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Scarab Sages

I never liked playing prepared spellcasters, but for 2E I tried playing a wizard for five levels and found the need to prepare spells a specific number of times to be onerous. I switched to an imperial sorcerer in the middle of Level 5 and never looked back. I read the Flexible Caster archetype, but I thought losing a spell slot was too punitive at low levels.

I thought I would homebrew a wizard class archetype, the Nonvancian Wizard. My goal was to increase ease of play, at the cost of class features and spontaneous heightening compared to the Flexible Caster archetype.

I would love feedback, specifically if you think this is better or worse than a Flexible Spellcaster wizard and why. Is this an archetype you would like to play?

Nonvancian Wizard:
Nonvancian Spell Preparation (1st)

This class feature alters the Arcane Spellcasting, Drain Bonded Item, Arcane School, and Arcane Thesis class features.

Prerequisites: You must be a wizard.

Flexible Spellcaster Adjustments:
• You do not gain the Drain Bonded Item, Arcane School, or Arcane Thesis class features
• During your daily preparations, you prepare a spell collection rather than preparing spells into each spell slot individually. The number of spells in your spell collection each day equals the total number of spell slots you get each day from your class spells. Select these spells from your spellbook as normal.
• You can cast any of the spells in your collection by using a spell slot of an appropriate level. For instance, if you were level 1 and had feather fall and magic missile in your spell collection, you could cast feather fall twice that day, magic missile twice, or each spell once.

Heightening Spells
Once you gain 2nd-level spells, you can prepare any spell into your spell collection at any level you can cast. This increases the spell’s level, heightening it to match the spell slot.
For instance, if you were level 3, you could add snowball, magic missile, and shocking grasp to your spell collection as first-level spells and cast them as normal (see above). You could also add snowball and shocking grasp as second-level spells and cast the heightened version of snowball twice that day, the heightened version of shocking grasp twice, or each spell once.

TLDR: Nonvancian wizards can’t spontaneously heighten their spells the way Flexible Casters can.

Adjudicating Class Feats And Features
Some of your class feats or features might rely on the fact that you prepare spells in spell slots. While some class feats might no longer work or be necessary with the nonvancian wizard archetype, in many cases you can make a simple replacement and continue using the class feat. The following class feats simply require replacing “a spell you have prepared” or “a prepared spell” for “a spell in your collection” or “a spell slot.” For example, in Counterspell, you'd replace “a spell you have prepared” in the trigger for “a spell in your collection” and “expend a prepared spell” for “expend a spell slot.” Similarly, in arcane bond, you'd replace “cast one spell you prepared today and already cast” with “cast one spell in your collection you've already cast today.”

The Counterspell and Leyline Conduit feats in the Core Rulebook need these substitutions, as does Form Retention from the Advanced Player's Guide. Spell Mastery provides additional restricted spells; you can take it, but it doesn't add to your collection and works like normal prepared spells.

Disallowed Feats
The following feats from the Core Rulebook aren't available for a nonvancian wizard: Clever Counterspell, Infinite Possibilities, Reprepare Spell, and Spell Combination.

TLDR, for the Flexible Spellcaster wizard, what if your bonus schools spells were added to your spell collection for flexible spellcasting, but you gave up the school focus spell/universalist feat, Drain Bonded Item and your Arcane Thesis.

Scarab Sages

How do you think Paizo should handle ancestry ability boosts & flaws printed in new books, given the recent errata?

Quote:

Alternative Ability Boosts

The ability boosts and flaws listed in each ancestry represent general trends or help guide players to create the kinds of characters from that ancestry most likely to pursue the life of an adventurer. However, ancestries aren’t a monolith. You always have the option to replace your ancestry’s listed ability boosts and ability flaws entirely and instead select two free ability boosts when creating your character.

