Guntermench's page

I don't play most of what already exists and remove most of it when I GM, so none.

I'd just take Rogue for Perception for Initiative, Reflex saves, and a shitload of skills.

If I absolutely had to take two caster classes I'd go Wizard and Sorcerer to combine Sorcerous Potency with Spell Blending.

Channel smite has the same mechanism in that you get to hit and cast a spell in two actions and deal double damage on a crit, but:
- You don't need to recharge
- You don't provoke

It doesn't necessarily not provoke. Your still cast the spell, it just loses manipulate. If they can react on a spell cast or concentrate it still provokes.

It's also for a significant portion of the game at a lower to hit.

Forgot not everyone is trained yet.

But they do technically have one per the rules on class DC, it would just cap at 17. The rest about Arcane Fist is still relevant though.

If the Magus gets a remaster, it will have a Class DC.

It already does now, every class has a Class DC that it's Trained in.

Given Arcane Fists was errata'd to key off of Spell DC instead of Class DC for critical specialization I doubt they're going to add scaling to the Class DC of the Magus.

Generally "slowly" should cover it.

Lesser Death is brutal.

Yes. Yes they are. It's kind of hilarious.

Drawing a weapon while hidden in preparation for an ambush is a common enough trope that it at worst should require a Stealth check, not just make you revealed immediately.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

What's a high Reflex save? At different points, might be different but by high level you should have a 22 strength, Legendary Athletics, +2 or 3 item bonus, and with a +2 circumstance bonus while raging for combat maneuvers.

Let's say level 15 with a +2 weapon with trip or a +2 athletics item you're looking at a 15 +8 proficiency +5 str (21 str) +2 item +2 circumstance for rage (Brutal Bully or whatever it is called) for +32 with Titan Wrestler and reach. So a reflex save of +37 to need a 15 or better if the enemy isn't debuffed with some kind of clumsy or other negative condition modifier.

You usually have a better chance to trip than hit even against a high save creature as most creature's saves aren't that high given all you can stack. I'm not going to say a high reflex save creature who resists never happens and as a DM I do like to hand out Kip Up to certain enemies to counter it, but trip is pretty good almost all the time, especially go on a Giant Barbarian who doesn't necessarily need Titan Wrestler to deal with size.

Furious bully right, i forgot about that. that extra +2 makes a big difference.

Like a lesser death is level 16 has +33 reflex. So a level 15 barb with furious bully is doing great despite high reflex, triping on a 11. But if this was fought at level 13 as a +3 solo boss encounter for the party proficiency would be 2 less putting it at a 13 which is not as bad as a 15 without Furious Bully. Furious bully is really good.

Lesser Death probably not a great example since it would be done with Misfortune.

Also if you want to get hit to hit back you can already do that. It costs two feats, but has some added bonuses as well as triggering on being hit instead of crit.

It does increase your odds of being crit, but it also increases your odds of critting them in turn and if you ARE crit it's a free action.

If Fury had even mediocre unique feat options it would be an okay choice.

It really has no reason to do less damage than Dragon though, especially when Dragon gets good AoE too.

It isn't clear how the goblin ancestry feat "Kneecap" interacts with MAP. It lacks the Attack trait, but it calls for you to make a Strike as a part of the action. I think it needs to be mentioned in the next errata, to either add the missing Attack trait or to confirm whether or not it counts as an attack when increasing MAP or calculating it's accuracy.

Subordinate actions don't lose their own traits. This is in the Subordinate Actions rules, it doesn't need to be repeated for every instance.

Subordinate Actions

This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but it’s modified in any ways listed in the larger action. For example, an activity that tells you to Stride up to half your Speed alters the normal distance you can move in a Stride. The Stride would still have the move trait, would still trigger reactions that occur based on movement, and so on.

A Strike as a subordinate action remains an attack and affects and is affected by MAP as per usual.

I suppose I wasn't clear that I don't think Magus needs fixing, I offered Sentinel as an option for if you want to be tanky.

As a class Magus is fine. It's middle of the pack with huge high moments. That's a perfectly reasonable balance to have.

I think adding things to it is unnecessary.

