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I'd like to reiterate the request for Exemplar's Energized Spark feat to grant acid damage as one of the available damage types, especially since it was available for the similar feature present during the Exemplar's playtest form
(I also think it should be added to the Dragon classification of deviant feats, but that's been remastered recently and I don't believe the change was made.)

What are the draconic pacts like, and what sort of stuff do they give you? I'm imagining they're related to Pactbinder, but it'd be interesting if they were a separate system instead.

In general I think the balance for the Animist is decent, though I think it's probably one of the stronger classes.

I think its day-to-day/in-combat versatility is not to be ignored, but I also think that some of that analysis somewhat ignores the presence of the rest of the party(that is to say, most other characters in the party will have much more permanently determined abilities, and as such an Animist may theoretically be quite versatile, but will still likely settle into a role to some degree). For example, a party with an Animist and which otherwise has poor access to out-of-combat healing is likely to have their animist almost always have the Custodian of Groves and Gardens attuned, and an Animist in a party with a Bard or a caster who can easily hand out castings of Heroism and other sources of status bonuses might be less interested in attuning to the Witness to Ancient Battles. Additionally, the Animist does still have to permanently select their attributes and make item purchasing decisions, so they do still specialize in that respect(meaning that an Animist will likely struggle to use their various granted Lore skills And melee weaponry And Thievery from the Crafter in the Vault, etc)

I do also sympathize with concerns of outshining others in their specialty, though I'll admit that I do think to some degree that could also be a concern better solved with interpersonal communication than a change in mechanics(though in turn, that can be difficult in situations where you might not know other players very well, like PFS or conventions).

Lastly, I definitely agree with the people who consider the Liturgist practice to be overly strong, and I think as-is Dancing Invocation is too exploitable and leads to a lot of the broken Animist shenanigans one hears about, since there's many ways to combine a Step(or occasionally a Leap or Tumble Through) with another action, and thus get your free Sustain action from Dancing Invocation as part of even more action compression, when it likely wasn't intended while the original ability was being designed. I think if it granted you the movement action whenever you Sustained a spell, or was a bespoke "X movement plus Sustain a vessel spell" action, it'd probably be a bit more manageable, if still a very strong feature.

Honestly, given that they're called schools and not 'innate mental understanding', I think Wizards thematically can get their own version of multifarious muse/order explorer - a second level feat to add the school spells of another school to theirs, and a fourth level feat to get their basic focus spell. If one school can't cover what theme you're looking for, maybe two or three can! You'd need some kind of cutout for class archetype schools and school refusers but it should be doable, I think.

This would also mean wizards could genuinely get really narrow schools like school of lightning - right now I think because whatever school you are commits 1/4th of your spell slots and all your focus spells to the theme, they end up picking broad, unsuited themes which I've complained about already. If every wizard can just go to school again (and really, why shouldn't they?) then 'staff of fire but a school' is now perfectly printable.

I quite like this idea, especially since it allows Wizards to get 3 Focus Spells/Points without archetyping. I think Wizards would also benefit from universal Focus Spells that aren't tied to a subclass. Perhaps they'd be things like particularly strong Spellshapes or weaker Spellshapes that are free actions, like with the Bard(although obviously different in nature).

as far as other feats, non-spell actions like Spell Protection Array could be useful to add. I could see something like a Spell Magnification Array that adds damage and/or a DC/attack roll bonus for creatures in the area, which could facilitate the blaster playstyle a lot of people want at the cost of mobility.

Also related to the blaster/themed Wizard issue, I think there could be more spells in various themes(especially cantrips) that target different defenses, even if they have to be a little contrived. For example, there's just Ignition for fire cantrips right now, but if there were Flame Orb or something that targets Reflex and sets a square on fire, and Scorch or something, which targets Fortitude and has Caustic Blast-style scaling, but also inflicts persistent fire damage, a fire-themed caster would be much easier to make even at lower levels. That said, that notion is harder to apply to Will saves, and isn't entirely a Wizard-exclusive concept.

