Krinn's page

Is it possible to be expert in a skill at 1st level?
The rules for skills say that one can become expert in a skill at any level but I fail to find a documented case for level 1, is there one in the Core Rulebook?
Would it be unbalancing to grant an expert ranked skill at 1st level for a homebrew class, such as the Artificer? He would need Expert rank in Crafting and the Magical Crafting feat at 1st level in a way similar to the Alchemist.
Thanks.

In my games I already change conjuration (healing) to necromancy (healing) so it's a good change for me!

Roll 3d6 for your stats. In order.

Seconded, I hope I'll enjoy 99% of the pages of the book, even if I'll be vocal against that 1%.

Then I'll be less than 100% pleased... It's sad that I won't use a new core race presented in the core manual, as it's easier to accept not playing optional stuff in other manuals, but what can we do...
I hope that the races will be straightforward enough that I can come up with an easy Aasimar or Tiefling.
That said, I look forward to other parts of the playtest, in particular the level bonus to most stuff, broad proficiency to skills, attacks and saves à la 5e and see if it works well together. That and the modularity / moddability of classes via class feats.

Tiefling Alchemist and Aasimar Oracle would have been a better fit for new core races and classes in my opinion.

Krinn wrote:

Goblins are a no for me as well. Honestly I can't see a role for a goblin in party other than comic relief, if not disruptive play for the sake of it. Also, goblins always had a charisma penalty, so why remove that penalty and have a bonus instead? Cha bonus with Wis penalty just screams comic relief, when those pests are dangerous as a whole.

Unless I'm playing in a setting that displays them as civilized, playable characters (Eberron comes to mind), that "ancestry" is a core feature that won't belong in my games.
I'd rather have Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi in core, or perhaps a new race like a construct one.

It's kind of a lack of imagination if you can't see them beyond jokes or disruptions.

There can certainly be light-hearted moments, but there's no reason you couldn't have a Goblin character with a striking character motivation and gripping past that leads into an emotional character arc.

As for why Charisma?

"Charisma measures a character’s personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance."

There are multiple aspects to Charisma. While many might not find them visually attractive in the traditional sense or amazing leaders normally, they exude personality, and they can both draw and hold attention quite well with said personality (an aspect of one's personal magnetism).

Or, to put it more simply, it's their character's charm and quirks compensating for their lack of non-traditional beauty.

If you have to pick a mental stat to give to Goblins, Charisma seems like the best fit.

I'm quite content with Goblin as an option (though I wouldn't mind a Svirfneblin as well, Deep Gnomes need love too).

You can substitute goblin for kender in your post and it would fit better.

I'd rather give goblins an Intelligence bonus (I remember their blue subrace of psionically gifted goblins) and a Charisma penalty, but my goblins are not Pathfinder goblins I guess... still, given their description in PF1, I expected a wisdom penalty right from the start, instead PF1 goblins have average wisdom and a penalty to charisma. Their difference from 3.x goblins didn't show in their stats.

Goblins are a no for me as well. Honestly I can't see a role for a goblin in party other than comic relief, if not disruptive play for the sake of it. Also, goblins always had a charisma penalty, so why remove that penalty and have a bonus instead? Cha bonus with Wis penalty just screams comic relief, when those pests are dangerous as a whole.
Unless I'm playing in a setting that displays them as civilized, playable characters (Eberron comes to mind), that "ancestry" is a core feature that won't belong in my games.
I'd rather have Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi in core, or perhaps a new race like a construct one.

I prefer hobgoblins but I guess they're easier to implement... +int/+dex/-cha small goblins, +con/+dex/-cha medium hobgoblins... +cha goblinoids are a no in my book, but it's easy to swap the bonuses around.

Same here, I think Eberron will be good in PF2.

- Dragonmarks as ancestry feats.
- Warforged might be difficult to translate but not more than in PF1. Also, most warforged feats may also become ancestry feats.
- Artificers might finally be easier to create a niche for, with a focus on the resonance system.
- Action points might enable a character to temporarily increase his proficiency for one action instead of just adding d6's.
- Feats like Greensinger Initiate might easily become class feats.

Names can obviously change, I just went with a name that reminds me of a certain mystic option. You can call them Quantum Field Manipulator in harder sci-fi, or Cosmic Nexus, or something fancy.

