Ferious Thune's page

It’s also less necessary. In an AP, where you might not always have access to somewhere to buy a magic item, having a crafter in the party is great, and you can do all the things described. In PFS, anybody can buy anything, given that it’s legal in the campaign, and they have access.

As mentioned, you can’t give items to other characters permanently, but also, crafting anything of significance is going to take more than 8 days downtime (except maybe elixirs and the like). You can’t really plan to complete an item for someone else 3 or 4 games from now, if you don’t know if you’ll ever be at a table with that character again.

Crafting vs Earn Income is probably not a significant increase, but Crafting the skill is incredibly useful in Society, because it comes up a LOT in skill challenges. More so than Medicine, I would guess. If you are an INT character, and not WIS or CHA, and you don’t have a lot of skill feats to put towards making Battle Medicine and all of the out of combat healing stuff work (Assurance, Continual Recovery, etc), there’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking Crafting. The crafting feats there’s maybe an argument against, but it’s not build breaking if you take them.

Just note that it says you “may sell any and all,” not that you must sell everything and buy it back again. If you’re keeping the majority of your equipment, just sell back things that you don’t want to keep and add the total to your gold, then buy anything new.

Yes, but it’s also phrased in a way that you can have the shield strapped to your arm and not be holding it. It goes on to say what happens if you are holding something (you can’t Raise a Shield and you lose the shield’s benefits while the hand isn’t free). It doesn’t even explicitly say that you can’t wield a weapon while the shield is strapped to your arm. It seems like the only thing it really prevents you doing is having another shield strapped to that arm. From just the quoted text, it seems like you could (free action) release your grip on the shield, (1 action) Interact to grip a weapon 2-handed, (1-action) attack, (free action) release one hand from the weapon, (1-action) grip the shield. If you’re hasted, that could have been the attack action, and you could raise your shield with your last action. Not necessarily the optimal use of actions, but it seems to be permitted.

Former staff are correctly omitted from campaign leadership. Currently, forum rulings from prior Org Play staff expire when they are no longer staff. If the rulings are good enough to keep, they should be written into the Guides or another official document like the Character Options page.

This is, I think, news to a large portion of the community. It certainly is to me. I know in the past we’ve been cautioned against using rulings from 1E PFS, but this is the first I’m hearing that we shouldn’t abide by rulings from 2E PFS. I don’t know what that impacts off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure there’s something important that it would affect.

For the Champion, you would have to switch over to the new Blessed Armament/Shield/Swiftness if you rebuild, which could be a nerf depending.

I haven’t seen anything new.

I meant trigger Reactive Strike. You could be in Arcane Cascade before casting the conflux spell, after casting another spell, which would make the movement from the conflux spell not provoke. But if you are next to an enemy when you cast the conflux spell, say to maneuver around for a flank before you strike, you will provoke from casting the conflux spell.

I’m agreeing with you, I think, that Manipulate on the conflux spell conflicts with Arcane Cascade giving you movement that doesn’t trigger reactions.

I think if you are in Arcane Cascade and you cast the spell while not adjacent or within reach of a creature, then you could move adjacent to them without triggering reactive strike, since when you cast the spell you weren’t threatened, and arcane cascade makes your movement not provoke. That would be the combo for it.

What I meant for the reaction feat is that a Monk may have Stand Still, which triggers on movement, but not Manipulate. Creatures might similarly have a reaction that triggers on movement. If you aren’t in Arcane Cascade (and honestly, most Magi I see ignore it), then you could Spellstrike such an enemy and not provoke, then move away without provoking. Without needing to be in Arcane Cascade first.

Addressing only the last question, you can sell your stuff back at full price as part of the remaster rebuild, in which case you can keep all of your unspent gold. If you are staying a sorcerer and keeping the same equipment, then you don’t have to do anything with regards to the gold.

Arcane Cascade doesn’t help keep the conflux spell from triggering reactive strike. If the spell has Manipulate, then casting the spell will trigger Arcane Cascade before you move anywhere.

For the feat, my best guess is that it’s for when you are fighting Monks.

