John R.'s page

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

John R. wrote:

Is there anything suggesting that 2 or more of these are competing for the SAME third action?

Vessel Spells are Sustained Spells. So they compete for the same third actions if you prefer. But overall you'll have to make choices between these actions, which is severely hindering their effectiveness.

Meh. Channeler's Stance is a one time use and as you suggest, maybe should be followed with a 2-action spell, all on the first turn. I think that knocks it out of needing to compete for a 3rd action though I should maybe add that following up with a 2-action spell would be optimal.

I also think that Circle of Spirits will only be used as necessary (my primary is terrible for this situation, need to swap ASAP) or for the case where you might be wanting to sustain multiple vessel spells, which will feel very wonky and require the right planning of actions. Even then it's only competing for a single 3rd action occasionally and that likely being the 3rd action for the 1st turn.

So it seems the SAME 3rd action they are competing for is likely the 3rd action of the 1st turn, but I don't think this is a regular issue someone should be running into.

As far as sustaining competing for a 3rd action, it only seems like it would be competing if you are trying to sustain multiple vessel spells. In that case, it's actually competing with A LOT of other possible actions.

Channeler's Stance, Circle of Spirits and Vessel Spells all compete for your third action.

Is there anything suggesting that 2 or more of these are competing for the SAME third action?

Don't forget that when you make a check using an applicable lore skill, the DC is usually reduced by at least 2, if not 5.

@Unicore: No joke, after looking at devouring dark form again and realizing that the tentacle unarmed attack doesn't have the finesse trait and having shroudb's explanation of how rank 5+ should work, I am seriously starting to question my judgement about strength not being secondary now.

One example was the feat where you get Harm/Heal as Apparition spells. These are only at 1st level, do not scale, and cannot heighten. It is entirely possible they aren't meant to, because they are "bonus spells," but given that they are spells whose sole value is determined by their heightening, I would put the feat more valuable if it was Bane/Bless instead, since +1/-1 on allies/enemies is more valuable over the course of levels, and it still conveys the same flavor and everything.

I might be misunderstanding you here but the heal/harm you get from Embodiment of the Balance do scale as all apparition spells are signature spells.

Thanks for all the responses. This is a lot of good feedback.

I think it would be helpful to rank the strength of each vessel's given spell list. There are some STINKERS on some lists (sigil, mending, safe passage) which I think impacts their overall enjoyability as your spontaneous casting is limited.

I will consider this a bit further down the line, probably just by color grading and not going over any further analysis for each individual spell.

I feel Charisma ought to be green rather than red: as a Wisdom caster, it's easy to feature Charisma as your fourth score, and the attribute feeds into Bon Mot and Demoralize, which are excellent in combat, as well as social checks out of combat. IMO the attribute is equally viable as a fourth attribute compared to Strength and Intelligence.

I’m going to keep it red simply because charisma contributes nothing to the animist at base, while every other attribute does. From what I can remember off the top of my head, charisma and charisma based skills don’t interact with any feats or features of the class.

I'd probably put Earth's Bile at purple. Even with the post-playtest changes limiting this to one cast/Sustain a turn, it's a huge chunk of extra damage for just one action, and lets you use all of your actions to pump out damage if you want and become a top-tier blaster. It also lets you double-dip on Channeler's Stance's status bonus to damage, to the point where I believe this combo might probably even be the strongest blasting build in the game in terms of raw damage output.

Yeah, I’m definitely bumping that up and adding reasoning. I totally did not realize that this is practically electric arc but better.

As far as the subject of the animist I can see both sides. It has been given a lot of tools for a lot of jobs, but without an archetype, it’s very much, “more tools than you need, but less tools than you want”. How that translates to balance will take a while for us to see.

Again, on the topic of lore skills, I’m going to reassess my formatting of that section and probably emphasize the high variability of GM rulings, but I do heavily agree with this:

There is a difference between homebrew and a skill basically telling you "it can be used for applicable actions but ask your GM which are applicable".

I started working on a guide for the animist a few months ago, starting with the playtest material and then adjusting with the final release (I got an early PDF with the subscription). I also had a bunch of free time last week. None of this is final and I don't expect every judgement to be on point. Feel free to read it over and let me know if you have an suggestions. As with my thaumaturge guide, I will site those whose advice I use. This will be a work in progress and I will update it regularly. Please don't comment saying it's too early for a guide. This is equally purposed as a review and to give exposure to people without access to the class and and start discussion about various aspects of the class

Here is the link.

I tried asking in the WoI AMA, but might’ve gotten buried…

Any new companions/familiar abilities/specific familiars in WoI?

Was wondering if there’s something new that the Shaman Animist would be interested in (kind of like how RoE introduced new specific familiars and familiar ability alongside Kineticist’s Elemental Familiar, maybe something similar with Animists and Spirit Familiar). Like making your familiar a Celestial/Fiend or something?

No new familiar abilities from what I can tell but there's a 12th level feat that requires the spirit familiar that gives you a reaction to give you concealment, makes your familiar untargetable and creates difficult terrain.