Regarding inventing spells, I'd really hate for any such subsystem to be unique to Wizards, since it'd presumably be quite an expansive amount of rules and roleplay concepts restricted to a small sector of characters, and it also just doesn't seem like it makes sense for only Wizards to be inventing spells, either, at least to me.

Lastly, I think that if the curriculum spells stay in their current form, another handy tool would be a feat or feature that lets you add to that list with no regard to theme beyond the spell being in your book, to represent spells that you know from field practice.

If I recall correctly, some people had pointed out that the Swarmkeeper is quite suited to the enhanced action economy of the Summoner, since you can get two actions from your Eidolon and then spend your two actions on Swarmkeeper activities, and to me it seems the Necrologist is the same.
With the addition of the Swarm Eidolon, they even both have a perfectly thematic Eidolon to pick! My only concern is that the horde and Eidolon are both ways to lose HP, so you'll want lots of ways to regain health during a fight.

Insofar as other classes, I think the Monk's enhanced action economy helps them a lot too, especially since your horde is fairly effective at applying off-guard iirc, meaning they're going to potentially be decent for softening up a target's AC before you use your Flurry on them(although you'd need to use an archetype to get spell slots and Summon Undead first, so that's probably best for a free archetype game).

I do also agree about Bard being a solid pick, especially once you're able to use Dirge of Doom to lower your foes' saves and then attack with your horde.

For the "Shields Up!" Commander tactic, the Special text should probably be reworded so that it allows for characters to use spells such as Glass Shield, rather than just Shield

I'd really like to see an Animal/Beast Domain for the cleric, it's probably one of the few remaining obvious empty spaces in the cleric domain list that come to mind for me.
I imagine the spells could be something that grants a natural unarmed attack(maybe with bonus benefits if you already have the same kind(i.e. doubling up on horns attacks) or if your deity has that natural weapon as one of their favored weapons), and then maybe a standard animal feature buff and/or debuff, or perhaps even a summoning focus spell limited to animals and beasts.

Incidentally, a summon or incarnate focus spell would be a neat addition to the summoner, though I'm not certain about the balance of it.

Lastly, I think it could be interesting to make a "Monoelementalist" class archetype for casters, which could have them pick a kineticist gate(with no option to get another element) and get automatic Elemental Blast scaling and improved access to impulse feats/improved attack bonus/save DC scaling, plus assorted other benefits suited to casting spells of their chosen element(maybe the classic archetype spell slot feats with improved/faster scaling at the cost of only being able to be used for spells of their element?) I imagine there'd also need to be features related to making their spells and impulses gel together a bit better mechanically.

A sage-type class that's a more chill version of the commander. Fewer tactics in exchange for brewing alchemical tea and being wisdom-based.

Apologies if I'm missing something, but what is the specific appeal if this theoretical class/class archetype, and what would it do that couldn't be done by a Commander that takes the Alchemist or Wandering Chef Archetypes and heavily boosts Wisdom?

I would really like to see some more impulses, especially utility ones or ones that affect downtime.

I think as far as anything actually necessary, I'd say Earth could really use a lowest-level damage impulse for aerial foes(maybe something like a burst of rock spikes? just to vary the damage types up from being all bludgeoning)

for things I'd really want to see:
- some sort of Air impulse that creates an enduring storm-like effect(personally, Storm Spiral being an instantaneous effect just doesn't do it for me)
- an earlier Wood impulse that creates a tree that you attack with(compared to the two 18th-level impulses that make one or more such trees)
- definitely a Metal impulse to make creatures count as wearing metal armor