You can print to a pdf on Mac OS. Select print, choose your settings, and then instead of hitting the print button, look at the bottom left of the print window, and there should be a dropdown that says PDF.

Rob, I appreciate that you just want things to be clear and avoid confusion. In this case, I don’t think any additional ruling or alteration of the guide is necessary. The items are being posted as errata to digital products by the digital products lead. They are as official of changes to those products as the errata that are posted by the design team for the rulebooks. We already have campaign guidance that we need to follow errata. Andrew is not Campaign Leadership, and we wouldn’t follow any posts he makes about the contents of the guide, so listing him there as such would be potentially confusing on its own.

A link from the guide to that forum would be entirely welcome, though, so that people who don’t pay attention to the forums or don’t realize a new one exists will find it and know about the changes.

I guess to put it another way, it’s not that Andrew needs to be called out by name, but that the forum becomes another place in the list of resources that people need to know to look. If the guide is saying look at that forum for errata, then whoever is posting the updates to that forum doesn’t matter. If they are present there, they are official.

They aren’t normally refunded when an ancestry/heritage becomes always available. The boon should change to be a free raise dead (or maybe resurrection?) for the character it is assigned to. Try downloading one of them again, and it should have the new text. No idea if that’s meant to carry over if you rebuild into a different ancestry.

It’s a gold savings or the hardness. In order to get the hardness bonus, you need to spend the gold to keep your sturdy shield at level. But it is better than Blessed Armament, yes.

The rewording was clearly intentional. Whether that was to make it work the way they always intended or to nerf it, we might never know. Combined with the nerf to Shield Ally/Blessed Shield, it seems pretty clear that they felt like this overall 3rd level ability needed to be reduced in power. I don't know why, but it has made 2 of the three options in the ability pretty bad. Blessed Shield at least continues to improve on its own without additional feats, and it can end up being a substantial gold savings. But it is essentially just saving gold, and that is not really ever going to scream Champion to me.

Unless Blessed Shield applies to any shield that you pick up, in which case, it's a fantastic ability, and Blessed Armament looks even more terrible. That is something that should get clarified, because I've seen plenty of people interpreting Blessed Shield that way. Including, I think, some of the preview videos on Youtube, which will only make that a wider reading.

Ferious Thune wrote:

You will carry those rune options until at least 9th level. It’s better at some levels than others, but falls off fast. And by 8th, you’re going to want to buy a damage rune, since you are already behind most other Martial classes in damage. It’s just not a good ability as is. It is entirely possible that it was never meant to stack, and then it would not have been a good ability pre-remaster, either.

Ok i can see that but should the level 3 class feature do more than provide early access, money savings that are good early, and ability to choose daily?

I mean does a feature gained at level 3 have to do more than that to be good for a level 3 feature?

Yes, when it’s a main class feature, and the alternative is the equivalent of a general feat (fleet) plus a defensive benefit to any of your allies with your aura.

Edit: To expand, I’ll compare it to my previous least favorite martial 3rd level ability, Opportune Riposte. Opportune Riposte is so situational that it’s bad in comparison to other class abilities. But it is still situationally useful for your entire career, even if you never take a feat to improve it. Other than the crit spec, which is insulting to be an option instead of automatic, and only affects that single weapon, none of the things granted by Blessed Armament are useful past 8th level. You take it if you want the crit spec, and at some point you ignore the rest of the ability. (Or you spend a feat to get a better version at the expense of other, better things)

To put it another way, a bunch of middling abilities does not add up to one good ability.

You will carry those rune options until at least 9th level. It’s better at some levels than others, but falls off fast. And by 8th, you’re going to want to buy a damage rune, since you are already behind most other Martial classes in damage. It’s just not a good ability as is. It is entirely possible that it was never meant to stack, and then it would not have been a good ability pre-remaster, either.

