Krysgg's page

Awesome, thank you both for your thoughts. I was especially torn on if a bonus should closely mimic the hex (like with spirit object) or if they should be a completely different, but still thematic, effect. I don't currently have a player looking at the witch, but I'll take those individual point in to account and push another revision on the ideas when next my players are considering making new characters.

First of all, flattered you thought the idea deserved it's own thread.

It was definitely a great idea to work from!

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.

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.

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.

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
Familiar Bonus: When you cast a spell with the necromancy or cold trait you may make an attack against a creature adjacent to your familiar as per the spirit object cantrip
Hex Cantrip spirit object

Curse
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the curse trait malign energy surrounds your familiar. This functions as Dirge of Doom except its area is reduced to a 5 foot emanation.
Hex Cantrip evil eye

Fate
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the divination trait your allies adjacent to your familiar all benefit from Guidance (div) except they can only choose to gain the bonus while adjacent to your familiar and they are only temporarily immune for 1 round.
Hex Cantrip nudge fate

Fervor
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the emotion trait your familiar emanates a 5 foot aura that grants a +1 status bonus to attack for one round.
Hex Cantrip stoke the heart

Night
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the darkness trait your familiar emanates a 5 foot aura that functions as Darkness for 1 round.
Hex Cantrip shroud of night

Rune
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the divination trait your familiar can enchant one weapon or armor increasing the effectiveness of its fundamental runes for 1 round. If the item was non magical it becomes a +1 striking weapon, or +1 resilient armor, otherwise it increases both components of the fundamental rune by one step (for example a +1 striking weapon would act as a +2 greater striking weapon).
Hex Cantrip discern secrets

Wild
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the enchantment trait your familiar emanates a 5 foot burst that functions as Calm Emotions but regardless of the effect of their save creatures are only effected while within 5 feet of your familiar. .
Hex Cantrip wilding word

Winter
Familiar Bonus: When you cast or sustain a spell with the cold trait your familiar emanates a 5 foot burst damaging all creatures as per clinging ice.
Hex Cantrip clinging ice

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.

Karmagator wrote:

@Ediwir I appreciate you taking the time and giving your feedback in so much detail ^^

I would like to add something to the following, however.

Ediwir wrote:

Firearm Ace is clearly a parallel to Crossbow Ace (and I expect Crossbow Ace will return in a Gunslinger form), but carries two important differences: first, it lasts until the end of your turn rather than next turn, meaning reactions will not benefit from it. Considering how many reactions gunslinger has, this is notable.

This was already errata'd (see point 3). It is supposed to last as long as Crossbow Ace does.

Also, Warning Shot uses the maximum range of your gun, so everything including the 6th range increment. That's still not great, but a whole lot better than just a minor range increase :)

It could be something that incentivises making only a single attack per turn, like devise a stratagem but maybe more tailored to guns and fatal.

Something like “You may roll twice and take the better result for the first attack you make with a reload weapon each turn. If you do, that attack gains the fortune trait.”

I haven’t done the math on how master+that stacks up to legendary, might be too strong.

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.
(This is a terrible feat name but...)

Overcharged Reload <Free>
Trigger: You Reload for the first time this turn
You add a special boost to the weapon you just reloaded such as adding extra gunpowder, increasing a crossbows draw length, or some other similar effect. Add one of the following effects to the next attack you make with that weapon and the weapon gains a misfire chance.
-The Weapon deals its fatal or deadly dice even on a hit. If the weapon did not have the fatal or deadly traits it gains deadly d8

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"
This is just another take on unsteady. Its less punishing for really slow firing weapons, but more punishing if you plan to shoot more often.

"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."
I'm sure this has already been discussed a fair bit so I won't say much, but guns that can hold multiple rounds would be great!

"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."

Krysgg wrote:

Yakkabe wrote:

I'm still going through the Gunslinger feats here but I came to a hard stop when I reached "Scatter Blast." I feel like I'm missing something big here, what in the world is the benefit to this feat?...

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).

It isn't the same though. On a spell, widen lets you hit more targets with the full force of your spell. But on a blunderbuss, all secondary targets receive a measly 1 damage (more if you have a striking rune). This hardly seems like it compares.

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.

I'm still going through the Gunslinger feats here but I came to a hard stop when I reached "Scatter Blast." I feel like I'm missing something big here, what in the world is the benefit to this feat?

Spend an entire extra action on your attack, for a bigger cone and the chance to deal an extra 1 damage to a few bystanders? I feel like this activity isn't worth performing even if you ignored the added chance of a misfire or your gun outright exploding on a bad roll. I guess you get to target someone a little farther away, but... Spending a level 6 feat for the opportunity to break your gun feels dreadful.

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).