Seems the description of the Medium was written before they added the clause to their core feat requiring you to always have to attune to one of the same apparitions. It's just weird!

Yup, it's pretty much a copy/paste of the Sage's description.

The Echo of Lost Memory is largely dead in the water for that reason. When I read it at first, I went back to see if I missed a reaction built into their chassis and nope. Then looked for feats and saw the same thing as you, and many are high/mid level and situational or limited. So, in the end you give up one action for a very limited reaction that may or may not be relevant.

The only thing I can think of it a level 9+ Medium who has Echo and Witness of Ancient Battles as primaries to set up for a potential of 3 strikes with no MAP but that requires way too much set up IMO.

Another complaint is that it seems you only get 1 focus spell at level 1 now. So it takes a while (or archetyping) to be able to cast two vessel spells in a single battle. I was looking forward to vessel chaining with the Liturgist, but the flexibility has diminished at low levels.

Circle of Spirits seems to help out with this with its "special" paragraph at the end, granting focus points equal to the amount of attuned apparitions.

2 big complaints I have so far are the following:

The Medium is described as not growing attachments to particular apparitions but then is given a feat that forces you to always attune to a particular spirit. Not mechanically flawed but may confuse players.

The Echo in Lost Moment's vessel spell gives you an extra reaction specifically for Animist or apparition reactions but hardly any exist and the majority that do are limited to once per 10 minutes. As far as I can tell, it's a vessel spell that will be largely ignored by most Animist players unless an errata/change is made.

I play tested with Vanguard of Roaring Waters and really, really wanted it to be good, but it was very difficult to get your focus spell working effectively. Did anything change with it from the playtest? Or maybe easier: Does it look like a decent apparition to you? Or is it going to remain incredibly niche for water based adventures only?

They increased the movement bonus to +10 ft and you get to stride as part of the action to cast or sustain, so I'd say it's MUCH more usable now.

BadLuckGamer just posted a video on Exemplar.

Day 403: 20 days until release and still no sign of early access spoilers. Don't know if I can go on. May resort to cannibalism.

Disappointed that I can't mix animal Instinct with bloodrager...but bloodrager still sounds metal af.

Create consumable states that you "expend" a VV while quick vial states that you "create" a VV which can only be a bomb or used for your research fields thing.

Yup, this.

The exact text states: "Quick Vial - You create a versatile vial that can be used
only as a bomb or for the versatile vial option from your
research field (it can’t be used to create a consumable, for
example). This item has the infused trait, but it remains
potent only until the end of your current turn"

From what it seems, while plenty other bloodlines got some good buffs, the Imperial Sorcerer definitely got some special treatment. Now, with that, I'm not really surprised because the Sorcerer is likely supposed to be the iconic spontaneous arcane caster. Sure, it can choose its spell traditions but it is similar to the Witch in this case who is often regarded as more of the iconic prepared occult caster despite choosing spell tradition. And then, imo, spontaneous casting has always favored a repetitive blunt force method of spellcasting whereas prepared leans more into niche utility. Therefore, it would make sense to me why Imperial Sorcerer would be changed from getting some little skill bumps to essentially gaining a PF1 style "heighten spell" effect in the form of a focus spell. So I don't see it as unbalanced in comparison to Wizard, but just leaning more into its role. What makes it come off stronger however is probably that the system is still more combat focused, therefore the Imperial Sorcerer may be more relevant within the encounter mode of play which is more common than where the Wizard may shine more, exploration mode.

The fact arcane sorcerers lost the spellbook saddens me. It was pretty much the only reason I picked arcane haha.

If Arcane Evolution wasn't reprinted, it should still exist as a legal option by default. If it returned but was changed...then yeah, you're right. I don't know what actually happened with it but I don't think I've heard of any of the evolution feats getting changed....

Edit: Just checked out BadLuckGamer's video again. The feat is mostly the same, but the requirement of using a book to store your learned spells is gone. JUST THE SPELLBOOK. It otherwise functions identically.

Also, Imperial Sorcerers automatically get disintegrate! Ha!

I've had my copy of Howl of the Wild for a couple weeks now but I still want to express my appreciation for the Wild Mimic and Swarmkeeper archetypes, grafts, new Ranger feats and Devourer of Decay Witch Patron. There's like a ton of other stuff in this book I'd love to play and will never get the chance to but for a book that is only half player options and doesn't even bring a new class, this still feels equivalent to a full character option book to me. I have been cautiously hoping for an official Paizo book to let me recreate the PF1 Psychodermist and y'all delivered it to me in spades and got the Putrefactor Witch as a bonus plus a bunch of other fun surprises. Thank you, again, to the entire Paizo staff for another great product!

John R. wrote:

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.

Gisher wrote:

John R. wrote:

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.

...

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?

I have the same question.

I think if this is true, that both Fighter Dedication and Rogue Dedication not giving the same scaling for their respective proficiencies that General Feats do is possibly an oversight.

=)

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.

That was fast! Thanks for the update! Looking forward to October 2024!

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.

