Karmagator's page

So some things we can infer from what we have seen so far:

(1) The psychic dedication mentions "thought components" in relation to the subconscious mind, so custom spell components still seem to be around. The universal name probably means that they now only have different flavour, the mechanics are the same. Which would make sense, as the drawbacks look to be gone, which were the only mechanical difference.

(2) Each conscious mind still gets 2 regular occult cantrips and one unique one at the start, called surface psi cantrips. The deeper psi cantrip is also still around, but is now a level 9 class feature instead of a feat. Nice.

(3) Custom Unleash Psyche actions that provide different benefits seem to be essentially gone, there is only the original one now. Minus the crippling downside, thankfully. Something to that effect was mentioned at PaizoCon, if I remember correctly. Those look like they have been replaced with free action metamagic-esk feats that do something on top of it.

Ezekieru has been even more of a champion this time and brought us a gift of additional spoilers.

I wonder exactly how dancing blade works.....do runes affect it? Can I use a two handed weapon? Does it do set damage or the weapons damage? I wanna guess it limits to one handed weapons or has set damage bc the idea of swinging a major striking rune greatsword on a sustain after casually blapping with a with an amped telekinetic projectile that gets an additional 20 damage from unleash seems a little nuts

The limit being a one-handed weapon seems highly likely, yeah. Depending on what kind of spell or ability it actually is, it could later upgrade to a two-handed one, but I doubt that. Otherwise, I'd guess it is just a regular weapon with whatever you put on it. Plus X attack modifier runes might not work, though.

But apart from that, the actual process of delivering the thing into your unfortunate foe's anatomy could be a million different things. Reflex save to dodge the weapon. Basically 2e spiritual weapon with extra steps. Dancing but actually useful, with an attack roll based on your spell attack modifier. That, but you actually have to share MAP with it. Or you don't share MAP and you have to spend an action to sustain it each turn.

There is a lot of range here XD

I can already tell that Parallel Breakthrough (nick a cantrip and amp from a different concious mind) will be one of my favourite feats. There are 15 to pick from, there is bound to be something good in there somewhere :D

Karmagator wrote:

Gisher wrote:

keftiu wrote:

So, we got Psychics… how long until we get playable Lashunta, a major psychic Ancestry? Here’s hoping Gatewalkers is a sign of things to come.

Now that psychic casting is a thing again, I'd love to see some creatures with innate psychic spells return. Like a lot of the creatures in the PF1 Occult Bestiary.

There are bound to be a few in the cryptid section of DA. Maybe even one of the templates.

I'm pretty sure the cryptid section is only templates rather than specific creatures, based on what they said at PaizoCon. A concrete bestiary-style entry doesn't really make sense for something that's going to be an in-world cryptid, when cryptids from are world regularly get started as regular monsters.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. So yeah, maybe in a different part XD

Hey, Mr. Lundeen, while we have you here, could you give us an idea whether vampires are practical in the AP?

keftiu wrote:

So, we got Psychics… how long until we get playable Lashunta, a major psychic Ancestry? Here’s hoping Gatewalkers is a sign of things to come.

Now that psychic casting is a thing again, I'd love to see some creatures with innate psychic spells return. Like a lot of the creatures in the PF1 Occult Bestiary.

There are bound to be a few in the cryptid section of DA. Maybe even one of the templates.

My first interest is in Psychic multiclass on an Investigator so I'm probably weighing abilities differently than you are. But I'm also intrigued by the imaginary weapon psi cantrip that Tangible Dream gets. I really like that sort of thing.

Flavour is definitely something none of the stuff so far lacks ^^. And what is basically mind-controlled force weapons is definitely up there.

For the investigator, I'd highly recommend either things that only take one action - message and shield should be awesome - or force a saving throw. The Devise a Strategem roll will come up bad sooner or later and nothing feels worse at that moment than not having an alternative.

Depending on how Dancing Blade from Distant Grasp works and if that will be available via the archetype, it could be really cool as well ^^.

Outside of dual classing ofc, you have a few options:

(1) Wizard/witch with an archetype like magus or maybe fighter. The arcane tradition has plenty of the spells you are looking for. Extended fights in melee are quite unhealthy, though.

(2) Battle oracle. Technically a divine caster, but you don't necessarily worship a god or anything, so you could still get the classic mage vibe. Much better in melee, but fewer options on the cool movement front.

