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Caroming charge also seems to be against the spirit of the class, or at least how I picture it. Low, reliable damage shouldn't be a mainstay of a risk vs reward class. This should have a save associated with it, with a stronger effect on a crit failure and a penalty to the daredevil on an enemy's crit success.
I definitely like the idea and flavor of daredevil. The mechanics and numbers aren't quite there yet, I don't think, but I don't think it will take too much tinkering to make it shine. Proficiencies Like others have said, I think medium armor prof makes sense. Any class that can have str for a key attribute should be able to wear medium armor, I think. A scaling skill increase would be very welcome, as either acrobatics or athletics feels borderline mandatory for a daredevil. I also feel like there should be an option, somewhere, to give a flat bonus to athletics/acrobatics attack rolls. Right now swash, barbs, and other classes have options to make them stronger with maneuvers. Class features Daring stunt is great. Very cool class feature that one could use every turn. Audacious combatant is also cool, even if I'm not really sold on the press focus of the class (more on that later). Propelling strides is cool, but like I've read from a couple suggestions now a flat +5 increasing to +10 near a prop would go a long way. Stunt damage is nice, but I would love it to be able to crit and proc on more than just a shove. As is, I feel you will get more mileage out of just attacking than you would pushing a target into a wall. Pushing a target into a wall means you have to be next to them and they need to be against a wall (the wall needs to stop their movement, so unless they're 5 ft away from a wall and you crit on a shove or similar) and you have to have adrenaline, so map. Couple that with needing a prop and the size restrictions and it's a little messy. Stunt damage applying to any maneuver and extra damage on interacting with props would be ideal, imo. Props I think the idea of props is really cool, and I love how much the class plays around with it. I do think the class needs fun things to be able to do when there are no props around; I know people have said if there's no props around your GM needs to make better maps, etc. but I personally don't think that's fair. I also feel like a prop including a creature larger than you doesn't make sense. It should be a creature larger than your target. If you were a tiny PC and pushed a huge creature (high level Titan wrestler) into a small creature and the huge creature took damage... That's kind of silly. Risk vs reward After a read through, I don't feel that many feats give a suitable enough reward. Especially the press feats. They're already a risk, being map, and most carry a negative critical fail option. I suppose to balance that out they also carry failure options, but they're mostly very lukewarm. I can imagine playing a daredevil against a boss is going to feel very bad. The success/Crit success options on press feats should be a lot stronger than they are now, even if it is at the cost of stronger Crit fail options. Feats I won't go over all of them, just a few early one. Obligatory daredevil needs an option for Titan wrestler to function with all the size restriction feats. Breakaway attack featline is a lot of fun. Double breakaway should be buffed, two actions to do a single strike with both hands with a single, non scaling die of damage is pretty weak. The rest are all flavourful and fun. Pressing pummel is a weird one. Vicious swing just seems better in most ways, in not being a press attack. I realize pressing pummel has a set damage dice, which could be good on an agile weapon, but then your normal damage dice would be lower and you're at map as well. Maybe an extra die of damage to set it apart and make the risk worth it? Caroming charge is odd in that it has no saves, auto tumbles through enemies, and is two strides for two actions. Might be too good, even if I definitely appreciate stunt damage being on a feat that's not using props.
Eyyy I got what I was hoping for! Probably. We'll see when the daredevil and slayer drop properly.
I would love shifter if it's done more like kineticist than a half caster. But I do feel like more non mystical classes would be welcome as well. We could use another skill monkey type class, some kind of trickster or similar. And yeah, I know rogue exists but given the way guardian came out, I think we can make classes that fill specific niches with really fun mechanics.
I hope shared conditions are clarified better for summoner. Part of what holds me back from playing them is how to adjudicate stuff like death traits happening on your eidolon or persistent damage when your eidolon is dismissed and all those kinds of edge cases.
Yeah a bit of a bummer. Maybe they'll give us a hint as to when it may be on Friday, assuming there will be a paizo live.
Definitely agree with Unicore. Arcanes niche seems to be that they have the most spells, but very little unique to them. And as far as creature families go, there are very few that scream arcane especially with dragons being split among all traditions now.
Haha so many times I wanted to post like, where the play test at?? But I didn't want to have Maya regret giving us that hint. Good point about play tests usually releasing on Monday. For whatever reason I thought it must be Friday and was looking forward to tomorrow, better to temper expectations.