I know I've played on several servers and therefore played with about 70 of them and other than like 3 min-maxers they'd take extra power because who wouldn't but they don't think it needs it.

A loud minority does not mean the class isn't working as intended.

And every class can have more than that, that's what skill feats and roleplay is for.

Guntermench wrote:

Sentinel, done.

At what, 8th level? "Just take an archetype" isn't a good excuse on a class infamous for being joined at the hip to a very specific archetype, and forgoing that archetype just for better defenses defeats one of the major points of picking Int on a Magus in the first place.

The archetypes are designed so that they don't have to bake this shit I to every class but can give you the option for it without pulling it out of the power budget. That's why they exist. If this is a huge concern take it. If not, don't. What would you remove from Magus to free up power budget for heavy armour? Because you'd have to give up something.

Also yeah, you can grab it late. Take Armour Proficiency until you have space, or just skip Psychic.

Magus should be more than just "you need everything to align and get lucky to get overkill damage".

It lacks on a lot of aspects.

And you shouldn't need to use archetypes to fix broken aspects of a class.
If you need it to function, the class should have it to begin with

If you managed to survey everyone that plays you'd find you're not in the majority with this opinion.

Big number go brrrrr is the main draw of the class. The rest literally does not matter to a lot of players. They only want the a little to get big crits and will gladly take being mediocre to have the highlights.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Str based magus can focus on: Str, Con, Int, Wis.

And, in the process, have absolutely terrible Ref saves. This is why you should probably not dump Dex even on a Strength Magus.

Sentinel, done.

Thinking Magus is fine just because its crits are putting up big numbers is missing the bigger picture, honestly.

This is quite literally the point of the class.

It's the main draw for most people that use it.

Well it would allow you to support character concepts like "my monk doesn't want to be laden down with material attachments" without becoming unplayable.

I think as-is, it's a moderate downgrade, instead of a crushing downgrade (not using items and not getting ABP either). For a couple of reasons;

1) ABP bonuses arrive "on time", while loot tends to be slightly "early". An ABP character is gonna get Striking at level 4, period. A regular character might find a Striking weapon at level 3 according to the loot table, just on time for the bossfight at the end of the first AP book after which you level up to 4. The loot tables give you above-level items as a way of making adventuring THE best way to get shiny stuff, earlier access than crafting or buying. Risk reward and such.

2) ABP bonuses aren't very flexible. Items allow you to prioritize more.

3) A true vow of poverty would go further than cutting out the items that ABP covers.

4) ABP is more geared towards the needs of martial than casters, it doesn't cover staves etc.

So it might be desirable to give some kind of extra boost beyond ABP alone. On the other hand, is it really "poverty" if it doesn't hurt at all?

---

For the rest of the party, yeah I'd just remove one share of loot drops as a GM.

---

Overall I like the idea though. It allows another range of character concepts that would otherwise conflict with the "items are power" ethos of the game. And it could also cater to grumpy old geeks who want to play the game, but don't really want to play the equipment game.

It's a side grade at worst.

If they're a DEX character (they probably are) then being naked is an AC boost at 17.

They get perception boosts that I don't think I've ever seen someone take an item for.

They can boost skills that otherwise can't be boosted, such as Esoteric Lore for things other than Recall Knowledge, like Exploit Vulnerability or eventually with Tome initiative.

They have significantly more offensive flexibility since they get to boost everything instead of probably just one weapon.

They're going to much more consistently have on level bonuses.

I wouldn't do only one person on ABP. You lose Runes, which ABP kinda recommends not using anyway, and you lose having magical attacks, which a few classes and ancestries/heritages don't care about anyway. Monk, the most likely martial for this, gets that for free at 3.

On the note of Familiars. Familiars in the Remastered edition no longer allow you to replace dead familiars with a week of downtime. While for some reason Animal Companions retain this ability.

Retrain the pet feat into the pet feat.

The Magus is hands down the best class for attacking almost every weakness in the game...

I feel like Thaumaturge would disagree.

The number of property runes a weapon or armor can have is equal to the value of its potency rune.

Runes: GM Core pg.224

Before Battle Harbinger I felt like this was probably a deliberate change, probably in the sense of "this is what they intended originally and we were all doing it wrong, so they clarified it."

