FlySkyHigh's page

I thought I saw that True Strike changed to allow a caster to use their spellcaster attribute as the attack bonus on a weapon they were holding? Is that correct?

It is not.

(Guessing critical crafting still safe to be used.)

Yeah, looking over it, nothing about Critical Crafting should conflict with the Remaster.

The fact that the updated crafting doesn't address complex crafting/quick setup at all makes me a little sad, but I guess I can homebrew the interaction.

God I really hope the Assassin archetype gets a fix in this book. It has several major flaws and could really use some love.

Especially the fact that, the way it's written, you essentially can't use it at early levels of Free Archetype Variant without locking yourself out of two FA feats.

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.

I generally agree with your points. I hadn't thought about Motionless Cutter like that, but I agree it's a bit more trap-y then I would like.

Thief of Moonlight is also a good shout.

Thousand League Sandals I still feel is kinda clunky. Maybe I'm personally biased, but I'd prefer something like "At the start of your turn, allies within your aura gain +10ft speed until the end of their next turn." Solves a little bit of the aura weirdness, lets them benefit from it for more than a single move action.

You're welcome :)

I wonder how Only the Worthy interacts with Twin Stars. It says "while so Released, you can’t use the ikon" Can I not swing the second weapon if I use one to hold an enemy down?

I can see how that might be confusing. I would say that you can still use the second weapon, as it explicitly calls out the Twin Star as a "Copy".

I will say that I think this is a pretty easy "at the table" fix with a GM who isn't a meanie, but I agree that adding this sort of "build your own" could be interesting. The one possible risk is that a lot of the epithets are VERY heavily flavor oriented, and making an epithet pick-and-match would likely make them a lot more bland in order to facilitate the variety.

They did say that there will be more epithets in the full release, so hopefully they get enough to cover pretty broad swaths of options/themes.

This feels like a Guide to the playtest Exemplar. Extremely useful : concise but clear on the why.

Thanks a lot.

You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma

Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation

Doing a quick check of how many of the playtest abilities key off your class DC.

Root Epithets: 0
Dominion Epithet: 3/4
Sovereignty Epithet: 2/3

Body Ikons: 1/4
Weapon Ikons: 1/5
Worn Ikons: 1/4

Feats: 7/29

So on average, if you wanted to be less MAD and dump charisma, you'd essentially trashcan 1/4 of available exemplar abilities. Can you do so and still easily have a great exemplar? Sure. But saying "You only are MAD if you want to use 1/4 of the class" is not a great feeling.

(Again leaving this up for clarity and posterity rather than doing a dirty delete)

So after a quick re-review, I'm fairly certain the class DC will scale of strength/dexterity, charisma is only necessary for your domain spells. So you really only need 4 stats if you're going the domain route, and even then you can opt to focus on domains that buff and thus don't really need high DCs. So in fact you really only need Str/Dex/Con, and can mostly dump the others.

The flavor of it not working on you is weird, and if you rely on the ability, you encumber allies in combat if you do anything other than huddle up and ignore all your other ikons.

This is a super funny take I hadn't even considered.

FlySkyHigh wrote:

Though, where are you getting the drag value? I remember things like that from older editions but I haven't been able to find that in 2e rules.

I don't have my physical Core Rulebook handy, but here's a link to the rule on AoN

Apparently dragged objects are treated as having half their normal bulk.

Ah excellent, thank you. I'd tried searching "Drag" on AoN and easytools and got nothing, apparently I wasn't specific enough.

But anyway, back to your original question, as a GM I'd likely just end up making judgement calls based on the scale we have available. A Trebuchet is 48 bulk. A boulder thrown by a trebuchet? Probably weighs about as much as a large creature, so 12 bulk. How far can you throw it? Heck if I know. But given that barbarians have a feat for that exact purpose, based on the rules you couldn't do it at all.

Bulk is hard. It's measurement isn't exactly linear. 1 Bulk is 5-10 lbs, but a medium creature is only 6 bulk despite the fact that your average human would be around 150-180lbs. Large creatures are 12 bulk. Huge creatures are 24 bulk. Gargantuan creatures are 48 bulk.

For scale, a Trebuchet is considered Gargantuan, so in that instance your character could drag around a Trebuchet. If you had the Enlarge ability from Warped by Rage, you could actively carry it around as your bulk limit doubles. EDIT: Actually, Warped by Rage makes you Huge not large, so your bulk limit would quadruple. You could carry around a trebuchet with minimal effort.

Though, where are you getting the drag value? I remember things like that from older editions but I haven't been able to find that in 2e rules.

Quote:

Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late.

Quote:

Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.

I think you're overestimating how bad these are. 13/19 is fairly standard. Rogue, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Investigator, Kineticist all follow that progression. Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, and Ranger get expertise 2 levels earlier but still get Master at 19.

Fighter is the only master-tier armor class that gets both early.

Possibly, but my thinking is more along the lines of the armor type limitation.

Light: Rogue, Swashbuckler, Investigator, Kineticist (Which can often still use medium or heavy armor through infusions).

Medium: Barbarian, Gunslinger, Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, Ranger.

I probably should've phrased my initial commentary better, but my thoughts are more focused on "If we're going to limit this class to light armor, and not give them an avenue outside of archetypes for anything heavier, then we may wish to bump up when they get the increases". Personally, I'm ultimately fine with sticking to light armor only if we set their proficiency increases to be in line with fighter.

One quick error there in your analysis - Kineticist impulse scaling is by character level. At level 3, Oceans Balm heals 2d8 HP. (a +2 on impulses is basically the same as +1 on spells, but impulses also do things like +3 and such in places)

Ope. You're right. I'll go fix that.

There, fixed. Thanks for catching that.

If I were a youtuber, this is where I'd insert a clickbait title. Instead, I'm just going to give you a massive wall of text. Apologies in advance, and I don't honestly expect any replies, but I hope my input is of some small benefit to the designers. I'm going to go over the class chassis, then the ikons, then feats. Starting FROM THE TOP

Initial Profs + Level 1

Perception, Saving Throws, Attacks, Class DC are all solid.