(3) War cleric of Nethys or similar magic deity. A bit controversial in terms of optimization, but with some planning it should be fine. Otherwise about the same as battle oracle.

(4) Warrior muse bard. A bit of a stretch in terms of aesthetics, but as long as you don't play an instrument and instead "sing" the spells, I think you can make it work.

A lot of other people will be more familiar with the specifics, but I hope this helps as a starting point ^^

Gisher wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

I gotta admit the psychic had zero appeal to me when it was first announced and even during the playtest. But damn it looks awesome, super flavorful and versatile. And it's seems to be a runner up for strongest dedication class 2

Now I'm curious. Which dedications do you consider to be the strongest right now?

Strongest ? Champion. The fact that you get the actual reaction and not a toned down version is insane.

Below champion but still great: Medic (my current char took it for flavor reasons, and even tho I got lack of free hand issues it's still super strong)

Blessed one

Beyond those it's very build specific I would say. But those 3 stands out as always being very impactful.

Edit: Oh and sentinel, as it is almost mandatory on certain classes if you want to optimize.
If we get acces to medium armors with the bulwark trait, that's gonna change however.
it's super boring though.

I'd add rogue to that list. Regardless of whether you only pick up the dedication or go even further in, it is just so useful for literally all classes regardless of what campaign you are playing.

Karmagator wrote:

I think a middle ground would be optimal in the future. I like Nonat's full reveal, but I think it would be best if it was a bit more limited. Leave something to anticipate in the final product.

Full class features, 2-3 class paths and a few feats that the presenter thinks are cool. That'd be great.

So..... how about a second reveal stream, Paizo? Pretty please? :D

I personally really like the full reveal since for me, the hype is built by imagining what I could do with the class. Like, it's all well and good to come up with concepts for stuff, like awhile back, there was the thaum thread about flavoring exploit weakness, but now I can be like "oh, I can make a cool illusion using fencer by using the scroll thaumaturgy line with captivator dedication with the mirror implement"

We'll likely get some version of that in about two weeks, when subscribers get their copies. Nonat has already said he would do a full overview of the book then (as he has done in the past). I wouldn't terribly mind a full reveal a la thaumaturge either ^^

Karmagator wrote:

...

The only thing that has me kinda bummed is Tangible Dream's cantrip stuff, they're not really my cup of tea. Everything else so far has me very much excited as well!
...

Tastes are funny things. Tangible Dream is the conscious mind that I'm most excited about. :)

They are, aren't they ^^? I really like the idea of it as well - which is what made it one of my two most anticipated ones - but it turned out a little to defense/support-focused for me. I have a clear preference for heavy crowd control, damage output and generally messing with the enemy's stuff. Dead is the best condition to apply and all that ;).

Depending on what the final thing looks like, I might also change my mind.

I doubt I'll get ever excited over the shield stuff, but g!% d!!n is it good. Basically once per fight, for a focus point you can more or less negate a hit on your main frontliner from relative safety, often buying them another round before they need healing. It only technically has two failure conditions due to shield's one round duration, because (unless you messed up the timing) how likely is it that nobody gets attacked or all enemies miss all their attacks for an entire round? And in that case, since you have two focus points and your shield is unbroken, you can just do it again. If it didn't work again, clearly you didn't need it in the first place and all is good.

For the second one, my party and I are fundamentally incapable of creating characters without darkvision, so dancing lights' benefit doesn't look great. But depending on how the latter's "flashbang"-style amp works, it might come back into consideration, who knows?

My current favourites stay Silent Whisper (ironic, since it seems to have a decent support bend as well) and Distant Grasp. I just hope Silent Whisper got a significant upgrade in the daze department - ideally a different cantrip entirely - or I'm gonna be real sad :/. Message being ridiculously amazing might make up for it, though, especially since we are likely playing Bloodlords next. Communication and deception are key in any intrigue campaign.

Karmagator wrote:

I think a middle ground would be optimal in the future. I like Nonat's full reveal, but I think it would be best if it was a bit more limited. Leave something to anticipate in the final product.

Full class features, 2-3 class paths and a few feats that the presenter thinks are cool. That'd be great.