as far as things that feel less necessary:
- something that widens skill junctions or otherwise lets you improve certain skill checks(I've long wanted to make an Air/Water kineticist who can use their abilities to be supernaturally good at Sailing Lore checks)
- an ice armor impulse for Water would be neat(perhaps medium armor that inflicts cold damage on melee hits, but is vulnerable to fire damage somehow?)
- some more damage impulses, honestly(just for variety, mostly, and to make sure you can be an ice-only Water kineticist and a liquid water-only Water kineticist (for example, although Air has this issue with electricity a bit too) while still having a decent set of interesting options)
- some single-target damage impulses would be nice, as well
- impulses that draw on the widened elemental themes implied by the Versatile Elements feat(Like air impulses that do cold damage, could even have VE as a prerequisite if they're really out there)
- impulses that draw on the themes of the elemental lords(crystal-Earth for Sairazul, alchemy-Metal for Laudinmio, smoke-Fire for Ymeri, etc(could be a good place to fit effects that can more easily target Fortitude or Will as well, since they're partly drawing on metaphorical associations with their element)
- more composite impulses would be neat, though admittedly I don't have much interest in three or more elements for them(though then again I could see that being useful as something to benefit builds that decide to spread out that much)
- not strictly an impulse, but feats to improve and add onto certain impulses that feel like common picks or otherwise have room for that sort of thing would be neat(Like increasing the distance Flying Flame travels or letting you use Geologic Attunement outside of an encounter)

Why do I need a stance to use "Point Blank Shot"?

Why do I need a flourish to use "a one-handed weapon in two hands"?

Why are there so many restrictions to prevent the Fighter to Strike 3 times in the same round, without suffering the same penalties as other martials?

I do somewhat agree that Point Blank Stance being a stance is a mildly strange choice, though I don't mind it a ton. This is partly due to a limited amount of ranged stances to miss out on by using Point Blank instead, and partly just because in a lot of cases you can find a similar weapon without volley to use instead, if it's that much of an issue. I think it'd be nice if it had a follow-up or two that gave you reasons to want to use a volley weapon within the volley range, or protected you against reactions triggered by your ranged attacks(I swear there's a feat somewhere that does this, but I can't find it), or something like that.

For using Dual-Handed Assault, the main reason it's a flourish is, to me, pretty clearly because it's a single action for a strike that's pretty much objectively stronger than what you would be doing without the feat otherwise(since it's still a Strike with all the relevant traits, just with a larger damage die—you don't even have two hands on the weapon after the Strike resolves, after all). If it didn't have the flourish trait, it'd be the logical choice for any Fighter that intends on using a one-handed weapon and a free hand(a common pick for characters who plan on focusing on maneuvers) to take this feat and just use it instead of ever making normal Strikes. That said, a follow-up stance feat that removes or negates the flourish trait on Dual-Handed Assault would be pretty neat to have.

As for the last question, I think the simple answer is that the Fighter gets "the same penalties as other martials" since the designers intended them to be universal penalties, and even the Fighter only gets to do so much to relieve them(although Agile Grace is still quite nice once you can get it). The other reason is that arguably the "Strike 3 times in the same round" class isn't necessarily the Fighter, but rather the Flurry Ranger, although I have heard that the "3 Strikes per turn and that's it" routine can get boring.

As far as some of your other ideas for Fighter abilities, I don't dislike them, and a lot of them do sound usable as possible feats. For example, the "give a sword the knife crit-spec" sounds like it could be reworked into a lowish-level feat to have a slashing or piercing weapon(rather than just swords) inflict bleed on a hit(cumulative with crit-spec bleed damage, perhaps, so that then it becomes especially useful for dagger wielders as well). This would be rather similar to how Swipe emulates much of the axe crit-spec effect. I imagine you wanted them as class features instead, but I wouldn't really expect that at this point

I do have to agree about weapon group-specific feats being less than ideal as well, since in my mind the goal should be to focus on specific features of a weapon such as damage types, number of hands, or traits, so that often even weapons in the same group will have partially different arrays of feats available to use with them(And, also, for the hypothetical strike with additional bleed feat, so that I could use it with a macuahuitl, even though it's not in the sword group).
I do also like Bluemagetim's suggestion for a class archetype or similar option that does focus on taking a single weapon and doing increasingly improbable things with it, though I probably shouldn't talk about that more extensively since it'd be quite off-topic, plus this post is already a bit overly long.

