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I think the point is that spending a ton of money on runes for a single throw is silly, so one pretty much has to use a returning rune. It would be nice if there were options to not have to do that.
Predictions are pretty difficult for me, it's easy to see holes in what sort of characters are missing out paizo has their own plans! I would love to see more primal casters, wisdom based casters, etc, but who the hell knows. Also, as always, hopeful for kineticist.
As nice as reveals are where hosts talk about new things coming up, the clarity of actually seeing the text goes a looong way in determining how everything works (and therefore how to build your character/what concepts will match the mechanics of the class, etc.)
As much as I enjoyed the presentation part of know directions psychic stream over Nonats thaumaturge reveal, I am starting to get jealous lol. Thaumaturge has had every aspect of it revealed while psychic has had very little (though what was talked about is very exciting). I was getting annoyed with people who were saying it but I'm jumping on the bandwagon now
You can only enter unleash psyche if you cast a spell the previous turn, and you can't have the stupified condition. Unleashing psyche is a free action, lasts for two turns, and gives you a damage bonus equal to two times the level of the spell you cast. Once unleash psyche is over, you gain the stupified condition (I believe stupified 1, and for 2 turns, but I'm not 100% on that).
Iiinteresting. I'm hoping for a blaster psychic so distant grasp, oscillating wave and tangible dream interest me most. Distant grasp looks pretty strong, a sustain cantrip is very cool. I prefer weaponless psychic so might not be the one for me, but who knows. Oscillating wave is a little confusing lol, that's going to have to be one we need more detail on. Tangible dream is cool, part of me was hoping to be able to actually create a scaling weapon one could then use to attack, but I knew that was a longshot. I hope telekinetic rend is still in there somewhere, aoe cantrips are very rare and I was looking forward to using it.
One thing thats never clicked with me is when players say to save their big strong spells for the part in a fight where things look bleak. I understand saving them for a scary fight, and maybe I'm misinterpreting what others are saying, but firing off your biggest spells right away makes a lot more sense to me. Offense is the best defense, dealing with enemies as fast as you can could make encounters a lot easier. Just a playstyle difference I suppose.
Agreed. I was worried with the way the playtest retrospective changes were worded, but devs really pulled through. And there's still a ton we haven't seen! The more I think about psychic the more I like it; Spontaneous casting is very much preferred over prepared for me. Being able to choose your casting stat opens up a lot more character concepts and races (though I do still wish wisdom was an option). Occult is probably the strongest spell list, with the most utility. Having a bunch of 1 action options is so good for casters, there were a lot of times playing a caster that I didn't have many good options after casting a spell. And of course the cantrips, free refocus feats (I think that was said? Maybe it's just refocus 2 points from the get go if only amps were used), and unleash psyche.
I'm with you regarding tangible dream, light and shield are neat but not exactly defining a gameplay style. That being said, unless something changed from the playtest there should be another cantrip (one unique to each subclass) that we haven't heard about for tangible dream. I've heard murmurs of mind bullets or something, maybe that's it? If I ever make a psychic, the spells I pick will mostly be for utility. Healing, curing curses, teleporting, that sort of stuff. Hopefully cantrips and focus spells, along with the various one action things that are unlocked while unleash psyche is active, is enough to have a good time and feel useful. Stupified is a pain, but I think the tradeoff might be worth it. Besides, the roleplay part of it is really fun to me. To your point, it might be a good idea to build psychics with stupified in mind. One could look at it like investigator, how its a good idea to have a backup option when your devise a stratagem falls flat.
I know this is more of a PC concept thread, but just wanted to say that getting details on how unleash psyche works has me very excited for the class. Cantrip damage (really psychic damage in general) in the playtest was very low given how it was touted as a... Not exactly at will blasting class but definitely a class with a focus on cantrips and focus spells as their main tools. Tracking bonuses and penalties round by round is a lot more exciting to me than having daily limits on things as well. I do worry that maybe stupified is too debilitating a condition for when unleash psyche ends (way too many times I have failed DC 5 flat checks) but overall I still like it a lot.