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.
As far as the spellcasting goes, it feels properly limited despite seeming the opposite. However, I’m worried it might suffer from high complexity and might be inaccessible for some. I could easily play with it as is but I’d elect for a simpler implementation at the cost of 1 spell slot per spell rank.
For the 2 subclass options, channeler may be balanced inside the system but in comparison to the sage, it’s incredibly broken. The issue isn’t that the channeler can swap apparitions for a single action. The problem is, it can do that AND gets better save progression and still gets expert in armor proficiencies only slightly later than the sage. Sage gets a bunch of very situational abilities and the 2 things that could make it all worthwhile are either locked behind an 8th level feat or all the way out at 17th level. Strangely, the sage gets expert in armor proficiency incredibly early yet it never advances past that (hint, hint Paizo). Without heavily reworking how subclasses work, I’d start with the classes save and armor progression being baseline and then give a bonus increase in saves to the channeler and a bonus increase to armor to the sage at the 17th level mark. I think sage needs to get Soul Synchronization by default at 1st level. If not, it needs SOMETHING that feels significant and impactful in contrast to the channeler right from the beginning; Apparition’s Possession isn’t cutting it. Maybe even let them start with 2 primary apparitions per day but not able to swap out every 10 minutes. Ideally, I think they could add another subclass or 2 and differentiate all of them based on the following qualities: number of apparitions accessible, number of apparitions attuned to for the day, speed of primary apparition swapping, number of primary apparitions.

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:
Garden of Healing – I think this is perfectly fine as is. Anyone who complains that it makes out-of-combat healing obsolete forgets that the medicine skill is available to everyone and isn’t difficult to make just as reliable and not everyone is going to want to play this class. Like, if your party needs a healer, are y’all really gonna tell someone they have to play an Animist? It’s gonna be a lot easier to get someone to volunteer to invest into medicine than force a class for a single focus spell. Used in combat, it feels pretty good but might need some tweaking to make it easier to use, maybe only healing allies or something.
Discomforting Whispers – This is great. In a single encounter, this changed about 4 critical hits from an enemy into 0. In fact, it was extremely noticeably impactful when said enemy turned out to not be dead when we downed them, I had dropped the spell assuming it was dead and it immediately came back up, and crit twice, downing 2 party members. This spell made a severe encounter feel like a moderate or even low difficulty encounter. This might be my favorite vessel spell currently.
Darkened Forest Form – It seems a lot of people see this as an alternate combat form but I enjoy the utility options. The temporary HP and AC seems like you might be slightly tougher, mainly cuz the AC is about the same and you’re getting a chunk of temp HP. Attack bonuses are about on par as well. Being able to swap forms on every sustain is really cool. The biggest problem I’m seeing with this spell is that you have to take a size increase as this scaled and you don’t get to opt out of that size increase if you want it to be used for combat, making this less and less appealing in a dungeon crawl with small rooms and narrow corridors.
Earth’s Bile – Being able to sustain up to 3 of these seems problematic, especially when you can hop around with sustaining dance. I think this should be limited to 1 active casting. If so, it might need bumped up to d6s. Still, it was very effective against multiple enemies from my experience, even with a single instance each turn.
River Carving Mountains – I never got to use this one but it’s...interesting.... but it seems highly situational. The lesser cover should probably apply to all attacks against you or else don’t bother at all with that part. If you drop the cover altogether, increase the speed bonus to 10 or 15 ft. Also, I think I’d maybe add that the distance you travel over when leaping or stepping from sustaining dance also become difficult terrain. I understand how it's supposed to be used but it seems clunky and difficult to implement effectively as is.
Embodiment of Battle – I really like this. It just works. If I could change one thing about it, I would make this immune from disruption from reactive strikes when sustaining and maybe cut reactive strike from it as well to balance it out. This is going to hurt when you need to sustain but remain in melee range and have your action wasted and your spell interrupted and you are now a lot more useless in the position you are in. Then again, if you're going up against something that has reactive strike, as a full caster, you probably need to know your place and back off against a full-on martial enemy.

Additional Thought:
There is not enough build diversity in this class. I feel like, generally, everyone will be playing the same Animist when it comes to the class portion. They might be a sage or channeler but I don’t think that is going to create enough differentiation between builds considering all apparitions are available at all times and never permanently locked behind a choice.

I'd like something for the exploration phase of the game. Something divinitory. More on the scale on dungeoneering and less so of exploring vast wilderness.

Also something that buffs skills, maybe granting up to the equivalent of expert.

Maybe we should have a subclass that has access to only a few Apparitions chosen during the build but can swap them with the greatest ease. Kind of Spontaneously, like a Sorcerer to spells.

You might want to [re-]read the second half of my OP.

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:
Channeler would start with being able to access only 3 or 4, still being able to swap primaries out for an action but would cap at 6-8 accessible apparitions by late levels. Possibly always attuned to all of their available apparitions.

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? ;)

I believe the best way to approach this particular playtest is to expect Paizo to look more for feedback on what parts we like and leave balancing against other classes to them. Focus on theme and both the ease and fun of mechanics.

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.

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.

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 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.