Skills is odd because the only other classes to date that had Int+2 Skills were Champion, Druid, Cleric and Wizard. I'm assuming the real comparison point here is Champion, since Druid/Cleric/Wizard lose out on some skills in exchange for their incredibly versatile spellcasting. In the Champion's case, they do often end up feeling slightly lackluster during RP due to the skill limit but they have the flavor of the "Paladin" behavior to lean on. Actually no, re-reading champion, Champion also has the bonus skill from their deity. As does Cleric, and Druid gets one from their order, so this skill limit is really only present on Wizard, an Intelligence focused class. For lack of a better term, the fact that Exemplars are already fairly MAD (They want Strength, Dex, Con, and Cha at the least), most Exemplars will have at most 10 Int. This has the side-effect of making Exemplars the "Dumbest" class.

Defenses is also rough because of the light armor limit. I get the sense from this class that the desire is to go glass cannon, but given the proclivity of heroes and their ability to shrug off incredible blows, this feels somewhat counter-productive. Medium armor prof would be my preference, and I foresee a lot of Exemplar-Sentinels in our future. Not a fan of this honestly, I'd prefer to see at least Medium armor included.

Humble Strikes is a nice feature. While I don't think it'll really change anything, it's a nice nod to the source material. Unfortunately, Martial Weapons can still get higher damage dice than any simple weapon can even with this buff, and come with a suite of useful traits that most simple weapons lack. Neat, but I think will mostly go un-used in most cases that aren't a player choosing a specific weapon type for flavor, but very helpful for those players.

Shift Immanence/Spark Transcendence. I love the transcendence mechanic, it's a lot of fun. My main pain point is that Immanence only being active while an Ikon is means that a lot of Ikons either won't see use, (mostly Worn ikons), or an Exemplar will constantly have to feel like they're "nerfing" themselves to get a niche benefit. Comparing this to Kineticist, who just has the big "on/off" switch of elememental aura, this is juggling a lot more balls in the air, and for little to no additional benefit compared to kineticist.

Levels 2-5

Quick note: the fact that Exemplars don't get a level 1 feat is somewhat baffling. They would be the first martial ever to not get a 1st level feat. I'm assuming this is because they already get so much at level 1 with the ikons, but Kineticists get a ton at level 1 as well and still get their level 1 feat.

Root Epithets: I'm assuming because these give us an additional skill training is why we only get 2+int at 1. On to specific reviews.

- Brave: A solid if not particularly inspiring ability. Requiring it to be towards an enemy is a nice nod to the "Brave" moniker, since you can't use the defensively oriented body ikon abilities and then run away.

- Cunning: An odd scenario. It requires you to spark your body, and you get a free feint, but it essentially precludes you from ever using the feint for your "big hit" abilities, since you can't then spark your weapon. A neat ability as well, but seems like an odd counter-intuitive moment to me.

- Mournful: Understated but strong. Dazzle with no save until the start of YOUR next turn is potent.

- Radiant: "free" healing is nice. Given the 10 minute immunity similarity, quick comparison to Kineticist's "Ocean's Balm", it's at range compared to Balm, and it's healing actually scales much better. At level 3 it's healing 8 hp guaranteed, as opposed to Balm's 4.5 average with a max of 8. By the time Balm scales at 5, Radiant is healing 12 guaranteed, compared to an average of 9 from Balm. Radiant is generally above rate, it's not as strong as a high-roll from Balm, but it's more consistently good. Very solid ability, and it also means the Radiant Exemplar can skip getting Medicine.

EDIT: Leaving my original (wrong) analysis there for honesty. I had forgotten that Kineticist doesn't scale like spell levels, but off character levels. As such, at level 3, Radiant heals 8, Ocean's Balm heals an average of 9, max of 16. At 5 it'd be Radiant healing 12, Balm healing an average of 13.5 with a max of 24. Final point of comparison for this is at level 9, Radiant healing will heal 20, and Balm will do an average of 22.5 with a max of 40. This means Radiant reliably hits the average of the effects of Balm, without the upside of the bigger heal or the risk of a much lower one. Though the fact that it can be done at range is still very beneficial.

Spirit Striking: Fun take on weapon specialization, especially when coupled with Dominion epithets later.

Levels 6-10

Dominion Epithet: My personal take is that I think the Worn Ikons should've been the ones to get the boost at this level, since I think the Weapon ikons will almost always be the most... well... iconic. Plus Worn Ikons get little to no support currently in the playtest until the big epithets at 15. This might change with release, but if Worn Ikons will continue to get minimal feat support, it might be a good idea to move the worn ikon buffs down to this spot. Anyway.

- Born of the Bones of the Earth: Passive is solid. Immanence is incredible and very flavorful. Transcend provides a fun repeatable aoe. Key thing to keep in mind is that because the terrain change is permanent, that Exemplar better have a way to ignore/avoid the difficult terrain or they will rapidly make the battlefield an absolute mess of difficult terrain if they spam this.

- Restless as the Tide: Passive is solid. Immanence is rough because as written you would hit yourself and all your allies, leads to a scenario where you start hoping you DON'T crit which is an odd place to be. Also only very situationally useful, against single targets you're looking at a max +4 damage. Transcendence is actually incredible. I love this one so much. Just casually shift the entire battlefield, oh and pull a target to you and smack them while you're at it. Great stuff.

- Peerless Under Heaven: Passive is solid. Immanence isn't particularly fancy but also solid. Reap the Field is actively a trap. Mathematically it's almost always worse than just striking a second time, even at a -5. This ability needs a massive overhaul, it also doesn't address what happens if you crit either of your targets. As written you technically couldn't use it if you crit the first target, though I think only the most die-hard GMs wouldn't allow that.

- Whose Cry is Thunder: Passive is fairly meh? The saving throw bonus is essentially a non-factor since most bonuses to saving throws are generic, and there are only 2 abilities in the entire playtest that are "exemplar abilities that grant resistance", and neither of them are particularly interesting. This has a weird anti-synergy with the Skin as Hard as Horn ikon, since you'd technically only get electricity resistance while the skin ikon was active, despite this ability being granted by the weapon. Very odd. Immanence is absolutely incredible. Transcend is less incredible but still very solid, good Thor vibes.

Resolve is good. Feels odd that a class that doesn't want Wisdom for any of it's abilities is best at Will saves, but thematically appropriate.

