Midnightoker wrote: First of all, flattered you thought the idea deserved it's own thread. It was definitely a great idea to work from! Midnightoker wrote: My initial criticism would be on some of the implementations, particularly with the strength value of some of the options. I'd love to hear your opinion on strength values. While I'm reasonably confident that nothing is off the charts strong, or outright useless a second opinion would be great. Especially since my first concern was making it thematically fit the patron (generally by doing something resembling the hex cantrip). Many of my comparisons are to what a bard can do, for instance: I do squint a little at the curse patron, both because evil eye is already a good hex and dirge of doom (even at only a 5' radius) is also strong, however it is probably still worse then just dirge of doom on it own. Midnightoker wrote: The other factor is that deriving the value from your familiar being in proximity of others gives two byproducts. One, that you will prioritize movement-based (particularly Flight) based abilities to provide the best proximity triggers for some of these. Two, familiars that do require actions to move into range for these abilities are more demanding on action economy, which means that in a given round Command, Hex, 3rd action is a reasonable first turn. This is probably a good thing, I think my main complaint with casters is a lack of single actions and weaving commanding your familiar, single action hexes and the other options everyone gets would really make the witch stand out in play. Midnightoker wrote: I think the core concept behind most of these is decent (with the exception of Wildling Word which I don't think fits thematically personally) in core concept, just might have done the execution differently. Wild was the bonus I had the most trouble with. Wilding word is quite frankly garbage, but beyond its own power it also doesn't have very many exciting keywords to work with, you can see that same limitation on rune (while divination fits fate quite well, it is a tenuous fit at best for rune. I chose calm emotions (although quite heavily limited) because it fits with enchantment. It breaks the general pattern (So does Baba Yaga though) but I may consider something like: When you cast or sustain a spell that targets a animal, fungus, or plant your familiar grows a thick coat of fur or foliage. For 1 round your familiar gains half your level in temp hp and creatures treat all squares within a 5 foot radius of it as difficult terrain. This has the double benefit that you can now use your hex on your familiar and therefore always gain some benefit. Midnightoker wrote: Everyone has their own view of balance and execution, so unless asked for I won't go into specifics there. While I'm not looking for this to be perfectly balanced (it just needs to not break the game if I hand it to my players) I would be happy to hear your opinion if you want to give it.
Inspired by Midnightoker's post in the general thread on witches (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43bap&page=5?Witch-Class-Am-I-Missing-the -Point#239) I thought I'd spend a moment to write a witch feature (based on their patron) that integrates their patron, hexs and familiar. In particular my goal was to make the familiar an integral part of the turn by turn actions that the witch takes. Each patron has a familiar bonus. In general (with some exceptions) this bonus is activated by casting or sustaining the patron's hex cantrip and by trait-wise similar spells. To make them more closely integrate with the familiar these are all focused on it (either as a 5 foot aura or something similar). The close range should also make the basic focus spell phase familiar come up more often and the witches ability to regain their familiar every morning helps mitigate long term risk. Baba Yaga
Curse
Fate
Fervor
Night
Rune
Wild
Winter
I'm a definite fan of ways to make reloading feel like less of a tax. Although I have another question about the survey, if that's possible? One of the survey questions asked about Legendary Weapon prof on the gunslinger (as opposed to some other feature). Was their any consensus in the surveys on that questions?
Its not particularly difficult to balance higher capacity firearms, we already have an effective baseline for what an infinite capacity one can do, bows. The real question is more about how to make them mechanically unique. That could be as part of the capacity itself, a 10000 clip static machine gun with a 25% misfire chance practically has a reload of 1/4. Or it could just be about choosing unique trait combinations. A six shot revolver with agile fills an absent niche.
I agree that guns need more variety and any reloading ranged weapon really fits that niche. Fatal doesn't seem like a good way to define ALL firearms. I like fatal on the more sniper-y weapons like the musket (long barrel, single shot weapons). I like spread on the blunderbuss. Those seem like 2 solid niches. I don't like fatal on some of the more pistol type weapons, the things I'm not seeing as something a sniper would focus on. Something that really emphasizes their generally close range and common integration with melee (sword and pistol) would be much better ten fatal. Or something to emphasize their disposability. Another potential niche is a weapon with a magazine, or multiple shots before reloading. And that doesn't necessitate fatal either.
