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I decided to copy the format of Kuzcobarra's post over here breaking down all the Psychic feats and features. As the Psychic is a caster, I will be comparing it to other casters, and make some assumptions about casters based on the current state of casters in the game. - First you have the Wizard and Sorcerer who are the baseline casters with nothing very flashy going on. 4 slots a level, no armour, a rather weak chassis and focus spells that tend to be supplementary (i.e. things that you do in addition to casting a spell, not that replace casting a spell, though sorcerer has some non-supplementary ones). This should be the baseline from which every caster is measured, what do you gain relative to a wizard or sorcerer in return for losing that 1 slot per level? - Second, we have the Cleric, compared to the Wizard and Sorcerer, we lose 1 slot per level in order to gain Divine Font, 2 HP a level, faster save progression. Alternatively, if we pick warpriest, then we also get slower save DC progression in return for faster expert weapons (despite my personal grievances with this, I will refrain from commenting, and just say how it is). The Cleric's focus spells are a bit mixed, but most tend to be main focus spells (2 action that you would do instead of casting a spell). - Third, we have the Druid, compared to the Wizard and Sorcerer we lose 1 slot per level in order to gain 2 HP a level, faster save progression and armour proficiencies. The Druid's focus spells are also mostly main focus spells (With the exception of Leaf Order), and generally notably more powerful than the other class' focus spells (perhaps this is part of the tradeoff for losing a slot a level and not getting a Divine Font like feature). - Fourth, we have the Bard. For balance purposes, I will not try to compare the Psychic to the bard, as it seems to gain quite a lot in return for losing 1 slot a level - armour proficiency, 2 hp a level, strong focus cantrips, better will saves and better perception. In addition, its focus spells are notably more powerful than the other classes. - Fifth, we have the Oracle. We lose one slot per level to gain 2 hp a level, armour proficiency, mysteries, free refocus feats, better will saves and, while the oracle is a bit of a mixed bag focus spell wise, their focus spells to tend to mostly be main focus spells that are notably more powerful. - Last, we have the Witch. We lose one slot per level to gain some potentially better focus spells - however, until major lessons, most of the Witch's focus spells are also supplementary. What does this tell us about the psychic? 2 slots per level is a hefty price to be paying, when looking at other classes that pay just one slot per level. All of them except Witch are also 8 hp classes, and of those that are 8 hp 3/4 have armour proficiency with the last having the option for armour. If the Psychic is not an 8 hp class, and does not have armour proficiency, then it must have some pretty significant benefits to make up for this even if it was a 3 slot class. As a two slot class, the benefits have to be very powerful indeed. For this purpose, I will be comparing the Psychic's focus spells to those of the Oracle and Druid. While the psychic theoretically gets up to 5 per combat (although this isn't a great assumption to actually make, practically they get less than this, and even if they do get 5, the ones on the later rounds tend to be less impactful anyway) starting at level 1, they have many other tradeoffs compared to these two classes. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Chassis - Key Ability Score: Intelligence or Charisma. - It's oft been purported that Intelligence is probably the weakest stat in the game, and Wisdom is likely the strongest, as Intelligence's benefits descale in multiple ways (being only trained skills when the game expects expert at a certain point, the difficulty of keeping up expected item bonuses on those skills due to gp cost and investment limits, having to pick skills outside your main stats). Charisma, while it has no inherent benefits, ties in to a lot of powerful skill actions that casters like to have, such as Demoralise, Bon Mot and even One For All if you want to archetype. - Hit Points: 6 per level - This solidly puts the Psychic as a backline character who will go down to any sort of focus fire. I am not sure what the assumptions are with regards to how much enemies should remain stuck on your frontline, given most martials don't have inherent features that punish enemies for ignoring them, and can't select these as feats until level 6. But in my experience, if the GM does elect to focus fire on you for whatever reason, 6 HP means you are very likely hitting the floor that round. Even 8 HP with armour can mean that as well, though you will usually stay up with a slither of HP left (from full). - Save and Perception Proficiencies : E/E/L/T - I assume the permanent T perception is a mistake that will be fixed for release. No class remains at T perception forever, as of current, as it would make Canny Acumen (perception) far too valuable of a feat for the Psychic. - For all casters, Initiative is good - going before the enemies or your allies so you can get the most of them in an AoE, or buff before their first turn, is invaluable. - For some reason, Fortress of Will and Walls of Will have the same text regarding "when you roll a success on a will save, you get a critical success instead". I am uncertain as to why these feats are named differently from resolve/greater resolve given they otherwise do the exact same thing. Same thing with Precognitive Reflexes/Lightning Reflexes. The issue I forsee with this is feats specifically referencing those features that wouldn't apply to the psychic as the author forgot that the psychic's feature was named differently, despite doing the exact same thing. - While a legendary save for casters is atypical (only bard and oracle have it, oracle having much slower progression on their other two saves), it makes sense for a psychic to have legendary will. - Skill Proficiencies: (Effectively) 4+Int - Notably this is the only int class aside from alchemist that doesn't pay an Int Skill tax of being class skill + 2 + int instead. - Weapon and Armour proficiencies: Standard caster - Following the weapon and armour proficiency and upgrade times as every other caster except bard (who has a few extra weapons) and wizard (who lacks some weapons), except those that have armour (which will have armour but the same upgrade time). - Again, their specific armour proficiency is named differently despite doing the exact same thing as Defensive Robes. - Spellcasting DC - Normal for a caster, expert @ 7, master @ 15, legendary @ 19. - I don't think this can ever particularly change to be faster except by maybe a couple of levels earlier on the expert and master upgrades. Though that wouldn't be a significant power bump at all (it would help