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Additionally, the initial dedication states, "Your familiar gains the normal number of abilities for a familiar instead of those a witch familiar normally gets." This indicates to me that there is difference in base quality between a standard and witch familiar. Strictly based on wording, I don't think the familiar granted by the archetype has the undying ability.So while I think there's an argument to be made in general, one point of clarification is that undying isn't a familiar ability. The point I was trying to make was primarily the distinction between "familar" and "witch familiar" but overall I think just about everyone is on the same page that even in the case that the familiar doesn't have undying by RAW, it's a terrible ruling and should be ignored.
The Resentment Witch is brutal. That familiar extension ability makes them maybe the best debuffer in the game. Evil Eye is better now too. Sickened is a better condition and harder to remove. Yeah, the Resentment patron alone has me thinking, "Hex Witch is back! Time to spam hexes and ignore all my spell slots!" Lol. Back to the topic of the familiar gained from the Witch archetype, I did want to point out that the familiar granted is referred to only as a "familiar" and not a "witch familiar". This makes me believe that the familiar you gain is just a bog standard familiar without any special features unique to the witch. Additionally, the initial dedication states, "Your familiar gains the normal number of abilities for a familiar instead of those a witch familiar normally gets." This indicates to me that there is difference in base quality between a standard and witch familiar. Strictly based on wording, I don't think the familiar granted by the archetype has the undying ability. However, RAI is another thing and considering you need your familiar to prepare your spells every day, having your familiar unavailable for an entire week can void this entire dedication (assuming you took it primarily for the spellcasting). If the developers' intent was to not give the Witch dedication's familiar the undying ability, I think they need to reassess.
Did the Rogue Dedication's granting of light armor proficiency change to match the change to the Armor Proficiency feat or does it also still not increase in proficiency? Yeah, Rogue dedication starts you off with trained but with no further advancement. It still gives you all the other goodies at least, whereas I still think the initial Fighter dedication is only slightly better than training in a single skill on its own.
I really like the change to the Weapon Proficiency general feat but the initial Fighter Dedication and Diverse Weapon Expert haven't changed at all to compensate. This especially makes Diverse Weapon Expert a complete waste now that it costs a class/free archetype feat but now only has the value of half of a general feat (assuming your character is 1 of the VERY few classes that might even want it in the first place). Also, unless I missed something significant, talismans still look completely underwhelming.
I wouldn't mind an anathema mechanic on Animist to balance for power. It could easily work the same way as the taboo mechanic on the PF1 Medium. Maybe disperse an apparition if its taboo is broken and the duration of dispersion depends in how egregious the taboo violation was.
Apparition's Quickening becomes significantly less balanced due to lacking a 1/hour timer or something similar, as Animist players can and will just burn all of their spirits in the Boss Fight to spam Quicken with no repercussions in most cases. Yeah this is probably the biggest problem with the feat. I agree a 1/hour or even 1/10 minutes limit would be best.
I played a level 5 Orc channeler Animist with an occult Witch multiclass. Through the playtest I participated in 5 encounters, 1 of which was a complex trap. I dabbled with 5 of the 6 currently available apparitions: Custodian, Imposter, Stalker, Steward and Witness. Chassis-wise, I’m glad there’s finally a wisdom based class I want to play. Survivability feels mid-tier. I can survive a hit or 2 but can’t stay in the front lines for long unless I’m properly buffed. I think the class should end up with master in will saves and REFLEX saves and expert in fortitude. The class feels like more of a mobile class than a sturdy one. This also will more easily enable the freedom to invest in strength over dexterity. As far as skills go, unless the remaster lets religion cover things like spirits and ethereal creatures, I really think the Animist should start with training in occultism or get Additional Lore (Spirits or Ethereal) for free from the start. Everything else with their current skills feels appropriate. Weapon proficiencies also feel appropriate, no complaints there.
