Lightning Raven's page

Right. Where most examples of alignment to spirit conversions led to being more widely applicable, the champion errata being significantly less applicable. The eidolon errata got similar treatment. It's pretty obvious that whoever wrote the errata wasn't aligned with the general trend for spirit damage. (Pardon the pun, but aligned is the best word for this kind of internal inconsistentcy.)

I think it was the simplest 1:1 conversion without worrying about the future design of the class. It's probably going to see some changes when the Remaster Champion drops.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

I'm thinking we'll be seeing more spirit damage like we see in the champion errata.

Man, I really hope not. The champion errata spirit damage doesn't work like 90% of spirit damage in the remaster, and is worse than the old alignment damage was too. If Paizo actually prints that I'll be sorely disappointed.

Are you saying remaster spirit damage is a bad system or errata champion spirit damage in particular is bad?

Unlike normal Spirit damage, which was a buff for these kinds of spells because they work with any living (and adjacent) creature, the Champion's features that grant spirit damage only work against the same creature types it did as before and the Sanctified creatures, that are a bit different than before. If they had the LE/NE/CE Tag, you would gain the extra benefits against, now they need to be sanctified, which isn't a given anymore (although it's still expected against extraplanar beings).

I understand what they're trying to do, but why is it necessarily linked to an Archetype? It could have been a standard Way with its Feats added to the Gunslinger pool with the caveat that they require Spellcasting or something.

Instead I'm trapped in an archetype that is so thinly defined that I'm trapped in it until level 6 because I cannot possibly gain 2 feats in the archetype before then.

It feels like a really janky way to design something like this, and it plays hilariously poorly with the GMG's 'free archetype' rule.

From what one can see, even if the execution varies in degree, is that class Archetypes alter a fundamental way the class work. This is clearer, and more extreme, with the Flexible Spellcasting Archetype.

Personally, I think Paizo created them back then more to appease the fanbase, because they pretty much dropped the concept after those first few releases.

I think we can summarize them as "an archetype that alters a core basic mechanic of the class", like they usually did in PF1e.

I low-key wish to see some more of them now that Paizo has found their groove with PF2e's class design.

To me, despite being glass cannon due being Giant Barb, the best build is the busted Double Slice Giant Barb. It is pretty powerful damage wise, and you can leverage weapon trait to cover your basis with combat maneuvers.

Deriven, that's exactly why I mostly focused on the Feats of the class.

The base chassis and Instinct power level are, quite frankly, in a great spot, despite not being above criticism. However, the class, much like the monk, suffers a little bit from lackluster feats that makes the most interesting options being far more attractive, while the two darlings, Rogues and Fighters, don't have this issue at all while also having incredibly stacked basic chassis.

Ferious Thune wrote:

Now a reaction to negate a crit might be something worth considering.

Valuable when it fires.

It would be hard to use in practice as you have to leave a reaction spare in order to keep the option open.

In normal circumstances, yes. Against AP+3 or +4 fights, it would be your best reaction.

I maintain that if it makes it to core 2 with its current challenges, it should probably be uncommon.

The good thing is that it's almost a guarantee it will changed, it was one of the most mentioned things on the thread one of Paizo's staff made about Anathemas that required an once over. Superstitious Barbarian has been a point of contention ever since the original playtest.

Which was no surprise it didn't make the final release. And it was a complete surprise when its anathema was released largely unchanged later on.

exequiel759 wrote:

Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.

The Superstition Instinct has a strong Anathema balanced by better features. So if you remove the Anathema it's no more balanced with other Instincts.

Also, I think the Anathema is important to the concept of the Superstition Instinct, so I don't think removing it is a solution. I also think the Anathema is not as bad as everyone make it sound. I play a Superstition Instinct and it's rarely a problem (outside Bards). The only real issue is the second part of the Anathema which is unclear and can lead to very different GM adjudications.

Maybe it's just my lack of practical experience with Superstition Instinct, but I really don't think it's as strong as it should be given its massive constraints. The spell resistance at level 7 is certainly decent, though.

Also, as a repeat of my previous arguments, I think we should drop the concept of superstitious altogether and focus more on the anti-mage niche it is trying to occupy. The whole thing has an incredibly shaky conceptual foundation, I really don't think we should be asking Paizo to fix it, but to rework it altogether.

What would be some better first level feats for barb actually?

