John R.'s page

I don't reccomend this bit. Raise a tome is only valuable for its circumstance bonus to recall knowledge, which your Charisma magus will not be good at. You are much better off investing in an actual shield.

Damn, you're right. It's really no different than just using a shield at that point it seems. Still, I was looking forward to blocking with my spellbook as a representation of my character's lack of appreciation for education, so I might just stick with it anyway.

Ok, that's all what I thought. Thank you all. Plan is to make an intimidating brute out of a magus and utilize ancestral memories to make my spells stronger than a typical magi's. Gonna go sparkling targe and use my tome as a shield for tankiness.

I'm not a huge magus fan but I decided to build one using the sorcerer archetype and dumped intelligence. Since the magus can just land any of their magus spell attacks with their weapon and scale any other non-spellstrike offensive spells with their sorcerer spells, this is a completely viable build right? Or am I missing something major for why a magus NEEDS to invest in intelligence?

Hello all, this is my first time on this board, so if I'm posting in the wrong place please let me know!

That aside I was wondering if it's possible to build a Goblinmancer. Same idea as a Necromancer, controlling minions, buffing them, summoning stronger minions, the general gist.

Is there a way to do this with Goblins?

Thanks.

I have no idea if there is any 3rd party material that would cover this but reflavoring the necromancer (only released as playtest currently) would probably do the trick.

Instant backup seems to serve the same purpose as quick draw, advantage that it's a reaction, but less used as a QuickDraw would be. Not sure if both are worth the feat, one should serve.

I would think Quick Draw is for when you misfire, so Instant Backup, being slightly more action efficient, would just replace Quick Draw once it becomes available. I may be wrong in my thinking though.

A suggestion for your excellent guide would be to pen down some ideas for builds (not too detailed). Like some suggested approaches to character ideas you yourself like.

I've contemplated it plenty. I'm just not sure how to format the builds to keep them short yet thorough and consistent and whether or not to apply free archetype for the builds. Of all the classes, this is the one to have the most build possibilities I think.

Not my favorite reaction, but it does work when you have a weapon loaded indeed.

It looks as if a thrower is a lot easier to build and play, a lot less feats needed to build. Throwers bandoleer and QuickDraw (or similar) would be needed, or like mentioned earlier, the exemplar with the shadow sheath. Quick draw is easy to get with a rogue archetype which is useful anyway. Tamral chakram with unconventional weaponry seems like a very good weapon.

Any thoughts for a thrower build next to the above?

I was honestly kinda liking the idea of the gunslinger thaumaturge you were going with (that's OK, I'll steal it for myself :P). A final comment on that one though: one other really good reaction I saw for this particular build was Instant Backup. It isn't particularly proactive but it's got you covered if you ever misfire.

I JUST propositioned my group on playing a mixed system party to see if it'd be balanced and essentially open up a huge chunk of new classes all at once. It'd also allow for a more gonzo vibe to the game which is fun. Hoping to find out here in the next couple months.

You really need to think about your reactions, because that's a semi-reliable 4th action. Your best choices are:

- weapon implement/implement's interuption (5th level): very good, but only against your Exploit Vulnerability target

- fighter archetype/reactive strike (4th level): decide whether this is worth 3 feats

- marshal archetype/reactive strike (8th level): this archetype complements the regalia, but delays your reaction until 8th level

- champion archetype/champion's reaction (6th level): you have your choice of Causes, and hence reactions, and you can take Lay on Hands at 4th. And lay on hands gets you a focus point.

I suggest you go with something like:

Free Archetype: Champion
Normal Archetype: Marshal

That gets you two reactions by 8th level, which should be enough to increase your effective actions/round to nearly 4.

They might as well make a completely different build at that point.

Emphasis mine. Implements Empowerment is not an action from the implement (it's from the class). That's why its something you'll need to verify with your GM.

I think you're mixing up Implements Empowerment with Intensify Vulnerability. The argument is relatively the same though. However, since each implement has its own Intensify Vulnerability effect, the action is arguably attached to the implement and not the class itself.

Glad you found my guide useful!

I agree with a lot of the other comments here. I think your individual choices aren't bad but you're going to need to make some concessions or build a particular way to make it work.