Exocist wrote:
I really like a reload focused devise style mechanic, like when you reload you can roll a d20 and on your next attack (with that weapon) you can choose to use that result or make a new one. What I like though is how it interacts with firearms on 2 fronts, it directly interacts with reload, and it indirectly interacts with fatal. It could also work as scaffolding to the other gunslinger ways, so all gunslingers get that roll on reloading, but snipers also get it when they hide, drifters get it when making a strike with a melee weapon, pistolero's get it when they feint or demoralize. So a sniper could effectively get 3 attack rolls on their turn (but only makes one shot) when they reload, hide, then finally shoot.
I feel like I like firearm ace for simple weapons, because it makes something that's generally not very good (simple weapons vs martial) and makes it an option. I can do something new I couldn't before (make a viable gunslinger with simple weapons). I don't like it for martial weapons because those are the weapons that are meant to already be standard effective options, and just makes them stronger (which seems like a weapon tax). I still do exactly the same thing I was already going to do, but better.
It would be fin if gunslinger's were the ones to experiment and take risks with Guns. Like, they could choose to do a regular reload, or they could add a misfire chance for some bonus effect, this already shows up in most misfire feats (like the alchemical shot, or the scatter increaser), but it could be codified as a basic class feature, and the class feats add more options.
Overcharged Reload <Free>
and then feats like smoke curtain instead read something like "Add the following option to overcharged reload..." Notably, they probably don't need any extra action cost associated with them, as you're giving up the base effect (which will probably be a generic damage option). This also lets these boosts stack with other special actions, like paired shot.
I'd like to discuss the new traits built around firearms. This would also be a good place to suggest alternative traits. Existing Traits. Scatter. I like the scatter trait, and I especially like that the primary target also takes the splash damage, it makes the blunderbuss an especially effective option against swarms, and it may be worthwhile carrying around in the same way that carrying bombs around is useful at low levels for them (Although swarms are much less punishing in 2e). While I'm not sure if I would want to make a scatter weapon my primary firearm due to the low range, I think this trait is good. Sniper. This one already has a full post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43a1p?The-Sniper-trait-boring-and-bad), but I'll add my thoughts since they still fit. I'm not actually sure why this trait needs to exist, given as far as I can tell backstabber doesn't have a requirement for melee. Sniper seems redundant. That said, I think my bigger issue is the weapon its on more then the trait. Backstabber is a decent trait on the low damage weapons its found on, and can make a decent difference, but is much less interesting as the weapons base damage dice increase. It feels mediocre on the Arquebus. I think that Arquebus should either just have the backstabber trait, or sniper should be changed to something more thematic. Perhaps instead of mimicking sneak attack like backstabber, it could grant bonus precision damage on the first damage roll per turn (like the ranger's precision edge). That seems much more in line with what a sniper should do. Unsteady. I overall like the idea behind the unsteady trait, I certainly like its design more then Volley as far as negative traits go, however, I feel it could be made just slightly less punishing, or more manageable. An easy way to do this is to also allow it to be ignored whole prone. Its less action intensive to drop prone then setup a tripod, but it has all of the penalties that prone brings. However, acrobatics offers a fairly large number of feats to make that less an issue. In particular with nimble crawl at legendary acrobatics you ignore the majority of them. Potential Traits: "Recoil: Attacks with this weapon count as 2 attacks when calculating your multi attack penalty unless the weapon is attached to a deployed tripod, the wielder is prone, or the wielder takes an Interact action to stabilize before firing"
"Magazine: A weapon with this trait can hold multiple pieces of ammunition and may be treated as though it has Reload 0 until it has made a number of attacks equal to its magazine value."
"Sniper: on the first damage roll per turn, the weapon adds a weapon damage die of the listed size. This increase to two dice if the weapon has a greater striking rune and three dice if the weapon has a major striking rune."
Yakkabe wrote:
Rethinking it, the range increase is probably the biggest draw (with the extra splash being a boost). Assuming that you don't actually want to move (which with a 15' range actually being in reach of some creatures AoO there are quite a few good reasons) then its an extra action for +2 to attack (staying within your first increment) and the safety of being further away. I don't think the drawbacks are anywhere near worth the benefit, but ignoring failure risk, its a generally useful feat.