I didn't get to play a crew member in a Starfinder ship yet, but I fully expect to make this role available in the campaign I'm GM'ing (a converted Eberron game, plenty of ships and magic there) and possibly also in the campaign I'm playing as (Star Wars themed, theGlitch is our GM).

I'm open to suggestion for something new in place of Unification, I just read the other level 12 tasks and devised a similarly strong one that could work for a punny name as well. It steps on the captain's role but it's a push and you have to expend a resolve point to make it work, and can work on a different target than the captain's (or even target the captain himself!).

After a couple thoughts, I updated the crew role with the following edits:
- Entanglement reduces enemy tier by 2 rather than 1, so the bonus is more consistent. Most DCs scale with 1.5 times the tier, so a reduction of just 1 tier would mean -1 or -2 to the DC depending on odd vs even. This way, the bonus is consistently -3 to the DCs that scale with 1.5 * tier. Given that the bonus is higher, I also increased the action DC itself.
- Uncertainty mimics the Engineer's Divert action, but only for weapons. Divert is much more versatile, so it stands to reason that it should have a higher DC than Uncertainty. Regardless, if a Mystic is set to protect her ship rather than aggressively fire upon other ships as a Gunner, it's ok for her to more easily reduce incoming damage, even if the reduction itself is tiny. So, I reduced the Uncertainty DC.
- Minor wording edits so every action should be clear.
- Disclaimer: I use my own set of DCs in this crew role... likely Starfinder DCs would have been 10+tier for Uncertainty, 10+2*tier for Entanglement, 15+2*tier for Exclusion, 10+3*tier for Tunneling, but I despise those formulae since those are not homogeneous and the DCs become impossible to meet. I use my DCs in all other crew actions as well.

Crew Role: Stargazer (suggested for Mystics, Solarians, Technomancers and Priest-themed characters)

You use your mystical understanding of the Cosmos to guide your ship through the worst of space combat.
A ship can only have one Stargazer. A Stargazer operates first during the Engineering phase and is affected by the Life Support system status.

Actions:

Uncertainty
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 5+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, any enemy damage dice rolled against your ship for the round that shows a maximum value is lowered by 1.

Entanglement
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 10+1.5*tier of an enemy ship. If you succeed, your crewmates consider that ship's tier as if it were 2 lower for the round. This effectively lowers many DCs of crew actions against that ship by 3 points.

Exclusion
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 15+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, you protect one of the systems of your ship from accruing further critical conditions. If a critical damage roll would hit that system, reroll the critical roll. The protected system can still be hit if this second roll results in yet another hit.

Tunneling (Push)
If you have 6 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 20+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, your ship can ignore the result of one hit of your choice (after the hit is scored but before the damage is rolled, quantum weapons can try again if they would have hit on the first try) for the round.

Unification (Push)
If you have 12 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and choose a crew member. Whenever that crew member makes a crew action for the round, you can roll a Mysticism check. The crew member can use either his roll or your Mysticism check, whichever is higher.

Optional
In a harder Sci-Fy setting, the ship could have an additional System, perhaps a Quantum Einstein-Rosen Drive or other appropriate Sci-Fy sounding name that could allow FTL travel (much like the Drift Engine itself), to affect the Stargazer, and these actions could be based off Physical Science rather than Mysticism.
A proposed critical roll table with the new system could be like this:
1-10: Life Support
11-25: Sensors
26-55: Weapons
56-70: Engines
71-85: Quantum Drive / Drift Engine
86-100: Power Core

Just for clarification, Uncertainty and Tunneling should be rewritten as such:

Uncertainty
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 10+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, any enemy damage dice rolled against your ship for the round that shows a maximum value is lowered by 1.

Tunneling (Push)
If you have 6 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 20+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, your ship can ignore the result of one hit of the Stargazer's choice (after the hit is scored but before the damage is rolled, quantum weapons can try again if they would have hit on the first try) for the round.

I firstly envisioned the role as spellcasters/solarian-only but since it's homebrew anyway, it shouldn't be that bat to open it to anyone trained in Mysticism, especially since the Priest theme is a thing.

Yeah, names should be changed, I just put those there for fun since I have a degree in physics myself.
However, dealing with that physical stuff at such a degree to actually do those actions is more in the realm of "sci-fy" magic I think, hence mysticism instead of physical science, refluffed depending on class and patron: a technomancer would likely keep the names as is.