IMO, the current (post-errata) purpose of ancestry boosts (and flaws) in the sidebars is to provide flavor information, whereas before the errata it was more mechanically significant. With that in mind, there’s no reason they publish ancestries with two fixed boosts (+INT, +WIS) or return to flawed ancestries, like the Core Rulebook had.

This is a golden opportunity to emphasize flavor information. For instance, samsarans in 1E were “insightful and strong-minded“ and had boosts INT and WIS. Thus far in 2E, they’ve avoided giving any ancestries two mental stats or two physical stats, but if ancestry boosts are now for flavor and context, then why not? In the Bestiary, wayangs are the described as reclusive but with a strong storytelling tradition, which sounds like either +DEX, +CHA or +Free, +DEX, +CHA, - STR.

What do you all think? How should Paizo handle ancestry & ability scores?

Scarab Sages

I’m looking for a build that will complement my party members in our Outlaws of Alkenstar campaign. They are:

1. Starlit span magus w/ gunslinger archetype
2. Ranged gunslinger w/ swashbuckler archetype
3. Ranged investigator w/ Medic archetype
4. Construct innovation inventor w/ alchemist archetype (ranged, natch)

I think melee martial. Ideally I’d like to use options from Guns & Gears + Outlaws of Alkenstar Player’s Guide, but I mostly want something that works well. We are using Free Archetype. I specifically don’t want to go Champion + Wrestler since I’ve done that before.

Scarab Sages

One of my favorite characters in Pathfinder Society was Malacath, a CG half-orc inquisitor of Gorum with the conversion inquisition and the preacher archetype. In combat he used knowledge to identify monsters, magic to buff himself up to the nines, and a bow to kill things. In social situations, he was diplomatic or intimidating and had most of the knowledge skills. Very versatile, lot of fun.

If I were to re-create this PC, it would certainly be a thaumaturge. Here’s why:

Similarities:
Monster Lore ⇒ Esoteric Lore

Bane, Greater Bane ⇒ Exploit Vulnerablity, Intensify Vulnerability

Stalwart ⇒ Resolve, Greater Resolve, Juggernaut

Judgments ⇒ Implements (easy to mix-and-match, can have more active several at the same time at higher levels)

Narratively, a thaumaturge PC could be a wandering priest, using sacred relics to slay unholy monsters.

I could go on (I haven’t even gotten into class feats!). And it’s true that the usage of implements is like the Occultist, but the Amulet implement, for instance, could easily have been named Protection Inquisition or something. And that’s true for all the implements.

My question is: Since the thaumaturge can be used to play a 1E inqusitor, are we even likely to get a 2E version?

I know there’s an NPC with that class and she, unlike the thaumaturge, can cast divine spontaneous spells. But she’s also a small-i inquisitor, in charge of religious persecution and rooting out dissidents. That’s not enough to hang an entire class on, plus RL inquisitor were the bad guys.

Scarab Sages 1/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond

So PFS Intro #1: The Second Confirmation has a new Chronicle sheet and the 'Rewards' section formatted as follows:

Rewards:

Starting XP
[gray space]
Starting GP
[gray space]
XP Gained
[gray space]
GP Gained
[gray space]
GP Spent
[gray space]
Total XP
[gray space]
Total GP
[gray space]

My understanding is that the GM is responsible for filling in any spaces colored gray.

1. Do the players need to tell the GM what purchases they're making after the session, or can the 'GP Spent' box be filled in by players?

2. Does the GM need to sign off on Downtime, or can the 'GP Gained' just include Treasure Bundle totals and the player can handle Downtime on their own?

I ask because letting the players handle their own purchases and Downtime means chronicles are done faster and the GM has less on their plate.

Scarab Sages

I'm playing an Arcane Sorcerer. I added heal via Crossblooded Evolution at level 8 and now I want it as 1st-level signature spell. Can I use retraining to change my signature spell for my first spell level to heal, even though I didn’t have heal in my spell repertoire at level 3 (when I gained the Signature Spell class feature)?