for 4 levels only relative to other casters). - The reason for this is, of course, critical failures still end fights when they happen and as such can't be realistically allowed to go above a certain threshold. ----------------------------------------------- Overall, a very normal caster chassis. If you take out all the levels with standard upgrades (being 7, 11, 13, 15, 19) that leaves 3, 5, 9 and 17 to put features, save progression and perception progression. Evidently, some of this has been stacked onto other levels, as normal for a caster. ---------------------------------------------- Class Features So what are we paying those huge two slots a level for? Three features - 1) Enhanced Refocus at level 1 (although this does not continue, you will have the same refocus ability as any other caster who picks their feat at 12, and you will have the option to be equivalent to them by picking your feat at 18) with some stipulations. - 2) Amps, which are limited to four specific cantrips per subconscious mind - 3) Psyches, of which you only get given one and must pick others with feats. Lets look at them in order, starting with the biggest one Enhanced Refocus - From the reading of it, the Psychic gets essentially 5 focus spells per combat starting at level 1... though there are some limitations. - The five focus points can only be used on Amps for Psi Cantrips, otherwise you only get to recharge 1 (and the extra 3 from psyche are limited to amps no matter what). - Combat must last at least 5 (Four with later psyche feats if you can activate them on round 2 and immediately go into another amp) rounds to use all of these focus points, which, in my experience is fairly atypical until level 10+. - You must be using 3 of these focus points on different rounds between when you activate your Psyche and 2 rounds after that. This provides some limits to your action economy, particularly as unleashing your Pscyhe is an action, if you don't have all 3 actions available and ready to use on staying still casting, it can be difficult to unleash on some subconscious minds, and further it can be difficult to use amp psi cantrips on later rounds - particularly because it clashes with casting (I will make a point about this later in Amps). Amps - So this is where you're channelling all those focus points into. - I will go through the specific amps in a later section, but for now I want to touch on one thing with regard to amps - action economy. - One major complaint about the bard is how "stuck" its action economy can become - every round, the optimal turn is to composition and cast a spell. If there is no disruption to your game plan, you will do this. Without feats for composition choice, you only have one, so it can feel stale. - For the Psychic, you have two issues. First, you can only pick up two new psi cantrips, and only at level 6 and 8. For two of the subclasses, there is basically only one choice for which combat Psi Cantrip to use (Guidance is usable, but the hour cooldown may interfere and many times the benefit will be worse than mental scan anyway). This means if you want to cast a spell + amp psi cantrip, you only have one choice until level 6, and even then only if you pick up a feat. This could lead to many of the same action econ issues bard has. - Second, for two action Psi Cantrips, they are effectively competing against (at least) casting a cantrip in rounds 3-5 if you only have 2 actions to spend, or using a 1 action psi cantrip + 1 action for something else. If they aren't significantly better than casting a cantrip it can feel like you're getting the raw end of the deal here, waiting until round 3 and losing that much off your chassis for slightly better cantrips. Psyches - As mentioned in many other threads, the class seemingly wants you to get more than one psyche... and tracking all those activation requirements is awkward. - The psyches really don't feel like they do enough, relative to their drawbacks, to consider "which" psyche you want to use this combat - and I imagine in their current state many players will just pick the one that they build towards every combat, which is easier to track for one and for two, can feel like a round 3 action tax to use. Other than that, there are a couple of extras the psychic gets - Replacing verbal components with thought/emotion. Not a huge power feature, lets you cast while underwater or swallowed, which other casters can't easily do. I don't expect it to show up that often. - Specific subconscious mind penalty. The Int one penalises you for something you defeinitely don't want to be doing anyway, you can be caught off guard, or slowed/tripped and you need to yolo out a spell, but for the most part this is easily avoidable by just striding (you will still eat the reaction, but you won't have the penalty). The cha one deheightens your cantrips, which for the most part given the current amps doesn't matter (see amps later). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Amps So lets look at the major power feature of the Psychic in depth, specifically all 12 basic cantrips they get to amp. I will discuss the alternate amps in the feats section. A word on blasting: The game has made an assumption about how much blasting needs to scale to remain at the same "effectiveness" throughout the game - this number is 2d6 per spell level with a minor bump around level 5-6. I've decided to chart out how much of a monster's HP that does, on average against level+0, -2 and +2 assuming moderate HP and moderate saves - as you can see, while it perhaps starts out strong, it starts getting steadily worse. Now considering the Psychic's damage is worse than that, Here's how much Telekinetic Rend, their best blasting amp, does , which is extremely bad. (And yes, I did remember to put in both heightenings so it caps at 14d6). I don't necessarily agree with the game's assumption that blasts only need to scale at 7 per 2 levels given moderate monster hp scales by 40 in the same time, but that's too late to change. One major quality of life change I suggest for all of these cantrips is for all of the blasting ones make the damage scaling work no matter what amp you use, rather than only happening on that specific amp. As of current, there's basically too little reason to use the alternate amps on these damage cantrips because it becomes a pretty horrible use of actions for not much gain. So, with that in mind, lets look at the amps as they are presented. Mage Hand This should be an available feat rather than something you are forced to take, in its current form at least. It has barely any combat relevance whatsoever. At least Spirit Object is 1 action and has a high bulk limit (eventually) so it could potentially move large objects and terrain around for cover. What's the point of this? IMO, if this is to be a combat relevant feature, it needs to let you move things around to support your allies. Reduce the base cost of the cantrip to one action, and have it be able