The whole argument of higher damage and physical vs lower damage and force is mostly going to be player preference. Personally I prefer more reliable damage even if it is a bit lower. Just went through monster core and there are 37 monsters that resist all physical damage and don't resist force. There are a lot of creatures in that book but that's a good chunk. Those who like it are allowed to like it, those upset by the change are allowed to be upset. But I think it's not something that can be said with certainly which is a better option.
No idea why people convinced themselves that psychic was getting anything beyond very minor changes. Now we're going to get people all upset because they didn't get what they built up in their heads.
Again I do think casting proficiency should be bumped down to lower levels. But I do think the saves vs attacks debate is kind of a different story. https://youtu.be/oeFVhu1xcuE?si=XeYvzIvLjyu7rKVM The video is from math finders YouTube channel and does a really good job or the strengths and weaknesses of saves vs attacks. Personally I played an elemental sorcerer to level 20 and I definitely felt the dead levels, but I also really felt that a lot of the time, attack rolls were a better use of a spell slot because of the buffs and debuffs that my party and I made work. Saves have such little support and they aren't as reliable to get a fail or crit fail on, and at high levels especially so many enemies have soooo much health that half damage can feel super bad.
Just to play devils advocate a bit, even though I mostly agree with spellcasting proficiency level up timing is wonky, I wonder if spell attacks are treated as such in part because of how strong they are? Like, a martial making an attack is not going to do as much damage as an attack spell. I remember towards the end of one of our campaigns I was critting with searing light for absurd amounts of damage and I think it kind of annoyed the martials in the party a little. That's an extreme example of course, but still. Trading power for consistency isn't the craziest thing.
I don't know how I feel about items having scaling dcs, as I don't think having a dagger at level 2 be the best in slot until level 20. That's an exaggeration, but something like that could happen. Some people like that, but others like getting or hunting for new stuff and the current system does that, like it or not. I definitely dislike fundamental runes and wish that abp was the norm, despite what I just said. Let property/cool magic items be your rewards, not fundamental math you need to keep up. That's true. Not fair of me to say what he fix definitely would be. I have seen people say that item dcs should just be tied to class dc and scale, but you're right that there definitely could be more elegant solutions.
I don't share many of the same critiques, part of why I love 2e is the balance, difficulty, and teamwork aspects of it. But I definitely think balance could be tweaked for a good amount of stuff. Spells have a couple stand outs, especially in the debuff/buff category, that blow other options out of the water. Like, by a lot. I know there's always going to be 'the best option' but it shouldn't be such a wide gap. Damaging spells have a lot more options. I don't know how I feel about items having scaling dcs, as I don't think having a dagger at level 2 be the best in slot until level 20. That's an exaggeration, but something like that could happen. Some people like that, but others like getting or hunting for new stuff and the current system does that, like it or not. I definitely dislike fundamental runes and wish that abp was the norm, despite what I just said. Let property/cool magic items be your rewards, not fundamental math you need to keep up. While generally I love casters and don't agree with runes to spell attacks, caster spell dc/attack scaling should be the same as martials. Really doesn't make sense as it is now. The game could use more ways to buff dcs/debuff enemy saves. It's silly that attack rolls get fortune effects, item, circumstance, status bonuses and penalties, while there are no ways to increase dcs (outside of like, one niche incarnation spell?) and penalties to saves are limited to status and like 2 specific feats that can get a circumstance penalty to reflex. That's a pretty wide number gap for an optimized party. Other than that, I do want more options for my favorite classes but that will hopefully come in time.
I'm excited for this because of finally getting the final versions of necromancer and runesmith. While I was among the people guessing they would merge secrets of magic remaster with the new classes in this book (I think most of us were guessing that), it does kind of bug me that we're likely getting another big rulebook that is mostly content we've already seen. Hopefully this will be the last big remaster book. I have no doubt there will be some new stuff, but I'm expecting half or more of it to be old stuff remastered. One thing I really hope for but probably won't happen, is weapon runes as tattoos. I remember when secrets of magic came out, during gencon, I was speaking with mark seifter and he said Logan had almost put it in the book, but didn't make the cut. Weapon runes as tattoos would be huge for me, I hate how much power is tied to a characters weapon. If runes were applied directly to a body it just feels like the character themselves is getting imbued with magic, not just holding a powerful magic item that empowers them.
That's too bad. But announcement of impossible magic is exciting at least!
Hopefully, and yes temper expectations, we get an announcement today during paizo live. But if a play test were to start this month, that seems like the best way to get the ball rolling.
