The other user is likely unaware of the intentional (albeit admittedly subtle) difference between "dealing damage" (e.g., outgoing damage that you're dealing to another creature) vs. "taking damage" (e.g., incoming damage that actually reduces your HP) used in language. The damage roll determines the amount of damage you're tracking in Step 1, and that damage is modified by each step in turn until the final amount of damage is finally removed from their hit points in Step 4.
When making a damage roll, you take the following steps, explained in detail below.
1. ) Roll the dice indicated by the weapon, unarmed attack, or spell, and apply the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties that apply to the result of the roll.
2. ) Determine the damage type.
3. ) Apply the target’s immunities, weaknesses, and resistances to the damage.
4. ) If any damage remains, reduce the target’s Hit Points by that amount.
And refer to them as ordered within their descriptions
Damage> Step 1 wrote:
Once your damage die is rolled, and you’ve applied any modifiers, bonuses, and penalties, move on to Step 2.
And note that Weaknesses and Resistances are not bonuses, penalties, nor modifiers to the damage and so would not be applied to this step in any way.
The rules for Weaknesses specifically talk about taking damage, not dealing damage
Damage> Step 3: Weakness wrote:
Whenever you would take that type of damage, increase the damage you take by the value of the weakness. For instance, if you are dealt 2d6 fire damage and have weakness 5 to fire, you take 2d6+5 fire damage.
The expression of [2d6+5] here is not a new damage roll, it is simply an expression of the damage at this point in the step and used as short hand instead of "if the damage roll was [2d6+0] and you rolled a [7] for that [2d6], then the damage becomes [7+5=12].".
The rules for critical immunity also specify that it applies to damage take
Damage> Step 3: Immunity wrote:
Immunity to critical hits works a little differently. When a creature immune to critical hits is critically hit by a Strike or other attack that deals damage, it takes normal damage instead of double damage. This does not make it immune to any other critical success effects of other actions that have the attack trait (such as Grapple and Shove).
This does not change the damage the player's attack deals (for example, when comparing a single attack and damage result to multiple creatures' AC) and thus does not play into Step 1, and only modifies the damage taken in Step 3.
So the attack's outbound damage is [2*X], and when you get to Step 3, the Critical Immunity changes it to [1*X] (just like any other immunity would change it to [0*X]). Nobody says that "immunity makes you go back to Step 1 and change the damage roll to [0d0+0]".
The steps are ordered, the descriptions of the steps indicate that the order is intentional, the language in all places is consistent with the intent of the step that they're modifying, and nothing in the descriptions indicates that you backtrack through the steps.
Well, no. At worst the Thaumaturge is going to be getting nothing because they critically failed Find Flaws or because the weakness is one they could have simply exploited naturally and because empowerment is less of a proper damage bonus and more an acknowledgement of the quasi-two-handed nature of the class' core mechanics.
I felt that it was implicitly clear from the context that the "at worst" was "at worst within the scope of what was being investigated here, which was a thaumaturge benefitting from buffs X, Y, and Z, compared to these other classes benefitting from buffs A and B, striking an identical generic foe". But, you know, like 30 words shorter.
The failure of the class at providing value when sufficiently available weaknesses are present - despite being the core identity of the class and where it should shine - is discussed at length in a number of other threads and beyond the scope of this particular post.
swoosh wrote:
More commonly, 2-12 additional damage which, contrary to your assertion, puts them more in line with an Animal or Fury barbarian than Giant except the Thaumaturge's extra damage cannot crit and is mutually exclusive with triggering weaknesses normally. So strictly worse than either of those combat mechanics.
Which is why the second half of the post takes relative accuracy and degree of success rate and modifiers into account, and the Thaumaturge still performs quite favorably compared to the highest possible flat damage subclass - being within a few points of matching it at a minimum and on average at almost all levels - which puts it comfortably above the less-damaging comparisons you suggested. You seem to misunderstand the reasons for taking representative comparisons for different facets of its design.
swoosh wrote:
And that is not even touching upon the action economy, which you mentioned in your opening statement but do not appear to have accounted for in your math.
I am not sure any conclusion can really be drawn when so many of the underlying mechanics of the game are simply ignored here.
Which is why I - repeatedly - limited the analysis to the value of an individual Strike, while providing the toolbox necessary to extend the analysis to any combination of actions + strikes as needed.
Want to compare Precision Ranger's Hunted Shot to Thaumaturge on a single-action basis? Take the Thaumaturge's expected damage at that level w/ a +0 modifier, and compare to (Precision Ranger w/ +0 modifier) plus (Featureless Martial at -5 modifier). Or whatever other combination of actions and activities you want. Do a full round comparison, or 4 full rounds attacking the same foe while ramping up Rule of Threes, or whatever fits your fancy. Want to see how using a [deadly] or [fatal] weapon affects things, instead of just generic d6 vs d10 weapons? You've got the excel sheet. Modify the base damage dice, add the modifers to the table, and it'll autocalculate all the tables for you. Plots not included. I had to learn R for those.
I've done the framework to make those further analyses, but have not done a combat simulation accounting for all possible combinations of environmental/player action choices. At that point, the effort vs. value rate drops too low, and you get into "just play test it to see what it's actually like" territory, which is exactly where I said that this should go if it wished to be expanded past that point.
Alright, I think this is a question a lot of people had on their mind: Just how *does* the thaumaturge’s damage compare to other classes? At a quick glance, they seem overpowering: At level 1, they’re sitting on a +4 to damage, and at level 20 they’re sitting on a +20 to damage (compare to Giant Instant Barbarian’s +6 @ level 1, and +18 @ level 20). But the picture’s a bit more nuanced than that. By this point, many of these components are common knowledge among the playtest; I'd just like to get some concrete comparisons through them.
If you prefer to use pictures, I've compiled my results into an imgur album that you can view here: it's got pictures of the tables, as well as some plots. I'll be linking to them one-by-one below, but the imgur album's got the juicy details all in one place.
Notation Note wrote:
(I’ll be using “`X`~`Y`~`Z`” a lot to represent the “mininimum ~ average ~ maximum” damage. While normally talking about the average is enough for most discussions, we’ll see that separating these is important to the discussion of the Thaumaturge’s balance)
• Implement’s Empowerment requires either a free hand or a held implement, soft-locking the player into a 1H weapon to enjoy its benefits. 1H Weapons have much smaller damage dice (1d4, 1d6, 1d8), which happen to be about two steps behind 2H weapons damage dice for comparable traits (1d8, 1d10, 1d12).
→ Going up in damage dice is a +1 increase in damage on average, so that +2 damage is approximately the two steps worth of damage. So a 1d6’s [1~3.5~6] becomes [3~5.5~8] compared to a 1d10 weapon’s [1~5.5~10]. Same average result, but higher minimum and lower maxiumum. This points to a theme around the Thaumaturge’s power: *consistency*. Keep that in mind going forward.
• Esoteric Antithesis requires 2 actions (1 if Find Flaws was a S or CS), and guarantees that your strikes trigger a Weakness of AT LEAST [2+[Level/2]], making each strike deal [2+[Lv/2]] additional damage on a hit. However, this is NOT equivalent to a simple +[2+[Lv/2]] increase in damage. If you look at the damage order of operations you can see that they’ve explicitly enumerated the steps. Damage is rolled (including striking runes in “Increasing Damage” and crits in “Doubling and Halving Damage”) in step 1, and Weaknesses/Resistances are applied in Step 3, and hit points are reduced in Step 4.
→ This means that Esoteric Antithesis’s damage is NOT multiplied on a critical hit. This drastically changes conventional wisdom about the value of accuracy and crits, and means that damage comparisons need to specifically be in the context of the entire spectrum of d20 results, not just an “apples to apples, if hit/crit what’d you get”
• The thaumaturge’s KAS is CHA, a mental ability score, unlike virtually all other martial’s STR/DEX. This means that the Thaumaturge cannot start the game with an 18 in STR/DEX, putting them behind in modifiers at levels 1-4 and 10-14; this reduction applies to both accuracy and damage.
So, given those components, I’ve done the math to try to help visualize exactly how the damage of the Thaumaturge stacks up compared to several similar classes:
• 1) A Featureless Martial (a class w/ no bonuses to damage or accuracy beyond the typical T-5-13 Weapon Proficiency with Weapon Specialization @ 7 and 15 – think either a generic class, or a martial class not benefitting from its combat steroid, like a Rogue against a non-flatfooted target),
• 2) A Giant Instinct Barbarian (the “I have tons of flat bonus damage” class, for the damage design comparison),
• 3) a Fighter (the “How important is critting” comparison), and
• 4) the Precision Ranger (which has the same action economy for buffing against foes as the Thaumaturge – one action per foe to get its benefit).
Each of these classes is designed near-optimally. They're assumed to have the highest possible offensive damage stat (STR) at level 1, increasing it at every opportunity, and I've run the numbers using d6 and d10 weapon sizes: large, but still has beneficial traits.
I’ve compiled this into a large excel document that people can feel free to download and double check my math, or add their own classes to compare how their favorites stack up, or just add their own modifiers (like, “how does this change if we give them a [deadly d10] weapon instead of a generic d10 weapon?”). You can grab it from this google drive file. As always, scan anything you're about to download for viruses before opening, especially MS Office documents that can have programs hidden in their macros. Let me know if the sharing permissions aren't working.
Alright, getting into things:
CF/F/S/CS Result Tables by Level
To do this, I set up a table that measures the bonus to attack rolls + the minimum, average, and maximum damage on both a success and critical success of a strike at all levels from 1-20. You just type in a base damage dice (such as d6 for Thaumaturge and d10 for everybody else), and it’ll autocalculate everything for you.
This particular table doesn’t take into account accuracy, it’s just “if you Strike, how much damage do you deal on a Crit Fail, Fail, Success, Crit Success”. It also doesn’t include any weapon properties, as relevant ones are simply “bonus damage” that adds the same number to all results for all classes equally (e.g., a [deadly d10] weapon is +[1~5.5~10] on a crit for all classes), or “bonus accuracy” which can be factored in later. It does however include your fundamental weapon runes (+X and Striking runes), included at the level equal to their item level.
The first takeaway that we can get from this is the value of a critical hit is significantly reduced. In the table I have a screenshot of, you can see that for a Thaumaturge with a d6 weapon, the ratio of a CS/S – normally = 2 for all other classes – is now noticeably lower. It works out to being [1.68 ~ 1.75 ~ 1.79] for [min ~ avg ~ max] damage.
Table 2: Thaumaturge CS:S Ratio by Base Damage Dice wrote:
The minimum damage is always [1.59], the average damage scales from [1.59~1.77] ([1.64~1.73] for typical 1H damage dice sizes), and the maximum damage ratio scales from [1.59 ~ 1.84] ([1.68~1.80] for typical 1H damage dice sizes). For easy of math, I adopt the approximation that the ratio is [1.6~1.7~1.75], and typically use “1.7” as the generic approximation of how much bonus damage you get from a crit.
Comparing Class CF/F/S/CS Results to Each Other.
So there’s two points of comparison here: How do other classes compare to the Thaumaturge, and how does each of these classes compare to the featureless martial?
Table 3: Comparison of the Thaumaturge's S and CS damage to other classes wrote:
Important Results: The Thaumaturge's minimum and average damage is on par with the Giant Instinct Barbarian -- the king of flat damage -- across all levels, both of which drastically exceed every other class's damage on a successful Strike. This creates a very high consistency floor for the Thaumatuge, meaning they're always going to be dealing a LOT of damage. They are, at worst as good as the Giant Instinct Barbarian.
Even on an Critical Hit, while the Giant Instinct Barbarian pulls away from the Thaumaturge by a significant margin, the Thaumaturge still meets or significantly exceeds the other classes by comparison. For a Fighter, that's expected, as their damage comes from Critting more frequently, and these results do not take into account relative accuracy.
"Plot 1: Class comparison: Min~Avg~Max Damage on a Successful Strike wrote:
This plot just makes plain to see what we've already said: the minimum damage is higher than the typical damage per successful strike of every other class in the game, and on average, the Thaumaturge will be lock-step in power with the largest damage dealer (per successful strike) in the game. Remember that raising the minimum is not equivalent to lowering the maximum: RNG-heavy wargames like Pathfinder are very risk-adverse. While less exciting, guaranteeing a minimum contribution results in more efficient and more certain action.
But not all of this is scaled on a crit, so we gotta hit that next step to look more wholistically.
"Plot 2: Class comparison: Min~Avg~Max Damage on a Critically Successful Strike wrote:
If you open Plot 2 and Plot 1 and quickly flip between 'em you can see that at this scale, every class EXCEPT the Thaumaturge is in the exact same relative position, but the Thaumaturge drops behind because it's CS:S ratio is lower. This still keeps it on par with the other classes on average, but the damage floor is still much higher than what all classes other than the Giant Instinct Barbarian have to offer, that floor even outperforming the average damage of Fighters.
Now these numbers are good to have, but since we're comparing classes it's generally easier to make that comparison directly instead of inferring. So what we're going to do is instead take every classes' damage at each result and level and divide it by that of a featureless martial's corresponding damage, to see how much extra value the class features are providing.
"Table 4: Class S+CS Damage Comparison to a Featureless Martial wrote:
This is basically just rescaling the information so that we can just immediately pull out what we want. Again, plots are easier to read, so have yourself one of those.
"Plot 3: Class comparison: Relative Min~Avg~Max Damage compared to a Featureless Martial's Average Damage on a Successful Strike wrote:
This allows us to see exactly how much any given class is out-performing another, and by how much. A value of 1 here means that it's exactly the same as a Featureless MArtial's average damage, a value of 2 means that it's double that damage, etc.
"Plot 4: Class Comparison Relative Min~Avg~Max Damage Compared to a Featureless Martial's Average Damage on a Critically Successful Strike wrote:
Similar to quickly flipping between plots 1 and 2, flipping between plots 3 and 4 shows that all classes are in the same spot, except for the thaumaturge whose contribution lowers. It's not that low, and is still consistently on-par with all other Martials, and only sees the single largest damage dealer in the game consistently out-perform it.
Table 5: The Min~Avg~Max Damage of Each Class on a Success and Crit Success wrote:
I’ve chosen “You hit on a 10” here because 1) it’s easy, and 2) it’s approximately true for typical AC-by-level for creatures of your level (normally 9-11 needed to hit). Usefully, it also includes how the degree of success changes for any given modifier, which can be used to compare things like “if I have X bonus” or “if I’m taking Y MAP” or “of I’m using a different class that has a different proficiency progression”.
From there, we can construct degree of success tables per class by counting up the number of results of each degree of success, and linking it to the damage of the Strike. If we expand this table to include all of the modifiers from the previous table,then we can also see how each +1 and -1 impacts each class separately, to challenge the conventional wisdom of ±1 = ±10% damage].
Quick note: that conventional wisdom is “±10% of your Strikes damage is added to your average damage, i.e., 10 percentage points”. These tables are comparing to your new average damage to your old average damage, which isn’t the same thing. Kind like how going from 50 to 55 out of 100 is a 5 percentage point increase, but a 10% increase in the value.
Table 7: The Expected Minimum Damage of the Thaumaturge, and how it's affected by modifiers wrote:
The tables on the side show how modifiers affect this number as a %, so the +1 modifier at level 2 is = +14% damage on average (1.14*5.25 = 5.99). This is useful for sliding the results around for if we're looking at a monster with a higher/lower AC (need a 13 to hit? Take the -3 modifier column. Need a 6 to hit? Take the +4 modifier column), or if we're benefitting from bonuses to our attacks (MAP = -5 modifier = -5 column) or they're suffering penalties to their AC (Flat footed = -2 AC = effective +2 to hit = use +2 column).
Table 8: The Expected Minimum Damage of the Giant Instinct Barbarian, and how it's affected by modifiers wrote:
This is assuming we're trying to hit that same creature that the Thaumaturge is trying to hit. Since the Thaumaturge needs a 10, the Barbarian might need a 9 or a 10 depending on level due to their differences in STR. That's factored into here. And we can repeat this process for the minimum, average, and maximum damage for all classes.
Table 9: The Expected Min~Avg~Max Damage of the All Classes, and how it's affected by modifiers wrote:
Remember that "average" here means "if the player were cursed to always roll average damage, this is the damage they'd do on average per strike". Since other classes have different accuracy (Fighter = higher proficiency, Other martials can start with 18 in their offense stat but Thatumaturge can only start w/ 16), they might need to roll a different number to hit the for (Fighter = 7, for example). The results change w/ level.
Since this does not include modifiers (yet), this can't quite be used to compare Damage Per Round. This is more "Damage per Strike after accuracy before modifiers". Once we figure out modifiers, you can slap a -5/-10 modifier to account for MAP and determine for yourself what your damage per round looks like with how you choose to spend your actions.
But before we hop into modifiers, let's look at what we have as a plot, so we can actually see what the difference is.
Plot 5: Class Comparions: Expected Damage Per Strike, Including Accuracy wrote:
Here, we can see that while the maximum damage is the lowest of all the classes, being on par with a featureless martial's maximum damage, but the minimum is as high as the average damage of the Ranger and the Fighter, and it still consistently performs alongside the Giant Instinct Barbarian as the two largest damage dealers in the game even after factoring in accuracy. The gap as been lessened (especially for the Fighter), but to see by how much we need to switch to that relative view from before.
