Lamp Flower's page

Maybe a reaction that does something for an ally within some distance of the ranged character.

lets say its something like a harrying shot.

Trigger: You can see an enemy strike an ally within your first range increment. You have a reload of 0, your weapon is loaded, or have a throwing weapon in hand or have quickdraw and a throwing weapon stowed.

Reaction: You fire a blind shot in the direction of that enemy to hinder them. make an attack roll with the following results.

Crit success: Your blind shot actually connects doing normal damage for a strike. In addition the striking creature takes a -1 circumstance penalty to their strike.
Success: you don't connect but succeed at hindering your enemy, the striking creature takes a -1 circumstance penalty to their strike.
Crit Failure: your shot ended up distracting your ally instead giving a +1 circumstance bonus to the striking creatures strike.

That reminds me of a similar idea I had earlier.

Requirement: You're wielding a loaded ranged weapon or a reload 0 ranged weapon.
Trigger: A creature you can see makes a ranged attack roll against an ally within the required weapon's first range increment.

You attempt to redirect an enemy's shot with your own. You make a strike against... some DC? I don't know what. Maybe a standard DC for the foe's level. Anyway, if you succeed, the triggering attack is knocked off its course, missing the targeted ally.

Since hitting a fast-moving target the size of a bullet or arrow would be incredibly difficult, this would have to be a high level class feat. You could consider giving it the restriction of only working against projectile attacks or making it only give a bonus to AC unless you critically succeed.

Right before submitting the post, I found the Redirecting Shot feat, which has similar flavor but a completely different function. It's level 10, so maybe that would be an appropriate level for something like this as well.

What would happen if it was used against a PC? To what degree would you be deceived? Feinting, for example, has a clear mechanical effect and nothing more. Even if an NPC successfully uses the Lie activity against you, you can (presumably) at least suspect that the NPC is simply that good at lying. You're trying to bait your enemy into moving towards you. Does this mean the enemy doesn't know you have the reaction available? Or are you simply offering a risk–reward situation?

You could say NPCs just believe that you've left them an opening, though in that case, I think it should require a deception check. Does a PC act the same way? The player knows that if an enemy apparently leaves an opening, it's a bait, but in-universe the deception might be believable. At that point, the skill feat needs either roleplaying guidance or a forced stride (or any other movement type).

Also, another option for the crit effect would be making the enemy believe it has a bonus to its attack without actually giving it such a bonus. Basically, the enemy strides up to you, tries to exploit the opening, and then finds out that you were prepared the whole time when it doesn't get to add a bonus to its roll. Or maybe the lack of a bonus should become apparent as soon the reaction is done?

The idea of using crit specs more reliably made me think of another way more variety could be introduced to ranged combat without changing the core rules: property runes (and upgrades in SF2).

Most property runes you'll actually use have passive effects. It would be possible to add active ones that let you mimic athletic maneuvers, for example. There's an added opportunity cost because now you can't put another rune in that slot. This would help balance ranged maneuvers with melee maneuvers. Combine it with an added action cost, and it doesn't seem too strong anymore. Damaging every enemy in a line also seems more believable when it's a magical effect. In SF2, I could definitely see the Aim perception action being something you get for installing an enhanced scope to your weapon.

Also, how about something inspired by Star Wars (and especially FFG's SWRPG)? The neuro-overloader module: gives your gun the Modular (stun) trait. This allows you to turn a stun setting on or off by spending an action. While the stun setting is active, your strikes deal no damage but force a save against stunned 1 on a hit. It would be possible to make one damaging strike and one stunning strike on the same turn, but switching between modes would eat your third action.

I hope the final version of SF2's area fire will be good. I didn't get a chance to properly playtest, but, from what I understood, area fire was difficult to use for anyone except soldiers. Running around positioning lines seems cool. Cones and especially bursts probably won't encourage movement as much, but they'll be nice to have as well.

I'd like to see more line effects for martials in PF2 as well. Something like "impaling shot" might challenge our suspension of disbelief, but I'm sure it would be possible to justify something of the sort with the right flavor. Now that I think about it, that kind of just sounds like the enfilade mechanic suggested by Ascalaphus...

One thing I wish was clarified for the sake of ranged combat is how shooting from cover works.

Your GM might allow you to overcome your target’s cover in some situations. If you’re right next to an arrow slit, you can shoot without penalty, but you have greater cover against someone shooting back at you from far away. Your GM might let you reduce or negate cover by leaning around a corner to shoot or the like. This usually takes an action to set up, and the GM might measure cover from an edge or corner of your space instead of your center.

Interpreting this is mostly left up to the GM's common sense. If the PC could easily shoot from cover, you just let it happen. When you need to peek around a corner it "usually takes an action to set up". I read that as having to spend one action to set it up and then being able to shoot from cover until you lose that cover. I've also seen the interpretation that you have to spend one action every turn. (I thought I had seen a thread arguing about how to interpret this, but I couldn't find it.)