I mean I know the numbers make it nigh impossible to work on an enemy at the level you can summon it, but this creature is fully summonable. The probability of a cave worm grappling and swallowing a creature, when you can summon it (9th level spell slot, so level 17) are super low. But it's possible if you're fighting mooks or debuffing an enemy like crazy. So the argument isn't exclusively for gms using it against players. (I think this whole thing is silly and no sane gm should allow it.)
I wonder if we should look to vtt's as more of a community agreed on rule set. If we aren't going to get proper answers from so many of our questions, maybe we should take foundry or dawnsbury days or what have you, as the 'answer' to most common questions.
I definitely understand why paizo has this unsaid policy of not answering rules questions. I've heard many times, from posters and devs, that when they used to engage more with rules questions from players, that it created more problems than it solved. But I think what's going on now is an over correction. The total radio silence, never answering rules questions on streams or in discord during paizocon/gencon, on forums, etc. feels wrong, and sometimes (this might not be fair to say but it's the vibe I get) feels like devs get angry at people who want rules clarified. There's got to be a middle ground, errata isn't really working. Hell, the how it's played videos are probably more helpful.
Necroing this thread a little. Personally I would love a 'golem' heritage. Not a full golem, but partial or slowly transforming type of heritage. Would fit well in a book about nex and geb, or just magic in general. Could have feats for being resistant to magic, physically tough, making a character slightly more construct like, etc. I really like the idea of a character that gets more construct like as time goes on. Edit - I know the golem grafters archetype exists, but it's not an ancestry, and an uncommon ap archetype. It is really cool though, even if it only has a handful of feats.
One thing a out solarian I haven't seen people talk about much (though maybe I missed it) is that I feel solarian crystals being their own thing, seperate from other ammo/weapon types, is going to be an issue. I know that we'll get more options down the line, so hopefully it gets addressed. As it stands, weapon upgrades and precious metals give you the standard options a class might need to take on the standard weaknesses/get past resistances as intended. Ghost killer, holy damage, elemental damage types, cold iron bullets, whatever. Plus you get a lot of fun ones like sights or grenade launchers, blah blah blah. Solarian only gets 5 options for their 'weapon upgrades'. 3 damage options, 2 of which only function for their respective attunements and the last is bleed damage which I'm personally not a fan of seeing how much stuff doesn't bleed in these games (I would think doubly so in starfinder, with all the alien biology and robots). So all the weapon options a martial might be expected to have aren't an option for a solarian unless they want to forgo their main class feature and use a weapon. So either we'll eventually get two sets of options for upgrades, one for solarian weapons and one for every other weapon, or we need a way for solarian crystals to somehow be able to use regular weapon upgrades.
We have a lot of things planned, including a playtest straight off!! So, we hope you all have a good year with us too ^_^ Aaaah!! Yes! That's so exciting, awesome! Thank youuu
I would love clarification on whether the kineticist 19th level feature, final gate, can work in conjunction with effortless impulse/imperious aura. Effortless impulse and imperious aura cannot both be triggered since they bother have the same trigger (trigger: your turn begins), but final gate is a little more ambiguous as to whether or not it has a trigger similar enough to clash with either of these two feats.
Going to necro this thread to ask if there has ever been a consensus on this. I know not many people get to such a high level but I'm curious how people have ruled final gate and effortless impulse working together. Personally, to err on the side of caution I was planning on not having the two work together in planning out kineticist characters, but I'm curious if we've heard anything in the years since this thread was made.
Alright. Well thanks for the reply
Not to be rude, but is that an assumption or was that stated be a dev somewhere? I'd also like to know why 2026 gencon announcements haven't happened yet, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Edit - to be clearer, my question was more directed to Maya.
Is it possible we could get any insight into why the impossible play test classes haven't been released yet, or announced? Is paizo slowing down the release schedule for new classes, has starfinder taken up employees time, etc? I've seen a lot of theories and heresay but no official answer, though I might have missed it somewhere. It was a bummer when 2026 gencon products weren't announced last gencon, when they have been since I've been into this hobby.
I do think at the very least, a little more transparency would be nice. To get an announcement that errata will be more constant and scheduled and then not release it as scheduled (or even say anything about not releasing it) is a little annoying. It was only last fall paizo stated they were going back to twice a year errata. Nice that Maya went to check for us, but if not for Maya asking we wouldn't have known at all. Kind of the same thing with the lack of new product announcements; if we knew why things weren't getting announced it would be an easier pill to swallow.