Tome and regalia together isn't necessarily bad but you will need to not have access to half of the tome's abilities unless you want to spend an action to swap. This really will only be an issue from levels 5-8 though. Once you get Intensify Invulnerability... well the regalia's effect is crap compared to the tome's so it's not a perfect fix but it's an improvement.

Next is the issue with the gun. Powers128 is exactly right. I think you NEED Risky Reload to facilitate your build.

It's fine that you want to add a spellcasting dedication as well but since they don't start scaling well until mid/late levels, it should be perfectly fine to start out gunslinger, nab your 3 feats, then go into spellcasting.

It's not an optimal build (and it doesn't need to be) but it should be perfectly functional as long as you don't allow your build to obliterate your action economy, which taking the build path I suggest should help fix.

Basically, the bard would feel a lot more bard-like if it were purely about some kind of performance and less a hodgepodge of abilities that make for a powerful but unfocused character concept.

I personally like the bard being the spellcasting jack-of-all-trades as opposed to rogue being the martial side of that coin. Bards being full spellcasters in recent editions (5e being the other) does make them feel a bit too busy but I still dig it.

Animist. It lets me access a wide variety of playstyles in a single character. I'm the kind of person who has so many characters I want to play but the inability to play most of them, so being able to swap from blaster to martial to controller to sneak to healer depending on my mood is a godsend.

The hard coded bit is what makes me doubtful. I've seen so many devs shoot themselves in the foot by building a non modular system and then when they need to change something they simply can't without redoing the whole thing. This is often ten times worse for moders trying to use that system.

While I think Larian are likely better off then most as BG3 runs off the same engine setup they have for DoS2, so could be fairly easy to modify.

I'm very interested in how/if they get summoner or Witch working, some mechanics are going to be hard if nothing similar is in the game.
Also would be great if they create or use an expansive ancestry list to the mod.

Oh, I would no way expect them to implement something like summoner. Whether or not it's possible, I'm not sure but I'd only expect the same classes PF2 shares with 5e. Witch looks to be fully completed but they also added kinteticist as a warlock alternative. I'm really surprised about them adding kineticist. Overall I expect this mod to have the basics covered adequately(minus alchemist). Anything else is pie in the sky at the moment.

OrochiFuror wrote:

I have a hard time imagining it working, but will check it out sometime and hopefully be surprised.

Well, there are sure some bugs and not everything is exactly like in the books (also because it's a videogame) and something can't be changed because of dnd's and bg3's specifics, but a huge lot of pf2 is really there.

Even the base game had to deviate from 5e due to the limitations of video game capability vs a proper GM. Other deviations were just flat out improvements of the system. I'm confident with more work and assets added, this mod could seamlessly apply the PF2 base rules enough that it could be all but officially considered a PF2 video game, no less than BG3 is considered a 5e video game.

John R. wrote:

Additionally, Sympathetic Vulnerabilities exists. That’s what it is for! I cannot think of more than 1 encounter off the top of my head where there were multiple enemies and there weren’t multiple copies of the same creature, usually teamed up with a leader. You should either be focusing down the leader or have Sympathetic Vulnerabilities so you can save your actions for other worthwhile things...like spellcasting.

This is largely a nitpick, but Sympathetic Vulnerabilities only affecting non-humanoids with Personal Antithesis means I can name a number of encounters off the top of my head where its not helpful. If your campaign is largely focused around mortal or giant enemies, such as Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, your Thaumaturge will be a little worse off action economy wise. The feat is still absolutely worth it, but a lot of discourse and guides on Thaumaturge I see seem to skip over that detail.

Good catch! I need to make note of that.

A spellcasting archetype can't be a trap option. For an option to be a trap option it must somehow be misleading, which spellcasting archetypes are not.

Splitting hairs a bit but I think the "trap" part is the class being charisma based and giving extra bumps to spell tradition skills.