I would remove the word that makes them more physical science, so the names would become Entanglement, Uncertainty, Exclusion, Tunneling and Unification for starters.

In a harder science fiction setting I would question the existence of mystics and solarians, but one could change the skill to Physical Science and the relevant ship system to Sensors, Core and/or Engines (or make another one from scratch, perhaps related to the FTL engine of choice, especially if it uses Einstein-Rosen bridges)

EDIT
@Ciaran Barnes
It is class specific because it requires some sort of magic access to do those actions, so only spellcasters and similar classes qualify. Regardless, it's just as easy to say that everyone trained in Mysticism or Physical Science can do these tricks, especially if one adds a ship system from scratch (Drift System?)
I'm open to adjustments and other abilities, I tried not to just add more bonuses since I reckon this is the design philosophy for Starfinder, and mimicked some other actions... the damage dampening one is a mirror of the engineer "divert to weapons" action for example.

I approached the uselessness of Mystics in the ship combat and crafted a new role that any mystical class trained in Mysticism can cover. Technomancers, Mystics and Solarians alike are ideally suited to this role, but Mystics especially so.

Stargazer (Solarian, Technomancer and Mystic only)

You use your mystical understanding of the Cosmos to guide your ship through the worst of space combat.
A ship can only have one Stargazer. A Stargazer operates first during the Engineering phase and is affected by the Life Support system status.

Actions

Quantum Entanglement
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 5+1.5*tier of an enemy ship. If you succeed, your crewmates consider that ship's tier as if it were 1 lower for the round.

Uncertainty Principle
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 10+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, any enemy damage roll against your ship for the round that shows a maximum value is lowered by 1.

Exclusion Principle
You attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 15+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, you protect one of the systems of your ship from accruing further critical conditions. If a critical damage roll would hit that system, reroll the critical roll.

Quantum Tunneling (Push)
If you have 6 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and attempt a Mysticism check with a DC of 20+1.5*tier of your ship. If you succeed, your ship can ignore the result of one hit for the round.

Great Unification (Push)
If you have 12 ranks in Mysticism, you can expend a Resolve Point and choose a crew member. When that crew member makes a crew action for the round, you can roll a Mysticism check. The crew member can use either his roll or your Mysticism check, whichever is higher.

Until tihs is fixed, I'm going with the following fix that I found on reddit with some minor tweaking:

- DC "Base" + "Tier" => DC "Base"-5 + 1.5*"Tier"
- DC "Base" + 2*"Tier" => DC "Base" + 1.5*"Tier"
- DC "Base" + 3*"Tier" => DC "Base"+10 + 1.5*"Tier"

Also, the DC to hack computers is adjusted to 15 + 3*"Computer Tier" (since those vary from 1 to 10)

So, an easy DC of 10+tier becomes 5+1.5*tier, a hard DC of 15+2*tier becomes 15+1.5*tier and a nigh impossible DC of 10+3*tier becomes a difficult 20+1.5*tier. Since both actions that require this high DC also expend a resolve point, lowering it to a still difficult one makes more sense.

By the way, I'm retconning all skill DC's in the game to follow this pattern.

I'm going to do a similar thing...
Players will choose their physical looks, race, gender, campaign trait and drawback, and they'll tell me if there's some classes they absolutely don't want to play, like full casters, monks or the like.
Using elite arrays for everyone, I'll choose the class, archetype, feat, other traits and skills for them and reveal bits of their sheet as the game proceeds.
They seem intrigued by the idea and they trust me to give them intriguing characters.
Can't wait to start the AP.

I think this link might be helpful if we're talking about ecownomy

http://www.boredpanda.com/corporation-economies-explained-cows-ecownomics/

Fortitude, just like the destruction spell.

The precision damage is only on your own damage, the "d6s" are not multiplied on a critical hit, but I am pretty sure the fixed "half level" that everyone gets is not precision damage and is getting multiplied...

Oh well, so produce flame is good but call lightning is not... will have to choose a different 3rd level spell for my fey trickster mesmerist :)

very undecided between stone shape, mad monkeys and sleet storm :)

Krinn wrote:

Does the mesmerist ability Painful Stare augment the damage of an area of effect spell such as fireball or call lightning?

