Bluemagetim wrote: Question. Does everyone playing a non fighter martial feel like they are not optimal because they have 2 less to hit? i would hope they feel a big, comparable contribution from their other class features to compensate. But the fact that a +2 is a massive, great class feature is really an argument that dumping +4 to +3 is comparable to throwing away half the benefit you’d expect from class features.
A lot of it just feels weird right now, hopefully lore addresses. Weird that schools have 3 8th/9th (combined 2+1) level spells but only 2 1st level. A second level wizard has 7 1st level spells in his book. That seems off…already by second level the vast majority of your spells you learned elsewhere? It’s not possible to stat instructors that only have two spells per level either. I’ve always imagined that the extra slot was available only to spells of the school because there was something magically unique to the spells of your school, which is rules demonstrated by the typing. That logic feels gone. And the fun random schools, like civil service, why would they go up to 9th level? Is there a single civil service magic school somewhere led by an nigh all-powerful 20th level planar wandering civil service bureaucrat, or are surprisingly identical civil service wizard schools that go up to 9th level all over? It would have been really easy to do something flavorful and made good lore sense, e.g., publish a few high level wizard NPCs that ‘established schools’, and wizards can pick one of them and have their spell lists as school spells. Maybe they get automatic access to some Rares etc. Hopefully my brain adjusts and it feels fine/normal after a while.
Lawrencelot wrote:
that reads to me to be intended for niche situations, like allowing a Str modifier to Intimidate other competitors in a weight lifting competition. Not carte blanche to use Int for Wis skills because either you think it should have been an Int skill in the first place or feel bad for Int characters.
What AP is it? I would generally view Cleave as an occasionally useful thing, but too situational to be worth investing much in. Vital Strike is kind of in the same boat. Usually full attacks are just much, much better after you get iteratives. Cleave at least is nice at low level. Looking at Dwarf specific things, the Dwarven Fury style feat chain looks kind of neat, though i’ve never used it.
What Stranger said. That said, there are lots of mechanics and options in the Pathfinder system to create whatever character you envision, just happens that ‘multiclass full caster’ is a really bad one. Consider “variant multiclass” for example; you could be a fully-leveled Druid while obtaining some Cleric abilities and flavor, for example. Or vice-versa. Plenty of archetypes on both sides as well.
Andostre wrote:
Iceplant stacks with Amulet of Natural Armor. But Natural Armor bonus, along with Armor bonus to AC and Shield bonus to AC, has no impact on touch AC, which is what matters against gunfire.
Temperans wrote:
the Shifter AC bonus is at 2nd level. And as it is based on Wisdom, it probably wouldn’t help much.
It’s really impractical to get a full arcane’s AC high enough to be relevant at higher levels, and even if you somehow managed, gun touch AC attacks would just snicker. For other classes, i’d just say vanish/invisibility/mirror image, but none are on your list. The spell you might be looking for, Protection From Arrows, would do wonders against non-magical gunfire. Also not on your list. I guess you could craft a Talisman (Lesser) of Arrow Protection (or a few), but that’s not cheap. Clearly the right answer is to Disguise skill yourself as a golem. Beep Boop. They have terrible perception (+0, and only get to roll if you ‘draw attention to yourself’), don’t sweat it.
Northern Spotted Owl wrote:
for Dazing, you tend to want spells that are at least 2nd level (spending a round to daze someone for one round isn’t much of a win, but two rounds without actions is forever in pathfinder), but not much higher than 4th or so (Dazing Stormbolts requires fairly uncommon 11th level spell slots). So focusing on that 2-4 range. Ball Lightning is sort of the standard “Best Spell” for Dazing, hitting multiple targets each round and able to force repeated saves round after round. And heaven help you if you are wearing metal armor. Here, combining with Hexes to cripple saves (Evil Eye) isn’t an action
Beyond Ball Lightning, as you note Thorny Entanglement might be the best 3rd level spell for Dazing, and is limited to Druid/sham/witch(/ranger). Fireball’s area isn’t great, and it only forces a single save, so nothing special for Dazing. Other options at 3rd could be Burning Entanglement and maybe Flashfire (depending on how it actually works), at 4th also Spike Stones. Again, action economy option to cast and then next turn Hex targets that aren’t yet dazed but will likely be making saves next turn for the Entangling spells. 2nd level spells aren’t as strong. I like Burning Arc on the Wizard list better, but mostly because it serves as an adequate single target damage spell as well (where the shaman damage spells all have terrible damage, which is why i rate them as basically the worst blasting class). That said, specifically for Dazing Spell application, Pinecomb Bomb is better, with larger area, more targets allowed, and more difficult saves for the additional targets. Winter’s Grasp is Fireball area one level lower, etc.