... but then Battle Harbinger showed up with the old wording and now I don't really know what to think. Because it's not a confusion problem if an even newer thing can use the old wording still.

So is this a nerf or just a wording error?

The Battle Harbinger but makes me lean towards it being intentional and the better version moved to them for...reasons?

Teridax wrote:

I mean, I can see the reasoning behind it, specifically the Rogue being extremely crafty and slippery. To be clear, I'm on the camp of wanting the supercharged saves removed, but I think this is more a case of the developers trying something and genuinely wanting to improve the class within the bounds of the game, rather than Paizo deciding that the Rogue is their special little baby in need of favored treatment over others.

It's less about being a special little baby and more just observing that the Rogue came into PF2 kind of on the strong side, received more attention than a lot of classes did in the Remaster, and got buffs that weren't particularly necessary along the way. It's been consistent enough that I have trouble calling it just a series of coincidences, happenstances, or mistakes. The idea that Paizo internally has decided that it's okay for the Rogue, as a basic core lynchpin class, to be slightly stronger than some of its direct competitors doesn't seem that unreasonable. Especially considering that's the reality of the game as it is.

pH unbalanced wrote:

Because you think it is a niche that shouldn't exist? Or because you want multiple classes to fill it?

Another class or two being able to do that would be fine. (Especially if one were a caster -- though a caster Rogue is already easy to pull off.) More than 3 would be a problem.

"Has more stat flexibility than its competitors" isn't really a niche in the first place, it's just called being strong.

It's weird to me to say that no more than three classes should deserve to be able to invest in tertiary stats. Or that classes like Investigators shouldn't because... they have Int? I don't really get that line of logic at all.

Exactly. Rogue is already strong. Giving it even less to worry about is entirely unnecessary.

It just oozes favoritism.

"Don't have great AC"

They have literally the average AC and absolutely nothing prevents them from carrying a shield. Nothing stops you from taking a feat or two to get heavy either.

Guntermench wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

...

And really I'd argue that being able to do that on exactly one class isn't good game design.

Because you think it is a niche that shouldn't exist? Or because you want multiple classes to fill it?

Another class or two being able to do that would be fine. (Especially if one were a caster -- though a caster Rogue is already easy to pull off.) More than 3 would be a problem.

Mostly just that they basically don't end up with any weaknesses and that's not good game design.

Like what actually is Rogue bad at? With that stat spread basically nothing. They're not actually weak at any particular save, especially given hero points exist. They can get literally every skill. They get the most skill feats and can theoretically hit 7-9 legendary skills, I forget what it is. They have legendary perception.

What, exactly, is Rogue bad at? Given every other class is actually bad at stuff. If they want to make every class not bad at stuff go for it, but I don't think that's what they're aiming for.

They don't need this. There's absolutely no mechanical reason for them to have this. There's no thematic reason for them to have this. Maybe against poisons specifically. But really this just looks like someone at Paizo loves Rogues and wants to play Riddick or something and decided to buff it so that they're basically perfect.

So no, I don't think uber-class is a niche that should exist.

Their weakness (with this build) is that they aren't excellent at anything in combat.

Jack of all trades is a viable niche that can be a lot of fun, but it is not an uber-class.

If your "weakness" is that you're 10/10 in 9 of 10 categories and 8.5/10 in the 10th that's still not good design.

Mildly hyperbolic, but tbh I already thought Rogue was better than it needed to be. This change is idiotic.

Because really if a class' only weakness is intentionally kneecapping yourself it's out of line.

Guntermench wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

...

And really I'd argue that being able to do that on exactly one class isn't good game design.

Because you think it is a niche that shouldn't exist? Or because you want multiple classes to fill it?

Another class or two being able to do that would be fine. (Especially if one were a caster -- though a caster Rogue is already easy to pull off.) More than 3 would be a problem.

Mostly just that they basically don't end up with any weaknesses and that's not good game design.

Like what actually is Rogue bad at? With that stat spread basically nothing. They're not actually weak at any particular save, especially given hero points exist. They can get literally every skill. They get the most skill feats and can theoretically hit 7-9 legendary skills, I forget what it is. They have legendary perception.