1st Level:

1. Sudden Charge - Good as is, but ignoring the first 5ft of difficult terrain (better than the Fighter's, who has a more stacked chassis).
2. Raging Thrower - Current benefits plus Quick Draw for Thrown Weapons only.
3. Draconic Arrogance- Current Benefits plus Flavor bonus (damage or social skills) against Dragon trait.
4. Moment of Clarity - Current Benefits but gives bonuses against Mental/Emotion Effects.
5. Raging Intimidation - Reworked to give plus Rage+Demoralize. At this point, I think Intimidating Glare should either be a free feat for Barbs or baked into Rage itself. Regardless, Demoralize while raging should not be a tax.

I also think that at 2nd, we could have something like:

1. Shake it Off - The amalgamation of the current Shake it off plus Second Wind.
2. No Escape - As is.
3. Furious Finish - You decide after you hit. Or it's a Reroll taking the best result.
4. Adrenaline Rush - Current Bonuses plus Fast Movement.

All around buffs? Yes. Do they increase the raw power of the class? No by much. Each feat feels like a better choice? Let me know, because to me, they all seem juicy.

Since design decisions because of tradition have been mentioned a couple of times on this post already, why do you think Paizo made the conscious decision to now allow barbarians to demoralize unless they take a feat for it? PF1e barbarians were explicitly allowed to still be able to intimidate while raging, and I believe D&D 3.5's ones were as well, so it feels really weird that a literal angry dude running around to hack things down somehow isn't able to be intimidating. Was that an oversight or they made it on purpose just to create room to have feats to solve it?

More likely an oversight from the staggering amount of work that needed to be done between the playtest and actual launch. Even if with this annoying issue, Barbarians are largely great as a class. Flavorful, strong and enable multiple types of characters (even if the main focus is high damage dealer).

Back then, things were in flux quite a lot, the devs were still finding their bearings with this new system (that's quite a jump from PF1e) and Paizo likes their taxes more than the IRS sometimes.

You can see the difference in design paradigm between classes from the APG that were incredibly undertuned, had issues with action economy that only became more apparent with time (once players and devs got more familiarized with the ins and outs of the game) and the design of classes like Thaumaturge, Kineticist and the upcoming Animist (easily the strongest class ever released in its playtest form and incredibly flavorful as well).

Gortle wrote:

Ferious Thune wrote:

The whole point is to fix Cleave and make it competitive so there is a choice.

Yes, but I don’t think Cleave as a reaction was the right direction for it in the first place. So, I’m not sure how to fix that. Unless it’s just anytime you hit, you can use a reaction to strike another opponent within reach, it’s going to fall short of Reactive Strike (and Opportune Backstab that Rogue gets, and Retributive Strike from Paladin). Reactions that require such a limited specific circunstance to trigger just aren’t going to compete.

Vengeful Strike is more comparable to those other reactions, and more thematic to a Barbaian (at least when the class is taking AC penalties and is essentially the get hit but deal big damage class), but for some reason they chose to make it 8 levels higher and require a prerequisite.

I think the only way for Cleave to remain a reaction is to give it a lot more power. Maybe an half movement stride+strike on another target, basically splitting a dude in half (or batting them away like a baseball) and instantly wrecking another into another foe. That would be really cool.

Currently, I think it's too restrictive. If it must remain with its current restrictions, might as well make it a free action.

As always, my suggestions always focus on breath of options and action economy so, here it goes:

Getting the obvious out of the way, Intimidation while raging shouldn't require a feat tax. In fact, Raging Intimidation is the perfect opportunity to ease in some action economy early on for them. Which I suggest that it should remove the free Scare to Death at higher levels in favor of being Rage+Demoralize.

More special attacks (like fighters) from early on, preferably that are strong but tied to instinct, should be a good design direction as well. I feel like that are way too few feats that interact with them. For example, Giant Instinct could have an AOE-type attack that requires Reflex Save rather than the usual Sweep (and the beyond awful Cleave, in fact, Cleave should potentially be reworked to work this way). Assuming there are several feats that work like that, this opens a niche for Fury Instinct to have access to them all.

For Animal Instinct, I think each weapon type should work as a Monk Stance (Good weapon + benefit), even if the cost is having less options. Another thing, which is just a baseless opinion ant taste preference, is that I don't like the fact this instinct heavily implies body transmutation (sorry, but I don't want my Deer Barbarian to be mindlessly headbutting people all the time). On the other hand, the transmutation feats for this Instinct are god awful and a waste of space, tbh. They need major rework.