to give the grasped object to yourself or an ally (Similar to a Thoughtful Gift). The amp should increase the bulk limit of the item you can grasp. Telekinetic Projectile There isn't much to say about this really. The base cantrip is debatable, depending on what you think about the balance of Electric Arc (and now, Scattering Scree which also does the same average damage to a single target as Telekinetic Projectile). You are unable to use the amp'd version with Shadow Signet. The amp is barely any better, requiring you to crit a spell attack (again, with no shadow signet) to do much more than give you 1 damage per level, and even then, while it scales up to a pretty major push, it's too inconsistent. Suggestions - Make the push a slide instead (i.e. any direction movement, not just away) - Have it push/slide on the success with more on the critical success OR increase the damage of the amp significantly OR just make the Amp 1 action. This has to be competing with focus spells such as Fire Ray, something the cleric, which pays nothing has access to, and does 2d6/level on a spell attack. Yes, you can do this potentially up to 5 times per combat, whereas the cleric is limited to 1 fire ray per combat until 12th, but you are also the one paying half your spell slots for this feature. I therefore suggest this should be d12/level if the damage option is taken for the amp. Telekinetic Rend Not much to say about this one that the previous images haven't shown. Blasting in this game is bad because it scales badly relative to mook hp, the things it's supposed to be good against. I suggest making it scale at 1d8/2 levels for base (making it in line with electric arc, keeping it mind it has no key ability modifier in return for the better area, but it's also a class specific cantrip) and making the amp replace the heightening with 2d6/level (making it inline with the expectations of the game wrt blasting), which would also make it in line with whirling flames (which does lower damage but has additional areas). Arrest Trajectory The Amp for this is... reasonable, effectively a 1 action telekinetic projectile with a condition. The problem is - 1) It's too hard to activate. It should start at +2 circumstance bonus to AC (non scaling), it's not like a +X to AC gets better or worse as you level, so there's no reason for this to start out at +1 and scale to +2. - 2) Not enough monsters used physical ranged strikes for this to be relevant. It should just work on any attack roll, at least then it would be a decent support cantrip to give your allies a nimble dodge... Detect Magic Again, this should be a feat option. Like Mage Hand, it doesn't do enough as is to justify taking up one of your four amps. Especially given Detect Magic takes 2a to cast. Suggestions to make this better? I don't know. I wouldn't even have it as a feat to be honest. Maybe a feat that gives you precise magic sense instead? Guidance The problem with this is, well, 1 hour cooldown on guidance, and it doesn't do a heck of a lot. It affects... 3 out of 20 dice faces, maybe a couple more. Any crit fail number, F->S number and S->CS number. It's barely better than regular guidance. I understand that they don't want to make this spammable out of combat, but still it should have more combat use than this. Suggestions - Make the basic guidance effect have the crit fail protection and/or allow it to be used post roll. - Make the amp guidance effect able to work even if the target is temporarily immune, then have it do something crazy like let them twice and take higher instead of getting the +1. Mental Scan Fine as is, just specify what you roll to Aid (I suggest spell attack or occultism check). Future Path This spell utterly fails at what it's trying to do. It lets you move without provoking... but casting the spell itself provokes, so what's the point? The Amp heighten effect is just really terrible econ for what it is. Suggestions - Make casting the spell itself not provoke. - Amp effect reduces the cost to 1a instead of giving a second stride. - Amp heighten effect allows the ally to spend their reaction to Stride without provoking. Daze The problem is, while flavorful for a psychic, Daze itself is a terrible spell. It doesn't do enough damage for the action cost, and the Amp doesn't... really do enough either. Suggestions - Make it buff the basic effect of daze to d6/spell level + key ability mod. - Amp effect is mental weakness 1 and -2 status to will saves on failure, scaling by an additional mental weakness 1 per heighten. Message Completely fine as is. I might suggest buffing the basic effect of Message to give the ally a Step or Stand as a reaction, but it doesn't really need it. Nudge Intent Like most punisher mechanics, the problem is that both halves have to look almost broken by themselves for the spell to feel strong, as the opponent will always pick whichever is better for them. Nudge Intent... neither half is very strong. Your opponent gets to choose between a worse fear 1 and a worse command 1... not good at all. Suggestions - Make it so the commanded action must be the first action they take on their turn. - Increase the frighten values by 1 (as this applies frighten on their turn, it will immediately tick down at the end of the turn, which makes it worse than it seems). Shatter Mind Similar problems to telekinetic rend, it just doesn't do enough damage. Lament, a level 1 cleric domain spell does more damage than this. And yes, this does inflict a (minor) amount of stupefied, but still why is the damage scaling so slow? Suggestions - Increase the base damage to 4d6 and the base heighten to 1d6/spell level. This should at least make it a fairly good at-will option at a time where other casters are probably not using their cantrips anymore. It's still a 15 foot cone on a 6hp cloth caster. - Amp makes it 8d6 with 2d6 heightening (i.e. 2d6/spell level) in addition to other effects. Cones are generally worse than 2 5ft bursts of choice, and this is a level 8 feat rather than something you get at level 1, so I'm ok with it being slightly better than Telekinetic Rend in that regard. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Will go through the feats later.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
A departure from my previous level 20 playtests, I stopped using the Arcane Dungeon flipmap (because I had repeat playtesters), and decided to standardise the encounters a bit more. I had two groups: - Monk, Barbarian (Giant), Thauma (Weapon main, chalice, lantern), Thauma (Chalice main, weapon, lantern) - Thauma (Amulet main, weapon, chalice), Barbarian (Animal), Psychic (Silent Whisper w/ Mental Scan from feat - decided to go int because we already knew Cha was better). There was a second psychic, but she only showed up for the final encounter - got confused on timezones, I weak adjusted the monsters. Chargen Rules Feel free to pick whatever you want, though try to push them as far as they can feasibly go mechanically.