I’m going to agree with an earlier comment; in a big (weapon-oriented) group, generic bardsong for Inspire Courage is a big deal, and going archaeologist there hurts a lot. Slayer can take trapfinding if it’s important. On a different topic, I think it’s (highly) misleading to suggest wizards can consistently target weakest saves using highest level slots benefiting from greater spell focus. For one thing, the schools (focus affects one school) tend to have particular saving throw focuses: evocation usually has reflex saves, enchantment generally will, necromancy hits fort, etc. So if you want to benefit from greater spell focus, you won’t be able to switch what save you are targeting between encounters. More problematically, reflex saves are the most common bad save, and reflex saves are generally damage based, and the damage is piddly unless you specifically build for blasting. Which is all a long winded way of saying if you plan to go after saves, plan for beating strong saves unless you build for dazing spell on evocations.
I guess I’m used to a breakdown of “Debuff: effects that weaken enemy offense and defense” and ‘crowd control’ where “Crowd Control: effects that prevent enemies from taking relevant actions in combat, whether by directly removing their actions, by preventing them from moving to position to attack, or by other means.” And was viewing ‘Battlefield control’ as more or less ‘crowd control’ effects, as walls etc do exactly that. So ‘dazing’ would be 100% battlefield control. But am i understanding the breakdown is viewed as it not mattering what effects you have on enemies, only whether or not the effect puts observable junk on the battlefield? (‘Yes’ = ‘Battlefield Control’, ‘no’ = ‘debuff’)
Flesh to Stone. You will need to optimize for Save DC either way, but FtS dodges all the challenges with landing a touch range spell (mirror image, touch AC, displacement, etc). Disintegrate does average 7 damage/level on failed save, where enemies have ~12-15 hp/CR. You can push your damage up without much effort, but all the resources that go towards increasing damage are resources that aren’t available to push up your save DC. You can still use disintegrate for utility whenever you need. I do think immunity to petrification is more common than immunity to disintegrate, but other than that, pretty easy FtS victory.
I think they started putting out the FAQs maybe 10 years ago, which are the ‘actual rules’, and substantial errata occurred to the CRB and APG. At this point, i think all of the hardcovers have had their errata (and FAQs), so at least for them RAI = RAW. For your other question, if someone asks a rules question in the rules forum, I think the priority should be including a ‘letter of the law’ answer, although noting if it is ruled differently for PFS would be reasonable, or if it is particularly problematic/unplayable as written. Outside of the rules forum, letter vs spirit probably depends on the context of the question.
For wizard, on ‘critters’ the Acadamae Graduate feat buys you standard action summons, which is one of the biggest criteria i look to when judging whether a class is good or not at summoning. They have access to familiars out of CRB, so that is nice here. And the Instructor archetype gives you a Cohort, which is overpowered but i’m not sure whether to count it as a critter. For Utility, wizard is an Int class with arbitrarily many different spells in his book (and Scroll writing as a class feature by default). So very high floor; the Spell Savant archetype gives on demand access to most other spells as well, pushing that archetype up to at least a 9 for utility, pending whether anyone suggests something else could be better. For Healing, i guess Arcane Physician is an intended archetype, but it’s terrible, maybe pushes wizard from a 1 to a ‘1.5’. Spell Savant is probably better even purely for healing purposes.
I really endorse MrCharisma’s proposal to use ranges for all of these; lots of cases where a class is generically not very good at something, but if you build toward that thing it becomes better than other classes building toward that. Shaman examples are an extreme example of that in multiple ways. Going by their default spell list, they are the worst 9th level caster for spell list: i’d put them at a 3. But building for spell selection, they have by far the best effective spell list in the game (i would have them as the only 10). And it would be confusing to a reader to just toss that into ‘class features’; if someone looks at the guide wanting to build something with a strong effective spell list, they shouldn’t be pushed away from classes that are potentially ideal for that (also not clear that FCBs are ‘class features’). Combat is the same challenge for shaman. By default, shaman is the worst divine class for combat (i’d give them a ‘4’ maybe). But building for it, i’d put them 2nd among 9th level casters built for combat (behind druid).
I think the lack of armor proficiency would be most immediately noticeable. The lack of strength might also be something that would be noticed. In game, however, most NPCs are probably more familiar with warrior npc-class characters, not PC classes that would have the obvious heroic str level. So maybe trying to pass yourself off as a the more common and less heroic warrior class might be easier.
MrCharisma wrote:
the authors did a pretty even handed job of splitting RotRL loot into two categories; ‘wizard loot other classes could also potentially benefit from’ and ‘wizard only loot’.
MrCharisma wrote:
i don’t get the logic…8 Min/18 Max after racials basically kills Orc and Kobold races off as options with no obvious benefit…?
Scabbard of Pain is for rerolling failed saves against mind-affecting. Don’t actually need a melee weapon for it, or even a slot. Boots of Speed are a reasonable investment around ~10th level. Getting grappled is pretty bothersome for an archer; Talisman of Freedom (Lesser at low levels) is a lower cost solution (vs. the 40K ring you’ll eventually want or the 10k unfettered shirt).