The 3rd level ability does not save you tons of gold, and the runes it provides access to aren’t fantastic. If you didn’t have to spend a 10th level feat to expand that to allow you to take a rune that you should have bought at 8th level anyway, it would be better. If the list expanded automatically at 8th level. But it doesn’t. It’s not saving you the 450 gp for Astral, which is not a big savings at 10th to begin with. It’s costing you Devoted Focus or Elucidating Mercy or any of the multiple 8th level feats that are better than it, or an archetype feat that you could have taken. Or Reactive Strike if you couldn’t fit that in earlier. I think if someone could pay 450gp for Reactive Strike, they would do that without question.

Being able to swap daily is not great, particularly when none of the runes trigger a weakness. Ghost Touch, if you know that far in advance you’ll face incorporeal, is really the only one that would be likely. Otherwise, you’re building around whichever of the runes you’re choosing.

Being able to swap ever 10 minutes is better, but again, part of a 10th level feat. In most adventuring situations, 10 minutes is too late, as you don’t know what you’re fighting until you’re fighting it. In the situations where you know going in, sure, there’s some benefit… for a 10th level feat.

The cost of that feat to get useful options is far higher than any gold it’s saving you. And you carry a poor class feature for 7 levels before you can get there.

Crit Spec, much like Reactive Strike/AoO, should have just been built into the natural progression of Martial classes. It feels bad having to devote a limited class feat or ability to get a generic mechanic. If 6th level is when it's ok for classes other than Fighter to get Reactive Strike, give it to them. Or give it to them when they get Expert Proficiency. Give them Crit Spec when they get Weapon Specialization. Maybe have limitations for 8hp classes (Rogue only getting it with sneak is fine). And don't give it to 6 hp classes. But, you have to select an inferior option just to get the same crit spec that several other Martials get for free isn't going to feel good. Just like spending a 6th level feat to get Reactive Strike doesn't feel good from a standpoint of getting a cool, unique class feature, but also feels necessary, because Reactive Strike is better than so many cool, unique class features mechanically.

I understand the designers deciding they can’t write 15 unique feats for every Mystery. 1 unique feat for every mystery would be an improvement over what is in the remaster. They also threw out material they had already written, both from the APG Oracle and from 1E.

The bonus spells are nice, and again, it’s not an issue of the new version of the class being less powerful. It is arguably and probably even objectively more powerful. It’s certainly simpler to run. The issue is the parts of the flavor that were inexplicably removed, and things like what happened to Battle which are plain bad and more complicated than what they replaced. Simple: You’re a Battle Oracle. You get to use a Martial weapon. Complicated: You get to use a Martial weapon after you cast a focus spell, which you have to sustain, unless you hit someone that round, in which case it sustains for free. But out of combat, you forget how to use that weapon.

Ferious Thune wrote:

As someone posted above, the blog said that they removed the benefits of the curse. But they didn’t. They moved the benefits of the curse (and changed them). They removed the benefit of the Mysteries, and that’s just weird to me.

That is a good point. The blog post was talking about the progressive benefits of being at a higher cursebound level. It didn't mention any reasoning for why the permanent level 1 Mystery Benefits were removed.

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Another point that I think people are talking past each other about:

Several classes have 'subclass' choices defined by which feats the player decides to take. Fighter and Monk being the ones that come to mind to me immediately. Oracle now at least partially joins those ranks. Probably more akin to Druid (Order Explorer feat chain) or Bard (Multifarious Muse) in that you can branch out into the cursebound abilities of other Mysteries.

So to use an oracular themed idiom, it feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that you avoid the curse penalties entirely by not taking or using cursebound actions and then complain that Oracle feels generic because all they have is the standard Cleric Domain focus spells and Divine tradition spell slot spells.

The cursebound abilities are generic within the class. Even the starting ability is shared by at least two mysteries. Yes, they help differentiate an Oracle from another class, but they lost their ties to the mysteries, because any Oracle could have them.

Nothing about Foretell Harm is specific to Tempest, other than Tempest granting it. It combines well with Tempest, because you get a lot of energy spells. But there is no Tempest flavor in the feat. Nor is there Flames flavor in the feat. It’s a generic Oracle feat that those Mysteries happen to get for free.

What Mysteries should have been is structured the way that elements are for Kineticist. Kineticist can have 6 subclasses with 15 unique feats each, plus the composite feats. Oracle Mysteries can’t have 1 feat that is unique to them (excepting Bones which has some legacy feats from a different book). The only things that define a mystery now are the three focus spells and the curse.