I think people are conflating my arguments as more of why a spellcasting dedication is "best" or "optimal" and not just "good". Some people definitely seem way more geared to optimization, particularly when pointing out highly specific uncommon/rare options (never looked at spirit warrior until now and WOW that IS good on a weapon thaumaturge). I'm coming from the angle of functionality of a broad concept (thaumaturge with spellcasting archetype) versus specific optimized build (x ancestry/y heritage dex thaum with a and b implements and z archetype). Ultimate goal is, "Do you want to play a thaumaturge with a spellcasting archetype? Don't let anyone dissuade you for these reasons."

The only one I would look at more is #6.

Exploit Vulnerability is more than just turning on the additional weakness damage...

Good point but point 7 somewhat negates that point as well.

I'm gonna be honest: I didn't know "spellcasting is a bad archetype on Thaumaturge" was a position people were taking.

Lately, it's been popping up occasionally on reddit and on a content creator's video about how the weakness of the thaumaturge class is action economy, therefore a spellcasting archetype is bad. I wanted to nip that in the bud a bit before it became a dominant idea and limited people's ideas of how you could build the class.

I think you value #4 more than I do, since with delayed proficiency and the fact that a lot of Thaum's are MAD and won't fully max CHA out, attack spells will often not feel terribly effective. But it can work in the right circumstances.

I agree, by default, less than max charisma is probably practical if not optimal but in this case, I think max charisma is the ideal route while still allowing maxed attack stat and adequate defenses.

I wrote this guide and would like to add this as a preface to my multiclassing section but I'd like to make sure I'm giving good advice and wanted to see if the other Pathfinder 2e forum regulars agreed or disagreed with this particular topic:

There’s been some talk recently that choosing a spellcasting archetype for a thaumaturge is a trap option.

The usual arguments are:

“You’re so strained with your action economy, you won’t be able to cast spells.”

“Your actions are always going to be ‘exploit vulnerability-stride-strike’. ”

“Even if you’re not going to be doing that exactly, there’s a bunch of other 3rd actions you’ll probably be taking like demoralize or trip or, later on, intensify vulnerability.”

“You should only be using spellcasting outside combat with your Scroll Esoterica!”

“Your offensive spellcasting isn’t going to be as good as a full spellcaster!”

I strongly disagree with all of these as valid reasons for the premise that a spellcasting archetype is bad for the thaumaturge. So, here are my reasons why those arguments are heavily flawed and why a spellcasting archetype is good choice for a thaumaturge:

1. It's Not an Issue for Other Martials The most glaring point: Look at other martial classes. You want to land sneak attack damage with your rogue? Guess what? You’ll probably need to move to line up a flank or even stride and then feint. You want to deal precision damage with your ranger? Better make sure you’ve designated that target as your prey. Need panache on your rapier wielding swashbuckler? That’s gonna cost you another action to set that up. Even a lot of the fighter’s neat attacks cost 2 actions. Magus is strained for actions considering spell strike is 2 actions and another action needs to be spent to recharge it and spellcasting is one of its core features! You know what’s common about all of those classes? Nobody says spellcasting archetypes are bad for those classes. It’s usually the opposite! Plenty of other martial classes have a strained action economy and no one is saying a spellcasting archetype for those is a trap option.

2. You're Built for Spellcasting You are a charisma based class that gets extra skill proficiency bumps in either arcana, nature, occultism or religion. The class is practically pushing you to archetype into sorcerer.

3. The Wand Implement The wand implement exists and fling magic costs 2 actions. Sure, it’s not great until you get it up to adept but saying you don’t have actions to cast spells is the same as saying the wand is a trap option because it costs 2 actions to use. The wand might not be the most popular implement but hardly anyone is calling it bad.

4. Spells are a Good Alternative Offense Speaking of the wand, you know one thing that the wand and a lot of offensive spells have in common? They target saves and therefore don’t suffer from MAP. If you’re already in your target’s face and make a strike, following up with a basic save spell is a great idea. Even better, sometimes striking is a bad idea. Sometimes you’re going to have an easier time landing a save targeting spell than hitting AC. As an 8 HP/level class, you’re often not safe to be in melee range all the time. And you are a recall knowledge master! Use that to learn an enemy’s lowest save and then target that save! Heck, AoE spells can collectively do more damage than 2 successful strikes and are arguably more reliable!