Yakkabe wrote:
Ignoring the failure issues, its basically the Widen Spell metamagic, but for your gun. (Spend an extra extra to widen your cone). Which isn't super impressive (widen is a level 1 feat for a reason), but it is technically useful. Of course the downsides are pretty harsh for a pretty minor benefit. Because of the increased range its also useful anytime it saves you from spending an action to move (which with a 15' base range will probably be common).
Ravingdork wrote:
I mean, if you take away Legendary weapons on fighters they also become a junk class. What I think really tells me that they shouldn't share that feature is considering a fighter with a firearm instead. At the chassis level the gunslinger has 3 deeds over the fighter, (who gets flexible feats later). At level 1 I think the gunslinger is pretty much better, as the fighter doesn't get a flex feat at level 1. Although the fighter gets better armor, and attack of opportunity instead. Feats are where this obviously deviates, if fighters could use firearms with double slice, or double shot they'd probably come close, although its not like feats like reloading strike, and paired shots are particularly more gunslinger then fighter. There are a few standout feats that might seem out of place on the fighter (pistol twirl seems more rogue-ish, black powder boost is pretty unique, as is pisolero's challenge and dance of thunder) but as a whole most of the feats aren't particularly more gunslinger then they are fighter. The level 20 feats for fighter even work just as well on a gunslinger, boundless reprisals is less restricted then sligner's reflex, and a free action to reload and a free strike are pretty comparable. More then just expert with guns, gunslinger needs something built in that actually differentiates it meaningfully from a fighter. If they need to be bound to a particular weapon, they could keep to master weapon prof, but always add the bonus die from fatal (so a flintlock musket does 1d6+1d10 on hit and 2*1d10+1d10 on crit), or a d6 on weapons without fatal (crossbows, and the blunderbuss). That significantly boosts guns in a gunslinger's hands, but doesn't ruin them for other classes.
I also like the dc 5 on any misfire effect. It seems odd to me that a mid level gunslinger can never misfire a shot against a low level villager, but their gun jams whenever they try and shoot ancient dragons. In particular it makes the risk of an ability worse against hard challenges, where its already harder to justify risky plays. Gunslinger abilities being about putting a little bit of risk into your actions seems like a fun place to work off of. And of course those being optional risk for extra reward (I like being able to take a risky reload, I'd hate if I always had a misfire chance).
beowulf99 wrote: Actually, Misfires as a result of an action directly don't make the action a Critical miss. Failing the Misfire Check for not upkeeping your firearm does. Ah I missed that, that's nice (Well, as nice as any penalty is at least).
I think if I consider misfire as a form of risky metamagic for guns then it feels like a good mechanic. Risky reload is a chance to quicken a reload. Scatter blast is a 1-2 action widen spell metamagic, smoke curtain is a 1-2 action darken (smoke cloud) meta magic. Most of these feel too expensive to me, but I like them.
Arachnofiend wrote: Misfire is the penalty for missing almost all of the Gunslinger's special action attacks, which is... really bad. That's a harsh penalty for just a Failure. The penalty for a misfire is just spending an action to clear it, and a miss is a crit miss. Depending on the action its ok. On risky reload that just means you have to pay for your reload (reload and strike for 1 action, unjam for 1 action -- compared to reload 1 action, strike 1 action). I like this one, and misfire being a way to play with action economy is a good use. Alchemical shot already hurts you ontop of the misfire, which makes it extra punishing (on top of the fact that you missed!). But I don't think thats misfire's fault, so much as there's no good reason for either punishment, given you already wasted a bomb, and 2 actions for a full miss. Scatter blast is a bit annoying, but I think is there so that there's no splash on miss. I'm not sure if this needed to be a full misfire, but at least it isn't super harsh. If scatter blast was 1 action, and occasionally became 2 (effectively) with the misfire I think it would be nice. Smoke curtain is kind of annoying, making the feat effectively 2-3 actions. For no real good reason.
beowulf99 wrote:
Given how minor it is I wonder if there's really any merit to guns that aren't maintained for an hour every day misfiring, I'm pretty sure its already assumed that the PCs spend some time maintaining their gear, but we don't really worry about rust chipped blades. I like misfire as a mechanic on certain feats (I actually really like risky reload, the misfire basically lets you differ the reload cost on hit, but pay it on miss). But I can't see maintenance it really coming up in real play, certainly not enough to justify doubling the amount of text in misfire.
