Props are the daredevil's bane and the fact that people on this forum talk about taking an animal companion or protector tree to have an readily available prop for all situations is already telling that for a ton of tables this class is going to be dead on release or homebrewed to work without props.
smh I leave this forum alone for a single week and thats all it takes for someone to interpret my Beastmaster suggestion like I'm saying walls don't exist in Pathfinder.
Paizo loves their dungeon delves so I don't particularly see finding a prop to be a huge problem 50% of the time, especially at low level play- high level play can and probably will be a different story as those fights can tend towards larger fields however. I wouldn't be surprised if the tradeoff in play realistically is an increased amount of larger enemies that are props by default (even if the whole relative size thing feels like it needs a rework) and higher likelihood of having a party that's built to have large PCs to interact with your playstyle by that point. Several ancestries have great late level options to become large, as well as Jotunborn and the HotW options for it, so with good support I feel like its easy to shore up a Daredevil with the current rules as written in scenarios where their abilities don't shine as well.
I do think that the effect could potentially be buffed to some extent, either in frequency of application or impact of effect, but as is I think the trigger condition of the effect is mostly fine in-play.
EDIT: Also, as written, tripping a flying creature or causing someone to fall off a ledge should deal stunt damage, so there's always that fun interaction. (The ground should almost certainly count as a prop when they impact it in these cases)
As far as I can tell, the 'moving through enemy' part of Caroming Charge does not require a check nor does it refer to Tumble Through, so I'm assuming it automatically lets you move through an enemy and inflict the somewhat low stunt dmg, which is ok to my for a 2-action feat. Stunt dmg can't go critical x2 either, so I'm assuming this was really the design intent of stunt dmg in the first place: a low dmg applied to multiple targets automatically.
I understand all of these details; in my post I was making the comparison to the closest other assured damage effect I can think of that most players have access to at low levels.
Comparing it to 2a Magic Missile, your damage easily equals or surpasses MM from 2 or more enemies on with the tradeoff that you are gaining mobility and potentially provoking to do it (either a pro or a con depending on a fight, but since you have Mobility basically I'll call it a pro on the whole). The Magic Missile comparison is even more apt since the spell heightens at the same levels as Stunt Damage. Add in that you can do Caroming Charge as many times as there are turns in combat compared to having to burn slots for MM and it can be quite the powerful option.
I do think that anyone pretending average 15.5 damage to every enemy in the fight is huge at level 10 is probably exaggerating a bit, but 7.5 damage to a whole combat at 2 can be pretty devastating, especially with it being spammable, and at the very least it certainly remains a great backup in higher level play as written.
I wasn't sold on Caroming being broken for what it does until my brother compared it directly to Magic Missile as other no-save damage. 2a to deal 1d6+ strength to X number of foes with positioning vs 2d4+2 split between up to 2 feels too strong, at least for low levels. If it had a limit to the affected creatures (pick 2 or something similar) or had a save like Trample I think it would be in an OK place; at minimum keeping this a level 2 feat in its current state would be a mistake.
Pressing Pommel will probably be fine if more Press attack actions are added at low level; as is its one of the only good strikes available with Press at low levels, so I think its popularity mostly stems from it lacking competition in its field.
Archetype-wise I think Combat Grab is going to be a popular dip through Wrestler and such, aside from that I feel most of the other options are flavor to taste or strategies a player might personally find enjoyable.
Responding to this briefly: personal recommendation for Titan Wrestler implementation into this class is give it to Daredevil as an early level bonus feat (level 1, 3 at latest) and include as text in the class feature that grants it that Daredevil feats that are restricted based on size are also affected by it. You can add an additional addendum saying that at 7 or 13 they can do an extra size over what Titan Wrestler allows for as part of the same rules text without too much issue I feel.
What's the advantage of doing that rather than including the higher limit (or none at all) in the affected feats directly?
Twofold, although the second can be debated as to being a banefit; its more a lever designers can use or adjust as they see fit:
1: Including it as a centralized part of the class means you can clarify the feat as it applies to Daredevil directly in the class itself and how the feat is changed without needing to go back and errata an old rulebook. Similarly, centralizing the rules text for affected sizes saves wordcount on the feats themselves.
2: If it becomes a concern that Daredevil feats will be overly popular as dips, this modified titan wrestler being a part of the core class itself and not baked into the feats will limit the use cases for other classes taking DD feats. Of course, this assumes this would be an issue in the first place; right now most people seem to think the Fighter actions are stronger dip options anyways. If this isn't desired, the size DD feats affect can be written into a trait, that way it maintains the benefits of being written down in a centralized location while travelling with the feat in the event someone MC's into Daredevil.
Haven't taken the time to review the entire thread yet but as I have some playtest experience with the class at this point I can mention a few things here from our experience:
- We ruled that maneuvers counted as Agile or non-Agile based on the trait of the weapon or unarmed strike used to perform the maneuver. This should definitely be clarified in the class proper, either as a universal class rule or as a part of the Adrenaline feature, as it can simply have a rule stating that Daredevils with Adrenaline count all Athletics-based or Acrobatics-based Attack rolls as having Agile. This is especially important for Breakaway Attack builds, as BA feels like it wants to be used as an opener to gain Adrenaline, making it likely that Daredevils running BA will often be flipping the typical rotation of "Maneuver > Double lockdown/Attack for Damage" into "Attack with highest bonus > Maneuver with a Press Action"
-Size manipulation being something you need to plan and build for is a bit weird and I don't know how much I like it, as is I was running Titan Wrestler on a build that kept a Giant Fury Cocktail in its back pocket, but thankfully it didn't come up. This is the first time I had seen literally any potential benefit to taking a Fanged rune though, so I guess there's that.
-I think rather than having so many feats that simply clone an existing maneuver but swap the skill check to Acrobatics or vice versa, it would be more interesting to have feats that provide action compression, adding additional effects onto existing maneuvers in exchange for possibly greater penalties or some degree of positional setup. As mentioned in the Builds thread, my favorite feat at low levels is easily Whirling Pull Stunt specifically because it combines Grapple with Leading Dance from Swashbuckler. Addressing this point could be as simple as adding "deal Stunt damage" to more stunts as a Success condition rather than a crit success in some cases.
-Most Press actions are technically Readiable, since MAP carries over into Readied Actions. I haven't fully analyzed how this could be fully used yet, but seems like it could have some interesting use cases ("I ready to use Whirling Pull Stunt when an opponent tries to move away from me" as a means to disrupt move actions, readying Daring Reversal in general and potentially smashing someone with it as they try to move past you in a crowded space). Honestly a feat or two that supports this playstyle could be fun but I don't know if it fully fits the class identity.
-worth mentioning while we're talking about maneuvers but if we can get a Seismic Toss press feat that would be great. It came up during playtesting that technically if you push a foe off a ledge and they enter freefall, the ground should probably count as a Prop as it is stopping forced movement and deal extra damage in addition to the Falling damage; something that explicitly uses that to your advantage I think would be a fun flavorful addition to the available Press actions.
-The weird fixation this class has with critting on Press actions feels incredibly strange to me, especially when it wants me to crit on a Strike. That's still asking for a crit with -3 to the roll best case even if the chances of the enemy being OffGuard are high. Feats like Don't Mess with Me especially feel like they're asking a lot to go off for no particulqrly exciting payout. These feats probably work ok against minions but it seems like a strange sticking point to have overall, at least until you get options like Keen.
-I think that a feat or class ability that allowed you to add the Press trait to your next Athletics- or Acrobatics based skill check once per round as a free action would do wonders for improving build flexibility and round-to-round dynamism; this would enable more of the standard combat maneuvers to be used as a Press without needing a specific feat for it, while also opening up the door for old favorite actions like Whirling Throw to potentially make a comeback.