Porridge wrote:

Regarding the Gunslinger's proficiency keeping pace with the Fighter's: given how guns have been implemented, I think this is pretty much mandatory.

Consider: why would anyone want to use a gun? They no longer target touch AC. Instead, their draw is that they get the Fatal trait with a hefty die-size increase. So in order guns to be attractive relative to other ranged weapon options, you need to have a high chance to crit, to take advantage of the Fatal trait. That means having as high an attack bonus as possible.

I wholeheartedly agree. Gunslingers don't get to add their Dex or Str to their damage rolls with firearms, and don't have very many abilities that reliably add damage to their firearms attacks.

If you were to take away the Legendary proficiency, no one would play them, as it would be a junk class. Especially when you consider reload times, needing a free hand to reload, and their dramatically negative effects on wielding multiple weapons. It's almost a junk class now.

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).

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.

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.

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.

As far as I can tell, Misfire only happens if you don't upkeep your weapons Every day. It only triggers the Next day, not immediately after firing the gun.

This is a bit odd, as it means that even if you only fire the weapon once, leaving it over night fouls the barrel somehow, though you could fire it 1,000 times in the same day and not have to clean it. It's better than having to track individual shots and figuring out exactly when you would need to clean the weapon though. Easier to deal with.

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.

Pistolero's Retort: How often is an opponent going to crit fail an attack against a level 9+ gunslinger? Looking at average Bestiary 1 stats, the answer is only if the opponent rolls a nat 1. This holds true even for Level - 2 creatures.

An ability that comes into play only if I'm attacked and only 5% of the time even then seems mistuned. Contrast with Rebounding Assault which can be used at least once per combat (and more if you both strikes hit or you spend the actions to retrieve your melee weapon). Or with Vital shot which can be used anytime you attack a flat-footed opponent, which is an easy condition to inflict.

This one needs some tuning to be in balance with the other Advanced Deeds.

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!

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.

I generally agree with your analysis of most of the feats.

I would much prefer they do "Something else" and not get the Fighter Proficiency. A million times over.

What that is I do not know

It runs into the problem of "a fighter being better with guns than a gunslinger". But that is something for the designers to work around like they did with other classes in my view.

I am just not fond of the precedent of other classes with level 1 Expert proficiency. As it stands it works fine her if a little boring. But I can already think of at least one future class that might also get this level proficiency. And I do not like the idea. At all.

For guns themselves - I like the idea that they are lower dice with the fatal trait. But when applied to fighter level proficiency I wonder if that will get iffy really quickly. Mitigated by fewer shots and no way of adding strength (although that is usually minimal for bow users and the "ace" feat significantly overcomes that)

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).

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.

The main rub for me with Blast Lock is how the lock is just fine after unlocking. You didn't shoot a lockpick into the lock. You shot the lock with a bullet. That lock shouldn't be operable after that, but as written, it's perfectly fine.

Perhaps if they added a "broken" state to the lock after successfully unlocking it with Blast Lock, it wouldn't rub me as wrong. Even then though, I'm not a fan of needing a feat for something anyone with a gun should be able to do.

I think blast lock letting you disable device, but you also cause the broken condition is a pretty reasonable feat.

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

beowulf99 wrote:

I had the same initial reaction to instant return and to a smaller degree, blast lock.

Really I just don't like the idea of Blast Lock existing as a thing. Shooting a lock shouldn't be a "feat", it's really just something anyone with a pistol "can" do. And using the rules for unlocking the lock rather than breaking it is a mistake imo. If you shoot off a lock, you can't just pick it back up and re lock it (assuming it's a padlock).

Black Powder boost is a little odd, I'll grant you, and rebounding assault is too, but they don't break immersion so to speak as badly as Instant Return.

Does the plucked bullet come with powder? Did you just load powder into the gun before the bad guy shot? or is loading the powder baked into your miraculous catching of the bullet?

Then again, this is in a world where Cloud Jump exists, allowing someone to leap frankly ridiculous distances with no magical assistance. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Blast lock bugs me too. Now, if shooting a lock outside of combat (or for more actions) is something everyone can do and the feat adds the critical and a lower action cost, then I can buy into it.

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.

Throne wrote:

Just repeating the claim that 'no-one can have this mechanic because no-one has this mechanic!' doesn't make it a better argument.

It doesn't need to be a better argument, it's a fine argument. It's not hard to see what the expectations of the system are.

Out of curiosity, if someone proposed a class that gets master proficiency in martial weapons at first level, what argument would you make against it other than "this is completely out of line with the expectations of the system"?

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.

Throne wrote:

My PPS, as you well know, is pointing out that Striking Spell isn't really MAP avoidance, so shouldn't even lock the ability out of an economy bump if we accept your argument (which I don't, obviously), as others have also pointed out.

Don't tell me what I know.