I think my worst class is probably Magus, honestly. It has a very rigid action/turn structure from what I've seen(admittedly I've only seen two others play Magus, and haven't played it myself since I don't think I'd have fun), and Spellstrike isn't particularly akin to how I visualize my mental concept of a mage warrior. I tend to instead imagine things more like gaining magic damage as additional damage on my attacks(similar to arcane cascade, but if that was where a lot of your damage came from, rather than it being mostly just enough to trigger weaknesses), or as attacking normally and then also casting a spell(potentially at a completely different target).
Admittedly property runes cover some of the "additional magic damage" desire, although they do start to feel weird if you've got two or more damage types on there(I can kind of overlook it with Astral or Impactful runes, since spirit and force damage don't have as much of a specific appearance in my mind compared to fire/cold/electricity/etc, where I end up feeling like a flaming+shock+corrosive sword is just too visually busy in my mind), though it doesn't feel quite the same for some reason.

Fortunately, I've found that Monk is pretty good at being that sort of magic martial, if you lean into the qi feats and probably get some save-based cantrips(at minimum) from somewhere (and probably pick up Monastic Weaponry, although that does tend to pick my ancestry for me more than I'd like). The Flurry/Inner Upheaval+2 Action spell/Flurry/IA+1 Action spell+Other action turn structure feels much more fluid to me. I think it is a bit of a square peg in a round hole, though, since Monk is trying to be a much more specific concept of a supernatural warrior, and conveniently happens to be easily reflavored.
I think some types of champions could suit what I want, but it's harder to get them to feel like they're doing arcane things(obviously monks are also not arcane, but Elemental Fist and Entwined Energy Ki allow you to get a lot of the arcane feeling from the sorts of damage types you have access to, plus you can multiclass for some arcane casting if you need to be mechanically an arcane caster for some reason), since they mostly deal spirit damage when they do non-physical damage. Exemplar and Inventor(once you have Offensive Boost) also kind of work, but the rarity on Exemplar makes it tricky to use(and admittedly the action economy for using spells is a bit rougher than monk) and Inventor isn't just not arcane, it's not magical, which means that it interacts with the rules very differently than if it were magical(plus it doesn't get bonus energy damage until level 9, so before that you just have to use various unstable actions as your "spells").

I think the main thing with Magus that makes it my least favorite class, though, is that since it does seem to cover a lot of people's ideal magic martial, it might be quite a while before we get something that suits my preferences(although I'm very very cautiously optimistic about Runesmith being a decent option). Other classes might not match my aesthetic tastes very much(for example, I'm not super interested in playing a Champion), but Magus seems like it's just close enough to the class I want to play that there's not as much demand for another magic martial, but it's far enough from what I want that it seems rather unfun for me to actually play.

Somewhat ironically, I think if I were to play a dual-class game, I'd want to pick Magus and Monk if possible. Since Flurry of Blows and Spellstrike are kind of inefficient to use on the same turn, and monk stances are incompatible with Arcane Cascade for most of the game, I don't think it'd have the same ability stacking concerns you get with most dual-classed double martial characters.
The incompatibility between Flurry and Spellstrike also means you're encouraged to alternate which one you use on each turn, and the action compression from Flurry makes it easier to recharge Spellstrike. Hopefully this means it'd feel pretty dynamic to play.

I definitely am also a fan of having a construct companion archetype that represents the many magical constructs in the setting! As far as other archetypes, I'd really love to see a spellshape-focused archetype, that focuses on things like granting unique spellshapes, improving the action economy of using spellshapes, and of course a healthy amount of spellshape class feats as the standard slightly increased level prereq archetype feats.
A third archetype I'd like to see is a class archetype for Bard that leans into the occult knowledge angle a bit more than the performance angle, likely by making it cast with Intelligence and use occultism for Lingering/Fortissimo Composition and similar effects

More deviant feats would be great too(both new classifications and more feats for existing ones), the decay and regrowth ones that were recently released are quite nice.

I'd also really love to see some more Arcane Sorcerer bloodlines and Witch patrons. Additionally, an Arcane and an Occult patron with a damaging hex cantrip would be nice to have, so that every tradition gets at least one patron they can choose if they want to get a unique damage option.
Also on the topic of Sorcerer and Witch, I think they could use some more feats that care about your casting tradition, like the Sorcerer's Evolution feats and Spirit/Stitched Familiar from Witch.