-I don't know if I like Martial Flexibility being on this class a whole lot unless they make their Press actions more specific. As is I'd like to see more power baked into turn-based moment-to-moment decisions rather than something that helps me plan for the day.
-last one: I don't recall there being a maneuver here that inflicts Confusion, which feels like a crime given all of the Jackie Chan influences. Feels like something that should be added somewhere.
fun class overall, will probably think of more as I get more time with them. Might run a few through our default high level gauntlet of Night of the Gray Death Ch2.
It's explicitly listed as Medium (in caps too, on AoN), so it is a Prop for Small/Tiny PCs, though I agree that yes, not impeding movement means Forced Movement into its space wouldn't hit anything (at least at my table). But for bonus speed and whatever other Prop uses are out there (if any?), it works. There goes my idea for a basic one-round combo.
Hmm, maybe an Earth impulse. Igneogenesis unfortunately comes in adjacent, but you could raise up the cube beneath yourself then hop over to Shove. Whirling Grindstone feels like it'd be funny, albeit kinda pointless. Seems like the notable barriers are 3-action Impulses, so not much to go with there. There might be low-level scrolls one stock up on (and take an MCD to avoid spending an action to Trick Magic Item).
Right now I kinda feel like the best Bring Your Own Prop dip is probably Beastmaster, using your companion as a prop. Most can hit Large pretty quick which is solid Prop material. Outside of that I'm not sure what other solid options there are that would be reliable and not intrude on your turn too much, outside of the similar archetypes that exist.
Responding to this briefly: personal recommendation for Titan Wrestler implementation into this class is give it to Daredevil as an early level bonus feat (level 1, 3 at latest) and include as text in the class feature that grants it that Daredevil feats that are restricted based on size are also affected by it. You can add an additional addendum saying that at 7 or 13 they can do an extra size over what Titan Wrestler allows for as part of the same rules text without too much issue I feel.
I think Stunt Driver was included in honor of famous daredevil motorcyclist Evel Knievel. I playtested Stunt Driver a little bit with a rowboat, but it does not seem to mesh well with combat. Other people have imagined it as useful in a pirate campaign with boarding a ship, since the entire ship would count as a prop.
Funny you should mention the Ship case because we used one of the ship maps for our playtest battlemap; I don't think the average Daredevil will have much trouble finding things to Prop on the average ship between the various railings/masts/stairwells and walls, which leads me to my followup point that making a vehicle into a prop is kindof a moot point quite often. Plenty of vehicles are larger than you to start with, and may already contain walls that should function as props as RAW.
In the BMX bandit example, the 1a Drive proposed in the hypothetical turn doesn't have the Reckless trait, so its likely that you wouldn't have accrued Adrenaline prior to engaging with the stunt by turn's end, which feels incredibly off for Daredevil. It would be a better benefit to confirm Drive always has the Risky trait to start Adrenaline or to otherwise find a way to work Drive into their existing gameflow.
That said, I think your proposed feat would be a good replacement for this overall, as it fixes most of the primary issues and makes the build viable at base principles.
@Protector Tree: yeah its a fun idea, Wood Kineticist dip stays winning. I think Trees should work as props RAW, but if not running a Small character should smooth over most GM concerns.
I'll see about coalescing my thoughts in the other thread shortly; in the process of typing them out my brain got sidetracked thinking about two other builds I had considered though so I'll mention them briefly here.
Beastmaster Daredevil - This gets really funny at Level 4, as you now have a freely moving Prop that is always with you. This will probably be my next build just to see what kind if schenanigans I can make with it. If there was a similar archetype for Construct Companions I'd make the companion be a living skateboard ramp. During the playtest sessions, I had run Beastmaster on our party bard to have the Companion running around and it was helpful, but I feel that having it on call on the Daredevil's turn would be even more functional overall. I did check- unfortunately I was unable to find a Support benefit that created forced movement to proc further Stunt damage, but other riders like the Bird's dazzle or Vulture's Sicken (iirc? I know something adds Sicken) could be incredibly useful utility to have here.
Trick Driver: On the flip side, I literally cannot conceive of how Trick Driver is supposed to work on this class as one of the few people certified to talk vehicle rules in existence (having run a Trick Driver inventor through Ruby Phoenix books 1&2). As a minimum, this feat would likely need to do something with adding Board to the list of Movement actions available to Daring Stunt with, as otherwise there isn't a viable turn I see where your vehicle being a prop will be at all useful unless you just happen to be fighting around your parked motorcycle. Right now, assuming you are driving, the hypothetical turn where you'd use your own vehicle as a prop looks like... unBoarding the vehicle, running ahead of it, pushing someone into it and having the vehicle ram into them after having taken your prop damage? But then, you just got out of the vehicle, so is it no longer a prop due to this feat? The first line regarding Prop vehicles says you treat all vehicles as props, so I guess I'm not really sure what the second line is supposed to even imply? Am I supposed to jump out, push someone in the way, re-board my vehicle and *then* drive it into them? I could already do that, though; and nothing in that described turn benefits from my vehicle being a Prop. Idk what this is trying to encourage or really give me, honestly.
Maybe this could be reworked to have you be able to do combat maneuvers with your vehicle as an implement, using Driving Lore instead of Ath/Acro and giving a retooled version of Daring Stunt that says "You Drive, and can make a maneuver at the end assuming you drove at least 10 feet". The Reckless trait already exists for vehicle mechanics and by RAW should probably trigger Adrenaline, so I think there's some potential here, but as current vehicle rules have a preponderence of vagaries this will need to be more precise to fill in the gaps (e.g. rules clearly stating "You count as always having a hand free while Driving a vehicle for the purposes of Athletics and Acrobatics-based skill checks"; incredibly this is something that was never made clear for any vehicle.)
I'd love to see more feats that take vehicle mechanics seriously in this class given its name, but at the same time the last time I brought up vehicle rules in a playtest, Paizo took the easy way out and stripped all mention of them from the Starfinder classes entirely, so I'm not expecting much there.
So far I've played with 2 daredevil builds, both at level 7. The first was a build designed to switch hit between using a Scythe for big damage and trip on the way in, with Weapon Spec on the scythe from Yaoguai ancestry feats so I could use Polearm's crit spec to drive foes into the wall on a crit for extra damage. Their secondary weapon were claw grafts from HotW to give a good Deadly option that could do any of the open hand attacks. Offhand this build was a lot of fun, although I think I suffered a bit at 7 for having invested in mAcrobatics instead of mAthletics to get Kip Up as a safety strat. This build still deletes minions like nobody's business as I was regularly hitting 60-70 damage pressing pommel strikes in the test fight.
Build 2 was a meme build suggested fron a chat I was in and was Centaur Guardian Dip running Pressing Pommel Maul. Basic build was to use Practiced Braun and Punishing Shove combined with stunt damage to Shove for 24+2d6 as an opener and follow with the d12 die Pommel. Thing hit like a locomotive, although probably wants more minions around to make use of Daring Reversal.
Dice betrayed me often for build 1 but I feel the vision of double lockdown with Trip Hrapple is a strong backup strat the class has in its back pocket that I like a lot. Add in that Daring Stunt is maybe the best Readiable action in the game and the class feels good on the table. I do wish that more of their Press actions felt like they were acheiving action compression rather than simply giving you an existing maneuver but with a stat it isn't normally for; as is Whirling Grab stunt or w/e its called is the most appealing level 1 feat since it is a combination Grapple and Swashbuckler Leading Dance which feels great. More feats like this please.