It honestly hadn't occurred to me to look at it like that. I'll grant that might be a way to do it, but I think it's a bad way to do it. I think the accuracy issue is larger than any potential action economy issue, especially since you can't avoid having two attack rolls without making attack roll spells vastly better than saving throw spells. Plus, the action economy gives the Magus a degree of flexibility to work with feats like Dispelling Strike.

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.

I think when we're talking about Eldritch shot, people are really looking for the "attack roll" of the weapon strike to dictate the success of the spell, regardless of the number of actions it takes.

I think breaking it into seperate store and strike features is the way to go.

Let the spell hold in the weapon for up to a minute, then have a one action activity that does a weapon strike for delivery, that way it's more flexible. If nothing else, it's your 'its turn two (or the enemy already ran up to me) I'm standing in front of this foe and want to unload" technique.

Even nicer touch I just thought of-- you could make a feat that provides minor benefits for holding the spell in the weapon without delivery. Another way to help the Magus stretch it's tiny pool of spells.

This kind of remind me of the Swashbuckler's Panache/Finisher mechanic.

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.

The current main focus spell is just magic weapon. Which would be ok, if it could work with potency and striking runes, but it does not.

Maybe that focus spell should work more like true strike?

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.

What about a version of spellstrike that let the Magus spend one action a round to partially cast a spell, but only into their weapon to be delivered later.

So, every round a Magus can be "charging up" a spell strike while doing other things.

Round 1: >> Electric Arc >Start casting disintegrate
Round 2: >Move >> Finish casting disintigrate + spellstrike
Round 3: >Strike >Strike >Start casting vampiric touch
Round 4: >Move >>Finish casting vampiric touch + spellstrike

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.

1) No, Weapon Specialization benefits are granted by way of their Weapon Group which is part of the "statistics or traits" of a Weapon. My certainty value here is pretty high, I'd say I have 90% confidence in this.

2) Again no, despite the form being that of a Weapon for the purpose of triggers etc. you're not making a Weapon Damage Roll, you're making a Spell Damage Roll. It doesn't say all purposes either, the wording there exists so that you can use things like Shield Block, Resistance, and Nimble Dodge against it, not so that you can apply bonuses to deal more Force Damage. Just as #1 I'm about 90% confident in this.

3) Absolutely yes. 100% without a doubt.

** spoiler omitted **

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.

Cloistered cleric, spam forbidding ward at the start of fights, and stand behind a front-liner while using the glaive to attack at reach works OK. Don't expect to be a strong combatant, but Shelyn has some nice options for debuffing such as the Creation domain spell splash of art and access to color spray as a 1st level spell.

A Dex-focused warpriest using a non-finesse weapon is really tough to pull off, especially at low level. Unfortunately, because of action economy, you pretty much have to take Emblazon Armament ASAP or have serious issues with switching between casting (requires a divine focus) and wielding a glaive (requires two hands). Unless your group is using the free archetype variant, you probably won't see the concept come together until 6th-8th level.

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.

As shields can be used as weapons I've been pretty comfortable letting players use sheaths with them. Which would also only be a single interact action to draw. That as a standard doesn't seem any more unreasonable then the 2 handed maul hanging from the barbarian's back.

I felt like my turns were more impactful in PF1. The one thing I like about PF2 is moving and getting to make more than 1 attack.

Outside of that....I have a lot of problems with the game but I don't think I can de-couple the rest of the baggage of the system from the action economy to truly know whether my problems is with the rest of the system or the 3 turn action economy.

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.

Grankless wrote:

You might just be bad at statistics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-squared_test

I've done this on real dice and against roll20. I'll do it again if you really want me to. Hell, I'll do it on the dice rolled during our Plaguestone game if you really want me to.

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.

PCGen does not have its P2e version available yet. HeroLab does have a P2e version. It's a subscription-based model, but I believe it has a free demo you can use to build (but not save) a PC; you'd have to copy it down on paper.

I have heard great things about Pathbuilder, but unfortunately I don't have an Android device, either.

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.

... Though it is funny that you could have an orc survive an absolutely enormous blow; they're that tenacious!

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.

QuidEst wrote:

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

I could see Hunter/Summoner/Spiritualist getting kind of bundled together as the Major Pet Class.

I’m still curious what the Arcane leg of that will be. Some kind of Golem I suppose. Or elementals, but that’s not as fun.

"Elementals" might include genie-binding. It's definitely weird to think of Summoner as the divine leg, though.

I suppose it could be an eidolon type for each summon spell line?

That makes the most sense to me, within reason. A level 1 base form of each line, with scaling proficiencies and eventually added abilities you can select from.

Probably not Giants I would hope.

Good point about genies as well. I tend to forget about them.