I think Sorcerer could also benefit from an option that lets you choose some additional spells from your repertoire to benefit from blood magic, and Wizard could use an option to let you add some spells to your curriculum list(frankly I'd love for this to be errata'd in as a class feature, but it'd be alright as a low-level class feat too perhaps). I've also seen people suggest being able to get an additional school via a feat, much like Order Explorer or Multifarious Muse(I'm not really holding my breath for this one, though since I'd imagine it'd have been in Player Core if it were going to happen. That said, I really do think it's important for Wizard to have an in-class pathway to getting 3 focus points. Another possible way to achieve that is with focus spells that any Wizard can learn, regardless of subclass, which might be effects that interact with Wizard-y stuff like letting you reprepare a spell quickly, learn your degree of success on a secret Int check, or other things that make you seem smart and magical. In general I think most classes would benefit from having a few relatively generic and easy to flavor focus spells that any subclass can get, so that you can make sure players who mostly only care about one or two of their subclass focus spells can still fill up their pool without needing to pick up something they won't be likely to use, and allows a little more comfort for subclasses with flavorful but situational focus spells, like many cleric domains.

I think it would also be nice to have some more Druid options, both order-specific and non-order-sprcific, so that you can still spread out into multiple orders, but remaining in one order is also viable. More of the variant orders would be pretty cool too, I think, perhaps a Crystal order that modifies the Stone order or a Swamp order for Wave order?
Additional full orders could be cool too, perhaps a Planar order that cares about the elemental planes as a whole? And of course a Metal order would be nice to get.

It'd also be quite neat to have some more kineticist impulses that play with similar wider interpretations of their elements, or feats that modify an existing impulse but aren't, themselves, an impulse. For example, adding some crystal-themed impulses to Earth would be fitting(maybe Shattering Gem-like effects, piercing crystal shards, attack reflection abilities, maybe even inflicting dazzled or blinded, since in many ways that still fits Earth's defense focus). Earth's more occasional radiation focus might also be an option, but I can understand that being less of a likely pick since it's rather evil-associated. I think you could also get more acid damage effects for Water(since it's often the damage type used to represent extremely salty water), and more electricity effects for Air.

Lastly, I'd absolutely love to see additional support for weapon Monks, whether through stances that add new monk weapons, like Waterfowl Stance(in particular it'd be neat to see a club or polearm stance, just due to personal taste), or through new ways to give weapons the monk trait(maybe something that lets you give weapons the monk trait based on the stance you're in?). In general I think those sorts of potential monk weapon expansions could be tricky to balance, but I also think options that let you widen your available weapon choices are useful, since the monk trait and assorted ancestry traits are kind of awkward future-proofing compared to classes that use agile/finesse(various), classes that use not-agile/finesse(Barbarian), and Fighters with their weapon groups, since those traits all have more significant gameplay implications.

Hopefully formatting this as one overly long post is better than a bunch of small ones, I'm not certain which would be preferable.

I think one possible path for more dynamic ranged combat could be granting ranged weapons "pseudo-spellshape" actions, such as spending an action before you make your Strike so that if you hit, you get an effect akin to a maneuver, or something roughly similar, like pushing the target 5 feet or making them temporarily off-guard.

My general thought process here is that ranged combat should feel different from melee, even when it might be accomplishing similar effects(with some differentiation, perhaps — I think grabs would likely still be mostly for melee, but perhaps ranged attacks can more easily apply things like clumsy or enfeebled). The idea is that they exist as a different action structure to a melee character striking and using a maneuver, where you have to pay two actions up front, but don't have to worry about MAP if you do hit, and you end up having spent two actions on very little if you miss, while the strike+maneuver melee character can choose not to do their maneuver if they miss their strike and don't want to deal with MAP.

I specifically suggest the pseudo-spellshape notion since it roughly aligns with the fiction of a ranged weapon user who can take extra effort in order to carry out a particularly challenging, yet effective shot, such as an action to aim for your foe's legs and add knocking prone to your bow strike, or to draw back your bow even further than normal in order to propel an arrow hard enough to push the target 5 feet back.