Apparition’s Quickening MIGHT be broken…but you’re giving up a lot everyday though to get extra uses of quickened spell so it might be balanced still.
Earth’s Bile – Being able to sustain up to 3 of these seems problematic, especially when you can hop around with sustaining dance. I think this should be limited to 1 active casting. If so, it might need bumped up to d6s. Still, it was very effective against multiple enemies from my experience, even with a single instance each turn.
I go into the issues with these two at high level play in my writeup for my Night of the Gray Death Ch 2 playthrough. Tl;dr: we generally agreed that Earth's Bile is incredibly problematic and overly centralizing to the build due to its tendency to not even provoke while doing damage per action comparable to Fireballs, and Apparition's Quickening becomes significantly less balanced due to lacking a 1/hour timer or something similar, as Animist players can and will just burn all of their spirits in the Boss Fight to spam Quicken with no repercussions in most cases.
Adding some personal observations on a few of the options I haven't seen mentioned, notably on a few of the effects I disagree with/believe some of the power was not acknowledged on.
Motionless Cutter: Cool ability conceptually, but suffers from a myriad of issues. Each attack has to be vs a different target, so you cannot focus fire a single enemy; it is also a 3a, meaning you have to be in reach of multiple targets at turn start as you do not have time to Stride. All of this is on top of requiring each attack to hit in order to continue striking, and as the class does not have accelerated accuracy scaling like the Fighter, more often than not hero points will be required in order to successfully hit all of the attacks. All in all, it feels a bit like a trap option, especially if you miss your initial strike and have to pass turn.
Thief of Moonlight Transcendence: After having seen a player run this in a Night of the Gray Death Chapter 2 run, I can state that the Incapacitation effect is not a problem with this ability. Failure results in a target being functionally blinded for the whole combat, which is an insane initial fail result when fighting mobs, but against bosses, the Transcendence is still at minimum a 2a Stride+ Invisibility for 1 round, and noteably that is Invisibility, not the Invisibility Spell, so it does not break on a hostile action. Considering Last Ruler does not have a rider effect for when the enemy passes their save, I would argue that this is the stronger ability due to its consolation effect.
Eye-catching spot is actively bad as a 2-action, as it restricts your application of your Body epithets by making them harder to trigger, and is slower than the comparable Martial class option through the Battledancer Swashbuckler's Fascinating Performance/Focused Fascination. Considering how bread-and-butter the Root Epithets are to the individual playstyles, I don't think any Body transcendence should take longer to activate than the others.
Thousand League Sandals immanence is a bit strange, but is made valuable by boosting allies on the Transcendence, making it a very good option for either kiting opponents or running them down.
If I remember anything else, I'll drop it here as well; thanks for the thorough writeup in any case. +)
Howdy howdy, Animist Board! This Saturday, I recently ran a party of e through a truncated run of Night of the Gray Death, Book 2. We ran 3 encounters (1 modified) from the module, utilizing expected gold for the chapter (Starting wealth for lv 16 and the war chest collected from Chapter 1), followed by a replacement final boss fight against an antiparty of 3 Lv 17 PC builds utilizing the bare minimum equipment. The party consisted of 2 Exemplars and 2 Animists, the first being a melee Sage Animist utilizing the tree stance from level 16 and a Monk Multi to Flurry of Blows, while I was running a second caster-focused Channeler Animist built by the same player as a GMPC. 2/3rds of the party played this module both on release and as part of a similar playtest for the Kineticist last year, while the third was playing blind.
I had not constructed this build, and was playing it as suggested by the player that did: by spamming focus spells ad-infinitum. Since this is a Core class, we ran it using Core refocusing rules, so with the assumption that we would be able to refocus for a full three FP between combats, time permitting.
tl;dr: It ended up being kinda disgusting.
Encounter spoilers below. Skip to the end for a tl;dr.
Fight 1
Spoiler:
Vs Guillotine Golem. Fight went about as expected for my GMPC; turn 1 I attempted to start up Earth's Bile, realized it was Ineffective, and switched to healing focus spell instead as a Chaneller on turn 2. (Other 2a turn 1 spent healing the Exemplar that had to hero point their first save vs Decapitation). Fight was mostly uneventful, but it is worth stating that resourceless continuous 9d4 x1-3 healing in a 10ft aura is incredibly goofy. Most Clerics will burn 3a to heal the x2 amount using actual resources; the fact you can do 9d4 healing in an aura as a 1a while still casting a spell each turn is insane. Related to that, out of combat healing was hand waived due to the same focus spell trivializing any and all HP damage, as this is the strongest out of combat resourceless healing in existence.
Fight 2:
Spoiler:
vs 3 Lesser Deaths. If you haven't read the Lesser Death statblock, do yourself a favor; go read it over and come back to this thread after having a laugh. Despite being a Moderate 17 encounter on the tin, this has consistently been the hardest fight in this chapter due to their auras of Misfortune, Haste spam, and 60ft range Teleporting Reactive Strikes that also trigger on a Concentrate and disrupt the action on a non-critical hit. This was definitely the easiest run of the combat we have played; while part of this was admittedly due to a very lucky Battle Cry from the Animist causing one of the Lesser Deaths to be fleeing turn 1 (somehow they aren't immune to Fear, lol), the other reason is more subtle and tied directly to the current way the Animist is built. Earth's Bile as currently written doesn't use Concentrate or Manipulate actions, meaning it doesn't provoke at all until you begin to Sustain. While this is already goofy, it's sustain also is enabling you to do cantrip damage for a 1a while most casters have to utilize a 2a cast to have a good turn. In a typical run of this fight, a Lesser Death will wait until a Caster beings to use a spell, React, and then disrupt the spell, ruining the caster's turn significantly. For Animist, since Earth's Bile x3 can be sustained multiple times off of separate castings, it eats multiple Lesser Deaths' Reactions in order to properly shut down the class, thus freeing the rest of the party to fight unimpeded or leaving the Animist to spam pseudo-fireballs constantly. We will return to this point later, but for now, know that this made me completely forego even thinking about casting actual spells due to the opportunity cost for doing so.
FIGHT 3:
Spoiler:
vs Gray Gardener Assortment. While this fight typically is vs 4 GGAssassins, I typically run it with 2, 1 Director General, and 1 Executioner, for a fight that lands somewhere between Moderate and Severe CR. This fight is intended to replicate a more "standard" combat experience, with enemies of varying CR that shouldn't be too difficult for a party to fight through. Everyone had a good chance to shine here; one Exemplar used their Thief of Moonlight Transcend to blind 3 enemies turn 1, the other was able to use a weapon transcendence to hit every enemy in the room with their throwing knife for a ton of damage as well after some clever positioning. Meanwhile, I continued to spam Earth's Bile and got the highest DPS turn out of the combat, dealing somewhere around ~200 damage to two targets on the second round due to mixed saving throws. As of this point, I still have not cast a spell other than the aforementioned Heal in combat 1 and Earth's Bile/The Healing focus spell.
Fight 4: No spoilers since it was a custom fight, vs Bard 17, Fighter 17 (Shatter Defenses Focus, Orc Duskwalker), and Kineticist 17 (Water focus with Metal and Air impulses mixed in.) Focused on the Animist's perspective, this went about as usual, using Channeler's Stance +2x Earth's Bile start to melt through the Kineticist's Wall of Ice opener.