So..... how about a second reveal stream, Paizo? Pretty please? :D

I personally really like the full reveal since for me, the hype is built by imagining what I could do with the class. Like, it's all well and good to come up with concepts for stuff, like awhile back, there was the thaum thread about flavoring exploit weakness, but now I can be like "oh, I can make a cool illusion using fencer by using the scroll thaumaturgy line with captivator dedication with the mirror implement"

I totally feel you ^^

I might be more into the psychic, but hot damn does the thaumaturge look great at about every turn. I would've never thought that I would see a class that I wouldn't mind a lower attack roll on. Now I did.

As much as I enjoyed the presentation part of know directions psychic stream over Nonats thaumaturge reveal, I am starting to get jealous lol. Thaumaturge has had every aspect of it revealed while psychic has had very little (though what was talked about is very exciting). I was getting annoyed with people who were saying it but I'm jumping on the bandwagon now

I think a middle ground would be optimal in the future. I like Nonat's full reveal, but I think it would be best if it was a bit more limited. Leave something to anticipate in the final product.

Full class features, 2-3 class paths and a few feats that the presenter thinks are cool. That'd be great.

So..... how about a second reveal stream, Paizo? Pretty please? :D

Karmagator wrote:

Speaking of vampires, the Player's Guide leaves open a big question for me, I'd be great if someone from Paizo could answer this.

How well does the vampire's sunlight problem work with this AP? Have the people of Geb solved this problem through some technology or does everything important happen at night? I really don't want to start out as one and later realise that I'm holding up the narrative.

This is not my area of expertise, but I know they use a lot of fabric to create shade. We worked with our on-staff artist to depict that.

Oh yeah, that artwork - I think it was shown during the official announcement - was amazing.

They all wear heavy cloaks, parasols/umbrellas, or wide brim hats (a la, Lady Dimitrescu). Lol.

I mean, technically, you only have problems with direct sunlight. So anything that provides shade - thick clothing and the stuff you mentioned - could be argued to solve that problem. In some more modern stories it actually does, sort of.

Or you could just beg your GM for a free Daywalker feat and your buddies scrape you off the floor and plop you on a horse or something. Then they build a quick fabric roof over wherever you have to fight and you're good XD

Are there any archetypes you can think of that would go well with this? (Yay for Free Archetype ^^)

Originally, I wanted to go Wellspring Mage, but Bloodlords doesn't look like the right AP for that. Otherwise, it would probably work quite well, as you have a lot of other things besides spell slots. There are some other problems, though. At level 1 RAW you get nothing (you don't have a spell slot to spend, so you cannot get one back) and still lose a spell slot & cantrip. And you don't get a 10th level spell until you take the 20th level feat. So yeah, if you want to play it, I recommend talking with your GM about fixing that.

Other than that, rogue goes with everything. Light armour, so your AC isn't as anaemic, and skills for days. Not to mention the feat list is amazing. Nimble Dodge and Mobility are easy picks.

Of course, any more social archetypes - dandy, celebrity, etc. - or regional archetypes if the campaign calls for it.

Anything that gives spell slots or focus spells doesn't seem great, as it has anti-synergy with your class stuff.

Anomander has been stolen from. He had been happy, once. All that was left now was a skeleton in a ditch on the outskirts of Mechitar, stripped of all else that made it human. But he did not die. His spirit clung to a semblance of life with the same tenacity that he had in life. What fragments he remembered, anyway. He clawed himself out of the ditch and took off for the city.

With nothing to his name but a keen mind, he worked odd jobs for the Builder's League for a long time, while learning their trade. His work earned him some friends and recognition in lower circles of the League. While he is a very patient man, he also never let up in his pursuit of his lost memories, and with them his murderer. To that end, he used most of his earned wealth to pay discrete tutors of the psychic arts, seeking mastery over his mind.

But Mechitar is an old city with even older and entrenched power structures. Chances were that his killer was still here and he was not ready to face them, so he would need a different place to grow. Taking a less prestigious post in the city of Greydirge, he prepares for the day that his enemies will meet their maker. When he is contacted by an agent of the local bloodlord, he knows that day is coming increasingly closer.

-

Visually, he is a normal, bone-white skeleton whose bones are partially covered in or inlaid with brass - both as a form of self-expression and protection. He has no problem with displaying his bones, but prefers the trappings of polite society, so he is normally clothed in deep blue tones.

His psychic spell components manifest as a faint outline of his former visage and the only song he remembers (its Mozart's version of Lacrimosa). When he Unleashes his psyche, both of these are heavily amplified, so you can see fully how he looked in life (at least a ghostly version of it).