These could be implemented as weapon traits(perhaps under the type Aim, so a weapon might have "Aim-Shove" and allow you to apply a successful shove to a successful strike, kind of like Spellstrike in a way), or they might just be made into easily accessed feats of some kind(general feats, maybe? or just class feats shared by many classes). If implemented as weapon traits, though, I think they should be a case where feats could easily let you add them to ranged weapons you wield, since you don't have the option of using a one-handed weapon to keep access to all your maneuvers.

I'm sure there's probably some similar feats already in existence, and likely there would be balancing concerns involved and concerns about how MAP works with this notion, but this is mostly just a rough idea of A Thing You Could Do.

Does anyone happen to know the rarity for the School of Gates, by chance? It seems perfect for a character I'm playing, except I might have trouble justifying it if it's exclusive to a region within the Shining Kingdoms, since we're playing Season of Ghosts

I'm excited to hear about the potential for a teleportation staff, that sounds like a very fun item to play with.

As far as the actual focus spell, it seems like a very strong support spell for martial classes that struggle with action economy, such as Magus and, to a lesser extent, Ranger and Thaumaturge. Giving a melee Magus the ability to spend their turns more regularly doing the Spellstrike -> Recharge rotation without needing to Stride to new enemies, or letting Flurry Rangers focus on flurrying and Hunting Prey, and letting Thaumaturges focus on Exploiting Vulnerability and then striking and Intensifying and such seems like a really good use of a third action, and Effortless Concentration makes it even better.

I think it also seems pretty strong for any casters that might rely heavily on positioning(very exciting for the Bless/Bane/Benediction/Malediction enjoyers in the audience, as well as Kineticists who use their aura a lot and Champions with an aura focus).

Lastly, the wording says "1 willing creature" so it seems like you could use it on yourself to get around speed penalties, move faster than the average character after it becomes lvl 7, or even get "free" movement in addition to aStrides with Effortless Concentration.
All in all, it seems like a really quite solid focus spell, with wide variety of applications depending on party composition. Additionally, while I think some compositions will benefit more, it doesn't seem like it'd be completely useless for any party, in my opinion.

According to an AMA with someone who received the Shining Kingdoms pdf, the Occult Dragon Matriculum (as in the 1e occult dragon, not the 2e category), has been retconned into being an Omen Dragon. Uncertain if this is a unique decision or if it applies to the species as a whole, and Omen Dragons are now part of the Esoteric Dragon family, though they fit the bill Id say. Now, I'm less certain about the decision to replace Occult Dragons with them; it was probably made to tie into the "prophecy" theme of Drums, but personally I'd say that Fortune Dragons are closer to what Occult Dragons were. Though they probably want Esoteric Dragons to use the Occult tradition? I'm not sure.

Honestly, now that I think about it, the 1e occult dragon does seem like it'd be the Paizo-original dragon that's most at risk of just being wholly removed as a result of the remaster, just for the sake of clarity regarding names. If it does stick around, I'd imagine it'll get renamed(perhaps a collector dragon or implement dragon? I suggest implement dragon because I think the idea of letting a dragon use Thaumaturge-esque abilities in combat would be cool, even if it's a bit at odds with the original occult dragon in some ways).

Sort of a themed set of errata suggestions this time around:

Book: Dark Archive
Rules: Deviant Feats
Issue: The Dragon classification for Deviant Feats does not allow acid damage despite allowing most of the other roughly equivalent forms of energy damage, without a clear reason why.

Class: Exemplar
Feat: Energized Spark
Issue: The feat does not allow access to acid(or force, I suppose) damage, despite allowing the other types of energy damage. This is somewhat more glaring of an issue than the previous one, since the playtest Exemplar could in fact gain access to a similar effect using acid damage by taking the(playtest only) Dominion Signifier feat for the Restless as the Tides Epithet, so I'm not sure why this was made no longer possible.

Class: Exemplar
Ikon: Pelt of the Beast
Issue: The ikon does not allow selecting acid resistance, while still allowing most of the other roughly equivalent energy damage types, again without much of a clear reason why, in my opinion.