Applied_People wrote:
How often will it hit? On their first attack? Almost never, on their second, or third attack, reasonably often. My experience with two-weapon riposte, and the swashbuckler reaction says that it will happen pretty often. The fighter got 1-2 riposte's per fight with two-weapon riposte, and would have gotten quite a few more if they had reach, which this has built in!
Lanathar wrote:
I agree on the Fighter proficiency, its a boring feature AND its one the fighter already has. If you added the features in the ways as fighter feats you could pretty much exactly make a current gunslinger on a fighter instead. Because of the focus on reload on guns and crossbows, I would love to see the gunslinger have some more built in interaction with reload, honestly, a simple feature like reducing reload costs by 1 would compare reasonably to other martial class damage increases (although is similarly boring).
Angel Hunter D wrote: Did I miss them adding rules for damaging objects at some point? I thought that was something very difficult to do You could always damage traps. Random objects is a bit up in the air, there are stats to determine how much health/hardness random objects should have, although still isn't an explicit action to damage them with weapons (but they can certainly be broken by area effects). Then again, while there are mentions of attacking traps to destroy them in the APs, technically you can't Strike them either (despite them having both AC and health). Assuming you should be able to strike objects (like traps!), you can destroy them with a gun as is. I sorta forgot that this was debatable as it was one of the things my group decided should work almost as soon as the system came out. beowulf99 wrote:
I think blast lock letting you disable device, but you also cause the broken condition is a pretty reasonable feat.
beowulf99 wrote: I like that we finally have a second class with Fighter proficiency. The Gunslinger doesn't do Anything else, unlike the other martials, they just use their weapon. It makes sense that they would be on the level of a fighter in using their weapon of choice. Although, I'm not sure if they really stand out from the fighter either, you basically trade the fighters flexible feats for your deeds. Like, if this were a class archetype that traded the level one feat and the flexible feats for their way, and the feats were just added to the fighter list I'm not sure if I'd notice a change. As far as I can tell the only really unique feature otherwise is shootist's edge, which is both level 17 (so pretty light on class identity) and not the big a deal anyway
Angel Hunter D wrote:
Destroying locks (and traps) is already actually a thing you can do, you just need to roll damage vs hardness of the object. I think what blast lock really does is allow you to effectively disable device for a lock with an attack roll. It would be nice if blast lock was just that bit more generic in that it actually let you disable device with a gun, that would let it effect traps in that way too.
There's not really any incentive to wield 2 pistols until level 8 when paired shots comes online, so you get reloading strike before anyway, although the reload cost makes most dual pistol builds pretty hard to run with after the first round of combat (you can paired shot the first round, but afterwards the cost means just shooting a single pistol is about the same). Early access to feats the make dual pistols meaningful, and a feat to reload 2 weapons at once would be really nice, more-so then just dual-weapon reload.
It would also be interesting to have Synthesis actions usable as a way to substitute spell components. Like, since slide casting involves movement it makes sense that it would stand in for a somatic components, or spell parry is sorta like shield, so it can stand in for a verbal component. Raise a tome fills a substitute for a material component. This makes the magus' spell casting a little bit more martial too, as they're literally using their combat skills to cast spells. It would probably need a limit of only 1 synthesis per striking spell.
MaxAstro wrote:
Not that I disagree as a whole (you should look at the baseline), but I could conceive of a class or archetype with Master in martial weapons that's reasonable. Namely, they only can do so with d4 weapons. I'm not sure I would argue that that's a good choice, but its certainly not innately wrong to have something that steps out of the current expectations of the system. Damage based exceptions are especially easy to consider, as DPR calculations to things within expectation aren't too hard to do. They should be looked at with caution, but not excluded as a whole. MaxAstro wrote:
It adds a little text, but you can always make saving throw spells also dependent on the hit. Such as: If you hit with your strike treat the result of the spell as a failure, if you critically hit with the strike treat the result as a critical failure.
