairly good, you have no way to make proactive use of it such as shielding allies or "play defender". The skills are low because of your expected role, which often demands you take care of both patchup duty and many spellcasting skills (I am specifically referring to skill feat selection here).
Basically, from what I see, Cleric is definitely powerful, clearly destabilising, and in dire need of a nerf.
From what my players see, Cleric is way too swingy, clearly not fun to play, and in dire need of a buff.
I think we are both right, and that Cleric's issue is not simply power, but internal balancing. Power without fun.
I still think Channel is in need of a massive nerf, because you just can't eclipse other classes this badly, but now I'm starting to think that doing something like that would uncover a more concerning issue - that once you take Channel away, Cleric will have very little going for her.

14 people marked this as a favorite.
|
New stream is out, here's the summary:
On the topic of Resonance:
-Resonance will be restricted to certain worn item (flat amount of 10).
-Focus will combine the current spell point pools and the consumable-resonance into one (Cha based, read ahead)
-You can use Focus either to use your class powers or to supercharge consumables/items.
-Active items do not cost Resonance and have daily charges, but can be overused with Focus to gain additional uses or effects
-Other benefits could be additional duration, wider area, extra effects, higher damage/healing and so on
-Each Ancestry gets one baseline Focus point (Gnomes get 2) plus their Charisma, plus possible bonuses from class features (such as Wizard's Arcane Bond).
-Alchemists are decoupled from Resonance / Focus and instead get a number of reagents based on lv+int with which they can use their features.
-Wands will become cheaper than having multiple scrolls, but is limited to 1/day. Spending Focus on the wand overclocks it to free usage for the day (up to its regular maximum charges).
-Staves allow you to spend Focus on them at the start of the day (sounds like a slip, possibly Resonance) and allow you to cast their spells with either Focus or your own Spell Slot (effectively adding spontaneous casting to your character). Sounds like the limit on Staves has been removed.
-Focus Activation Action is going to be renamed, with a lot of secondary changes to item activation actions.
-Possible Increases to Focus from feats, certainly not per level.
-Powers are going to be strengthened and particularly are going to scale better (example: Fire Ray scaling has been doubled).
.
.
Other interesting bits:
-"did you see survey data about decoupling extra dice from magic item bonus to be based on character level?"
"We asked about "inherent martial ability," rather than level per se. But if you consider that close enough, we do. It was... not popular."
.
-"Question: Please explain like im a 5 year old how dispel magic works."
[starts at 00.51 and ends at 00.53. It's a great explanation but I'm not writing it down. An actual 5yo next to a chat user seems to have understood it.]
From the Surveys, Dispel rules were really appreciated but also considered hard to understand.
.
.
Adventure module with the changes and new items (Raiders of Shrieking Peak) is expected this Monday.
19 people marked this as a favorite.
|
So, I kinda posted this as an offhand, dismissive comment, and it sorta grew on me after someone pointed out it made more sense than I intended.
Allow Crafted items to use your Craft DC.
That's... pretty much it. It does not conflict with the current DCs as it's always equal or better, it does not add too much weight to the rules, and it rewards characters who spend time to do things. It allows alchemists and rogues to use poisons, rangers to use snares, thunderstones to exist, and items to remain consistent and valuable over time.
It could be a skill feat, but it just makes sense as is - if you are a better craftsman, you make better stuff.
Can it be a thing? Or at least get some consideration?

1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
First of all, I realise and understand that "the world does not scale" and characters aren't supposed to always be making level-appropriate checks.
The whole point of the 4-degree system and the "level to everything" scaling is to have critical success happen more often on lower level checks, so we have the basic premises down.
That said, 10.2 is a bit of a mess.
The scaling is uneven, odd, and hard to relate to as a gm. I have a printout sitting next to my screen and even then it takes me a bit sometimes, so I decided to try and get a handy rule out of it.
This will necessarily turn out to be out of tune with the actual 10.2, and it's not meant to be used in playtesting, but it's part of a wider project I am running which involves rapid conversion of statistics and DCs from PF1 to PF2 (don't ask, it's nowhere near ready yet and will undergo several changes as the playtest gets updated - it's basically a permanent draft at this point).
10.2 standard:
The table is divided into five "difficulty tiers": easy, medium, hard, incredible, ultimate.
Looking at DCs for level 1-20, the tier differ from each other by +1, +2 or +5 at the start, and increase over time by an additional +0, +4, +5, +8 or +10 over the level, usually around level clusters (5, 7, 10, 13, 17) but with no clear pattern. An especially confusing one is the Incredible DC tier, which has the only +3 increment of the table (lv6 to lv7).
10.2 simple:
The table is divided into five "difficulty tiers": easy, medium, hard, incredible, ultimate.
DC begin at 12+level for Medium tasks, and increase by +2 for each additional difficulty. Easy tasks DC are reduced by 5 instead.
Medium and Incredible tiers DCs increase by an additional +1 and +2 respectively every 5 levels.
Hard and Ultimate tiers DCs increase by an additional +1 and +2 respectively every 4 levels.
Thus, a "hard" level 14 DC is equal to 12 (base) +14 (level) +2 (hard) +3 (12/4 adjustment) = 31.
Coincidentally, this is the same exact DC as base 10.2 (i rolled dice for level and difficulty). More often you'll find your result being one point too high or too low, and occasionally you might be two points off. Still, it gets you in the ballpark.
Note that this "simplified" table makes some checks easier by delaying some increases (which might be welcome), namely Treat Wounds and other level-dependant checks that use the Medium or Hard track, but makes some other checks harder (early and mid-level Ultimate checks are most affected).
Use at your own risk of screwing up, and always use RAW when giving feedback.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
So I was replying to a thread about Resonance and made a point about why potions had to be restricted because they could be used as an action - and I think I had the dumbest workable idea in a long while.
