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The boringly obvious answer is probably Summon Undead. Thematic relevance aside, summon spells are a nice way to get a good amount of mileage out of a single spell slot, and you can have the summon flank with your own thralls. Something like Ooze Form or Aberrant Form might be relevant for similar reasons (though once you're in a battle form, you can't summon new thralls).
I don't see an issue with Necromancer being an occult spellcaster, given that undead / void spells have always been present on the occult spell list. That being said, I think the class should also have the option for arcane or divine spellcasting instead, since the "necromancer" trope can take multiple different forms and it'd be nice for the dedicated necromancy class to allow for multiple different character concepts. (Spells like Void Warp, Summon Undead, Bind Undead, Rouse Skeletons, Vampiric Feast, Enervation, Invoke Spirits, and Create Undead are available to all three traditions anyway, so it'd be weird for the dedicated necromancy class to only be one of the three.) To keep things interesting, each spellcasting tradition should probably be its own mini-subclass (similar to subconscious minds for psychics), rather than just a simple choice at 1st level with no impact on anything other than your spell list. Though I'm not really sure what benefits each subclass would have. Loose concepts:
I'm mostly just trying to say that it'd make more sense for thralls to be able to attack more than once (with the same action cost as summoning a new thrall), both for the sake of verisimilitude and because it would make thralls being able to flank more intuitive.
One minor thing I'd like to note about necromancer: by default, thralls can't do anything after being summoned, and that feels kind of weird from a narrative standpoint (especially given that they contribute to flanking as if they could attack). In terms of direct combat threat, creatures should basically be treating them like statues. You can probably justify this with something along the lines of, like, "creatures need to keep an eye on the thralls because they don't know whether or not the summoner is going to do some weird magic thing with them", but I think it'd be easier to just have Create Thrall say that, if you Sustain the spell, an existing thrall can Stride and/or Strike. Would make the thralls feel more like actual present creatures instead of just a vague spell effect (and would also help in niche situations where you don't have room to create a new thrall next to a creature for whatever reason, e.g a fight in a tight hallway), but it'd be fine in terms of gameplay balance because it'd be functionally similar to just summoning an entirely new thrall.
I'm especially looking forward to any new archetypes we get. The main thing I'm holding out hope for is some kind of DEX-melee class archetype for fighter (other classes too, but mainly fighter). I like the theme of being the weak-but-agile melee guy, but aside from Reflex saves and switch-hitting (which are legitimately good benefits), the only stuff you can actively do with DEX itself in melee combat (namely Balance and Tumble Through) is extremely situational. It'd be nice to have a class archetype to grab more broadly-useful DEX feats like Tumble Behind and Sly Disarm. In addition, if I'm playing a DEX-based melee fighter, I'd want to give up my medium/heavy armor proficiency, armor specialization effects, and probably some Fortitude proficiency in exchange for better Reflex proficiency and/or a higher Speed and/or other "weak but fast" benefits.
I'm still concerned about guardians having below-average weapon proficiency compared to other martials. While raw damage output obviously isn't the main goal of the class, I feel like a defense-oriented melee class shouldn't be outright discouraged from trying to make Strikes, especially given the class's martial flavor (and especially given that existing defensive classes, namely champions, don't have the same limitation). If you can't use a weapon well then you feel more like a very insistent punching bag rather than a cool protector guy.
Outright removing Common from a character's ancestry probably isn't ideal unless you let them swap out some other language for Common instead. Otherwise, you need to figure out how that character can communicate with the rest of the party, how they can communicate with NPCs, how they can read in-universe writing, etc. That's not to say that you *can't* do this kind of concept well, but everyone at the table needs to be on-board with it for it to really work (e.g, at least one other person in the party probably needs to be speaking one of the character's known languages), and in any case it creates a lot more work for everyone involved (since now you need to worry about niche language-barrier stuff like monsters not being able to Demoralize that character reliably or Point Out requiring a Perception check more often than not). It can be an interesting story element, it just takes a lot more effort to run. A similar concept that would probably be a lot easier is having the *entire party* not speak Common (save for maybe one member) in a region that predominantly speaks Common. (You can achieve similar results by just dropping a typical party somewhere where the common tongue isn't Common, as well.) This changes the dynamic from "How do we get this one weird party member up-to-speed with what's going on?" to "How do we, as a group, navigate this region without being able to communicate with the locals?", which is a lot more straightforward and doesn't make it feel like one specific party member is just an inconvenience. You still want the party to have at least one shared language, of course, because *everyone* having a language barrier with *everyone else* would just a massive headache to play. Though now that I think about it, that could maybe make for an interesting play-by-post style of game where the players aren't allowed to communicate with each other directly (i.e, any time a character speaks, listens to, or reads someting, the actual content of the information is exclusively between that player and the GM). That would probably be super impractical to actually run in practice, though.