Might not be completely on topic (not so much to do with content creators) but as someone who spends too much time browsing these forums, the pathfinder discord, and the pathfinder reddit, there are some patterns that take shape. As much as 2e is celebrated for it's balance and how easy it is to make a character, it's (imo) only in comparison to 1e. There are a lot of... Traps might be too strong of a word, but there's a lot of things to consider when looking to build a character. In 5e (which I am not a huge fan of, to be clear) if you want your martial to have a cantrip, for instance, you just need a half decent casting stat and a way to get a cantrip. But in 2e, you need a way to get a cantrip, have to keep up with your casting stat, and raise your proficiency or you're not going to have a good time. There's a lot of details that characters have to plan for ahead of time. And of course, 2e plays a lot different with its action economy. It's hard for some people to give advice (don't attack 3 times in a row every turn) and not sound like a jerk, and hard for others to take that advice when they don't want to be told how to play the game. The tight math can be a detriment to the system at times, where a player might not want to have 18 in their key stat at level one (I've seen people say they feel like it's too power gamey, which I think is silly) or neglect their AC or saves. I guess what I'm trying to say is that 5e is a lot more forgiving than 2e, and players new to 2e need or get a lot of advice. And advice can be tricky in this day and age, to give and get without either party taking offense.
Still holding onto hope there's some sort of option to get weapon runes to become part of your character instead of an object your character holds. I doubt weapons as tattoo runes will be a thing (multiple people asked about it but it got no response, guessing it's a no) and even the pseudo gloomblade archetype needs weapon runes on an item of some kind.
Without too many specific things said about what's in the book, I'm lukewarm. Some specific combinations of weapon traits, weapon groups, number of hands to wield, etc could open up some builds. More alchemical items could be a great thing for alchemists/investigators but it really depends on what we get. I've made some requests on the forums but they're sort of big asks, like weapon runes as tattoos, but it would blow the game wide open for me personally if that were in the book. So yeah, just a wait and see type of deal.
It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. Mystic has solar connection to get a solar weapon. I don't see why a witchwarper or biohacker couldn't get adaptive strike as an alternate feature
In my opinion, in an ideal world a lot of the things that divide people (burn, no burn, more damage, more utility, etc.) should be feats. Easier said that done, of course, but other classes have done similar.
My opinion from my experiences, speaking more for the people I play with than myself, is that the game should have been easier by default. It makes more sense in my mind than to get the gm to adjust things to make them easier, as the gm might also be new to the system or just not dig enough to find the advice to lower enemy levels. A huge amount of people don't go on forums or Reddit and ask for advice. I am the one in my group who spends way too much time reading and rereading rules, browsing forums, watching videos on the game. But the others in my party don't. I have one player who wastes a lot of actions turning into a rat, climbing on their crow animal companion, commanding them to move, then getting off and turning back into a rat. There's a lot of gm leeway there but it's simply what the person wants to do. Similarly, I have a player with a champion pc who has ac as high as they can get (I make sure to help them with items at least) but still gets hit all the time, and misses a lot (again their hit chance is as high as they can get). They have a few feats they forget about a lot, or they're just not built very well for (like sunblade; cool spell but their charisma isn't that high. Hell, I'm a full caster and I have a hard time hitting). I gave advice for a while, like why don't you do ____ as your last action, why don't you shield block, etc, but they just want to hammer away. Last session they said they need better equipment so they hit more often or get higher AC, but they have as good as they can. And some people are going to be like that, they want to roll dice, roleplay, have a few laughs. There's nothing wrong with that, and those that say players who prefer simple are playing the game wrong are unfair, imo. Tldr - I feel the game should be easier with the option to ramp up difficulty instead of the other way around. The players who don't want complexity should be catered to before the ones who do - the people who want challenge can make it for themselves easier than newbs who might get turned off if they have to do a bunch of research to tweak the game and such
I'm trying not to hope for too much lest I get let down, but I don't think it would be too crazy for a book with classes to be announced. On the one hand, it seems like development might be slowing a smidge. That's totally okay, they were putting out a ton right out the gate for 2e, and then the company itself had (has) a lot to work through and turnover to deal with. Paizo has even said that they wouldn't keep up the pace they started with in this edition. On the other hand, a year and a half between class books doesn't seem too crazy. Dark archive in August and then a new book in may-ish doesn't seem like a ton of crunch to me (who knows very little of the process, admittedly), especially compared to four classes a year.
I think I've said it in another thread but one reason I'm so interested in starfinder right now is the upcoming evolutionist class. The wait for kineticist is excruciating (and the final product might not be what I personally hope for anyway) and I realized that evolutionist has all the things I really loved about kineticist and a little more. It has a scaling, built in weapon. It can spend it's resource on various buffs (no daily limit except for a few things) from senses to movement to defenses. It's attack can also be modified to damage an area, have longer reach, different damage types, etc. And on top of all of that it's very very open flavor wise - you can throw fireballs, sure. But you could also be a skeleton that manifests bone claws/armor/etc. You could be a chimera of some kind that fires spikes out of their tail. Sky's the limit.