EDIT: Honestly, if they had left the Mystery Benefit and made the old Minor Curses always on (the small flavor effects, not being cursebound 1), it would have gone a long way towards keeping the flavor. Even if they couldn’t write a bunch of new feats. Instead it feels like they went to the other extreme in pulling the majority of the flavor out of the class, just because people didn’t like being forced into major curse effects.

I think there is definitely an argument for Oracle being a stronger class overall. That doesn’t mean it’s a better class overall. Thunderstrike, Chain Lighting, and Hydraulic Torrent are all things other classes can get. Oracle lost a lot of its uniqueness and filled it in with more spells and access to domains that other classes can get. The cursebound feats are unique to Oracle (and Oracle archetype), yet they aren’t unique to a mystery, and had therefore lost a lot of their flavor.

Or worse… their class feature deactivated the sweet loot. I was extremely disappointed in this change. For a class feature to, essentially, only save you around 50-200 gold depending is really bad. Sure, you can change it every day, choosing between the other meh runes.

Yes, later, you can expand the runes that you can choose. But that costs you a high level feat. It not just a benefit of the class feature. It’s the class feature plus a class feat. Now you have two major abilities essentially focused on saving gold. At 10th level, you’re saving 500-1,400gp?

My take as far as specific magic weapons go is that this does still work for them. But I haven’t looked through the minutia of the specific magic weapon rules.

Just to throw my two cents in here... I haven't done a full comparison yet, but the thing that stands out the most to me isn't just the loss of Mystery benefits (and by extension, the effective loss of your Mystery as a whole, since there aren't really any class feats that key off of it), but the whole "choose your Mystery, and by 'Mystery' we mean Curse" thing means that Oracle's subclasses are anathema to the game's standard subclass design.

Normally, if a class has a subclass, then you use that subclass to specialise. It lets you choose what you're best at, and how you want to narrow your focus & define your character. Oracle, however, chooses how they want to get screwed over.

They're the only class in the game that uses their subclass to choose what they want to be worst at.

Yes, this. Very much this. As someone posted above, the blog said that they removed the benefits of the curse. But they didn’t. They moved the benefits of the curse (and changed them). They removed the benefit of the Mysteries, and that’s just weird to me. It was weird to me pre-remaster that your major abilities came from your curse. I don’t know at what point in the development of the original class that it was decided that Oracles are defined by their curse instead of their Mystery, but that’s where things ended up, and why I didn’t want to play the class pre-remaster. Now, they are still mostly defined by their curse, at least thematically, and then they have a bunch of mostly generic abilities that either other Oracles can get or other classes can get. It’s down to, what, three focus spells that are unique to a mystery?

This came up in the v5.x thread, but reposting it here so it’s in the thread for the version of the guide that it appears in.

Draconic Bloodline was reprinted. The Dragon Types are listed in the bloodline. Chromatic and Metallic Dragons don’t appear. It is clear that a new/remastered Draconic Sorcerer cannot select from those options. It is not clear whether or not a Sorcerer that does not rebuild can keep their Dragon Type. Based on the ruling for Oracles that they have to use the new Mysteries, presumably Sorcerers have to use the new Bloodlines. And the new Bloodline does not include Chromatic and Metallic dragons.

However, the remaster rules strongly imply that a Sorcerer who does not rebuild can keep their dragon type:

Characters which have been rebuilt using their Remaster Rebuild may not use the chromatic or metallic dragons for any of these options.

If no Sorcerer can use Chromatic or Metallic Dragons, then the guide should say so. If Wyrmblessed can continue to use the chromatic and metallic options, since it was not reprinted, but Draconic cannot, please clarify. If Draconic can continue to use those options if they don’t rebuild, definitely clarify, because that potentially affects someone’s decision about whether or not they want to rebuild.

Champion can mostly keep the pre-remaster version, because all of the causes got new names. You may want to check your individual feats to see if they were reprinted. Also, I’m sure good damage would be one spirit damage and similar things like that.