See, a while ago I played this small D&D based online game where, in order to rest, you had to rest at a campfire - and people would make sure to have a bunch of tinder to start campfires mid-dungeon. GMs hated that habit because it was basically a workaround (wands were annoying. clicking 50 times? No thanks), but it was the only way to heal up without a Cleric around, and those guys always wanted first pick of loot, so screw them. Also tinder was awfully heavy and made Fighters useful.
Point is, it was a way to get downtime healing and it worked. So, why not address downtime healing with consumables that motivate people to purchase higher level items, impact finances, but do not affect combat power?
Introducing to you,
Potion of Recuperation, Minor Item 1, cost 1gp
When you drink this potion, you regenerate 1 hp per minute for the next 10 minutes. The effect is interrupted if you take any damage.
Fountain of Life, Minor Item 2, cost 3gp
You can place this idol on the ground and activate it by having at least 3 individuals place their hands on it and recite the activation chant. The idol then emanates a 3m emanation of light and warmth that lets all activating creatures regenerate 1 hp per minute as long as they're inside it. The field lasts 10 minutes or until the idol is moved.
An alchemical version could come up eventually, as a Galvanising Elixir or whatnot. Irrelevant, for now.
The point is - if you want the combat effectiveness, you pay premium price (3gp). If you want the off-screen healing, these potions offer the party a non-free, Resonance-limited way to heal up.
The Fountain is more cost-effective (but not more resonance-effective) but restricts the party's mobility, preventing extensive exploration and searches in exchange for the economic benefit.
This is the result of about 5 minutes of work, most of which was spent trying to find a name (rejuvenation? nope. Regeneration? nope. Second Wind? big nope)... But does it make any sense as a base concept? Would you guys buy that in your starting equipment? Would higher level versions (2hp/min, 3hp/min, 5hp/min, 7hp/min, 10hp/min, with fountains being 1 level higher than potions) make sense and maintain the Resonance usage?
Would you still use Healing Potions for in-combat dramatic healing?
Would you use Healing Potions at all, or would you if the Recuperation lasted 5 minutes?
What if the price was not 30%/100% of potions, but 50%/150%?
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that in my hurry I forgot to convert the emanation into American units. It'd be a 10ft range.

4 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Premise: this will have links.
OVERALL GAMEPLAY:
Challenges
Not as much of a house rule but more of a premise and side note, but people need to realise that an equal-level challenge is supposed to be an equal-level challenge. If a character is the same level as a monster, they are roughly equal. If a character is the same level of a door, he’s supposed to crack it just as much as the door is supposed to keep him out. Designing encounters and challenges must be done with this in mind… And the book must make it blatantly clear. Much of the feedback I read seems to be starting from the premise that a level 6 PC should easily beat a level 6 DC, which is like saying that a lv5 Ranger should single-handedly duel Trolls all day long. Good luck with that.
So, if I were to house rule something and then show those house rules to someone else, it would start with this premise. And state this clearly to every GM.
Skills
Skills are currently staying out of my naughty list, with two outliers - Crafting and Performance.
Crafting is a downtime skill with a lot of complexity and relatively low use, but can have value in some places. Mostly, this is a mandatory Trained skill for Alchemists, but beyond that it really does not feel significant. I would, then, add interactions between Alchemists and Crafting ranks and checks, and perhaps increase Crafting’s baseline strength.
Performance is… not so sure. See The Dancing Elephant in the Room for details. I would remove it from the skill list and redistribute Fascinating Performance to some other skill, perhaps Society.
Medicine, while not on the naughty list, is a likely target for improvements, as outlined in the Healing section of this thread.
Feats
Different approach to different issues for different groups. Let’s work in order:
-Class Feats: I would likely group some feats together to make them more significant, allowing feats to scale in a similar way to Cleric Spellcasting (p.280). I believe the Druid’s Wild Shapes to be a likely candidate for this, as they are outgrown fairly quickly by higher level druids and get very likely retrained.
-Skill feats: I would remove Performance-related skill feats except Fascinating Performance, which would become a Society feat.
-General feats: I would add a feat to grant an additional reaction in some way, to help those characters with multiple reaction abilities. This should be restricted to reactions that have not been used since the start of your last turn.
Equipment
Heavy armour, and armour in general, would get a few modifications. Specifically, I would remove Clumsy and ACP reductions with quality, and instead add three new traits: Lightweight, Flexible, and Impervious.
-Lightweight would reduce ACP to Str-based checks.
-Flexible would reduce ACP to Dex-based checks.
-Impervious would grant a small damage reduction against bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, or any combination of the three.
-Noisy would change to prevent Flexible from affecting Stealth checks, with only a slight reduction being allowed at Legendary quality.
All these traits would scale with item quality, with lightweight and flexible being common for light and medium armour, and Impervious being mostly a heavy armour benefit.
I have (reluctantly) accepted Heavy Armour bonuses as mathematically constrained, but that does not mean they must become strictly obsolete with level. There are other ways to depict physical protection, and they should be used.
Further, I would be granting all characters a minimum number of damage dice when using nonmagical weapons, provided they have sufficient Proficiency and high enough level. This to make it so that a character that is meant to master weaponry could actually be good with weapons, not simply be good when wielding a very powerful magic sword and be horrible at anything else. Magical weapons would be better than raw damage, and non stacking, but there needs to be a fallback option.
When assigning treasure, I would let characters get 2-4 consumables instead of a permanent item of the same level, or 2 items of 2 lower levels if they wanted.
Lastly, snare kits as 8 bulk are ridiculous. If you want rangers to use this, it needs to be at least modular, splitting it into a lesser snare kit for quick traps and a full-scale one for bigger snares.
