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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 731 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 12 Organized Play characters.



Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Report is not my own, just relinking it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15DjMMRAqxaur8TIXUvv6NwY9Ik7BMf6o_0bfKHO Rb5E/edit

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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Will go through the feats later.

Dataphiles

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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.
- At least one person much play one of each of the new classes (the psychic for the first group dropped and got replaced with the monk last minute, so .
- If you pick the same class as someone else, pick a different subclass/different style.
- 240000GP to buy anything you want of 20th level or lower that has a price tag (all uncommon, rare and unique options allowed provided there is a price).
- For playtesting reasons I ask that you don't pick the following options as they will distort data - Pin to the Spot, Heaven's Thunder, Sixth Pillar Mastery (if playing Wild Druid), Bone Croupiers from Animate Dead, Scare to Death.
- Revive, Heal to full and remove all conditions after each encounter.
- Everyone starts with 3 hero points, none will be handed out.

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+)

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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.
- With no healing or mitigation, this was a basically unwinnable fight, especially when all of them started exploding for 24d6 and no one had evasion.
- I agreed to not keep spamming them with AoE just so they could actually have a fight instead of a massacre, and ultimately they won after some very lucky dice rolls. Both thaumas went down and died.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Will update with the math breakdown by encounter when I review the logs

Dataphiles

5 people marked this as a favorite.
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.
- Unmistakable Lore, which, combined with Esoteric Lore removes the chance of crit fail from your main class feature entirely.
- Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover which would be another skill feat that greatly increases the chance of your main feature working if you weren't forced to have dubious knowledge.

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.).

....
CS: XXXX

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).

Dataphiles

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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.

Dataphiles

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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.

Dataphiles

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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).

Dataphiles

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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:

While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded. This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn.

An item with an entry of “—” must be drawn to be thrown, which usually takes an Interact action just like drawing any other weapon. Reloading a ranged weapon and drawing a thrown weapon both require a free hand. Switching your grip to free a hand and then to place your hands in the grip necessary to wield the weapon are both included in the actions you spend to reload a weapon.

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:

A repeating weapon is typically a type of crossbow that has a shorter reload time. These weapons can’t be loaded with individual bolts like other crossbows; instead, they require a magazine of specialized ammunition to be loaded into

a special slot. Once that magazine is in place, the ammunition is automatically loaded each time the weapon is cocked to fire, reducing its reload to the value in its reload entry (typically 0). When the ammunition runs out, a new magazine must be loaded, which requires a free hand and 3 Interact actions (to remove the old magazine, retrieve the new magazine, and slot the new magazine in place). These actions don’t need to be consecutive.

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.

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I’ve updated my monster stats spreadsheet, using easytool instead of AoN to pull the monsters.

Results can be found here

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The FAQ page has been updated with bestiary 2 errata

FAQ wrote:

Page 19: In the ankou's skills, change Bluff to Deception.

Page 34: The basidirond’s hallucinogenic cloud is missing all its traits. These should be incapacitation, mental, and poison.

Page 57: The culdewen should be uncommon, and several abilities didn't work quite right, making it unnecessarily difficult for PCs to escape the culdewen's hook. Add the uncommon trait. In Hooked, change “The fish hook can be removed only if a creature spends an Interact action and succeeds at a DC 25 Athletics check to pull it free.” to “The fish hook can be removed if a creature Escapes (DC 25), pulling it free. In Land the Fish, after “On a success, the creature is restrained by the culdewen.” add “Escaping from the restrained condition (DC 25) also allows a creature to remove the hook.

Page 61: Change the thanadaemon's Focus Gaze’s effect to say “The thanadaemon glares at a single creature they can see within 30 feet. If the target wasn’t already frightened, they must immediately attempt a DC 33 Will save against the thanadaemon's terrifying gaze. If the target was already frightened, they must attempt a DC 33 Will save or become fleeing for 1d4 rounds; this second effect has the incapacitation trait. After attempting its save, the creature is temporarily immune to this ability until the start of the thanadaemon's next turn.”

Page 70: Add the uncommon trait to the Denizen of Leng.

Page 93: The Giant Cockroach Swarm is listed as Small, but should be Large

Page 99: The drainberry bush should have been listed as uncommon. Add the uncommon trait.