Ranger, yeah, I don’t think there were significant changes to the class. Some feats got updated, and you would have to use them.

Sorcerer is going to be affected, depending on your bloodline. There are some confusing things in the remaster rules. Following the logic that was used to effectively require Oracles to update, if a bloodline was reprinted, then you need to use the updated version. But, then, when talking about Dragons in the remaster rules, it sounds like Draconic Sorcerer could keep their dragon type, as it calls out that remastered Draconic Sorcerers can’t select from the metallic and chromatic options. Which is to say, it’s still a little confusing.

They don't have to rebuild, but they do have to treat any options that have been reprinted in PC2 as errata. This is where the issue with Oracle comes in. While you can use the old Oracle chassis, it does not interact well with the new Mysteries. Since all of those Mysteries were reprinted with the same names, if you don't rebuild, you still have to use them. Presumably that is true for Sorcerer Bloodlines as well. The difference being that Sorcerer still works properly with the updated Bloodlines.

In other words, it depends which class you are talking about.

Not for any rogue relying on Dex to hit. But, yeah, Str-based could do it.

And while the Clan Dagger is Agile, it’s not Finesse, so it’s not a good choice for a Rogue if you actually plan to attack with it. It was very disappointing on my first 2E character when I realized that, as I had intended to build him around using the Clan Dagger in his off-hand.

As an aside, the Exquisite Sword Cane should not be considered in really any discussion about weapons. If I’m not mistaken, in the AP it’s a unique magic weapon, and the base version isn’t really available. Outside the AP, the designers have commented that it probably should never have been published. It’s just, in several ways, out of line with other weapons.

Pre-remaster, Nightstick was both the only Simple Finesse Parry weapon and one of the only Simple Finesse Non-lethal weapons, all of which came from APs.

Post-remaster, other things that are in core can fill the niches it offers. Unless, I guess, you need a Finesse, Non-lethal, Parry weapon.

Agile, Finesse, and Sweep aren’t traits that are often grouped together. On a quick look, I only found the Scourge. That has interesting possibilities for a -3 second attack. This gives an option that isn’t non-lethal. Would have to be the right build to make up for the d4 base damage, but it’s interesting.

TheFinish wrote:

It's also a Thief Rogue's best friend if you're trying to take people alive, since for some reason the Sap is not Finnesse (though I guess you could also use your FIST).

Which now that I think about it, why isn't the sap Finnesse? d6, nonlethal, agile and Martial is missing a trait, isn't it? I mean shortswords are d6, finnesse, agile, versatile S.

Juggling Club, Poi, Monkey's Fist, Scourge and Whip have finesse and nonlethal and are simple/martial that thieves can use: you have a thrown option, a reach/trip/disarm one, a d6 damage option, a slashing damage one...

A thief isn't exactly wanting for nonlethal weapons.

Now a Thief has options. Prior to getting Martial Proficiency, there weren’t any at all outside of adventure paths. Three of your list, like Nightstick, are from adventure paths. The other two are Martial weapons. Even Fist didn’t really work pre-remaster, as Thief didn’t get Dex to damage with unarmed attacks. It’s perfectly reasonable to wonder why Sap wasn’t finesse. Especially since there used to be an entire Rogue Archetype in 1E based around using it.

But now there are at least two options that aren’t from adventure paths (and therefore PFS-legal). Rogues should probably pick up a whip or a scourge or at least can use their fist now.

Plus crit spec. Which is the only reason to take Blessed Armament at this point. However, it’s unclear whether you can get the crit spec but not give the weapon one of the runes.

Just pointing out again that Blessed Shield needs clarification about whether it applies to any shield. The phrasing isn’t that different from Shield Ally, which also didn’t say select a shield like Blade Ally said select a weapon. Also, Shield Paragon definitely assumes it’s a single shield, since it gives you the ability to temporarily transfer the runes to a single other shield.

No, it isn’t great if it’s one shield. Yes, it’s closer to Blessed Armament if it’s one shield.