5. The Quickened Condition Since action economy is the central focus here, haste is a thing! Either from your own spellcasting or a party member’s, you are a prime target of the haste spell. Unless you are taking another archetype with multiple action attacks, which of course in this case you aren’t, the thaumaturge pretty much just has the basic strike and is behind on attack bonus. With MAP, you probably shouldn’t be striking more than once a turn anyway if you have the option of casting something like electric arc as well.

6. Stop Overusing Exploit Vulnerability For some reason people are making the case that you’ll be spending an action every turn for exploit vulnerability. WHY?! If your party is killing enemies so fast that you need to change your target every turn, you are wasting your time spending that action that way. Additionally, Sympathetic Vulnerabilities exists. That’s what it is for! I cannot think of more than 1 encounter off the top of my head where there were multiple enemies and there weren’t multiple copies of the same creature, usually teamed up with a leader. You should either be focusing down the leader or have Sympathetic Vulnerabilities so you can save your actions for other worthwhile things...like spellcasting.

7. Intensify Vulnerability is Useful...Sometimes Then there’s the additional excuse of intensify vulnerability. Sure, there are plenty of useful variations of this but they are limited to your exploit vulnerability target and are often situational. Only 2 of them seem worth spamming: the tome and weapon. Tome is just a better sure strike, I’ll grant you that. But the weapon gives you a +2 status bonus to attacks, limited to your target. You know what else gives you a +2 status bonus to attack AND saves AND skills? Heroism. Sure you need to be 16th level to get that +2 but even the +1 you’d have available to you at level 8 only requires a single casting that’s going to last you 10 minutes. Why bother spending an action every turn to give yourself +2 for a single attack against 1 target when you can spend 2 actions and be done with it for a more well-rounded bonus?

8. Most Spells are Reliable Regardless of Your Competency Worried you’re going to be -2 behind full spellcasters for most of your career? A big benefit of offensive spells is that they usually do SOMETHING even when the target successfully saves. Even then, buffs and utility spells exist.

9. Scroll Esoterica Isn't Always Enough Sure you might have a few free scrolls on hand but wouldn’t you rather have more options and uses granted by a spellcasting archetype instead of spending gold on scrolls for spells you expect to use regularly? If you really expect to only cast spells through scrolls outside of combat and have so much gold to buy all the scrolls, you may as well just use Trick Magic Item using all those extra magic tradition skill bumps you get. On top of that, you might NEED to use such a spell in combat. Now having a spell slot at the ready is more action efficient than having to pull out a scroll.

10. Your Party Will Appreciate it Having your own spells lightens the load on other spellcasters in the party and can fill gaps. Let the wizard cast fireball earlier instead of giving you or the fighter haste or heroism. Have a 2-action heal at the ready in case the cleric goes down.

Is the title for the book that the impossible playtest was for expected to be announced?

John R. wrote:

YuriP wrote:

But your Spell DC is not for same "relevant statistic".

Here's the issue: define "statistic" in context of this system.

Forget everything I've written so far.

I was assuming that what he calls Statistics were the attributes (because in legacy they were also called stats). But in fact what the game refers to as Statistics are the entries written on the sheet (attack roll, AC, spell attack, spell DC and so on). In the case of TMI he is probably referring to the Spell Attack/Spell DC combination itself, since there is a note in the rules that refers to it that way.

With that in mind I was actually misinterpreting it. If we consider that the statistic is related to the Spell Attack/Spell DC itself, then it is as The Raven Black pointed out, you only use the values ​​defined in the TMI if you do not have the Spell DC/Spell Attack (remembering however that innate and focus spell DC do not count).

Very good find. That definitely seems to put a more concrete definition to "statistic" and I agree that does heavily support The Raven Black's answer.

John R., you really should've used the full feat text as you stripped all the context out of it. "Success: For the rest of the current turn, you can spend actions to activate the item as if you could normally use it."

That's not relevant if a non-spellcaster can also use this feat. They get the same success effect. It's the paragraph that determines the DC (which was changed a bit from pre-remaster) that's in question.

nor can you be proficient in an ability score by itself.

Also, this.

But your Spell DC is not for same "relevant statistic".

Here's the issue: define "statistic" in context of this system.