Yeah, I think free Advanced Undead benefits is a bit overkill. Just Darkvision would be perfectly fine.

Technically, you could also give them low-light vision, as the Basic Undead benfits would upgrade that to darkvision, but that seems unnecessarily complicated.

They don't have eyes, they see via magic. Which is why literally any skeleton ever has had darkvision. But PC skeletons only get low-light vision and have no feats that allow them to get darkvision.

Was that an oversight or is it a balancing thing?

Speaking of vampires, the Player's Guide leaves open a big question for me, I'd be great if someone from Paizo could answer this.

How well does the vampire's sunlight problem work with this AP? Have the people of Geb solved this problem through some technology or does everything important happen at night? I really don't want to start out as one and later realise that I'm holding up the narrative.

In regards to Unleashing Psyche, I feel like the best way to make use of the feature is for finishing fights. You're still an Occult caster, just one with less fuel in the tank, and getting your key buffs and debuffs onto the field ASAP is still going to be the priority.

After you've spent the necessary slots to swing the math and have the fight proceeding favourably, then you Unleash and start closing the fight out with your heightened damage.

This means you're risking as little as possible on the stupefy. Unleashing as early as possible is a trap, since all it does is boost your damage on your less important spells; it doesn't make foes more likely to fail the saves you need them to fail.

I think it is a lot more complicated than that. It depends on a number of factors, such as what playstyle you are going for, what subclass/feats you have, what slots you have left for the current situation, how long you expect the fight to take and what non-spell alternatives you have.

For example, the Emotional Acceptance psyche action (Restore Mind - heal or give bonus to saves) is something you want to do as often as possible, so Unleashing as early as possible is a priority. Blaster builds - which look like they will be a thing for multiple concious minds - really like more damage.

On the other side of the spectrum - at least going by the info info we have atm - if you are playing a Precise Discipline psychic with either Silent Whisper or Unbound Step, Unleash seems more of a "press to gtfo" button.

How and when to Unleash looks to be one of those things that is actually a lot more nuanced than it appears at first.

I really can’t understate how much happier I am with this than the playtest. Really sincere thanks to the devs for listening!

The thing I'm probably most happy about is that all those massive drawbacks seem to be gone and that each conscious mind now gets these exclusive small-ish passive benefits for each cantrip you get from it.

The new Message having longer range and no longer requiring direct line of effect or sight (only some way to get to the target) is easily my favourite so far. The shenangians will be glorious. KnowDirection's example was a few people sitting around a table and you telling your allies things. Not bad, but I think - depending how exactly it is worded - there is a lot more potential here. Message doesn't allow for a saving throw or anything. Unless the one on the other end is deaf they're hearing what you have to say, whether they want to or not. Picture a room that is thick with tension, as the various factions present mistrust each other. You are sitting about 300ft away with a telescope, looking through a window. Now you start telling some individuals things that may or may not be true (e.g. "hey, that guy over there has done you dirty" or "are these armed people out here yours, because they don't look friendly").

Your spells also do not have verbal components - I hope they kept that in, the special components were great - so casting stealthily isn't out of the picture. They still have audible manifestations - you can get your own soundtrack! - but those can be much less noticeable than babbling out loud. That's going to be fun.

Honestly with all the psychic has going for it you could save all those spell slots for niche utility. 18 spell slots will feel like a luxury for that class.

It certainly looks like the combination of conscious and unconscious mind will determine the main beats of your playstyle, instead of your spell list. Which is something I'm very much for.

[...]

And of course the cantrips, free refocus feats (I think that was said? Maybe it's just refocus 2 points from the get go if only amps were used), and unleash psyche.

They kept the playtest thing of starting with 2 focus points and getting two back so long as you only used them for amps. And I'm pretty sure they'll have the same thing as the oracle with getting your third focus point for free as a level 11 class feature - I think they even vaguely mentioned it in the video. They are like the focus point class, so it would just make sense.

Ah ok, now that you said that, I remember the medicine thing. Back then I was like "you sure about that?" (no medicine means dead, poor or out of resources in an AP) and then thought the same thing as keftiu (even without the later text).

I've read the thing again and I think it is fine. I understand your concerns for new players, but I don't think that's really an issue within the bounds of a Player's Guide. That's more of a system knowledge issue, which is beyond the scope. So either the GM and/or more experienced players help or mistakes are likely to crop up regardless. And people not reading stuff, while understandable, is kind of their own fault ;)

Anyway, I'm damn stoked for the Player's Guide. The main thing I'm looking for is what ancestries to play, when I expect being anything living not to be a great idea. Especially later on. Human vampire is always an option, but I like to have some variety to choose from ^^.