Levels 11-15

Greater Resolve: Wow, Legendary at 13. I guess this is why we don't really care if they dump Wisdom (at least at this point) since they now can no longer crit fail will saves at all.

Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late. This reinforces my belief that our lovely designers really want this class to be a glass cannon, which seems at odds with the legendary hero trope. This would make a little more sense if some of the body ikons were stronger and granted them alternate routes to being tanky, but the body Ikons I've seen don't particularly achieve that goal well.

Greater Spirit Striking: Still cool.

Juggernaut: This is honestly what I'd expected before Resolve, but still nice.

Sovereignty Epithet: Honestly, I feel like all the worn Auras should be 30 feet at base, and these should increase it to 60. I also think that it's odd that both the Body and Weapon Epithets grant some other passive benefit when the ikon isn't utilized (Skills for Body, usually changes to spirit damage for weapons) but Worn Epithets ONLY do stuff while they're active. Yet another blow to Worn ikons.

- Teacher of Heroes: Immanence. This is solid. Very flavorful and fun. Transcend: Has anti-synergy with itself. Once you transcend, the thing you just did is only active if you then immediately shift the spark back to the worn ikon. So in order for this to actually work on the turn you use it, it's actually a 3 action ability. After that you're forced to either just not use your other ikons, or play a very hampered version of the spark-shifting game where you need to have it back in your worn at the end of every turn. Not a great feeling. Aside from that, synergizes well with the fact that you're going to get hit a lot with low AC. It's also worth noting that recall knowledge is an odd effect for a class with very few skills, and low Intelligence, another sort of odd anti-synergy in this.

- The Last Ruler: Immanence is meh. On brand, and free action demoralizes are great. Anti-synergy with the fact that you have low AC. Transcend is very nice, great for sweeping up mobs, next to useless against solo enemies, but fun none-the-less.

- Thief of Moonlight: Immanence is actively bad. At first blush it might seem solid, but the fact that it requires the target to miss (unlikely to happen in the first place with your low AC), but the fact that even if they do miss that it lasts only until the end of your next turn means that often AT MOST you're imposing dazzled on them for 1 attack. They miss their first attack, get dazzled, MIGHT miss their second attack if they even take one, then it's back to you and the ability ends. Transcend: Flavorful but risky. I'm not a fan of the incapacitation trait being added here though. This is also a notorious "Save or suck" style effect. Another "Great for sweeping up mooks, useless against bosses". The prevalence of these effects in the mythic hero class is understandable but odd at the same time. Heroes are often regarded for the great beasts they slay, not for the armies of commoners they kill.

Levels 16-20

Not much going on here. Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.

Body Ikons

Eye-Catching Spot: Immanence is an effective +1 AC, very nice. On brand for the "defensively" oriented body ikons. Transcend is solid as well, though your class DC isn't going to be very high most of the time.

Gaze Sharp as Steel: Immanence is fun. Transcend is horrible. It feels super weird to spend an action to grant yourself a reaction you MIGHT use, plus this is one that would often likely be wanted by a ranged exemplar who wouldn't be able to make good use of the Reactive Strike anyway.

Scar of the Survivor: Overall great, and I think as written this would become the "Default" body ikon. Immanence is solid, Transcend is fantastic but not overpowering. This is honestly the gold standard of what I think the Body Ikons should achieve.

Skin Hard as Horn: I did a bigger math breakdown in this thread about how bad this ikon is. The immanence resistance is minimal and also gets deactivated during a crit, which while very Achilles makes it even more situational than it already is, and the transcendence is just... bad.

Weapon Ikons

Weapon ikons are by far the most solid of the three types. Only downside is that there are a few weapon types that aren't really supported here. Unarmed/natural, more types of Bludgeoning, and "precision ranged".

Barrow's Edge: Very solid. Making their soul bleed is awesome, and the transcend is great. Very good one.

Fated Shot: Excellent. Immanence is respectable, and spammable aoe, even a small burst, is great for a ranged martial.

Gleaming Blade: It's bonus damage and double strike, what's not to love. Solid.

Noble Branch: The Transcend needs to be clarified, but if it works how I think (ex: If I hit you for 2d10+6, the transcend does 2d10), then this is really nice and I like it a lot.

Titan's Breaker: I can crush castles with a club, just give me enough time. Honestly an incredible option.

Worn Ikons

Palisade Bangles: Immanence is solid, I'm glad that the designers realized the anti-synergy with shields and attempted to call it out, but in this circumstance it might be better to say something like "This bonus can stack with any circumstance bonus provided by shields"? Transcend is... meh. At base level it can shift an enemy 2 squares towards you if they fail a low Fort save. At 15 that goes up to 4 squares, but still not great.

Skybearer's Belt: A funny one. Could be fun for a grappler since this is "almost" Titan Wrestler while active, with some bonus carrying capacity. Transcend is a fun "Get the squishy out of harm's way" ability, but considering how often the mantra is to kill the enemy before they kill you, this is a lot of actions to do a slight reposition.

Thousand-League Sandals: Immanence is great on it's face, but an aura that grants move-speed is odd to implement in a turn-based game, especially one with such a small radius. It leads to a scenario where the exemplar almost wants to go last, so that everyone can move first, and then the Exemplar can go catch up to them before their next turn starts. Transcend is fantastic.

Victor's Wreath: Lesser Inspire Courage at all times is solid, again, wish there was a better range, but solid. Transcend is fantastic. Honestly the best one of them all in my opinion. Doing s*%@ like letting people return from being petrified, giving them chances to shrug off curses, fantastic. It also doesn't "guarantee" that they can just cure any plague in a narrative, as if the town is afflicted by a plague and the Wreath gives them a new save, it may just end up hastening someone's death. Very strong in certain scenarios but not overwhelmingly so from a purely narrative standpoint

Feats 1-5

Sanctified Soul: Oh look, you become sanctified.

Twin Stars: This is an example of why I think Exemplars NEED a feat at level 1. If someone wants to be a dual-wielding exemplar, this feat is pretty crucial for them.

Vow of Mortal Defiance: Deicide, the 1st level feat. Love it.

Claim Initiate Domain: Fun. Focus spells are nice.