There are a few feats that stand out for good or bad. Sustaining Dance really is a huge boon in the strained action economy of this class, especially for the channeler which will be spending even more actions to swap apparitions and more likely to be sustaining multiple spells. It’s one of those must-haves to the point that it needs to either be built into the chassis, removed altogether or equally good feats need to be available alongside it. The wandering feat trait, I love. These are a huge part of what makes the Animist unique. Do not get rid of these, please. As stated before, Soul Synchronization needs to be built into the sage practice no later than level 9 but possibly right at level 1. Wind Seeker and Fly on Shadowed Wings kinda both do the same thing so 2 of them kinda feel like a waste of page space where another interesting feat could go. Apparition’s Quickening MIGHT be broken…but you’re giving up a lot everyday though to get extra uses of quickened spell so it might be balanced still. Cardinal Guardians doesn’t seem to have an effect that matches the name of the feat, but this is a minor nit-pick. I’m not sure Soul Cycle is worth an 18th level class feat slot but most of the stance feats are 16th level so….maybe? The more I think about it, the more I feel like this would be great if the 16th level wandering feats were at 14th level so by the time you could take this at 18th, you could possibly have 2 or 3 stances to swap between and at 20th, 3-4 stances. Vessel Spells:
Additional Thought:
My GM is currently ruling that you cannot cast multiple copies of a sustained spell. I can understand where he's coming from but he believes it to at least be RAI if not RAW. I'm wondering if anybody might have a source to support the RAI ruling. This will have some impact on my review of the Animist playtest.
You seem to have missed the part where prepared and apparition spellcasting would use the same slots: every prepared spell you cast would mean a spontaneous spell you wouldn't be able to cast, and vice versa. The Animist would therefore have fewer spell slots than they currently have now, even if those spell slots would be more flexible. After playing with the spellcasting, I do think 3 slots would be broken but I think with 2 slots it would be on par with where it is now, power wise. As complicated as it is though, I think I'd rather just have the 2+2 for longevity. I could live with the 2 slot/level hybrid or flexible or whatever it'd ultimately be referred to.
The main choices in build are the Apparitions. I expect we will have several more in the final version. My point is that apparitions don't really affect a character build much since every Animist will have access to every apparition from day-to-day currently. If your friend says they are building an Animist, other "channeler or sage", the class kind of says it all. It's like...they have subclasses but only 2 and there's nothing that really makes them significantly distinct from each other, other than 1 being able to swap apparitions for an action while the other can't. I mean... that's a big deal but I guess it's just not thematically distinct enough.... It's not like how an Alchemist can choose different research fields. Even Fighters can be differentiated between 1-handers, 2-handers, archers, sword and shield and possibly some other variations and those aren't even actual subclasses. I could be wrong but that's how I'm feeling about class variety with the Animist right now.
Something like that, maybe. Though, I would expect that Channeler players would want something like Multifarious Muse so that they can get it too.Could the same be said for Bard and Inspire Courage? Lingering Composition is also a very commonly picked feat. Is it as much of a must-pick as is being claimed for Sustaining Dance?Yes, but maestro Bard gets it automatically...so what you're saying is the sage should automatically get sustaining dance, right? ;) You could just...give the ability to sages and not make it a feat... XD If the sage really is the more martially inclined, that might be best as I think a martial is going to care more about placement than a caster due to more limited ranges. Also, they could make it to where you can either step or leap then sustain OR sustain then leap or step.
I've noticed something when building my playtest Animist. It was too easy. As far as the class portion went, I felt like I didn't have to make a lot of choices in my build because my choices were going to be made during play, not during the character build process. This also isn't helped by the wandering trait feats but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PAIZO DON'T MAKE THIS AN EXCUSE TO GET RID OF THOSE! I LOVE THEM! Anyway.... I got to thinking about ways to fix this and my idea reminded me of how Kineticist gates worked in the playtest. They had 3 which let them focus on 1, 2 or all elements. I'm really not sure if my idea works anything close to the same but it might help others understand where I'm going with this so that's why I use the comparison. First, let's assume we are going to end up with about double the number of apparitions we currently have, so 12. So currently we have the channeler that can swap apparitions for a single action and the sage which can swap apparitions while refocusing. What if we also had an Animist practice that also only let you swap apparitions day-to-day. Now, for the part that would enable a lot more build variety: What if Animists did not immediately have access to every apparition but only a number of apparitions and as they progressed in levels, they gained access to more apparitions but if their practice gave them more flexibility in apparitions throughout the day, they had access to less apparitions overall. As far as attuned apparitions go, every Animist practice should probably be limited to close to about the same as the playtest has set up now, maybe with variations within practices as well. For example:
Sage would start with access to about 4 to 6 and end with access to 8 or 10 by the end and would still be able to swap primaries during refocusing. Might be able to attune to about 2/3s of their accessed apparitions on a day-to-day. The third practice would start with access to 6 or 8 but eventually could access all 12 but is limited to only 1 primary per day. However, it might be limited to attuning to maybe only about 1/3 of their accessible apparitions per day. I might be completely off base here but I just wanted to know if anyone also found build variety limited in the class and if so, if my idea sounds like a nice way around that.