Spirit Barbarians should borrow some of Animist flavor to it. Maybe a good place to enable Finesse or Ranged Barbarians (the spirit embodies the Barb and guide their rage filled strikes or some such).

Fury should gain a meaningful Rage ability, since Anathema are nowhere near as punishing or a drawback as Paizo, presumably thought at the time. The extra feat will only be good if there are stronger level 1 options, which might preclude a stronger Instinct ability, though.

Superstition Instinct should, frankly, be dropped entirely as a concept. It has an awful party-disrupting anathema (even if PF2e allows it to work better than PF1e), the Rage benefits nowhere near offset the penalties, and the whole concept is ill conceived. If you're a superstitious kind of Barbarian, it stands to reason you will fall even for party tricks that look like magic, that's what superstitious people are basically known for, believing on supernatural things people say are true. Skeptical Barbarians or Anti-Mage Barbarians, on the other hand, offer much better conceptual foundations for an instinct that accomplishes the intended purpose Superstitious clearly was going for.

Here's an easy anathema that could fit both concepts I suggested: You cannot cast spells yourself, you don't have enough belief/faith to conjure spells (skeptical) and the hypocrisy prevents you to do so (Anti-Mage).

This is just a rough idea, though. I do love the niche superstitious barbarian was trying to fill, I actually had one in PF1e when it was easier to play, but its current implementation isn't accomplishing it at all.

Perpdepog wrote:

Causing an enemy to take a -1 to hit feels like a candidate for a feat to me. I do like the idea of extra damage quite a lot; that's something that IIRC classes don't hand each other as often outside of spells.

-1 to hit feels more like Don't Get'us than Get'em. I also like the extra damage idea, I can see Get'em meaning hit them harder. Damage might be easier to use and avoid stacking issues?

My idea is that when there's a ton of people focus-firing on you, you either don't fight back or do it poorly because of the precaution. Also, as a guaranteed penalty, it would be good against higher leveled enemies, because these types of fights can be incredibly frustrating because even if you try to be clever or use a debuff to help your team, you still have a low chance of success.

I would, however, make the -2 at least a possibility. Maybe even a spread for basic saving throw of 0/-1/-2/-3 for crit success -> crit fail.

Just throwing this out there, but I didn't check if it already has been suggested:

Pivoting Get'em to a circumstance bonus to damage for the teammates and a attack penalty for the target (since they're being focused on, it's kinda hard to shoot back).

Basically, a +2 damage per weapon dmg dice (or whatever numhber) as and offensive benefit and the enemy takes a -2 circumstance penalties to all their attacks until the focus fire stops (A.K.A. the Envoy stops using Get'em). This would be quite a decent ability all around AND it would be nice against PL+3 and PL+4 enemies (and perfect targets for a focus fire playstyle).

Let the hit chance and AC penalties happen through other avenues.

As someone who played the Envoy way back then and had a lot of issues with the class, I'm pretty happy with the direction they have taken the class. This is exactly what I was picturing of an Envoy could and should be.

These new improved playstyles and PF2e's action economy, the class seems to be in a much healthier place (gameplay-wise) than it has ever been, despite being a first draft. The Chassis of the class being stronger is certainly a good bet, since with strong foundations, more types of characters can be made.

I do, however, have a suggestion: Give the Leadership Perks more impactful abilities.

So far, only the "From The Front" leadership style has a good enough mechanic to support the intended playstyle. Armor progression is rare and hard to get in a PF2e-style game (unless they plan on changing that, which is unlikely given how it impacts the core math).

From The Shadows should be better at stealth. Either Full Movement while sneaking from the get go or a roster of abilities like not breaking Stealth when issuing commands (even loud ones), extra mobility while Sneaking and ways to leverage weird types of situations (a big explosion, shower of sparks or something similar).

Guns Blazing, obviously, should enable a guns blazing playstyle, thus it should engage more with Suppressed or maybe even reduced MAP on select weapon groups.

From the Spotlight should gain a special action akin to Spectacle Improv and maybe some extra defenses (AC bonus) or a reaction for survivability.

Hotshot is the hardest one to think of something in combat, but I think the intention is being a Squadron Leader, thus I think it could be something incredibly good but situational like enhancing an Ally's action economy in a situation. Or maybe just "downsizing" their piloting skills from a big ship to a small drone.

For Infosphere Director, I think there's a good opportunity to have a dual playstyle of intimidating by scavenging the target's life only (good against sentient creatures) and the current diversion through computers but improved somewhat (applying dazzled, for example).