Resonance
I am, actually, a fan of Resonance. Perhaps because it reminds me of Methyrfall’s background and magic rules a little, but I want it to stay.
What I do not want, however, is uses/day.
I would thus remove uses per day and charges from almost every item (1/day powerful effects being the exception), instead adding 2pt and 3pt resonance costs on certain powerful effects (which I believe would also address the higher resonance pools high level characters currently have).
The few items that would maintain charges would be items granted by a power or ability like the wizard’s Improvised Wand and some items that get spent like a fuse, such as the spell-absorbing Aeon Stone.
CHARACTERS:
Ancestries
I am certain that even on the current system I would allow for at least two Ancestry feats at lv1 (max 1 heritage). I am also certain that I want ancestries to grow over time. I am less certain of how I want this to happen, so at the start I would experiment with this:
- Divide feats in three groups: Heritage, Ancestry, and Growth.
- keep Heritage feats as static, impactful, themed feats. Add the Heritage feat “True to your Roots” which grants two Ancestry feats.
- make Ancestry feats relatively weak, simple, and minor flavour bonuses. Add some new, region-based Ancestry feats that can be selected regardless of your race to represent populations from different countries other than different genes.
- make Growth feats build upon Ancestry, increasing the bonuses and reach of them.
- allow Characters to select one Heritage feat and two or more Ancestry feats at lv1. No more Ancestry feats are given, and only Growth feats are available from that point forward.
This is to give a customisable, personal touch to Ancestry, while still giving a form of growth that feels related to how you started rather than a sudden change with characters “mysteriously” developing a hate for giants or whatever else.
While this would require a lot of new feats being written, I will not do that in this post. Expect a separate thread soon.
Classes
-Alchemist would get a full rework, with some help from the Druid orders and large use of Crafting rank to determine its power, but also probably using Crafting checks to improve on his chemicals in a similar way as the current Bard (giving all alchemists a reason to invest in their main skill).
-Barbarians would get an accuracy bonus while raging, and some feats would be condensed together or improved upon. The accuracy would be a light adjustment but very meaningful in enhancing his damage on multiple strikes.
-Bards would use spell roll instead of Performance (and the DCs would be adapted), because I would be removing Performance. There is no need to substitute it with another skill. Versatile Performance would instead let you treat your proficiency rank as one higher to qualify for Deception, Diplomacy or Intimidate skill feats (level requirement still stands).
-Clerics would lose most of their Channel feature. Sorry. While I see value in it, it’s beyond excessive in the current form. I would reduce that to once per day, with a second use becoming available for Clerics with 16 or higher Charisma. I would add Charisma requirements (12 or 14) to most channel-themed feats, thus splitting channel-clerics from non-channel clerics and preventing the current situation of combat-focused clerics being able to heal more than healing-focused characters. I suppose a third use could be conceived for clerics with 22 Charisma.
-Druids would see some of their Wild Shape feats consolidated together and turned into scaling feats, giving access to more forms of wild shape over time. Animal Companions would get some form of help, too, mostly aimed at their unguided behaviour. See “minions” later.
-Fighters would see some of their fighting styles feats consolidated together as I mentioned before. Of note is Power Attack, which would be changed to add a conditional +1 damage per die and a third extra die at lv15. Simple change to keep the damage up and avoid making the feat counterproductive without making it too powerful.
-Monk looks generally fine to me and I like it. Again, I would probably consolidate a few feats, like for every other class.
-Paladin has seen a lot of talk around Retributive Strike and Smite Evil, and I won’t shy away from it. I liked Retributive Strike since the blag reveal. I believe it needs some usability tweaks (such as allowing the paladin to Step reactively to get in range if the enemy is within 10ft, for example, or to work with ranged attacks if within 30ft) but I like it as a concept. I also, however, want a proactive paladin, and giving a more relevant part to Blade Ally seems the easiest way. In its current state, it’s basically only worth when triggering a demon’s Good weakness. I would likely turn it into a Paladin Power, adding Good damage to a strike against an evil foe in a relevant and meaningful way. My current version uses d4s and a conditional penalty to AC, making it the reverse of Lay on Hands. As an additional note, I feel like Paladin needs feat condensation more than most.
-Ranger is a solid and functional combat class, with only one issue: it does not feel like a ranger. Beside the buffs to minions, I would consider altering the combat feats to add to ranger’s mobility and skirmishing feel, allowing attacks midway through movement or letting him dart away after dodging a hit, and rework snares to introduce more quickly-usable terrain-altering snares. Anything that can be deployed in 3 or less actions would allow Ranger to fight enemies on his battlefield, which is what a snare ranger should do. I’m fine with bigger snares taking time to set up, but some minor effects like creating a patch of difficult terrain should not take a specialist 10 minutes when anyone can throw caltrops as one action.
-Rogue feels great and I love it. Join some feats together for general consistency with other changes and that’s it.
-Sorcerer would get a full rework to make Bloodlines more personal and flexible, to allow for feat selection and multiclassing, and possibly to allow for Sorcerer to pick between being a true master of magics and a magically-powered gish creature. Mainly, I would add a bunch of new feats to help Sorcerer gain mastery over the non-arcane lists, something that is currently lacking. Finally, I would completely redo the Magical Evolutions to connect more with the magic itself rather than the classes from which Sorcerer “borrows”.