If I was to look at that schedule, I would think no new products are being announced. But at the very least we have the teases in this thread, so there's one new thing? Too bad it's not noted when it will be talked about, would be nice to know when it is. I'm sure the keynote will address it
Isn't attrition the opposite of burn? Like you want to outlast opponents, not hurt yourself to deal more damage.
I'm not trying to be combative, but I am curious about why you'd want kineticist to be about attrition? It's not really what the class has been about, traditionally, it's been about blasting for the most part.
I won't go over the specific encounter, but we had a fight that lasted an hour and half in our last session that was extremely unfun, the dm just took pity on us eventually and the monsters left us alone. I looked it up on forums after the fact and I was far from the only one who had issues with the monster and fight which gave me some validation but still. It was very unfun, especially to the other players who aren't as... Practiced as I am with the game. One thing i see often in these kinds of threads that really bums me out are the sort of suggestions around what characters to bring to combats. If the fix for hard combats is bring a fighter/bard/rogue, that's a major flag for game balance. It definitely feels like the options we've gotten post core rulebook aren't as strong, but they're fun to play around with. New players don't think about their dpr, they just like the neat concepts. They shouldn't be penalized for that with combats that are slogs.
It's funny, as our group starts to get into high level play (we're level 13 now) our combats are taking foreeever. Part of it could probably be our group but it really seems like health pools are inflating a lot faster than our damage is going up. It felt the opposite when we played starfinder.
Count me in on the superhero boat. I've always been interested in DND, but my main love growing up was comics, anime and such. When I finally did read into ttrpgs, a lot of things didn't really grab me. It was (I'm over simplifying of course) either regular dude with magic items, or magical person who can do cool thing a certain number of times per day. Nothing that really got what I wanted quite right. Then I looked at pathfinders kineticist - a ton of at will powers, themed to a specific thing (also like limited power sets used creatively). As I learned more about them I learned to love them more and more. Gameplay was varied, fun, and customized to however you built your character. Much like a superhero it wasnt reliant on items. It was the best of both worlds, sort of martial but also castery. The main things I hope for in a kineticist are at will blasts that can be changed to have different effects on enemies and change the ways the blasts are used (damage an area, etc.), not needing damage runes and at will utility powers. I'm wary of burn for a few reasons. One, I don't think it will mesh well with focus spells, being able to use 3 focus spells and then go through burn spells is a lot. Two, burn will dip into the power budget of the class I feel like, being able to nuke hard a few times would mean normal hits would have to be weaker. I would love for blasts to hit as hard as a martial, but having the flexibility of targeting an area or applying conditions, at the cost of not getting to attack as many times in a round (one big hit instead of a bunch of them).
This thread is really making me realize that I'm not likely to get the feeling I'm hoping for. I currently play a elemental sorc, one of the best blasters in the game, and against bosses and such it doesn't blast all that well (better to go the debuff route and let martials do their thing). And it is likely that a kineticist blast will be pretty far behind a focus spell like elemental blast or dragon breath. It pains me to say it but maybe martial kineticist would be the better way to go as far as damage dealing goes. Mechanically I feel it would perform better even if I dislike the flavor. Also one of my favorite parts of 1e kineticists was the lack of reliance on gear, they were pretty self reliant. Making them a martial would force them to get handwraps (a scaling unarmed attack would be amazing but I've given up hope of seeing anything like that in 2e short of a battle form)
The problem I see with burn, at least the way I see it, is that it's basically a second focus pool. If you can take burn to hit really hard a few times a fight, and also take feats to get some focus spells that are also nukes (even just through archetypes) it would just feel like double focus spells, to me.
Can't wait to hear more about the new classes ('esp'ecially psychic) during paizocon. Maybe even a couple new ones to playtest? I'm one of those who like to see mechanics of the class first, before making a character concept.
I would be very surprised if Inquisitor was released right after thaumaturge. They have a lot in common, mechanically, imo. Feel the same way about psychic and kineticist
Sorry James, you're right of course. I'm sure there will be a lot more to discuss after paizocon, right now people are chomping at the bit! Very much looking forward to more news about psychic, there are a lot of ways it could change within the framework discussed in the playtest retrospective blog.
Another fun way to go is making blasts a cantrips, but making it a variable action spell as well. 1 action - touch range, 1d6+mod per spell level, flourish 2 action - 30ft range, add an infusion 3 action - 30ft cone, 60ft line, 10 ft emanation, or 10 ft burst within 30 ft, add an infusion. Could even do 'overcharge', spilling actions into your next turn, like in some recent spells in secrets of magic. Could have feats to modify, like when you blast you can take a step for free, or quickened for using blasts, or changing what adding extra actions does. Variable spells are one of the coolest features in 2e, making a whole class around it could be fun.