It's an attack (an invisible creature casting fireball at an enemy becomes visible) and it does deal damage to the enemy, so I would think yes, but it also doesn't have an attack roll to hit the enemy.

Thanks in advance!

What is the text for the rule?

Sometimes when PF says attack they mean something with an attack roll, and sometimes they just mean any attack. I really wish they would be more precise, but that is how it is.

The text is this

Painful Stare (Su): When an attack that deals damage hits the target of a mesmerist's hypnotic stare, the mesmerist can cause the target to take an amount of additional damage equal to 1/2 the mesmerist's class level (minimum 1). The mesmerist can use this ability as a free action, and can use it even if it isn't his turn. If the mesmerist uses this ability to increase his own damage, the additional damage increases by 1d6 points for every 3 class levels the mesmerist possesses. This damage is precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit. A mesmerist can trigger this ability only once per round, but a single creature can take damage from multiple mesmerists' painful stares in a round.

What is the Fey Trickster casting stat? Is it wisdom or charisma?
All the base class and even the archetypes abilities are charisma-based, yet it says

Nature's Lure

Rather than casting psychic spells from the mesmerist spell list, a fey trickster casts divine spells drawn from the druid and ranger spell lists, in just the same way as a hunter does. This means that she gains orisons instead of knacks. This doesn't change her number of spells per day or spells known. The fey trickster's mesmerist spells and spell-like abilities count as if they were fey spell-like abilities for the purpose of effects like resist nature's lure that apply against fey spell-like abilities.

This alters the mesmerist's spellcasting.

and the hunter class says

Spell Casting

A hunter casts divine spells drawn from the druid and ranger spell lists. Only druid spells of 6th level and lower and ranger spells are considered to be part of the hunter spell list. If a spell appears on both the druid and ranger spell lists, the hunter uses the lower of the two spell levels listed for the spell. For instance, reduce animal is a 2nd-level druid spell and a 3rd-level ranger spell, making it a 2nd-level hunter spell. Likewise, detect poison is a 0-level druid spell and a 2nd-level ranger spell, making it a 0-level hunter spell. The hunter can cast any spell she knows without preparing it ahead of time. To learn or cast a spell, a hunter must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell's level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a hunter's spell is 10 + the spell's level + the hunter's Wisdom modifier.

EDIT

In addition, there's the Feyspeaker druid archetype that makes the druid cast on charisma rather than wisdom, so it seems to me rather odd that a charisma based spellcasting would become wisdom based upon contact with the feywild, while a wisdom based spellcasting would instead become charisma based in the same circumstance.

Does the mesmerist ability Painful Stare augment the damage of an area of effect spell such as fireball or call lightning?
It's an attack (an invisible creature casting fireball at an enemy becomes visible) and it does deal damage to the enemy, so I would think yes, but it also doesn't have an attack roll to hit the enemy.

Thanks in advance!

In my games, if the spell has no verbal or somatic component, the best you can do is detect that the creature is concentrating on something, that lets an archer ready an action against a SLA and take it.

However, an invisible spellcaster casting such a spell is almost undetectable, barring blindsight, true sight or similar abilities.

The strongest enemies that face the party sometimes use a combination of greater invisibility and mind blank to not allow even true sight from working. Still, purge invisibility and blindsight work.

So, conceal spell in my games might be useful if you're not a psychic, but there's no actual show of light while casting any spell unless its description says so.

Quori-possessed inspired like it so in Eberron and would mind control anyone who disagrees.

I just downloaded the pdf after finding the aforementioned issues in the email... perhaps resend the email with a working link to the backers? :)

Krinn wrote:

Perhaps rename "future kineticist" to "chronokineticist" to keep the greek names?

Sorry - quirk of editing. ^_^

That passage was intended to read as "those who will become kineticists". We don't have plans to create kineticists who manipulate time.

Yet.

Aww... I was sincerely hoping this was a misnamer rather than a quirk then :D

I got a feeling that perhaps Eberron inspired this setting: the century long war, the warforged/phalanx, the shifter/infused, even the changeling/okanta (with their ability to mimic others) parallelisms, music as a major role that reminds me of the eberronian "songs of creation", and a certain moon that just disappeared and nobody knows where it is now!
Also, Eberron is set in roughly 19th century Europe "magitech wise", and Aethera is just ahead in the 1920...