The-Magic-Sword wrote:
Kalaam wrote:
I love the idea of using striking spell like a swashbucklers panache. Getting half spell level to damage (or something like that) and 1 for cantrips with the same types that Bespell Strikes gives would be a really interesting way to use your limited spell slots. A little less complicated would be allowing bespell weapon itself also last until you discharge. But building it in like Panache would and tagging the discharge strike as a finisher would be both really elegant, and I'm pretty probably also very fun.
Enrif wrote:
I feel like the current focus spell is a fine first level feat, its especially nice for making a backup weapon useful. its a pretty lackluster core feature though.
I think what my biggest impression of striking spell is that its clunky, like even if its functionally balanced (which I'm not sure it is). Just having the 2 attack rolls, or an attack roll followed by a save with the second attack or save being also based on the degree of the first is awkward. Something simple like just translating the degree of success on your strike would be nice. Like for attack spells translate it straight across, for save spells it converts to the save equivalent, but thats fine (crit hit,crit failure; hit, failure; miss, success; crit miss, crit success). You're giving up the reliability bonus, but its way simpler (and means that your kinda bad spell dc progression isn't crippling). You could also just get to choose to discharge after a strike and take that strikes success degree. Which is sort of the best of both worlds. It means that after a success you could hold it and wait for a crit, but I suspect you're better off just discharging on first hit anyway. And when you're getting close to wasting the spell you can take that miss (but not critical miss) to at least deliver the success version of your spell. It also gets rid of that awkward interaction with incapacitate, as crits don't increase a spells degree by one counteracting incapacitate.
WatersLethe wrote:
I like the idea of building spells into your weapon. It could also work the otherway, make spell strike a free action after you land a strike that lets you charge the spell into your weapon. So every time you land a strike you get to fill one action of casting the spell. It would slow down casting spells most turns (because you're not guaranteed to actually hit), but it is a cool action economy boost. Slowing down how fast you cast, while boosting your overall economy also fits well with the limited slots.
Themetricsystem wrote:
On 1) 2) Taking the line "Despite making a spell attack, the spiritual weapon is a weapon for purposes of triggers, resistances, and so forth.". You are making a Strike with a weapon, so I would expect anything that works with weapon strikes to work with the spiritual weapon. That being said, to take your degree of confidence approach, I'd say I'm only 60% confident that it should work.
Dragonchess Player wrote:
There aren't actually many spells that require your divine focus. The 3 action heal is the obvious one, but you can definitely get away with 2 action heals instead - they're often the better choice anyway. Delaying Emblazon Armament isn't a killer. I overall agree though.
Claxon wrote:
Part of your turns feeling more impactful in pf1 probably stems from the fact that they were. Most second edition fights last 4-5 rounds, most first edition fights last 2-3. And an individual round in pf1 generally lasted much longer, as more happened. I'm actually a big fan of more shorter rounds, but its absolutely true that in a given round (and the turns that make up that round) more happened in pf1.
Draco18s wrote:
Roll20 already does a pretty good job of verifying the validity of their rolls. You can see a summary at: https://app.roll20.net/home/quantum . I've had a session where it seemed like no one could every roll a reasonable number, but when you look through the rolls, or apply a few statistics to them they are actually fine, the bad numbers just happen to land in bad places. On the topic of monster AC values in general, I'm a huge fan of some of the implications that the current accuracy paradigm enables. Largest of those is how much it enables small buffs, and bonuses to actually matter. The +-10 system eliminates the plateaus I often saw/see in other systems, where a bonus really just doesn't matter, or matters so trivially that its not worth any action/investment. I've been running 2 sessions a week of Second edition pathfinder (for 2 different groups) since the system came out, and I've had 2 sessions where I've seen what you've described (one of each group), where it seems like the dice are cursed, and nothing can ever succeed. What I have had great success at is calling out when those small bonuses mattered, and its really changed how my groups play. The players actively hunt down those little turn by turn bonuses. Both of those cursed sessions had circumstances where the players didn't try and get those bonuses (for various, totally reasonable reasons). AC/defenses in general seem to be well, hard to beat on their own, but almost perfectly on that line, so that even small bonuses start to skew things drastically.