I will admit that I tend to particularly favor acid damage, so I am arguably not the best person to judge if there's a good reason acid damage was excluded from these options, but I thought I'd bring them up regardless.

It's not quite perfect, since as a caster, you lose a lot from being in a battle form all the time, but getting Dragon Shape and then Perfect Form Control as a druid should let you be in the dragon battle form indefinitely. You can even change which dragon type you are just by dismissing it and recasting it!
That said, Dragon Form doesn't seem to allow you to speak(should maybe be errata'd since iirc most, if not all, dragons can speak), which is a rather significant limitation. At least you can take manipulate actions, though.

IMO...

- Fey-blooded should be a versatile heritage, especially for nymphs.

Personally, I think nymphs are enough of their own thing that they'd be better as an ancestry than a versatile heritage, especially with how easy it is to decide what the heritages would be. I suppose the power level could be a concern, but there's already a sense of progression with the base nymph -> nymph queen, so imo adding a "lesser nymph" ancestry wouldn't feel too disruptive.

JiCi wrote:

- Aquatic heritages may be a hard sell, because, well... 90% of adventures are happening on land. Right now, the ONLY thing that would favor aquatic heriatges would be a book about the Shackles... which I think Paizo already did back in P1E's debuts.

- The thing with aquatic ancestry options is that while the need for them isn't huge in general, in the cases that it's important it's very important. There's no aquatic adventures because there's not enough player options to run them. I wouldn't count out a Shackles book in particular either since we haven't gotten much about it in 2e.

I think we're very nearly in a good place here, what with azarketi, athamaru, merfolk, assorted heritages, and probably something else I'm forgetting. That said, I'd really like an aquatic elf heritage at minimum, and I think the sea is a great place for some sort of aberration ancestry, and/or a cephalopod/other mollusk/crustacean ancestry/ancestries, in addition to perhaps an ancestry of some sort that doesn't live underwater but lives near it.

JiCi wrote:

- Oozefolks would be cool, but again, we need a lore reason. If the Age of Lost Omens somehow awakened clusters of oozes, jellies and slimes, which they rapidly reproduced, then I could see this happening.

- As many have pointed out oozefolk candidates already exist but even if they didn't, is it really that big of a stretch that Paizo could make something up? Why are intelligent slimes more unbelievable than any number of existing ancestries?

I definitely agree with this take, and I'd also like to point out that with the Darklands retcons, there's a decent space for an entirely new oozefolk ancestry to be "discovered", since the current canon knowledge there has already been cast into doubt fairly heavily. I wouldn't mind some more Darklands ancestries as well in the same book as well(potentially serpentfolk???), but I definitely would really really like oozefolk in particular.

As far as other ancestries I'd mostly prefer some attention placed on old ones more than anything(fleshwarp and vishkanya especially, though I'd also like some more goloma feats perhaps), but I would enjoy some arthropod-like people or serpentfolk as well. There's implications of an upcoming book that would cover the Impossible Lands, so that could help with the first two of those hopefully, assuming it's not just all class and archetype options.

Oh right, I forgot about Borai. I'd need to check, but that could maybe be what I'm looking for, so thank you!
Somewhat unfortunate about the lack of void healing, though, I suppose.

As another idea , it'd be really nice to see more universal ancestry feats, since it'd help the ancestries that don't get much added to them, like shisks or goloma or vishkanya, have more options to pick from with their ancestry feats. It's not a perfect fix, but I think it could help.

I'd really enjoy a more generalized undeath/void-themed versatile heritage, without the rather specific vibes carried by Dhampir. For some concepts you can use Dhampir to make it mostly work, but it doesn't quite fit for a lot of void-infused character concepts.
I suppose some sort of vitality-themed versatile heritage as an opposite could be interesting, as well, though I don't have as much interest in that, personally.

An ancestry themed around alchemy would be pretty interesting too, like they might actually have four humours(or six, since the four humours were often assigned classical elements and Golarion has 6 of those) and be able to synthesize alchemical items from their flesh, and things like that.

More relevant to the current discussion topic, I really like the idea of mothfolk, and more arthropod-folk in general.