Plot 6: Class Comparions: Expected Damage Per Strike relative to a Featureless Martial, Including Accuracy wrote:
Rescaling Plot 5 so that the Featureless Martials Average Damage = 1 at all levels, we can more directly see how classes compare to one another. Here, we see that the Thaumaturge is a consistently strong performer, whose minimum damage flirts with that of the ranger and fighter's average damage at almost all levels, and on average is on par with the Giant Instinct Barbarian's average damage.
While the Ranger and Fighter can get lucky and have very high damage rolls if the stars align, their typical performance is easily masked by the Thaumaturge.
What's the impact of modifiers on each class
The last thing that we need is to understand how modifiers play into this picture. An udnerstanding of modifiers gives us the flexibility we need to take this wholistically: We can account for Multiple Attack Penalties, make comparisons on foes with a differing AC, talk about the value of class features that provide bonuses, and so on.
Thankfully, the value of [±1] modifiers doesn't really change with level, so we can just look at modifier vs. attack/damage result.
Table 11: How Modifiers Affect Each Class's Expected Min~Avg~Max Damage wrote:
Important Note: When looking at Percentages, it's important to understand WHAT it's comparing to. The conventional wisdom of "A +1 = +10% damage" is talking about +10% of the damage dealt by a successful strike, whereas the +14% in the +1 column in this table is "the expected damage per strike including accuracy increases by 14% compared to no accuracy modifiers". These numbers can be similar or totally different things without properly converting one to the other, so it's important to compare apples to apples.
Again, difficult to pull anything from reading numbers, so in graphical form:
Plot 7: Class Comparions: How Modifiers Affect Damage as a % Increase from Expected Damage per Strike with no Modifier wrote:
Apologies again, the minor grid lines don't line up correctly. Turns out R is hard as a newbie who learned it just for this post?
Since most classes have the same proficiency scaling, same starting ability modifier, and same critical:hit damage ratio as a featureless martial, most of the lines are just going to dissappear on the +0.0% line.
What we see here is that the Thaumaturge value is negative here for positive modifiers, meaning they benefit less from each +1 they get compared to other classes. For example a +5 modifier gives 5% less of an increase in damage for the Thaumaturge than other classes (+72% vs. +77%). It also means that - for small penalties - the Thaumaturge is more insulated against damage loss than other classes. So against a creature taking cover (+2[circ] AC), the Thaumaturge gains an extra edge.
It's important to consider what this means for gameplay:
→ The Thaumaturge is less reliant on getting a crit to deal biggo damage, and thus reduces team coordination. It's less desirable to spend your 3rd action to set up your frontliner for a big crit instead of helping yourself out. This means that players feel like they share the "credit" of contributing to team damage less (compared to "Oh, if I Stride into flanking for my barbarian and Prepare to Aid his attack roll, I can contribute +30% or 40% of his damage, which is way bigger than the 50% of my damage that a second strike suffering from MAP would deal".
→ The Thaumaturge cares less about penalties to accuracy, and will thus spend more actions just standing still and striking, reducing the diversity of their gameplay. Find Flaws, Esoteric Antithesis, Strike Strike Strike Strike Strike. Give them something fun to do.
In the end, any conclusions that can be drawn?
Honestly, nothing so clear-cut as to say that "oh yeah, just by looking at the numbers this is totally unbalanced". It's something that'll heavily rely on actual playtest experience. How much does the once-per-foe action tax affect things? How does Recall Knowledge DC scaling with the wildly split stats impact the game? And so on. And I think that this work will help highlight what comparisons particular attention should be paid to during that playtesting.
But, statistically, we can confidently conclude that the Thaumaturge will consistently perform as one of the highest damage dealing classes in the game once it starts swinging. Other classes might get lucky rolls with max results on bonus damage dice, but the Thaumaturge at its worst is going to be hitting as hard as a Giant Instinct Barbarian.
I think an important question to consider is.... why? What about the Thaumaturge's identity makes "dealing truckloads of damage" a reasonable core component of it. Like, all classes deal lots of damage given their circumstances, but I'm of the opinion that it's much too close to stepping on the toes of the Giant Instinct Barbarian, whose entire identity is "when I rage, I deal tons of flat damage - you WILL get hurt".
If you made it this far... neat! Thanks! Hopefully this helped you see something new, or gave you a nice reference to back up numbers in future discussions.
A total reimagining of the Occultist from 1e, I think this class immediately caught a bunch of eyes. A few things caught my eye and I wanted to sit down and do a complete and careful read-through of the class. These are my everything-thoughts; I wrote 'em up a week ago, but took a detour to do some mathanalysis of the Thaumaturge's damage which I'll share in a later post dedicated to the topic. While reading, the balance reference points seem to be Barbarian, Champion, and Precision Ranger.
(forgive the formatting, some of the nicer bits of BB code seem to not be working at the moment. Always hard to make a wall of text less... wall of texty.)
First Stop,
Quote:
The Chassis
• Key Ability Score = Charisma: The flavor here is not immediately apparent (INT or WIS seem more reasonable at first glance) but it’s explained by the designers in this post. I’m satisfied with the explanation, but the class feature or “about you” blurb at the beginning could use a rewrite to address this.
→ The class is also possibly the most MAD class yet released; It’ll need STR or DEX as a martial for offense (being limited to an 16 to start), CON for survivability, INT/WIS are nice bonuses for Recall Knowledge, and CHA for its special recall knowledge and class DC. The ability to use CHA instead of INT/WIS goes a long way to lessen this burden; I wonder if another small concession should be made, or if this disparity is a balancing drawback (and if so, a critical lens towards “is that good design, when the rest of the game tried to get rid of that?”). If it can survive with purely STR/CON/CHA or DEX/CON/CHA, it should be in a good spot. But given you only get four ASIs as you level, there's no way to get KAS + Offense + all 3 saving throw abilities as you level.
• HP = 8/Lv. Nothing Special. Typical class feature-heavy martial.
• Save Proficiencies: Your PFRW start off as E/T/T/E, which is standard for a martial. The progression, however is inconsistent with other characters.
→ Will Progression is too fast. The class has an E-7-13 progression for Will saves, which is actually perfectly consistent for every **other** proficiency **except** for Will. Legendary Will saves have always been delayed compared to the other saving throws; Oracle+Bard+Investigator get Legendary @ 17th level. Monks have their unique progression that could get Legendary @ 15th level, at the cost of no progressing one saving throw.
→ The weaker save progression is faster than typical. Most classes follow a 5-9-17 progression, bumping a different saving throw up by 1 at each of those steps. Thaumaturge is at a 3-7-9 progression which, while accelerated, isn’t the worst offender (Druid @ 3-3-5 will forever confuse me).
• Skill Proficiencies: With 4 granted skills and 2+INT skills on top of that, the total 6+INT is only behind Rogue in quantity of starting proficiencies. However, 1) the class relies on Recall Knowledge to function, and 2) the KAS is CHA, but these skills are INT and WIS. It’s a good balance to make sure it works without tipping the scales in any favor.
• Weapon Proficiencies: As a Martial, it enjoys T-5-13 weapon proficiency, and weapon specialization @ 7 and 15. Notably, it does NOT get critical specializations without investing in the Weapon Implement. This puts it in the company of the Champion.
• Armor Proficiencies: It gets a slightly accelerated T-11-19 armor proficiency, instead of the normal T-13-19 proficiency. The only other classes to get an accelerated non-legendary armor progression are the Fighter and the Ranger. It’s an interesting choice to have 8 HP + Ranger armor progression.
• Class DC: Uses the DC-reliant progression to T-9-17, in the company of Monks, Rangers, and Alchemists who all rely heavily on the use of their Class DC. However, the class does not really *rely* on their class DC. It’s used for a counteract modifier for a single implement paragon power (@ 17th level), and a single class feat, “Pact of Fey Glamour”. The class should either conjure more uses for the Class DC (focus spells, etc.) or slow it down to the non-reliant T-11-19 progression. Is the difference huge? No. But it does break the consistency of class progression principles previously implied.
Okay, whew a lot more detail than I think people were expecting on just the chassis.
Chassis tl;dr - Mostly seems normal, but the progression rates are consistently slightly accelerated compared to other classes, putting it stronger than expected overall. This is to spread out the power spikes given the design of the implement access (1, 5, 15) and implement mastery (7, 17). It really only leaves 3, 9, 11, 13, and 19 available, so you can see why they’d pick a 3-7-9 with accelerated Will @ 13. I think it’d be better to adjust the rate at which implement features are doled out to slow down at least the Will progression.
Okay, now on to the Class Features. The Thamaturge has two major class features: Esoterica and Implements. Esoterica are thematic baubles that you use to draw connections between a flawed creature and their metaphysical weakness, and Implements are objects of significance that you draw power from.
• Minor Class Feature: Dubious Knowledge: You get it as a bonus feat. If you already have it, you get Additional Lore instead. Cool, thematic, but not very well integrated into the other aspects of the class (see Find Flaws, below).
Quote:
Esoterica
Your Esoterica are a collection of baubles similar to spell components in use and function. You’ll have a pouch of them on your person, but the specifics are generally glossed over and they just meet the requirements for things. Esoterica also has two class actions associated with it: ♦Find Flaws, and ♦Esoteric Antithesis.
• Find Flaws♦: Once per round, you search for the weaknesses of a single target creature (either seen or the subject of an Investigation exploration activity). Recall Knowledge using the normal skill, but CHA in place of INT or WIS to learn about it’s weaknesses. The main focus is to enable you to use the Esoteric Antithesis♦ action; in addition to the normal recall knowledge benefits, a CS or S lets you benefit from EA as a non-action, while a Failure forces you to use EA♦ as a second action. It also gives you focused information on the defenses of the creature (highest weakness on a S, all Weaknesses, Resistances, and Immunities on a success). I do have some thoughts on its design:
→ What’s the point of having Dubious Knowledge if this is providing the additional context for the abilities? There’s no “is this a critical success or a failure” uncertainty, since the two results are modified to have wildly different effects. And getting uncertain information doesn’t play into the class. As we’ll see in the design of Esoteric Antithesis below, the player doesn’t make any choices regarding this uncertainty, so getting erroneous information doesn’t provide much help.
→ I enjoy that the penalty for failure is not “you’re locked out of your thing, keep trying”; it’s “you get taxed an additional action”. This provides a meaningful penalty without getting caught in a trap where you’re stuck without it because you keep rolling poorly.
→ The basic design as a Ranger-analogue for "single action tax per opponent" is sound in design, but doesn't feel in-place from the player's end.
• Esoteric Antithesis♦: Similar to a Ranger’s Hunt Prey, you use the Esoterica you’ve collected to modify your Strikes against the target to trigger their weaknesses. The ability provides a power floor, setting a minimum Weakness to your strikes of `2+[Level]/2` (either creating a custom weakness or using a more powerful existing one). This benefit lasts indefinitely against a single foe, but ends the moment you use Find Flaws again.
→ Current design sidesteps issues of the class’s identity not applying to broad swaths of creatures that simply lack Weaknesses to trigger, ensuring consistency.
→ Order of Operations. Weaknesses are applied AFTER the damage dealt has been calculated, which means that this damage is NOT applied on a critical hit. This will likely be a central balancing point for the class. This results in significant damage on a hit, but lower-than-expected damage on a crit. This works out to be +70% damage on a crit instead of the typical +100% in practice.
→ I’m not sure that I like the “always on all your strikes” design. The flavor as-described seems like it should be a “this creature’s weak to X, this bit of esoterica exploits weakness X, so using the bauble should either work or not work”. Like, if you place the broken chain on the tyrant, as in the example, why should the weakness only be triggered by your attacks? Or if you coat the blade in a silver powder, why wouldn’t it work for anyone using the silver-coated weapon against the weak-to-silver creature? Or why wouldn’t that silver-infused attack affect the second weak-to-silver creature right next to it?
→→ This could be a flavor text fix (“you’re using personal magic to infuse your strikes with the substance of the esoterica keyed to the psyche of that specific creature”), or a mechanical change (“You interact to apply the esoterica to a weapon. This benefit lasts until you Find Flaws or Interact to apply a different esoterica to a weapon.”). But as it stands, the function doesn’t follow what I’m getting from the lore.
→ There may be alternate ways to word the “use an existing weakness unless it’s not strong enough and then create a custom weakness” thing. An example that springs to mind is “your Strikes against that creature gain the esoterica trait or one damage type trait of your choice; this causes your Strikes to trigger Weaknesses to that trait.” And moving “The creature gains Weakness to your Esoterica equal to 2 + Half your level to damage with the esoterica trait” directly into the Find Flaws action....This allows the same weapon modification to be applied to multiple creatures, at the cost of an action tax in guesswork at the beginning. I suppose that this means that the Strikes could trigger multiple Weaknesses (Slashing + Silver, for example), which is not intended, so maybe this isn’t the ideal wording, but just some thoughts.
→ Because the ability “triggers weaknesses” but doesn’t change its current type, how does it interact with, say, a creature that had “Resistance 5 slashing, Weakness 5 silver”? Does it also count as the old type, so it’d apply BOTH the resistance and the slashing?
→ I’m surprised (disappointed?) that the Dubious Knowledge included in the class doesn’t come into play here. I would have expected a design that incorporated it better. Like, “when you use Esoteric Antithesis, you declare a damage type that you know or suspect the enemy to have. Your Strikes trigger that Weakness.” Add in a line like “You can Interact with your esoterica to change the damage type that your Esoteric Antithesis applies to”, and then Dubious Knowledge manifests naturally in the class; its action tax comes from “Oh, I learned it’s Weak to X and Y from my Recall Knowledge, I’ll try X. Huh, not working. Okay, Interact and try the other one.
→→ Even if this specific implementation is not included, I think that given how much Dubious Knowledge *should* come into play, a sentence or two giving suggestions on how the authors imagine it being used in play (“the GM tells you two specific resistances the creature has and their values, one of which is real, and one is false”) might help give it a place in the class, because as it stands it’s just kind of… floating there.
→ Runs into the odd flavor situation of “drastically increases damage vs. creatures with weak/metaphysical-only weaknesses, but gains no power when fighting creatures with an actual weakness that’d be classically exploited. (Werewolves vs. Silver cannot be exploited any more than a metaphysical weakness, so if the weakness is easily accessible by others (Silvered/Mithral weapons or Cold Iron weapons, for example) it kinda feels like “what am I doing?”. Not sure if there’s a balanced solution this is.
→ I do wonder if there’s a way to make this a little more intuitive. Like, instead of the whole “triggers weaknesses of X type with a custom ‘2+[Level/2]’ damage if higher”, if the ability just added a single point of damage of the weaknesses damage type, and the bonus damage was simply `+[Level/2]`, it’d be virtually the same damage and just triggered those weaknesses normally, it’d be essentially the same, right? But a bit more obvious how it works. You could even tie this into Implement’s Empowerment below, and make that increase this bonus typed damage from 1→{2,4,6,8} in place of it’s current benefit.
Synthesizing the above thoughts: Synthesizing all of the above thoughts, it seems to me that a design more like
Find Flaws♦: Your Esoterica can be added to your weapons to make them trigger Weaknesses. When you Find Flaws, choose a damage trait, such as [slashing], [silver], or [lawful]. You Interact with a weapon you're holding to add Esoterica to it, making Strikes with the weapon deal 1 point of damage of that type. This benefit lasts until you Interact with your Esoterica again to apply to a new damage trait or a new weapon.
And then
Esoteric Antithesis♦: You use your Esoterica to exploit a metaphysical weakness in the nature of a creature you Found Flaws in. You Interact with your Esoterica and use it to modify a held weapon to trigger a Weakness in the creature's very Nature. The creature gains a custom weakness to your Esoterica equal to half your level. If the creature already had any Weaknesses, this instead modifies the creature's highest Weakness to the new value, if higher. This benefit lasts until you Interact with your Esoterica again.
This design makes a bit more sense on the lore-level (this weapon is silvered, now it's effective against weak-to-silver creatures, and I could give it to another ally to use since it's the Weapon, not me), and the action design is tweaked to be a bit more sound, IMO. Find Flaws♦ deals +1 damage of the type you choose, which in turn can trigger a Weakness. It takes no extra action if you guessed correctly, but if you failed your Recall Knowledge check, then Dubious Knowledge creates an action tax in the form of "guessing among the true and untrue Weaknesses". These guesses are handled simply in the form of using a single Interact action to apply your Esoterica to your weapon. This level of effectiveness ONLY applies to the creature's existing weaknesses: you get the small benefit with just the one action, and a bigger benefit from using the second action on Esoteric Antithesis.
Esoteric Antithesis♦ is now separated from Find Flaws♦ as the "specifically dealing with Metaphysical Weaknesses" action. The flavor is more clear, as is the reason why it only applies to one creature. Now it's a single action tax that you can take only if you need it. Its effective value is now "1+Level/2" instead of "2+Level/2", but that "1" now doubles on a crit instead of the "2" not doubling, so it's more like 1.5 in terms of a damage comparison. Pretty close, but much simpler to understand since each part is logically separated. This also makes the design of a multiclass easier to balance, as you can give multiclassed Thaumaturges Find Flaws+Esoterica to deal 1 point of typed damage, but not access to metaphysical weaknesses.
Alright, next section:
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Implements
Your Implements are your second major class feautre. They're items of Significance whose power you channel for various benefits. These are essentially your subclass choice for the class, determining the special abilities you get as you level. You start with one Implement (gaining more @ 5th and 15th), and as you level you’ll increase the power of implements (@ 7th and 17th, through three power levels: Initiate, Adept, Paragon) ending with a total of 3 Implements with a final power of Initiate, Adept, Adept, or Initiate, Initiate, Paragon. It’s important to note that Implements must be HELD to gain their benefits, not simply worn.