I'm definitely with you in that I would love for kineticist to be more of a spell (spell like ability but I guess that doesn't really exist anymore) caster than a martial. I do like your version, though I would say numbers need to be higher (4d10 at level 20 is only like 22 dmg on average) but I don't think that's the point of your post anyway, more action economy. I've said my wanted version in a few places but I'll say it again for fun here. Kinetic blast is a one action cantrips with the press trait, dealing 1d6+mod damage for every two levels. Infusions are a special kind of metamagic that can be applied multiple times to a kinetic blast (and only applied to a kinetic blast). Infusions cost an action to apply to a blast, or the kineticist can spend a focus point to apply one as a free action. A blast can also be empowered (not sure what word to use there) to deal 1d6 per level instead of every two levels; this costs a focus point. So a typical round without any other actions might look like 1 action - apply explosion infusion to your blast, dealing damage to an area and targeting a reflex save. 1 action - apply entangling infusion to your blast, applying -10 ft movement to those who fail their saves. 1 action - the actual blast. Next turn the baddies come up to attack the kineticist 1 action - move away Free action - spend a focus point to empower the blast, dealing a lot more damage 1 action - knockdown infusion, hit enemy is prone on a failed fort save. 1 action - the blast.
I don't think they outsource huge things like classes, but I could be wrong.
It wouldn't surprise me if the increasing amount of lore or even adventures in rulebooks is to get buyers something more than they would get just from looking at AoN. Just speculation, could definitely be wrong.
As soon as I saw the way metamagic works in 2e I thought that it was perfect for kineticist. Give class a flourish, 1d6 per spell level attack cantrip, give metamagic to do things like spend a focus point to double damage, target a save, damage an area, etc. Give class feats to do fun elemental things, strong ones require focus points. Boom class done.
I am worried, because to me what they're saying from the playtest feedback is they're removing the free amps while psyched to allow amps to be stronger. So... Just focus spells and cantrips? We'll see but I'm worried about that
What is the difference between houseruling a specific change and an errata making that same change? Absolutely. For all my own belly aching I definitely understand paizo keeping the community at an arm's length when it comes to communication. Bit of a tangent but I really like the way starfinder has been slowly addressing issues people have with the game (whether they mean to or not). Items, feats, class features, etc have come out to make things people perceived as problems a little less problematic. Casters have gotten tools to help with things like losing concentration on a spell or not wanting to rely on guns. Backup options for weapons are plentiful if people dislike the economy. All sorts of little puzzle pieces get added on. I would love for 2e to handle balance this way, but the way things are looking I sort of doubt it, with themed books dealing pretty specifically to the theme of the book.
Totally, that's a valid viewpoint. And I think it's very fair to bring up in a thread like this one, to play devils advocate. Just know there's always going to be a good chunk of people who like rules, who like challenge, even if they wish for changes at the same time. It might seem a bit paradoxical (if that's the right term) but it's true. It's a lot like videogames, to relate it to something people might be more familiar with (I know I am). Things like dark souls - people wish for buffs for certain builds. A good chunk of them could mod it themselves, and I'm sure a lot do, but there are those who fall in the center of the 'buff this style of play plz' and 'im not going to mod the game to make my playstyle work' Venn diagram.
What is the difference between houseruling a specific change and an errata making that same change? ...the whole post that I... just wrote...?
Not speaking for other people, but I personally have the mentality that homebrewing changes, or even just using alternate rules, is like putting in cheat codes or lowering difficulty in a video game. Both of those are fine to some people, if they enjoy that style of play then more power to them. I feel that homebrewing class buffs cheapens victories, myself. Not to mention things like PFS or bringing your character to another friends game.Then don't homebrew? And live with how things are? I suppose that I am not sure what the relevance of your point is. My point is, there is some merit to some posts wishing certain classes were a little stronger. That is a major talking point of the whole thread, that some playtest classes could possibly have used more time being playtested. The only two options aren't 'change the things you don't like' or 'accept things as they are', there is also talk about issues you have with the game with the community, and see how things might change. Maybe we'll get more attention to classes that need it, maybe not. But thats what the point of the thread is. If you only see your two options as the only choices this isn't the thread for you, I would say
Not speaking for other people, but I personally have the mentality that homebrewing changes, or even just using alternate rules, is like putting in cheat codes or lowering difficulty in a video game. Both of those are fine to some people, if they enjoy that style of play then more power to them. I feel that homebrewing class buffs cheapens victories, myself. Not to mention things like PFS or bringing your character to another friends game.