Through Desperate Times should gain Battle Medicine, which is already pretty good, but it definitely should be more than just the baseline skill feat (which is easily accessible by every character. This doesn't make good character choices).

As a side note, the Barbarian could also ask to not use all his Strength modifier on damage. After all, what prevents you from doing 1 point of damage only?

Honestly, Barbarian is the only class that such a thing wouldn't fly on my table.

It would have to be a very specific flavor of Barbarian for me to allow this. Otherwise, Barbarians wouldn't normally have the wherewithal to pull their punches while at the same time being into a frenzied rage that confers them superpowers.

Otherwise, as bad as it is, Moment of Clarity would be an actual dead feat.

Nothing explicit that I could find, but I think it's safe to assume that you do need to read it. Otherwise, calling these things scrolls is just meaningless, which I don't think is the world building intention.

The whole point of the Vancian System is that you fire and forget stuff. The scroll will be the thing with the knowledge and power to cast spell.

The spell being "Darkvision" just make it ironic, rather than helpful, I'm afraid.

If you didn't need to read it, then it would just lead us to a rabbit hole of madness, that would end up with players only needing to have it in their body, which means no need to draw it.

New Monk Stances. More Monk Ki Spells.

All the weeb stuff for characters would be welcome.

If you stun yourself at the end of your turn you're screwed but at the start you could simply pay it off and continue...If I am reading thsi right from people.

The basic assumption is that if you are stunned on your turn, it's because you already spent an action before.

However, the Psychic's feature that stuns them works just fine, because it's written to be just an Action cost at the start of their turn.

My take about you being screwed is only on those situations where you get whacked by a Flurry of Blows, or similar effect, on your own turn and get unlucky.

To me, it's simple. When you're stunned 1, you can't act until you get to your turn and pay the action. If it happens during your turn own, you are screwed.
The "You Can't Act" portion is one of the reasons, IMO, why it doesn't last as long as most Slow effects and it often has the Incapacitation trait.

As a side note, do you think spirit instinct is going to deal spirit damage or void/vitality in the remaster? It currently deals negative/positive damage so the most common conversion would be void/vitality, but since its called spirit instinct...

In the case they went for the spirit damage route, I don't think they would get a choice to sanctify themselves though (probably with a feat? I think the exemplar was like that in the playtest, though its not like it would be that OP for them to sanctify or anything).

Hopefully Spirit Damage with options for Sanctification. It needs some glow up on its feats as well, even though they're already quite cool. Maybe taking a page out of Animists would be a good route for higher level feats.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

As a Superstition Barbarian player, I'm fine with a revisitation of the mechanical aspect of the Instinct, and I don't care about the flavor aspect (as this is something the player chooses so I don't have to change anything) but seeing the whole concept of "mage slayer" dropped out of the game would really annoy me.

The Superstition Instinct is the only one to cover that (extremely basic in my opinion) concept. Mage slayers and witch hunters are a common fantasy and having no mechanical aspect covering it besides "high saves and high knowledge skills" would be sad.

That's exactly what I mean. Keep the Mage Slayer concept, ditch the Superstition angle.

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

90% the same but maybe they just inexplicably make Superstition worse for some reason because Paizo likes to occasionally throw a curveball and nerf something nobody even thought was good.

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

At this point, I think we should just have a FAQ/Errata about "Stunned on your own turn".

This is something that isn't really a viable, or reliable, tactic, but can be easily replicated with Stunning Fist. So it seems like a clear and concise official address is necessary.

I'm in the camp that Stunned 1 is not Slowed 1, but I would like to see some clarification on that.

Don't agree , after reading Page 279 core rules

Counting Damage Dice
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.

Effect being Power Attack..

So , +1 Striking Greatsword at 1st level would do 4D12..

Which seems fare since you took 2 Actions to attack and MAP is -10 on your second swing

This has to be probably the first, if not one of the first, rules discussion of PF2e. Way, way back then in the playtest. It has been solidly clarified and there is zero room for doubt:

Power Attack only ads the listed dice and nothing more. You weapon die is "1dX", the fundamental runes multiple that, Power attack adds the listed dice 1->2->3, regardless of your fundamental runes.

Here's what I want and I will honestly be pissed if it isn't changed:

Let Barbarians use Demoralize without Raging Intimidation.

That's it. The fact that this persisted and is barely talked about is because the class is really good overall (one of my favorites).