Leap the Falls: Animist wishes it had this. Unironically good, though I wish it wasn't inherently tied to if your body was active, but I can see the reasoning.

Thorns of Mortality: Fantastic feat. Barrow's Edge would pair well with this. Screw your regenerating monsters.

Hurl At The Horizon: Neat idea, but technically it means you often just hurl your weapon at someone... and then can't get it back without running after it. You technically can't etch returning on a weapon that isn't thrown at base. Someone elsewhere suggested also giving it a transcend that does something and returns the weapon to your hand. Or it requires you to spend your 6th level feat to also get...

Only the Worthy: Fun. Another solid Thor reference. As written you can use this like old school immovable rods, since you could command it to remain in place while in mid-air, which I'm super okay with. Love this feat.

Through the Needle's Eye: Here's that support for precision ranged I mentioned before, but this is a save against a low dc for one round of blinded. Not sure I'd ever recommend this.

Feats 6-10

Motionless Cutter: Love it. Three actions for up to possibly 4 attacks. Very gamble-heavy as there's always a chance you miss the first attack and blow your whole turn.

Reactive Strike: It's Reactive Strike. The existence of this also makes Gaze Sharp As Steel even worse.

Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow: A cool ability, but as written what exactly happens with the thrown version? Do you lose access to the weapon until they escape?

Additional Ikon: Solid, but this makes the spark juggling game harder. Also: it's not really addressed how this handles the feats/epithets that buff your ikons. If I take Additional Ikon: Worn, do both of my Worn ikons get the benefits of my Sovereignty Epithet? Do I need to pick one?

Claim Advanced Domain: More domain magic. Fun.

Dominion Signifier: Solid damage options.

Fish from the Falls' Edge: Once Per Day Breath of Life, but it also turns off your key class features for a round... Not sure about this one. I think at this point I'd rather just go the route of picking up Trick Magic Item and using a Staff of Healing. Very flavorful though.

Journey of the Sky Chariot: The first piece of worn ikon support, and it's a good one. Unfortunately, because it deactivates if you shift your spark, it essentially precludes you from using anything but your worn ikon while you're flying or you fall.

Mated Birds in Paired Flight: Very fun dual-wielding feat.

Feats 11-15

Compliant Gold: STAFF GET LONGER. Love this. Very solid.

Extract Vow of Nonviolence: This is a fun one. I think that two actions might be a lot, I'd prefer it to be a single action like Demoralize.

Warped by Rage: Another fun one. At first I was going to gripe about the enlarge getting turned off when you transcend, but the transcend fixes that. This means that with careful sparking/shifting you can maintain the enlarge indefinitely. Love it.

Destined Victory: The only other worn ikon support feat. It provides a defensive bent to a worn ikon, which is odd on it's face, but I appreciate the ability to spread the love around and make it not quite as crippling defensively to have your worn ikon active between turns. Very solid immanence and transcend, very good feat.

Infinite Blades Celestial Arrow: looks solid. If the Immanence functions like the Noble Branch transcend, it's really solid. Transcend is absolutely bonkers and I love it.

Feats 16-20

Seven-Colored Cosmic Bridge: Immanence is incredible. Transcend is incredible. Great feat.

Strike Rivers, Seize Winds: This one is... interesting. Very flavorful, but it essentially gives you a small pool of 1/day spells. Honestly pretty solid overall.

Eternity-Incinerating Blaze: Jesus christ. Now this is an 18th level feat. Inducing doomed on crits is already fantastic, bonus damage strike that also has the ability of just ERASING SOMEONE FROM TIME. It should be clarified if the target is able to be resurrected, because my knee-jerk reaction is that it'd take a Wish to restore them to the timeline.

Sunwrecker: Man. After following the last feat "I get free darkness spells on crits" is a big step down. The Transcend is equally a step down, it's a big burst of darkness that you're guaranteed to see through, and is super hard to dispel. Flavorful, but not in the same league as the previous feat.

Cutting Without Blade: this is...... fine? I guess the biggest benefit of this is just the ability to move your spark, as a free action. Lots of flavor, and then the main mechanical benefit is that shift spark is now a free action. Kind of underwhelming though.

A Place Beyond Mortality: This is oddly written? It's a once per day activated, requires you have one point in your focus pool, but you stop aging? Do you resume aging if you use that last focus point? Idk I am probably being semantic. This is a good feat. Never a huge fan of "You must die for this to see benefit" though. I guess it does let the Exemplar go a bit hog wild during the end of a campaign since they can just ignore death once each day.

Final Thoughts

Re-reading this post I realize that I might be coming across as negative. I'd like to be clear that I'm EXTREMELY enthused for this class and am already awaiting the end of 2024 so I can get my hands on the full release. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have spent this much time doing such a thorough review and analysis. I do think there are some hiccups to be worked out, but this is why we do the playtest. Few key takeaways:

1) I think Exemplars need at least medium armor, or at least need their armor proficiency to scale faster. We want them to wear light armor? Maybe consider letting them hit legendary in light armor at some point.

2) I think Worn Ikons need some love. The auras feel too small and by and large most of them feel pretty underwhelming in general. The Sovereignty Epithets should also provide some passive benefit outside of the immanence/transcend, in my opinion.

3) I think there are a few anti-synergy pieces here and there that desperately need to be addressed. The number of "if you miss" abilities is very high for a class that will have a relatively low AC. Teacher of Heroes turning off it's own ability immediately after transcending, things like that.

4) I think a main comparison point with this class should be the Kineticist. It fills a similar niche of "I have a small pool of abilities I can repeatedly spam while being primarily a martial". Kineticist ends up with better AC, better attack rolls, is less MAD, has a wider variety of abilities, and is less complex to play from round-to-round. All in all I struggle to find what about the Exemplar makes them not just a strictly worse version of Kineticist in most avenues of comparison. Again, I'm very enthused for this class, I'm just sincerely hoping this gets the Kineticist treatment of seeing a significant improvement from playtest to release.

I definitely hope that they don't do the sort of mythic paths that Owlcat did in the WotR game, since I really prefer the fantasy of "you are imbued with mythic energy and are cultivating your own legend" to "you're becoming more like an angel".

The only six paths you really need are the six associated with the six attributes.