Tactical Drongo wrote:

Maya Coleman wrote:

Although, once I used a really pretty pebble that I felt represented my character well.

Okay there is a story here and I am curious. As a corvid I want to hear all about the pretty pebble hero.

First Pathfinder character ever! A fey-touched gnome bard named Yofyx! I put a deep connection to nature and the forest in their backstory, and I encountered the rock while humming on a path IRL, so it reminded me of the character!

Now you have me imagining using a cicada nymph's discarded shell as a pawn for an surki character...

This suggests a simple fix: just add some class feats the fighter can take to expand their repertoire. For instance, there could easily be a level 6 feat that let fighters choose a second group to use at increased proficiency, and a later feat (with the first as a prerequisite) that extends the benefit to all weapons. (In this case, Versatile Legend would either just let you retrain those feats, or--which would be my preference--be replaced with a different capstone, one that didn't make mostly irrelevant a choice you likely built much of your character's identity around.)

I agree, a class feat to allow an additional weapon group(potentially with the option to take it multiple times) seems like the most straightforward solution to me as well, since it avoids whatever(if any) vertical increases in power could come about from universal accelerated proficiency.

As far as a theoretical replacement for Versatile Legend, that seems pretty reasonable, although I don't have any particular ideas of what a suitable replacement would be.

I also find it rather funny that this thread has been really getting me in the mood to play a fighter, even though I usually favor casters.

I see! Thank you for the help, everyone! It's a bit unfortunate that it'd be so expensive and difficult to get this sort of setup for a character, but fortunately we are likely to get a decent amount of downtime so maybe I can make all those runes myself by taking extra time to reduce costs and so on. I'm glad to hear I wasn't missing any items that might give me the effect I wanted.

I currently have a concept that involves a character who uses multiple identical weapons with identical property runes, except for one different rune for each weapon(one with flaming, one with corrosive, one with shich, etc). I generally favor spellcasters, so I'm rather unfamiliar with runes and their relevant items. Is there an option that would facilitate this sort of build, ideally while RAW and without getting exceptionally expensive for me?

While I do quite like the idea of a gunwitch class archetype, I've also been quite interested in the idea of an archetype that gives the witch lessened casting progression in favor of improved armor, HP, attack scaling, etc, but with a focus on the Patron's Armaments feat, with additional benefits specific to that.
I think perhaps it could be a class archetype with a sort of "sub-path" within it, where you either choose to focus on the unarmed attacks or on weaponry/guns specifically. Alternatively, of course, the witch could just get two somewhat martial archetypes.

Unrelated to the witch, I would love to see more summoner options, like evolution feats, as well as an aberration eidolon, an ooze eidolon(though that might be tricky to represent in a way that is fun to play but still feels like an ooze), and perhaps an asura eidolon, though that's just my fondness for the asuras in general i think(I'd also quite like an asura sorcerer bloodline, likely with Crisis of Faith on their bloodline spell list).

Lastly I'd really like an archetype that gives you a construct companion and some degree of customization for it, that doesn't have the flavor of it being made from corpses. That's a fine flavor for an archetype to have and all, but there's more ways to get a construct than that in the setting, and I'd really like something that's more specifically intended to fit those concepts, with appropriate feats in addition to the basic construct companion scaling feats.

This might be better as an errata to Kinetic Activation rather than an additional feat or something, but something to allow it to work with spells that have other traits/damage types that your blasts can create would be neat(like letting air kineticists use it to cast electricity spells(or cold spells if they have Versatile Blasts)).
Additionally, a high-level feat that lets you pick a spell(with presumably rather specific requirements) and make it an impulse would be pretty cool too.

As far as larger options I'd also be into a class with similar design to the kineticist, but a more arcane/occult flavor. This could be potentially represented with alternate elements such as void, aether, and spirit, but I don't think that's the only way to do it, and I'd somewhat prefer if it used a mental stat instead of Constitution as well.

Class: Exemplar

(Possible)Issue: Energized Spark feat

The feat Energized Spark notably allows all of the energy damage types except for force and acid. While force is possibly more understandable since basically nothing resists it, the lack of acid as an option seems bizarre and possibly like something to be fixed.