• Implement's Empowerment: Provides an untyped bonus damage while holding implements. This starts at +2 @ level 1, and increases to +4 @ 3rd, +6 @ 11th, +8 @ 19th. In conjunction with the Esoteric Antithesis, that’s a total of +4 damage at level 1, and +20 damage at level 20, requiring only a single action per foe to access this damage. While the flat numbers are much higher than anything else – including the Giant Instinct Barbarian, whose entire schtick is “I deal tons of damage”, it’s important to consider them in context. A full analysis of damage comparison will be done later, so focusing on this ability in particular:
→ Because the class requires Implements to be HELD to gain their benefits, Thamaturges are blocked from gaining the benefits of either 2-Handed Weapons or 1-Handed + Free Hand fighting styles (weapon + shield, weapon + athletics, weapon + item). This means that, to fight in combat, the Thamaturge is essentially locked into a 2H fighting style with only a 1H weapon. This ability closes that gap. The +2 damage is approximately the average damage increase from a 1H weapon (1d6, 1d8) to a 2H weapon (1d10, 1d12). The bonuses @ 3rd, 11th, and 19th are approximately equal to the levels you’re expected to get your striking runes (4, 12, 19), meaning you keep the damage on track with a 2H weapon. Some thoughts on this design:
→ → Given its similarity to Somatic spell components, I believe that this ability should follow similar rules to the component substitution rules: you can choose add the [manipulate] trait to your Strikes to get bonus damage. The downside is that this now risks triggering reactions for [manipulate], and is subject to disruption and action loss appropriate to the action (such as Grappled’s flat check for manipulate actions). This change would allow you to keep all the flavor components (such as holding weapon implement + trace with free hand) with consistency across systems.
→ → The ability as written can be used without holding an implement at all.
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When you Strike, you can trace mystic patterns with an implement you’re holding **or a free hand** to empower the Strike.
→ → → Which violates the flavor of the abilty (“the power of your implement[..] flows into your weapon or fist”) -- It should require an implement being held (but not requiring the implement hand to perform the somatic component) – as well as the mechanical foundation of the bonus damage (locking the player into a 2H fighting style with a 1H weapon). If players can still receive the full utility of having a completely free hand (using a shield, item, athletics checks, etc.), then I do not think that they are entitled to this free scaling damage on top of the Esoteric Antithesis damage. Especially since this means that players can get 2H-level damage on Agile 1H weapon, or effectively increase the damage of a Two-Handed trait weapon with a Fighter dip into beyond where it should go, or freely reload ranged weapons that can be fired in one hand.
→ → Again, synthesizing these thoughts, I think a more cohesive design would be
While you are holding one of your implements implement, you can add a [somatic] component to your Strike, giving it the [manipulate] trait as you gesture occult patterns to empower your Esoterica. Strikes dealing bonus damage from your Esoterica that you modify in this weay deal 2 additional damage of your chosen trait instead of 1. This increases to 4 @ 3rd, 6 @ 11th, and 8 @ 19th. You cannot trace these patterns with a hand that you're using to Strike.
This ties it into the class a bit better: it's enhancing the bonus damage from your esoterica rather than just generic damage, while closing some of the questions I raised. It shouldn't affect the math (other than being eaten by Resistances if you failed your Recall Knowledge to Find Flaws and chose a bad damage trait), although the total numbers are now slightly lower (1+[Lv/2]+1/3/5/7 vs. 2+[lv/2]+2/4/6/8), but numbers can be easily tweaked on the back end. I just chose numbers that were consistent with other parts of the class's design and in the right ballpark.
Okay, the actual implements now:
• The Amulet: The Defensive choice, providing you with what’s essentially a Champion’s Reaction while holding the implement in hand.
→ Initiate Benefit: Provides a reaction (Amulet’s Abeyance ↻) that gives Resistance = 2+Level vs the triggering strike against you or an ally within 15 feet. This is notably nearly the full power of the Champion’s reaction, only missing the bonus effect deterrent (make a Strike, Enfeebled 2, grant an ally a free Save/Escape attempt). My immediate concern is “this seems to toe into the Champion’s unique thing too much”. Like, “here’s this way to protect my friends” is the class’s core identity as a defensive power house. I don’t think that this kind of identity dilution is good for the health of the game, and that a different approach is warranted (or just a number reduction, like `2+[Level/2]` to match your Esoteric Anathema so that your power from the same source has different effects. Maybe make it a Resistance vs. the triggering damage of that value instead. Especially since the next benefit…
→ Adept Benefit: The Ally that benefitted from your Amulet’s Abeyance ↻ gains Resistance 5 (↑ to 10 @ 15th level) until the start of your next turn. A lingering defensive benefit to protect you from more than just that one attack. If you look at these numbers (5@5th, 10@15th) they almost perfectly match the progression of the Esoteric Anathema (4 @ 5th, and 9 @ 15th). I think that if this ability were modified so that the initiate benefit provided Resistance to that attack equal to the amount of Weakness your Esoteric Antithesis provides (`2+[Level/2]`) and the Adept benefit caused it the Resistance to last until the start of your next turn, it’d be a lot more wholistic.
→ → In addition, if the Initiate benefit required you to declare a damage trait and provided resistance to that specific trait, you’d give the Champion reaction a niche leg up on the Amulet’s Abeyance↻ AND provide another connection to that Dubious Knowledge skill, as the player would have to learn what type of damage the attacks are doing (although it should be obvious most of the time).
→ Paragon Benefit: The Amulet’s Abeyance ↻ now protects all allies within 15ft of you. Redeemer Champions get this same ability @ level 11 (raising concerns about diluting identity space, but this Is a 17th level near-capstone ability so it’s not a huge concern). If the triggering attack dealt multiple damage types, allies can declare what lingering resistance they keep individually.
→ → Not much more to comment on here, other than extending the comments on the design of Initiate and Adept and extrapolating it to here.
• The Chalice: Drink deep, my friend, and heal. The Chalice is similar to a perpetual potion, providing you with the Drink from the Chalice♦ action, which can be used every round to provide some temporary hitpoints, or completely drained for an emergency heal… leaving the Chalice empty and unable to be used for 10 minutes.
→ Initiate Benefit: Provides the Chalice and the Drink from Chalice♦ action, which can be used in one of two ways on yourself or an ally:
→ 1) Sip: allowing you to sip for some temporary HP (`2+Level` T.HP) that lasts for 1 round.
→ 2) Drain: drink deeply of it to heal in an emergency (`3 x Level` HP)… leaving the chalice empty for 10 minutes. The 10-minute healing design also makes this serve as a pseudo-focus spell form of healing, similar to Lay on Hands (again, stepping on toes of Champion, but splitting the benefits between two implements eases that concern).
→ → The `2+Level` T.HP that lasts for 1 round appears to be the same value as the Amulet’s reaction, both mitigating the same amount of damage, but this is actually objectively weaker. It takes an Action rather than a reaction, requires you to guess when you’ll need it in advance, and the current design of Amulet’s Abeyance is resistance to ALL damage, so it gets extra mileage out of attacks of multiple damage types. I think that the Chalice’s numbers are well-designed, providing similar value to the Champion’s Reaction but in a completely different format and theme, making it not feel like it’s stepping on the toes. I think that Leaving the Chalice sip as `+2+Level` THP and lowering the Amulet’s Abeyance to `2+[Level/2]` Resistance vs. a single type (mirroring the Esoteric Antithesis value instead of the Champion's Reaction) sufficiently differentiates the two abilities from each other AND preserves the design space of the Champion’s Reaction.
→ → The Drain’s healing @ 3HP/level every 10 minutes mirrors the design of the Lay on Hands focus spell (6 HP/2 levels), without providing or costing a focus pool. In terms of out of combat healing and emergency in-combat healing, it seems fine. Not having an opportunity cost since it doesn’t cost a focus spell is a slight power boost. It doesn’t break anything on its own, but there’s a lot of parts of this class that are “this is slightly more powerful than we’d expect”, and a lot of small things are pushing together in the same direction. With the class as-of the playtest, I think this really pushes way too hard on the Champion’s niche (both Champions Reaction and Lay on Hands), but a small change can fix that (such as lowering the resistance of the Amulet’s Abeyance).
→ → The action is not fully clear on the consequences of Draining the chalice. Does Draining the chalice prevent anyone from Drinking from the Chalice, or only further Drains (can still Sip?). Also, the last sentence, “if 10 minutes pass without anyone drinking from the chalice”, should have the action capitalized so that it clearly refers to the action and not any other form of drinking that might involve the chalice – “without anyone Drinking From The Chalice”.
→ Adept Benefit: Fluids leaking from your body pour into the chalice and empower it with your life force. Your Drink From The Chalice action next turn is empowered if YOU had one of the following happens: 1) Took a Crit that dealt Salshing/Piercing damage, 2) Took Persistent Bleed damage. Essentially, turn your blood into bonus healing. **Sip** is improved to `CHA+Level`, and **Drain** is improved to `4 x Level`.
→ → Drain’s benefit seems fine, putting it in line with a 2-action Heal for 1 action at the cost of no range.
→ → Sip’s benefit is poorly designed. This only provides any benefit if the player has 16 CHA or greater. Since they’re level 5, you’d expect a minimum of 14 CHA (12 from KAS, +2 from level 5 ASI). But with how MAD the class is, I don’t think that this is guaranteed. Very few components use Class DC or Charisma, and most of those that do are Paragon-level benefits which are now excluded since they went for Adept in Chalice.
→ → → I think that it wouldn’t hurt to have it simply increase the temp HP by your CHA mod. For most characters, that’s +4 Healing instead of +2 Healing (2 → 4+Level), and that extra +2 difference is basically the average damage of persistent bleed damages (mostly 1d6ish), so the common trigger is balanced out.
→ → I love the flavor of this one. Really draws that religious imagery of supping the blood of the holy.
→ Paragon Benefit: Befitting a dedicated healer, this provides no bonus to in-combat healing, but Draining the Chalice helps clear conditions right quick: reduce most conditions with condition values by 1 (sickened, stupefied, etc.; Drained is only reduced 1/day), and attempt to counteract all points, diseases, and curses. Using Class DC – 10 as your counteract modifier also encourages raising Charisma.
→ → I think that this is largely good design, but surprised that it has no combat use. This may not be bad, but I think that if they invested into Paragon for this, it even a tiny boost to Sip (reduce Frightened by 1? Allow Sickened creatures to Sip from but not Drain the chalice?) would be valuable here.
• The Lantern: See the paranormal for what they actually are: the Lantern is focused on illuminating the unknown and revealing the truth of things. Notably, unlike the other Implements, the Laterns benefits are entirely passive, bestowing its benefits on anything its light touches (within 20ft), but the short range means you’ll often need to stride into there.
→ Initiate Benefit: Counts as a magical [light] effect, providing bright light within 20ft, and dim light 20ft beyond that. Provides a +1 status bonus to you and allies within its bright light on 1) percepton checks against things in its bright light, and 2) on Recall Knowledge checks against creatures within its area of bright light. It also rolls the Secret Perception checks to find traps, hazards, haunts, and secrets that you pass within 20ft even without taking the Searching exploration activity.
→ → Since it’s a [light] effect, its interaction with [darkness] effects should be enumerated. It should have a counteract level of half your class level (which it’d be by default via counteract rules), and use your Class DC – 10 as its counteract modifier (more powerful than DC by level).
→ → * The Searching benefit is cool, but I do worry about the drastically increased speed with which you get the benefits of Searching. It’s not a half-speed ability but a fixed-speed ability (300ft/min, 150ft/min to guarantee you don’t trigger anything you find). Not even the 7th-level General Feat Expeditious Search does this.
→ Adept Benefit: The 20ft aura of bright light reveals invisible and ethereal creatures. They’re still concealed (DC 5 flat check), but not Hidden or Undetected, which is an awesome change. The short range is just shy of the 25ft stride distance, so these creatures can always stride right out of the range if they want to. I love the flavor of this, because it’s a niche benefit in practice but provides so many cool opportunities for storytelling and scene-setting.
→ Paragon Benefit: Any time an illusion or transmutation effect passes into your bright light, you get a free secret check to see through the illusion. Functions like a counteract check, but doesn’t actually counteract the effect in any way other than visually.
→ → This might have some clarity issues with spells whose benefits rely on visual components (does Illusory disguise still avoid the circumstance penalty for disguising yourself as a dissimilar creature even though it’s a purely visual effect?). It might need a “GM decides” sentence.
• The Wand: Pew, pew. The Wand does flexible ranged magic to assail enemies from a distance. Quite a distance, honestly. This Implement is different from the other implements because it singularly focuses on dealing damage. Its attack action economy is going to be poor (since it’s ♦♦ like a spell). This also lets you keep up on damage independent of your physical stats, letting you focus on the mental ones if you wish.
→ → The choice of elements seems like it’s intended to play into the “fight around enemy weaknesses” game, but since this is a targeted spell and not a strike, it benefits from neither Esoteric Antithesis nor Implement’s Empowerment. You can’t change your element to trigger weaknesses, which also means that you don’t interact with the Dubious Knowledge skill feat again.
→ Initiate Benefit: Your Wand gives you a magical Fling Magic♦♦ activity that deals modest damage from a very respectable distance (80 ft! That’s almost as far as Ray of Frost modified by Reach metamagic. I’m definitely surprised to see this number). To start with choose an element and make an enemy take a basic reflex save against `1d4 + CHA` damage. It scales up by `+1d4` every odd level, like a cantrip.
→ → I’m trying to figure out why this is a unique non-Cast a Spell activity. It seems like this would make the most sense to be implemented (pardon the pun) as granted innate cantrip that requires you to be holding your wand implement to use, so that it’s as consistent with the rest of the similar-sounding rules as possible. Since it’s a saving throw, it’s easy to just say “Class DC” instead of “Trained [tradition] DC” like the normal rules, and you don’t have to worry about attacks. Maybe it’s because the [focus] spell component lets you draw/stow the component as a subordinate action? But the class gives you a free interaction to manipulate your implements at level 7, so this doesn’t seem like a huge deal.
→ → The element list is Fire, Cold, and Electricity. I’m curious as to why Acid isn’t there, or another trait like Poison possibly in its stead. A Rule of Threes thing? The lack of class feats to add other elements to your choice list here (such as aligned damage for divine-themed "reliquarian" thamaturges, or positive/negative damage for occult ones to deal with supernatural haunts and the like) seem like a glaring omission.
→ Adept Benefit: Increases the range of your Fling Magic to 120ft, and gives you a second damage trait (choose between one each time you Fling Magic). Also provides a bonus debuff depending on the element you choose (Fire = 1d10 Persistent damage, Cold = -10ft status penalty to Speeds, Electricity = flat-footed for 1 round).
→ → Fun addition, but nothing to write home about. Entirely damage based. I’d expect something to help *solve* magical problems, not just use magic to punch those problems from far away.
→ Paragon Benefit: Holy range, Batman. Range on Fling Magic is now 180 feet, and you can choose from any of the three elements each time you fling, and you’ve got the option to expand the spell into a 10ft burst with no action or damage costs. Definitely a powerful enough upgrade to be excited about, being able to send a mini-fireball as a cantrip, but I’m still disappointed that this is the pure damage option when magic has always been an expression of utility.
• The Weapon: Stabby Stab. The weapon’s for someone who wants to be a full-on martial. You get a powered-up Attack of Opportunity and other beefy full-martial benefits that other Thamaturges have to live without. Interestingly, this is not about pure damage, but rather fills more of a battlefield control position by providing the opportunity attack more bonus effects.
→ → Does not grant proficiency in the weapon or limit the weapon choice, but you DO start the game with a non-magical implement. Does this mean that a player can bypass access requirements to get an [uncommon] or [rare] mundane weapon, or bypass the wealth allowances for a new level 1 PC (such as by buying a non-magical level 2+ weapon, as we might see with the Guns n Gears/Grand Bazaar books?). Just needs a "Level 0" sentence in the implements class feature earlier.
→ Initiate Benefit: Grants you the Implement’s Interruption↻ reaction. This is very similar to the Fighter’s Attack of Opportunity reaction, but it disrupts ANY triggering action on a crit, not just a [manipulate] action. The drawback is that it can only be used against a target you have an Esoteric Antithesis against. Also, at 5th level, you get the critical specialization effect of your Weapon Implement weapon (regardless of if you pick adept). These combined make you a full-fledged martial.
→ → Notably, unlike other AoO-type actions, this explicitly works while using a ranged weapon, but limits the range to 10ft (same as a reach weapon). Neat little addition.
→ → The major points of comparison here are the Fighter (@ level 1, [manipulate] only, with [concentrate] added @ a 10th level feat), Swashbuckler/Barbarian (@ level 6 via feat, [manipulate] only), and the closest match, the Ranger (@ level 4 via feat, also disrupts any triggering action on a crit, also requires an action tax in Hunt Prey to use). This puts it ahead of all of the competition without a significant drawback, pulling in its power at level 1. My major concern here is that other classes will want to take a Thamaturge Dedication to grab a single implement and that implement’s initiate power (based off of other dedication designs, that’ll be 2 feats @ 2nd and 4th), which is too early and too powerful for anybody else. Not even Fighter Dedications can get AoO until level 4 and that's one of their things.