The Wizard has proficiency in spell attack modifier and spell DC though. So the "use your level as your proficiency bonus and the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifiers. " part does not apply.

This is what I WANT it to mean and kinda what I feel like the wording is aiming toward but it's almost a little too good to be true for me to assume this is the case and their use of the word "statistic" is really throwing me off since it's almost meaningless in this system.

Yes. That was the way that Paizo designers made to adapt Trick Magic Item to new non-tradition locked Spell DC of remaster. I'm not saying that this isn't strange or fair it is just how it's written.

It's incredibly strange which is why I have been questioning your response so much. Lol. Is there further evidence, such as a statement from a Paizo employee on this?

Exactly just like a wizard with a occult/primal witch also cannot cast harm even having a perfect DC for cast primal/occult spells just getting a level 2 dedication.

A wizard with primal witch multiclass can't normally cast ill omen but when using TMI to cast from a scroll of ill omen that wizard gets the full proficiency bonus yet they don't when using TMI to cast from a scroll of harm?

Yes exactly. Because you are an intelligence caster so you use your normal spell DC. This happened because the spell DC is no more linked to tradition. So as the same way if you are a wizard with a witch dedication, once that both uses the same stat they share the same spell DC, no matter if this dedication is arcane, occult, divine or primal tradition.

What I am gathering from what you are saying is, if you are a level 1 wizard with 4 intelligence, 0 wisdom and no archetype using TMI for a scroll of ill omen (unique to occult tradition), its spell DC will be identical to the wizard's own spell DC.

However, if that same wizard is using TMI for a scroll of harm (unique to divine tradition), its spell DC will be lower, using intelligence AND ONLY level, NOT proficiency.

The Raven Black wrote:

All casters are proficient in spell attack modifier and spell DC. Including those with caster dedications.

So, the rule above applies only to non-casters.

Not exactly spell DC doesn't care about tradition anymore but still cares about your casting stats. If you are trying to cast a spell from a different stat spellcasting you will use this another stat but with full Spell DC proficiency.

For example a lvl 1 wizard with a cleric with +4 int and +1 wis will have:

For arcane spell casting DC: 10 + 1(lvl) +2(trained) +4 int = 17
For divine spell casting DC: 10 + 1(lvl) +2(trained) +1 int = 14

But Trick Magic Item doesn't follow this same rules. If this wizard doesn't have cleric dedication but have Trick Magic Item and will try to trick a magic item with religion it will use the religion stats:

For arcane spell casting DC: 10 + 1(lvl) +2(trained) +4 int = 17
For divine spell casting DC: 10 + 1(lvl) +4 int = 14

This happen because you spell DC is linked to intelligence and no more to a tradition. For Trick Magic Item you can't use your normal Spell DC or substitute it for another stats. You instead will use your best mental stat and the proficiency training allowed by the Trick Magic Item action.

Now use arcane (intelligence) and occult (intelligence) with a legendary proficiency spellcasting wizard in this example instead.

This change is because we no more have tradition spell DC instead are now just spell DC for all traditions.

So you can be a wizard with Trick Magic Item and you main statistic is intelligence but you are trying to trick a harm scroll with religion but you don't have a Wisdom Spell DC (because religion uses wis) so you will use you Intelligence + level instead of your level + wisdom. It's basically the same that happen in legacy it's just written differently to represente the fact that we no more have a tradition DC just a Spell DC.

I'm not sure that tracks though because occultism is intelligence based, so by that logic, said wizard could cast occult spells with TMI using your full spellcasting DC.

I didn't want to necro an old thread but I did want to revisit the topic as I think some information had been missed. Here is the original thread.

The legacy version of Trick Magic Item states:

If you activate a magic item that requires a spell attack roll or spell DC and you don’t have the ability to cast spells of the relevant tradition, use your level as your proficiency bonus and the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifiers. If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus, and if you’re legendary, you instead use the expert proficiency bonus.

If you activate a magic item that requires a spell attack modifier or spell DC and you don’t have proficiency in the relevant statistic, use your level as your proficiency bonus and the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifiers. If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus; if you’re legendary, you instead use the expert proficiency bonus.

