Kaisos Erranon's page

I've wanted to run Jade Regent with Ameiko as a Swashbuckler ever since hearing about the class, allowing katanas sounds fantastic to me.

Every single divine caster other than the Ranger and Paladin have 3/4 BAB, I think it's time for a change in that regard.
I'd play a Priest, definitely.

Sean K Reynolds has stated that there will be no new spell lists for these classes, and that this isn't changing.

Why not? The design team seems to have final answers for everything else.

Well instead of complaining maybe we should try to help create reasonable spell lists for the classes that need them

That isn't a playtest, that's crowdsourced class design.

This is actually what they're going with, unfortunately. Given the rationale they presented for it, I doubt that's likely to change, either.

I was told I should offer some constructive criticism instead of merely complaining, so here:

Arcanist: This class has little conceptual reason to exist and is almost guaranteed to have a fairly significant effect on game balance, being measurably more versatile than either of its parents... which is odd, given that what little flavour it has boils down to it being bad enough at sorcery that it needed to turn to wizardry. For some suggestions, it needs a cap on spells known, less spells per day, and some actual class features to make up for that. The blood surge ability is interesting and could be expanded upon pretty heavily.
Ultimately it needs to be both weaker in terms of raw spellcasting than both the Sorcerer and the Wizard, but with interesting enough mechanics to make it a viable choice over either.

Bloodrager: This is going to be a common refrain throughout, but it desperately needs its own spell list; getting 4th-level Magus spells so late is not viable. It's a nice idea overall though!
Really this needs to separate itself from the Barbarian more. Some Bloodlines are underpowered and having them do more for the class in exchange for some unfitting barbarian abilities would be a great idea.
If it had its own limited spell list, you could also have the Bloodrager cast them as Swift actions, like the old 3.5 Battle Blessing feat for Paladins, giving them an actual reason to cast in combat.

Brawler: If the Monk had a full BAB and a d10 HD from the start like it probably should have, this class would have little reason to exist either.
As others have stated already, the late-level abilities the Brawler gets are much too weak given the level it gets them at, the Brawler Strike should be made into a more appropriate (Ex) ability that accomplishes the same thing, and really the instant-feat ability is going to cause a huge amount of issues... a more limited selection (maybe of Style feats alone?) would be better.
Taking some ideas from the Martial Artist archetype would probably help as well.

Hunter: Kind of a blatant Druid nerf, isn't it? Frankly I think this needs to be completely reworked; throw in some Summoner-ish pet-improvement mechanics, give it (again) its own list of spontaneously-cast spells based around this, have it gain temporary buffs based off of the abilities of the companion it selects (not using enhancement bonuses to stats, why was this idea even considered) and you'd have a class I'd be willing to play.

Investigator: Very powerful, probably the best class in the book, but that's exactly the problem with it. This, and although the class is going for a Victorian-era detective-type (sword canes!), the Extracts and SA don't mesh well with the concept; better to do more with the Inspiration mechanics, give it some variant of Tactician, bonuses to social skills, refluff Extracts to something conceptually sensible (Vigors?) with a more limited, specific list... still, I love the idea.

Shaman: This probably should have been the spontaneous Druid caster rather than what it is. -Very- flavour driven, but the abilities it gets, like with the Investigator, don't always seem especially Shaman-like.
Give it 1/2 BAB, no armor, the Druid list, spontaneous casting, and replace the familiar with an incorporeal spirit animal of some sort(?) I saw a suggestion to rename Hexes "Totems", that could work, and I love the Spirit-swapping mechanic, that could be expanded upon quite a bit.

Slayer: Giving rogues Assassinate as an advanced talent and making a fighter/ranger archetype that lets them select rogue talents as feats/combat styles would remove the need for this class, I think.
Still, one of my favorites, but I think it's far too generic a concept to work as a standalone class.

Skald: Oh boy. The inspire rage mechanic needs to be changed in a way that doesn't interfere with 90% of other classes, like other people have said, but in the end I think this was better off as an archetype. Granting rage powers to allies is -very- cool, however, and I'd love to see it done in some other way.