That is odd that they outright only get one language, yeah. You'd think it'd be like humans where they get Common and 1+INT languages of their choice. Poppets and awakened animals technically have the same issue, but at least in their case I can understand the idea that they only recently became sapient so they haven't had the time to learn more than one language. Fleshwarps explicitly used to be members of a different ancestry though so I'm not sure what the reasoning is there.
I mean, you're asking for an extremely edge case scenario here to merit a line in a book. You need a player with a deliberately aberrant character concept, who has no spare languages and hence needs to swap rather than drop the unwanted language, to be playing with a GM who values either languages specifically or RAW in general that there needs to be a line in a Core book to specifically allow this option. Any player playing an unusual character concept should be talking to their GM anyway! I feel like it's a fairly common situation to be playing a character that would logically have different languages than the standard for their ancestry, namely because that's pretty much any backstory that doesn't involve said character growing up in a typical example of their ancestry's culture (e.g adopted by members of another culture, raised by wolves, stolen by fey as a baby, planar scion that was raised outside of the Universe, etc). One specific case that comes to mind is skeletons, which always only know Common and Necril by default. This means that all skeleton PCs, unless you specifically go out of your way to ask the GM to change your ancestry statblock, are sort of required to have a backstory that both involves completely forgetting their previous ancestry's language (but not Common) as well as having interacted with enough undead over a long enough period of time to learn Necril. That feels weirdly restrictive, because it makes it harder to do backstories like "I remember most of my past life and there's a specific goal connected to that that I want to accomplish". I feel like having a one-sentence patch that just explicitly allows players to *ask* the GM to swap out their languages would be a nice quality-of-life thing, is all. It's not that the lack of such an option is a Massive Problem That Makes The Game Literally Unplayable, it's just a small one-line change that'd be a nice addition to the game. Obviously you can already just ask your GM to change any of the game's rules if the table agrees that it would make the game more fun, but I feel like it's not unreasonable to want the rulebooks to specifically go "here is a knob that you can tweak if you want", instead of expecting the players and GM to figure that out for themselves. Page space isn't free, this is a minor swap below the level of "take a background but tweak it's description and granted Lore" and "change what spells an item that grants spells give". I mean, I don't know why you're bringing up those changes as if I was arguing against them. Those are also options that I would enjoy. I get that page space can be an issue, but A.) the proposed language-swapping thing would really need to be, like, two sentences at most, and B.) if there really isn't room in Player Core for that, they could always just have some kind of "variant background customization rules" section in a future book or something, like how Treasure Vault has a whole Complex Crafting section that provides a complete alternative to the default crafting rules. I don't care how specifically it gets added to the game, I just think it'd be a nice addition.
The ancestry system cares enough about "playing against type" for the variant attribute boosts (and, more recently, mixed heritages) to be a thing, at least. And I'm not saying "let players do this without requiring them to talk to the GM about it" so much as "have the rules specifically say you *can* ask the GM about it", which would give more leeway to players trying to come up with unusual character concepts while still giving the GM the option of a hard "no, I'm not allowing that". I also don't really think that languages are really more or less potent than each other in a vacuum; while Elven is theoretically "stronger" than halfling (since Elven society is both larger in scope and more likely to have, say, ancient magical artifacts or whatever), in practice whether or not a given language is useful depends on the campaign itself (e.g if the party is trying to track down a famous halfling hero, or if they're exploring some distant continent that elves have never laid foot on, then Elven is a less attractive option). I don't really think minmaxing language selection is something to really be concerned about.
I get the idea you're going for, but I feel like if a player's backstory involves them not growing up among members of their own culture, they'll just... not pick those feats. While a lot of ancestry feats are culture-based, there's just as many that are more based on physiology. This is less a mechanical concern than a "players might pick feats that don't make in-universe sense" concern, and I feel like that's kind of a non-issue since if a player is committed enough to their backstory concept to want to change their starting languages then they're almost certainly going to be paying equally close attention to their feat selection.