Anything 1-handed, yes. That essentially what I do with my Rogue, only with the tekko-kagi, since gauntlets aren’t finesse. I carry a short sword, light mace for bludgeoning, whip for nonlethal or reach. I’m sure there are better options. I haven’t done a full look through since converting him to remaster and getting Martial proficiency.

You can always roll d8s and halve them.

I think the point, though, is that the feat is not in need of errata. It works fine. It does what it says it does. If that isn’t worth it to someone, then they shouldn’t take the feat. All any of the versions of it do for any character is let them recover up to 3 focus points in 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes. It’s the same for the Sorcerer. No errata needed.

I use a d4 War Razor on my Magus, just for flavor reasons. Still low level, so no Striking unless I cast Magic Weapon. With Backstabber and Arcane Casecade, it’s still decent damage. With Spell Strike, it doesn’t much matter what the weapon is.

My Rogue typically uses a shortsword, but I added a tekko-kagi to have a free hand weapon, and I’ve found myself using it fairly often, because I can do something like have a shortbow in the other hand. It’s not that big of a drop off from the d6s, given that I’m adding sneak attack. The tekko-kagi ended up getting the runes to use with doubling rings. The fun part is visualizing things like doing battle medicine with the hand that’s got the tekko-kagi.

I wouldn’t generally look to use a d4 weapon first, but it can be fine.

Whether a GM handwaves saying you are refocusing or not, or if you are refocusing as a free action while doing other things, the feat still does something. If the party stops for 10 minutes to treat wounds or whatever, you will regain 1 focus point without the feat. With the feat, you will regain as many as 3, depending on what your pool size is. If you then get into an encounter before another 10 minutes pass, without the feat, you will have 1 focus point. With the feat you will have 3 (or whatever your max is).

Like with every other feat, you can decide if that’s worth it to you or not. If you only have 1 focus point, it’s obviously not. If you have more, then maybe it is.

I’m assuming it’s there for games that choose not to use the alternate boosts. I’m not sure the alternate boosts are technically an optional rule, but if a GM decides not to make them available, then at least there’s an option for Tengu and others. The alternative, I guess, would be to give everyone a flaw to something.

Swashbuckler Dedication arguably does very little now. Not because it changed significantly, but it just grants the Panache ability and a skill. All of the benefits of having Panache moved to be constants for the Swashbuckler, so until you can take a Finisher, you get no benefit from the Panache ability in the archetype.

Ah, thanks. For some reason I read that as the ability text.

There are other things that have a requirement that "Your shield is raised." Shield Wall, for example. Weirdly, Shield Block doesn't have that in the requirements, though it is in the description.

Point being, if they meant that you just need to have your shield raised to use the action, they could have said that, instead of the last action language. At the very least, you can't do anything in between Raise a Shield and Devoted Guardian. The ambiguity here comes in because Shield of the Spirit doesn't include a second subordinate action.

I’ve seen another person saying Blessed Shield applies to any shield a Champion picks up. Tried starting a thread about it, but only response there was that it’s probably one shield. Either way, it could use clarification, as that’s a huge difference in the ability. If it is multiple shields, the level 20 Shield Paragon needs changed. Given that the text of that feat was updated, and it still treats it as though you have a single chosen shield, I’m guessing the issue is with the initial ability not being clear.

I don’t understand that part either. Like, the abilities were already written. I don’t think any of them were game breaking. I’d just as soon the class get those back and go back to the old Spellcasting chart. I really don’t think anyone expected or was asking for Oracle to have 4 spell slots/level.

If that’s true, then it’s fine. It’s still probably better than Blessed Armament at least before considering additional feats. But it needs errata to explain how it is supposed to work.

I see that Shield Ally was also lacking that language, so I’m going to assume it’s meant to work the same way. It’s just a little confusing, and by RAW there’s no way to select/change the shield, or it works for all shields.

For the Champion Blessed Shield ability, does it apply only to one shield, like Armament, or to every shield that you pick up?

In your hands, a shield gains the minor reinforcing rune. As you go up in level, the shield gains the reinforcing rune of your level (lesser at 7th level, moderate at 10th level, greater at 13th level, major at 16th level, and supreme at 19th level). If your shield already has the appropriate reinforcing rune for your level, or if it’s a sturdy shield of the same level as the appropriate reinforcing rune, the shield’s Hardness instead increases by 1.