I think the big change is the difference between "tradition" and "statistic", though "statistic" is quite a vague term. What do y'all think? Do you think full spellcasters can now use their spellcasting DC and spell attack bonus on all spells generated from TMI or not?

... we have so many gish options in the game right now it's crazy and the animist in particular makes a really good death knight, what with it's Death Grip, Grudge Strike, Apparitions being a form of undead in every way that matters and the whole 'possession for martial skill theming.'

Don't mean to get too off topic but what is this death grip you are referring to?

Did not participate in the playtest but as far as necromancer in martial combat go, I'd kinda expect them to be tanky but not particularly hard hitting. 8 hp class with up to medium armor and a lot of extra temp hp or damage reduction via bone armor and general control over the forces of life and death sounds appropriate. Maybe I'm wrong though.

The class is still using weapons at martial proficiency, and the use of the focus spell each fight increases that martial damage. The edge makes the focus spell more likely to land. I think that is the point, to have its own way of enabling melee damage on that hunted prey, not to continually cast spells.

But then what is the precision edge for?

...like spell [shot] not having the master spellcasting feat

I was just building a spellshot and I found it's not that big of a deal, at least not for me. As long as you take Wizard Dedication, you should still be able to use Basic and Expert Wizard Spellcasting from the spellshot dedication as qualifiers for Master Wizard Spellcasting. Still definitely feels like an unnecessary feat tax but it doesn't feel as faulty as vindicator.

I really don't think page space is a good excuse to omit the master spellcasting feat. It would literally just be adding "; 18th: Master Wizard Spellcasting" under the additional feats section of the archetype.

My Guide to Proficiency Bonuses gives you a visual comparison of that progression to that of other classes.

You'll see that Rangers with warden spells have the same progression as Magi.

(It's a Google doc so it might not display well in a browser. Google doc apps should work fine, though.)

Love your guides. I usually look at that particular one for a broad comparison of class proficiencies, not specifics. Never thought to reference it for ranger spell casting. Lol. I will try to keep that in mind. Thanks.

So with the Remaster the Ranger already progresses its spellcasting, roughly at the same time as a spellchecking dedication, in addition the remaster made all spellcasting dcs progress at the same rate regardless of your tradition. So even if the Ranger didn't innately progress its spellcasting dc's you could just pick up a primal spellcasting dedication(although that would be counter intuitive with the whole religion flavor going on, but thankfully you don't have to worry about that since the Ranger warden spell dcs progress just fine)

Oh, I see where I missed that now. The spellcasting proficiencies get bumped up at the features that class DC gets bumped up. Thank you. Now it's all coming together.

So, I decided to fiddle around with making a vindicator ranger build, both a standard and free archetype variation. I started noticing that the 2 things the vindicator pushes for, recall knowledge and divine spellcasting, compete with each other, making the archetype almost fall apart if you don't choose one while ignoring the other. If I'm missing something, let me know but this is what I'm seeing so far:

The archetype starts us off with Vindicator's Mark and seems to also give us the option of picking up Domain Initiate at level 1. At the very least, Vindicator's Mark targets AC, so if you want to keep it functioning as you progress in levels, you will need to advance your spellcasting proficiency, likely with a wisdom based divine spellcasting dedication. This will require you to invest 3 of your 9 skill increases (typically) into religion. A good number of other vindicator feats are also focused on divine spellcasting in the form of more domain spells and Vindicator's Judgement.

The OTHER thing the archetype seems to focus on is recall knowledge against creatures. This is usually great as the Monster Hunter feats are already great on the ranger and these new feats make it better...except Monster Hunter doesn't really take off if you don't invest in nature, at least up to master. Your other option is to just invest lightly in arcana, occultism, nature and society but I really don't think we want to be spreading our starting trained skills so thin, plus it pushes us to need to invest into intelligence as well. So the better option is to just spend 2 more of our 9 skill increases being spent on nature (3 more if we want Legendary Monster Hunter).

So if we want to get the full offerings of the vindicator archetype and keep it relevant into late levels, it looks like we need to invest 6 skill increases into nature and religion leaving us 3 increases for probably 1, MAYBE 2 skills. Our other option is to split the archetype into 2 and choose a side.