Good point, I made a new thread to avoid crowding this one.

I'm not super interested in the thaumaturge myself and having basically 2 separate conversations in a thread isn't great. Much better to make 2 separate threads that occasionally overlap.

So yeah, to avoid crowding the Dark Archive PC thread, have this one.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, here is the reddit writeup of the KnowDirection preview. Give the person who went through this effort some love ^^.

Anyway, regarding some stuff from the original thread:

I know this is more of a PC concept thread, but just wanted to say that getting details on how unleash psyche works has me very excited for the class. Cantrip damage (really psychic damage in general) in the playtest was very low given how it was touted as a... Not exactly at will blasting class but definitely a class with a focus on cantrips and focus spells as their main tools.

Tracking bonuses and penalties round by round is a lot more exciting to me than having daily limits on things as well. I do worry that maybe stupefied is too debilitating a condition for when unleash psyche ends (way too many times I have failed DC 5 flat checks) but overall I still like it a lot.

The only thing that has me kinda bummed is Tangible Dream's cantrip stuff, they're not really my cup of tea. Everything else so far has me very much excited as well!

It certainly continues to look like something that goes a a ways away from the more traditional (aka "boring" form me) caster playstyle and role, which I find pretty interesting. Slots are much more like "use in case of emergency" than your main bread and butter.

Regarding Stupefied, it depends on how powerful the rest of the kit is and how well you can compensate with non-spell actions. Given that you can do some cantrip stuff during that time it doesn't hurt as much, but it will be pretty brutal. Definitely not the time for spell slots, though ^^. That said, a good deal of combats are only 3 rounds long, at my table at least, so it will probably happen somewhat infrequently anyway. I just hope it's just stupefied 1 like they said in the video not 2 (which I have seen from some people), that would be a bit overkill.

I know this is more of a PC concept thread, but just wanted to say that getting details on how unleash psyche works has me very excited for the class. Cantrip damage (really psychic damage in general) in the playtest was very low given how it was touted as a... Not exactly at will blasting class but definitely a class with a focus on cantrips and focus spells as their main tools.

Tracking bonuses and penalties round by round is a lot more exciting to me than having daily limits on things as well. I do worry that maybe stupified is too debilitating a condition for when unleash psyche ends (way too many times I have failed DC 5 flat checks) but overall I still like it a lot.

Good point, I made a new thread to avoid crowding this one.

Hm, it was confirmed that Psychic is still 2 slots per day, so combining it with Wellspring Mage will be bloody wild XD.

It also opens up an interesting interaction at level 1. Because I literally have no spell slots at that level, the archetype literally doesn't do anything I guess :P

Nonat1 was given the green light to preview the Thaumaturge, which he did in a livestream here: . He goes pretty in depth but his voice gives out before he gets to the feats, so we sadly still can't make a character :( but we get 90% of the thaumaturge.

Apparently Know Direction (the podcast) will be putting out their early access review for the psychic shortly, though as of this posting it doesn't appear to be out yet. Still, With all this information, I may be able to put out the beta version of my unofficial thaumaturge guide the day the dark archive drops!

It's still only an twitch and sadly tells us relatively little that wasn't announced already. Ezekieru made a write-up over on reddit, which I would recommend checking out.

willfromamerica wrote:

I’m especially excited for the new table of recommended classes/alignments/etc.

I hope it will be better than the first one.

What were the problems with the first one?

From Paizo Live - ETA for the player's guide is likely to be next week.

Speaking of my magical chaos robot cat psychic idea, the Wellspring Mage archetype would be absolutely hilarious for the theme. Depends on whether the Psychic still has 2 slots per level, though - only having 1 per level is a bit too thin.

Huge potential to really mess with the entire scenario of a given combat encounter. Mostly the party, but my people can take it ^^

I keep on trying to find a way to incorporate the dark archive into the thaumaturge by making a skeleton thaumaturge but nothing is firing up the ol' neurons. Seems like there should be an idea there, right?

That would make for a good "lost memories" type of scenario. Your skeleton wakes up undead with only a few items on their body - your implements - that give some clues about who they were before. That could go into any number of directions, such as "solve your own murder" if the game allows for that.