The First Rule is a generic rule that basically just means "you don't need to follow the rules written in the rulebooks if you think changing them would make the game more fun". Which is a good rule to follow, but at the same time it's also nice to have more specific cases that explicitly say "it's okay for you to change how this thing works" (e.g swapping out wizard curriculum spells, changing how spellcasting incantations work for nonverbal characters) because that specifically indicates that changing that rule won't have a negative effect on gameplay balanceThat's not how GM Fiat works. The game devs don't get to say that "It's okay for you to change how this thing works". That is up to the GM to decide. In all of those GM Fiat statements. No matter how general or specific they are. What? No, there's very definitely a lot of cases where the designers explicitly point out a rule and give guidance to GMs how they can adjust that rule for their tables and what impact that might have on the game. Hell, that's most of what the content in the Gamemastery Guide is.
I mean, sure, changing every ancestry to a generic "2+INT languages" would completely solve the problem that I'm having. But I don't *mind* that there's default languages listed for each ancestry, I just wish the rules more explicitly allowed you to swap those languages out for different ones. I guess technically speaking, sure, the change I'm proposing is really just "a GM fiat note" rather than a hard rule. But, like... is that a problem? GM fiat notes are good. It's good for GMs to have guidance for what kinds of changes they can make. Besides, this would be, like two sentences at most, so I wouldn't really expect it'd be a page-space concern or anything. I feel like this would just be a strictly beneficial change and it would be objectively better to have a small note than to have no mention of swapping languages at all.
Having it be a specific rule is nice for tables that want to stick closely to RAW. The First Rule is a generic rule that basically just means "you don't need to follow the rules written in the rulebooks if you think changing them would make the game more fun". Which is a good rule to follow, but at the same time it's also nice to have more specific cases that explicitly say "it's okay for you to change how this thing works" (e.g swapping out wizard curriculum spells, changing how spellcasting incantations work for nonverbal characters) because that specifically indicates that changing that rule won't have a negative effect on gameplay balance (as compared to, say, letting a character with only one arm wield a two-handed weapon, which is specifically disallowed in the rules for disabilities) and therefore GMs are more likely to allow those kinds of changes.
I know that you can generally work out these kinds of changes with the GM on a case-by-case basis, but I wish there was a rule you could specifically point to in this regard, you know? Having it be a specific rule is nice for tables that want to stick closely to RAW. I, personally, am the kind of person that likes following the rules to the letter (rigid structure is comforting to me), so having these kinds of minor adjustments explicitly spelled out as "okay if you have GM approval" is preferable to having it not mentioned, and instead needing to hope that the GM is fine with these kinds of small adjustments so that I can actually play the character concept I'm interested in playing.
From a purely mechanical standpoint, yes, it's better to know more languages than it is to know fewer languages. But sometimes you don't want your character to know a specific language because there's not a time in their backstory they logically could have learned it; e.g, an elf with the dromaar versatile heritage who was raised among orcs would be much more likely to speak Orcish than Elvish.
No, I think it's good that the ancestry statblocks list the default languages an ancestry should know. I just wish that swapping those languages out for something else was something the rules explicitly said you could do with GM permission. It's like how the default attribute boosts for dwarves (+CON, +WIS, -CHA) work well for "dwarf-y" classes like barbarian, cleric, or fighter, but you also have the option to swap them out if you want to play something that wouldn't be common in dwarven society, like a dwarf bard or dwarf wizard. Likewise, I think with languages we should have a similar option. It could be interesting to play a dwarf raised outside of dwarven culture, completely disconnected from their own people to the point of not speaking the same tongue, and exploring how that would affect their outlook on the world. I know that you can generally work out these kinds of changes with the GM on a case-by-case basis, but I wish there was a rule you could specifically point to in this regard, you know? Like how there's guidelines already for custom mixed heritages or long-term disabilities or altering undead player options to provide the full immunities of the Undead trait.
As in, some quick line of text somewhere saying something like "with the GM's permission, you can switch one or more languages from your ancestry with other languages you have access to." • This would make it easier to play characters with unusual backstories, such as being adopted by members of another culture, raised by wild animals or mythical creatures, or the like.