Signature Spells wrote:
You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell. You don’t need to learn heightened versions of signature spells separately; instead, you can heighten these spells freely. If you’ve learned a signature spell at a higher level than its minimum, you can also cast all its lower-level versions without learning those separately. If you swap out a signature spell, you can choose a replacement signature spell of the same spell level at which you learned the previous spell. You can also retrain specifically to change a signature spell to a different spell of that level without swapping any spells; this takes as much time as retraining a spell normally does.
Retraining wrote:
When retraining, you generally can’t make choices you couldn’t make when you selected the original option. For instance, you can’t exchange a 2nd-level skill feat for a 4th-level one, or for one that requires prerequisites you didn’t meet at the time you took the original feat. If you don’t remember whether you met the prerequisites at the time, ask your GM to make the call. If you cease to meet the prerequisites for an ability due to retraining, you can’t use that ability. You might need to retrain several abilities in sequence in order to get all the abilities you want.

Alternatively, could I use Arcane Evolution to have heal as a signature spell?

Scarab Sages

Does Vivavious Speed affect all speeds, including Burrow, Climb, Swim and Fly?

Here’s the text of Vivacious Speed:

Quote:
When you've made an impression, you move even faster than normal, darting about the battlefield with incredible speed. Increase the status bonus to your Speeds when you have panache to a +10-foot status bonus; this bonus increases by 5 feet at 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th levels. When you don't have panache, you still get half this status bonus to your Speed , rounded down to the nearest 5-foot increment.

Does the bolded text mean all speeds? This other text makes me wonder:

Quote:
Most characters and monsters have a speed statistic—also called land Speed—which indicates how quickly they can move across the ground. When you use the Stride action, you move a number of feet equal to your Speed. Numerous other abilities also allow you to move, from Crawling to Leaping, and most of them are based on your Speed in some way.Whenever a rule mentions your Speed without specifying a type, it’s referring to your land Speed.

What do you all think?

Scarab Sages

Unified Theory, CRB, p. 268 wrote:
You've started to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens. Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead. If you would normally take a penalty or have a higher DC for using Arcana on other magic (such as when using Identify Magic), you no longer do so.

I’m confused about the above feat and I wanted to ask people for their takes on it. I’m not asking for how you as a GM would change it, I’m asking for your opinion on what the RAW is.

I’ve seen people interpret the bolded text to mean that Unified Theory only works on stuff that depends on magical tradition, like Identify Magic or Recognize Spell. But the text doesn’t actually say “Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that depends on a magical tradition...”. Also, if that reading is correct, then Unified Theory is restricted to increasing your chance of success with Identify Magic and Recognize Spell. That seems weak when other Legendary skill feats have you jump on air, steal the impossible, and the like.

On the other hand, perhaps the “depending on the magic tradition” just reiterates you canuse Arcana instead of Nature for anything with the Primal trait, or Occultism with the Occult trait, or Religion with the Divine trait. That seems redundant and awkwardly worded, but that’s more common in rules that I’d like.

I’ve seen it said that Unified Theory applies to things like Recall Knowledge. Being able to use Unified Theory to use Arcana for creature identification checks would make the feat worthwhile. But I’m not sure what the “depending on the magic tradition” clause even means.

What do you all think Unified Theory does? The rules as written are unclear to me and I think they’d benefit from a second pass by the editors.

Scarab Sages

Quote:

GLANCING SHOT [one-action] FEAT 12

GUNSLINGER, PRESS

Even when your shots don’t land cleanly, they still land close enough to inflict some damage. Make a ranged Strike. It gains the following failure effect.

Failure Your attack deals any damage it would have dealt on a hit, excluding all damage dice (this removes damage dice from weapons, runes, spells, and special abilities, in addition to weapon damage dice).

So how much* damage does Glancing Shot deal? This feat reminds me of Certain Strike, but that a Fighter using that feat has a +5 STR modifier. Gunslingers don't automatically have Static Damage

Does this feat require Firearm Ace and/or Pistolero's Challenge?