Does it work differently with the take cover action? If you're in a spot where you are able to take cover but wouldn't have cover without doing so, the enemy doesn't have cover from you, so you can shoot normally. But the take cover action says that you lose the benefits of the action when you use an attack action. So your normal turn would look something like strike, strike, take cover. In that case it would work the same way as spending an action each turn peeking around cover, so maybe that's a reasonable reading.

Anyway, the cover rules needing a bit more clarity for SF2 is something that was brought up earlier in this thread, and I definitely agree with that.

About the different activities proposed in this thread: I doubt Paizo wants to add new activities like these to the core rules. They probably won't do it even for Starfinder. I really hope they do, and I hope they're also brought over to Pathfinder. However, I think new skill feats are more realistic to wish for. Melee characters have athletic maneuvers. I think acrobatics is sort of the dex equivalent of athletics, and ranged martials use dex, so I think new acrobatics skill feats would be a nice addition. As to what they should be... I have no idea, honestly. Would be cool, though!

For example the Prone condition says that with the "Take Cover" action you get Great Cover against ranged attack rolls. So in your case, an enemy would get a +4 AC bonus against bows and crossbows, but not against your ignition cantrip?"

FWIW, the prone condition does say "ranged attacks" not "ranged attack rolls", so the AC bonus would apply against ranged spell attacks regardless. At least, that's what it says on AoN.

Then again, the intention could very well be different. Curse balance being what it is, it's hard to say.

Lamp Flower wrote:

That said, Runelord still seems a bit better than base wizard. My real issue with the archetype is the way it uses anathema as a balancing tool. Anathema is left purposefully vague because it's supposed to be a roleplaying thing. In the Runelord's case, your GM's interpretation of the anathema can affect your effectiveness. What does "cause harm" mean, for example? If it means "deal damage", Envy's anathema is manageable, though restrictive. If it also prevents you from using walls or other non-damaging spells, it's more of a problem.

The fact that anathema isn't usually used this way leads me to think that Paizo probably didn't mean for the anathema to be a real downside. I still think it is one, though.

Hasnt anathema usually been vague outside of the cases where they litterary make certain options unplayable, Looking at Superstition Barbarian especially and certain deities that makes me very glad that Clerics Anathema is loose.

It has, and I think that's usually a good thing. The player and the GM are encouraged to work together to find a nice middle ground where anathema has interesting roleplaying implications but doesn't became problematic while adventuring. That's why I don't like how it seems to be a balance consideration in this case. I think anathema as a system is too vague to be used like this. I like how a druid's anathema helps define your character while leaving a lot of wiggle room, but as soon as it has a direct effect on power level I'd prefer something clearer.

I'm surprised by how little some people here seem to value the horizontal power lost due to the anathema. It's definitely not the end of the world, and lots of spells have alternatives that don't violate your anathema, but it still affects your spell choices.

I feel like there's very little reason to specialize as a regular wizard. You get a few feats that only affect certain kinds of spells (Explosive Arrival, Convincing Illusion, and Secondary Detonation Array come to mind.), but it's hard to boost one category of spells that far above the others. Your curriculum might only give you certain kinds of spells, but that's just more incentive to prepare less of those kinds of spells in your non-restricted slots.

When you can't make one option stronger, the best thing to do is to increase your options. That way you'll have an ace up your sleeve no matter what your GM throws at you.

That said, Runelord still seems a bit better than base wizard. My real issue with the archetype is the way it uses anathema as a balancing tool. Anathema is left purposefully vague because it's supposed to be a roleplaying thing. In the Runelord's case, your GM's interpretation of the anathema can affect your effectiveness. What does "cause harm" mean, for example? If it means "deal damage", Envy's anathema is manageable, though restrictive. If it also prevents you from using walls or other non-damaging spells, it's more of a problem.

The fact that anathema isn't usually used this way leads me to think that Paizo probably didn't mean for the anathema to be a real downside. I still think it is one, though.

When I got to the "Support Gymnast" build, I thought it was going to be Derring-do + athletic maneuvers. I feel like that build is at least worth mentioning.

It only really comes online at level 10, but at that point your maneuvers are very reliable, with a decent chance of crit success. At that point you have two options. Either you use Agile Maneuvers to take two athletics actions and then One For All/Demoralize/move/risk a third maneuver as needed, or you use one maneuver + a two-action activity.

Because you'll never be spending panache, you don't need to spend reactions on gaining it. This allows you to use your reaction on Reactive Strike/Champion's Reaction/whatever. Admittedly, other builds get Get Used to Disappointment just 2 levels after you come online, but it's still something.

You won't deal much damage, but you'll be a pretty reliable control tank. Protect your allies, help them deal damage. Maybe you have another Gymnast in the party and he's using that Terminaswash build?