So, am I missing something? Do we get automatic skill increases in religion or proficiency in divine spellcasting? Is there something somewhere that says the Monster Hunter feats become based on religion now? Or is this archetype really only effective if you either only focus on one half of its offerings or greatly limit your skill choices?

Do you by chance have a link for that?

Link

Comment by siegfriedliner on Oct 25 @ 2:19 pm details the ruling on discord by Michael Sayre.

I already said thanks for the guide and I agree with pretty much everything you say.

However, here are a few things I disagree with after a few more games inside my belt....

Glad you enjoyed it!

As far as a lot of the things you suggest dropping by a rating or 2, a lot of what I think justifies their current ratings is that they can be swapped out easily every day. If this was a normal class that locked you into your choices, then yes, I would agree with most or all of this, but mechanically, this class pretty obviously wasn't designed to be played only ever using 4 apparitions and never swapping around your wandering feats. In other words, the risk of an option becoming useless is lessened or even negated when you don't have to commit to that risk every day, especially if you have some foresight on if that option will be useful or not. It's the same classic reason why some people prefer wizards over sorcerers. Also, for some people, like myself, sometimes you just want to change things up....a lot.

The one option that you can swap around daily that I did rate as bad, store time, was rated so because, not only is it so limited, it requires you spend other wandering feats or choose another particular apparition to function, therefore actually detracting from the versatility of the class.

John R. wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Animists cast apparition spells as divine spells, but they don't get added to the divine spell list and the only way you can cast them is with a special apparition spell slot, so I don't think you can use scrolls or wands with those spells, even if you have the correct apparition attuned.

Are there any other examples, strict general rulings or Paizo statements that support this? That just seems like pushing RAW to an extreme.

If the apparition spells got fully added to the animist divine spell list, then they would be able to prepare them in prepared slots while they were attuned to a specific apparition. The language around apparition spells is just different from other features that add spells to the divine list and I think part of that reason is to prevent the animist from having unlimited access to the spells through items.

Ok, I can see your reasoning there....

Animists cast apparition spells as divine spells, but they don't get added to the divine spell list and the only way you can cast them is with a special apparition spell slot, so I don't think you can use scrolls or wands with those spells, even if you have the correct apparition attuned.

Are there any other examples, strict general rulings or Paizo statements that support this? That just seems like pushing RAW to an extreme.

The fact the animist can't use scrolls of its non-divine apparition spells really hurts its ability to be an all day blaster. The animist is generally very good at being "a thing" (like blaster) for about 1 encounter a day, but very bad at trying to keep doing that thing through multiple encounters, with the exceptions of healing and gishing.

Are we talking about days when you don't have that particular apparition attuned? Because when an apparition is attuned, all their apparition spells count as divine so you should be able to use wands and scrolls for those spells freely.

I've seen people say that Magi got buffed but from what I can tell, there were just some things fixed from being mechanically non-functional or changed to compensate for the remaster. Could someone summarize for me how the Magus was buffed, please? I'm not super knowledgeable on Magus so I might have missed something that's more obvious to others.

Maybe there should be feature or feat that allows you to etch/trace a rune with a weapon's pointy end (sword) or as a stamp (hammer) or whatever other imaginative way a player comes up with.

I'm not seeing a link to the actual playtest document...

I've played quite a lot my Garden of Healing Animist lately and I've also helped a friend playing an Embodiment of Battle Animist and it just reinforced what I was saying.

What level were your characters?

I've not been able to use Channeler's Stance once in an entire level. I retrain out of it. The action cost is killing it. It's orange at best, nowhere close to blue.

What were you intending to use Channeler's Stance for and what actions are you prioritizing over it?

My friend and I tried to get his Embodiment of Battle Animist running, but between the action cost and the penalty to spells Embodiment of Battle is just unusable. The Animist is no gish, it can just switch to martial every now and then. And for that, it's Darkened Forest Form or Devouring Dark Form you look for, not Embodiment of Battle.

As Embodiment of Battle is the main reason to raise Strength on an Animist, it makes Strength roughly useless on an Animist (unless you want to qualify for Heavy Armor, I guess).