Could the same be said for Bard and Inspire Courage? Lingering Composition is also a very commonly picked feat. Is it as much of a must-pick as is being claimed for Sustaining Dance? Yes, but maestro Bard gets it automatically...so what you're saying is the sage should automatically get sustaining dance, right? ;)
Yeah my play experience versus expectations of the spellcasting were very different. I picked a some bad divine spells for the coming situations and some of my apparition spells were also inappropriate although one was perfect for one encounter. I also suggest playing without any metagame knowledge before making a final judgment.
I feel like Thaumaturge with Champion dedication comes close to most versatile. Definitely take tome for skills and wand or lantern for extra magic or exploration respectively. Champion can cover healing, party defenses and offers attack of opportunity. It also gives enough heavy armor proficiency for early levels. Thaumaturge will need to invest in scroll feats to keep up on actual magic. I think that touches on competence in just about everything but they're not gonna be the best at anything except knowledge checks.
Yeah, the Fighter's class budget is spent almost entirely on offensive combat and anything that's not is still directly related to combat. Something like the Barbarian deviates slightly and still compensates to coming close with their rage damage but it doesn't quite match the Fighter because they have a bit of utility and somewhat improved defenses (mainly in the form of higher HP, better fort saves and shrugging off conditions). Ignoring archetypes, the only thing the Fighter will be able to excel at out of combat depends on what skills they have chosen, and their skills are baseline. As many have said before, the Fighter fights. It's in the name.
Oh, shoot! I forgot all about that aspect of it. Yeah, that needs fixed. Hopefully if they didn't get that in the remaster, hopefully it gets errata'd soon after.
I think the frustration with the action economy I was experiencing was due to using embodiment of battle, which requires an additional action to strike to make any use of it at all. Darkened forest form is also the same in needing to take additional actions to make it worthwhile, as does river carving mountains needing a stride. The trouble with garden of healing and discomf[xxx]ing whispers is you need to position yourself well which sustaining dance helps immensely but is still a bit of a requirement. Earth's bile is the only one where you can take that single casting or sustain action and not need to take any additional action or worry about your own positioning. So currently for a channeler, for 3 of the vessel spells (battle, forest form, river), if you are already sustaining a vessel spell and want to swap and start running another one in tandem, you need to spend an entire turn (sustain, swap, cast vessel spell) just to get any payoff on the following turn. 2 others (garden and whispers) might need a similar rotation if you didn't take sustaining dance. Only 1 (earth's bile) will hardly ever require you to take additional actions to get results though you still need your party to position themselves so they don't get damaged.
I was on healing duty sustaining my garden of healing and keeping everyone topped off but near the end I spent 3 turns to sustain, change apparitions, cast embodiment of battle, sustain twice, grip my bastard sword with 2 hands, sustain twice again and FINALLY strike...but when I did, that single strike actually did more damage than everyone else was able to do collectively due to the damage resistance cancelling out so much of the d8 attacks vs my d12.The above example, which the poster concluded was fun, does not sound appealing at all to me. Spending three turns until he finally attacked? And it's not a function of being a Channeler animist that let him do some awesome amount of damage, he wielded a d12 weapon instead of a d8 weapon with a +1 status bonus to hit and damage. Or you could have been a bard with Soothe and fighter MCD and accomplished the same thing except also given your allies +1 to hit and damage. Lol. No, spending 3 actions to make a single strike wasn't the fun part. That was the hilarious part and purely based on how it really wasn't fun but there was no real immediate threat in a seemingly dangerous situation and my character was more or less asking the party to be patient as he slow-poked his way to doing their job better PURELY cuz he brought a higher base damage weapon. The fun part was being able to swap but I learned it is so demanding of action economy that it's not feasible to sustain 2 vessel spells at once, so you really need to make the right decision if the situation is pulling at you in 2 directions.