Woof. Feels like a rough year for rulebooks and rules. Hopefully these packed schedules leads to a big 2026. 2025 felt a little disappointing to me, with no rulebook announcements or play tests, and now skipping errata. Also npc core and monster core 2 were mostly reprints of old material (battlecry was great though).NPC Core was mostly new material by volume. The big issue is that they did the playtest early (Necromancer/Runesmith) and haven't announced the book (or books? I'm starting to suspect Runesmith and Necromancer aren't the same book) yet. Ah okay, my bad. Thank you for the correction.
That's true. I guess in my mind since sf1e was actively developed alongside pf2e, it shouldn't be much different with sf2e being developed alongside pf2e. But that might not be a fair assumption. Also play test sf2e player core was really not very different from full release player core, which was again pretty disappointing. With pf2e play test -> full release, we usually get tweaks to rules and a lot more content; for sf2e play test to release it was more like a large errata. Again that's just my opinion, and it's partly because I love Pathfinder so much and look forward to announcements and releases of player options like they are Christmas morning (I try to use vacation days for gencon keynote, for example, and was pretty bummed this year when no new stuff was announced).
Woof. Feels like a rough year for rulebooks and rules. Hopefully these packed schedules leads to a big 2026. 2025 felt a little disappointing to me, with no rulebook announcements or play tests, and now skipping errata. Also npc core and monster core 2 were mostly reprints of old material (battlecry was great though).
A little off topic but I personally don't think a fire kineticist with weapon infusion is solving the problem of fire immune enemies. A kineticist that can do nothing but elemental blast is like a caster that fights enemies immune to all spells but cantrips. I would say it's more of an issue than precision immunity creatures (unless the creatures have precision immunity and resistance to physical damage on top of that, that's just silly.)
Another paizo live come and gone, no impossible book announcement. Adventures look neat at least.
Something like - if your sneak attack/finisher would deal no precision damage due to an enemy's immunity, you can instead deal 2 additional damage per damage dice of your sneak attack/finisher. For kineticist, I have wished for this before in the play test, but a generic damage aoe impulse any kineticist could take would really help. You can deal x damage in a cone/burst/line, chosen when you take this feat. The damage can be any damage type your elemental blast could deal, including damage types granted by versatile blasts. If you have the weapon infusion feat, the damage type can also be p/b/s. Reflex/attack roll/fortitude save, chosen when you take the feat.
If there were more feats that let precision heavy classes deal with precision immune foes (not level 18 feats, mind you) or something like a fire kineticist to deal with fire immunity, I think that would be the best option. Players should have the choice to have feats that expand on their versatility, or double down on what they already do well. And no I don't think someone who wants to play a fire kineticist having to expand to a different element to deal with fire immune foes is a good option, as the player likely wants the fire mage fantasy.
Yeah I really dislike it. It comes up more often than I thought it would. The game I'm playing in (an ap) has had many constructs, swarms, undead, ghosts, and oozes. Precisions immunity, mindlessness, and general physical resistance has been a pain for many of the players (we have a gunslinger and a rogue, I'm a kineticist) and it feels pretty s!@%ty for them. Personally I love the theme of swashbuckler but I hate how coming up against so many of the typical Pathfinder enemies shaves off so much of what a typical swash wants to do. Mental immunity and precision immunity. And not even a (super) late game feat to get around precision immunity. Swash, at least, should have a finisher that deals non precision damage as an option, imo.
One thing I loved about the necromancer and really hope makes it to the final product in some way is osteo armaments. The ability to create sort of disposable weapons with fundamental runes is so extremely cool and something I've been wanting since release. I would also be okay if runesmith got something like it instead; something like being able to cast runic weapon/body heightened to half your level at will on yourself/weapons you hold (the at will part starting at heightened rank 3, since at will runic weapon pre level 4 would be unfair). But mostly I really just want to hear something about the book. It's been a tough waiting period for me, since I find the current 'story arc' not to my tastes and monster core 2 and all the 'mostly remastered old stuff' books we've been getting not especially exciting. Starfinder also needs more time, more options, for me to get excited about it.
Personally in the camp that attack spells are still very good and have their place, without item bonuses. To give them item bonuses would make them too strong imo.
One thing I'm hoping for in this book, whatever form it comes in, is a remaster of captivator (I don't think it would need much just limit spells to mental/illusion instead of enchantment/illusion). Alongside it, it would be wicked if we got similar archetypes for polymorph/morph, maybe healing, maybe summoning, maybe divination/revelation/scrying... Tons of options.