If I was more familiar with the build and the type to metagame that this was the boss fight, I could have played more optimally; the character had Apparition's Quickening and hadn't used it yet, so it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility to Sustain twice, off a ghost and cast a Spell as the third action, allowing me to drop a Volcanic Eruption instead of just doing Earth's Bile x3 the whole fight (17d6 [avg.59.5] +20d4[50] +27 for 136.5 avg dmg base +Clumsy rather than 30d4+27 for 103 base) or mix in some extra utility spells, but as-is it still worked sufficiently for the combat. Additionally, having a sustain-only build meant that the Combat Reflexes Fighter with reach was unable to Reactive Strike, making it more difficult that usual to punish bad positioning (like the time I moved closer to the enemies to catch more of them in Earth's Bile x3). Even Grapple does nothing to impede this build. The best I could figure out over the combat was to Trip the Animist, as it shuts down Sustaining Dance while making them never want to stand up since Standing Up provokes and is a DPS loss over simply sustaining Earth's Bile from prone.
All-in-all, the build worked well in the fight despite literally only spamming Earth's Bile, and dealt enough damage to make the Animist into a priority target despite not using any actual spells and only being played with half my brain in between running three unique enemy characters.
Final thoughts: Earth's Bile is incredibly toxic to game health, even at high levels. Other options in the kit need to be incentivized; as-is, it is such a powerful and easy-access option that it disincentivizes active play for the Spellcaster and encourages getting into a rut and checking out mentally between turns. The Healing Focus Spell is not as bad but still toxic for similar reasons. Unless focus spell balance is getting significantly buffed in Core, the spells are just straight-up problematic. Possible suggestions would be to make it 2a, make the AoE target a set area that you cannot re-choose every turn, nerfing its damage, or making all of it persistent damage. Additionally, Apparition's Quickening is very strong, and probably should be limited to 1/hour as is to prevent the player from absolutely dumping on boss fights exclusively. As is, the class is suffering from success, most specifically in that their always-available options are too centralizing to encourage using daily resources.
I apologize in advance if any of my insights here have been already discussed in other threads; I had not intended to play the Animist for this playtest and only had the opportunity due to a fluke, so I haven't been keeping up with the discussions. I hope this is useful for furthering discussion.
Hurl at the Horizon does on of two things. If your Meapon Ikon is a thrown weapon, then the immanence increases its range by 10. Cool, cool. No problems here. If it's a melee weapon, though, it gives it Thrown 15. Well, okay. The issue is that it doesn't give it returning. Further, due to the fact that it's only a thrown weapon as the result of an immanence effect, there's no way for anything *else* to give it returning.
So, if you get this feat for a melee ikon, then the only way to make use of it is to throw your weapon ikon away and not get it back. As use cases go, that's... niche. We'll call it niche.
I wrote a hypothetical revision to this issue in the rules questions thread that I'll likely be submitting alongside my open feedback, included below.
Falgaia wrote:
Okay so I thought of a solution to this problem- give the feat a Transcendent Action:
Hypothetical Transcend for Hurl at the Horizon wrote:
Transcend: The Sky Answered [one action] Requirement: Your most recent action was a strike with a Thrown weapon. Effect: Providence united you with your weapon once, and continues to do so. Make a Thrown Weapon Strike against the same target as the preceding strike as your weapon swiftly flies back to your open hand. If the previous strike was a miss, the target is Flat-Footed to this attack. (Could potentially add in that it doesn't count MAP if the previous strike was a miss due to flavoring it as part of the same attack, but probably too strong) Your weapon returns to you, and you may Interact to Ready the weapon or choose to let it fall to the ground in your space.
This would help kill two birds with one stone: giving more low-level Weapon Transcend options, and adding a pseudo-returning effect. Plus, we already are going all in on Thor references so why not.
I started a separate thread to discuss the issue of the spark being stuck where you don't want it when you miss with the initial attack.
My quick response is that if you really wanted to Transcend Body or Item in a turn when it started in the Weapon, you could do that regardless of having Noble Branch. The only benefit of Noble Branch is in the niche where you think the Transcend damage is more valuable than doing other action X, but other action X is better than just a second Strike. So if you hit you transcend, but if you miss you do X. I find it hard to believe there are many scenarios where you can find this action X.
Agreed, generally. The other action X in our run and confounding factor for this example was named [Mournful] No Scar But This. There were almost no turns where I figured that attempting a second Strike with MAP would be better than flexing to Scar and using its Transcend to both Dazzle my opponent and heal with no check required. That said, I don't know if by this logic I would have even been better off using my Weapon Transcendence in the first place unless we were desperate to finish off an enemy, as the extra survivability is just that good.
So in the game, it might be better to classify No Scar But This as an Action A, an action you're better off taking in all circumstances over an option that ranges from niche use to trap option.
Reposting my thoughts on Noble Branch here for discussions sake after having ran through the Slithering module and roughly ~11 difficult encounters with it:...
If i may ask why were you so fixed on switching your icon every turn? You’ve shown in your analysis that the effects are similar in terms of the damage,. And if you think about whenever you would have missed using the strike before you wanted to transcend noble branch, if you would have power attacked, you would have missed anyways. But now you don’t have to swap if you don’t want to, and if you don’t swap you can do something meaningful with the third action, like stride/assurance trip/ demoralize etc. In your initial post it seems as though your main complaint is that you don’t transcend on a miss, but if you miss your strike and want to switch the action economy is the exact same.
I just can’t wrap head around how noble branch makes missing worse when you get similar effect on a hit, for LESS initial action investment.
From what i understand the real downside of noble branxh is that the damage will never crit, but that only matters if the attack hit anyways.
Honestly, I've been trying to wrap my head around it for the past half hour, and the more I think about it the more I think that the reason it feels awful as a player is largely psychological. While on a hit you have a choice, on a miss it feels like a rugpull due to the choice being removed from the options by a power outside the player's control. Being forced onto a plan B doesn't *feel* good even if it is functionally and logically better than a hypothetical power attack miss in this case.
Sometimes things feel bad because of psychology rather than math; that's unfortunately a part of game design sometimes.
Reposting my thoughts on Noble Branch here for discussions sake after having ran through the Slithering module and roughly ~11 difficult encounters with it (Due to aiming to complete the scenario in one day, we cut out a lot of the chaff fights and had both Archive of the Sun delves turned into run-on encounters due to scouts alerting adjacent rooms.)
Falgaia in the moment wrote:
- Noble Branch is kinda bad compared to the other weapon ikons. The raw damage with no save/no attack roll is neat, but the Transcend ability relying on your first strike having hit is bad. As-is, I'd much rather just have the Power Attack analog from the Hammer Ikon, since it does a functionally similar effect for the same functional action economy and still changes your ikon on a miss. There were a lot of rounds where I was forced with Branch to either waste my last action to swap Ikons, or attack with Map and be forced to stay in Weapon Ikon. Just feels like a weaker choice than Hammer and I'm not a fan.
Next Morning Falgaia wrote:
I guess the one current benefit of Branch over Axe is that if you miss the initial strike, you can 1a swap spark to a different Ikon and still have the action to Transcend it, whereas with Axe your miss was your transcendence so you wasted the 1/round already. Pointing this out since I did at least have reliably good fallback options in regards to Mournful Scar and TLSandals, although I generally found these turns still felt like the lowest points of Mt experience given how often they were coming up due in part to awful rolling (and three rounds spent unsuccessfully trying to roll a 14 while pinned to the ground by an Aurumvorax). Personally I'd prefer the option to transcend out of the weapon even if the previous strike hadn't hit (maybe something like reducing the damage output but make it push the target back 5ft automatically with no hit requirement or 5/10ft any direction if the previous strike was a hit, leaning into the flavor of the Polearm Crit Spec default option?)