Joana wrote:
For PC there are a ton of great android emulators that can run pathbuilder. https://fossbytes.com/best-android-emulators-pc/ . I have a player using bluestacks (second on that list) to emulate pathbuilder and he loves it. The emulators designed for games (bluestacks is one) are normally super simple to setup up.
The best experience I have with riddles in table tops is when figuring out the answer is useful, but not needed. For instance if you had an obviously odd coin in a room with 3 baskets each in front of a statue and a riddle inscribed above them. Placing the coin in the correct basket (based on the riddle) causes the way to open, putting it in the wrong one causes the statue to animate, forcing a fight. However, winning the fight still leaves a clear passage through the now destroyed statue. If the players pass by the area a lot you can have it reform, giving them another guess. Worst case they eventually brute force the solution anyway. If your players solve the riddle they'll get to feel clever, if they fail, an animated statue blocking the parties path is a perfectly reasonable encounter too. I don't run them super often, but my general principle when I do is that if the players can't figure it out they always have some alternative. That alternative can be a fight, or it can be a skill challenge too. An example of the latter, the party comes upon a riddle locked door in a castle. They can solve the riddle themselves, or they can gather information to learn from a member of the castle staff they overheard so-and-so talking alone and gives the answer, or they can befriend the court wizard who will tell them how to get in.
My experience DMing for a warpriest that has quite a few of the special benefit shields is that he can block with them quite often too, this being at level 12 now. While he obviously doesn't use it for massive blows, there are actually a pretty large number of attacks that he can safely take with them. Rogue style enemies have big swings in damage, so he can practically ignore a non sneak attack. Archer type enemies often do low enough single hit damage that they can be safely blocked. Its weird that you only ever want to block trivial attacks with the non sturdy shields, but at least in play he's been getting 2-3 blocks per encounter with them. Which is pretty much half of his reactions for the fight anyway.
Puna'chong wrote:
Its probably an edge case I wouldn't expect too often, but I applied that massive damage, if you take more then double your max hp in one hit, rule to my orcs. I had a player with a Giant Instinct Barbarian crit 3 orc brutes in a row at level 4 for 40+ damage each and just had them die despite the reaction.
While I like the idea of tying them thematically to to casting traditions, I don't think that implies they must be casters. They could choose between the 4 traditions and gain an appropriate companion while still only having focus spells like a monk. Or, companions could have an associated tradition, much like sorcerer bloodlines, which would separate the summoner class based on what they summon, and what tradition that's associated with. Almost exactly as sorcerers are right now.
AnimatedPaper wrote:
I love the idea of Unifying the pet classes and tying the different type of pets into magical traditions. Primal, hunter; Occult, Spiritualist; Arcane, Golems; Divine, Summoner.
Unless it specifies otherwise (which a few creatures do) when you acquire redundant conditions you only suffer the worst (although if they have different durations you may need to track both). So in the case of viper poison you are only drained 1. See redundant conditions of pg 623 in the crb see the Shadow for an example of a condition that does stack (steal shadow)
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Spoiler:
You may have felt you couldn't but in both cases you could've left both of those hazards. In the hostage circumstance the hostage is relatively safe until the lathe stops,the Triad don't leave their room until they know its safe for them, so they can't check on you until then anyway.
For the tree of dreams, its not super difficult to get the first group of creatures free and then just walk backward. The athletics/thievery dc to open a branch is actually pretty low for its level and you're not pressured to actually move forwards. And its not an intelligent creature, so it should just activate as soon as it can, not wait till everyone is inside the room and too deep to escape.
While its not always true that you can see a hazard/escape from it afterwards, it is a general theme. In most cases hazards are in a static location, cannot move, and have a reasonably easy to predict routine. That's a huge disadvantage compared to a creature, so they're balanced around it. If a hazard is in a circumstance where those assumptions aren't true, then yeah, it will be way harder. That should be considered when placing hazards, a disadvantageous setup is one way to increase an encounter level. A hazard may be a totally fair level 5 trap in a vacuum, but when you put it in a particularly nasty place it can act at a higher level, and the GM, or adventure author, should account for that. Spoilers for AoE part 3
Part 3 spoiler: The trap in the beginning in the workshop was an encounter on its own, and it only runs for "multiple rounds" before stopping. That part has 2 encounters, the lathe and the triad, back to back, but the lathe is a full encounter on its own, and can be handled by simply leaving the room for a minute The tree was a fair bit nastier of a trap, but it was static, predictable, could be disable with 2 actions (if you have the dream stone from further in), and relatively easily be run from/avoided. They're certainly dangerous, the attack bonus on the tree for instance is super high, but that's balanced around a number of just as big disadvantages for the trap.