→ → → Instead, I recommend having it only disrupt [manipulate] actions like AoO does at level 1, and then have the Adept Power improve the reaction to disrupt any triggering action (in addition to its current benefits below). This grants the power at around the same time and cost as what the Ranger has, and avoids outclassing the Fighter and softens the power of multiclassing into Thaumaturge.
→ → This also means that with that same (probably 4th level) feat, the Multiclassed Thaumaturge picks up Crit Specialization with that weapon (which might be an advanced or high-level weapon). Not ideal. Maybe rephrase that part to "when you gain the second implement class feature" instead of "5th level"?
→ Adept Benefit: Failing (but not CF) your Implement’s Interruption↻ deals 1 damage of your weapon’s type and triggers the target’s weaknesses per Esoteric Antithesis.
→ → This builds on the Thaumaturge’s mechanical theme of consistency and fits into his other class features and themes well. As above, I think that crit disrupting non-[manipulate] triggering actions should be moved here. You'll also note that this "one typed damage" design mirrors my suggested rework of FF/EA above.
→ Paragon Benefit: Implement’s Interruption↻ disrupts actions on a hit, rather than a crit. G~$$+@n, this is powerful and definitely a game-shaping ability a player would be excited to get.
Alright, this is getting kinda long, so thanks for sticking with it.
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Other Class Features
Small parts included in other class features I feel inclined to point out.
• Implement Adept Lets you Interact to swap one implement for another implement as a free action immediately before taking an implement action that requires the new implement. A necessary addition for support implement juggling. However, there is some minutia about free actions that bothers me.
→ The language should be clarified to “next action with the [thaumaturge] trait granted by your implement” so that players can’t try to cheese “I’m striking with my implement, so this effectively works like Quick Draw and lets me draw + strike in one action”. This kinda leaves Lantern in the dust, but they get all their benefits without spending actions anyway so it should work out fine.
→ Is this a free action (that has the impossible to enforce “Requirement: your next action is a [thaumaturge] action granted by your implement”?) or a free reaction (triggered by using the [thaumaturge] action, and still subject to the “one reaction per trigger” rule)? If the latter, adjusting the language to use the word “trigger” somewhere will be immensely clarifying.
•Thaumaturgic Expertise/Mastery: Grants a free skill increase to your choice of arcane/nature/occultism/religion.
•Unlimited Esoterica: Lets you Find Flaws as a free action once per round, which in turn lets you Esoteric Antithesis as a free action on a success. Quite powerful, but it’s a 19th level capstone power so go for it fam.
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Class Feats
Okay, now for the long part (lol). Going through the Class Feats individually. I've moved some feats that belong to "Families" of feats into groups specifically for them at the end, just so they're all in one place.
[list]
•Divine Disharmony♦ (1): A super-feint with some divine flavor. Unlike plain-old Feint, it 1) can be performed at range, not melee reach, 2) applies to all attack, not just melee attacks, and 2) lasts until S=end of turn, CS =end of next turn, instead of S = next attack, CS = end of next turn. I think that’s a little too much and the S should only be until next attack. However. This being slightly overtuned plays into the damage calculations of this class, as the lowered crit damage makes each +1 less valuable than it'd be on other classes.
•Esoteric Lore(1): an Everything-Lore skill that increases to Expert when you get Legendary in A/N/O/R. It seems a little strange to have this as a 1st level class feat when the entire Enigma Muse Bard subclass has >80% of its subclass power budget on granting this feature. I think that this should be, at a minimum, moved back to a 2nd level class feat so that people trying to get dedications have to make a choice.
•Familiar (1): Neat, yay.
•Haunt Cunning (1): Niche benefits vs haunts. Totally fine. Good synergy with Lantern.
•Root to Life♦ or ♦♦(1): Similar to Administer First Aid♦♦, it auto-stabilizes a creature AND lowers the DC for Persistent damage.
•Call Implement(2): Teleports your implement to you from within 1 mile. Neat ability, prevents you from getting SoL because it got yoinked.
•Esoteric Warden(2): Find Flaws = +1[s] AC on S and +2[s]AC on CS vs. next attack. 1/day/creature. Direct analogy to Ranger’s Monster Warden, except it applies in a S instead of a CS, and is the much more valuable status bonus instead of a circumstance bonus. It’s probably fine, but just another member in the theme of “consistently slightly better than competing options”.
•Draw Warding Circle(4): Very cool, but not clear how it’s supposed to work in practice. Since you don’t define “entry OR escape” – it does both – the only way for this to work is to have the creature appear there via dimensional travel (teleportation, summoning, calling ritual), or to draw it around a creature that’s already there (in which case why does it need to be contained already?).
→ The former fits with the lore but is rarely useful outside of the specific calling rituals that already have these means built into them. The latter requires you to have the creature incapacitated in some way for 1 minute, and then is subject to the creature attempting to Stride out of the circle three times a round for as many tries as it takes to escape. Even if the DC is high enough that they only succeed on a nat20, this ward will last 7 rounds on average (21 attempts) if they’re determined to escape. So it takes longer to write the circle around the creature than it does to escape, so whatever that first means was is objectively superior.
→ This ability would function from a restriction on repeated attempts. Something like “after 3 failures, you cannot attempt this Will save again for 10 minutes” (or 1 hour, or whatever) would fit into the rule of threes. Even the modest change of making this a “Force Open” or “Escape” action, using your Will Save DC instead of your Athletics/Acrobatics modifier (or simply giving the attempt to escape the Attack trait) will do an effective job at slowing down attempts to escape.
→ Alternatively, the ability to change the shape of the line (a half circle, a line, etc.) would allow creatures to be affected by it without relying on a means that already has a built-in solution to what this feat offers.
•One More Activation(4): 1/day, activate an Invested item with a frequency of “once per day or more”. Seems fun, but might want some clarifying language. “A frequency of once or more per day” would remove any confusion about if “once per 10 minutes” was considered “more” than “once per day”. Also RAW it’s not clear if this would help with Wands, since the Frequency of Wands are “once per day plus overcharge”. RAI, I imagine, is now “twice per day, plus overcharge after that”, but Overcharge is rigidly defined as “after the spell is cast from the wand for the day”, so overcharge might trigger RAW anyway without an overriding statement.
•Thaumaturgic Ritualist(4): Gives you access to 4 uncommon rituals, with a +2[c] bonus on primary checks for rituals. I was initially worried that this’d give [common] access to [uncommon] rituals, but the feat itself has the [uncommon] trait and no **access** line, so it’s necessarily GM fiat if this is allowed, making sure the GM can control what uncommon rituals the player accesses.
•Turn Away Misfortune↻ (4): Reaction to cancel out a misfortune effect. Since this has a [Fortune] trait, it means you can’t use it to protect a [fortune] roll that someone’s trying to cancel out with a [misfortune] effect. With no Frequency, this seems pretty good and solidifies the Thaumaturge’s identity as “Consistency King”.
•Handy Esoterica(6): Prescient Planner and Prescient Consumable all-in-one, with an action reduction. Identical to the Investigator/Rogue feat at the same level, with the addition of the [esoterica] trait.
•Rule of Three ♦(6): Oh man, this is a fun one. Action tax yourself over 3 rounds to ramp up your accuracy. After the third utterance, enjoy a net +4 accuracy (+2[s] on ATK, -2[c] AC). Since Thaumaturges don’t crit the same as others, that net +4 isn’t as powerful as it might appear. From the math below, that’s an ~`4x0.05x0.7` = `0.14` = 15% increase in average damage, at the cost of losing two actions, which is honestly a balanced tradeoff. Let the player’s feel awesome if they’re fighting an enemy that can survive 3 rounds of focus from the party.
•Know-It-All(8): Effectively turns a Recall Knowledge S to a CS, and makes a CS provide even more benefits, but must be worded this way to avoid adding unintentional power to Find Flaws. Good feat.
•Sympathetic Weakness (8): Allows your Esoteric Antithesis to apply to any creature subject to the same antithesis. I think it needs to be made more clear what “no other effect” means; the feat is reasonably clear but I think players will still get confused: This feat seems to NOT apply the Esoteric Antithesis’ improved weakness (the 2+Lv/2), so if a creature natively has Weakness 2 and your EA would apply a Weakness 5, the Sympathetic Weakness is still only triggering the Weakness 2.
→ Adjusting the example to use a minion that had a lower weakness, like Weakness 5, and specifying that you dealt 5 damage instead of 6 (or 2 instead of 5 from my previous example) would clear up this potential confusion, I believe.
→ Incorporating my design for the FF/EA would make this feat obsolete, which means that this feat could be redesigned to be "share the EA benefits to an identical creature" or scrapped.
•Share Antithesis ♦ (10): Interact to apply your Esoterica Antithesis to a single ally, who gains the full benefit of your class feature. Can only have one ally improved at a time.
→ If you're considering my suggested changes above, this would essentially be "You can have Esoterica applied to two weapons at a time, instead of one".
•Thaumaturge’s Investiture (10): Gains the Incredible Investiture feat, but the bonuses get bigger the more CHA you have (10→12 @ CHA 16; 12→14 @ CHA 18, 14→16 @ CHA 20, 16→18 @ CHA 22, 18→20 @ CHA 24). CHA 18 is a reasonable value (14 at CHA creation + 2 boosts from ASIs at 5 and 10), and the full benefit for Thaumaturges that go all-in on CHA is nice. Hard to anticipate if it nudges balance, but given that the two highest states are so far away (and CHA 24 requiring 18 CHA to begin with, which’ll be balanced by compromises elsewhere), I doubt it breaks anything.
•Twin Weakness ♦♦ (10): A two-action strike that triggers the weakness in addition to your strike’s damage (which triggers the weakness). Essentially, double-weakness trigger, with guaranteed damage on a Failure. I think the language could be clarified a little bit, definitely took me two or three reads to make sure I understood it right.
•Quick Circle (12): Draw a Warding Circle as a 3-action activity rather thana 1-minute activity. The Cost vs. Reward for containment is now much higher, but I still think it doesn’t fundamentally address the issues of Draw a Warding Circle.
•Thaumaturge’s Demesne (12): Get a 200sq.ft plot of land to call your own, and automatic protect it with several rituals (Private Sanctum = appears covers with a fog, impossible to sense or scry inside from outside; Unseen Custodians = 3 permanent unseen servants that act autonomously as directly; Elemental Sentinel = Wisp alters you to intruders and communicates telepathically if you’re on the same planet). The rituals autoheighten as you level, and it appears you cannot change your demesne without retraining the feat.
•Esoteric Reflexes (14): Gain an additional reaction that can only be used for your implements’ granted reactions. Level is at the same pace as Champion’s additional reaction (14) and slower than the Fighter’s additional reaction (10). Probably where it should be.
•Shared Warding (14): Esoteric Warden’s AC bonus also applies to all allies within 30 ft. Level 14 is about the right level for “share call benefits with allies with no action cost” compared to similar classes like Ranger.
•Implausible Esoterica (16): Unlimited (?) uses of the Prescient Planner feat (up to its money limit), and you can draw them as a single action instead of two. Additionally 5 free consumables (of IL ≤ Your Level – 6) per day.
•Implement’s Flight (16): Just whole-ass get an entire fly speed equal to your land speed while holding an implement. While this level is consistent with other levels for permanent fly speeds, it comes at much lower cost (Winged Ancestries, like Tengu and Strix, grant a time-limited flight with a 9th-level ancestry feat, and full fly speeds are reserved for 13th level ancestry feats that often have two prerequisites, taking a total of 3 ancestry feats). The power level and feat level are fine, but I think that this feat should have an additional prerequisite, like *Call Implement*.
•Sever Magic♦♦ (16): Strike, and on a damaging hit counteract a single active spell on your target. Sounds fun, don’t see any immediate causes for concern.
•Trespass Teleportation ↻ (16): Follow the subject of your Esoteric Antithesis when it teleports away from you. I don’t think there are any effects that might redirect teleportations in 2e yet, so GM fiat might be needed as spells get added in the future,but for now it seems to cover all expected edge cases. And since none of Tresspass Teleportation, Find Flaws, or Esoteric Antithesis specify “foe”, you can just study a friend who’s about to teleport to hop along for the ride.
•Implement’s Assault ♦♦♦ (18): Strike all creatures within 30ft of you, with either a melee weapon or a ranged one with Reload 0. This seems objectively better than the Fighter/Ranger Impossible Volley feat in all aspects but range. This is a 30ft burst centered on you, Impossible Volley is a 10ft burst centered anywhere beyond your weapon’s volley range (30ft).
→ Note that you do not get your EA damage against anybody other than the foe you have applied EA to (unless you’ve got Sympathetic Weakness in play) – nothing changes here.
→ Amusingly, since the weapon is Released from your hand at the beginning of the attack, and only returns when it’s done, and the action only requires you to be Holding the weapon + an implement, you can use this with a 2H weapon and still get your Implement’s Empowerment damage. Not what they had in mind, but it’s a niche benefit at level 18. Let ‘em have it.
•Intense Implement (18): Gain the Adept benefit for an implement that only has an Initiate benefit. This’ll let you end up with [Adept Adept Adept] or [Initiate Adept Paragon]. Good design.
•Ubiquitous Antithesis (20): Like Share Antithesis, but your Esoteric Antithesis automatically affects ALL allies within 30ft. Entire party gets to enjoy the damage. And they put a limiter in to stop bag-of-rats style cheese.
•Unlimited Demesne (20): Turns your Demesne into a mansion, and lets you call it from anywhere. Niche, fun, flavorful benefit. It might need some language regarding how the “conjuring forth” happens. Is this an extraplanar thing, like a minor demiplane, so there’s no interaction with the land that was previously in front of you? Etc.
•Wonder Worker (20): Once per day, cast an 8th level (or lower) spell that takes 1,2, or 3 actions to cast (no reaction spells?) from a tradition associated with a skill you’re Legendary in. If you went all-in on knowledge skills, that’s three of ‘em. Pretty fun capstone ability. Nice nod to the origin of the class name.
Okay, now those feat Families.
The various Oath feats: Okay, these are cool as hell and possibly my favorite addition to the game. My only complaint is that they’re limited to the Thaumaturge. I hope we get an archetype that offers opportunities for these sorts of Oaths and building on our relationship with the Oath-granters.
•Binding Oath (1): Gain a +1[c] bonus to a Request or Coerce by taking an oath, at the cost of not being able to act against the oath/break promises. Can be made once/day, but no limit to the total number of oaths you can have going at a time. Cool, flavorful, balanced, and edge cases already handled. I think it needs to clarify when you’re released from your oath (when fulfilled in some way?) and that you cannot take an Oath that conflicts with another Oath you’ve already taken.
•Pact of Fey Glamour (4): Permanently change your appearance and gain a 1/day *illusory disguise* as a primal innate spell, at the cost of being required to grant *any* fey’s request for hospitality for up to 3 days and not being able to harm any creature to which you’ve offered hospitality (for how long? Let a guy crash on your couch for one night and you can’t harm him 20 years later) unless they harm you (you specifically, not even an ally, family member, or other creature you’re showing hospitality to?) first. Violating the pact just makes you lose the benefits until you atone.
•Pact of Infernal Prowess (8): Once per day, reroll a crit failure as a free [fortune] action. You also automatically succeed at checks to Earn Income below your level (even -1); at the cost of your soul is consigned to Hell when you die, and you cannot be returned to life short of Miracle, and the devils can magically track you for 1 year. The only way out of this (can’t even retrain the feat!) is to journey into Hell and destroy the physical copy of the contract itself.
→ Dude. This is such a cool feat. It’s a story hook and a campaign arc all in one. It’s awesome as *hell*.
•Pact of the Final Breath (12): Your maximum natural life span is doubled, and 1/day you regain +`Lv` HP when you’re reduced to 0 HP, remain conscious, and gain Fast Healing =`Lv/2` for 3 rounds. The cost is that you must show proper and formal respect for the dead, and must assist in cleansing all undead you come across (if not suicidal). Violating the pact reverts your life to your natural life span, possibly killing you. At least the psychopomps let you say goodbye first.
Okay, next, the Familiar feat chain. Basically all the core feats of having a familiar, getting you a bunch of familiar abilities, at the same rate as as spellcaster.
•Familiar (1): You get a familiar, same as any other caster, just without casting. Woo.
•Enhanced Familiar (2): Get 4 Familiar abilities.
•Incredible Familiar (8): 6 familiar abilities.
The Talisman Feat Chain: A Feat chain based around the production of temporary daily talismans from your esoterica. Should be compared to the Talisman Dabbler Archetype. Despite the similarities, you’ll need to take the archetype separately, getting some redundant abilities. However, the pools of free talismans are separate, so they effectively add together.
•Talisman Esoterica (2): Almost identical to the Talisman Dabbler archetype: two free talismans/day, and you know some formulae. Does not have the “affix talismans faster”
•Elaborate Talisman Esoterica (8): 4 free Talismans per day, at the same level as the Talisman Dabbler.
•Grand Talisman Esoterica (14): 6 free Talismans per day, at the same level as Talisman Dabbler
The Scroll Feat ChainFeat Chain: A Feat chain based around the production of daily-use scrolls. Should be compared to the Scroll Trickster Archetype.
•Scroll Thaumaturgy (1): Lets you Activate any scrolls, and use your class DC instead of scroll’s spell DC. Super fun, tons of opportunity w/ Scroll Trickster + Prescient Planner feats. I was expecting this to be a “Trick Magic Item Skill feat + additional side benefit” implementation, though.