-Wizard is my favourite class and the class I played since forever. When I play a rogue, people wait for me to go Trickster. When I play a Fighter, people bet on how long I’ll last. My longest living character was a pure Wizard I played for 7 years in an ongoing campaign. Basically? I love this. I would play this forever. And so, when I say that P2’s wizard feels off, I hope this comes as a worry. My main issue regards the excess versatility given to wizards with Quick Preparation, Arcane Focus and its feats, and Makeshift Wands, and the lack of attractiveness given to Specialist Wizards. As it is, I have very little incentive to funnel myself into a specialty and very good reasons to walk the Generalist path, ignoring spell powers and simply taking all the versatility I can to become the ultimate wizard bro. If this was the final version, I would probably limit Quick Preparation to generalist wizards, while giving the two Arcane Focus feats to specialists only, thus splitting the maximum versatility a single character can gain. I would probably touch up some of the lv1 spell powers, and I never liked Hand of the Apprentice myself so I’d probably rewrite it into something different. A change I am not sure about could be giving Generalists a single use of Arcane Focus, and allowing that single use to refresh up to one spell slot per level available, turning it into a spell recovery system rather than a source of massive adaptability - but I’m unsure. Basically I still believe that wizard loves adaptability but should rely on good prep work, and this is way too forgiving.
(Final point on wizard - no more opposed schools… that’s actually very nice)
MINIONS
If not commanded every turn, a minion (but not a mindless minion) continues to perform its last task, such as carrying a message, fetching, retreating, or fighting. Any checks attempted without guidance suffer a -2 penalty, and no more than one action per turn can be attempted in such conditions.
HEALING
Remember when I cut down Channel Energy? This is why.
Healing right now is cleric-dependant because of how Resonance cut off the wands. While I approved of Resonance, I do not approve of mandatory clerics, so some other form of healing is necessary. Either characters gain some form of out-of-combat healing (such as a Trained use of the Medicine skill, or some Common magical ritual), or P2 introduces some form of short rest (personally I do not like this option). Personally, I would allow a Trained Medicine activity to spend 10 minutes to heal some recent wounds (no more than 1 hour), the amount scaling with skill rank. Those wounds would then be bolstered, but new wounds could be healed independently. Magical healing and Battle Medic could still have a role in combat healing or to heal wounds you were too busy to tend to in time, and rest would still be your go-to condition removal and longterm healing, but there is a need for out-of-combat patchup that does not rely on Channel Energy just as there was before, even if higher level magic items are now usable. It doesn’t have to cover ALL the healing, nor it has to completely replace consumables, but it has to be a fallback option for characters who are having a rough day.
Otherwise, we’ll always need Clerics.
MAGIC:
Way too many spells have been made to be combat-only. Having anything last longer than an hour seems like an unlikely dream. While that can be good, some spells have been great tools for exploration, world building, or flavour, and I feel this edition has lost that touch of epic magic that such spells gave. I would thus change the durations of several spells, to bring back some non-combat magic usage such as Unseen Servant and turning into a cat.
Also, Prestidigtation needs a bit of loosening up. It was the poster boy for flavour, now it feels like just a sad pick.
OTHER:
I would recap spell powers per class (I already have). I would write short spell summaries to be placed next to the spell lists entries. I would need to write down a lot of stuff myself if I wanted to use this rulebook.
Other minor adjustments would likely be made on a case by case basis on spells, feats, items and the like, but I will assume you realise that and that I kept this feedback as strong points only. It was probably long enough as it was.
Thanks for the read and feel free to comment.

3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Some of you might have seen my previous posts on alchemists where I advocate a druid-like approach to alchemist feats and a less bomb-funneled theme for the class. Some might even have seen my last thread on Sorcerer's chassis and direction. This is not like that.
Like with Sorcerer, I believe Alchemist suffers a chassis issue and a pigeonholing issue - currently, you have to be a bomber and you have to gain some mutagen abilities, but those abilities do not shine. A bomb is currently slightly stronger than a cantrip, but uses your main resource and is less precise. It's like saying your 9th level spells can be overpowered by a fighter's longsword. It doesn't feel very good. (as a side note - bombs are also slower, less accurate, and less damaging than a fighter's longsword)
Unlike with Sorcerer, I intend to present a variant. it's not complete, it's not full, it's not 1 to 20, but it's a good outline of the first few levels and shows (hopefully) the path I believe would lead to a healthy, effective, satisfying alchemist.
Firstly, I will present what I would change about alchemy in general.
Then, I will show what I think should be changed about alchemist's features.
Finally, I will post some reviewed version of alchemist's 1st level feats - while I am actually rewriting the whole thing for a friend, I am not as convinced about some of my 4th level feats and beyond, so I will only describe them with a rough outline.
Put your safety glasses on, turn on your bunsen, and do not place your lab notes on your work bench 'cause i've done that once and there were acid droplets. We're about to begin.
Alchemical Items
-Bombs now come in Minor (lv1), Lesser (lv4), Regular (lv8), Greater (lv12), True (lv16) versions. Each version deals 1 damage die, persistent damage and splash damage more than the previous as appropriate for its entry, and the DCs for their effects (when applicable) are 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.
This is made to follow a similar outline as the Elixirs of Life. Really, there is no reason why they should follow two different forms, and either Alchemists enhance all their crafts, or crafts can be made to improve. I chose the latter because it allows higher level non-alchemists (or non-bombers) to benefit from alchemy, and it frees up class features to be used for more general purposes.
Funnily enough, the DC is based off what you would get by having to save against 10+Crafting modifier for a maxed out alchemist at the corresponding levels... Turns out it's multiples of 5. Must be fate.
-Additionaly, add the following lv20 Uncommon alchemical formulas:
-Cold Comfort (lv20 Uncommon) [alchemical, bomb, cold, consumable, splash]. Cold Comfort deals 6d4 cold damage, 6 cold splash damage, and any creature damaged by it becomes hampered 10 until the end of its next turn.
-Green Inferno (lv20 Uncommon) [alchemical, bomb, consumable, fire, splash]. The Green Inferno deals 6d8 fire damage, 6 persistent fire damage, and 6 fire splash damage. A creature hit by the Green Inferno cannot automatically extinguish the flames, which burn under water and even when buried. An attempt that would normally remove the fire can reduce the flat check DC to 15.