Claxon wrote:
You use the ability modifiers to calculate untrained skills. So if a giant with no intimidation wanted to demoralize they would use their cha mod.
Being able to use use concentration components while raging seems totally within the range of an instinct. Perhaps having a custom instinct with the instinct ability that they can perform verbal actions while raging. Skald Instinct
Instinct Ability
Specialization ability
Raging Resistance
Lightning Raven wrote:
I'm hoping I hit a closer balance where those optional stats feel like a meaningful choice. Getting an extra alchemical, or 2, or 3, every fight from a higher int mod is pretty big. Choosing the other stats is a meaningful trade. This works into the idea that most fights take roughly 4-5 rounds, so a +4 int alchemist can use an item every round, but the +3int or lower alchemist will have to rely on something else for at least one round. This drops off later when you get more free boosts, but so does that gap from being a stat behind on your attack mod. The other consideration there was that I wanted to keep the alchemists slower proficiency progression to open up letting them use more alchemy items. I'm aiming to have them sit closer to casters as opposed to martials. Spells are stronger then alchemy items, so the goal of my changes was to give the alchemist more items in compensation. At lower levels, with a +4 int, and an average combat length of 4-5 rounds, an alchemist can comfortably use a single alchemy item every round forever. As they level up they can use 2-3 items a round. Helping to bridge that power gap between alchemy items and spells. I am inclined to agree that I may have thrown a little bit too much at the chirugeon at level 1. I think I'll remove the free quick throw. One thing I was hoping to get in alchemical flavour on the chirugeon is using your medicine skill to support your alchemy skill, hence the focus point on battle medicine.
So these are the changes I'm thinking of using for my group. Some are partially cribbed from here. Let me know if I've overlooked anything. Research Fields
//The best off at the moment, so the smallest changes. Just some free feats the were previously must haves. And a whole lot more bomb potential with infuse matter. Chirugeon
/*Very eh before. They can regain focus in combat with battle medicine. But without the craft to medicine they need both wis for medicine, and int for more reagents when they infuse matter.*/ Mutagenist
/*The weakest field before imo. I'm not entirely convinced that mutagens need a drawback at all for anyone. So its an easy sell to remove them for the mutagen specialist. As an aside, they can function pretty well with no int as infuse matter is enough to get them the 1 mutagen they're likely to really want every fight.*/ Main Class Features
//This is made up for with infuse matter Gain a pool of focus points and a new focus spell. Alchemist’s regain focus by scavenging for raw materials in their environment. Infuse Matter F1
/*The feature my rework is really all based around. This gives alchemists significantly more potential alchemicals per day/fight*/ Perpetual Infusions
/*Because they now rely on focus for bonus reagents I figured that instead of getting free, but not very good items it made more sense for this feature to just be more focus, for more free reagents. */ Feat Changes
Quick Throw <A>
I really like the idea of scavenged reagents. The mix between prepared and spontaneous on alchemists could perhaps be made more explicit with them in mind. Something like alchemists getting 2+level reagents during their daily preparation that can only be used to make items during that prep. Then having a focus spell, "infuse matter" that gives the alchemist int mod unstable reagents that can be used for quick alchemy. The primary way an alchemist regains focus would be by scavenging for raw materials. Giving them a focus spell makes them work more like existing classes, and leaves an obvious opportunity for them to create more free spontaneous things in combat, getting more focus points.
DougSeay wrote:
I think you lose the hidden condition the moment you complete the move action (The action with the move trait). In the case of sudden charge you get to stride twice then strike, so it would end the moment a stride finishes (as you are no longer moving). Likewise for skirmish strike. I think that if they had the move trait, like if sudden charge gained the move trait, then you would break stealth after you strike, as your move doesn't end until the action with the trait ends.
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