Swashbuckler: I... don't have much to say here, I quite like the idea. It needs a Dex-to-damage ability, the actual Weapon Finesse feat, and to remove some of the restrictions on Precise Strike (why can't it use that with Buckler?), but as a whole it needs few changes other than some more polish.

Warpriest: This is a Cleric nerf, nothing more. I'm pretty certain a Crusader Cleric with a one-level dip in Fighter is just as good if not better, it's just not... necessary?
For a fix, you could drop the spellcasting entirely, give it full BAB and focus totally on the Blessings... maybe have each Blessing grant a list of short-duration SLA swift-action buffs with some sort of use/day mechanic? Grant the buffs to everyone within 30 feet as a full-round action for double usage? A self-healing mechanic? Things like that.

I don't expect anyone to take these seriously as "that ship has sailed", but I can at least try.

Actual playtest feedback is more valuable than any other kind of feedback. Perhaps playing one of these classes will let you see how fun they are--or aren't, as the case may be.

What matters is not "how they play" but "why should I play this over the myriad of other options that do much the same thing but better"?

Listen, I understand that you're going to say the same thing no matter how many people complain, that you are going to ignore any and all criticism of the basic concepts that underlie this, and ultimately you are going to send this off to the printers with few real changes, that the most important thing is having fun because who really cares about mechanics, right, and that everyone should be nice and happy all the time everywhere.

Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Okay.

I get that this is not what some folks were expecting, but its not as if we were unclear on this from the outset. These classes were specifically designed from the early days to be a blend of two classes, to be something that you just could not pull off well through multiclassing, primarily due to the nature of that system.

You said "like a Magus". None of these classes are anything like the Magus, which managed to synergize the abilities of its component classes while having a very strong flavour of its own.

This is why we playtest, to iron out bugs and solve problems.

The problems and bugs here are that most of these hybrid classes are both bland and wholly unnecessary. I understand that it's a lot of work coming up with ten new classes, but if that was the case then why did you feel the need to try in the first place?

If you would like to participate in making them better, giving suggestions, taking them for a test drive

"Taking them for a test drive" seems a little pointless to me, what's wrong with any of these can be seen immediately by comparing them to their parent classes, archetypes, or the Magus.

Unique spell lists use up too much ink.

You can put together iterative ideas in ways that seem new, sure. Hell, that's exactly what the Inquisitor and Witch are.
I haven't really seen anything like that here.

"Uninspired" is how I'd describe it too, yeah. The Uninspired Class Guide.

So it's not the fault of the developers for developing something that isn't the least bit creative?

If the classes had been designed as their own classes, with the feel of both "parent" classes (like the Magus) without simply mashing together their class abilities (like many classes in this playtest seem to do), then multiclassing wouldn't have been an issue.

But this mashing is the point of the entire book, see.

I think we all understand what the point of ACG classes is supposed to be. That doesn't mean we have to think it's a good point.

Well, given that the most accurate (in my view) detraction boils down to "could you consider scrapping all of these and starting over with better ideas" I don't think listening to detractors is really viable at this point.
A shame, too.

Might as well go ahead and replace the sneak attack with bonus teamwork feats in that case. Sure, it's a power downgrade, but as it stands this is a very powerful class, and probably can deal with it and still come up swinging.

Something like the Cavalier's Tactician ability, then?

If you don't find the Crusader Cleric appealing then I'm sure you won't fine the Warpriest appealing either because they are functionally the same thing. Hell, if you like Blessings I'm sure there'll be some compatible Archetype in the final book to let you gain them as well.
To me, very few of these new classes feel worth playing over the alternatives...

Example, I recently wanted to play a character who was a divine warrior using Divination (the spell) and later Commune to make their judgements and who was perhaps too blindly following said results. Inquisitor can't get these until late, and Paladin can't get these spells at all, and I couldn't make a Cleric feel combat-sturdy enough without relying on having rounds to buff myself before combat starts.

Right, but how is the Warpriest any more combat-sturdy than the Cleric? That's my entire issue with it.

...I don't think that Archetypes are especially difficult to understand, you just take one class feature and replace it with another. That's not bending over backwards, that's extremely basic customization.

If a player came to me and said "I want to play a Cleric with a more martial bent" I would direct him to the Crusader archetype or, better yet, the Inquisitor. That sort of niche already exists.