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)

thenobledrake wrote:

You'll have to point out any hazards that a party can't walk away from, because I did not see them on my read through.

In fact, I think it'd be most beneficial the discussion if we stuck to specific hazards at this point so we can discuss the particulars in an illustrative fashion rather than debate the philosophy.

But I can say that "strongest-hitting PC is struggling to hit/damage the hazard on an average roll" is a text-book example of the least effective strategy to deal with any hazard I've seen printed, and that is by design - it's a built-in "in case of emergency" element. One good roll of the right skill is the "plan A" solution of most hazards.

In the AoA3 book, both hazards we have encountered so far we couldn't really run away from for their own reasons.

** spoiler omitted **...

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

Yeah, an important thing to note is that monster stats don't add from anything.

Basically monsters have a level, and every level has a baseline of what attack, AC, etc monsters should have at that level. And they get adjustments based on what their combat role is, melee, ranged, spell caster, skill, etc.

Honestly I'm not even sure why they bothered to give them ability modifiers since you can't calculate anything with them.

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
Anathema
Interrupting the telling of a story is anathema

Instinct Ability
You can perform actions with the auditory and verbal trait while raging.

Specialization ability
Increase the additional damage from Rage from 2 to 6. If
you have greater weapon specialization, instead increase
the additional damage from Rage to 12.

Raging Resistance
You gain resistance to sonic and bludgeoning damage

Krysgg wrote:

...

Chirurgeon is very front-loaded and with feats that aren't Alchemist stuff. It is very mechanically strong, but it loses the alchemist's flavor in the process.

Also, instead of changing main stats right from the start, why not fiddle a little bit with just the proficiency for the class, to see how it goes? I say that because we're level 10 now and our alchemist has +19 hit while my monk and our ranger have +20 because we have 20 DEX now, I think this is quite alright for the class, the problem is after 13th level, which is when we will be getting Master on weapons and monk gets master on unarmored defense.

My suggestion? Copy the Rogue class' proficiency progression, because the alchemist is not so martially inclined as a Ranger and a Monk is just too different.

(I just looked the Rogue's proficiency progression... WTF Paizo!? It's a g&*%*!n skill monkey class with double skill feats and increases while also having the SAME martial progression? Why the alchemist is so s+@+ty?).

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
Bomber
Bomber can choose dex as key ability
Gains quick throw as a free feat at level 1
Gains Calculated splash for free at 5

//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
May choose wis as a key ability.
Replace base feature with “The Chirugeon can regain focus by treating wounds or by successfully using battle medicine.”
Gains trained in medicine
Gains battle medicine as a free feat at level 1
Gains quick throw as a free feat at level 1

/*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
May choose dex or str as key ability.
Change the first level benefit to "You are trained in medium armor and martial weapons. At 7th level you become expert in martial weapons, at 13th level you become expert in medium armor and at 19th level you become master in medium armor"
Replace the level 5 field discovery with “When you consume a mutagen made with advanced alchemy or quick alchemy you may ignore the drawback”

/*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
Potent Alchemy (new)
All alchemical items created by quick alchemy or advanced alchemy uses your class DC.
Reagents and Focus
Only gain level of infused reagents each morning. Instead of level+int mod

//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
Cast <A> Somatic
Duration 1 minute
You gain a number of temporary infused reagents equal to your intelligence modifier (minimum 1). These reagents and any items made with them can only be used for quick alchemy and they become inert when Infuse Matter’s duration expires.

/*The feature my rework is really all based around. This gives alchemists significantly more potential alchemicals per day/fight*/

Perpetual Infusions
Replace with, you gain another focus point. At 11th replace perpetual potency with a 3rd focus point, and when you regain focus as an alchemist regain 2 focus. At 17th replace perpetual perfection with “when you regain focus as an alchemist regain 3 focus”

/*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
Powerful Alchemy lets you use your class DC on any alchemicals you use.
Potent Poisoner becomes a craft skill feat.
Quick Bomber becomes Quick Throw

Quick Throw <A>
You keep your items in easy-to-reach pouches from which you draw without thinking.
You Interact to draw a bomb, and then Strike with it.
Alternatively, you can draw and elixir and throw it to an ally within your bomb’s first two range increments. Your ally can use a Reaction to grab it out of the air. They must have a free hand to do this. [/list]

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.

I understand that at that hidden ends when you move. Spring from Shadows calls this out. But what about move and strike in a single action? Sudden Charge and Skirmish Strike both allow movement and striking in the same action. I wouldn't think it would be allowed for Sudden Charge because it spans multiple actions. But Skirmish Strike allows a step and a strike in one action. This seems reasonable, especially as it is only a step.

So I guess I'm asking if you loose the hidden condition only at the end of an action, or if it can end within an action. Basically, are actions atomic relative to stealth?

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.