The new Rage Intimidation could be simply free Intimidating Glare and/or Intimidating Prowess and/or Scare to Death.

Maybe just remove the monk trait from weapons altogether.

Make flurry only useable while in a monk stance first and then provide each stance with weapons useable with that stance. You become trained in any weapons useable in that stance along with the unarmed attack it provides.
I am feeling pretty strong on this splitting up weapons into stances thing. This way you never have a monk using a weapon that was not balanced for a stance or flurry of blows but you can remove the monk trait from weapons entirely. It does mean all monks will have an action tax to get into a stance before they can actually flurry.

That would be a perfect niche for a Warrior Poet adaptation to PF2e.

Something like: "Graceful Warrior Stance" (the name of the feature in PF1e that gives finesse to glaives and similar weapons). Or maybe a new, more flavorful name like "Chrysanthemum Stance" (the name of a flourish/talent).

I would love to play that type of character now that my group doesn't play PF1e anymore.

25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

I also understand the point about "high level feat pool problem". In general Ki Monk have a good selection of high level feats but the same could be said about Stances. Basically we have a selection of vertical power improvement feats to improve some stances and thats it. Things like Master of Many Styles is just a free-action beginning of the turn stance with misleading name, in practice you still locked to not change stances more than once per round what's limits this too much, also Fuse Stance is level 20 basically making any idea of invest into 2 different stances only useful in the very end of some games.

I think Fuse Stance should be a lower level feat[12, 14 or 16], while a reworked Master of Many Style could work as a Capstone. But instead of Switching stance at the top of the round, they can do it after doing one action. If you have Fuse Stance, you get to pick two at a time or some stuff like that.

The feats should also grant a Stance Feat as a bonus. Even if gated to a Level 1 Stance Feat.

not sure how paizo plan to fix monk

make fob only count as one map might work

still wouldn't fix the high level feat pool problem

Fix implies it's broken somehow, which isn't. The class is great and this thread is pretty much just finding ways to further refine the class and touch up some of its less good aspects.

Even FoB being accessible at level 10 is pretty much just a non-issue for the Monk itself. No one will even stop playing a Monk in favor of another martial class with FoB. It's just weird that its whole shtick is easily accessible,when others are not, that's all.

Just saying this to keep things clear.

Trip needs to be a viable optional combat tactic that is useful sometimes instead of Strike. There are a lot of people who never bother with it - they just flank instead.

I think it is about right.

Trip definitely is viable. As a baseline, disregarding party composition and enemy numbers. It is a 1 for 1, at least, since enemies won't have Kip Up.

Now, considering party composition and enemy type, it can be your best choice over strike, in lots of circumstances. Parties with multiple Reactive Strikes (and similar) reactions, teammates that normally don't benefit from flanking (Ranged options and spells) and all the player options that take advantage of the off-guard condition.

Against single or a small number of strong enemies, Trip as your first action might be your best option if your teammates are in a position to attack before the enemy's turn (delay might be great tactic for that). Since you might not be attacking at 0 MAP to use TRIP, but you will be helping everyone else on the turn, regardless of flanking (having fought a Gelugon as a boss encounter, this has never been more apparent for me, they're nasty as bosses).

I don't think removing FoB from the archetype is really a workable solution, since the rules that let you get it with the archetype still exist and are valid at a lot of tables. Plus you can get things like Stumbling Feint from the Martial Artist archetype that does absolutely nothing without FoB.

The better solution is to simply upgrade the Monk's FoB at the level other people are getting the level 1 version. Like the Monk's big weakness is damage, so how cool would being able to ignore MAP with FoB at high levels be?

Yeah, the Monk having an upgrade at level 10 is more preferable than simply removing FoB from the Archetype and cutting down a bunch of high level builds.

These are some of my wishes for the class:

Some mobility feats should be merged/improved.

More feats that Encourage Stance Switching (Strike+Switch is an obvious route). Failing that, Stance Savant should be a class Feature. Fuse Stance should come earlier.

Deadly Strikes should be a much lower level feat or a class feature. Golden Body should be a Common Capstone Feat, even if it must be slightly nerfed.

The Elemental Ki feats feel like taxes, the Feat Line should be reworked to do more than just altering elements on Ki Strike.

The class should have a few more feats focusing on combat prowess, right now, they lean towards mobility a bit too much.

A Monk's Flurry of Blows should improve at higher levels. Like a Flurry Ranger and many other class' main shtick improves. Doesn't make sense that the core element of the class can be easily accessible in full, while the design for other class' archetypes normally offer limited versions.