What, exactly, is Rogue bad at? Given every other class is actually bad at stuff. If they want to make every class not bad at stuff go for it, but I don't think that's what they're aiming for.

They don't need this. There's absolutely no mechanical reason for them to have this. There's no thematic reason for them to have this. Maybe against poisons specifically. But really this just looks like someone at Paizo loves Rogues and wants to play Riddick or something and decided to buff it so that they're basically perfect.

So no, I don't think uber-class is a niche that should exist.

...

And really I'd argue that being able to do that on exactly one class isn't good game design.

There was somewhere in the past that said that for casters "class DC" is just your spell DC.

This has never been the case.

There are 100% people striking 5 times in an encounter with sure strike. They might be playing very specific games, but they exist.

Going from 5/10 rounds to 1/10 rounds is a hit.

I could understand if it was like Fighter's Bravery and only applied to poisons.

I'd still disagree, but it wouldn't be totally f~+$ing random.

Oh some people definitely take it too far in the name of optimization and it isn't necessary at all.

You are still observed is the thing. If it's by sight, per the description of the spell it should still hit because it doesn't really give a shit.

Someone posted this on Reddit.

I'm inclined to think that that unique creature that's going to rarely be used is an oversight.

Honestly I think it hit Warpriest the hardest.

Every Warpriest ice seen has been for a dirty that had access and used frequently with Channel Smite.

I would prefer consistency.

As I mentioned earlier, there are incorporeal creatures that have Strength-based Strikes (without ghost touch). Using the incorporeal trait RAW means the monster can never use these Strikes because they are Strength checks.

And yes, those same stat blocks (except Sié Goluo) also have a feature to become corporeal, but that feature also changes the damage type of the Strength Strikes, so the Strikes must be usable while incorporeal for the original force damage to matter.

The strikes would still be usable against other incorporeal creatures. The restriction only applies to incorporeal vs corporeal creatures.

They want to avoid you being able to put all your eggs in one basket and outperform the people that didn't.

This has been a running theme of this edition.

I would not count on getting spell runes even with the heavy nerf of Sure Strike.

Having a "To look at" list would be extremely easy and not labour intensive, and shows they're looking at stuff. It doesn't necessarily need to be or mean "this is up for errata".

If we do not get an official answer for this even with this dedicated thread, will people accept that it means it is not an error and will not get an errata ?

Yes, and it will further degrade my faith in this company.

In variety maybe. In any singular skill the class adds almost nothing.

A party of 4 can do just as well without a Rogue as with one, provided there's any level of coordination in character generation.

And losing this feature doesn't change their supremacy in terms of versatility. There's absolutely no reason for them to have good damage, the most skills and feats, legendary perception, AND be the only class that gets the bump in all three saves.

Literally anyone can do that by just leveling Thievery and/or Stealth.

There's no reason for Rogue to get this benefit.

They do, however, have more options of what they can target.

Use them.

Nintendogeek01 wrote:

If I'm being honest, I'm not sure the changes to Sure Strike are going to change much for the Magus. I'm only speaking from my personal experience here, Spellstrikes with cantrips have never really felt wasted if I missed so I never bothered with sure strike on those.

I am one of those Magus players who likes to have one spell slot for an offensive spellstrike spell, but I only have one spell slot for that sort of thing, so the fact that Sure Strike is effectively just once-per-combat in text changes nothing for me.

Sure Strike can go in studious slots.

There's also a staff with shifting that has it.

Specific only trumps general when it is being specific about doing so.

Which means that not explicitly stating concealment does not apply is not specific enough to change the general rule that you make a flat check if your target is concealed from you.

The part of this debate which I always find interesting is that people are willing to bend the heck out of what "automatically hits" means in order to bypass concealment, but if the target is hidden/invisible they jump right on to twisting words so that "you can see" isn't take as literally as they want "automatically hits" to be.

Personally I'm perfectly fine with invisibility eliminating every "you can see" option.

Homing missile? Nothing in the spell indicates that the shard has homing properties.

How else exactly does it always hit then?

My only real personal issue is solved: Arcane Fist no longer gives you a completely useless critical specialization.