•Scroll Esoterica (6): Gain one temporary 1st level scroll each day. At 8th level, gain one temporary 2nd level scroll each day. Same benefit as the Scroll Trickster.
•Elaborate Scroll Esoterica (12): Gain one temporary 3rd level scroll each day, and a 4th level scroll @ level 14, and a 5th level scroll at level 16, same as Scroll Trickster
•Grand Scroll Esoterica (18): Gain a temporary 6th level scroll, and a temporary 7th level scroll @ 20th.
Okay, for real this time. Finally the end. I hope that this provided some useful insight for the devs on what's good, what's got open questions, where some edge cases might be, and what might be a better direction.
The Post Preview does not format posts correctly. The bbcode for "list" is simply displayed as new lines, with no bullet point characters or indentations, when previewed. Even copy+pasting the minimal example code provided int he "how to format your text" of
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Does not properly display the code during preview.
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The above is just the lines "one" and "two" being written on new lines with no other text or formatting for comparison. Under Preview, they're identical. Pixel-perfect identical.
Tested on two separate computers in both Firefox, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. No extensions installed on Edge.
I guess upon posting this, we'll see if it's a bug with the previewer or if the list functionality is broken.
It's definitely a strange corner case where the requirements for entering a stance may not be the same as the requirements to stay in it.
I think that the two easiest solutions would be either
1) Change the requirement to "When you use this action.." or "When you enter this stance, the last action you used was..."
2) Add a sentence to the end saying "This stance does not end when you stop meeting the requirements" or something to that effect.
RAW, Arcane Cascade seems to be entirely nonfunctional because it is impossible to keep meeting the stance's requirements. The intent was clearly "the requirement is for entering the stance, not staying in it", but neither the class feature nor the action allow for this.
Spoiler:
Secrets of Magic, p.38 wrote:
Arcane Cascade ♦
[concentrate][magus][stance] Requirements You used your most recent action to Cast a Spell or make a Spellstrike.
Arcane Cascade♦ has the [stance] trait, which is defined in CRB as
Core Rulebook, p.637 wrote:
stance (trait) A stance is a general combat strategy that you enter by using an action with the stance trait, and that you remain in for some time. A stance lasts until you get knocked out, until its requirements (if any) are violated, until the encounter ends, or until you enter a new stance, whichever comes first.
Emphasis mine.
So you ♦♦Cast a Spell, then enter your ♦Arcane Cascade, and now that your most recent action was an ♦Arcane Cascade and not to Cast a Spell or make a Spellstrike, you violate the requirements of the stance, and the stance then immediately ends.
Since nothing in the Arcane Cascade class feature nor the Arcane Cascade♦ action allow the action to ignore this part of the stance trait, then the stance is entirely non-functional and cannot be used or benefitted from. Even if you skip past that, it's over as soon as you use a free action, Stride, reaction, etc.
It's obvious that the intent of the class feature is "Cast a spell and then stay in this stance for the rest of combat", and other bits of text directly support that, like "You can usually stay in Arcane Cascade for a long time" in the "Combining your Abilities" sidebar, or "When you enter Arcane Cascade Stance and at the start of each of your turns while you're in that stance" in the Inexorable Iron path.
It seems that the magus needs an FAQ or an Errata to let this class feature work at all. It's an easy fix, with just a single sentence added to the action's description or a "when you enter this stance" added to the requirements line.
This question came up recently on the /r/Pathfinder2e subreddit. You should find an enlightening coverage of all of these feat interactions In This Thread, with this answer. (EDIT: haha, well you were the person who posted it in that reddit thread. Now the answer's in two places!)
The answer can be summarized as "Stuff that affects Leaping isn't cumulative with stuff that affects Long Jump/High Jumps", and this is because Leap is a subordinate action of the High Jump/Long Jump activity, so you "leap normally" and then Leap is modified in the particular ways of each activity. So the "increase the distance" modifies the already-increased Leap distance.
That's not to say that the bonuses to Leaping don't help Long/High Jumps (because you leap, and then the effects of the Leap are increased to some value), but rather that it sets an effective minimum for how far forward/upwards you can Leap on a Long/High Jump since you're still Leaping and no other parts of the Leap are modified.
High Jump: Base {5ft horiz, =3ft/=5ft/=8ft vert} on a F/S/CS;
→ Vertical Leap modified to {=25ft horiz, =7ft/=7ft/=8ft} on a F/S/CS;
+ Powerful Leap {no additional effect} + Dancing Leap {+0ft/+5ft/+5ft horiz, +0ft vert} on a F/S/CS + Crane Stance {no additional effect, but DC reduced by 5}
= total {25 ft horiz, 2ft vert}
Horizontal Leap: result and DC depend on the "desired distance" ("DD"): Base {10~15ft / DD horiz, 0ft vert} on a F/S;
→ Horizontal Leap modified to {=25~30ft / DD ft, 2ft} on a F/S;
+ Powerful Leap {no additional effect} + Dancing Leap {+5ft horiz, +0ft vert} + Crane Stance {no additional effectsince it doesn't change the "desired distance", but can effectively let you reach a desired distance of 5ft higher than you'd be able to get otherwise by lowering the DC}
= total {25~30 ft / DD+5 ft horiz, 2ft vert} on a F/S.
Might have had a typo or two transcribing the results from the other thread. Sorry if so.
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There's definitely some ambiguity in some terms but the Leap vs. Long/High Jump parts are pretty straight-forward. (for example, Dancing Leaf says "increase the distance you jump by 5 ft". Does this mean horizontal distance? Both horizontal and vertical distance? Horizontal distance for horizontal leaps, but vertical distance for vertical leaps?
In the other thread, the answer assumed "horizontal distance only" for Dancing Leap on Leap actions, as any other interpretation would completely eliminate the need for a DC 40 athletics check to high jump with a single 2nd level class feat and no training since you can auto-reach 8ft?. Crane stance has a similar question with what its +5ft and +2ft movement rules are supposed to work on)
To correct the above user's example: if you had a desired Long Jump distance of 35 ft, you could Leap 30ft based on your speed (can't be 25ft, since you have to have a speed of 35ft to leap this far), or attempt a DC 25 Athletics check to make a Long Jump with a desired distance of 30 ft, and on a success you move 35ft.
If you wished to only Jump 30ft (or fewer), you could simply Leap. No athletics check needed.
Note the nuanced difference between "DC" and "Desired Distance". A Check result of 40 wouldn't mean you jump up to 40 ft. If your desired distance was 41ft, you fail the check and leap normally (30ft), falling 10ft short. If your desired distance was 35ft, you succeed and leap 35ft. You have to pre-commit the desired distance before hand
I’ve been working alongside a few others in trying to convert Starfinder — Pathfinder’s Sci-fi sibling — to the PF2e ruleset. Earlier this week, I finished converting the Mechanic: an AI-assisted character that can install their customized Artificial Intelligence into a number of platforms to turn them into unique and customizable equipment and companions. A little bit of editing to make it pretty for you guys, and here you go!
The Mechanic has four platforms they can install their artificial intelligence into:
• Drone Companion: you install your AI into a robotic housing, creating what’s essentially a robotic animal companion (slightly different proficiencies, a few action differences, but largely the same rules) that they can customize with Mods as they level.
• Exocortex Augmentation: you install your AI into a hardware augmentation in your brain, using its processing power to augment your own. Your AI can help you with tasks and skills, feed you telemetry in combat and much more.
• Experimental Weapon Prototype: you install your AI into a prototype weapon of your design, granting it capabilities and customization far beyond what’s commercially available on the market. Your AI can automate many of the tasks of operating and handling your prototype weapon, leaving you free to focus on what matters most: MOAR DAKKA.
• Experimental Fortification Prototype: your AI is installed into a prototype armor or shield of your custom design, and is able to continuously adjust its defenses to keep you safe and aware, alongside operating the handling of any installed components in your armor.
In terms of gameplay design, all forms of the artificial intelligence operate as a minion. It can do any tasks a computer can through your custom rig, and when you install it in a platform it’ll gain a variety of actions to operate that platform you ♦Interface with it (in placed of ♦Command an Animal).
Unlike a lot of recent classes, there's no complicated gameplay loop eating up your actions (Panache→Finisher, etc.), just an ever-increasing supply of actions available to your AI that you'll have to decide how to split your AI's processing power (its actions) on. I hoped to make this design versatile enough to fit any sort of tinkerer’s fantasy while still dripping with the flavor we love from Starfinder.
A number of these character options are Reconfigurable: a new 10-minute exploration activity available to the Mechanic that lets them swap out some they’ve made regarding their custom rig or AI Platform. Some are instead changed when you Rebuild: an downtime activity for the Mechanic that takes 4 days of work (like crafting a new item, but at no cost) but allows you to make even more drastic changes to your platform.
You'll also notice a couple references to other actions, like ♦Aim (grants a +1 circumstance bonus on your next attack roll that would suffer a range penalty or contend with a cover bonus to AC; new basic action anybody can take). There should be comments explaining these in the document as you read through it.
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Obviously, with the release of the Inventor Playtest a few days ago, there will probably be a good bit of overlap. I’ve avoided looking at the playtest at all, so this concept and its design is entirely independent of that and I’m excited to see how the designs compare and what players think about it -- does this fill any gaps the inventor left unsatisfied, or vice versa? Lemme know.
• Interested in playtesting this class? Go for it! Give me your feedback so we can tweak and balance this thing.
• Interested in more SF→PF2e content? We’ve got a (very early) collection of playtestable documents that you can peruse here in this google docs folder, with hopefully a somewhat steady stream of new content.
• Interesting in contributing to the SF→PF2e conversion project? Feel free to send me a DM or hit us up on The SF→PF2e Project's Discord Server. We’re working on making as much of SF be PF2e compatible as we can, ideally as a giant pile of [Uncommon] or [Rare] player options that GMs can opt-in as a whole for sci-fi games in PF2e, or white-list components to play alongside their traditional fantasy cousins in regular PF2e.
When I absolutely, positively needed to deliver a boost to an ally (it was always a breakthrough, there was never a NEED for an injection). I walked up and jabbed my ally without an attack roll. Yes, it introduced me to more danger. Yes, it required being within walking, or later, flying range of my ally. But, if my Breakthrough was that much of a game changer, the risk was worth it.
Your adamant refusal to acknowledge the BioHacker has a no attack roll option weakens your argument.
My argument is not that there is not a no-attack-roll option, although I can see how it is misconstrued as such. My argument concerning hitting allies is that "an all-or-nothing, pass/fail dice roll mechanic is poor game design", and the complications are exacerbated by the other factors (limited use on a flagship class feature) mentioned in the post.
The issue is that the mechanic that determines the risk/reward is a dice roll; in particular, you cannot do anything to positively affect the outcome of the roll. If you build your character with every option in the game at your disposal to mitigate your accuracy disadvantage, you are at best working with an approximately 50% chance to be able to use a class features before relative DEX mods are concerned. If you don't take those options, you're even worse off. This doesn't even begin to approach how the current design anti-synergizes with any existing behavior a player would take to improve themselves defensively: every armor upgrade bought, cover and concealment bonus sought, defensive spell cast penalizes players who might otherwise want to benefit from their Biohacker's restoratives or breakthroughs.
When you use the ability as a ranged attack, you roll the dice and it's all in fate's hands. You cannot do anything to meaningfully influence the result. When you fail, you can't reflect and say "if only I had done this, I could have succeeded". There is no opportunity to learn and do better next time. There are no tactics to reward players for careful planning.
This inability to feel like you have any control over the outcome, this lack of agency, is the primary problem I seek to address. The fact that the flagship class feature that the class is bruit around has this problem is significant, and I feel should be addressed.
As the Devs said themselves on their Starfinder Wednesday stream a few weeks back, an ability that is "You have an X% chance of winning the encounter" is bad game design. The numbers and actions can be tweaked so that it is balanced in a purely mechanical sense, but it doesn't change the fact that it is unfun, unrewarding, and has no tactical depth or opportunity for creativity or reward to it. It provides no agency to the game world.
Having to roll against FFKAC to affect an ally with your limited-used, flagship class feature is exactly that set of undesirable properties that they said they do not want in this game.
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Ascalaphus wrote:
So I get where the daily limit is coming from. You're only allowed to synthesize so much stuff at a time, you can only keep so much of it fresh. But I agree that I'd rather see pools based around short rest intervals than around long rest intervals.
I agree with this. A limited pool is a perfectly reasonable power gate on an ability. My issue with its implementation was that it does not interact with the Starfinder systems that have made very specific and intentional changes to the Starfinder adventuring day, creating a class that has a very different participation day length than all existing classes in the game.
Every other non-spellcasting class in the game can continue adventuring until they run out of RP, so they can no longer replenish their stamina, so they can no longer continue to adventure until they risk running out of HP.
If the Biohacker is to function as a proper Starfinder class, and not a Pathfinder class with Starfinder balance, it must be designed so that its adventuring day ends at the same as the rest of the characters in the game.
Otherwise, you run into friction where one player is "Sorry guys I'm out of juice, we need to stop and sleep for 8 hours so I can make more" and everyone else has to decide "continue down a man or stop and rest for the day after 30 minute of fighting". Starfinder took so many steps forward to eliminate the 5-minute adventuring day, and this class throws it out the window.
A short-rest-replenish mechanic directly achieves this goal, and additionally addresses others (such an over-reliance on the KAS compared to other classes, by shifting the brunt of the KAS-dependence to a soft-dependence on Resolve), while introducing the fewest number of changes to the system.
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Zwordsman wrote:
But I think that would create far too much of a detriment for the benefit you get from the ability. For this sorta of detriment I feel like the benefit would have to outweigh the myriad (honestly.. quite a few) of things that could cause the situation.
Ascalaphus wrote:
I'd make it a bit simpler by just requiring them to spend a reaction, and then you can add some big bonus to your check. You don't need to spend a swift action on it, because shouting something is a free actio.
Of course. The actual specifics of the risk/reward dynamic can be tweaked: make it not take a swift action so you can still full attack, have the reaction provoke an AoO, or any of a dozen other levers to add/remove/tweak features that can be tweaked to hit the appropriate risk/reward balance.
But the point is to move the risk/reward balance of ranged beneficial injections away from the %pass/fail dice roll that the players can't exert beneficial agency over and into a tactical risk. One that players can play with and coordinate around and learn from past mistakes.
It turns failure from "the dice screwed me over and there was nothing I could do" to "if we had done this better, we could have succeeded".
A bigger problem is that they really don't have a buff worth using. +2 ac is meh: shoot the thing twice in the face and make it die will prevent more damage (preventative medicine)
Rhyltran wrote:
Personally buffing is the weakest thing they can do in the game. Biohackers are fully capable debuffers who have higher odds of hitting their enemies than their allies.
This is beside the point I'm trying to address. Buffing allies, especially defensive buffs, has been the least "optimal" use of actions since the genre's mechanics were codified in 3rd ed. Especially in a game system that has no difference on offense between a character that is at 1 HP and full HP, effective controlling of the battlefield comes from denying enemies actions, and the most effective status condition for that is Death.
Despite that, there are situations where those rules of thumb fall apart, like a clutch heal to prevent your frontliner from falling unconscious. Simiarly, Biohackers may run into situations where providing a buff to allies is the pertinent course of action.
Like it or not, a full 40% of the class is based around buffing allies. For every Counteragent, there's a Restorative. For every selfish power booster, there's a defensive or utility skill. And when you have a core class feature that is broken, you shouldn't just wave it away and say "you shouldn't be doing that anyway". If anything, you should say "that's a problem, how do I make this half of the class as desirable as the other half?"
And that's entirely discounting that there's an entire population of players who don't care about what the optimized style of play is, they just want to play a character who does that. What about a player whose character is a chemically-augmented super-soldier who needs to take drugs to reach peak fighting performance? It's a common stable of sci-fi and fantasy, and you should say "Bah, humbug" to either player just because it doesn't fit into your narrow view of optimal.
I'm not concerned about addressing the power level of the defensive half of the class. There's plenty of content on these boards and elsewhere about how low the power level is there compared to the offensive half and how it's unappealing and unsatisfying in all cases other than the super-haste. Give an ally +1 AC or +2 to skill checks, or give your entire party +15 damage by negating DR? Everybody can see that.
What I'm addressing are the game health problems associated with falling back on old, Pathfinder-era habits of using daily resource pools as a lazy way to power gate signature class features, and their interactions with the poorly chosen risk/reward balance system in place.
The Biohacker is the only non-spellcasting class in the game that can run out of class features. If when you run out isn't carefully managed, you run into problems. Too many, then why have a limit to begin with? Too few, and you're stuck without class features the majority of the game because you're either waiting to use them or you've already used them. If you hit just the right amount with a fixed number, then only games that design daily adventures with exactly that proscription for an "ideal" adventuring day enjoys a nuanced balance and everyone else is left in the dirt. Put another way, a daily limit only limits Biohacker's choices over the course of a day. That only indirectly addresses the real concern of "We want to prevent the Biohacker from spamming powerful Injections with reckless abandon in a single fight, especially stacking them on a single foe" by coercing players to try to save them over the course of a day with the threat of multiple fights.
It's lazy, old-school, and goes against all of the changes the Starfinder system made to improve on the baggage of its predecessors. Starfinder introduced so many systems in place to give developers the tools to address this concern without relying on an out-moded tool. What I am suggesting is to more directly use those new Starfinder tools to put the resource restriction in a healthier state without compromising its combat balance.