Encounters - 1 Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas (Moderate, benchmark) - 8 Demiaviggas (Weak adjusted for the second group) (Severe) - 4 Star Archons, evilswapped (essentially exchange all good instances to evil and vice versa) (Severe) - 1 Elder Wyrmwraith (Severe) - 1 Ouroboros + 1 Elite Clockwork Amalgam (Severe, group 1 didn't fight this) - 1 Elite Hekatonkhaires Titan (by request, group 1 also didn't fight this) (Extreme+) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Group 1 breakdown With no dedicated support character at all, level 20 was really really hard for them. They also didn't use Aid, which made the solo fights a lot harder than they needed to be. For this group I went with the ruling of Esoteric Antithesis applies to all foes of the same type. Encounter 1 - 8 Demiaviggas - Due to some focus fire on the chaliceturge, he nearly went down, but ultimately no one went down in this encounter. - These monsters don't particularly do much as a straight up threat. - Implement's Assault and Whirlwind Strike were used to some effect here to clean up the Demiaviggas, but it took a while with the quantity of HP that even mooks have at level 20. - Ultimately, the above ruling helped the thaumas' econ quite a lot but didn't feel out of place for the party. - Pretty convincing win for the party here, although neither of the thaumas really felt like they were doing anything thauma except ubiquitous antithesis. - Also one thauma had a brilliant rune, which meant that their antithesis did nothing for them. Encounter 2 - 4 Star Archons - 3 Star Archons were at the top of the init order which meant the party got bombarded with Sunbursts, one thauma went permanently blind on round 1.
Encounter 3 - Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas - Monk got mazed, needed a natural 16 to succeed, so was basically perma stuck. - Barbarian got level 10 dominated. - Party was forced to stay back due to prismatic wall. - We basically called the encounter there, it was obvious they weren't going to win with no caster of their own. Encounter 4 - Elder Wyrmwraith - Again, with no caster or support of any kind, they needed a natural 13 to hit on their first attack (ectoplasmic form) or 16 (physical form). - One thauma straight up died due to crit fail (bumped to fail) on consume souls, into crit fail on breath weapon. The thauma that died was the one with ubiquitous antithesis and crit failed his first FF check, died before he got a second. - The rest got ground down over the remaining 9 rounds. The resist 25 all was basically impossible for them to punch through, and gaining 125 thp with each switch to real form didn't help. We cut there due to time. -------------------------------- Group 2 breakdown For this group I used the ruling that Esoteric Antithesis applied to only the single creature, but no increased DC for using it on another of the same creature This group was significantly more optimised build wise. Both the barbarian and the thauma had a pearlescent pyramid, the thauma had an absolute ton of scrolls (bought) with scroll thaumaturgy - no other scroll feats. She had already played the class at level 4 and level 11, hated it feeling too striker-y so tried to do something different. Casting is obviously the most broken thing in the game at level 15+ so the scrolls did a lot of work. Encounter 1 - 8 Demiaviggas - The psychic didn't use a single amp in this encounter, or psyche. They felt they weren't worth the actions. - The barbarian lead off with a terrifying roar which crit all of them, and the psychic followed up with slow 6 - 6/8 demiaviggas crit failed the save. - Thauma was definitely struggling to do much in this encounter, but she really didn't need to. Once 6 demiaviggas were left with only 1 action per turn, it was a guaranteed victory. - The psychic got close to dropping from some focus fire, but was healed up with soothe and chalice. With only 1 action per turn left, the Demiaviggas couldn't finish him. Encounter 2 - 4 Star Archons - The psychic used very few amps this fight (iirc, like 1 or 2) and didn't psyche. - Still, this encounter was an overwhelming victory for the party. Paragon amulet implement, combined with everyone having energy aegis (9th) and sometimes even Shadow Siphon, cut a lot of the damage out of the AoEs. Everyone was still half or more health at the end of this encounter. - Helped that one of the star archons crit failed against blindness, and the thauma mazed another one with a scroll (though they escaped quickly) but this wasn't necessary. - Once all 4 sunbursts were burnt, and they knew the starchons exploded, they just took them out one by one making sure the thauma had amulet reaction to prevent most of the damage. Encounter 3 - Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas - Have you ever seen an encounter get to round 5 and still barely anyone has taken damage? That was this fight. The Maharaja split the room with prismatic wall again, but due to being unable to thread it through a creature targetting was hard. The thauma used disappearance on herself, and the psychic invisibility (4) on himself, they snuck around the side to deal with the Maharaja while the barbarian kept the 4 sumbreivas distracted. - Pretty sure the Psychic didn't amp or psyche this fight at all. - Eventually, the thauma got next to the maharaja and used prismatic sphere. Was basically encounter over from there, the Thauma wins a 1v1 against a weak Maharaja while under the effects of disappearance and mind blank. Encounter 4 - Elder Wyrmwraith - This group really showed the power of support this encounter. I used the ruling that