Page 184: The followers of fate religion should have the 3rd level spell threefold aspect instead of the 2nd level spell web.

Page 241: The skaveling is missing its undead immunities. Add “Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious.”

Page 248: The specter's Spectral Corruption ability, especially when combined with high attack and damage, make it an oversized threat for a level 7 monster. Replace it with

Spectral Corruption [two-actions] (curse, divine, enchantment, incapacitation, mental) The specter makes a vile touch Strike. If it damages a living creature, the specter gains 5 temporary Hit Points and the target creature must attempt a DC 24 Will save to avoid becoming corrupted.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to spectral corruption for 1 minute.

Success The creature is stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Failure The creature succumbs to the corruption and becomes a spectral thrall temporarily. The creature is controlled by the specter, obeying the specter's telepathic or spoken orders, though a spectral thrall does not obey obviously self-destructive orders. This lasts until the end of the thrall’s next turn, at which point it is no longer controlled but becomes stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Critical Failure As failure, but the duration is unlimited. The thrall can attempt a new Will save at the end of each of its turns; on a success, it is no longer controlled by the specter but becomes stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Change the vile touch Strike to “vile touch +16 (finesse), Damage 2d8+8 negative.” Note that this also cuts "plus spectral corruption" from the Strike, since it needs to use the Spectral Corruption activity to get the full effect.

As a note for summoning specters, an upcoming erratum to the minion trait in the Core Rulebook will clarify that minions can't control other creatures, which means summoned specters can't control other creatures with Spectral Corruption.

Page 249: Both spiders' bite attacks should be "fangs" attacks. They are also missing their damage type, which should be piercing.

Page 255: Add the uncommon trait to the stygira.

Page 260: The giant tick has an enfeebled entry with no value. In tick fever, in the first stage, after enfeebled add “1”.

Page 266: The Two-Headed Troll's Reactive Chomp doesn't work quite right. Change it from a single action to a reaction. Replace its Requirements entry with “Trigger On one head's initiative, the troll hits the same enemy with two consecutive claw Strikes in the same round;” and change the effect to “While the prey is distracted with unrelenting claw attacks, the head that's not taking its turn makes a jaws Strike against the enemy.“

Page 267: Jotund troll’s jaws Strike should have the Grab ability, so it can use its other abilities that happen when it Grabs creatures with its jaws.

Page 281: Add the incapacitation trait to the ostiarius's Focus Gaze ability.

Page 286: Add the uncommon trait to the violet venom item.

Page 290-291: Moon Frenzy should say "jaws Strike (or a similar Strike)" so that wereboar can use it. Additionally, the curse DCs are slightly off. Change wereboar's DC to 15 and weretiger's DC to 18.

Page 300: The yellow musk creeper's Spray Pollen is missing some of its information. First, it should have the incapacitation trait.

Second, change the failure and critical failure entries to:

Failure The creature is fascinated. For as long as it is fascinated, it must spend each of its actions to move closer to the yellow musk creeper as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers. If the creature is adjacent to the yellow musk creeper, it stays still and doesn't act. If anyone takes a hostile action against the creature or its allies, the effect ends. Otherwise, the creature can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns. On a success, the effects end.
Critical Failure As failure, but the condition doesn't end automatically if anyone takes a hostile action against the creature or its allies.

Page 301: Add the uncommon trait to the yellow musk vial.

Dataphiles

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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.

Dataphiles

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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.

Dataphiles

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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)
- 2) 2x Sard (Severe)
- 3) 4x Elite Marrmora (Moderate, benchmark)
- 4) 1x Weak Solar (Extreme, reflavoured to evil, I just swapped all the good stuff to evil, and the regen/weakness to good)
- 5) 1x Mu Spore + 2x Vorpal Executioner (Severe-Extreme)
- 6) 1x Weak Treerazer (by request, I intended for the solar to replace Treerazer as the "boss" here because there was only 2).