This seems to be very much a matter of preference. I've seen a lot of sentiment online of people who would very much like the Owlcat versions.

I personally would like a mix of the standard version and the owlcat versions. I think being able to a pursue "this is why I'm personally powerful, because I'm a archmage/hierophant/etc" or a "I'm becoming a mfing archlich/dragon" are both interesting ways of going about it.

I'm also here to yay parallel mythical is confirmed! (And azata mythical class/archetype too)

Are you saying those things are confirmed? If so, source? I missed it.

Yes. IMO Bile is currently the best Animist's Focus Spell. It's pretty easy to use, pretty fast to get its maximum output (1st round, stance, bile, bile and starting from 2nd round bile, sustain, sustain, and then sustain, sustain, sustain) you still can Leap/Step each time you sustain it.

Even if you put into a situation where you need to use another spell (like healing someone) you can simply stop to sustain 2 biles and begin to use your spell slots (it's like your was changing you gameplay mode).

Making this using the new refocus rules that allows you get all your 3 focus point in 30 minutes this makes that build pretty sustainable as a default strategy for blaster Animists.

I understand why some people compares it with psychics and put psychic into a subpar position. But remember that this is a playtest (the final version could be pretty different) and we still don't know what the designers will do with psychics in post-remaster.

But currently using the playtest. If you want to make an very efficient sustainable focus caster the animist probably is your best option.

Mother of God. I had completely failed to consider sustaining multiple instances. at 5th level that'd be...

2d4+3+2d4, three times a round. Average 24 damage per turn on a single target. In a perfect scenario hitting 4 enemies that's 96 DPR at level 5. If you can reliably hit two people with each burst that's an insane damage output for such a low level and "infinite" ability.

I'm at least hoping that Mythic is a second "tier" of archetypes if they go the archetype route. My group uses Free Archetype variant by default, and I would hate to give up that flavor if we want to use Mythic, and I don't like the idea of having to give up on class feats for it either.

Keeping in mind that if that did happen, that'd mean a group using both Mythic and Free Archetype would have a lot of stuff going on, I still would prefer that to effectively "losing" free archetype to support mythic.

YuriP wrote:

This and some other things makes me think that the class probably will be nerfed in its final version.

But we need to remember that druid's have a very solid chassis too (and even more solid after remaster).

The question is more why some caster get a considerably more solid chassis while others don't.

I would expect changes to the psychic focus amps in the remaster probably just allowing them to regain all their focus points in 10 minutes from level 1.

Per the remaster preview doc, the Refocus action as a default is getting improved, regardless of class, to get 1 point back per 10 minutes, and every class that gets a feat to improve their refocus (I think all of them at 12th level) their feat gets changed to let them get back all their points with one Refocus.

AFAIK though, Psychic isn't slated for any remaster-specific changes outside of that.

I think Worn ikons in generally are pretty underwhelming in the current playtest. It might just because a lot of options for them didn't get included, but given that the only "buffs" to them come at 10+, and even then it's only a level 10 feat, a level 14 feat, and then the level 15 epithet, it just feels like Worn Ikons need a lot more support.

I also think Worn Ikon auras should be larger at a base level. (30' base and 60' when they expand at higher levels, but that's just my opinion)

Also generally speaking their powers are often underwhelming. Not all of them, but most of them seem very under-tuned, though that's also fairly par-the-course for playtests starting weak and getting improved for the release.

Thousand-League Sandals seems like the only worn ikon you use consistently as a ranged character (honestly... these feel like less consistent transcends generally, but palisade bangles makes sense for melee to try). Because even if no allies are in your aura, it lets you stride+move spark for one action.

We really need some ways to get more transcendence abilities on worn ikons before level 17 - I don't think there's a single one?

Level 15 Epithets give bonuses to Worn, Level 10 Journey of the Sky Chariot applies to Worn, Level 14 feat Destined Victory applies to Worn, but that's pretty much it.

Yeah, doing a few test builds, a lot of the builds ended up coming down to not really caring about my body or worn ikons almost at all, just using Fated Shot to spam Rain of Seven Lights every turn. Spend every turn by shifting spark to the weapon, last two actions to Transcend, switching spark back to defensive body ikon, repeat.

My worry is if you try to give some passive bonuses, then presumably the actual Transcend effects would need to be neutered to keep the same power budget. I would rather the designer's buff the other Ikons so you also feel good using them.

I'd be okay purposefully choosing in my turn to give up some of the damage to get a cool support effect. Would be a nice niche bouncing between high damage, high support, high utility since the average would be reasonable. I think right now, maybe it just feels like bouncing between high damage to mid damage + circumstantial benefit.

The way I'm looking at it is in comparison to Kineticist.

"Is This Transcend action equivalent or better than a 2 action overflow"

And in a lot of cases it's coming up short. Especially given how much of the Exemplar's power is focused into the three ikons, 2/3s of which is inactive at any given point in time.

Kineticist has a ton of abilities that are active at all times, while a vast majority of Exemplar abilities only function while a given Ikon is active. And at first blush, even when a given Ikon is active, nothing seems like it's particularly over-tuned.

breithauptclan wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Doesn't a trap-minded Rogue (et al) negate traps as a threat? And traps seem more common, yet unless there's a distraction or the trap's OP, when does a trap activate at your table?

Plus Mobility, if one goes half speed, negates Reaction-based traps.

Neutralizing Haunts seems very on theme for Animists so they should have similar prowess. This comparison does suggest the Animist should take some action to overcome the haunt (whether it can react or not), and perhaps move slower while guarding against them.

What, exactly, are you talking about? All I am finding is Trap Finder.

Which very much does not negate traps.

If Spirit Walk worked like Trap Finder only for Haunts instead, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have this thread.

"Trap-minded Rogue" isn't a game term, it's simply saying any (typical) Rogue with a mind to address traps. And that they have little trouble with traps (w/ the exceptions noted above). I thought this was fairly well known & consistent at PF2 tables. So what I'm talking about is how builds with a high Dex/high Perception/high Thievery can handle traps on behalf of the party. Whether that build has Trapfinder (or Mobility) is secondary, though both would help.