EDIT: I think part of the reason the effect feels bad that goes unsaid in my initial posts is that you only have the option to Transcend if the previous strike succeeds, and usually you plan your turn around hoping for at least a strike 1 hit. If you miss, the option is gone, and suddenly you're having to re-plan your last two actions on the fly, which leads to a lot of player stress and frustration in the moment and makes the initial miss feel even worse. I think, reflecting on it, that the Noble Branch is good from a versatility standpoint due to the reasons I mentioned in the second quote, but the issue is that it doesn't feel good or fun in the moment when you're suddenly having to replan everything or rely on Plan B to cover, if you even have time to do so (since Stride>Miss>Swap just wastes your Transcend completely for that turn and is not an uncommon turn; that said, there isn't really a functional differencebetween a missed Axe Transcendence and a missed Branch Attack in that example.)
Agreed. My personal suggestion given the flavor of the epithet would be to give it an icon Immanence effect that made you equivalent (or even just closer to) Fighter proficiency while Weapon Ikon was active. (Maybe make part of transferring your spark to your Weapon Ikon be a "declare a target, gain +2 circumstance bonus to strikes against that target while your spark is invested in your weapon? That way it would still have a reason to encourage swapping as targets change) Putting the strength of the route into an Immanance effect would make up for the numerically lacking ability, plus if your accuracy was higher it would make it a bit more reasonable of a gamble than it would be at standard martial proficiency.
Thinking back on the idea of balancing a bad transcend option with a stronger Immanence, I thought up another idea that would probably be less controversial than an option that gives effective Fighter accuracy.
Instead of Peerless giving you your weapon crit spec, have it give you your Greivous Rune weapon crit specs. There are already several martial classes that give free bonus runes (Swashbuckler gives Keen after all) so there is precedent for a passive like this; additionally, having the Cooler Crits innately feels like something that would fit the flavor of the option incredibly well while making it feel less like the vanilla martial option.
Thanks for the write up. Been thinking about Noble Branch... as you say the damage is pretty weak compared to the the other options, but also the transcend not being guaranteed. I've been thinking about this second point a bit.
Since transcending is generally strong for its action economy, and its a limited resource (1/turn), a turn where you dont transcend is a "bad" turn. With Noble branch, activating it is not guaranteed, which can essentially waste your spending the resource. It can also throw off your next turn because it messed with your ability to move the spark.
Much has been said about Reap's terrible mechanics, but it also needs dtating that it has the issue of not being a guarnteed use of your spark.
I guess the one current benefit of Branch over Axe is that if you miss the initial strike, you can 1a swap spark to a different Ikon and still have the action to Transcend it, whereas with Axe your miss was your transcendence so you wasted the 1/round already. Pointing this out since I did at least have reliably good fallback options in regards to Mournful Scar and TLSandals, although I generally found these turns still felt like the lowest points of Mt experience given how often they were coming up due in part to awful rolling (and three rounds spent unsuccessfully trying to roll a 14 while pinned to the ground by an Aurumvorax). Personally I'd prefer the option to transcend out of the weapon even if the previous strike hadn't hit (maybe something like reducing the damage output but make it push the target back 5ft automatically with no hit requirement or 5/10ft any direction if the previous strike was a hit, leaning into the flavor of the Polearm Crit Spec default option?)
Side note, but we actually got a surprising amount of mileage out of using the Sandals speed boost to increase Leap distance, since spe30 increases a horizontal leap distance by 5ft. This was likely due in part to having an Animist in the party (Sustaining Dance is a heck of a drug), but it also made for some clean navigation around field hazards in a surprising number of instances.
Howdy! I'm currently in the process of playing through/just finished a speedrun of the Slithering Module with an Exemplar. My build was running the following feats/options from levels 5-7:
-Noble Branch Ikon (Bec de Corbin, picked up Shifting at 6 to swap Polearms as needed; Born of the Earth Epithet later taken)
-Thousand-League Sandals Ikon
-Scar of the Survivor Ikon (With Mournful Epithet)
-Vow of Mortal Defiance (taken at fourth)
-Claim Domain Initiate (Trickery)
-Tested with both Motionless Blade for Level 6 and Reactive Strike at Lv 7.
Noteable character options that worked with the build were my racial feats (Orc Toughness, Mist child to boost Concealed miss chance to DC6 against me), the Tomb Born background (Reaction to Strike when hitting unconscious)
General thoughts:
-The class is fun! Rare for a playtest! I really enjoyed the more active thought required here in regards to most martials. One thing that stood out to me in character building and in play was that due to the class's action economy and base power, I didn't really find myself wanting to use many abilities outside of my core class option loops. Some more options for Weapon Transcendence would be appreciated for lower levels to add a bit more versatility. Maybe something to encourage doing Atletics checks with the weapon, so that you could Trip/Grapple/etc while still doing your rotations? Had a Necklace of Fireballs, didn't want to use it that much due in part to it not contributing to my Ikon cycling (and partly due to being limited to Polearms and not having the free hand).
-Not sure why Spirit Strikes come online 2 levels earlier than Weapon Spec. I'll take it I guess.
-Skills bad, not sure if I'm a fan of them being Paladin skills but I'm not too torn up over it.
Thoughts on the build feats:
- Mournful Scar is excellent and feels great as a survivability tech. Half Level*d8 healing plus auto Dazzle one target is amazing in 1-v-1's (especially with Mist Child boost). All around amazing option, and was effectively allowing me to 1v1 a Jungle Drake that had me grappled and flown away from the party. There was an extended section of Part 3 where I was in a grudge match with an Aurumvorax that had me grabbed and prone while the other party members were desperately trying to slow Cursebreaker; the Ikon effectively enabled me to tank it's insane rake for a lot longer than I was expecting.
- Noble Branch is kinda bad compared to the other weapon ikons. The raw damage with no save/no attack roll is neat, but the Transcend ability relying on your first strike having hit is bad. As-is, I'd much rather just have the Power Attack analog from the Hammer Ikon, since it does a functionally similar effect for the same functional action economy and still changes your ikon on a miss. There were a lot of rounds where I was forced with Branch to either waste my last action to swap Ikons, or attack with Map and be forced to stay in Weapon Ikon. Just feels like a weaker choice than Hammer and I'm not a fan.
- Thousand League Sandals are great, full-stop. GM thought they were maybe too strong when compared to similar effects; as-is I think it's fine since Loose Time's Arrow exists for similar action investment at level 3, without burning the party's Reactions; especially noteable for our Champion when they were using it to engage. Depending on the GM call, it can end up being a bit weaker if they don't let your party generate Reactions until their first turn, so YMMV a bit.
- Motionless Cutter is also bad. I asked the GM to retrain it out for the ole' reliable Reactive Strike between Parts 2&3 due to it requiring too much investment to function. Unlike a standard 3a, you have to already be in position for 2 (4?) enemies to be within your range while also being in Weapon Ikon already. This is already a lot of setup, but on top of that bad rolls ruin the effectiveness by stopping you from doing the full bevy of attacks. The one time I was able to use it through the difficulty of setup, I ended up only using it to chop down a single mook (the villain of the encounter used a Reaction to throw said mook in the way of my first strike, then bounced strike 2 to that same mook, strike 3 to a different mook, and strike 4 back to Poor Bastard) and it required burning a hero point midway through to get the last two attacks off. I'm not a fan of an ability requiring a hero point to feel reliable. As-is, I feel like there could almost be like a stacking damage bonus applied to the later attacks and it would still feel questionable.
-Due to circumstances, I was only able to use Born of the Earth once, but it was enjoyable in that instance.
Thoughts on feats I didn't take and why:
- Peerless Under Heaven: I hate it, read the thread, it sums up why. Flavor-wise it's the best for this character but it's transcendence is just... bad.