The point of the ACG was to make some interesting classes with cool mechanics backing them. I haven't gotten the chance to play around with them more but they are quite cool in action.

Yes, but, say, the Warpriest is just a Cleric with less spells and buffs that are worse than spells. I can't consider that particularly interesting or mechanically cool, why not just play a Crusader Cleric instead?

I don't think anyone is saying that they should come up with entirely new spells, but rather than each new spellcaster should use a custom list, like the Witch and Magus do, for instance.
My problem isn't even that the new classes are using old mechanics (though some new ones would be nice!), it's that I don't think they're using them in ways that are interesting enough to justify them being new base classes.

Conceptual niches, not just mechanical ones.
We have a warrior Cleric already, it's called... a Cleric.

Sure, and their design decision aren't immune to criticism.

When your entire class can be invalidated by a couple of spells, well... you're a Fighter, really.
And that's a problem.

That's basically what I'm saying as well.

For one making them archetypes means they would have to go through a lot to make sure nothing funny happens when mixed with other archetypes.

Don't they have to do that for archetypes already?

So perhaps it could have worked the same or close as an archetype. Your point is? Why do you care so much if the way to make [Blank] is a class or a archetype as long as it works.

My complaint is that, as full classes, they don't work. Some of them work better than others, but I feel that full base classes require not only strong mechanics, but a strong, general concept, and, well, a lot of these just -feel- more like archetypes.

If 10 classes is too many for all-new mechanics, why do 10 classes to begin with?
To be frank, even with reusing older mechanics it doesn't feel like a great idea, a lot of these are conceptually... weak.
I'm not alone in thinking that most of these would have been better off as archetypes, so wouldn't it have been better to make a book about those instead?

What if there was a completely different book that was all about offering support for the APG/UM classes, as well as having a few of its own? Wouldn't that be a much better idea?

I love these "mixed" classes and feel that they were needed because using just multi-classing would result in sub par characters due to jumping back and forth between two classes as you level.

This is a problem with how multiclassing (doesn't) work, yes. I don't think that this was the right solution.

Like, I understand this need to avoid "bloat", but when about half the classes could easily be achieved, on both a conceptual and mechanical level by using archetypes instead...
Actually, why not have an Ultimate Archetypes book or something like that?

Here's my opinion: The whole concept of Hybrid Classes is inherently unworkable, can we get a do-over?
Maybe try again with around six more focused, unique classes like in the APG? The Swashbuckler, Investigator and Bloodrager all seem salvageable, could start there.

The more I think about this book the more I think that it's simply a bad idea from the start.
Something more like the Advanced Player's Guide classes, that feel more independently flavourful and mechanically distinct (even if they build off of older mechanics!) would have been better, not this...
If many of these classes don't end up being very different in the final product than they currently are, I'm really concerned about the future direction of Pathfinder.

This invalidates both of its component classes and doesn't really fill any kind of given niche besides. Lacking in any real class abilities and having as its only flavour "my blood was too thin to be a sorcerer so now I'm trying to be a wizard" doesn't help.
Honestly, this is the only class in this playtest that I feel is completely unnecessary and would be better off not existing... having a 1/2 BAB no-armor divine caster would have been a better idea, in my opinion. You could even claim that it's a cleric/wizard hybrid, too!

Agreeing that Awesome Blow is a horrible capstone and that Knockout comes way too late... also, why is it a Supernatural ability?

Speaking of that, I really don't like that an otherwise mundane class gets something like Brawler Strike. I understand why it's included, but if something like fist wrappings or brass knuckles that use unarmed strike damage existed (at least, outside of houserules) this ability would be completely unnecessary and would free up slots for more interesting abilities.

I'm... sort of confused as to what the point of this class is, actually.

If you increased the number of Blessing uses/day (maybe level+3 per day instead of 1/2?), allowed them to choose three Blessings instead of two, gave them full BAB/d10 HD, and dropped the casting entirely, this could be a pretty neat class with a fairly unique flavour to it... but as it is it's just a worse version of the Cleric with a bunch of minor bonuses and buffs that it doesn't need because it has six levels of casting.