After which I suggest that should perhaps be the baseline for an Animist to handle Haunts. Not automatic (as currently written), but reliable, and maybe requiring more investment, i.e. maybe they'd need to max out Religion or Occult proficiency to handle at-level Haunts much like a trap-guy needs to max out Thievery.

---
Separately I could imagine a party bypassing lots of Haunts, losing their Animist, and then having to exit. Gulp.

I'd say not quite. Because a trap-focused rogue still has to "engage" with the game to deal with the traps. Perception is involved, and disabling the traps. There's action occurring.

Meanwhile an Animist can just walk their party through a haunted mansion packed to the brim with Haunts and by the way it's written, nothing happens at all. No story is told. Maybe the GM tells the Animist about the Haunts they're just naturally suppressing, but otherwise nothing occurs.

The equivalent would be if a Trap-focused Rogue had an aura that said "No traps function within 30 feet". The Rogue could take a casual stroll with their entire party through a trapped hallway and nothing would happen.

EDIT: Quick edit to note, there's a difference between "minimizing" and "negating" a threat. Trap-focused rogues minimize traps as a threat, but because they can crit fail their disable checks, it's never fully trivialized. Meanwhile Animists just have an off-switch for Haunts, actually negating them entirely.

dmerceless wrote:

I don't think the issue is in the core design here, but in how underwhelming some of the non-weapon options and their Transcendences are.

Ideally, you should be pressing one "cool button" almost every round, with the tradeoff that you can't always use the same one. However, Thousand-League Sandals, Skin as Hard as Horn and Scar of the Survivor are the only non-weapon ikons with Transcendances you can reliably use and feel good about using.

With the correct build, you should almost never be manually switching, but it's not hard to build yourself into a trap where both your Body and Worn ikon are super situational (or straight up bad) and you have to manually put your spark on weapon to access the good one again.

I think that the problem is the both in core design and underwhelming of some Ikon.

In core design I think that only able to benefit from just one Ikon per round limits the utility and versatility of non-weapon Ikons too much. If you was able to keep some effect of Ikon that don't are with your Spark (like making Immanence fully passive) or give some ability that allows you the keep one of them working for some extra time (like a "Lingering Composition" to keep them working for 3-4 rounds without the Spark) this would increase their utility a lot.

For other side is possible to simply get better non-weapons ikons and have more non-weakon ikons improvement feats too. But this still keep the problem that you will basically focus in the same Ikon almost all time during encounter and maybe another during exploration mode.

I agree that it's a bit of both. A few things that come to mind:

1) Given that the "Defense" ikon is the one you'd normally want active between rounds, it means that the "Utility" ikon will actually only rarely see use, especially given that-
2) The 15 foot aura of the "Utility" ikons means that you essentially need to be in the thick of things for this to actually provide benefit, but in order to provide that benefit you have to turn off your defense-oriented ikon, meaning you're leaving yourself more vulnerable.
3) There is some minor overlap, but generally speaking the only ikons that grant offensive bonuses are the weapon ikons. Thematically this make sense, but as both the OP, others and myself have noted, this leads to either a "good turn bad turn" cycle, or you run the risk of someone doing the "shift-transcend-repeat" cycle I mentioned earlier to spam out the weapon transcendence every turn.

A few potential fixes I can see

A) Have Ikons grant some benefit when not 'invested'.
B) Increase the base aura radius of the Worn Ikons to make it a little more forgiving.
C) Have several Worn/Body ikons have more slightly more compelling effects.
D) Provide a feat or ability later that allows more than one Ikon to be active at a time.
E) Provide a Reaction option to switch your spark, which would allow you to keep your "utility" ikon active but switch to your "defense" ikon if s+$! starts hitting the fan.

In my mind, a very common desire will be for an Exemplar to find a specific spot to plant themselves and then repeat the following sequence ad infinitum:

Action 1: Shift Immanence from Body to Weapon
Action 2/3: Transcend Weapon, shifting back to Body.

This will let them use their "defensive" Ikon when it's not their turn, and their "offensive" Ikon big ability every turn.

This feels like it runs the biggest risk of the "illusion of choice" of any class to date, at least in my mind, since this rotation would potentially feel almost mandatory if you want to do "the cool thing" as often as possible.

This is actually one of my only complaints about the class. I get that at the end of the day it's not the ikon but the Exemplar who is special, but it feels weird to me for reasons I can't fully explain that the ikons do nothing without the spark. No residual divine benefit, just back to mundane status.

Apparently Michael Sayre confirmed elsewhere that Unarmed will be fully supported. So in theory that would leave only a single "item" ikon with Worn.

I think how this intersects with Afflictions is a major confusion point as well.

If they fail the save does the Affliction advance staves? That's one thing that would make this not quite as potent since you risk rapidly advancing the curse/disease/poison that might otherwise take much longer to run its course.

Meanwhile, if this just imparts a basic "you either cleanse the effect or nothing different happens" it would trivialize afflictions.

I'm hoping it's the former, as that's how my initial read goes. From a narrative standpoint it also prevents the exemplar from single handedly curing plagues. If the NPCs are hit with a DC they can't succeed on without a 20, the exemplar spamming this would just hasten the deaths of everyone effected.

At the end of the day it's another variation of "move and strike with one action" but it comes with a fairly significant downside. Given that a) it's only up to half your speed, which means often the other enemy needs to be VERY close, and that b) as Joyd's noted, missing the second strike ends up making everything feel terrible...

Yeah this one doesn't feel great. To me, a Transcend action should be something that has an obvious benefit. This one doesn't. There are so many other ways in this game to get a bonus attack at the same MAP, or just reducing your MAP penalty to make it less significant, that this action being a core element of a character would feel very underwhelming at the least.

...cunning sniper type Exemplar...

I agree 100%. This, bludgeoning, shields, and unarmed are the fighting types that aren't really supported by current ikons.

- No Scar but This (Scar of the Survivor ikon) probably should have a requirement on how often it can be used, otherwise it's just free heal to full outside of combat.

I don't personally view this as an issue. This is only marginally better than the Medicine skill in terms of speed. Not to mention several other classes get Non-Selfish "free full out of combat heal" abilities, just slower than this. (Paladin LoH, Kineticist healing, etc).

- A Moment Unending (Gaze Sharp as Steel ikon) doesn't really seem to be a very beneficial ability.