Yeah, this is my main reason for wanting built-in familiar feats. I'm not gonna campaign for it but it feels somewhat appropriate if they have the page space available.
My one worry is that they will substantially change action economy after playtest. That would invalidate a whole lot of the Playtest feedback. I haven't participated in a playtest since Thaumaturge, but if I remember correctly, Paizo usually ends up overall buffing the final printing. This might end up being the first instance of them not doing that but I trust they will give us an equally (if not more) enjoyable final product that plays mostly the same. I'm sure they know that we like it so far and they'll more specifically target what individual parts the majority likes/dislikes the most, keep/throw out those respectively and balance as needed.
I think this was my biggest pain point. If swapping apparitions was cut to 0 actions but limited to once per 10 minutes, those 3 turns I pointed out in my previous comment would have been cut down to 2, and again, all I was trying to do was strike with a 2-handed weapon. I know my situation was very specific and might not be the best example but...I don't know....I'm starting to get the impression that maybe having two vessel spells active is not the way this class wants to typically play unless you're trying to just keep up supportive aura vessel spells. Channeler might appear super strong but in practice might be paying a very high price with their action economy, especially when they plan on sustaining 2 vessel spells. I think it's ideal usage is just to be able to swap apparitions when the one you have is definitely not fit for the current situation and not to take on 2 roles at once and be expected to use them effectively at the same time. Sage definitely still needs a buff though. It's starting off with way too situational abilities, whereas the channeler is like the complete opposite of that. Still, it might be the most dynamic class I've seen which makes it super fun.
I just had a similar experience. The party was having a heck of a time getting past damage resistance (our martials were a Champion and Anger Phantom). I was on healing duty sustaining my garden of healing and keeping everyone topped off but near the end I spent 3 turns to sustain, change apparitions, cast embodiment of battle, sustain twice, grip my bastard sword with 2 hands, sustain twice again and FINALLY strike...but when I did, that single strike actually did more damage than everyone else was able to do collectively due to the damage resistance cancelling out so much of the d8 attacks vs my d12. Our buffs were winding down and we were free to retreat which we did but I found it hilarious that I was able to pull off some good damage even though it was a huge hassle. My main concern is that encounters are typically much quicker and this encounter was a complex hazard that was going nowhere fast and I'm worried that the channeler Animist might take too long to swap apparitions effectively. Sure, the swapping to a 2-hand grip could have been done ahead of time, but positioning is also a very vital part of this class that is going to eat up actions for striding at times.
I'm with PossibleCabbage. To me, a Binder sounds like a class that enforces servitude, particularly of normally oppositional entities (fiends and aberrations), a lot like a Summoner without the buddy dynamic. I know the 3.5 Binder wasn't quite that but it did have a bit of the implication of forcing the target spirits to empower the character.
The Animist has obvious similarities and inspiration from the PF1 Shaman. I was wondering if people think if the typical familiar feats should be added as feat options to the class or perhaps even tacked on to a future subclass alongside channeler and sage or if adding a familiar at all would make the class feel too much like a Witch.
To be fair to everyone, I am thinking Teridax did not mean for all of their criticisms and suggested changes to be a collective. What I mean by that is, I think their criticisms were things that should not ALL remain as is and that their suggestions were ideas that should maybe be implemented individually and not as a whole. I think the negative responses were based on a misunderstanding that Teridax wanted to gut out a lot of what made the class unique and turn it into a slightly different Cleric. Considering the nature of internet forums, again, there was a breakdown of communication (which is not uncommon in this format) and a lack of tone which can make initial comments come off more abrasive than intended and snowball into honest hurt feelings which were not intended. Plus, one's habits and experiences from other forums can transfer into this one with less than ideal outcomes (that goes for everyone). I honestly first thought Teridax was either trolling or ignorant but I now believe that there was just a misunderstanding and they had already become defensive for understandable reasons as previous conversations developed and I think we are both on good (or at least neutral) terms despite prior disagreements and hope others can reach the same conclusion as well.