-Skyfall Rock (lv20 Uncommon) [alchemical, bomb, consumable, sonic, splash]. The Skyfall Rock deals 6d4 sonic damage and 6 sonic splash damage, and each creature within 30ft of the space in which the rock exploded must succeed at a DC40 Fortitude save or be deafened until the end of its next turn.
-The Dip (lv20 Uncommon) [acid, alchemical, bomb, consumable, splash]. The Dip deals 6d4 persistent acid damage and 6 acid splash damage. A creature hit by the Dip is also Frightened 1 as long as the damage persists.
Capstone items? The Big Booms? These items take the place of the lv20 bomb improvement, and add a little extra kick on top of the damage. Hopefully they sound thematic enough. Bonus points if you catch all the little references.
-Infused trait makes an item cost no resonance and remains potent for no longer than 8 hours.
I think everyone knows by now that Alchemist forcing other people to spend resonance is annoying. The 8hr change, however, is new - and it's because of what I did with Advanced Alchemy, right below this line.
Class Features
-Lv1- Advanced Alchemy: You are automatically Trained in Alchemy. You also gain the Alchemical Crafting feat (see page 162) and the four additional common 1st-level alchemical formulas that feat grants. The list of alchemical items begins on page 360. You can use this feat to create common alchemical items as long as you have their formulas in your formula book, though their power is fleeting. You can create these items in two different ways, as described below. An alchemical item you create this way has the infused trait.
First, by spending 10 minutes tinkering with your alchemist’s tools, you can create items for which you have the formulas. Creating items in this way requires spending 1 Resonance Point, and all the items gain the infused trait. You can create a number of items up to your Intelligence modifier. You don’t need to attempt a Crafting check to do this, and you ignore the number of days typically required to create the items and any requirements of alchemical reagents. You can’t overspend Resonance Points to create infused items in this way, and you can never have more infused items than your Intelligence modifier. If you try to craft more, the oldest you crafted become inert and grant no effects. Second, you can create alchemical items with the Quick Alchemy action, described below.
Yep, this is actually the whole extended paragraph, I know. I did say i'm homebrewing. Home-alchemying. Whatever. The idea here, pioneered by AlchemicGenius, is to bring alchemist away from being a pretend caster with a morning preparation and closer to a versatile, quick-to-adapt gadgeteer. By giving alchemist the ability to create small batches in short times we grant alchemist the ability to improvise, adapt, and assist. And while the items themselves lose potency if more are crafted, their effects remain, allowing you to potentially spend 20 minutes to first buff your party and then prepare more... if the GM gives you the time, that is.
-Quick Alchemy [A] [Alchemist, quick alchemy]
Cost 1 Resonance Point.
Requirements You must have alchemist’s tools (see page 184), the formula of the alchemical item you’re creating, and a free hand.
You create a single alchemical item that is of your level or lower for which you have the formula without having to spend the normal monetary cost in alchemical reagents or needing to attempt a Crafting check. This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the start of your next turn and does not count for your limit of Infused items. After this period, the item becomes inert and grants no effects. If you overspend Resonance Points to use this ability and fail the flat check (see page 292), you can’t use any actions with the Quick Alchemy trait again until the next time you undertake your daily preparations.
Two things to note here. First, the action trait. This is because of some groundwork I did for the rest of the class. The basic Quick Alchemy allows you to build any item you know how to make, with no restriction, but no special effects. Other actions, granted by feats you might see later, would be narrower, but better. Other feats might affect your ability to use all those actions at once. By tying them into a single system, I can affect all of them at once. For example...
-Lv1- Studied Resonance: Knowledge, rather than personality, fuels your interactions with alchemical and magical substances and devices. Your maximum number of Resonance Points is equal to your character level plus your Intelligence modifier (instead of your Charisma modifier). If you are level 2 or higher, you also gain a number of bonus Resonance Points equal to half your level. You can use these bonus Resonance Points only when using actions with the Quick Alchemy trait.
You'll notice how I tied the previous Expanded Resonance into this. You might not think Alchemist needs that much extra Resonance early on, but it feels weird to just get the bump halfway through, and with the narrowing of Advanced Alchemy's batch size Quick Alchemy becomes more relevant, so this might very well be necessary.
-Formula Book
You start with a standard formula book worth 10 sp or less (as detailed on page 186) for free. The formula book contains formulas for your choice of 4 common 1st-level alchemical items in addition to the ones gained from the Alchemical Crafting feat. The list of alchemical items begins on page 360.
Each time you gain a new level, you can add formulas for two common alchemical items to your formula book. These can be of any level of item you can create. You learn these formulas automatically, but it’s also possible to find or buy other formulas, or to invent them with the Inventor feat (see page 167).
No change here, move along.
-Lv1- Alchemical Specialty: When becoming an Alchemist, you select an alchemical specialty. This grants you a bonus feat. Though you can still gain class feats tied to other specialties as you advance, you receive additional benefits when using abilities tied to your specialty. The specialties presented here are as follows:
Apothecary - you gain the Alchemical Savant class feat.
Demolitionist - you gain the Calculated Splash class feat.
Enhancer - you gain the Enduring Elixir class feat.
Toxicologist - you gain the Cutting Edge Mixture class feat.
DUN DUN DUNNNN. Here's the magic juice. Here's how you make an alchemist that does not use bombs. Here's how you make a good bomber. Here's how you use alchemy, in each of its main purposes. More on this in the class feats discussion.
-Lv3- Skilled Alchemy: All Infused items you craft have their quality improved to match your Crafting rank if higher. You also use your Crafting proficiency to determine your class DC.