mental scan aids using spell attack roll - with +4 from aid, and +3 from heroism, the party showed why single enemy encounters are such a joke at high levels. - The wyrmwraith got 2 turns before it died. Consume souls which only managed to do 90 + doomed 2 to the barbarian (death ward) and miracle to fetch divine aura. - Having 2 pearlescent pyramids definitely helped, but also just giving +7 to hit was a gamechanger. Encounter 5 - Ouroboros + Clockwork Amalgam - The Ouroboros spent most of this combat mazed, the thaum had another maze scroll and the psychic had two slots to maze it with. With only +31 perception, it stayed in the shadow realm for most of the combat. - Still, the clockwork amalgam tore through the barbarian and thaum quite handily, especially when the thaum/psych were distracted mazing the ouroboros. - Psychic used a lot of amps this combat, forgot they had dual amp + shatter space, used them, shatter space did zero damage (amalgam succeeded, resist physical). Apparently some janky rules regarding how "start of turn" effects work means that the psychic is never at risk of actually damaging themselves with shatter space, as they choose the resolution of their own start of turn effects and can simply have shatter space expire before it deals damage. - Message amp and mental scan did a lot of work in tearing down the amalgam. - What ultimately cost them this combat was that the thaum FF'd the ouroboros and never switched to the amalgam (which would have added 20 damage to both the thaum and barbarian). - I was ready to call the combat at some point for the players, the thaum said to keep going, and I rolled a string of 18+s that dropped both the thaum and barb. Nearly swallowed the Psychic on the same round (Disappearance kept him alive). The thaum and barb retreated (ouroboros couldn't exit the room) after being healed by the psychic, who mazed the ouroboros again, ending the encounter in a draw. Encounter 6 - Elite Hekatonkhaires Titan (By request) - I feel bad for the second psychic player, she made her whole character sheet and never got to take a single action, because this was the only combat she was present for. - Not much to say - the Hundred Dimension Grasp ability is extremely dumb when combined with its +48 (+50 elite) natural athletics modifier. That ability should really have a cooldown, or cost more actions, or require seperate rolls for each creature, or all three of those. - Fight went like this - Titan wins init, Grab (Party is paralyzed), Whirlwind (Deals ~140 to whole party). Party can't act. Grab (party is paralyzed), Whirlwind (Deals ~120 to whole party). Party can't act. Whirlwind (Deals ~120 damage to whole party). GG. - There was some debate among the players whether they should prebuff (with disappearance, e.g.) and whether that would be realistic (there was two sides - one stating that an extreme+ encounter without warning would be quite rare, and the other side stating that it can warp in from anywhere with no notice). Ultimately I rolled a dice to determine if they could prebuff or not, and it came up not. Not sure if they would have won if they could prebuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusions - While message amp and mental scan are good (and naturally scale well as their effects don't descale), ultimately, at high levels their power doesn't match that of what high level slots are capable of. Particularly, the Psychic's high level feat amps and psyches need to be better. The Psychic here just felt like a worse occult sorcerer with swashbuckler dedication. I'm not even going to make a bard comparison, as everything loses to bard, but the Psychic is definitely worse than a sorcerer. Ultimately the problem is that damage naturally descales in two ways - not only does enemy HP get higher, which means that any damage bonus is not making your thing better, merely making it keep up (and woe is you if it grows slowly such that you are actually losing relative power) but also mook hp gets higher relative to on level HP, which means that AoE damage just becomes less and less effective. - Thaumas are very squishy, without support (self-support with scrolls inclusive) they fall over very easily for something that wants to frontline. The thauma in the second group used an air repeater (G&G weapon) with the ruling that Reload 0 on repeating weapons doesn't require a free hand and still fell over hard when she had any sort of focus fire put on her. - Thauma player is mostly displeased with the state of the class, especially at higher levels. It feels too striker-y to her and she wants it to be more implement focused. - Magic at high levels is what wins fights. ---------------------- Will update with the math breakdown by encounter when I review the logs
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Due to the some strange ways that recall knowledge feats interact with recall knowledge, I'm wondering if it would be better if Find Flaws didn't reference Recall Knowledge at all. Specifically, I'm refererring to feats such as - Bestiary Scholar which greatly increases the success chance on your main feature for a class feat.
I wonder if it would be better to simply give the class Esoteric Lore at level 1, have it scale to expert (or master) naturally, then change the text of Find Flaws to simply be "Make an Esoteric Lore check against a standard DC of the target's level (other text as needed such as "only against a creature you can see/investigating, cha sub, etc.). ....
S: XXXX F: XXXX CF: XXXX" With no reference to Recall Knowledge at all, so it doesn't interact with any of these feats (and force some of them to be must-haves).