Your ability to be a Biohacker is gated between a pass/fail mechanic. This isn't like a Soldier missing his shot. That's just a wasted action, and he has another chance next round. Lame, but whatever.
These are core, signature class features that are consumed as soon as you declare the attempt. You miss, it's wasted for the rest of the day. You have 1 or 2 Sparks of Ingenuity for the majority of your career. 4 or 5 breakthroughs. Injections are more forgiving, but still considerably finite. And if you want to use any of those on an ally, you are the ONLY class in the ENTIRE game who has any chance of failure on using a signature class feature to benefit an ally, and that chance is significant. When you miss, it's gone. You miss enough times, you're out of class features. It's gone.
It's like a Blitz Soldier needing to drink coffee each morning to go fast, but it's a coin flip whether or not the coffee was caffeinated this morning.
I don't just mean that in the "it's a similar risk of failure" sense. I mean that in the "it's a pass/fail mechanic that you have zero control over the outcome over" sense. You can't do anything to enact agency in the game world. You can do nothing to improve your stake in the world to pass that check. You can't reflect on what you did and think "if I had done this better" or "if we had coordinated like this" that you could have succeeded. You can't train or get experience for it or anything. You just roll the dice and hope that lady luck is in your favor. And 50% of the time, she isn't. Pass or fail, it isn't you.
My point regarding using Restoratives on allies isn't "boo hoo, my chance of success is too low, I want to do all the great stuff from safety at range with no consequences". My point is that a %chance based pass/fail check, for any %value, is not the way that the risk/reward balance for a core, signature class feature should be designed at all, especially in conjunction with a finite resource pool.
I hope this clarified my intent with this post better, so that people can see which particular tree in the Biohacker forest I'm trying to point out. Injections need restrictions, but a daily limit of X/day should not be the way those restrictions are imposed.
You're correct, Biohackers can choose to not deal damage with their Injection weapons. First sentence of the last paragraph on page 2 of the playtest booklet, under "Injection Expert."
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Zwordsman wrote:
I don't think the swift+ reaction thing is good idea. That create a bit too much book keeping, and can cause weird interactions down the line.
How are you calling out to a brand new person you just met you're trying to help with an injection? What if they're confused or under other mental conditions? what if you're a biohacker who can't speak or something is jamming the radio communications?
I consider your concerns to be features, not bugs. A Confused ally can't make himself an easy target for you, why should it be easier? A human opponent doesn't get the warning from your Lashunta Biohacker's warning via limited Telepathy, or you use a hand signal from out of sight of the threatening opponent. Action-denying status conditions, or greedy allies who take their reactions too early provide tools for play and counterplay. "If I Greater Feint this target, he can't react to his Biohacker to take the serum." "I can bait out an AoO now so he can't accept an injection later". I personally like it.
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The motivation for the change behind the hitting allies is because it resolves an unhealthy play pattern due to interactions with the limited daily resource pool. As it stands, buffing/delivering medicinals/other injectables at range needs a balance mechanic to create a cost for using the injectable from the safety of range rather than the risk of exposing yourself in melee.
The Biohacker is a 3/4 BAB class who's locked into fighting against KAC, and whose close design pushes characters to max their KAS (unlike other classes that want you to split between at least two stats to take advantage of ASIs). The maximum +8 accuracy you can get from the class + weapon focus barely outpaces the loss of BAB, and much less touches the scaling of AC vs. Accuracy in starfinder.
Even up at level 20, after everything's considered, you have 15 BAB + 8 + DEX if you take literally every resource available to you in the game to improve your accuracy. That's 22 + DEX. That means you have a 40% miss chance against an ally in light armor doing nothing in an empty field. 65% miss chance against an ally in heavy armor. And that's before their DEX mods. And that's taking literally every single available resource at your disposal as a Biohacker to maximize your odds of hitting your ally. Oh, and every single defensive benefit your ally takes anti-synergizes with you. Don't give him the +AC restorative, that makes him harder to hit. Don't take tactical cover or advantage of concealment, you're screwing over your support Biohacker.
So you take your 1/day Spark of Ingenuity at level 7, or maybe you're higher level and you're using half of your 2/day sparks. You take a huge portion of your classes power budget, load it into a single syringe, put that in your gun, you aim, you shoot.
And you miss.
And you want to know what sucks about that?
It's not that you missed, your ally can probably survive without the benefit another round.
It's not that your action was wasted. It's a stumbling block, but the battle will keep moving if you didn't do anything for a round. Everyone has those moments.
It's that you're out of luck. Your class potential pooled into one shot, and you missed, and the use is expended, and it's never coming back. Goodbye a significant fraction of your power budget.
And what's worse... There's nothing you can do. You're helpless. You have zero agency to influence the outcome of this result.
You had one shot, one opportunity to use your class feature. And you've have a >40% chance of ending up with nothing but spaghetti even if you take every available option in the game to improve your accuracy and avoid all the many bonuses to AC vs ranged attacks that are there in the real world.
That's worse than the worst ASF a wizard in full plate has to suffer while casting world-changing 9th level spells. And you have no agency to affect the outcome. That's bad game design. And it sucks as a player.
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That's where my suggestion comes in. That's why I feel that having a way to reliably boost a willing ally, and shifting the power gate from "beat your ally's AC" to some other consequence that isn't in the form of a saving throw or attack roll is the best way to do it.
It shifts where the drawback is placed, and most importantly, gives *agency* in the presence of failure.
So the solution I came up with uses existing mechanics ("aid another"-like attack) in a new context, still requires effort from the player (you're subject to soft cover, concealment, range penalties, etc), and shifts the consequence for buffing at range from "%chance to lose the effect" to "you can choose to accept the affect, but if you do you lose your reaction -- now you can't AoO -- and possible take an AoO yourself".
The players are in control, now. You might still have to beat their KAC if they don't leave themselves open for you. But they've got control. They can coordinate and try to position so they can buff safely in a few rounds. If they can't do it, it's not "FML, the dice hate me and I'm helpless in this situation". It's a tactical choice they made. The ally can't risk taking that AoO this round, etc. If only they had just prepared better, tactically coordinated better, then it could have been possible.
That hope, that agency, is what the Biohacker needs to be a healthy class.
Hello Paizo Community! Can we take a minute to talk about what I feel is a fundamental design problem with the Biohacker?
I know I'm long-winded, but I've thought about this a lot. Here's a tl;dr, nice and at the top, and you can skip to the last ##### line break at the bottom to see my suggestions if you don't care about reading a bunch of context and reasoning.
tl;dr - { Daily resource pools create an unhealthy and unfun game pattern that goes against a lot of the advances Starfinder made to the Paizo formula. I propose changes to better adapt the daily resource limit to the Starfinder system (by creating fewer Injections at a time, but being able to replenish them at a short rest instead of all at once at a long rest, like a Bombard Soldier grenade), and to create healthier restrictions on ranged Injections (by reworking how you affect allies at range) to remove most frustrating part of the entire class (Failing to beat an ally's KAC as a 3/4 BAB character when using a finite daily resource, like a Breakthrough or a Spark of Ingenuity - you wasted your turn and a very valuable, finite resource. Not fun!). }
The Biohacker does a lot of things differently than the other Starfinder classes. Some of those changes are good, some of those changes are bad. One in particular I feel needs some community discussion is at the very core of the class: The entire class is based around finite daily resource pools. It has so many separate moving pools to keep track of in an in-game day:
Injections: Level + KAS mod per day
Spark of Ingenuity: 1/2/3 per day.
Scientific FoS Breakthroughs: KAS mod per day
Superserum: KAS mod per day.
And those are just its flagship class features. So many Biohacker Theorems have their own (Aquatic Adaptation, Field Dressing, Treat Condition, plus a couple higher level theorems that pack a big punch on a power budget, I'm fine with those).
Daily Resource Pools are lazy game design that conflict with many intentional design changes in Starfinder. In fact, the whole class seems to avoid interacting much with Starfinder's unique system or brand identity at all: It doesn't interact with Short Rests, Stamina (except for reduced overhealing with Field Dressing), Resolve Points (Extend Injection is the only class feature that gives the class a way to spend RP), it scoffs at the efforts Starfinder took to avoid forcing classes to be SAD (EVERYTHING depends on your KAS, many times half your KAS, which doubles the problem). In fact, Starfinder expressly set out to avoid all of these redundant "Pool" resources that every PF class had their own copy of: Panache, Grit, Luck, Arcane Pool, arcane reservoir, etc. And now we have resource pool: the class.
But back to the point. The Biohacker is the only non-spellcasting class in the game that has a finite adventuring day. Every other non-spellcaster in the game is only limited by when they choose to not risk taking further damage. The Biohacker is limited by running out of daily injections and costly material consumables.
Envoys can Improvise every round, all day every day. Mechanics either have an all-day drone, or constantly running buffs in their Exocortex with an at-will combat steroid. Mystics have finite daily spell slots, but virtually every connection grants an at-will connection power by 3rd level along with a mixture of static and RP-cost abilities. Operatives can Trick Attack in combat and skill monkey out of combat all day. Solarians have an internal 'pendulum' that creates a "wind up" before their big abilities. Soldiers' Fighting Styles are almost all unlimited use or static abilities -- larger abilities require 10 minutes of prep time. Technomancers have finite daily spell slots, and is the most dependent on their daily resources to function. Very few magic hacks function at-will independently of spell slots or Resolve.
Then comes the Biohacker. Once you've used up your injections, you're not a Biohacker. You're a character with some base stats and some proficiencies with no class features. And that's not intrinsically a bad thing - the Technomancer does it too. But the HOW suffers some problems.
1) When you're using your abilities, it's not as big of a payoff as a spellcaster (compare even second level spells to most injections/counteragents/breakthroughs). They are weaker, shorter duration, and few improve over the course of the game. This means that holding off on using your abilities isn't saying "I'm waiting for the opportune moment to get a big payoff" (where tactical and opportune application is rewarded), it's saying "I'm willing to have no class features now in exchange for not being stuck having no class features later" (where participating is punished).
2) (and I feel this is an important one) The Biohacker is the ONLY class in the entire game that has a risk of failure when using its primary class features on an ally. Biohackers need to beat their allies KAC with a projectile weapon in order to use their major class features outside of melee range.
This is a HUGE problem that must be addressed before release. The class spends its turn (unlike the Envoy, it's not blessed with move-action contributions) attempting to use its Injection class feature to apply a Restorative on an ally (or, god forbid an even more limited Spark of Ingenuity, Breakthrough, or Super Serum), and it has a significant chance to miss. You've then wasted your turn, and your very limited daily uses of the ability.
In my playtest experience, even with Weapon Focus and the Injection class feature (free +1, plus allies are flat-footed), my Biohacker (below level 9) needs to roll a 14 to hit our frontliner after he got his new armor upgrade. That's a 30% chance of success. A whopping 70% chance of failure to use a restorative. This is the same system that streamlined and got rid of spell components, and with it Arcane Spell Failure Chance. And ASF was typically only 10%-30%, and affected spells (which are objectively more powerful).
3) The end of the adventuring day for every other class after when they run out of RP, which means they run out of SP, putting them at risk of running out of HP. This is not the same time as the end of the adventuring day for the Biohackers. Biohackers are forced to finish participating in the game (as Biohackers) when they run out of their daily resources, and those resource pools are not effectively designed to run out at the same time as other players *choose* to stop adventuring due to threat of HP loss.
The Devs can try to aim for a number that matches an "ideal adventuring day", which punishes groups whose playstyle deviates from that value. Or we can try to help them come up with a solution that accomodates multiple styles of play.
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I understand why the class Started with a Finite Daily Resource Pool: it's an effective way to gate some aspects of the class' power so that way the power budget can be shifted into the effects of the injections themselves.
Having a restriction like this helps the ability feel impactful and rewarding for its use. Having an at-will power needs to come at a cost. Take that cost out of the power of the ability, and you now have a class whose flagship ability is weak and unsatisfying to use. Not good. Put too much power into the ability to the point that you can't let your player use it, and now they're without any power at all most of the time/after they do use it. It's a delicate balance.
Otherwise, you need to put other power gates in place: Saving Throws, Attack rolls, making a 3/4BAB class forced to attack against KAC, and so on. By design intent, the Biohacker does not have any abilities that force saving throws on the opponent, making them meaningfully distinct from poisons. Instead, the only power gates are "Overcome KAC with an attack roll" and "finite daily resources".
Other possible power gates exist to give the class other levers to tweak, but will need a narrative-friendly explanation to justify them. You can't just say "you can shoot an injection once every three rounds" to make them more powerful. But, if you had a cool science-sounding ability like "Catalytic Cascade" that requires weak set-up before a big payoff, for example
Catalytic Cascade wrote:
A basic injection that only had a small effect like a stacking -1 penalty on Fortitude Saves, but on the third such injection within a minute, the injected substance hits a critical threshold and drastically affects the target, dealing a significant amount of damage and resetting the accumulated Fortitude penalty. Combined with existing class features that push the class towards a one-attack-per-round action economy, this provides an effective action-gate that rewards set-up over time and helps give each attack an "I'm a Biohacker!" flavor, even if the attacks aren't doing much.
you can get the same result. Not saying "here's an ability that fixes anything", but giving an example of how fluff and mechanics can merge to create more satisfying solutions to the problems at hand.
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So, with all of that in mind, how can we address some of these problems concerning the effect that a daily resource pool has on the Biohacker?
Allow the Biohacker to participate on their party's adventuring day length, not their own. Having to withhold participation, or be unable to effectively participate as a result of your adventuring day length is bad for party health. It feels bad when you force the rest of your party to stop for the day because you're out of stuff, and it feels bad when you're forced to just attack for needler pistol damage each round with your basic damage and no other class features to speak of.
I propose: Allow the Biohacker to prepare a reduced pool of Injections with 10 minutes of time, just like all other analogous Starfinder abilities (Bombard grenade, Arcane Assailant RotEK, etc.). Instead of Level+KAS, have it just be a single smaller number at a time, like 2+Your number of Fields of Study, for example. The smaller pools, like Breakthroughs and Superserums, are now just 1/10-minute break, or one-per-FoS/10 minute break. Now this number is effectively multiplied by the player's KAS over the course of the day since they can replenish them every time the party takes a short rest (which is roughly equal to their maximum number of resolve points, which scales off of KAS mod).
By restricting their usage on a per-encounter basis, it allows power to be shifted into them without worrying about someone spamming all three on an important foe for massive penalties in rapid-fire succession. By spreading them out through the day, we can keep roughly equivalent-to-current total quantities, but force the player to last those benefits through the entire adventuring day. This reduces party friction and should aid the player experience, and allow the power budget to be shifted to be a little more impactful than it currently is.
This is an easily justified change: these cutting edge, proprietary blends are unstable and can't be safely produced or stored in large quantities without going inert. It's basically the same exact flavor text that's already there.
This change alone doesn't solve the Daily Resource Pool problem, but it's a much smaller change that makes it more compatible with the philosophy of the Starfinder system, rather than feeling like a Pathfinder class with sci-fi flavor far away from home. The class would also benefit from a class feature that lets it contribute to combat every round, something that lets it feel like "I'm a Biohacker" and not "I could be any character right now". That Catalytic Cascade that I suggested is a good way
Allow Biohackers to reliably affect allies with Injections. Right now, protecting your allies is anti-synergistic with the class. Improving their defenses (via cover, concealment, spells, or serums) directly makes it harder for you to provide any assistance. On the other hand, the game does not want Biohackers to turn into Ranged Wands of CLW, firing Mk1 Healing Serums every round without a care in the world. It needs a drawback. In the base game, the drawback is miss chance (needing to hit AC), and reduced effectiveness (healing is reduced by the damage that the weapon deals). The abstract benefits of the Injections cannot be effectively reduced. So what can we do?
I propose: Give the Biohacker the class ability to 'call out' to an ally to create an opening to apply their Injection. But enemies can take advantage of this opening.
This might, for example, take a Swift Action on the part of the Biohacker and a Reaction on the part of the recipient ally. If the ally takes the Reaction to create the opening, the Biohacker only can deliver their Injection before the end of their turn by making a special attack roll against an AC 15 (similarly to Covering Fire/Harrying Fire). However, enemies can take advantage of this opening. A readied attack against the target during this trigger treats the target as flat-footed against the attack.
Now there's an ability that is narratively-sound ability that provides as much justification for getting around your allies KAC as a melee Injection, and has plenty of levers to tweak for balance. You can adjust the actions, decide whether or not it take a reaction, maybe make the penalty be "the ally provokes an AoO from enemies that can sense the warning", or maybe "but the target ally is flat-footed against enemy attacks until the beginning of his next turn". It's got drawbacks (the ally guarantees the benefit, but gives up the ability to threaten foes with the punishment of an AoO), and enemies can play around it ("He's low! The medic is going to try to save him, that'll make an opening!"). I think Reaction+AoO is too strong of a punishment combined, but it's a starting point.
This might be a base Biohacker ability (replacing the +1/+2 on attack rolls and largely obviating the need for Friendly Aim, along with making Biohacker 1 a viable dip for classes that want to be able to reliably inject), or it might replace the benefit of the Friendly Aim Biohacker Theorem (requiring a 2 level dip for other classes, but also making it an Alchemist-Infusion-tier feat tax on Biohackers.