This was supposed to be the first bomb improvement. Instead, you gain an ability that improves your item quality automatically (if I understand crafting correctly, higher-quality items are also higher-level, meaning an Expert-quality Lesser Alchemist Fire would be a lv5 item and would require a different formula) and lets you apply your +1 to your Class DC... which again, is explored further in your class feats. For bomb enthusiasts, this is an item bonus to hit.
-Lv5- Rare Alchemy: When you gain a new level, you can choose to add new Uncommon alchemical formulae to your formula book, rather than common ones.
Used to be the mutagen feature, right? Expanded to all uncommon items. There's not many right now, but it makes sense that an Alchemist would be able to learn them, if and when they get released. Plus it unlocks the lv20 uncommon formulas.
-Lv9- Expanded Alchemy: When using Advanced Alchemy, the amount of items you can craft increases to double your Intelligence modifier.
The only higher level feature I am sure of, this turns the small batches into more reliable, larger batches and reduces your reliance on quick alchemy, allowing you to use resonance points in many other interesting ways... which once again, I'll show you in the feats.
The Class Feats (level 1)
Note that this is a complete list of all level one class feats and that no other feats are to be used in the homebrewed version. Some are unchanged, some are condensed form of multiple feats, some are new altogether. I will not discuss every single change, but I will precede them with saying that I am writing these with the feel that alchemist needs to be able to use his alchemy, in a general form, better than other characters - BUT that he still needs to be able to choose one or two things to excel at, to be able to shine as much as other classes do. And I believe that these feats can provide a good baseline to work towards those specialisations.
These introduce the alchemical specialties mentioned in the lv1 features, while laying down some foundations - class DC, quick alchemy actions, the interactions with Advanced Alchemy, and elixir modifications being the main concepts.
Alchemical Familiar [alchemist]: You have created life via alchemy, though only a simple creature formed from alchemical materials and a bit of your own blood. This alchemical familiar assists you in your laboratory and adventuring, like any other familiar (see Familiars on page 287 for more information).
Alchemical Savant [alchemist, apothecary]: You can identify alchemical items quickly. When trained in the Arcana skill and attempting to use its Identify Magic action (see page 145) on an alchemical item you hold, you can do so as a single action with the concentrate and manipulate traits instead of taking an hour. If you have the formula for the item you are attempting to identify, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your check and treat any critical failures as failures instead.
Special: if you are an Apothecary, your Intelligence modifier is treated as 2 points higher to determine how many items you can craft with Advanced Alchemy.
Calculated Splash [alchemist, demolitionist]: When throwing an alchemical bomb with the splash trait, the splash damage does not affect your allies. You must be able to perceive an ally to exclude that ally from your bomb’s splash damage.
Special: if you are a Demolitionist, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the bomb’s regular damage and splash damage.
Cutting Edge Mixture [AAA] [alchemist, quick alchemy, toxicologist]
Cost 1 Resonance Point.
Requirements You must have alchemist’s tools (see page 184), the formula of the alchemical item you’re creating, and a free hand.
You create a single alchemical poison that is of your level or lower for which you have the formula without having to spend the normal monetary cost in alchemical reagents or needing to attempt a Crafting check. This item has the infused trait, but does not count for your limit of Infused items. You apply the poison to a weapon you or an adjacent ally are holding as part of this action. If you overspend Resonance Points to use this ability and fail the flat check (see page 292), you can’t use any actions with the Quick Alchemy trait again until the next time you undertake your daily preparations.
Special: If you are a Toxicologist, you can use your class DC as the poison’s DC for all required saving throws.
Enduring Elixirs [alchemist, enhancer]: When drinking one of your Infused Elixirs that does not have the Mutagen trait, you treat its duration one category higher, as follows: 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours. Special: If you are an Enhancer, you can increase the duration of your Elixirs for whoever drinks it.
Far Lobber [alchemist]: You’ve learned techniques to improve your distance throwing. When you throw an alchemical item (a bomb or a vial of inhaled poison), it has a range increment of 30 feet instead of the usual 20 feet.
Quick Bomber [alchemist]: You place your bombs in easy-to-reach pouches and learn how to draw them almost without thinking. When you use the Interact action (see page 307) to draw an alchemical item with the bomb trait, you can draw two bombs instead. When using an action with the Quick Alchemy trait to create a bomb, you can also draw one other bomb as part of the same action.
You'll notice from here that Demolitionists are damage-oriented, Toxicologists can use poison more easily and effectively than most, Enhancers are able to provide support to other characters, and Apothecaries are a generalist form of alchemist, able to master the science in general terms without specific narrow focuses. While a specialised Alchemist can pick up another class's feat, they will not gain the full benefits, and sometimes that's ok. Other feats are unaligned and grant their full benefit to everyone.
Progressing further, feats and features should focus on three main points:
- to make Alchemist feel good about their ability to provide situational, short-term support to the party.
- to make Alchemical items compete, partially or fully depending on specialisations, with spells and resource-based class features (but still covering separate niches. I feel like Silversheen shows this very well).
- to make player's agency relevant to what the character's individual playstyle is, or, in other words, to not force all alchemists into the same pattern of "here are your bombs, that's what you do".
As always, hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know what you hate.

3 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Morning everyone. I previously voiced my concerns over Sorcerers and over time gathered some ideas which I hope will be well received. I have loved the Pathfinder1 take on the Sorcerer, a magical creature more than an adventurer, approaching magic in the way a monster should more than as a scholar, and this personal take has that idea in the background.
Firstly, I will write this thread under the assumption that the non-change that MUST happen will indeed happen.
Second, I will write each proposal in two parts: a suggestion and a reasoning. I hope that you will disagree with the first and agree with the second, because maybe I won't get the fix right, but it's the issue that matters.