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Both of these playtest classes seem to be in a pretty good shape, certainly much better than the previous 8 playtest classes. The Thaumaturge looks almost release-worthy as is, just missing a few things. But there's still some rough edges to the class that should probably be ironed out. - 1) Recall knowledge DCs vs rarer creatures - this should be a something the Thaumaturge is good at, but in fact they're at their worst against rarer creatures. With the DC adjustments and recall knowledge's already not impressive success rate given it requires so many different skills, this can prove troublesome. For instance, if you were to play Fall of Plaguestone, the first boss has a recall DC of 28 (Level 3 unique). Your modifier is +7, so you need a 12 to not crit fail and get your bonus. Perhaps Thaumaturge should ignore DC adjustment for rarity. - 2) Esoteric Lore (and related "all lore") skills - more a clarification wanted than anything. Do they get a DC adjustment for specificity? If so, how much? Also, they don't get an item bonus until 17th at which point they suddenly get +3 from diadem of intellect - perhaps a general +x to recall knowledge item is wanted. Maybe Thaumaturge can just get +1 item to RK per implement they have. - 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference). - 4) No key str/dex - Just feels a little bit janky as a balancing factor, if it is intended to be a balancing factor, why is it only relevant for half the levels? And if it isn't, why is there no ability to key str or dex? Same issue as the inventor in this case. - 5) Implement Balance - Initial impressions is that Amulet and Weapon are by and large the best. Chalice is reasonable but it's essentially a weaker Lay On Hands - the THP is quite small even if you can constantly refresh it. Wand and Lantern seem extremely weak by comparison. Wand does very little damage for 2 actions, I guess it's supposed to be comparable to a cantrip but its a cantrip on a martial class. Lantern just has too few combat benefits for a combat feature.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Overall, both of these classes seem to be in a much better spot than the previous 8 playtest classes though they do both have some rough edges. Here is my initial thoughts on the psychic. Aside from most of the class feats feeling incredibly mediocre, with many of the alternative amps and psyches just not doing enough, the base amps and psyche need to be a lot better. Currently, the only good one (IMO) is the message one, because reaction strikes are insanely good in this game, and getting one unconditionally on your martial every round for 5 rounds is pretty good. So, my thoughts - Unleash focused intent damage bonus should just apply to all spells. - Telekinetic projectile should have some push on a regular success as well. - Telekinetic Rend needs to do more damage (probably fine if Unleash Focused Intent gets buffed as above). - Arrest Trajectory is kind of niche in only applying against physical ranged strikes... also should just give +2 baseline instead of needing to wait until 13th a +2. - Infinite Eye in general just needs to be better, all of the options are very weak. At the least, Future Sight should amp to be 1a instead of giving a double stride. - Daze should give higher mental weakness or do more damage baseline. - Message one is fine as is. - Shatter Mind needs to do more damage (probably fine if unleash focused intent gets buffed). For a class cantrip this is barely better than Haunting Hymn.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Updated my summon guide for bestiary 3 Not a lot of good summons this time, but there were a few winners - Skunk - Giant Skunk - Tyrannosaurus Skeleton - Giant Opossum - Empress Bore Worm (and oh boy is this one cheesy).
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Looking at the repeating crossbow in AV3, there's a twofold issue with this weapon that I think should be addressed if more of these weapons get introduced in G&G ---- 1) Shootist's Bandolier Why does this item exist? It's in the same book as the repeating crossbow. It would be one thing if it was introduced later to fix issues with the weapon (though i'd still be grumpy about doing that instead of just reprinting the weapon) but in the same book? Why not just have the repeating crossbow take 2 actions to swap the magazine by base and remove this item? As far as I can tell there's no penalty to having it aside from the trivial 1gp cost. --- 2) Reloading This weapon is incredibly unclear on if you need a free hand or not to "reload" it between each shot. As far as I can tell, by RAW, every reload weapon - including reload 0 ones - need a free hand to reload. Reload wrote:
Now the repeating crossbow says it autoloads Repeating crossbow flavour wrote: This weapon features an ingeniously designed catch mechanism at the top of the flight grove, just in front of the latch, which automatically loads a bolt from a magazine and resets the string each time the weapon is fired. A typical repeating hand crossbow magazine holds five bolts. But the repeating trait also says the weapon needs to be cocked, which would require a hand to do so anyway Repeating trait wrote:
So which is it? Does the weapon need a free hand to "reload" between each shot? Or is the repeating trait supposed to override that? An additional clarifying sentence to the repeating trait would be good.
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The FAQ page has been updated with bestiary 2 errata FAQ wrote:
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Gunslinger chassis, as it stands, feels very similar to fighter, but needs the extra accuracy because of how guns work. If guns aren’t to be changed, I suggest the following: Drop weapon proficiency to be in line with other martials (master at 13) Add Level 1 class feature “You may roll twice and take the higher result for the first Strike you make with a weapon that has a reload of 1 or greater each turn. If you do, that Strike gains the fortune trait.” From there, get rid of all the [Press] abilities gunslinger has, which don’t work with its awkward action econ, and replace them with [Open]s instead. Make it focus around 1 Attack per turn.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