I already thought the Witch dedication before the remaster was already pretty good on any intelligence based class since it allowed you to pick any spellcasting tradition and saved you a feat when investing in a familiar. Nothing major though. With the remaster, it's now giving the following: - Near equal scaling to prepared spellcasting of any tradition for any spellcasting class (assuming you keep investing in intelligence) - From an educated guess based on the reveal of the double, double feat, cauldron gives you 1 temporary potion through most levels, will give 2 at 15 once you reach master, 3 at 19 with legendary and then if you do take double, double at 20, that turns into a total of 6 potions. I'm not sure if there will be a change in how the potions will scale compared to the current temporary potions feat, but this seems like a huge buff for the dedication in high levels. - Ceremonial knife has a flat scaling, dependent purely on your character level. It lets you create a wand at a negligible price every day and in comparison to your Witch dedication spellcasting, effectively lets you cast an additional spell at the highest possible level twice per day. Again, this is another feat isn't even available on the Witch dedication until later, at level 12, but it's arguably worth taking before expert witch spellcasting. There may be further amazing options for lower level feats that have not been completely revealed yet but what I've already seen has me very excited and I expect the dedication shouldn't overshadow the Witch as a base class, so that's even more good news. Great job, Paizo!
You know, generally speaking, if I'm in a fight, I'm not gonna hold back for fear of "overshadowing" the guy next to me. <shrug> If the guy next to you is a Witch choosing to close in on an enemy to attack with their living hair, yes, overshadow that fool all you want. If the guy next to you is a standard (not even optimized) Fighter, you have some issues with design if you are easily able to overshadow them without them being severely debuffed.
That's an interesting idea for vessel spell implementation. Not a bad idea either. Has a totemist feel which feels appropriate to the class (unless I'm just being completely ignorant on that point). An idea that sprung to mind to me was to add a mechanic that tied a particular and relevant spell to each vessel spell and allow the vessel spell to be cast for 0 actions so long as the spell tied to it was cast to benefit an ally. For example, heroism could be tied to embodiment of battle, so basically, if you give heroism to your party's Fighter, you can cast embodiment of battle for 0 actions (still spending the focus point and needing to sustain later). Sure, it might be overpowered in terms of action economy but it is also encouraging you to not chance overshadowing the primary striker at the same time. This might be something that should only be allowed once per encounter and possibly cost 2 focus points but I think it'd add something powerful and highly in favor of the party as a whole....though this might end up overshadowing the Bard...
From what I've glanced over (cuz I don't have time to read every thing at the moment), it seems earth's bile is widely considered to be too strong and needs its damage cut back or at least limited to 1 active casting.
Unfortunately, that level of compromise is not something everyone in this discussion is prepared to make. Without pointing fingers, at least one person in this discussion has repeatedly insisted upon having the Animist be "flexible and on-par with other classes", with frequent mentions to equalling specialist classes at their specialty (they even frame this as "equality"). That's not really asking to be at a 3 relative to others, that's asking to be at a 4, potentially even multiple 4s. While they are certainly the most vocal in making those demands, they are also shadowed by this tiny coterie of people who keep favoriting their messages and sometimes pick arguments with dissenters, which to me suggests there are in fact several people feeling that exact same sense of entitlement. This is why discussion has, in my opinion, failed to advance... I think (and again, I may be wrong) this might be just a break down in communication. I personally believe "on-par" means average and nothing especially above. They want the capability of hitting about as often as say a Thaumaturge, they want to maybe gain up to master proficiency in a chosen non-lore skill day-to-day, they want to maybe survive or even block a solid crit and 1 hit and still have the chance to back off and not be completely taken out of a fight in that one round. I hope that is what they have meant by "on-par" and of course, those abilities should not be always on all at once and need to cost the appropriate resources and actions. I hope this has really just been a failure to communicate fully and properly and that that majority, if not all of us, want mostly the same things. |