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
- 1) Unstable Repair
- 2) Swashbuckler Dedication - Gymnast
- 4) Dual-Form Weapon
- 6) Visual Fidelity
- 8) Disarming Flair
- 10) Tinker's Meddling
- 12) Attack of Opportunity
- 14) Eternal Meddler
- 16) Buckler Expertise
- 18) Multifarious Meddler
- 20) Derring-Do

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
2) Risky Reload
4) Running Reload
6) Shattering Shot
8) Grit and Tenacity
(9)) Rogue Dedication
10) You're Next
12) True Grit
14) Dread Striker
16) Sneak Attacker
18) Unerring Shot
20) Perfect Readiness

--------------------------

The encounters

1) Elite Ancient Umbral Dragon
- Fight lasted about 7 rounds
- Inventor kept the dragon tripped and grabbed for most of the combat (also I sucked at rolling the escape check) which let the gunslinger reload without getting attack op'd.
- Inventor went down (used orc ferocity though), gunslinger ended the fight at about half HP.
- Gunslinger didn't crit once, which might have been why this fight took so long (as you'll see later).

2) Weak Solar
- Fight lasted maybe 3-4 rounds.
- Gunslinger crit about 3-4 times, each dealing 80-100ish damage, blew through the HP bar like butter.
- Inventor did mostly the same, but also threw in a couple crit disarms which made it really awkward for the solar to get anything done.
- Fight was the easiest of the non-moderate encounters.

3) 2 sards
- Fight lasted about 5 rounds, Scare to Death was used twice, one crit (but the Sard didn't fail the resulting check). The fight was extended this long solely because one of the Sards used Storm of Vengeance, giving the gunslinger -4 to hit.
- These enemies weren't very threatening at all, the venom never got delivered (they passed the fort save on like a 4 or something)
- Gunslinger landed maybe a couple of crits, Inventor didn't feel like he was doing much this combat though.
- Shattering Shot was used for the sole time in this combat, dealing about 24 damage (3d6+15 fire weakness).

4) 4x Elite Mammora
- Gunslinger opened the fight with a double crit on one of them, dropping it to ~70 HP from 300.
- Gunslinger then proceeded to scare to death (and kill) the other 3 over the next couple rounds.
- Inventor didn't do much, nor did he need to.
- Scare to Death alone did about 816 damage this fight.

5) Mu Spore + 2x Vorpal Executioner
- Toughest non-Treerazer encounter. Nearly ended in a TPK (Gunslinger was at 10HP, Inventor was down).
- Players were admittedly, playing a bit badly and kept stepping onto squares they knew were trapped.
- The swallow whole was the cause of most of the problems in this fight, + the spores massive range + the free action auto grab it has when you attack or move near it, making it hard to escape after you've gotten out of the swallow whole.
- Couple gunslinger crits and the resulting persistent damage actually did a lot to the spore's HP bar, but the debuffs they got from spores and swallow whole starting grinding them down.

6) Weak Treerazer
- They did about 100 damage and then TPK'd.
- Couldn't hit him.
- Did trip him a couple times.
- Got pounded into paste by the axe.
- Survived around 7 rounds (Treerazer doesn't do much damage surprisingly, and they kept passing the save that makes them turn into plants).

-------

Some thoughts

- Gunslinger too reliant on crits. He'd either hit for ~30 damage or crit for 80-120. Very little in between.
- Keep in mind encounters 2-6 were done with a level 6 heroism active at all times, which might have warped the difficulty somewhat (though it's nothing players can't do at level 20 - scrolls of level 6 heroism are cheap by then).
- Inventor was effective with dering-do at being a maneuver expert but another class could have done that almost as well while contributing a lot of other stuff.

I'll go through the math of it later.

Dataphiles

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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.

Dataphiles

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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:

SMOKING SWORD ITEM 3

EVOCATION FIRE MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Smoke constantly belches from this +1 magic longsword. Any hit with this sword deals 1 extra fire damage. You can use a special action while holding the sword to command the blade’s edges to light on fire.
Stoke Flames [one-action] (concentrate) Until the end of your turn, the blade deals 1d6 extra fire damage instead of just 1. After you use this action, you can’t use it again for 10 minutes.