You know what, I have played such normal characters up until now, maybe what I need is something truly out there. Or I have read too much Stray Cat Strut. Maybe both.

So for something completely different. Magical robot cat from another plane, laser eyes optional. A small hunter automaton psychic and going into the rogue archetype with Free Archetype. Its eyes are gateways to the maelstrom (pure unfiltered chaos) and the spells are flavoured in a way that complements that.

That could be fun ^^

My plans are still rather vague, but I think Unleash Psyche just begs for a transformation sequence. Not a full anime one, more eyes (you know, gates to the soul/inner self) and attire (because I can).

I'm definitely doing something based on Scarlet Witch. The whole vibe she has in the latest iteration just really works for me, especially as basically a horror movie villain.

I'm so glad you're keeping Hope-6 as the name. ^^

I can't help but think "Unsinkable 2" when I hear that name on an Android. With their whole rebirth thing going on and all that ^^

I'll be interested to see what they have done with the class in general, given how much has been moved around. Hopefully something interesting was done to compensate for the fewer spell slots - if that was even retained. Unleash Psyche seems to have changed the most, with most bespoke variants being gone - no more -2 to AC on a 6HP class XD (that one was so absurd it was just funny, even for a playtest) - and it behaving more like a sort of metal "rage" mechanic with some bonus damage and actions you can only do during it. What I heard was all good stuff, so I'm hopeful.

If the class is at least pretty good, I might play my first caster after all. I was rather ambivalent about the Dark Archive before Paizocon, but the Psychic hype just slowly creeped up on me.

I've rediscovered the vigilante archetype for myself and am currently spitballing the possibilities. There is just so much you can do with it.

My current idea is using it as a way to hide my character's undead nature, specifically being a vampire in his case. So the social identity needs to be fairly solitary and have a good excuse to be up at odd hours, while still having enough of a public profile to seem like a normal member of society. So I made him an author of cheesy vampire novels. And to be a bit more cheeky, he includes past exploits in the stories, often rather thinly disguised. People finding out is half the fun of this type of story, after all.

I definitely have to echo cavernshark - build what you want in a way that you think is decent and work from there. Every game is different and people care about different things, so blanket build advice is less helpful than one would think. Just because someone like me cares about a certain degree of optimization - and therefore wouldn't touch combination weapons unless you put said weapon to his head - doesn't mean stuff won't work for you. Gunblade magus should be absolutely fine.

Combine that with the fact that 2e has both significantly more options and (more importantly) more options that actually work (i.e aren't either functionally useless or completely op) than essentially everything currently on the market and you should find something that fits what you want. Sure, it might not be the best build, but unless you are purposefully sabotaging yourself or build something unfit for the game you are playing, things should work out alright.

Despite the very substantial amount of content we already have, PF2 to me feels like it is only scratching the surface. Thematically and mechanically, it has so much more to give and is solid enough to handle a lot more expansion, even in weird ways. I like a new edition as much as the next guy, but I hope the financial side is a bit more gracious than "just" 7 years.

SuperBidi wrote:

Using class archetypes as a balancing tool seems like a dangerous choice to me. If you release slightly stronger class archetypes you also invalidate the non-archetyped version of a class.

My feeling is that class archetypes are not supposed to help balancing classes and using them for that purpose may end up with quite an amount of disappointment.

Well, not as a balancing tool necessarily but as a playstyle enabling tool. Look at the alchemist as an example, Paizo clearly values the ability to be very versatile with it and if you look at alchemy archetypes they are allowed to be a bit stronger when they only focus on one thing.

So a class archetype could possibly give them martial scaling in bombs at the cost of a significantly reduced repertoire with advanced alchemy, enabling people who really likes the bomb part of the alchemy and doesn't mind not being able to dabble in elixirs as well.

Pretty much what I was thinking for the alchemist in particular. For example, you could reduce the advanced alchemy level for everything that isn't your research field to level -X. Or a "pick x number of categories" that your advanced alchemy level scales for, the rest stays at level X (or have specific increments like the alchemist multiclass-archetype). Maybe something completely different. It would certainly be an interesting avenue to explore.

The Raven Black wrote:

I really don't understand why people expect errata to bring a redesign of classes. An errata is concerned with correcting egregious mistakes, usually of the Too good to be true variety, and sometimes with giving needed clarifications. Redesign is completely out of an errata's purview.