To put it in broad terms: Sorcerer is better at casting leveled spells (more spells in its repertoire, essentially double the spell slots per day, Blood Magic effects) while Psychic is better at casting cantrips (unique psi cantrips, amps, Unleash Psyche's damage bonus). There's nuance to be had in regards to other areas, of course; sorcerers can pick spell lists other than Occult, and both classes have their own unique array of class feats. But that's the general gist.
Also why are people calling it "Lazylord"? Is that just based on the 4e Warlord? The term "lazylord" specifically referred to a 4e warlord (or similar classes in other systems, though I think the term originated with 4e) that does no actual attacking themselves and instead focuses entirely on having their allies do the fighting on their behalf. In the case of PF2e commander, this would be accomplished by avoiding the Strike action in favor of tactics that allow allies to Strike (like Strike Hard! and Ready, Aim, Fire!). I haven't tested the class myself in an actual game, but looking at the playtest itself, it seems like it wouldn't be the worst idea to do this (the main advantage being that you can near-entirely dump STR/DEX in favor of other attributes). It's like playing a warpriest that dumps WIS; you're limiting your offensive options, but you're still effective at supporting your allies. That being said, I do think that it's probably *better* to be mixing in your own Strikes, since all of the "allow an ally to Strike" tactics seem to be two-action activities and that means that on turns where you want to use two actions for something else you won't be doing any damage at all. But I appreciate that the option is there to play a character that focuses on battlefield tactics without necessarily being a combatant themselves.
It feels like Commander is a much better class.. Defensive Swap, Standard Bearer's Sacrifice, and Reactive Interference all seem like they should be on the Guardian. Reactive Interference definitely feels more guardian than commander, but I can see it being on both. Though, for the record, it's one of those slightly-generic melee-combat feats that really feels like it could fit on most martials.
I'm less saying "Society doesn't fit with the commander class fantasy at all" and more "not all commanders would be trained in Society". Not all commanders would necessarily care about geopolitics, for instance; aside from the tribal example I've broguht up before, the class could also fit for the "brains" of a gang of thugs or something. (Not that street-thugs necessarily *shouldn't* be trained in Society, I guess, but my main point is mostly just that the class concept is a lot broader than just "large-scale military tactician" and I don't want potential character concepts to be limited only to "people who would reasonably be expected to be trained in Society".) Again, the Society skill is really focused on large-scale civilization. The Creature Identification rules say that trying to identify hags with Society might be at a higher DC, for instance, because despite having the Humanoid trait they "live outside of society". Even for characters that *do* live in a more traditional humanoid society, they might not care enough about the skill to actually be trained in it, e.g they might have focused all of their study on the logical side of warfare and have little to no knowledge of politics or interpersonal skills. My stance here really is just "I have ideas for commander character concepts where Society doesn't make sense for them to be trained in, so I don't want Society to be mandatory", and I really feel like that's not an unreasonable stance to have.
I'm less saying "Society doesn't fit with the commander class fantasy at all" and more "not all commanders would be trained in Society". Not all commanders would necessarily care about geopolitics, for instance; aside from the tribal example I've broguht up before, the class could also fit for the "brains" of a gang of thugs or something. (Not that street-thugs necessarily *shouldn't* be trained in Society, I guess, but my main point is mostly just that the class concept is a lot broader than just "large-scale military tactician" and I don't want potential character concepts to be limited only to "people who would reasonably be expected to be trained in Society".)
I'm not decided, but I feel it's worth saying that a tribal community is also a society. If you want to know anything about how to approach the other tribal communities in your forest/plain, you'd best know a thing or two about their societies. It doesn't strike me as especially odd. Perhaps a choice of "Society or ..." would be the best way to approach thus but then what other skill is as appropriate as understanding people for the skill of a tactical commander studying the art of warfare? Aside from the already present Warfare Lore, obviously. The Society skill seems like it mostly covers large-scale urban societies, given that it's used not only for Recall Knowledge and Decipher Writing checks but also for checks to Subsist in urban environments and Create Forgeries of legal documents. So, I don't think it's a good fit for characters unfamiliar with those kinds of institutions.
Class feats like Deceptive Tactics, Rapid Assessment, Shoulder Check, and Raise Haft seem like they could be a lot of fun on classes like barbarian, fighter, champion, or ranger. It would be nice for Battlecry! to give some of these feats to existing classes, especially since the new classes borrow some feats from existing classes as well (e.g commander has Combat Assessment from fighter and Reactive Interference from rogue). That's not to say I want *every* new feat that doesn't specifically rely on commander/guardian class features to be shared with other classes, of course, but many of these feats seem like they could be a lot of fun on more offensively-minded classes and I'd love to explore that.