Embodiment of Battle can function perfectly well with dexterity, while Devouring Dark Form requires strength or athletics, otherwise, it's just a worse Darkened Forest Form. The last session I played, if I didn't invest in strength, I wouldn't have shut down an entire encounter on my first turn with a successful grapple check with Devouring Dark Form. It's anecdotal evidence but a small example of a reason to opt into raising strength.

I don't think the Animist is innately a gish either. It just has the tools for one but you have to build for it.

Most Lores are competing with Nature (Moutain/River/Terrain Lore, Herbalism Lore, Fey Lore) or Survival (Hunting Lore) ...

What about for characters who don't invest in nature or survival?

As I said in the guide, I think the effectiveness of the lore skills are VERY GM dependent. I happened to have an adequate lore skill (underground lore) in a situation and rolled well enough that the GM told us that going a certain route would cause problems and we were able to avoid that encounter (and we still got the XP). Again, anecdotal evidence.

As it was the only reason to switch Apparitions during daily preparations, I can now state even more that there's no point in doing so. The Animist is a specialist: Choose your 2/3/4 Apparitions and stick to them, that's how the class works.

Is this in regards to Circle of Spirits?

The Animist is the opposite of Charisma casters: It Demoralizes when it has to move.

What does this mean?

Level 12 adds Spiritual Guidance

Sorry, but Spiritual Guidance didn't make it past the playtest.

Here is how I'd stat a dexterity leaning animist:

1: STR-1 DEX-2 CON-2 INT-0 WIS-4 CHA-0
5: STR-1 DEX-3 CON-3 INT-1 WIS-4+ CHA-0
10: STR-2 DEX-4 CON-4 INT-1 WIS-5 CHA-0
15: STR-2 DEX-4+ CON-4+ INT-2 WIS-5+ CHA-0
20: STR-3 DEX-5 CON-5 INT-2 WIS-6 CHA-0

And for a strength leaning animist:

1: STR-2 DEX-1 CON-2 INT-0 WIS-4 CHA-0
5: STR-3 DEX-1 CON-3 INT-1 WIS-4+ CHA-0
10: STR-4 DEX-2 CON-4 INT-1 WIS-5 CHA-0
15: STR-4+ DEX-2 CON-4+ INT-2 WIS-5+ CHA-0
20: STR-5 DEX-3 CON-5 INT-2 WIS-6 CHA-0

If that's too MAD, I don't know what to tell you.

This all makes store time sound worse than it already is.

John R. wrote:

graystone wrote:

John R. wrote:

To me, neglecting strength completely means you're missing out on an entire vessel spell....but I'm the kinda person who wants the entire animist experience in one go....

But you aren't. At Heightened (2nd) and (5th) you get a battle form instead. So you're missing out on using it at levels 1 and 2? Hardly a game changer IMO.

You can get that water elemental battle form from darkened forest form though (no "free" strike however) and I think the real appeal is getting the non-battle form d8 unarmed attack with reach and grapple at rank 5+. So you're still missing out on what I find to be the biggest appeal...

But your complaint was that it "means you're missing out on an entire vessel spell": that isn't the case. As to what you find most attractive, that's a matter of taste, which again wasn't your stated complaint in the quote I originally quoted.

Alright maybe not the ENTIRE vessel spell but enough to warrant not wanting to bother with it. But I'll just say that's a subjective view and leave it at that.

Now there isn't anything wrong with wanting to use the starting abilities of the spell, but is it worth bumping up str JUST for that? You can get a 1d10 reach grapple weapon easily enough, and with ancestry feats too. I'm just not getting the appeal unless you're going all in on str and blowing extra feats and items to buff armor type and unarmed attacks but I'd think you'd be missing out on animist options by doing so: You aren't going to have enough to be good at unarmed and heavy armor and ranged weapons and intelligence skills and.... For me, I'd rather be good at something than middling at multiple things. From my perspective, JUST missing out on the level 1-2 abilities of one apparition and a few feats isn't worth it.

People might see completely ignoring a handful of apparitions as reasonable and expected, but if I have the option of trying everything in one go, I'm reveling in that opportunity. Again, that's just me.