You'll see a lot of people giving advice on how to build characters, tactics to use, etc. And while thats helpful, know that it is simply that sort of a game. Characters feel less heroic than in 5e or pf1, it revolves around teamwork or very specific combos for a party to excel. Some people like that balance (I prefer it in a lot of ways) but it's not for everyone.
That's a good idea, making kinetic knight (or whatever we would call the martial version of kineticist) a class archetype. I feel like with the precedent 2e has set it would be really hard to have the base class be good at both spells and melee.
Ideally, I would love both options - to have a more cantrip like option, and to be able to go for a more martial approach. I think for things like infusions that make a wall/explosion/etc a more spell like approach works, but regular old blasting a single target I could see martial (though a big part of me feels that others want unarmed for the likely higher attack bonus). It would also make sense if we could get both options, at least if we're comparing to 1e. OG kineticist could make unarmed strikes, pseudo conjure a light weapon or whip, all sorts of stuff.
I would love some archetypes built around battle forms or morph style spells/abilities that aren't tied to Druid or casters. Could even make it more general and make an archetype similar to captivate, but for transmutation, but give it something similar to wildshape/form control/other specific Druid feats that allow it to specialize in shapshifting. Honestly I would love if we got captivator style archetypes for multiple schools, focusing on certain types of magic.
There's definitely a very different point if view when it comes to balance between paizo and (probably?) most playtesters. Things like moving powerbudget from one thing to another (see witch casting -> hexes) are easy to say, but when the buff to one thing is tiny and the nerf to another is huge, it sort of turns into a monkey's paw situation. I'm pretty worried about how psychic is going to come out for this reason. The main complaint I saw (and had) was that it straight up wasn't strong enough, and it was said that it's going to be buffed at the cost of being able to do less at will stuff (which like, porque no los dos?)
One thing I'm just going to say for those who may not know, it's super unlikely they're going to make another APG type book. Paizo has been pretty open about not wanting to do that anymore, instead they're focusing on theme books. There's a lot of reasons, but mainly it's so people new to the game can sort of cherry pick what they want a little easier instead of feeling like they have to buy a ton of books. That being said, I'm all for random wishlisting. I'll just put down a bunch of random things in an unorganized way because that's how I do. - A legendary nature feat that allows any animal companion to gain the mount special feature. It really shouldn't be so impossible to ride on a flying bird, at least let us do it in later levels. - very unspecific, but more in combat things to do with int based skills. I feel like charisma got so many good things in the transition to 2e - great social skills, cool combat actions, innate spell stat, and the classes with charisma as their main stat are very strong. Intelligence needs something else fun, maybe even just some feats to make recall knowledge better (can keep doing it on a failure, lower penalties for rarity, etc) - generic ancestry feats for either a small race to start medium or a medium race to start small. - high level general feats to stop aging. Just for flavor, no mechanical value. - tattoos as weapon runes. - gloomblade or some other weapon creation type archetype. Soulforger is neat but very niche and has too much tacked on to it. Just want to summon weapons. We really need more ways to auto scale weapons somehow (I know the arguments for 'but economy') for builds to be able to do stuff like throwing a bunch of daggers or shuriken or just having a large selection of weapons. Maybe combine this with tattoos somehow, like you pay for striking/potency runes, tattoo them on your body, then weapons you create have those runes. - A cantrip master archetype, sacrificing spell slots to be able to power up cantrips by way of metamagics, sort of like how kineticist infusions work.
In a lot of ways kineticist would be easy to port to 2e, it's a common thing to read people say that kineticist was what the 2e action economy was based off of. Not sure how true that is but I could see it. The main thing I could see being a problem is that kineticists get so many choices that it would be difficult to put them all into the class feat pool. Infusions, wild talents, regular feats, and class features is a lot to jam into 2es class feats.
I thought the same thing watching that video! The know direction beyond crew is nothing if not honest about what they think about products, and they gave this very high praise.
Michael Sayre made a post in the dark archive product page forums that he was going to be talking about something new at paizo on, for those who haven't seen that yet. That's enough reason for me to start getting hopeful about seeing a new rulebook! I do still doubt it would be for this year, especially if it has classes in it.
It was quite a while ago now, but Jason buhlman was on a podcast to talk about paizo stuff and was specifically asked 'when is kineticist coming to 2e'. His answer was something along the lines of 'we know people want it, it's popular, and it will come to 2e at some point. We just don't have a place for it yet.'. So it will likely come to the game, but not for a long time. Paizo tends to plan years ahead, and development takes another couple years. So don't hold your breath.
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