Yeah this one felt super clunky to me as well.

...Humble Strikes...

At first I flipped out thinking that Humble Strikes was going to allow d20 damage dice, until I re-read and realized it was only for simple weapons, and no simple weapon goes above a d10. I do agree that Humble Strikes just seems like a neat little ability but that I'd wager the vast majority of Exemplars would never consider, and all go full in on Martial weapons. The only instance I could see that changing was if somehow Exemplars got a higher proficiency with Simple weapons

After talking over this body ikon with some of my regular players, the general consensus is that it feels drastically underwhelming. The convergence of a) needing a specific damage type to be being used, b) to have that damage type be totally nullified or c) for the person to miss while attempting to deal that damage type all while d) the resistance value makes b essentially a non-factor...

In my mind this ikon needs either a fairly significant buff, either in the flat resistance value, maybe making the damage value = to level at base with a larger number when transcending, or by widening the amount of applicable damage types, and just removing the "if you reduce it to 0" element since it'd rarely if ever trigger.

Any body ikon you have would gain the ability when it has your divine spark resting in it. But even if you have two body ikons, you can only have your spark resting inside one at a time.

Right, but if you have a feat that enhances "your body ikon", do you get the benefit if either is active? Or only if a specific one is active?

Gonna do some QUICK MATHS

Going to do some rough average damage breakdowns at the Striker level thresholds, against even-levelled monsters at base comparison. This is specifically focusing on the "Reduce to 0" trigger, rather than the "missed" trigger.

Level comparisons:

Level 1: Moderate monster damage is 1d6+2. Our Resistance is 1. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, you'd need to fight a -1 level monster, and you'd have a 25% chance of reducing damage to 0. Any higher is 0%.

Level 5: Moderate monster damage is 2d6+6. Our resistance is 5. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 1 monster would be 66%, level 2 would only be 12.5%. Any higher it's 0%

Level 12: Moderate monster damage is 3d8+12. Our Resistance is 12. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 8 monster would be 4.68%. Any higher is 0%.

Level 19: Moderate monster damage is 4d8+17. Our Resistance is 19. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 15 monster would be 1%. Level 16 would be .4%. Level 17 would be .1%. Any higher is 0%.

In short: at essentially every level, the only chance you have of triggering the "reduced to 0" threshold is only if you're fighting something significantly lower than you, and even then the odds are incredibly slim, growing more and more slim the higher level you go.

Honestly, I'd much prefer they remove the "if you reduce it to 0" aspect entirely and just leave the "if the opponent misses", because of how slim a chance it has to occur. That, or change the math on how much the resistance grants you. Even making it like 5+Level would increase the odds to a meaningful but not overwhelming amount.

Many feats and abilities state something like "your body ikon gains the following:"

How do these intersect with having multiple ikons of the same type? Do all of them get the bonus? Do you have to pick one?

It's relatively slow in-combat healing, but faster than the medicine skill out of combat.

You're correct that it is infinite self-healing, but the medicine skill trivializes out of combat healing anyway.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Wait is animist divine or primal? I thought they said divine...

Its divine.

They also said depending on your spirits you can get spells from other traditions

Unicore wrote:

Are they any mechanical rules for what deification means? There are a lot of pebbles on the beach which can have their own gods to rule over them. There is no special powers you inherently get, there is no real definition of what it means to have obtained godhood in PF2 because it is a purely narrative mechanic.

Make me a god!

*hands the character an ant farm.*

I mean. "Give me Sarenrae's powerset with no consequences or responsibilities" also works. There are actual gods, and "gimme that" is reasonable enough phrasing.

And there are other uses: "blow up this city" is also not defined, but at that point you start going down rabbit holes of "why does wish even exist if it can't do anything you intuitively think it can do on paper."

You shouldn't be bringing wish into a setting if you're just going to nerf it death like that. It's perfectly fine to say that there's no set meaning for divinity, but handing a character an ant farm or teleporting them outside the starstone cathedral is clearly not the point of the Rare Ritual 10, and it's really disingenuous to argue that it is.

I would argue that the ant farm/teleporting to starstone would be viable outcomes for at least the Crit Fail for Wish. I'd argue the starstone teleport would even fall under the "success" category.

Are they any mechanical rules for what deification means? There are a lot of pebbles on the beach which can have their own gods to rule over them. There is no special powers you inherently get, there is no real definition of what it means to have obtained godhood in PF2 because it is a purely narrative mechanic.

Make me a god!

*hands the character an ant farm.*

That would fall under the Success/Crit Fail versions of the Wish Ritual probably. The whole point of Crit Success is to give the target exactly what they want unfortunately.

I do think that the Jann needs to have a rarity tag though. Right now it doesn't so it'd be perceived as a creature that should be "common" to encounter.

The fact that a level 4 non-rare monster can bestow a 10th rank Rare Ritual effect is slightly off-putting, and I could see a PC making an argument that even if a GM wants to keep Wish out of the PCs hands, Common Jann means that PCs should be able to access it.

Its mostly semantics at the end of the day, but still a very odd little circumstance to be sure.

Jann being able to grant a crit success on a 10th level ritual as CL4 is pretty wild. The fact that it can be dominated is also a sadge because it means an 11th level occult/arcane caster can guarantee ascension.

I now have this headcanon that because of the fact that Janns are prime targets for creating new deities, Achaekek has a standing order for all his followers to kill Jann on sight.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

This is also why the hyrodkineticist can't just decide to flood the entire planet. Somebody from the plane of Water is going to come knocking and ask "what do you think you are doing".

A 19th level Hydrokineticist can use Usurp the Lunar Reins every round for 50ft x 50ft x 10ft of water. That's 187,000 gallons, but we'll round up to 2x10^5. Lake Michigan has 1.3x10^15 gallons. Even ignoring fatigue (which overflowing every round should absolutely trigger after ten minutes), there's 1.4*10^4 rounds in a day. So if a hydrokineticist convinced the GM to set their character to spend every round of every day, they'd still need 5x10^5 days to make a really big lake. That's over a millennium of basically ripping a supremely powerful Kineticist open to use them as a portal to the plane of water, and at the end you only have a nationally significant lake.