- Hurl at the Horizon: Would have taken but the lack of Returning made it a hard pass. I want to throw my polearm but not if it takes two actions to retrieve.
Wasn't interested in a ranged build, maybe later.
Will playtest more in the future. Good first impression overall!
Huh? No way, that's a terrible use of actions. Shift Immanence is there for when you don't want to use your available transcend action but still need to shift. Spending an action purely for +1 AC or a bit of resistance is a bad trade over just... raising a shield.
Or for situations where you were hoping to use your weapon transcendence and just... miss. (See Noble Branch and Barrow's Edge requiring a successful hit to activate their transcendence.) Not all fighters have the free hand for a shield as well, but yeah.
I'm currently playtesting an Exemplar with Mournful Scar of the Survivor as we speak, and after a Jungle Drake just dragged me away from the party for an effective 1v1, I took two turns in a row to transcend Body Ikon for the healing and Dazzle on the drake, make an attack with charged Weapon Ikon, and then shift back to Body for the setup into the following turn's Transcend. After the second turn, the Drake dropped me because it was apparent it was starting to lose the trade, lol. Turns out 20% miss chance on call is pretty strong (25% in my case thanks to Changeling's Mist Child).
That said, there is some benefit to staying in Weapon Ikon between turns as well, as there are a few 3act Transcendence activities that would require you to already be in Weapon Ikon to activate. Whether those activates are worth it is another story entirely, however.
Some of these effects, like the Gaze Sharp as Steel's Transcend ability (which grants AoO/Reactive Strike) are powerful, but the Exemplar already has native access, so if you take the Reactive Strike feat (which is pretty much a must-have for melee martials), it feels underwhelming to have one of the main benefits of your Ikon be completely pointless. Instead, these Ikons should either grant more unique effects or improve the effects of the feat if the Exemplar already has them.
An example where this could be applied would be Skybearer's Belt, which grants an effect similar to the Titan Wrestler feat. Unfortunately, any character already interested in using Athletics maneuvers is likely going to take the feat anyways, and the feat actually ends up better once you hit Legendary in Athletics. Rather than granting a redundant effect, the Ikon could grant the feat or give a +X to those Athletics maneuvers if the Exemplar already has the feat.
Agreed. Redundant effects should stack, especially if they are redundant with later class abilities. Perhaps the Gaze Sharp as Steel could improve the AoO to interrupt on a successful Strike, rather than a crit (see Inventor's Unstable Distracting Explosion (lv 10) for a potential precedent) or similar boost. The Titan Wrestler example works well; the Leap the Falls feat is similarly weak in this regard, as it gives you two skill feats only while sparked, so it could potentially stack with those feats to add additional Leap range without being too busted, imo.
Page 26-27. Fish from the Fall's Edge has got the following trigger: "A living creature within 30 feet would die." This includes yourself, but the whole text talks about "your ally". I think it would be better to have a more specific trigger, or to clearly state that you can't target yourself. Or that you can, if that's intended.
Core Rulebook Pg 455 wrote:
Some effects target or require an ally, or otherwise refer to an ally. This must be someone on your side, often another PC, but it might be a bystander you are trying to protect. You are not your own ally. If it isn’t clear, the GM decides who counts as an ally or an enemy.
So no targeting yourself as written, but I do agree it probably could be clearer. Honestly, the fact that it says "living" at all feels unnecessarily exclusionary after Book of the Dead.
Currently adapting my Fighter for Exemplar use who is an adaptation of an anti-hero character I'm using in my own stories. Since they come from a post-apocalyptic setting that they are trying to end, I'm essentially going to be playing them as a Terminator-esque character who traveled back in time and is on a mission to change the events that led to The Gap (see Starfinder) to prevent it from ever happening and causing Golarion to disappear. (This is very easy to RP by just claiming any important action they do is causing the timeline to deviate since last I checked no one locally knows what the Gap's backstory is.) Flavor wise I want the character to feel like they were pulled off of a metal album cover.
Mechanically, their level 5 build is going to be Noble Branch, Survivor's Scar and Thousand Yard Sandals; root epithet of Mournful and entering into Born from the Earth at 7. Ancestry is Changeling/Orc with Tomb Born background (it is PFS legal, after all). I'm going to be leveraging the Mist Child feat from Changeling against the Mournful effect to really maximize frontline survivability (25% miss chance let's go!) while having Final Spite and Orc Ferocity available to utilize my reaction more often. Should be fun!
First off, I love the Exemplar. Love the concept, love the over-the-top feat names, love the iconic. Love it. There's some stuff that I think would be cool that isn't currently supported, but I assume that's coming later.
The thing I wanted to ask about/call attention to is Reap the Field, the Transcend action associated with Peerless Under Heaven. While there's lots of things that muddy the waters (such as the free movement), it seems like it's the case that unless you are very likely to hit the second target, using this ability is typically a loss of expected damage compared to striking again with the strike action - often a pretty substantial loss. Making the second attack at the same MAP does not compensate for the drawback when you miss, unless you are hitting on a 6. You also must attack two different targets, which usually isn't desirable. You get to change where your spark is allocated, but every transcend action lets you do that.
I get that not every Transcend ability is or should be universally applicable, but most offensive transcend abilities seem to be designed around the idea that in situations where a not-so-numbers-inclined player would think that it's right to use the ability, it is right to use the ability. Reap the Field is only truly advantageous in a limited range of situations, mostly ones where you're willing to risk losing all of your damage for the turn in exchange for the movement.
The transcend ability doesn't seem to be offset by the other effects of Peerless Under Heaven, which doesn't seem especially remarkable compared to the alternatives.
I don't think that this ability is a critical flaw with the class or anything, but as long as it's the playtest window, I figured I'd might as well get it out there.
Again, think the class looks great overall, this one option just jumped out as mathematically questionable.
Agreed. My personal suggestion given the flavor of the epithet would be to give it an icon Immanence effect that made you equivalent (or even just closer to) Fighter proficiency while Weapon Ikon was active. (Maybe make part of transferring your spark to your Weapon Ikon be a "declare a target, gain +2 circumstance bonus to strikes against that target while your spark is invested in your weapon? That way it would still have a reason to encourage swapping as targets change) Putting the strength of the route into an Immanance effect would make up for the numerically lacking ability, plus if your accuracy was higher it would make it a bit more reasonable of a gamble than it would be at standard martial proficiency.
As-is, I suppose Fighters are just on a higher plane than Heaven, whatever that is.
Hurl at the Horizon: Does the weapon return to your hand after being thrown? Asking since otherwise it is not possible for a Melee weapon without the Thrown trait initially to ever get Returning.
Okay so I thought of a solution to this problem- give the feat a Transcendent Action:
Hypothetical Transcend for Hurl at the Horizon wrote:
Transcend: The Sky Answered [one action] Requirement: Your most recent action was a strike with a Thrown weapon. Effect: Providence united you with your weapon once, and continues to do so. Make a Thrown Weapon Strike against the same target as the preceding strike as your weapon swiftly flies back to your open hand. If the previous strike was a miss, the target is Flat-Footed to this attack. (Could potentially add in that it doesn't count MAP if the previous strike was a miss due to flavoring it as part of the same attack, but probably too strong) Your weapon returns to you, and you may Interact to Ready the weapon or choose to let it fall to the ground in your space.
Page 26. Motionless Cutter: So long as you successfully Strike with the weapon, you can make another attempt until you make four Strikes this way. When it says you must strike "another target," can it be one you previously successfully did a Strike against with this ability? For example: hit target A, then target B, then target A?