It's happened with the alchemist.

Did it really? They changed a few things, but that's not exactly a redesign. Hence the class controversy still going strong to this day.

Personally, having to manage additional stuff has never been a negative point for me, so long as the end result isn't substantially weaker than the simple one. Quite on the contrary, for me complexity is an upside. Give me the gunslinger over the ranged fighter or ranger any day, for example. And I think many new classes achieve this perfectly fine. 5 out of 8 are at least good. The rest is not exactly bad either, which is a far better ratio than can be taken for granted if you look at the market in general. Which is, of course, an extremely subjective assessment, but still.

On the topic of witch, alchemist and errata specifically, I think people are overestimating what is feasible to do with this format. While I would be all for dynamic gaming-like balance "patches", that's not what errata are or maybe even can be, at least at the moment. Those issues would need a lot of resources to identify and fix, which, in my (let's be real here) amateur outside perspective, isn't something Paizo can afford to just do. For something so dramatic, we are realistically looking at an "unchained" type book down the line.

While there are certainly quite a few negative examples (Vampire is definitely one), they are definitely doing a good job overall by keeping to their balancing guidelines. The CRB is just the first expression we got of those guidelines and contains a lot of the more straightforward options, not the gold standard.

It's not like the CRB was all sunshine and happiness, just look at the alchemist or warpriest controversies. While you can argue the seriousness of those issues, they exist for a reason. It also doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of later options that are arguably stronger than their CRB equivalent - the Tyrant has the most consistently strong offense of all champions, the archer archetype grants Incredible Aim but straight better, the Sniper gunslinger and Starlit Span magus just straight one-shot a lot of fools at range (at least at lower levels) and so on.

Having played way too much Elden Ring in the last weeks, I have the distinct urge do do something with the Lord of Blood aesthetic. The people are terrible (looking at you, Mohg), but the outfits, soundtrack and weapons are sweet as all hell. If a bit edgy, but hey. Also, our next AP will 99% be Bloodlords, so, you know.. I kinda have to.

So for certain I'm looking at a human-based vampire. He will be the black sheep of the family, not fitting into the family business and generally more intent on the pleasures of life than traditional work. Something based on the "rich noble kid" archetype, but without too much emphasis on the entitlement and more on how he doesn't know what to do with his life. I usually play highly principled/lawful characters with a strong sense of responsibility, so I want to try the other side of the fence for once ^^.

Class-wise, the rogue with a duelist-type playstyle and everything bleed-related would be ideal. That's somewhat close to what I'm currently playing, though. I'm leaning towards gunslinger as an alternative, channelling some of that TFS Hellsing Abridged without making it a meme.

Details will have to wait for the AP, though.

G&G has been out for a while, but with a new adventure ahead for my group, I put some more though into the gunslinger. So my GM and I came up with a roughly workable design.

The basis is still the dueling pistol with repeating added, as "recommended" by the book. Then we cut the range increments down to 30ft and changed the handedness to 1+, meaning you need two hands to fire the weapon. The latter was to avoid dual-wielding, especially cheesing with Paired Shots in particular.

It is still not 100% in line with existing weapons, but much more reasonable, we think. If you wanted to really balance it, you should also make it advanced. We just honestly didn't care at that point, sorry XD

On a more out-there note, we also agreed that the gun could be single-loaded like a regular weapon, in addition to via the "magazine" of the repeating trait. It just feels good and right. If you want to properly balance it, you probably shouldn't do that either :D

If all else fails, the Rowan Rifle likely shows that you could probably also do this at a higher level as a specific magic item.

I hope this helps someone who also wants to play a gunslinger with such an iconic weapon ^^.

I kinda forgot about this one - is it an oversight that the Rowan Rifle doesn't have reload? The text says it runs on magic and therefore doesn't require ammo (nor could it use special ammo if it wanted to), which heavily indicates that this is intended. The stats + abilities somehow make me doubt that a bit, though, high-level specific magic item or not.

It would be really cool if it was correct. The magic revolver dream isn't dead yet, even if it takes a few levels :D

Vibrating in anticipation.

You should, we are soooo close. Yesterday (or something) Steve said that it is pretty much just one last-minute piece of art that keeps the book from being done.

My best bet is a Friday release. Any takers?

Edit: Hahahaha. It came out even before the edit window on this post expired. I didn't see that one coming XD