A kineticist being able to make infinite water is like lore skills being able to make infinite money. The GM doesn't really need to do anything to stop it from being broken.

G$&%~$n. Yeah. by my math it'd be ROUGHLY 13,200 YEARS of doing continuous usurp the lunar reigns without breaks in order to create lake michigan. Really puts some s!!% in perspective.

I really wonder how many geokineticists just retire from adventuring once they get igneogenesis building themselves elaborate stone structures one 5' cube at a time.

Like "spend an hour to make a 5' wall that is permanent and made of solid granite because you are a magical person" is a lot more efficient than any other way of doing this, since one person can do it by "moving rocks with their mind".

Igneogenesis would be nice for fancier construction. If you just want bare bones blocky constructions, a handful of level 1 geokineticists with Expanded Kinesis can build entire towns in a handful of days.

As much as I don't like "GM may I" since as GM I'm very permissive and when I play being unable to take choices I want makes me itch. I like the custom school idea just for the nonsense that pops in my head.

Potential Arcanium Applicant: "Look at all the spells they give you access to for being an alum so cool."

Recruiter of the Hodgepodge School of Whatever the Hell You Want: slugs whiskey and hits some Pesh "Don't do it kid, we got Slow, Summon Dragon, Horizon Thunder Sphere all the good s**t. You don't need those snooty a*******s help. Now, sign right here.

Actually wheezing at this mental image, thank you.

YuriP wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

We'll have to see about PFS.

PFS will use the remastered rules. This was already confirmed.

That's not the question. Will they abandon all rules options pre-remastered? That's several classes, not just spells they renamed and changed in Player Core. I don't see that happening. If you have a Magus casting Shocking Grasp now, I think you will be able to PFS next spring.

Yeah that's the big question.

I also wish they'd include a more easily accessible list of "this is supposed to replace this" for the spells, because I *think* know what each of them is replacing, but honestly until I read this thread I had no inkling that Thunderstrike would/might be replacing Shocking Grasp.

I don't think you get it. All those things are "valuable" materials.

There is no such thing as "cheap metal", there is no such thing as "cheap stone". Even if you say "you can only make oxidized iron and dirt" the former is still highly valuable for a multitude of uses and the latter is very valuable for anybody trying to do construction.

Sure, but as far as PF2 is concerned, stone, vegetable mater, and water, are of negligible value. There's a reason why there's no listed price for water, or for stone. They aren't even listed as trade goods.

If you run a game and you want to tell a kineticist "jokes on you, your kinesis ability doesn't function because everything has too much value", that's your choice. As far as the system is concerned, basic materials like these are so cheap they don't even deserve to be given a price.

EDIT: as a quick Note, LUMBER, which is the only available trade good that might fit into this category, is worth 1 copper piece for 40 feet of board. I'd say that falls pretty squarely into the "negligible value" category.

EDIT2: I'd also note that Lumber's value probably comes more from the fact that it has in fact been processed into Lumber rather than just raw wood. So bulk quantities of wood would be worth less than a copper.

FlySkyHigh wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

FlySkyHigh wrote:

I may have missed someone else commenting on it: but I find it endlessly hilarious that a Metal Kineticist can generate infinite wealth at level 1.

Base Kinesis: Generate. I generate a small piece of platinum. I repeat ad infinitum.

Even if your GM says you can't choose what you generate from the plane of metal, which, fine, valid, Extended Kinesis: Proliferate. I purchase a single raw chunk of platinum ore. Proliferate it into a 5 foot *cube* of raw platinum. I proceed to generate a new 5 foot cube of this every round until I have broken the economy.

They thought ahead and in the sidebar it stipulates you can only generate mundane or worthless materials through base kinesis

Ah damn, you're totally right. I missed that sidebar entirely.

Ah well, Earth can still make entire fortresses of stone since stone is "of negligible value".

That would take a while if you're only able to generate 1 bulk per 4 levels you have at a time but yeah probably. Wood has hedge maze that can generate a house for 3 actions though

With Extended Kinesis you can generate a 5 foot solid cube of the material every round. Using that math, an Earth Kineticist could put a 5' high 5' thick wall around the entirety of modern day london in about 53 hours of work.

Define "mundane and worthless". 10 Tons of earth and stone is not worthless. Nor is 10 Tons of the worst metal (metal can always be refined). Water is never "worthless". Nor is creating free vegetable matter.

The actual sidebar says "Elements you create (using Base Kinesis to generate an element, for example) must typically be ordinary materials of negligible value. You can’t create precious or valuable materials like silver, gemstones, or duskwood unless otherwise noted."

So things like stone and water or plant matter should be fine, but no special or "valuable" materials.

FlySkyHigh wrote:

I may have missed someone else commenting on it: but I find it endlessly hilarious that a Metal Kineticist can generate infinite wealth at level 1.

Base Kinesis: Generate. I generate a small piece of platinum. I repeat ad infinitum.

Even if your GM says you can't choose what you generate from the plane of metal, which, fine, valid, Extended Kinesis: Proliferate. I purchase a single raw chunk of platinum ore. Proliferate it into a 5 foot *cube* of raw platinum. I proceed to generate a new 5 foot cube of this every round until I have broken the economy.

They thought ahead and in the sidebar it stipulates you can only generate mundane or worthless materials through base kinesis

Ah damn, you're totally right. I missed that sidebar entirely.

Ah well, Earth can still make entire fortresses of stone since stone is "of negligible value".

I may have missed someone else commenting on it: but I find it endlessly hilarious that a Metal Kineticist can generate infinite wealth at level 1.

Base Kinesis: Generate. I generate a small piece of platinum. I repeat ad infinitum.

Even if your GM says you can't choose what you generate from the plane of metal, which, fine, valid, Extended Kinesis: Proliferate. I purchase a single raw chunk of platinum ore. Proliferate it into a 5 foot *cube* of raw platinum. I proceed to generate a new 5 foot cube of this every round until I have broken the economy.

EDIT: Honestly I think Kinesis and Extended Kinesis might be the secret MVP of the entire kineticist class. Earth Kineticists creating entire fortresses from solid stone literally overnight. Water creating entire lakes within hours. Wood causing entire forests to sprout overnight.

And fire and air... doing something I guess lmfao