Mind you, this is not a bad thing, just a curiosity, Eberron is my favorite setting and I'm looking forward to its spiritual heir, whether this was intentional or not. The similarities pretty much end here, and it's interesting to see how warring factions unite under threat of imminent disaster rather than just settle for an uneasy peace, can't wait to read more about the setting history.

only 5k to go!

Perhaps rename "future kineticist" to "chronokineticist" to keep the greek names?

Pledged and can't wait to play Aethera!
It's been a constant nerdgasm since Technology Guide => Pathfinder Unchained => Occult Adventures... and Aethera uses them all and then some!

By using the implant false reading psychic spell, it's a 2nd level spell and it allows a save much like the magic aura spell. It doesn't say anything about how it interacts with legend lore, but as a GM it would be fair to use I think (magic aura can fool analyze dweomer afterall), just make sure you roll their saves in secret.

It's not "an effect with the [fear] descriptor", it's just a "fear effect", so no it doesn't shut down emotion spellcasting

EDIT
Wait, I just checked the playtest to see if anything changed in the wording and it didn't.

It is impossible to cast a spell with an emotion component while the spellcaster is under the inf luence of a non-harmless effect with the emotion or fear descriptors.

And here is the word from Mark Seifter about emotion spells.

If you're shaken, you're not casting an E spell (without the metamagic feat to remove the E anyway). Think of it in some ways as the martial's response to psychics (since tying them up or gagging them won't work)

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rn8x?General-Discussion-Spells-and-Magic# 34

The way it is worded, intimidate doesn't stop a psychic from casting spells with emotion component, because intimidate doesn't have the fear descriptor, although it is a fear effect.

So, if you want to inconvenience a psychic spellcaster...

Intimidate => fear effect, but no fear descriptor, this doesn't work
Fear spell => fear descriptor (this is also a fear effect but it doesn't matter), this does work
Good hope => emotion descriptor but harmless, this doesn't work
Calm emotion => emotion descriptor, this does work
Ancient red dragon's frightful presence => fear effect, but no fear descriptor, this doesn't work

A 3rd level paladin is immune to fear, not just effects with the fear descriptor, so in the examples above he would be immune to the intimidate skill, the fear spell and the dragon's frightful presence.

Yeah, that's what I thought as well... However, I still can't help but think this is a better (long range instead of touch), lower level version of maze for anything that is not immune to mind affecting effects. That's a lot of foes.
I think I'll add a will save negates at the start if this is really the case, but first I wanted to make sure I was reading it right.
Instigate psychic duel does allow a will save afterall, so it's at the very least consistent with a similar effect.

The way I read it, at 18th level you can have a +5 flaming burst longsword, a +1 keen vorpal longsword, or anything in between.

Create Mindscape allows a save to disbelief if the mindscape is veiled and someone interacts with it.
Does a target also get a will save to avoid being drawn into a mindscape in the first place? I mean, someone could create a very long overt mindscape (a one-mile corridor) and one could easily exit from there after walking that mile in a straight direction, effectively trapping the creature for a while much like a maze spell with no save, barring a mindscape door.
All this while the original caster could appear at the other side of the long corridor and exit effortlessly with a step.

"...If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check..."
This in addition to the combat casting feat and the arcane accuracy magus arcana effectively negates the penalty. In exchange for a feat and a magus arcana, all your spells now work in a silenced area where other spellcasters suffer. It sounds like an even tradeoff to me.

Do you have to make concentration checks to keep your thought-form creature in existence if you take damage during a psychic duel? If so, what's DC?

8 AM in Italy right now, here with you guys for the last hour of waiting :)

Yeah, I would have taken pre-errata divine protection at most at 7th level.
I enjoy life oracles (aasimar favored class with channel is powerful) and my first feats usually go to selective channel, extra channel and quick channel, but the 7th one was reserved for divine protection (if the healer goes down, the entire party suffers).
Spell slots are for support and some CC/blasting (command at 1st, soundburst is very nice at 4th and targets fort, holy smite is awesome at 8th) since healing is covered by cure line, mystery, channel and life link.

Can't wait to read about these "mindscapes"!
I hope it will be possible to make people enter in another person's subcobnscious and recover lost information from within.