That is a large part of why I was looking into this build, yes. I very much dislike one roll to hit per round type of builds. The thought that I could, if I was set up with panache and standing beside an enemy, do a finisher into save cantrip for a strong round, sounded good to me. But yeah, sounds like it might be a bad idea.
I've played a Swashbuckler with caster benefits, but I've yet to come across a situstion where I want to cast an offensive cantrip (Being a Red Mantis Assassin, my Swashbuckler got basic casting and cantrips for a single feat, which made it more appealing). But there are plenty of utility/buff spells that are handy to have for yourself. Damn that's what I was worried about. On paper, finisher into save cantrip looks kind of cool, but if you've never had an opportunity come up where you wanted to do that, well that's pretty telling. Thank you for sharing.
I'm hoping to get some feedback from people who have experience playing a swash. I can't decide if building a swashbuckler and picking up sorcerer dedication and casting feats is a bad idea or not, it feels like an example of when white room math really doesn't work well. And to be clear, I'm hoping to use both offensive magic (mostly cantrips) and utility, not just utility. Points against swash/magic dedication: Swash seems very action starved if doing bravado action -> finisher mostly. Spell attack/DC's are obviously going to be lower than a caster. A lot of a swash's power seems to come from their feats, moreso than a lot of martial classes (definitely could be wrong on this one). Points for swash/magic dedication: Finisher -> saving throw cantrip, even with lower numbers, seems pretty okay since you can't attack further after a finisher. Charisma is already an important stat (at least the way I would want to build) and swash has a lot of debuff options to help lower saves and Ac. Always good to have an always on hand ranged/aoe/energy damage/whatever the player wants to take on hand. You get a 'free' skill to legendary to make the mandatory magic tradition skill a little less painful. ------------ Those are the main points, I think. And yeah, I think other classes might do gish a lot better, but that's not really what I want to do for the character. Am I kidding myself or could it actually work well?
I haven't been keeping too close of an eye on this one, but do we know if any of the pc options in this will be common or all rare/uncommon? My guess is the latter but would be nice to have some more common options. I did a search but couldn't find an answer yet.
Simple question, wondering how people interpret the heightening on shard strike; does the heighten effect apply to the possible bleed damage on crit, or just to the initial effect. The heighten effect simply says increase the damage by 1d6 every two levels, and while I usually err on the side of caution and pick the less strong interpretation, I'm curious what the general consensus is, if there is one. In pathbuilder at least, the bleed does not seem to heighten.
This is a topic that annoys me a lot, in a few ways. On the one hand, I'm glad that a generic strike or other common action can't damage armor and or weapons. On the other hand, because of this, item durability/dependence on items is neglected from a character options standpoint. Only not all devs got the memo. I've only played in a couple aps so far, but I've probably encountered a dozen or so monsters that break (or otherwise make items unuseable) armor or weapons, shuln mentioned is this thread being one of them. It feels super lame to not only feel useless, but the adventure grinds to a halt as you have to find a way to fix your items (usually turning tale mid dungeon and going back to town). It's so stupid. That's part of why I have little desire to play martials in this game, sticking to casters/kineticist for the most part. Edit: special shout to inventor of all classes, who can't make their innovation more robust via special materials.
Options for ALL classes? If they really mean all, that's exciting- I'd love to see what kind of Thaumaturge or Kinetecist or Investigator options would be in a book like this. I really doubt that is what that means. More likely options that all classes can take.
If they did, I missed it. Personally I'm not marketing genius, but I would think just announcing he product with a bit longer of a wait is preferrable to radio silence and uncertainty. If there is a reason for the delay/paizo being tight lipped, it would be nice to know that reason. But again there could be, and probably is, a reason for what's going on; I'm just antsy.
We might still get this book next gencon... Hopefully.I really don't expect it to take that long. The playtest was released Dec. 2024. I expect the book to release Q1 or early Q2. A whole year and a half sounds WAY to long. So far I think books have usually released 13-14 months after playtest, not 18. I'd love for you to be right, but that seems really close to not have any announcements (or leaks, which seems to be pretty consistent lately with rulebooks, such as the upcoming dragon book or dark archive remastered being spoiled ahead of paizo announcing).
Yeah I think the most optimistic take I have is that paizo is changing from announcing their biggest rulebooks at gencon, to letting gencon be more about the releases that come out gencon week. We might still get this book next gencon... Hopefully. It's just unfortunate that we get a change in announcement scheduling, seemingly the longest play test we have had, and no communication about any of it. Made worse that I find the classes really interesting and am very curious to see the final versions.
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