This has the promise to be one of my favorite Paizo classes of all time, and I want to contribute what I can to help it be the best it can be. What are your thoughts on the problems I've identified? How do you feel about my solutions? Do you have your own? I want to hear it.
I had suggested a similar theorem that instead allowed you to infuse an existing medicinal with one of your injections (taking a use of your daily injections) to allow the medicinal to be treated as medicinal of the same kind (anaglesiac -> anaglesiac, etc) up to an item level of your biohacker level.
I think that poisons are too powerful to get a similar treatment, but a similar ability that modified a poison (such as changing the base save DC to be your class save DC, if higher) once per short rest wouldn't be a bad idea. At the very least, the ability to change an inhalation/ingestion poison into an injury poison by combining it with an Injection.
Right now the wording disallows it: it's a special check, not an ability that lets you use a different ability in place of the other skill check.
I agree that DCs should be reduced by theme knowledge. However, Library Chips would probably be too broad. A single chip for all living creatures?
I think the ability should be reworded to make it be Life/Physical Science modifier "in place of" the normal skill modifier to identify the creature. This means that 1) it's treated as an identification check for all purposes, 2) Theme Knowledge DC reductions apply normally, 3) all bonuses provided by external gear (such as library chips) function as normal, not giving certain items utility beyond their intent (Life Science Library Chip).
Hey guys, I've hunkered down with the new Biohacker class since the playtest documents dropped and I've been going through line-by-line looking for feedback. New to the Paizo boards, so sorry if a single person's all-in-one thread is faux-pas here. I'll try to keep it neatly formatted so it's not an unreadable wall of text.
So, jumping into it: my direct feedback on the Biohacker.
Core Chassis: 6HP/6SP, 3/4BAB, Good FORT, Poor REF/WILL. Relatively par-for-the-course chassis, but this is the only non-spellcasting class in the game that only has one good saving throw. Biohacker is pseudo-good at Will saves, with Will saves being keyed to the classes' Key Ability score (either INT or WIS) and many Will-boosting bonuses with breakthroughs, but recommend additional ways to access +Reflex saves beyond only Endocrinology restorative. Class does not make effective use of Swift actions and Reactions.
Class features very heavily depend on KAS for utility/availability, not just effectiveness, which will heavily push characters into the “Max your KAS at all cost” levels of SAD-ness that Starfinder worked hard to avoid (and then released the Operative, but that’s another thread). Does not interact with some Starfinder-unique mechanics, like Short Rests, to control the adventuring day.
Skills: 6+INT, mostly INT and WIS class skills. Many class skills to choose from, and most seem suitable to the class at hand. Gaining other class skills (for environmental/social benefits) in other skills is a feat away with skill synergy. INT-Biohackers definitely get much better mileage out of skills: the WIS-bonuses requires the Biohacker to spend half of their intrinsic skill budget on skills that don't provide material mechanical benefits (aside from Medicine for in-combat healing).
Scientific Method: Lets the player choose to be either INT-based or WIS-based.
• Instinctive: Lets you add WIS to Life Sci, Medicine, and Phys. Sci checks. You already get fewer skill ranks than an INT-based Biohacker, and now you have to spend half of your intrinsic skill ranks on skills without tangible utility (i.e., non-combat, non-environmental, non-social skills) to benefit from this class feature (not saying medicine isn’t useful, but in this context it IS a tax). You effectively have 3+INT skill ranks per level to customize with.
• Studious: Lots of skill ranks, lets you use INT for Will saves, and for Perception – one of the best skills in the game. And Sense Motive. Simply better than a WIS-based Biohacker
• Recommend a change to this and the classes' skills
• Design should be reconsidered: What is the WIS-Biohacker supposed to be good at that the Studios Biohacker isn’t? Because right now, the answer is “Mysticism and Survival” in the entirety of its scope, and the two most common uses of Mysticism were removed from WIS-specific relevant (identification and crafting serums were replaced with other skills) Is it supposed to be “A Studious Biohacker is dependent on the tools he’s learned (Fields of study), and an Intuitive Biohacker is broadly flexible and independent of his fields of study”? Should it affect the injections or the rest of the class?.
• What if each Field of Study had an associated skill, and selecting that associated skill gave you a free rank in that skill each level (can’t go over max). You can replace the keyed ability score of each skill with your KAS for the class. This lowers the skill burden on WIS-biohackers, and provides a real benefit for picking WIS over INT (skill ability substitution, instead of Will ability substitution). Probably needs to be coupled with a lowering of skill ranks to 5+INT or 4+INT.
Custom Scanner: A small tool that functions as a medkit and a chemalyzer.
• Functionss as a basic medkit and chemalyzer, but never as any other basic piece of equipment (such as a Comm Unit), and doesn't upgrade to also function as other more specialized kits, like and Advanced Medkit. Comparably, the Mechanic's Custom Rig starts off counting as a larger range of tool kits + a comm unit. At 7th level, it upgrades to functioning as a specialty tool kit, and gains the benefits of and can be upgraded as a full-on computer. A comparable upgrade to the custom scanner's ability to function as a medkit to that of an Advanced Medkit when you get an Improved Scanner at 9th level seems appropriate.
• Allows you to make a special skill check as a move action to identify a nearby creature, only requiring you to invest in two skills, not three as normal. However, no class features ever INTERACT with the ability to identify a creature. See suggested Biohacker Theorems.
Improved Scanner/Expert Scanner:
• Are the range increases on Improved Scanner and Expert Scanner meaningful? Going from 50ft to 80ft as a benefit at level 17 seems really... lame. Especially with no other ways to upgrade it: it’s not a computer so it can’t really do anything with the Range I/II/III upgrades. It currently can’t be used in conjunction with other range-increasing items like weapon scopes, etc.
• Surprisingly no relation to Starship Combat, given that it's based around scanning?
• What if it provided a 'Scanner' bonus to a selection of abilities? A scaling insight bonus, +0 with Custom Scanner, +2 with Improved Scanner, +4 with Expert Scanner. This bonus applies to all checks you make with the custom scanner: knowledge checks to identify creatures (they'll get one more piece of info out of a knowledge check), its current functions as a medkit, other tasks available to an Advanced medkit (and it doesn't stack with the intrinsic bonus that the Adv. Medkit provides, so no double-dipping), any checks you use the Starship's sensors to scan for (i.e., 'Active Sensors' actions in CRB p.301, including perception checks made with the sensors), and Scan actions as the Science Officer. Basically, in addition to upgrading to an Advanced Medkit, it takes the Medkit's +2 bonus and spreads it to other related checks you might take with the Custom Scanner.
Injection Expert: Provides proficiency and other benefits in weapons with the [Injection] Special Property.
• Currently, there are a suite of Small Arms, Advanced Melee Weapons, Snipers, a Special weapon, and a single level 2 Long Arm with the Injection property. I think upgrades to the Needler Rifle are needed to allow for characters who might want a Longarm-focused character (for the purposes of Weapon Focus, and other such feats). No higher-base-damage weapons exist to support a selfish-ranged playstyle, but I’m sure that will come naturally with time.
• Provides a pseudo-Weapon Focus, that stacks with Weapon Focus (but “Injection” is not a weapon group, so they can't double down across the board and just get Weapon Focus(Injection)). How should this interact with Versatile Focus? Should characters still get a regular Weapon Focus feat, and then Versatile Focus to spread it to “all weapons with which you are proficient”, getting a total of a +4 to attacks with Injection weapons? What if you wanted to be an Advanced Melee Biohacker? Do you need to take Weapon Focus(Small Arms) and then versatile focus to get weapon focus for just your melee weapons, since you’re not proficient with Advanced Melee Weapons? Or should this count as the Weapon Focus feat, preventing the stacking, but relieving a feat tax for non-small arm builds?
Worth noting – Most Injection weapons target KAC, so it's possible that this doubling on accuracy bounses may be necessary for a ¾ BAB class to reliably participate without relying on Quickdraw.
• No HP/RP damage to endangered allies when firing an injection is very useful for needler/Mk1 Healing Serums since the Nonlethal fusion is IL2 and the Needler Pistol is IL1.
• Says “by the effects of the drug, poison, medicinal compound, counteragent, restorative, or other substance that was loaded into the injection weapon” - is the expansion of the Injection property beyond what's enumerated in the CRB part of the class feature, or a modification to the property itself to account for expanded game content? This is important if the Biohacker takes the Stable Injection Theorem – allies would not be able to fire Injections from weapons (even those with the injection property) since they don't have this class feature.
Also, is the expansion of the scope of “injury poison” to “poison” intentional? Can inhaled/ingested/contact poisons now be loaded into injection weapons with this change?
Versatile Specialization: The usual, plus special rules for injection weapons you wouldn’t normally be proficient with.
• How does this interact with Versatile Specialization? Since V.S. gives you Specialization in all weapons you’re proficient with, do you get +Lv to Injection Longarms, or are you stuck with the + ½ Lv that this feat granted? What if you separately gained proficiency with a weapon, such as spending a feat or a level dip in solder to pick up Weapon Proficiency(Longarms), and then took Versatile Specialization? What Specialization Bonus does a Soldier 3/Biohacker 3 have to Longarms with the Injection property?
Injections: Daily supply of consumables that allies you to buff allies or hamper foes.
• It gets confusion clarifying Injection (the class feature), Injections (one of the consumables granted by the class feature), and Injection (the weapon property). Maybe a sight name tweak is in order.
• “An injection that is not in your possession becomes inert until you pick it up again” - the phrasing of this seems borrowed from the Alchemist from PF. Without the whole “using your own magical aura” thing, though, this phrasing makes no sense. A slight rewording, such as “is treated as inert until it's in your possession again” might make more internal sense.
• When you regain daily uses, all previous injections become inert. Could a Biohacker choose to only regain some daily uses and intentionally leave specific other injections active? Or is this intended to be a soft “24 hour duration” for the injections?
• “You must hit an unwilling creature with a melee attack to inject them with an injection” - is this against EAC or KAC? We're only told that it's considered a consumable basic melee weapon for this attack, and it's presumably against KAC with a STR-based attack since it's not powered, but it's good to be clear.
• How do injections interact with damage reduction? “Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, [..]” Since the basic injection with a syringe deals no damage, DR1/- would negate the entirety of the injection.
• This is the first class that has multiple limited daily pools (as opposed to interacting with other mechanics like X-per-short rest) as a major class feature (aside from spellcasting, obviously). It’s a comparatively new mechanic to Starfinder, and one they intentionally shied from in the CRB. Its influence on game design should be considered carefully.
• Maybe I’m just too used to PF, but I’m not comfortable with all of these bonuses from injections and related existing items (medicinals, etc.) being untyped. I’d much rather have an analogue to “alchemical bonus” that functions like an “item bonus” in PF 2e. Magic effects have Enhancement bonuses, Divine effects have Divine Bonuses, Trained effects have Insight bonuses, Mental effects have Morale Bonuses. I think equipment-granted effects need a non-stacking bonus type, like “chemical bonus” or “equipment bonus” or something. It, of course, would require retconning a number of small items across several hardcover books (always a strike against it), but I think it’s important for the long-term health of the system.[/list]
Counteragents: 3 Basic effects that you can use to impose on an enemy.
• -2 penalty to AC is nice and effective throughout the game with linear accuracy.
• I like the design of scaling removal of DR/ER: It’s a nice way to increase the class’ damage (and the party’s damage) in a flavorful way without just adding a pile of stats for no reason.
• Duration seems short: half MOD (min 1) round REALLY forces the characters to try to hit an 18 in their key ability ASAP. Starfinder was nice in that it encouraged characters to spread out their stats instead of over-specializing in one stat. This design seems to go against that. Especially since it grows so slowly (2 rounds at 18, 3 rounds at 22, 4 rounds at 26, the max duration character can reach).
Short duration isn’t the problem – it’s the slow, stat-based scaling incentivizing SAD (on top of all the benefits of Scientific Method). Even if it’s changed to INT-1 rounds (min 1) or INT-2 rounds (min 1), it’d be a good bit better. That way it only soft-requires a 14 or 16 in INT to get the benefit of the scaling.
Restorative: 3 Basic effects that you can use to aid yourself or allies
• The effects are all nice, especially at low levels. It’s a little annoying that none of them scale, especially the skill bonus/speed bonus.
• The action economy of restoratives is concerning: it’s never better than a standard action. If you want to Restorative and attack in the same turn, you’re going to have to full attack and then spend one of those attacks hitting yourself (and hope you hit your own AC, even though this should be easy).
• If the scanner won’t be changed to get a small bonus applicable to Starship combat, then the +2 skill bonus should be rewritten in a way that lets a character use it in combat. Since there’s no “rounds of tactical time” to “turns of starship time” conversion, and the duration isn’t long enough to pre-buff, it’s honestly fair to say “it takes an action to use in starship combat” (making the player miss a round) “but then applies for INT turns of starship combat” (or INT/2, or something). (or WIS as appropriate)
• Should the +Speed be worded in a way that it only applies to non-technological speeds (or some similar restriction)? I don’t see an injection making your Jetpack fly any faster, but if you had cybernetic tank treads for legs from an augmentation, I can see that going faster. Is there a good way to distinguish between the two?
Spark of Ingenuity: Modify the effects of your injections to do additional things at once.
Intuitive Spark of Ingenuity: Flexibly add minor conditions to your counteragents, or remove conditions with your restoratives
• The 9th level upgrade should be reworded to clarify that the Flat Footed / remove of dazzled, etc., are in addition to the counteragent/restorative’s normal effects, like the others. The lower level clarifies. This might be an additional “in addition to” line for each of them or a “add the following conditions to the list of conditions you can remove with your restoratives”, for example.
• This Spark never improves past 9th level. Adding a bigger list at 15th level (off-target / exhausted, nauseated, etc.) makes it feel better.
Studious Spark of Ingenuity: Combine two injections simultaneously.
• Is fun and rewards creative combinations to the effect – perfect for the flavor of the ability. Ideas abound!
• This doubles the duration of counteragents (INT rounds instead of INT/2 rounds).
• Progresses in power as your injections progress in power
• Genetic Counteragent + remove ER basic counteragent to bring a creature from “Immunity to X” to “normal damage to X” immediately is a standout-powerful option, even if it’s only 3/day at best.
Resolve Analysis: Regain Resolve as you use Spark of Ingenuity.
• Seems on-par in power with other abilities, and it’s a fun way to do it.
Superserum: Gain an extra-powerful Serum
• Another “Use KAS/day” ability. Would not “Once per short rest” help encourage them to be spaced out and still indirectly incorporate the KAS (since Resolve scales off of KAS).
• Since no Injections improve after 13th level, aside from getting your 3rd breakthrough, your Fields of Study feel stagnant. Would it not be better to have FoS-specific Super-Serums?
• In
p5,col2,para1 wrote:
“It removes all effects magically altering the target’s memory, even instantaneous effects, and it can restore a memory to perfect clarity”
, what is “a memory”? All memory? One specific memory? If it’s a specific memory, who chooses? Does the Biohacker choose (And if so, must he choose when he takes the standard action to determine the serum’s effect?)? Does the patient choose? Can the Biohacker deceive a patient into regaining a particular memory (such as by saying “I’ll make you remember your wife” which the patient consents to, but then targeting a traumatic event, such as the wife’s murder)?
****
Biohacker Theorems: Just going to go through these one-by-one in the order they’re presented.
2nd Level Theorems:
• Aquatic Adaptation: Cool, niche ability. It might be worth a broadening of scope to “Environmental Adaptation”, so that adaptations to High Altitudes, Thin Atmospheres, Heavy Gravity, etc., are possible.
• Field Dressing : Here’s that “Biohackers should probably be able to heal” ability. Is this meant to replace the advancement of the Custom Scanner to an Advanced Medkit as a “healing teammates” options? I feel like that’s a waste of Starfinder’s empowerment of base skills.
• Friendly Aim: Between this and your allies always being flat-footed, and the +1/+2 to attacks with injection weapons, you’re at a total +6/+7 on your accuracy vs. allies. Good stuff! If you’re spending a standard action (or part of a full action) to use a modest, limited-daily ability on an ally, it better have a good chance of hitting!
• Hampering Counteragent : Good for counteragent-focused characters. Reword to “in addition to its normal effects”, since Spark of Creativity can add more than one ‘effect’ to a counteragent.
• Limber Restorative: Good for defensive Biohackers, since this lets you 5FS on difficult terrain. Same wording problem as Hampering Counteragent.
• Painful Injection: Worded poorly, open to a lot of questions:
• o Does the additional damage also apply to attacks with weapons that deal “—“ damage, like the Wraith-sting rifles?
• o The slow-scaling damage based on KAS as problems I’ve outlined above. I feel like this should be an Insight bonus to damage based on level, like a Soldier’s Gear Boost.
• o “Does not stack” needs clarification. Is this meant to be “a creature can only take this extra damage from you once per turn. This is a [pain] effect”? If so, say that. Otherwise, how does this bonus damage possibly “stack” if there’s no other source of damage.
• o I don’t think Biohackers need yet another reason to not full attack with this class. They’re already shoe-horned into attacking once per turn with gimped damage scaling by all the other class features.
• Quick Load: Useful tool, expect to see this a lot. Shame it can’t be used with Spring Attack or Shot on the Run. Should this work with non-Injections that function in Injection property weapons, like poisons?
• Speedy Serum: Seems fine.
• Strange Anatomy: An excellent choice for a character that wants to get hit. Not a lot of other support for a tankier, frontline Biohacker.