STORM HAMMER ITEM 3
ELECTRICITY EVOCATION MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Sparks of crackling electricity arc from this +1 magic warhammer, and the head thrums with distant thunder. Any hit with this hammer deals 1 extra electricity damage. You can use a special action while holding the hammer to transform the sparks into lightning bolts.
Electrify [one-action] (concentrate) Until the end of your turn, the hammer deals 1d6 extra electricity damage instead of just 1. After you use this action, you can’t use it again for 10 minutes.

HUNTER’S BOW ITEM 3
EVOCATION MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Stealthy hunters and rogues can use this +1 magic shortbow to attack from hiding. If you use this bow to Strike a target that can’t see you and you get a critical hit, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage (this is in addition to sneak attack damage if you’re a rogue).

GREEN WYRMLING BREATH POTION ITEM 5
CONSUMABLE EVOCATION MAGICAL POISON POTION
Price 30 gp
Usage held in 1 hand
This liquid contains blood from a wyrmling green dragon. For 1 hour after you drink it, you can unleash a cloud of poison as a breath weapon. Exhaling dragon breath uses a single action. The breath weapon deals 2d6 poison damage in a 15-foot cone, and each creature in the area must attempt a DC 23 basic Fortitude save. After you use the breath weapon, you can’t do so again for 1d4 rounds

BELT OF GOOD HEALTH ITEM 4
MAGICAL NECROMANCY
Price 85 gp
Usage worn belt
When you put on this belt, its silver buckle begins to glow, which slowly spreads into the heart-shaped jewel in the center. You increase your maximum Hit Points and current Hit Points by 4. If you remove the belt, you immediately decrease both your maximum and current HP by 4.

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:

SCHOOL AURA

Your focused study of one school of magic has left you with an aura of the magic around you. The benefit of this aura depends on your choice of arcane school.

Abjuration Protective magic swirls around you. Whenever you cast feather fall, mage armor, or dispel magic (which you can learn at 3rd level), your aura activates for 1 minute. During this time, if you take acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, reduce the damage you take by 1.

Evocation Your aura makes the deadly energy you create even more dangerous. Whenever you cast a spell that has the evocation trait and deals damage, it deals 1 extra damage. If the spell you cast was magic missile, one missile of your choice deals 1 extra damage.

Transmutation Whenever you cast fleet step, pest form, or enlarge (which you can learn at 3rd level) on yourself, you adjust the spell to also make yourself more mobile. Increase your Speed by 5 feet (for a total Speed increase of 35 feet with fleet step).

---

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:


FLAMING SPHERE [two-actions]
ARCANE EVOCATION FIRE
You create a 5-foot sphere of flame on the floor in a square within 30 feet. The sphere deals 3d6 fire damage to the creature in that square, and that creature must attempt a basic Reflex save. Once per round after you cast this spell, you can spend a single action to sustain it until the end of your next turn, up to 1 minute. When you do, you can make it roll to another square within 30 feet and deal 3d6 fire damage to the creature in that square, with a basic Reflex save.

DAZE [two-actions]
ARCANE ENCHANTMENT MANIPULATE MENTAL NONLETHAL
You jolt the mind of a single target within 60 feet. The jolt deals mental damage equal to your Intelligence; the target must attempt a basic Will save. If the target critically fails, it loses its first action on its next turn, and it can’t use reactions until then.

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:


FORCE BOLT [one-action]
ARCANE EVOCATION FORCE MANIPULATE
School Spell You must have the evocation arcane school to prepare this spell.

You fire an unerring dart of force from your fingertips at one creature within 30 feet. It automatically hits and deals 1d4+1 force damage to the target. Once you cast this spell, you can get it back by spending 10 minutes studying your spellbook.

---

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.
- Dispel Magic can counteract any level of spell on a success, and uses a spell attack roll instead of a counteract check (meaning it gets buffed by things that buff attack rolls). This is probably because counteracting rules don't exist in the BB, neither does heightening or spells higher than 2nd level.
- The three human heritages bundle feats together. Battle Trained is Versatile Human with General Training (Weapon Proficiency and Diehard), this would be different for wizards normally who would only get simple prof from weapon proficiency, but ease of use. Warden gives a choice between an improved toughness (and losing your ancestry feat), canny acumen on fort (and losing your ancestry feat) or double armour training (for classes without armour prof). Skilled is Skilled human with Natural skill.