Thought: some support for DEX builds might be nice. I get that the default theme of the class is a big guy in metal armor, but I think there's something to be said about the fantasy of a character who's annoyingly fast, constantly swatting away enemy attacks, and just generally getting in the way of whatever enemies are doing. (Champion has the option for DEX builds, as well, so it'd be nice to have some parity on that front.)
What I'm basically thinking is just that the Society skill doesn't really do anything for commanders in-combat beyond letting you Recall Knowledge about humanoid enemies, and there's other ways to go about that (the Warfare Expertise class feature, Lore skills about specific creatures, etc), so it's not the kind of skill that should be a hard requirement in the same way that something like Crafting is for an alchemist or Performance is for a bard. The skill makes sense for commanders that come from a background of organized military/mercenary service, of course, but commanders might also come from other backgrounds (tribal communities being the main thing that comes to mind) where that skill wouldn't make as much sense.
All the classes come with one (or more) pre-selected non-lore skill, or the choice between Athletics/Acrobatics in the specific case of Str/Dex classes. And yeah, it means that Sorcerers can't be clueless about magic, and that you can't make a Bard who is terrible at performing or an Investigator who doesn't know anything about people. That's just a feature of how the system works. I can't...All of that is covered by Warfare Lore, though (especially since commanders get a specific class feature to let them Recall Knowledge about most creatures with Warfare Lore). And I'm not saying "commanders shouldn't be allowed to be trained in Society at all", just that they shouldn't be trained in it *automatically*; maybe a character focuses on specific types of creatures and takes the Lore skills related to them, or they're leading a crusade against spellcasters so they choose to take the magical skills instead.But, your kobold knows how to herd different people into traps, as well as the different sorts of people to be wary of, including details like "who can see in the dark and who needs light". That's all Society knowledge too. If it comes with some extraneous knowledge, well, that's okay to ignore. This is a system where knowing how to fight undead also teaches you how to fight angels and proteans. Monks don't come with a predetermined skill, actually. In any case, I feel like Warfare Lore on its own is enough in regards to pre-trained skills; Society doesn't actually help with combat tactics (and like I said earlier, the class doesn't actually use it for any gameplay mechanics). It feels a little weird for it to be mandatory, in the same way it would be a little weird for wizards to automatically be trained in Society. That is to say, the skill fits the backstory for *some* wizards (because it's common for wizards to study history and hang out in academic circles and the like), but not for *all* of them (your isolated hermits and your self-taught outcasts and whatnot).
But, your kobold knows how to herd different people into traps, as well as the different sorts of people to be wary of, including details like "who can see in the dark and who needs light". That's all Society knowledge too. If it comes with some extraneous knowledge, well, that's okay to ignore. This is a system where knowing how to fight undead also teaches you how to fight angels and proteans. All of that is covered by Warfare Lore, though (especially since commanders get a specific class feature to let them Recall Knowledge about most creatures with Warfare Lore). And I'm not saying "commanders shouldn't be allowed to be trained in Society at all", just that they shouldn't be trained in it *automatically*; maybe a character focuses on specific types of creatures and takes the Lore skills related to them, or they're leading a crusade against spellcasters so they choose to take the magical skills instead.
A.) Not all commanders would necessarily have a good understanding of world history, high society, or legal institutions, whether because they just didn't study those topics or because they come from some isolated community on the fringes of society. (Personally, I'm looking forward to making a crossbow-wielding kobold commander at some point that focuses on traditional kobold-tribe combat tactics, e.g ambushes and herding enemies into traps.) Being automatically trained in Society somewhat restricts what character concepts you can fit into this class. B.) The class doesn't seem to actually use the Society skill for anything.
A new PF2 playtest was just announced on stream, for the Guardian and Commander classes - seemingly two new martials. It'll be fun to contrast the Commander with Envoys! Yeah, if commander ends up being the INT-based "tactician" class then I guess everything I just suggested in the post immediately above Isn't really necessary.