• Toxic Skin: As the racial feature, with a better saving throw. Works well against monsters, but characters expecting to put themselves in danger of getting hit by humanoid enemies still have few tools at their disposal.
• Treat Condition: The condition equivalent of Field Dressing. Useful, especially when improved, but not going to be as appealing to the general player.
• Treatment Master: Good for the uses of the medicine skill. The “you can use this without a medkit” part has a chance of being misleading, given that you probably have your Custom Scanner. Might make people forget about the scanner’s benefit go “I don’t have a medkit, crap” and forgo the bonus. But, given that text is at a premium in these things, it’s probably fair to assume basic competence and not include it.
8th Level Theorems:
• Arms Expert: Finally, an offensive option for selfish characters. Needs to clarify interaction with Versatile Specialization, though. If you spend the feat, you’ll already have +Lv to damage with everything except [Operative] and Small Arms weapons. While this still helps those, is it just redundant with the feat for other weapons, or should there be a replacement benefit (additional +1/2 Lv, flat +2 damage, etc) – keeping in mind that the class pushes characters to 1 attack/round in most cases.
• Bleeding Injection: Sounds good to me.
• Extend Injection: Seems kind of short to me for the RP cost, but will especially be useful with Counteragents or not wasting standard actions on using a restorative on yourself.
• Far Injection: How does this interact with the sniper weapon property, or Weapon Mods? This + the IL14 Wraith-sting rifle has a range increment of half a mile. Does this need to be future-proofed in case Grenades with the Injection Property ever exist, since this will significantly affect the DCs on those grenades?
• Improved Quick Load: Further improves quick load so it’s not a “need to every turn” thing, and finally allows you to attack yourself with a restorative + attack an enemy with a counter agent on the same turn (but not the same turn you use this class feature, the turn after)
• Improved Treat Condition: Improves it to now be able to treat action-denying conditions. Very useful.
• Protective Restorative: Looks to be very useful for a defensive character, but has a few questions:
• o Does the player have to pick DR/ER upon choosing the feat or when applying the restorative?
• o What kind of DR does it grant? DR/-? Pick one kind of DR (i.e., DR/slashing and bludgeoning to grant it DR vs piercing)?
• Stable Injection: Basically functions as infusion for PF alchemists. But your allies won’t have the Injection Expert or Injections class feature: can they load Injections into weapons with the Injection property, even though Biohacker Injections are not enumerated as something that can be loaded into an Injection Weapon as per the property without that class feature. Injections are also “held in a physical syringe” – can an ally make a melee attack with the syringe without the Injections class feature? Is there any additional action cost/free hands requirement to transferring the injection from the syringe to an injection weapon?
• Tranq Dart: Fort save vs. Asleep or Slow. Enemies might prefer to be treated as a lower CR so that they can just fall asleep and then immediately be woken up by an ally, instead of being slowed for a minute or two. Not that they have a choice, but it’s strange that it’s *better* to be lower CR than higher CR. Maybe “asleep for one round per level and then can be woken up normally”, although I guess that’d technically be “unconscious for one round per level, and then the condition is replaced with asleep”.
• Versatile Injections: This can affect unliving creatures now, but there’s still no way to deal with immunity to poison. Constructs are unliving, crap, immune to poison. Undead are unliving, crap, still immune to poison. Good for making your restorations affect unliving allies, but largely ineffective for helping counteragents land on enemies they couldn’t already affect, since most counteragents with the [unliving] line are also poison effects.
14th level Theorems:
• Energetic Restorative: Grants your choice of Agile Casting, Shot on the Run, or Spring Attack in addition to Restorative effects. Obviously helps allies, but few of the class features that lubricate the Biohacker’s action economy (like Quick Load) are compatible with this class feature, so a Biohacker can’t Energetic restorative himself and then load up a counteragent to shot on the run with next turn.
• Greater Field Dressing: greatly improves the healing of Field Dressing. Hard to say numbers for balance, but it’s slightly better than an extra Treat Deadly Wounds per day, especially for smaller parties.
• Heart Stopper: A slow save-or-die. It’s not clear how a character can identify the effect to know how do anything about it. How do you go from “looks like Bob’s having another heart attack” to knowing “I can stop this with a casting of Remove Affliction”? DC 15 Medicine check as a free action to just learn what to do? Especially if the injectioan is delivered with a subtle weapon, so nobody knows that there is a foreign substance afflicting the target.
• Liquid Bravery: Retaining control over your own actions, even if you’re still facing penalties, is a powerful effect. Immunity to the shaken condition will prevent a lot of fear stacking.
• Stunning Counteragent: Not the biggest fan of the wording, but it’s clear enough.
• Synaptic Deadening: Adds a useful anti-caster tool to the kit, certainly sounds and feels fun. Fort save is in a weird spot – it’s very useful for targeting a caster’s weak save, but then it synergizes with Im-munology rather than the more flavor-appropriate Neurochemistry. But at this point, the character has 3 Fields of Study so that shouldn’t be a big problem.
Suggested Biohacker Theorems: There are a few things that I think are missing from the repertoire of the Biohacker – mostly interactions with parts of the game you’d EXPECT the Biohacker to interact with, so here’s a couple suggested additions:
• An ability that modifies a full attack: one of your attacks can be substituted for injecting a restorative already loaded into an injection weapon on yourself (basically replaces an attack on a guaranteed hit, because full attacking yourself is currently the only way to restorative yourself + attack an enemy). Unless specifically loaded in a prepared way in advance, this means it can’t be used to restorative yourself + counteragent an enemy, but it does allow you to restorative + attack for some damage.
• Something that interacts with Identifying Creatures using the Custom Scanner. Kind of like how the Alien Archive Operative Exploit grants a bonus on the Trick Attack skill check against an identified creature. Perhaps improve the duration of a Counteragent by 1 round, increase the benefit of a restorative against identified creatures by +1, spend two uses of your Injection ability to grant all allies in an AoE the benefits of a restorative, but it only functions against that one creature. Obviously not all of those suggestions are 2nd level theorems, but something is needed.
• Something that interacts with Drugs, such as a +insight bonus on saves vs addictions, and a benefit to using drugs more frequently in combat without killing yourself via poison tracks
• Something that interacts with Medicinals (like anaglesiacs or antitoxins), like “infuse a medicinal with one of your daily injections as you apply it to treat it like a medicinal of the same kind with an item level up to your biohacker level”, letting characters’ craft low-level consumables on the cheap but still be able to pull them out for niche uses at CR-level effectiveness. Not OP – can’t be shared/sold, and they already get as strong/stronger abilities from their class. Anything to help players want to invest in consumables and use them.
Fields of Study: None of these improve past level 13. Between this and no new hacker theorems after 14, class seems light on ‘cool new content’ at high levels.
Also, that suggestion up above about each specialization having a key skill? I’ve included my guess for each specialization’s key skill in its section.
Breakthroughs: Breakthroughs in Fields of Study are very uniform. While the effects are different and specialized to their fields, they don’t FEEL that way.
• 6/7 Breakthroughs are defensive buffs, only 1 is an offensive buff
• 3/7 fields of study have the same copy-paste effects, except applying to different descriptors (+4/reroll with +2 upgrading to +6/r w/ +4)
• 2 out of the remaining 4 fields of study are “stop an affliction track before the worst step” applying to different types of afflictions
I’m not saying any of these are weak. They’re all actually really strong. But they don’t make me FEEL different than that other guy playing a Biohacker. Should breakthroughs have an offensive/defensive use like Counteragents/Restoratives? Or should some simply be offensive breakthroughs?
Endocrinology: Use of hormones (stress, fight-or-flight) in combat
• Counteragent: Off-Target is a good offensive debuff, but flavor-wise doesn’t feel like it makes sense here.
• Restorative: Fits well in flavor, a good defensive bonus to have on hand (since reflex is likely your weakest save).
• Breakthrough: Powerful but generic (for this class) buff/reroll vs. fear. Ability to directly relieve action-denying conditions is quite powerful. It’s clearly based on the Fight-or-Flight response, but it’d be nice if the power reflected the “flight” a little bit more. Maybe a movement speed buff, or an immunity to the cowering condition so you can always try to run away? Careful that an asymmetric movement speed buff means that if you take two turns running away it means three turns to get back in the fight.
• Key Skill: Sense Motive – Sense Motive passively interacts with fear effects (like demoralize), and these hormones are regulated by the part of your brain analyzing the world for threats.
Enzymology: Use of enzymes to control reaction rates/metabolisis.
• Counteragent: Good flavor, fair debuff.
• Restorative: Good flavor, parallels well.
• Breakthrough: Notably the only offensive breakthrough. Functions like a super-haste granting a full move action, letting the Biohacker do critical functions like load injections or other move-action heavy things for the class. Scales with the general power of the action economy of the player, so functions well at high levels.
• Key Skill: Physical Science – Thermodynamics all day, baby.
Genetics: Using gene therapy to bolster allies or strip defenses.
• Counteragent : Makes an enemy more vulnerable to an energy type. It’s ability to remove immunity is very notable, especially in conjunction with Spark of Ingenuity + the ER-reducing basic Counter Agent: make an enemy go from Immune to X to 0 protection from X with no save. This will be a go-to choice for the class, and should have its power gated. Note that Biohackers are limited in their ability to take advantage of this with their injection weapons, but as part of a team? Holy Cow.
• Restorative: Power is fine, but it seems out of place. Not being universally useful is a good balance to the comparative power of the counteragent.
• Breakthrough: Interesting, not always useful power but hot damn you’ll be happy if you need it.
• Key Skill: Life Science – Seems like a straight-forward connection to me.
Immunology : Affect a creatures ability to fight off negative effects.
• Counteragent: Exactly what I’d expect. Works well mechanically and flavorfully. Just surprising that Immunology is the go-to choice for a poison-focused character over Toxicology.
• Restorative: Again, exactly what I’d expect. Works well and pairs well.
• Breakthrough: Applicability to disease is flavorfully affected, especially with how nasty diseases can be. Grants immunity to the worst, action-denying parts of a disease. Note: “Ignores the effects” – does this mean that a character still makes saves as normal, and if it were to fail a save, it could progress even to the end state (so a character ignore the effects of Comatose could still progress to Dead?). Is there any intended interaction between this effect lasting 1 week and the number of breakthroughs you can use a day?
• Key Skill: Survival – Seems like a sensible connection to me.
Neurochemistry : Screw with brain-chemicals.
• Counteragent: -2 penalty on Will saves. I get that this fits with the whole ‘mental’ aspect, but mechanically no Biohacker anything ever involves a Will save (still allows it to be used to support other characters, like friendly mages). I think it might be better if this did something with synapses, like a [pain] descriptor off-target condition.
• Restorative: Works well for a defensive effect that should boost the Mind.
• Breakthrough: Another generic boost/reroll effect, except this time the descriptor the bonus affects is so broad that it subsumes every another class ability (e.g., Endocrinology only affects Fear, but fear effects are mind-affecting).
• Key Skill: Culture – you study the brain and its influences on how people function and behave.
Pharmacology: The “drugs help the body” specialization. Players looking at this class for the first time will expect this field of study to be the “I want to play a healer” Field of Study and will be sorely disappointed.
• Counteragent: I can see it – many useful drugs do this – but wasn’t the kind of ability I’d expect from this specialization.
• Restorative: End the bleeding condition. This is so weak on its own. This takes a standard action – the Biohacker has plenty of ways to force the bleeding condition to end with a standard action, even at range (mk1 healing serum, etc). It’s only the only one-and-done Injective. Needs a power boost and to conform to the other similar abilities. Something like “immediately gains +(Biohacker Lv+KAS) Stamina and gains immunity to the bleeding condition”, it’d make a bit more sense and be more appealing.
• Breakthrough : Another “I can see it, it’s mechanically on par with the power level, but this wasn’t what I was expecting from this Field of Study”. Flavor-wise, alleviating pain and nausea are what most medical drugs do. At home, in a hospital, behind the scenes.
• Key Skill: Medicine – now it finally provides the benefit to “I want to heal” that this specialization needs.
Toxicology: “Poisons are cool!” Players who want to create poisons will be attracted to this choice, and find the options related to their concept but not directly applicable
• Counteragent: A save-free, money free, minor poison effect. It’s nice and powerful, but it doesn’t really help you with the poisons you crafted.
• Restorative: A defensive buff! The only real support a melee-Biohacker gets. Except basically every humanoid enemy is going to be in their environmentally sealed armor and immune to the inhaled poison. Tweaking the mechanics of this to be more melee-friendly in practice is needed. A contact poison, granting a penalty on any melee attack after the first until the poison wears off?
• Breakthrough: Given how every other breakthrough is defensive, this is what you’re lead to expect from this. But I’ve taken the Toxicology specialization and I’m no better with my poisons than when I started. Maybe if this was like Genetics and removed an immunity to Poison effects (replacing it with a +2 bonus on saves vs poison), since the class has a way to get around “unliving” things, but not “immune to poison” things. Or if it was like the Bombard Soldier and allowed a 1/short rest actual poison.
• Key Skill: Sleight of Hand – Poison others, avoid poisoning yourselves, hide your poisons and your implements, and so on.
Suggested Fields of Study: I feel the class is lacking in some role-diversifying options. I think increased support for social skills and combat prowess
Pheromone-based Social-skill Field of Study: fits the “Pheromone Seducer” fantasy of Poison Ivy (Batman), Kilgrave (Jessica Jones), or even just a more generic “Calming Diplomat”.
• Possible Counteragent : Increase bonus from aid-another-like actions against the target (covering fire, harrying fire, aid another, etc) by +1 – like how insects use pheromones to coordinate other allies.
• Possible Restorative: Provides an enhancement bonus to mental social skills (duration long enough to be able to reasonably handle negotiations without having to shoot up drugs every couple of rounds). This is an inhaled poison effect – actually makes sense now, because people don't have their environment-sealed armor on and active during social encounters
• Possible Breakthrough : a [charm, compulsion] effect, like Charm Person, upgrading to Dominate Person at high levels. Possibly Suggestion > Charm Person at 7th level > Dominate at 13th level via inhaled poison.
• Key skill: Diplomacy
Disguise-based Social-skill Field of Study: creates a “Social Chameleon”, able to manipulate hormones to alter appearance. Provides non-magical characters a way to effectively disguise themselves without magic or playing a weird race.
• Possible Counteragent: Penalty on perception checks, maybe? Helps disguises with Subtle weapons, helps stealthy play – opens up new doors for Biohackers.
• Possible Restorative: Mitigates the DC increases for disguise checks (for different race, gender, etc), would need to last longer than normal disguises to function effectively.
• Possible Breakthrough: instant disguise, as per Disguise Self but (Ex)? Maybe slightly more powerful?
• Key Skill: Disguise
Chemically-enhanced Super-Soldier: Chemically enhanced super-soldiers are a staple of sci-fi (Captain America, etc.) and aren’t well-supported in the current system. Might be better suited to a drug-based Soldier Fighting Style. But could provide a drug-based analogue to the Exocortex Mechanic. But right now, nothing that the Biohacker does interacts with the benefits of taking Drugs, and few options let a Biohacker be rewarded for playing aggressively instead of supportingly. A specialization that focuses on that seems appropriate.
Sorry if this isn’t as fleshed out with the other two suggested Fields of Study.
Anyway, WOW that was long. But I love Starfinder and enjoy the class and wanted to make this as good as it could be.
In the leveling up section, the order of operations in the book is listed as:
Step 1: Apply any ability increases.
Step 2: Add new class features.
Step 3: Add new feats or Theme benefits. "Be sure to check the prerequisites!"
Step 4: Invest Skill Ranks.
Specifically, note the order of operations of Step 3 and Step 4, and compare that to feats that require more than one skill rank. For example, Antagonize. A player is unable to select the feat at the level that they get the appropriate number of skill ranks, adding unnecessary delays and confusion to the process.
Now consider how a player who wants that feat would have to go about the leveling process -- an Envoy 4 with 4 skill ranks in Diplomacy and Intimidate each who has just leveled up.
Ding! Level 5! I really want Antagonize.
Ability score increases, Cool! That bonus to Charisma is going to help a lot!
New Class features! Enboy 5! Now I have skill expertise in Diplomacy and Intimidate.
Feat! Alright, time for Antagonize. Let me just double check the prerequisites. Diplomacy 5 ranks... heck, I have 4 ranks. I can't take it. I guess I have to pick something else...
Invest Skill Ranks. Okay, now I finally have 5 skill ranks in Diplomacy and Intimidate. It's a shame I don't have any feats left to get Antagonize, though. .
And so now the player has to wait until Level 7 to be able to select Antagonize, because no feat is gained at level 6.
This seems like an editing mistake rather than an intentional change from Pathfinder, as it adds an unnecessary level of confusion to the leveling process. AFAIK nobody has caught this mistake yet (although my google-fu may be weak), and if anybody has, they have most certainly house-ruled it away because it makes no sense.
There is no benefit to this set-up. It's not a combat feat (in fact, most skill-prereq feats are non-combat), so this isn't a way to make sure that Soldiers get first dibs on it since no class can possible take it at level 6, and it does nothing but confuse new players. The only benefit is to give a marginal advantage to players who retrain feats via a Mnemonic Editor, which I don't think is the intent. And reordering these two steps in the next printing has the additional benefit of having the "Add new Feats or Theme Benefits" step be adjacent to the "Character Advancement Table" Table 2-4.