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

How are bards Overpowered?

Full caster spellcasting plus a significant persistent low-effort nearly party-wide buff on top of that, and 8 base hp.

Admittedly, they are party-dependent. A bard does much better in a party that's already heavy on the martials. Given a party like that, though....

I note here that I'm speaking in context of PF2. If we were talking about 3.x's idea of "overpowered" then there's nothing in the game that qualifies. You asked for most overpowered, though, which puts it into a PF2 context. In that context? Bards.

The good thing about their strength is that it lies in supporting the teammates and its power also requires some system expertise, since they still rely on spells, with all its drawbacks and strengths.

We shouldn't forget that they have some major issues with target Saving Throws, leaning really heavily towards Will and sense dependent stuff, all the while lacking in one of the strongest uses for spells. Battlefield control.

Assuming none of the intermediary steps, I calculated 75 gallons in an hour.

1 pint per casting, 10 castings per minute, 60 minutes per hour = 10 x 6 = 600 pints = 75 gallons / hour, at best

Do that with your morning preparations, and there should rarely ever be a need for additional drinking water aboard a ship.

That would be a good moment to apply the concentration fatigue rule. Like casting frequently other spells like Detect Magic, you would be doing basically the same with Draw Moisture.

I've never understood the "you must be handing out your items" crowd.

I have no objections to handing out a few things. It can be very effective, depending on your team. I have fond memories of how much a +2 Dex Sorcerer enjoyed Drakeheart one game. But there are limits. There are only so many Batches in a day, you know?

I mean, if you want to play Toxicologist and poison every piercing/slashing weapon before every fight, go for it! If that works for you, fantastic. If 4 weapon strikes are poisoned, two of them should get to Stage 1. Awesome!

However, if you're playing a Bomber in the lower levels, well, go ahead and load up on Bombs and Quicksilver. You're going to do respectable damage and have fun in the process. Helping out other folks can come later.

Best Research Field for playing with the toolkit, including helping out folks, is Mutagenist in my opinion. Only need 1 Batch/three doses of your Combat Mutatagen to get through the day, really (Mutagenic Flashback can be Encounter #4) and that leaves a lot of room to experiment. A 1st level Mutagenist can easily have 6 Batches of Infused Reagents a day, and only have the use of 1 set in stone (Int +4 & Alchemical Familiar.)

I just mentioned the playstyle because that's what every single person I've seen claiming the alchemist was "fine as is" used as an argument why they were doing fine with the class and why others "didn't know how to play it properly". Missing completely the point that it's not about "knowing" (as if just making a list of useful items is that hard) how to play the class "properly", it's about the class being able to realize multiple character concepts mechanically and with the flavor players want. Like every single class in the game. Do other classes enable every flavor possible? No, but they do offer many concepts within their niche.

Overall, being truthful, I think the class feats and research fields could remain largely as they are right now and the class would be good as long as it hard a jacked up chassis like Fighters and Rogues have. Give it good proficiency, auto-scaling in Crafting, more class features (I can't see why we need Far Lobber or Alchemical Savant, for example, as class options), extra feats and a unique quick draw action and this would go a long way in offsetting the lack of flavorful and mechanically impactful feats.

So, my question is, do people want the alchemist to be a martial? Because thinking critically about what the class gives and does not give, I do not think that is the intended role of the alchemist's design (please note, this is purely my opinion and conjecture, not a definitive statement).

To me, the main thing is that it needs to pick a lane. It's either low impact, highly efficient action economy with the current paradigm of "Strike+" on bombs and other class enhancements, like martial classes with their low impact but at will abilities and action efficiency. Or they can go with high impact per actions spent, which is the way spells work, specially at mid to high levels.

Right now, Alchemists sit somewhere in the middle. However, they are not action efficient at all. Their gimmick is not unique. Their feats are not mechanically interesting, flavorful or inspiring in the least.

Everybody can say what they want about Swashbucklers, Witches (old ones), Oracles and Investigators, the classes that suffered the most from over-conservative design of early PF2e, about their weak mechanical state and flaws, but you can't deny that each of them have strong identities, flavorful feats (except old Witch) and they can have their moments to shine.

Alchemists on the other hand? They're item dispensers. Regardless of your character concept. If you're not crafting a bunch of items and giving them to your teammates and begging them to spend their precious items to use, you're not using the alchemist right*. That's a major issue in my eyes.