Edit: *changed from "what damage" to "how much damage"

Scarab Sages

I’m building a Cloistered Cleric/Champion multiclass, but what deity should I choose?

The deity must allow Good worshippers and grant nice offense spells and focus spells. I’ve heard good things about Sarenrae, but I’d like more options.

This build is for PFS. Here are the ability scores:

STR 14, CON 14, DEX 10, WIS 18, INT 8, CHA 14 (Lizardfolk or Leshy Ancestry)

Scarab Sages 1/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond

I'm running this scenario in a few weeks and figured I'd get started now. I have only one major question: How should we run the skill checks for the "Joining the Flock" skill challenges?

Specifically, is there any benefit for players to split the party? Any PC not trained in Deception or Religion will probably try to spy from the rooftops, but then combat's inevitable. But that would kind of leave the PCs who infiltrated out to dry, right?

What are your thoughts?

Scarab Sages

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My next PFS character will be a trip fighter, so I wanted a weapon with reach and the trip weapon trait. I've narrowed my choice of main weapon to the following:

CRB p.280 wrote:

Guisarme

Damage 1d10 S; Traits: Reach, Trip
LOCG p.92 wrote:

Fauchard

Damage 1d8 S; Traits: Deadly d8, Reach, Sweep, Trip

Which do you think is better?

I'm partial to the fauchard because I think the Deadly damage will compensate for the lower base damage, but I'm interested to hear what you all think.

Scarab Sages

I am building a gish, and I want the spells true strike, longstrider (heightened to 2nd level), and haste. I would prefer to multiclass into sorcerer over wizard because I prefer CHA over INT for this character. This is for PFS, if it makes a difference.

When I select the Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting feat, I gain a 2nd-level spell at sixth level. Can I select heightened longstrider as that 2nd-level spell?

Scarab Sages

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I noticed something about the Playtest version of the witch, and I wanted to check to see if I understand everything correctly. I apologize for being months late. A Witch that takes either the Lesson of Protection or Lesson of Deceit gains the arcane spellcasting tradition. They are now an INT-based prepared caster with the arcane spellcasting tradition, like the wizard.

However, witches get 3 or 4 daily spells of each level while wizards only get 2 or 3. Wizards are granted an additional daily spell at each level by their arcane school/arcane bond class features, yes, but those extra spells are limited; they must all from either the same school, or instead be ones the wizard has already cast (for universalists). Witches lack this limitation, right? So advantage: witch.

In addition, witches automatically receive a familiar, which receives an extra ability at 6th, 12th, and 18th levels. This is exactly the same as the Improved Familiar Attunement Arcane Thesis class feature, right?

My point is that the Playtest version of the witch receives an improved version of Arcane School and the equivalent of an Arcane Theses. I think this is a problem because:

1) It makes arcane witches too similar to wizards, especially if the wizards chose the Improved Familiar Attunement for their Arcane Thesis. Arcane witches and wizards are currently more similar to each other than Occult Sorcerers and Bards are to each other.

2) It makes the witches slight better than wizards because the former has the same number of spells as the latter, give or take one, but with fewer restrictions.

My solution would be for witches to receive the same 2 or 3 daily spells at each level that most other casters receive. The witches’ hexes should be buffed so they become a class-defining USP, much like compositions are to a bard.

What are your thought on arcane witches?

Grand Lodge

Can I use Scout's charge to damage an enemy, use Slow Reactions on them, then charge away from them, all without provoking an AOO?

From Advanced Player's Guide
"Scout's Charge (Ex): At 4th level, whenever a scout makes a charge, her attack deals sneak attack damage as if the target were flat-footed. Foes with uncanny dodge are immune to this ability. This ability replaces uncanny dodge."

From Pathfinder Unchained
"Slow Reactions* (Ex): Opponents damaged by the rogue's sneak attack can't make attacks of opportunity for 1 round."