Unicore wrote:
without expansive, you either only use cantrips for Spellstrike (which is a bit dull for my taste), or you have to prepare attack spells (which are generally bad) in your few precious slots. I do think both of those directions are viable, and I don’t think there’s necessarily a “right way to magus”, but i’m confident taking a feat that allows you to combine Magus Spellstrike action economy advantage with the best spells available at each level isn’t “the wrong way to magus.” And i don’t think i’ve seen almost anyone complaining about ‘bounded spellcasting’ for the magus.
Squiggit wrote:
Halcyon Speaker seems like this. Though making an Occult Wizard along the Halcyon Speaker approach might make Speaker feel less special.
Taja the Barbarian wrote: Instead of VMC, take the Nature Soul + Animal Ally feats? Since Animal Ally stacks with subsequent Hunter levels, you should have a full strength companion at the cost of limited AC choices... that build won’t meet the prereqs for Animal Ally. And the VMC description says that those options are intended to be used instead of traditional multiclassing, not in addition; though I’m not sure what the normal views on that are.
SilvercatMoonpaw wrote: Since it doesn't have a point-cost for Magical Beast it's not really worth my time to use all that often. Magical Beast would be 3 RP, same as for Aberration, Outsider (Native), and Monstrous Humanoid, each of which only has the “Darkvision: 60 feet” trait (and eat/breathe/sleep).
avr wrote:
that was pretty much my take. Hard to view Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain as something that was ‘intended to buff martial classes but is being abused by gishes’.
Arkham Joker wrote:
that type of holy man doesn’t typically appear wandering around with ragtag teams of adventurers looking for danger in literature or legend. I agree that differences between deities feel pretty superficial for clerics, but that’s the point. If every deity made fundamental differences to the way the class worked, then you are balancing a whole new class for each deity. It’s similar with most classes (wizards, sorcerers, etc.); might not notice any difference between a necromancer and a transmuter in a given day from the class feature differences. I would propose to make a baseline Gygaxian cleric feel more deity-specific as follows: limit in-combat casting to Domain spells, with full spell list castable through 1-minute prayers. Which also gets away from the ‘dang, i forgot to be able to cure blindness today, maybe tomorrow’ issue clerics can have.
Arcane Trickster is basically a wizard with Sneak Attack dice. Eldritch Scoundrel is a rogue with 6th level casting; hard to compare. The argument that Arcane Trickster uses touch spells so BAB doesn’t matter isn’t strong; you can generally only hit with a spell once per turn, where at 8th level Scoundrel may be able to attack 5 times a turn. That’s a big difference when adding Sneak Attack damage. Unchained Scoundrel also gets +Dex to damage, Rogue’s Edge, and Debilitating Injury, which are nice.
PFS FAQ wrote:
not exactly the OP question, but it has drinking a potion as a standard action of the drinker independent of who is holding it. Also extrapolating, but it would appear bipedal familiars should also be able to use potions on themselves without help. I would expect that they could also administer them to you if you were unconscious. I don’t see support for providing potions to conscious characters without requiring action on part of the PC in rules or in reality.
I think you could play an Eldritch Scoundrel as an amateur wizard who tries to get by as much by his wits and plucky gumption as his limited casting abilities. But for the most part, PC classes tend to be good at something, and to be a novice mage generally a class to be good at something else such as weapons (e.g., Child of Aracna and Amaznen or maybe a magus) etc.
Paradox676 wrote:
to be able to wield weapons with either extra arms, the Aegis must have at least Extra Arms: Extra Arms wrote: The extra arms on the aegis’s astral suit gain improved functionality. The aegis gains a +2 circumstance bonus to Climb checks and CMD against grapple attempts for each extra arm that is not holding anything. In addition, one of the arms can wield and use a light or one-handed weapon, a shield, or any other item that can be used with one hand. Attacks made with this additional arm suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls in addition to any penalties for using two weapons. These extra arms do not grant any additional attacks, only alternate arms with which to make the standard attacks.And the standard penalty for Multi Weapon Fighting is -4 to each attack, not -2. Multi weapon fighting wrote:
reducing the -10 penalty by 6 leaves you with a -4, etc. It may be assumed that if all the offhands have light weapons, the penalty would be reduced as with Two Weapon Fighting, but i’m not sure if there is an actual rule for that and even if there was it wouldn’t apply, as these aren’t described as light weapon attacks.
He’s 15th level or higher? (BAB +15 prereq) If you are allowing 3rd party (most of this) and 3.5 (improved/greater multiweapon fighting), then i don’t see this as out of line with what you should expect. I would note that i think the attack penalties should be -4 on the mainhand and second hand and -6 on both Aegis arms.
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