Lastly, sit back, get a packet of crisps, and have a good read.
Sorcerer, version two.
Core changes:
-health per level up to 8. Trained in simple weapons and light armour.
Oh yes, I'm doing it. I'm gishing this bad boy. There are currently no classes aimed at gish roles, even the Bard is much more casting-oriented, so why not give the Sorcerer a new niche? He does pick from the Divine and Primal lists if he wants to, so he has that option. If he shows no interest in it and prefers pure magic, he is still sturdier than a plain old Wizard - he could replicate the niche previously covered by Oracles and similar classes. Note that Sorcerer having the same chassis as a Wizard is a leftover from when he was a "wizard-but-not-quite", and he is now much more than that (plus, wizard's flexibility went up, so...).
Main feat "aim":
-adding new magic-themed feats, such as healing metamagics, minor powers, and nature-themed feats.
Currently, Sorcerer feats feel very much like Arcane feats, and while blasting is a good perk, try blasting with a Divine list and tell me how it goes. There needs to be more option geared towards sorcerers that do not take an Arcane list.
Bloodlines and bloodline powers:
-six bloodline feats per bloodline, to be picked at levels 1, 6, and 10.
Bloodlines feel like massive bulk buy packages right now, with powers being mandatory feat choices. While the non-change sees them becoming selections, there is still little variety. This is aimed at giving a personal touch to your Sorcerer and making the bloodline more relevant to YOUR gameplay. More on this on the bloodlines themselves.
Heightening:
-Keep heightening as 2 chosen at start of day.
Before you bite me, keep reading. I am unsure about heightening myself, but I can see it as a valid tool to differentiate spontaneous casters. A very good spontaneous casters can have many heightenings. A dabbler would have few. That can be acceptable. What is not acceptable is that Sorcerer has 2 and Bard can have 4, which is why I invite you to read the next point.
-Increase heightening by 1 at a time every time the Sorcerer selects a Bloodline Evolution or certain high level Bloodline Power as their feats.
This would be an additional benefits of the feat and would allow a magic-focused sorcerer to really be the master of his magic. It would also maintain the limit on heightening (if 4 is good for the Bard, it's also good for the Sorcerer) from getting out of control, as the new maximum would be 5.
The Evolutions:
-???
Evolutions right now feel a bit lackluster. A varying extra spell known plus a skill, or a fixed high-level spell once a day. I can understand their strength, but what they lack in is flavour. It is hard for me to make a suggestion about them because I do not have a good feel of what they are supposed to be - so this paragraph is just a thought on what they should, likely, become: a way not to get closer to the classes he imitates (scroll, channel, summon, mind spell) but a way to build upon the sorcerer's connection with the magic itself, either by enhancing an aspect of his bloodline or by connecting him with universe concepts that make him stronger in certain areas or situations, such as a Divine Sorcerer's healing being spontaneously stronger in a holy place, or an Arcane sorcerer's flame spells building upon each other's residual energies.
Each Bloodline:
-The six bloodline related feats would be mostly following two themes, with three being magic-enhancing, and the other three developed similarly to a combat style. The current powers would fit in either category on a case by case scenario. It's important that each feat has its bloodline as requirement.
Sorcerer would then have the choice of being a master of his magic, with his bloodline shaping his spell choice and tactics, a magical creature that uses magic to enhance himself, or a mixture of the two. Only the two higher level magic-themed feats would grant heightening, thus making Sorcerers with low heightening possible.
-Aberrant sorcerers would be able to focus on magic that block enemy's senses or ignore said penalties on himself, or to alter their own body in unexpected ways.
-Angelic sorcerers would gain powers that protect them and their allies or damage the unholy, assuming a paldin-esque role in a party, or uncommon and powerful defensive magic and healing.
-Demonic sorcerers would learn to harness the enemy's flaws for their own advantage, learning an opportunistic fighting style or gaining magic that capitalises or builds upon existing penalties.
-Draconic sorcerers would be the magically blast-oriented sorcerers, gaining powerful elemental abilities or learning to make use of their natural weapon and impressive physical features.
-Fey sorcerers would act as tricksters and skirmishers, darting quickly and effortlessly around or focusing on enchantment to confuse their enemies.
-Imperial sorcerers would be the most resilient, using their powerful magic to overpower their foes' resistances or their ancestors' might to strengthen themselves.
These six bloodlines as written still follow, thematically, the guidelines of the playtest book, but splitting them in two paths allows players to tailor the experience of gameplay in a way that fits their concept and style.
Developing these feats as either powers or style feats similar to the Fighter is a matter of detail, and I am trying to keep this generic (at least in the first post - I might write down a few examples later) to encourage discussion rather than a full blown proposal. I just hope that this structure could provide the Sorcerer a healthier base and a more satisfying approach.
As always, thank you for the applause, but now I'd also like to know what you did not like.

8 people marked this as a favorite.
|
Pathfinder 2 seems to follow a very established theme of having bards invest in a Perform skill which determines the effectiveness of their abilities, based on the idea that bards that perform better have better performing-related skills.
However.
While a cleric could know Arcane magic and identify items belonging to that tradition without being a wizard,
While an alchemist could become a master of mechanics and learn Thievery without being a rogue,
While a Druid could sneak around without being a ranger,
While a Paladin could learn to survive in hostile lands at the edge of the Worldwound without being a barbarian,
nobody else has a reason to take Performance.
This was absolutely the case in 3.0, definitely the case in 3.5, totally true in P1, and the only saving grace P2 gives it is the Fascinating Performance skill feat - a feat that allows you to fascinate one or more creatures with a successful Performance check, regardless of your class. I can dig that. I can see a rogue doing knife juggling.
Other than for that, however, it's just a separate, weaker Lore skill.