Adding in that if Motionless Cutter's transcend ability cannot strike the same target 4 times, then it should not be called "Severing Four Dragonfly Wings." A dragonfly has four wings; as named, the ability is implying four strikes against the same creature by name. As-is, I'd go so far to say that the "another" in this ability is too vague and could be still stretched to interpret a second attack on the same enemy as "another target" due to this being a separate attack; changing the wording to "a different target from the prior strike(s?)" would be clearer wording.
The Cunning epithet is one that should certainly exist- cunning heroes are plenty famous. In terms of epithets, it's the only one I want to actually play characters described that way.
The problem is that, mechanically, it can hardly ever be used in a cunning way. You get a free feint when you move to your body ikon. Well, feint is melee only, so no cunning ranged combatant, and you probably never trigger this usefully during initiative. You need to feint before an attack, so what you'd want is weapon ikon, but you're not getting that. Additionally, transcending out of weapon ikon generally involves making one or more attacks, meaning you're already on MAP. If you're using a dagger, the classic weapon of the cunning, you're at -8 with one action remaining. So, the only way to use this cunningly is to be in/move into melee with no available flanking and activate the transcend an active worn ikon, and go for body rather than weapon for an attack.
I think there's a bit of a misconception happening here:
Cunning Epithet wrote:
After you Spark Transcendence of your body ikon, you can Feint as a free action.
Since this occurs after you Spark Transcendence on Body Ikon, that means it occurs while leaving the Body Ikon, so the feint can immediately flow into a Weapon Ikon boosted strike. (All the Root Epithets work similarly btw) Sadly, due to the Spark Transcendence action being limited per round, this does prevent you from using a Transcendence Attack in the same turn to capitalize off of the feint, but it still works okay as a bit of a boost for the next boosted strike; especially if you Crit as in that case you actually can use your Weapon Transcendence on them during the next turn while still benefiting from the FF/Off-guard.
I'd still argue it's the weakest of the Epithets but it is decently functional in theory.
- My reservations over Eye-Catching Spot were well-founded. The two-action Captivating Charm is just not worth using, and the passive isn't good enough to stay in compared to the other options. I used it once, and I used the generic one-action Shift Immanence. Fascinated just isn't a very useful condition most of the time.
Oof, somehow I missed that this was a two-action. Makes this ability pretty awful, considering we already have classes that can functionally get the same benefit out of a 1a. (Battledancer Swashbuckler/Focused Fascination does the same outcome except you're the one rolling vs the enemy's Will DC instead of the other way around)
There would be some utility to the option if it was 1a, as Fascination is one of the only conditions that can successfully draw Spellcaster aggro assuming you cast it directly before their turn; but having it as a 2a removes the option to ready it for that benefit, and forces you to fully-delay your turn. Oof.
Hurl at the Horizon: Does the weapon return to your hand after being thrown? Asking since otherwise it is not possible for a Melee weapon without the Thrown trait initially to ever get Returning.
I just hope they add in unarmed strikes of all types. I really want to do a Fleshwarp Exemplar mutated by divinity that uses their gross flesh tail or whatever for combat.
Or . . . like . . . some enlightened martial artist? If we don't want to go the gross route?
Like yes, unarmed option good. Your character is valid. Just . . . just not where my mind first went to when I heard unarmed demigod.
Yeah, I'm mostly saying it should be open to all Unarmed and not just fists. Go nuts with your Goku build.
I just hope they add in unarmed strikes of all types. I really want to do a Fleshwarp Exemplar mutated by divinity that uses their gross flesh tail or whatever for combat.
EXEMPLAR
Prerequisites Claim Advanced Domain
Frequency once per day
Requirements You have at least 1 Focus Point in your focus pool.
Your domain is not just a representation of your power but of your divine essence and the potential immortality that essence represents. You cease aging. When you would die for any reason, you can immediately expend all your remaining Focus Points as a free action that can be taken at any time and regardless of your current condition to survive at 0 Hit Points, purge yourself of any negative conditions. When you do, you heal yourself for half of your total Hit Points, stand back up in your current square, instantly summon your weapon ikon to your hand, and Shift your Immanence to any of your ikons.
Definitely has Cool Factor, and never aging is always cool, but you have to DIE for it to come up. Not just go down to 0 hit points, but DIE. So it seems less useful (and will come up less often) than a Level 20 feat seems to warrant.
Well, I believe it would work vs Death Effects which is neat at least. Worst case scenario you can tell your allies to include you in AoEs whenever you're bleeding out I suppose.
Adding my Shifting rune question to here because might as well make it a thread for questions.
Shifting Rune. Do you keep your Weapon Ikon benefit if you shift to a weapon not covered by the ikon requirement? My gut says yes as currently written, since it's innately tied to the weapon itself, but seems like an important point to ask.
Similarly, Modular would bring up the same question in regards to Barrow's Edge. Would swapping your Barrow to Bludgeoning keep the bonus?
Current plan is to do a Slithering speedrun since it's a lot of varied combats in the 5-7 level range. If we have time, we might re-run chapter 2 of Night of the Gray Death for Level 17 playtesting.
Shifting Rune. Do you keep your Weapon Ikon benefit? My gut says yes as currently written, since it's innately tied to the weapon itself, but seems like an important point to ask.
Similarly, Modular would bring up the same question in regards to Barrow's Edge. Would swapping your Barrow to Bludgeoning keep the bonus?
1. Water, because water mages are often lacking in options from many DnD adjacent properties and it has always bothered me. Also they aren't a bad frontliner.
2.All minus Winter's Grasp.
3.Versatile Blasts to have a valid ranged option. (Building Str)
4. Would retrain the Water Barrier option to Winters Grasp sometime after it hits 4+ damage, but low level I don't think 1 point will make or break any combats. I would take human ancestry and rush Heavy Armor proficiency as well if I expected it was going to be a one-shot and not a part of a longer campaign, since the armor proficiency does not innately scale. Likely would use Water Dance to ensure Merisiel is always flanking with me to counteract my weak base attack bonus and set up for her sneak attacks.
Dedicated gate needs a little more bang for their buck, 3 level one feats is great at level one, but they grow further and further behind as levels progress
Around this point, talking it over a bit earlier today with my brother we thought of a pretty decent buff to Dedicated Gates by buffing Stoke Element at 6 slightly-
Add the following rider to the effect: "Additionally, if you use an Overflow action on the following turn, you do not lose your gathered Element; however, you are unable to do any additional Impulse actions for the remainder of the turn."
This stops Stoke from being a flat action tax by effectively being a stockpiled Gather Element while still ensuring there are no unintended abuse scenarios that would emerge from Kineticist feat interactions; additionally, this makes 3act Overflow Impulses a lot more reasonable to use. Might still need a damage numbers buff, but this would make it an option at least worth considering that is unique to Dedicated.
Looking forward to running Kineticists through Lost Maid of Anactoria to get TPK'd this weekend; burning two feats as a Human to have Heavy Armor Proficiency as a level 5 one-off character is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever been incentivized to do and I will be sure to say as much.
Prepping this for local and Paizocon, and noticing that the Weretiger and Werebat statistics don't match up with the Beastiary stats. As they aren't listed as being unique werecreatures, I'm inclined to treat this as a typo, especially since the Moon Frenzy ability as listed in the scenario does not empower the werecreatures at all compared to what it actually does, and the scenario as-written makes it sound as if the Moon Frenzy ability should be activated as a penalty for if the party fails skill checks earlier on.
Feel free to correct me if this was an intentional edit, but wanted to at least point it out here to get feedback on the issue.