After seeing it played, and thinking on it a bit, here's how I would change the inventor. 1) Overdrive The biggest (IMO) offender of the inventor class is this hard descaling, highly RNG dependent feature that really just exists as a math fixer for your otherwise lacking accuracy. Here's how I would fix this feature: - a) All inventors scale crafting for free. If the main class feature is going to use Crafting, they shouldn't be skill taxed for it. Similar problem with swashbuckler. - b) Overdrive now gives you an overdrive state (similar to panache) when you succeed or crit succeed. Add requirement: you aren't in an overdrive state, and remove the 1 minute lockout from success and crit success. Make the success effect decent, and the crit success effect very good. Which leads to... - c) Unstable actions will now consume your overdrive state, instead of their current mechanic, to work. Make Clockwork Celerity the base unstable action, with explosion available by a first level feat. (Thanks to Tali Kinsey on the discord server for b and c) 2) Offensive boost A minor gripe - the devs want this to be flexible in damage type dealt, so you have the right answer for any monster. The issues I have with this are twofold - not only are current monster weaknesses very limited (fire, cold and good will cover 90% of weaknesses), but also you can only change it with daily prep which means you have to know what you're fighting the day before. My suggestion is simple. Allow the damage type choice to be changed when you succeed or crit succeed on overdrive. 3) Breakthroughs and Innovations Currently feel very limited and watered down. I was expecting something crazy but we only got some very minor things. Either improve the base abilities of the breakthrough (e.g. Armour increases HP, construct and weapon do something else) or make the current level 9 breakthroughs level 1, make the current level 17 breakthroughs level 9 and add something wacky at level 17. 4) Key ability I believe with the above change to overdrive, INT as a key ability is fine, though I would prefer weapon and armour to have the choice of str/dex.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Similar to my secrets of magic level 20 playtest last time, I ran another level 20 playtest. Same dungeon (the arcane dungeon paizo flipmap), similar story (except I used Treerazer instead of the Tarrasque)... and, well, there were a couple of no-shows so it was a level 20 weapon inventor and level 20 sniper gunslinger against the following encounters. Many of these monsters were sized down to fit in the dungeon. - 1) Elite Ancient Umbral Dragon (Severe)
Building rules - 240000GP, any item of any rarity provided it has a price, and any feat of any rarity is allowed. With the exception of pin to the spot and heaven's thunder. I put a 150min time limit, but they bought 50 scrolls of level 5 heal and like 10 scrolls of level 6 heroism so they only needed to rest once to remove wounded. They had heroism up the entire dungeon after combat 1. Also some scrolls of energy aegis were bought. -------------------------- The builds Weapon Inventor using a Ranseur, mods for trip+grapple and extra reach. Can't remember what the level 9 mod was. Skills were Intimidation, Acrobatics and Athletics. Didn't care about crafting because overdrive was so irrelevant at level 20, and he was a support specced (Using maneuvers) build anyway. Invention could be repaired with the level 19 feature if ever needed. Class feats
Ultimately, while it did use a unique gimmick the inventor had (15ft reach grapple trip disarm weapon), and it was effective at locking enemies down with grapple+trip, it didn't feel like anything another class wasn't better at. Sniper gunslinger was using a musket, because the arquebus is trash. Legendary intimidation, stealth and acro. Literally forgot about One Shot, One Kill and the damage was irrelevant anyway. Most turns were ghost shot, reload (perfect readiness), vital shot or hide, ghost shot, reload, something. Class Feats 1) Firearm Ace
-------------------------- The encounters 1) Elite Ancient Umbral Dragon
2) Weak Solar
3) 2 sards
4) 4x Elite Mammora
5) Mu Spore + 2x Vorpal Executioner
6) Weak Treerazer
------- Some thoughts - Gunslinger too reliant on crits. He'd either hit for ~30 damage or crit for 80-120. Very little in between.
I'll go through the math of it later.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
When discussing caster accuracy on the PF2e discord server, a point was made that casters had it worse in the playtest. We cross-referenced a few random monsters from the playtest and their release counterparts, and it seemed this... didn't hold up. In fact, it seemed accuracy was actually worse in release than it was in the playtest. So I decided to do some investigating of my own. I typed in playtest monster stats (just HP, AC, TAC, Fort, Ref, Will, getting to attack bonus and save DC) in my spreadsheet that has the release monster stats. Then, in the "Comparisons" sheet, I pared down both sets of monsters to the ones that had the same name in playtest and release, and the same level (as some monsters had levels changed) giving a total of 175 monsters. Then I built up accuracy for playtest characters and release characters (playtest accuracy was a little harder because for martials it was all over the place, but I used the proficiency of a ranger for this purpose - expert at 3, master at 13) and compared the fail rates on spells, and the hit rates on weapon attacks and spell attacks. The results were.... surprising. It seems martial accuracy got a signifcant buff from the playtest... but caster accuracy actually got worse (slightly on all 3 saves, but significantly on spell attacks which, while they got to use their main stat, also lost an item bonus to spell attacks and targetting TAC). Reading this table: In this case, "Better" means better for the player (i.e. higher hit chance/higher chance of enemy failing) and "Worse" means worse for the player (i.e. lower hit chance/lower chance of enemy failing). I haven't gone much more in depth yet, but if anyone wants to clone my spreadsheet to use the data feel free to do so.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Making a thread to document all the stuff that differs between the CRB and Beginner Box, separating into "Changed", "New" and "Bundled for Ease of Use" --- New Stuff There's some new items in the beginner box. Keep in mind investiture is not a rule in the BB, so some items (Such as goggles of night) appear without investment. This might be relevant for the Belt of Good Health, which is probably supposed to be invested. Beginner Box wrote:
There's also a new feat for wizards that doesn't appear in the CRB. Keep in mind the Beginner Box doesn't scale anything of these features by level where the CRB probably would say "half your level". Beginner Box wrote:
--- Changed Stuff There's a few spell changes - to Flaming Sphere (now is just a normal basic reflex instead of no damage on success) and Daze (uses INT mod instead of spellcasting mod, despite clerics being able to select it in the BB). Beginner Box wrote:
Another thing that got changed is focus spells. The BB doesn't use this mechanic, instead the spells are prepared to the slot and, once cast, can simply be reprepared. Beginner Box wrote:
--- Bundled for Ease of Use - The Cleric starts with Medium Armour and Expert fort regardless of Doctrine. This is probably because the only doctrine available is warpriest, which only gives shield block.
There's also some clarity given on the Avoid Notice activity Beginner Box wrote:
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What constitutes a damaging effect for the purpose of bulwark? Is it any effect that has the potential to deal damage, or does it need to be one that you can feasibly "avoid". For instance, engulf does damage on a failed save, does bulwark apply? Swallow whole does as well, does bulwark apply? Trip has the potential to do damage (if the opponent crits) does bulwark apply?