There's also some clarity given on the Avoid Notice activity

Beginner Box wrote:


Move at half your travel speed and attempt a Stealth check to avoid anyone noticing you as you travel. If you’re Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check to determine your initiative. You’ll also compare the result of this Stealth check to the enemies’ Perception DCs, like you would for the Sneak action, to determine if they notice you.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

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?

Dataphiles

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I made a rovagug/tarrasque themed dungeon, the party composition

Phantom Summoner
- Archetyped into rogue because he didn't like any of his high level feats.

Beast Summoner
- Archetyped into bard to be a buffer
- Took conduit focus and conduit wellspring just for inspire heroics.

Slide Magus
- Gnome, using a gnome flickmace
- No archetype
- Took Capture Spell and Spell Parry, never used them (the only available time to use capture spell, it would have been useless because the enemy was immune to its own spell)
- Bought a bunch of potions of quickness and used one before every encounter.
- Bought like 100 true strike scrolls and had an independent valet familiar to draw them.

Pick + Light Pick Fighter
- Medic archetype
- Took dual-weapon warrior as well for dual onslaught and flensing slice.

Building rules
- 160000GP
- Anything of any rarity, items need a price to be able to purchase

Playtest rules
- 150min time limit
- All characters revive 10 min after death with 1 HP.

For this I used the "Arcane Dungeon" Paizo flipmap.

The encounters
- Balor + 4 Shemhazians (80XP) - I sized these down to medium and made them humanoid cultists so they'd fit in the dungeon.
- Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths (115XP)
- 2 Weak Dragonshard Guardians (120XP)
- Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners (84XP) - the mu spore was also sized down to medium.
- Tarrasque (240XP) - I expected this to TPK.

Play Experience (In the order they had the encounters)

1) Dragonshard Guardians
- This fight took place in the room with the 3 coloured pools and coloured gas.
- This fight took the longest by far at 7 rounds and nearly ended in a TPK. There were a few battle medicine checks on unconscious characters. The magus went down twice, both summoners went down once. Fighter healed each once with battle medicine.
- Resist 24 physical is rough. The magus had an adamantine flickmace so she got to ignore it, and the phantom summoner had a thundering rune so he did normal damage (-24 physical and +24 sonic). I ended up not using reverberation, except on the thundering rune or on the magus' spells, because it would take too long for a single d6 of damage. The Magus switched to using acid splash because it doesn't trigger reverberation.
- Ran into our first problem almost immediately: Devotion Aura. It's incredibly tedious and barely does anything. 5 less damage when the enemies do 50+ is barely noticeable, and then having to check if you're in range of the eidolon, reduce the damage by 5 and then reduce the summoner's HP by 2 afterwards took a while. Also, it made the summoner die farquicker than the rest of the party because they were taking an extra 10-12 from the AoE effects.
- A dragonshard guardian crit failed its save vs the breath weapon of another dragonshard guard.
- There wasn't much point using the weakening breath because everyone had juggernaut, I used it once, they all crit succeeded, so I just used fire breath instead.
- Overall, felt really rough for the summoners, who basically did nothing else. No ability to put special materials on their eidolons means even if they knew about the guardians in advance, they were helpless. Perhaps an evolution to let your eidolon get a special material, or perhaps tack it onto evolution surge?

2) Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths
- This fight took place in the room with the statue.
- These enemies are awful. The misfortune aura made everyone feel miserable.
- The Grim Reaper cast finger of death twice and it did nothing both times due to successful save + juggernaut.
- The magus used whirlwind spell... and missed 5/6 of them, hitting only one lesser death, despite only needing to roll a 5+ to hit them - misfortune aura really screwed her there.
- Party was too afraid to do anything cast-y after the first round because of the threat of 6x Lurking Death.
- Ended it after round 2 because the outcome was clear - was gonna be a TPK.