*According to most alchemist fans that still keep defending the class despite multiple errata showing they've never been in a good spot.

Well, let me cut right to the chase:

This was a character building and concept problem. All the issues will stem from that, I'm afraid.

You don't need to build something you don't want in order to fit a campaign, but you do need to take into account what you will likely face and the themes. Thinking about what kind of character would get tangled up with the kind of campaign the GM is running is basically step 0 of character creation.

For feasible changes:

Retrain your racket and feats. Thief for DEX to damage will be the most effortless way of doing more damage and you will only need to be flanking. You can go for Ruffian Racket to have more weapon options and different flavor.

As a Sneak Attack set up, your primary method is Flanking. Followed by Grapple/Trip (ideally performed by teammates). Then, taking advantage of darkness/cover (which is highly situational and enemy dependent). Lastly, Feint is good, but as you pointed out, it's limited (albeit not as much as your experience would lead you to believe).

Overall, understand that Rogues are skill monkeys that are far more competent in combat than they should be, imo. They deal a lot of damage, have good action economy and cool feats (and intense skill feat support). However, they won't compare with damage oriented classes, because Rogues already have a s+#% ton of skills and a stacked chassis to boot (class features, good saving throws, good proficiency, etc).

Overall, I quite like the playstyle the Swashbuckler was designed to do. The Panache/Finisher playstyle is quite interesting, it has a unusual cadence to it that seems more in line with a Magus (albeit with less burst) and their Spellstrike.

However, I think the class had some issues that no one really thought about when it was playtested and released, issues that only really became apparent with time (and more interesting classes released). Not only that, but it was released in the same batch of the weakest classes in the game, which definitely made it look better than it actually was. The issues of Panache generation, specially against bosses, the mandatory (highly encouraged at least) skill increases and the feast or famine playstyle that had a lot of famine for a very conservative feast really became apparent.

Personally, I don't think a complete overhaul is needed, but some core changes to the way Panache works must be made. Personally, I think it could be a Stance Swashbucklers can enter that can be spent on Finishers, while class paths and feats change the focus from generating Panache to keeping it in various ways.

On the topic of finishers, I think they need to do more. A whole lot more, assuming the current class stays largely the same (as it has been the case so far, even with the Warpriest). So, if they keep the scope similar to what we've seen until now, they need to do a major pass on the Finisher Feats. All of them.

They need to be more than just a Basic Strike+. They need to break the action economy, stretch the mobility limits, be incredibly sweeping in strength. In short, they need to be more like Dante and Virgil from Devil May Cry and less like Zorro (even though I love Zorro). They need to be flashy and feel like special attacks, giving the class fluidity and more incentives to spend Panache.

Also, I don't think the class would be broken if it also had Dex to Damage. Thief Rogues have a lot more going on for them than just that and they have nearly effortless extra damage with Sneak Attack, so I don't think Swashbucklers having the same benefit would completely step on the recently buffed Rogue's toes.

Guntermench wrote:

and at no point did I feel like I didn't contribute.

That feels like a really low bar though.

Yeah, even current Alchemists clear that one, even if barely.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Cyder wrote:

Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.

Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down

Duelist for Quick Draw and more options as a one-handed combatant.

Quick Draw isn't really needed for a thaumaturge because of Second Implement at 5th: "While you're holding an implement in one hand, you can quickly switch it with another implement you're wearing to use an action from the implement you're switching to. To do so, you can Interact as a free action immediately before executing the implement's action. This allows you to meet requirements of having an implement in hand to use its action."

That's good. But what if none of your implements is a weapon? I have some Chalice/Amulet builds that could use action-economy enhancements. Drawing ranged weapons can be useful as well.

Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.

Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down

Duelist for Quick Draw and more options as a one-handed combatant.

Exorcist for Haunt flavor and a decent reaction.

Harrower, for early morning all-day boons. It's from AP, but it adds an interesting dynamic to a character.

Pactbinder is also a great way to add flavor to the Thaumaturge (its features were originally theirs).

Other feats that might be helpful from a pragmatic standpoint are Sniping Duo and Scout.

I'm a little conflicted on that one. Diverse Lore is very, very strong for a lore feat, kind of out of whack with other options.

But at the same time, RK is a sometimes frustrating activity and a good way for me as a GM to deliver information to the player.

It can't break anything and makes my player who enjoys playing knowledge specialists actually feel good about it in a way most other PF2 options struggle to do.

If anything, all other Recall Knowledge feats should be buffed.