I definitely feel like envoy should get to pick INT (and *maybe* WIS) as its key ability. People have mentioned in this thread already that the class doesn't do a lot with CHA *mechanically*, but what I'm surprised that people haven't mentioned is that "provides guidance and support to allies in combat" isn't exclusively the thematic domain of CHA anyway. I'd love to to an INT-based envoy that leans really hard into Warfare Lore and focuses on ensuring my allies are safely moving from cover to cover, pinning down key targets, checking for flanking enemies, etc. The base class gets a few social-related abilities (e.g rerolling social skill checks once per day), so it'd be nice if there were other alternatives to those, as well. Maybe make different subclasses for different key abilities (like how psychic works with subconscious minds) and tie those kinds of abilities to that, instead of the core class?
I'd be shocked if draconic bloodline were the same, although it might be. I wouldn't expect much about the bloodline itself to change (in regards to bloodline skills, granted spells, bloodline spells, or blood magic effect). The Draconic bloodline as it is currently doesn't really conflict with the new dragons (or, at least, the new arcane dragons), and you already needed to pick a specific type of dragon for the bloodline anyway. It's not too much of a stretch to just keep it as it is currently, aside from your tradition matching the tradition of the dragon you chose. On the other hand, Wyrmblessed is already its own separate bloodline with a different tradition, different granted spells, and a different blood magic effect. What *might* happen is we might see different bloodlines for different dragon traditions? I'd prefer this, in my opinion, because that means the specifics of each bloodline can be tweaked to better fit the specific kinds of dragons they're based on.
By default, a familiar's modifier for most skill checks is just equal to your level. The Skilled familiar ability would increase this to your spellcasting attribute modifier plus your level for one skill of your choice. Partner in Crime doesn't care if the *familiar* is a master at the skill for the auto-critical success, though, it cares if *you're* a master.
It's also worth considering that it is the potency rune that makes a weapon magical, so a striking-only weapon won't work very well against creatures who are resistant to non-magical weapons (like ghosts). This feels like an oversight more than anything, if only because it results in the extremely specific situation of +0 Striking weapons (and, likewise, +0 Resilient armor) technically being nonmagical despite the Striking/Resilient runes having the Magical trait. This would also technically mean that any specific magic weapons/armor without a Potency rune would also technically be nonmagical. Though I don't know if there's any such weapons officially printed.
From an intuitive standpoint, it would be ridiculous if you couldn't smash open a door with a hammer, especially since doors often have specific AC and hit point values. I guess the problem is that there's an unstated expectation that the GM will adjudicate whether or not you can target any given object with an effect that specifically targets creatures. Though given that objects are specifically immune to certain effects, I think it's probably fine for a GM to allow most creature-targeting spells to also work on unattended objects. Though, on the other hand, being TOO loose with object targeting might cause some unforeseen loopholes. For instance, Chain Lightning normally only targets creatures, but if a GM allows you to target objects as well, you could theoretically use the spell to damage one creature and also smash apart every single door in the room so that nobody needs to Interact to open them later on in the fight.
I just find the restriction of d6 Martial Weapons silly, please make it d8 in a future Errata just because the Aldori Dueling Sword is a one-handed d8 finesse weapon...Or I've see Elven Curve Blade rogue before. You can Sneak Attack with those weapons anyway, though, because they have the Finesse trait. The damage-dice limit for ruffian weapons only applies to weapons that lack the Agile or Finesse traits. Outside of a rare few exceptions, all weapons with the Agile/Finesse trait(s) are limited to d4/d6 damage dice. So putting a d6 cap on martial ruffian weapons seems to be an intentional design choice to prevent ruffians from immediately outclassing all the other rackets in terms of damage output. d8 simple weapons work, of course, but the trade-off there is that the few d8 simple weapons that exist generally don't have any weapon traits. (The longspear has Reach and the thundermace has Backswing, but that's about it.) So your base damage is higher in exchange for your weapons not having other useful traits that d6 martial weapons might have.
The text for Snagging Strike has always been a bit confusing, and it looks like the reprinted version in Player Core 1 is identical (aside from replacing "flat-footed" with "off-guard"). Here's the text of the feat, as a refresher:
My point of confusion: what does "within the reach of your hand" mean here, exactly? I need to have a hand free to use Snagging Strike itself, of course, but what about afterwards? Is my hand now occupied, or does my target just need to stay within that hand's unarmed reach? Snagging Strike isn't a "real" grapple (i.e, it doesn't impose the Grabbed or Restrained conditions), but is the design intent that I'm keeping the target flat-footed with a loose grip, or just that my initial attack involved a quick pull on the arm or something and they're just off-balance until they take a few steps away from me? I've searched several places online for an answer about this, and nobody else seems to be able to come to a consensus either. This is frustrating, because this seems like a fairly essential feat for a free-hand fighter build, and that's the exact build where knowing what your hands are being used for is important. For instance...