Its Untrained use has four degree of success, all of which basically say "The result is up to the GM".
Its Trained use redirects you to the Lore skill.
It does not let you Recall Knowledge and it's not always a Signature.
Its relative skill feats are an ex-bard-feature, a numerical bonus, a Lore copypaste and a partial Diplomacy redirect.
So honestly... Why is Performance still a skill?
One thing 2E was supposed to do was break the mold and get rid of the parts of the ruleset that were there exclusively because of tradition. If there is one thing that embodies that definition, it's Performance as a skill.
In its previous iterations, Performance was a skill tax for Bards, to the point that I saw several variants to remove it and integrate it into Bard class features instead (with fairly good results in some cases, too. See spoiler).
In its current iteration, it's still a skill tax for Bards, but with some feats written for it that read like either must have for bards (the +2 is definitely a must, and Fascinating Performance is literally a bard feature in a skill feat slot), borrowed bits (read Legendary Performance, then Legendary Professional) and partial refunds (Impressive Performance, which is exactly 1/3 of a lv1 Bard feat). Each skill needed feats, I suppose.
I would like to say that I don't see a use for Performance, but it's not accurate.
There is no use for Performance. Whatever you roll, the result will always be up to the GM. That's not a skill, it's a part of how you roleplay your character, and you shouldn't have to invest resources in it if you're never going to have a tangible benefit for it. We already have conditional bonuses for how you roleplay your character.
If its whole purpose is to gate a feat and hold back a class, we're back to it being a skill tax like in P1/3.x, if marginally better because of Fascinating Performance... But why should a whole skill boil down to a feat for which it's required?
21 people marked this as a favorite.
|
I mean it. Even if the Sorcerer as it is reaches the end release version, this MUST happen, for so many reasons. And it won't change a thing. Please watch closely:
- Change Bloodline to not contain any powers.
- Instead, add "Any Bloodline allows you to select one level 1 Sorcerer Feat with the Bloodline trait."
- Rework the bloodline powers as feats for level 1, 6 and 10, each requiring their own Bloodline as requirement.
- change the Sorcerer table to allow for a Sorcerer feat at level 6 and 10.
This would have the following consequences:
- nothing.
However, it would allow Sorcerers to pick up lower level feats if wanted, it would allow them to multiclass, and most important, it allows the structural change needed to make bloodlines more flexible / personal in future books, which seems to be the direction most of P2 is taking.
So please,
Even if you change nothing, cover your bases.
(that said, Sorcerer needs a hand)
Been reading all the spells one by one because as a GM i need to know what my players can do (there’s really no other way right now) and this showed up.
On a critical success on its save against Nightmare, the target is inoculated for a week.
I’m guessing Bolstered?

Well, I imagine I'll drop a thread.
One of my players just let me know that she will not continue with the playtests due to issues with the system. A big thumbs down on 2e the way it currently is, from her.
She ran a Bard and felt frustrated at the system in multiple occasions, from the action economy penalising her spell capabilities (especially with Concentration and having to renew inspire courage) to Attack of Opportunity being a coin toss between safety and absolute suicide (no way to tell until you try) and to AC/to-hit bonuses feeling out of scale and unreliable. Unfortunately there was no space for players to write actual thought out feedback in the forms (understandable, with the amount).
After some prodding, she added that the system makes simple things feel clunky and "a pain in the ass" while things that should be meaningful can be made irrelevant. I believe she refers to manoeuvres mostly, she's a big fan of "playing smart" during combat and she is the one that disarmed Drakus at the start.
For context, our Cleric tried to Somatic cast (a manipulate action) in Drakus's face and got mauled, losing the spell in the process and falling to the ground. This turned the fight around from a very quick burst of 33 damage points in one round plus disarming and Dust effects that led me to think Drakus would barely be a challenge to a desperate one-sided damage control situation where players kept getting tripped and stabbed while Drakus took almost no damage at all for the next 3 rounds.
(yes, I had Drakus trip people and sneak attack with the claws, I am mean, I know. I even Drained unconscious characters for style points)
As for why she felt manoeuvres weren't as good, it's because Drakus could fix the penalties in one action (losing only his -8 attack), but instead of provoking a thousand AoO, he only provoked one average attack (+4 vs AC16, regular damage), while players would get massive damage from his (+7 vs AC14ish, sneak attack). Basically using strategies that were supposed to help only costed the group time and resources, while for Drakus it was extremely effective because of the wide number disparity.
This is not to discuss her reasons or argue their strategies, it's just so that Paizo has the feedback (and possibly, argue the feedback). Personally I'll miss her at the table, but I'll still continue testing with the others. After all, improving this is the whole point.
Did you guys lose any players?

The spell (page 214) reads, at the bottom, "Only divine spellcasters, undead, and beings from the Outer Sphere have an alignment aura if they are 6th level or higher."
A handy table on the other side tells us which strength level the aura of creatures is.
Playing it as is, and giving a few examples, we'd have:
Grima Wormtongue, the evil member of the council, lv4: he has no evil aura, because he is in the bracket lv0-5 "none".
Marya Zaleska, the young vampire, lv7: she has a Moderate evil aura, because as an undead she counts as 5 lvs higher, fitting the 11-15 lv bracket.
Jafar, the evil sorcerer, lv12: he has no evil aura, because he is lv6th or higher and not a divine spell caster, undead, or outsider.
...I feel like something is amiss and you guys meant to move that "only" around and say "Divine spellcasters, undead, and beings from the Outer Sphere have an alignment aura only if they are 6th level or higher." That is, unless you meant that "Divine spellcasters, undead, and beings from the Outer Sphere have an alignment aura only if their effective level is 6th or higher" in reference to the table where they count as 5 levels higher.
Basically?
Jafar is clearly evil. This spell needs fixing.
|