Does the kineticist still need to "cast defensively" in melee? What if he has the kinetic blade talent?

Can anyone please tell me something about the formless adept? Is it the new "psion uncarnate"?

waiting as well, I bought the pdf but online referencing is easier

yeah since there is this change upcoming, I'm going alter the tether as such: if you have no LoE with your phantom, you have to make concentration checks as if he was beyond 50 ft, with a +1 to the DC at each round thereafter... at least until the official Spiritualist comes out!

Yay!
Implements appear to be easier to use with lesser bookkeeping!
Can't wait to read the final class and the related archetypes, I have an Eberron Artificer to build upon this class :)

For my upcoming Eberron campaign, I'm planning to get the pdf as soon as it is available. I have yet to read first-hand what it offers, but for what others revealed...

- Unchained barbarian, rogue and monk. These will replace the older classes. I always banned the summoner, so I'll have to look into the new class before relieving the ban hammer.
- Fractional bab/saves ala unearhted arcana will be used if someone multiclasses (I don't expect this will actually be used)
- Variant Multiclassing will be available for everyone.
- Stamina. Free for fighters, others can use it for a feat.
- Skill Unlocks. Free for rogues, others can use them for a feat.
- Background Skills. Yes for everyone.
- Alignment. Eberron already has a different take on alignment, so I'll have to read if any of the new alignment takes are fitting.
- Action Economy. We are going to give a shot to the new act system.
- Wounds. I think I'll use this as well if what I understood is true (roughly a negative level per 25% health loss)
- Disease/Poison. Sure thing!

I'll have to read what the other rules are, like dynamic item creation, simplified spellcasting and other spellcasting related stuff.
Certainly I won't use the automatic bonus progression or innate item bonuses, because the existence of many lesser magic items fit Eberron lore.

Now that I have the pdf, I can properly say what I'll be using.

CLASSES
- Barbarian (all the "rages" in the game will match the barbarian)
- Monk
- Rogue
- Summoner
- Fractional Base Bonuses

SKILLS AND OPTIONS
- Background Skills
- Alternate Crafting and Profession Rules
- Skill Unlocks
- Variant Multiclassing

GAMEPLAY
- Removing Alignment (subjective morality for Eberron campaigns)
- Revised Action Economy (with Puna'chong's houserules)
- Stamina and Combat Tricks (free for fighters, feat for everyone else)
- Wound Thresholds
- Diseases and Poisons

MAGIC
- Spell Alterations (Wild Magic in the Mournland and Xen'Drik)
- Esoteric Material Components (optional, scrounging in wilderness)
- Innate Item Bonuses (you can have items without the "big 6" part)
- Scaling Items
- Dynamic Magic Item Creation (House Cannith still crafts with the old system in their forges, so Cannith made items are "standard", player characters can only use the old system in a Cannith forge if they have permission to enter, and the house asks for 25% payment, so one only saves 25%)

RAW it seems that you can do both.
However, that won't be the case in my games.
Indeed, I'll delete the spellstrike action as a separate action, and let the magus use that class feature when he casts a spell or makes an attack while holding the charge. I don't think spellstrike deserves an action by itself, it just augments other actions.

I would just let swift effects that only last 1 round last more, so for example I'd let arcane strike last for a minute.
Studied target, studied strike, smite evil, instant enemy, bane and judgment already last more than 1 round, so investing an act earlier lets you reap the bonuses in full for subsequent rounds.

I don't see anything wrong with this example.
Smiting full attacks usually kill a demon in one round anyway, so it's good that the demon gets to live for one more round.
Superior reach is a good thing to have.

Also, now a martial can move, attack and 5 ft step in the same round, or move, 5 ft step to avoid AoOs from reach and attack.
However, I was speaking more of the fighter, who doesn't have any meaningful swift action to do and also needs more love.

I like the new action economy system, and will be using it in my group.
This system is different and simpler, it helps fighters who wouldn't ever use their swift actions anyway and keeps the gishes in check, also spellcasting is a bit more difficult (costs double) but if you are, say, a paladin, you could also make a simple attack just after the casting.

Regarding vital strike, I think I'll tag it as a 2 act action.

Just a question, how would haste work with the system? If it gives an extra act, would it be possible for a spellcaster to cast 2 spells in a turn? How about movement speed while hasted?