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I made a rovagug/tarrasque themed dungeon, the party composition Phantom Summoner
Beast Summoner
Slide Magus
Pick + Light Pick Fighter
Building rules
Playtest rules
For this I used the "Arcane Dungeon" Paizo flipmap. The encounters
Play Experience (In the order they had the encounters) 1) Dragonshard Guardians
2) Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths
3) Balor + 4 Shemhazians
4) Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners
5) Jabberwock
6) Tarrasque
Some thoughts
I'll look through the log and get some stats when I can be bothered.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Unlikely to get any official answer, but just so we can playtest the classes as intended, it would be nice to get an answer to some questions about the mechanics of the classes: 1) When a magus crits with striking spell, does the degree of success modification only apply to the first roll made by the subsequent spell, or any roll made as part the spell's initial effect? For purposes of, e.g. Phantasmal Killer or Disintegrate which have two rolls inherent in the spell. 2) Are the magus and summoner intended to be able to cast spells from staves once they no longer have slots of the same level - e.g. can a 5th level magus cast True Strike from a Staff of Divination?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I don't think it's that far from being workable per se, I just think it's very clunky as is, areas I'm concerned about before playing it: Striking Spell Perhaps the biggest one is this feature, it's mathematically useless and essentially gambles on the crit rider to be any good. That's not to say that you can't make something work with the feature as currently printed, but I don't exactly think it's good design that this feature is a dice roll between "worse than attacking twice" and "instantly kill an enemy". My suggested changes - Make it work like Eldritch Archer would be my preferred change, and remove the -1 degree of success rider for crits with save spells. - Perhaps another thing that could be considered is changing Magus to key stat Int, then having them use Int to hit while they have a spell stored in their weapon (or body) with striking spell. Spellcasting The way magus is set up incentivises you to take Wizard/Witch dedication way too much due to all the stuff that triggers off non-cantrip spells, and the fact that they have no ability to refocus more than a single focus point. - My preferred solution would just be to remove their slotted spells entirely and make them an arcane focus caster with focus cantrips. - An alternative solution is just to increase their number of slots, whether that becomes 2/level/day or 2/level of the top 2-3 levels and 1 of each level beneath that. - I don't think making them a fullcaster and reducing their martial capability will end up as a very satisfying class. Chassis - Can we get a class feat at 1st level for magus and summoner both? It seems odd to me that there's playstyle altering feats for both at 1st (Arcane fists and synthesis)... yet you can't actually take them until 2nd unless you're a human. - Feels really odd that they get armour prof at fighter levels and casting proficiency at warpriest levels. I would make their armour 13/19 and their casting 9/17. - Perhaps you could split up their spell attack and spell save proficiency such that they get spell attack prof early (such as getting their spell attack prof with their weapon prof) and the save prof at 9/17. - Magus Potency being a core feature when it's only useful for 7 levels (1, 7-9 and 13-15) feels really strange as well - what's the purpose of this ability? Is it supposed to give you an attack bonus or is it supposed to make you able to use any random weapon you pick up? Why no heighten (10th) for major striking? Synthesis I think slide and shooting star are reasonably balanced against each other, both saving actions in their own way, but Sustaining seems like the weakest by far. It needs something to make it worth taking. I suggest heavy armour prof and an advanced weapon. Class feats - Raise a tome should let the tome hand count as a free hand for spellcasting and magus features (such as slide). - Magus 16th+ feats feel really disappointing but I guess they're not too relevant. Will playtest one soonish and post my thoughts after that.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
So the Tarrasque thinks its hot stuff with the new printing with its whole "Regen overcome by nothing" and "Even if you kill it with a death effect it'll come back in 3 rounds". As is tradition, we must now find ways to kill the tarrasque even through this. I propose: Method #1 - The Doomed Condition. Regeneration only stops the creature hitting dying 4 (and dying). If a creature is doomed 1, then Regeneration won't help it. Doomed is a very difficult condition for PCs to inflict, and relies on some uncommon methods to function as far as I can tell. 1) Any death effect that kills the tarrasque (such as Power Word: Kill or Suffocating it with Control Sand), Blessing of the Five (revives it with 1 HP and Doomed 1), then slapping it back down to dying 3 (killing it permanently). 2) Somehow get an Apocalypse Daemon, Astradaemon (+4 Bone Croupiers) or a Skulltaker (+ A Bone Croupier). The Bone Croupiers can be gotten through the Animate Dead spell which will be in the APG (though we don't know what level or tradition it'll be), the Daemons and the Skulltaker... require some GM fiat.
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Theorycrafting a build based around throwing the Greatpick with Hand of the Apprentice + True Strike, my thoughts as current: Ancestry: Human (Half-Elf)
Stats
Relevant Feats
Use a Dagger or Rapier (if you want to use an Ancestry feat on Elven Weapon Familiarity, retrain it at level 9) until you can get to 9th level. Some WBL should ideally be spent on upgrading the Greatpick, a +3 Major Striking Flaming Shock + Another rune (You might want to take Shifting so you can transform it into a usable weapon when required) should deal, by my calculations: 2x(4*6.5+3*3.5+7)+6.5+10 = 103.5 damage + 2d10 Persistent damage at up to 500ft away on a critical hit. Maths:
The biggest issues I can see is that this obviously blows a lot of your WBL on a weapon that isn't useful more than twice per combat. The shifting rune alleviates this issue somewhat (Only requiring you to spend your 12th level feat on Diverse Weapon Expert to bring the Elven Curve Blade a little up to scratch) but I feel like I'm missing something here regarding optimisation. Any thoughts? |