Moon Frenzy description in the Bestiary, for comparison. Bolded part is missing from the monster stats in Guardian's Covenant.
Quote:
When a full moon appears in the night sky, the werecreature must enter hybrid form, can't Change Shape thereafter, becomes one size larger, increases their reach by 5 feet, and increases the damage of their jaws Strike by 2. When the moon sets or the sun rises, the werecreature returns to humanoid form and is fatigued for 2d4 hours.
The other main discrepancy I'm seeing is that the DC for the Curse of the Weretiger is 3 higher than its Bestiary Counterpart, which feels strange in a scenario where the curse is removed for free; the only way this would make sense as a counterbalance for the nerfed Moon Frenzy is if its assumed that this has a chance of converting a PC into another Weretiger enemy on the spot, which is a whole other can of worms that I don't think any GM would want to have to deal with in a four-hour slot.
EDIT: The Weretiger is also missing Pounce and Rend, but has a unique Wrestle ability; this is what I get for not scrolling down on either page and doing prep in the middle of work breaks. Still think the Moon Frenzy ability feels off in its editted state, however, unless its intended use is to stop the Weretiger from utilizing its Wrestle ability and that's it.
No idea if there will be any reason to be on the far side of the chasm, honestly just doing it in the possibility that something tries to come from there, plus it opens up the space on the ledge for anyone else who needs it, which seems like an okay use of the final action.
Sorry to hear about your friend passing, if you need any time away from the table I'm sure everyone would understand.
Hope the move went well, GM. Apologies for the slow posting on my end; I'm currently distracted with trying to file for unemployment on my end and there have been some days that have just burnt me out these past weeks in the midst of having to find openings, fill out applications and write cover letters/portfolio updating/etc. Going to try to be a bit more consistent moving forward if at all possible.
Yes. Since it doesn't have a season before the number, that means it was from Pathfinder Society Season 0, which iirc were scenarios put out before the CRB officially released and Pathfinder was still a direct offshoot of DnD 3.5.
Judging by the current party comp, I think I'm leaning towards playing my Champion. I'll check their level and update them accordingly; not sure if playing them would drag us to high tier though, so if that is a concern I can switch to something else.
Howdy, I'd be interested in playing this game as someone who is considering running it in roughly a month and a half or so. I can play this as either a Liberator Champion (iirc Level 8, might be 7), a Time Cleric (6), a Flames Oracle (5), or potentially a rogue (5); so I have a pretty wide range of options for this. Assuming we sign up by posting here, I'll try to tailor my pick based on the party composition.
There is no benefit/bonuses that carry over from one scenario to the next. Each one is kind of self-contained though there might be 1-2 times it mentions if PC's played part 1 or part 2 then you get automatic knowledge for the beginning briefing. The main draw for me was just remembering how much fun i had doing the Perennial Crown parts 1/2 with the same group.
And sounds good for Season 3 - Would be nice to get the same group together again should it work out!
Definitely would be down to play with this group again in the future. I tend to run a lot of the high level games locally, so online games give me a good chance to play the sessions as well. As for what would be the Season 3 baddie, not currently expecting it to be another deity, maybe some organizational threat? Should be interesting to see in any case.
I will still never get over the fact that they killed the mastermind of everything, the villain whose backstory was literally the reason you did EVERYTHING in that module, OFFSCREEN. How?? Why?? At this point, all I can say is that the "The Aspis Consortium is a joke organization full of mustache-twirling idiots" trope has just gone too far and needs to be seriously reigned in.
Checking back on my store page review, it seems I rated it 3 stars due to it being a rough base that could be easily improved by updating the story to simply NOT perma-kill the mastermind and end with a fight against a clueless lackey, and I think that's fair enough. The bones of a good module were there, but you still needed to put in some effort as a GM to make it work; as I mentioned on the store page, the edits in my thread were enough that the players walked away feeling like the scenario was at least 4 stars, but I digress.
Hopefully after I'm somehow the first person to review Malevolence in a week's time, it'll be enough to encourage some GMs to pick it up for Halloween and course-correct the ratings =/= sales issue.
It seems like crafting is inferior compared to storied talent as far as maximizing income. Storied Talent is a one time buy of X fame, or rather now these days X ACP. Should have rolled my storied talent day job, but oh well.
Storied Talent and Crafter's Workshop (The Envoy's Alliance option that removes the startup time) effectively even out the differences between Earn Inckme and Craft by elevating them both to the same tier of effectiveness; crafting ends up being slightly better due to being able to aim at a lower DC while maintaining the at-level progress, however.
That said, if you only have Storied Talent, it is more efficient to use Earn Income over Crafting, unless your Craft score is just that good that it becomes preferrable.
Zac, my understanding is that you'd buy the formula (8gp) and pay half of the item cost up front (77.5gp). At the start of crafting you were 77.5/155gp progress. Your Crit reduces the cost by 3gp per day (lvl 7, Master, crit success). For 12 days that is 36gp progress on the item for an end progress of 113.5/155gp. At this point you can buy the item outright for the remaining balance (41.5gp), or continue working on it during downtime in the future.
This is indeed how the crafting would work, however if he is just starting the crafting this session, that would eat the first 4 days of the downtime to prep the crafting attempt, unless he has a boon to reduce it from his faction. So Started +8 additional days for 24gp progress, but next session would progress the craft by 36 as you listed above automatically without a need for an additional roll, iirc.
My -2002 is a dedicated crafter downtime build, and its the only reason I know this. IIRC the crafting startup time reduction boons are in Envoy's Alliance (universal and the strongest of the three, but takes longer to acquire), Vigilant Seal (for magical items), and Verdant Wheel (for Alchemical Items).
I'm still here and good to go for whenever the next session kicks off.
As a fun aside, this was the farthest I've seen the boss get in the two sessions I've experienced; that said, it was nowhere near the worst run I've seen. In the run I GM'd, the party thought the boss was going to leave the map after 3 moves (so straight down, no angled turn) and the Barbarian and Mountain Stance Monk leapt the river to engage the boss, splitting the party entirely in half with the spellcasters left alone. This went incredibly badly as the two spellcasters left behind got double Lightning Bolted by the boss from the other side of the field, since they made the mistake of lining up with the charging PCs, and the pregen Kyra was bleeding out at the entrance by round 2, so the Sorcerer had to get Kyra back up while a Troll was rushing in to 1v1 them; meanwhile, the Barbarian and Monk were sandwiched between the boss and the other troll minion (only 2 with the challenge adjustment) and things there went about as well as you'd expect.
The only saving grace was that the barbarian just so happened to have a Thundering Rune on their Greatsword, which stopped the boss from healing an inordinate amount by complete accident since no one bothered to roll Knowledge. They managed to survive but the Barbarian was dropped several times over the course of the fight. The Sorcerer also scored a crit with True Strike'd Lv 4 Hydraulic Push to yeet the troll he was 1v1'ing directly into the lava, which proved to be incredibly effective. Fun!
So glad to see that this errata has been issued and this thread created for reporting other issues! I did actually notice one while reading through The Mwangi Expanse today. The shisk feat Quill Spray allows a saving throw, but doesn't specify what type of save needs to be made (I assume Reflex, but it isn't actually listed in the text at the moment).
Follow up question: Is there a recharge time on Quill Spray? One of my local players pointed out that as-written, it can currently be used every turn, which feels incredibly strong for a Ancestry Feat.
If you're out of actions (such as you didn't use a Fly action on your turn) then you'd fall and can use use the Arrest a Fall reaction to prevent damage.
While normally true, Animal Companions and other Minions cannot use Reactions, so this is only really relevant to players with Fly speeds.