Because this doesn't say Choose one shield like Armament says Choose one weapon, I initially read it as affecting any shield your are wielding. However, I've just seen Shield Paragon:

Your shield is a vessel of divine protection. When you're wielding your chosen shield, it is always raised, even without you using the Raise a Shield action. If the shield would be destroyed, it vanishes to your deity's realm instead, where a servitor of your deity repairs it. During your next daily preparations, the shield returns to you fully repaired. While the shield is gone, you can spend 1 minute to infuse a different shield with your blessed shield benefit until your true shield returns.

That seems to be written assuming it is a single, chosen shield.

If that is true, then there are some issues with Blessed Shield. It doesn't tell you to select a shield. It also doesn't provide any way to change your selected shield, like Blessed Armament does for a weapon.

So, are you stuck with the same shield for the life of the character, except for brief periods of time at 20th level? What happens if it's destroyed before level 20 and Shield Paragon? What happens if you lose it?

Or, does this work for whatever shield you are wielding?

Or, does this only work for one shield that you choose at the start of the day?

It is a huge difference if it's only one shield/day or one shield ever than if it is whatever shield you are wielding. It becomes just a gold saver, or you can pay hundreds or thousands of gold to get 1 extra hardness.

At least it scales without an additional feat, unlike Blessed Armament and Blessed Swiftness.

Also, if it is just a gold savings, it's still significantly more gold than Blessed Armament saves you. It can save you up to 32,000gp. Blessed Armament (without another feat) saves you at most 225gp for Shifting..

What Tompaa said is what I was trying to say, yes. I don’t want to quote the long message, but just noting that is accurate and mirrors my thoughts on things.

For PFS anyway, Foretell Harm was clarified to work on everyone hit by an AoO, so that makes it pretty good. Particularly if you can trigger a weakness with it.

Ferious Thune wrote:

Blade Ally (now Blessing of Armament) got a nerf I haven’t seen anyone mention. Blade Ally used to give you the effect of the rune. Now Armament gives the weapon the rune. That means it won’t stack with an existing rune on the weapon past the limit of the fundamental runes. This hurt my thrown weapon switch-hitter build, because I can no longer have a returning rune and keep up with everyone else in terms of the damaging runes.

I don't know about the other nerfs you are talking about and have no real input on them but I have ALWAYS been on the side of things that the "effect" was simply there due to an editorial failure and that stacking Runes on equipment in a manner that was impossible according to the normal rules was an error, never intended, and basically a loophole/exploit that Paizo never intended to create. I've never allowed it, just like how I disallowed Runes to be applied to Magical Staffs, it was an edge case caused by a failure to clearly phrase the rules properly so I don't see it so much as a nerf as it is cleaning up the RAW to be sure that the intended rules were followed.

Entirely possible, and if so, they corrected it. It’s just a really, really underwhelming ability this way. The best it does is save you 55-150gp depending on which one you choose for the day. Being able to swap them is ok, but with that being a decision you have to make at the start of the day, it’s not fantastic. And it’s not like you have a bunch of options that you would swap between. Only Vitalizing has implications for resistances or weaknesses. Even the 10th level feat is mostly a money saver. The only real reason to take Armament now is for the crit spec.

EDIT: Ghost Touch obviously has damage implications, but it’s relatively cheap to just buy a backup Ghost Touch weapon. For the rare occasions where you know at the start of the day that you’re going to be fighting incorporeal, sure, it’s a good option to have.

The only other nerf I mentioned was the change to Shield Ally, which has been pretty widely talked about. Someone else mentioned there being others, but I’m not sure what they were.

It’s available for all classes, just not for characters created after November 15th, 2023. I think in other threads you established that you group was good, because the characters had credits from before then.

The current guidance is that no character that did not have at least 1XP before November 15th, 2023 gets the rebuild, regardless of class. Some of us would like to see that amended at least for Alchemists and Oracles, as those characters potentially become unplayable if they don’t rebuild.