3) Balor + 4 Shemhazians
- This fight was supposed to take place in the room in the bottom left (left of the room with the green gem) but the party lured them to the room with the statue.
- Fighter lost his weapon in round 1 due to hitting the balor. It was the runed one too, so he was basically useless the rest of the fight (he picked up one of the shemhazian's spears which I ruled to be +2 greater striking, but still it wasn't super effective).
- Magus did really well against the Shemhazians - Whirlwind Spell + Weird (I ruled the -DoS applied to the secondary save as well on a crit). She crit 3 of them, causing them to instantly die because they failed (->crit fail) the initial save and failed the secondary save.
- Phantom Summoner died in this fight, a few hits from the balor brought him to dying 1, he was already doomed 1 from the reapers prior and a crit failed save against the balor's death throes knocked him to death.

4) Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners
- This fight took place in the room with the coloured squares.
- I was mostly playing this encounter for some variety, and had the spore constantly use the inhalation ability to drag the players into traps. Unfortunately, Juggernaut made them crit succeed the saves a lot so I didn't get my memes going that much, but it was still a difficult encounter.
- The beast summoner went down due to getting crit a lot by the vorpal executioner.
- There was some questions on what happens if your eidolon gets decapitated, or even if a phantom eidolon can be decapitated.
- Magus used Fiery Body and hit a bit with it, but most of the damage came from the weapon.

5) Jabberwock
- This fight took place in the room with the circle platform and three coloured archways in the top left.
- This fight felt like a pushover
- Seriously this monster does no damage
- Beast summoner made a lot of use out of transpose here
- Magus hit with a polar ray after missing it the first time, did a fair amount of damage
- Beast summoner hit it with a 4-way overlapped meteor swarm doing a fair amount of damage.
- Otherwise this fight felt like 4x fighter, because the magical abilities didn't do anything or weren't used.

6) Tarrasque
- This fight took place on the second map.
- I expected them to TPK and they did.
- Magus did the most damage... only because she crit once. Striking spell and cast spells did nothing.
- Both summoners did nothing, though one did get their eidolon swallowed whole and then used evolution surge to make it huge so the tarrasque couldn't swallow anymore.
- Fighter hit like a couple times, but resist 25 physical is too much.
- They did about 70 points of damage to it before TPKing.

Some thoughts
- Against the level- enemies, magus felt strong. It also felt strong when it was flanking and buffed by inspire heroics and true strike.
- Against the level+ enemies, or when not buffed, it felt weak.
- Both summoners, when archetyped, felt more like a bad version of their archetyped class than a summoner.
- Transpose was cool and useful
- Boost Eidolon felt both mandatory and useless at the same time somehow. It felt necessary to keep the eidolon up to scratch, but not potent enough.
- Capture spell needs some work I think - it's too narrow right now.
- Devotion Aura definitely needs a change - way too tedious mathematically for what it does.

I'll look through the log and get some stats when I can be bothered.

Dataphiles

3 people marked this as a favorite.
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?

Dataphiles

2 people marked this as a favorite.
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.

Dataphiles

3 people marked this as a favorite.
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.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Theorycrafting a build based around throwing the Greatpick with Hand of the Apprentice + True Strike, my thoughts as current:

Ancestry: Human (Half-Elf)
Background: Any with +DEX or +INT, I use Martial Disciple (Acrobatics) as it provides a decent skill feat, though you could do Hermit as well
Class: Wizard
- Universalist
- Arcane Thesis - Any, but I like Spell Substitution

Stats
- STR: 10
- DEX: 16
- CON: 12
- INT: 18
- WIS: 12
- CHA: 10
- Put points into CON, WIS, INT, DEX.

Relevant Feats
- Class, 1st: Hand of the Apprentice
- Class, 4th: Bespell Weapon
- Class, 8th: Bond Conservation
- Ancestry, 9th: Multitalented (Fighter Dedication) - Absolutely sucks that Wizard is the only class not trained in all simple weapons, so you need to take Fighter Dedication to be able to be trained in the Greatpick unless you want to blow two general feats. The bad to-hit due to low STR doesn't matter as you never want to swing with it anyway, just throw it with Hand of the Apprentice.
- Class, 14th: Superior Bond (lets you use this trick twice per combat)

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:
- Greatpick = 4d12 (due to Fatal) + 1d12 on crit (Fatal) + 10 on crit (Crit spec)
- Bespell Weapon, Greater Flaming and Greater Shock = +3d6 on hit
- Intelligence Mod = +7 on hit

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?