Am I blind or I'm seeing a very obvious plural on the text?

Make ranged impulse attack rolls against up to three creatures within 60 feet of you;

Three attacks, against 1, 2 or 3 targets. No mystery.

Unlike Magic Missile, this is not autohit, it does physical damage, which is easier to resist and you do not combine them for the purposes of resistances and weaknesses. It's also a three actions overflow.

Seems decently balanced to me.

In PF2E Paizo decided to lean into the concept of Failing Forward with success effects on spells and some abilities that have effects on a failure.

In PF2RE they have apparently decided that Succeeding Backward should also be a thing.

I'll probably allow my players to set a DC and only mess with their "success" on a failure at my table.

Or maybe they just took the concept of "failing forward" a little too far, huh?

Would switching from "Equal to you check result" to the phrase "Up to your check result" be enough to remove unintended situations?

After reading it, it definitely felt like an "almost done" class.

Nothing problematic jumped out from the get go, which it did with other classes. Both the Animist and The Exemplar had no glaring issues with their action economy.

Maybe it's because the class is more complex, I don't know. I just feel like it is pretty great already and, much like with the Swashbuckler, it just needs to iron some things out and refine the class.

Calliope5431 wrote:

You can't tell me that all of those classes are more "thematically appropriate" for Will saves than the wizard, witch, and sorcerer. The wizard's Will save progression should not be as good as the fighter's from levels 3-16.

IDK 'uniquely iron will' is a trope commonly associated with martial characters in fiction. Spellcasters and spellcaster adjacent characters are the subject of a lot of temptation stories too. There's nothing about the wizard or witch that really links to willpower at all except that it was their good save in 3.5/PF1.

Harry Dresden, my favorite wizard by far, would start with Legendary at level 1 for sure.

A lot of spellcasting involves imposing one's will upon the world, I think it wouldn't be crazy giving all spellcasters better progression than other characters on this aspect.

Starship-related themes/archetypes should be tied to a character progression that happens besides normal class progression, so that every type of character can perform their roles properly in any kind of starship combat they come up with in SF2e.

This will help to avoid the current situation of some classes being awkward in that subsystem, while others perform well. Also, one of the worst aspects, is having to dedicate precious combat/roleplay resources in order to not be dead weight.

The archetype changes is one of the aspects I'm looking forward the most in SF2e, since it's one of the worst systems of SF1e while it's an amazing system in PF2e. The difference is staggering and I hope that SF2e manages to reach the same level of customization, flavor and mechanical impact of PF2e. Which will be further improved by PF2e's Free Archetype Rules.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Dubious Scholar wrote:

Ahaha. Murksight is still incredibly bad for a level 8 feat, it's entirely unchanged

Seriously, why?

Yeah it's already being printed. I suggest not playing it if you don't like it. I do that a lot. For instance, with half the cleric domains in the game. Or any ancestry besides human. Or the entire investigator class.

But yes, murksight is garbage.

I'll never understand Paizo's hard on for keeping these kinds of sight-based feats locked behind a "natural" clause. These abilities would've been far more attractive (including Storm Druid's) if they either enabled seeing through spell effects or granted a benefit against them on top of their current benefits.

Storm born works on spells. Same with ancestral options, like Cloud gazer. Its just Murksight that's weird and bad.

Relevant quote from Storm Born:

You do not take circumstance penalties to ranged spell attacks or Perception checks caused by weather, and your targeted spells don’t require a flat check to succeed against a target concealed by weather (such as fog).

I have always interpreted the "Weather" reference to mean natural effects (like natural fog from environment). Otherwise, it would've called out magical effects. It is only written more ambiguously than Murksight, but I think Paizo wouldn't give this benefit to a level 1 feat compared to Murksight, something they evaluated (for whatever reason) to be worth of an 8th level feat.

Sadly, I think I'm on the right on this one, although I hope I'm not.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

Ahaha. Murksight is still incredibly bad for a level 8 feat, it's entirely unchanged

Seriously, why?

Yeah it's already being printed. I suggest not playing it if you don't like it. I do that a lot. For instance, with half the cleric domains in the game. Or any ancestry besides human. Or the entire investigator class.

But yes, murksight is garbage.

I'll never understand Paizo's hard on for keeping these kinds of sight-based feats locked behind a "natural" clause. These abilities would've been far more attractive (including Storm Druid's) if they either enabled seeing through spell effects or granted a benefit against them on top of their current benefits.