Kitusser's page

I want to hear what people think about the Envoy now that it's fully released. I feel that the issues with the class in the playtest weren't actually addressed and the class kind of feels worse. The directives for subclasses are nice, but some of them are kind of bad and I don't think the inclusion of them is that much of an addition considering the fact that you can only use one Directive per turn.

The one Directive per turn thing just seems to be a backwards decision, especially when directives themselves aren't all that powerful. Including more directives at low levels while making you unable to use multiple seems like a poor decision. Also the fact that directives were nerfed by being one or two actions activities instead of one action activities that can be followed up by using the prescribed action for Lead By Example makes this even more questionable.

Get Em! being a status bonus, especially when Paizo explicitly stated they would make it a circumstance bonus is equally disappointing. Like other's have said, the Bard and Rhythm Mystic have basically a better version of this feature, providing a similar bonus at lower levels. The advantage of Get Em! is that the damage bonus scales (nice but it scales too slowly and not high enough), and that the Lead By Example effect lets you add your Cha bonus to your own strike as part of it (which is good but it's a selfish bonus and becomes less important at higher levels). This also leads into the issue of status bonuses to attacks being very common, which makes this feature redundant in a lot of parties. Moreover, it only applies to strikes and has no impact on Area Fire or Automatic Fire, which sucks.

It sort of just seems like this class's support capabilities are pretty much strictly worse than a spellcaster, or even the Commander. It gets to be a martial with a pretty good chassis, but it really feels like it needs better support capability.

I have a few pet peeves with Infosphere Director, like the fact it requires a decent Intelligence on an already MAD class. This isn't unusable, and I think it's actually one of the better subclasses despite this, but even the Bard gets to use Charisma for Bardic Lore. Also Digital Diversion, really?

That's all I can think of off the top of my head but I'd love to hear what others think and if they disagree/agree with my thoughts here.

This Hybrid Study seems pretty good overall, but I'm confused as to why the Conflux Spell has the Manipulate trait, and partly with its 4th level feat.

During Arcane Cascade, this Hybrid Study ignores reactions when it uses Fly, Leap, High Jump, or Long Jump. This should synergise with the Conflux Spell which allows you to Fly up to your speed and make a Strike, but the spell has the manipulate trait which seems like anti-synergy. Usually when you Spellstrike, you're ending your turn next to an enemy, meaning that you're likely going to trigger a reaction by casting it, making that part of the Arcane Cascade Stance worthless. Usually you can avoid triggering the reactions from enemies who you aren't right next to, especially when you aren't flying.

Secondly, it's 4th level Feat allows you to take a reaction to Leap, High Jump, or Long Jump immediately after hitting a target with a Spellstrike. The movement doesn't trigger reactions from the target. The issue here is that (at least at low to mid levels when enemies usually only have one reaction for Reactive Strike) you've already triggered their reaction with your Spellstrike which makes that whole part of the feat pointless.

Not to say that this Hybrid Study is bad, far from it, it is arguably better than Laughing Shadow. They have incredible mobility through their Conflux Spell and that 4th level feat.

Overall, while the Hybrid Study is great, it seems to have some anti-synergy within it's kit due to the Manipulate trait on both Spellstrike and it's Conflux Spell.

This directive gets the Digital Diversion feat which lets them Create a Diversion using the Computers skill (which is an Intelligence skill). Why wouldn't you just use Deception instead? Envoy's key ability score is Charisma.

Moreover, one if its Acts of Leadership is to Create a Diversion using Computers. Not seeing the reason to pick this.