If anyone has a definitive ruling on this feat, I'd like to hear it.
This is pretty true, is there any attacks that let you attempt a disarm? The main thing that comes to mind is Disarming Twist (a 10th-level fighter feat, also available at 12th level from the Duelist archetype).
Any word on if investigator is getting the remaster treatment? All of the Advanced Player's Guide classes (as well as the Core Rulebook classes that weren't in Player Core 1) are going to be in Player Core 2. They haven't announced any specific changes to investigator yet, though.
From the standpoint of a STR-based fighter, yes, definitely. From the standpoint of a DEX-based fighter... still yes, but the STR-based fighter does pretty much everything that the DEX-based fighter does (in regards to melee combat specifically), and it does it the same or better. It'd be nice for fighters to have a few melee-focused feats that reward high DEX or something. At the very least it'd be nice to see some DEX-based skill feats that are more directly useful in melee combat; the only one that really comes to mind is Kip Up, and that doesn't really interact with your DEX itself, it just requires master Acrobatics. I think in the broad sense I'd just like to see more options overall for DEX-based melee builds. (Without making STR obsolete, of course.)
Something I'll say about swashbuckler is that I think Panache is too specific flavor-wise. Swashbuckler and rogue are really the only frontline martials that are designed with DEX-based melee combat in mind, and since rogue is so reliant on Sneak Attack, swashbuckler is your main option if you just want to focus on fighting your foes head-on with a finesse melee weapon. The problem is that swashbuckler also kind of expects you to act like an intentionally flashy show-off, and Panache's mechanics reflect that in a few ways (gaining Panache from non-style-related skill checks to do something flashy, for example). This is perfect for the "typical" swashbuckler that *does* want to go out of their way to look cool in fights, but it makes the class kind of clash with characters whose personalities are more serious and practical-minded. That's not to say I don't like the classic, show-offy swashbuckler aesthetic, of course, but I think the class could benefit from *not* having that be the sole default flavor. It would be nice to have room for other character concepts, like a tribal skirmisher or a cold-and-methodical fencer. (Though an alternative solution might just be to leave Panache as-is and instead give fighter more support for DEX-based melee builds somehow.)
Honestly, I don't think Soldiers having their weapon attacks scale on CON is especially crucial. As things are currently, a Soldier can ignore STR and DEX entirely. They use CON for their weapon attacks, and they also use CON to qualify for armor proficiency and add it to their Bulk limit. The prospect of the "optimal" soldier build being a beefy brick wall who can't throw a good punch and trips over their feet if they don't keep a close eye on them is, to be frank, a bit goofy. I like having a martial that can key CON, but I don't like the prospect of them *just* needing CON and nothing else. What I think I'd like to see is the idea that, while a DEX-based martial would have a higher DC with Area ranged weapons, a Soldier gets the benefits of being able to Suppress targets that fail their saves (and all their other class features and feats related to Area weapons, of course). It's like how Thaumaturge only starts at 16 STR/DEX, but is still an extremely effective martial just because of the tools they have to make their attacks more effective. (Though with more of a focus on support and AoE in Soldier's case, rather than raw damage output.)
Something I noticed is that Area weapons (or Automatic weapons using Automatic Fire) base their accuracy off of class DC, rather than proficiency with the weapon itself. This seems unintuitive, in the sense that a class that's good at using weapons but doesn't have an outstanding class DC is weirdly mediocre at using shotguns and the like compared to single-target weapons. This mainly sticks out to me in the context of classes like Fighter and Gunslinger that get better-than-normal weapon proficiencies but fairly standard class DC. (I'm aware those are Pathfinder classes, but the fact that Soldier is explicitly designed to not encroach on Fighter's design space suggests to me that the basic game mechanics are still designed around the existence of these classes to some extent.) A potential solution (aside from adjusting class DC scaling itself) could be to either have these weapons work like the Blast property works in PF1e (where the attacker makes an attack roll against each target in the area, rather than each target making a saving throw), or else have the saving throw be against a DC equal to the target's attack bonus + 10 (similar to how skill/save-based DCs work). Though that's just my immediate thoughts, so I'm unsure if that could cause other problems somehow. |
