Long Commute's page

I put together a guide for spellhearts.

Spellheart Ratings

Looking at foundry, at least, it appears to be coded with the base + current spells (Lamp Flower's interpretation) not the stacking of all of them (how i wrote the guide).

I'm inclined to update the guide with that change - it will definitely impact some of the ratings, as it limits some of the weapon/armor effects to fewer times per day.

Thanks for the catch / conversation!

Long Commute wrote:

Hey all -

...
I'd love any thoughts/feedback/comments.

Love the guide and all the work you have put into it but one of your basic concepts doesn't sound right.

"Because the cantrip and spells all have “Activate Cast a Spell” to use them, you must have a spellcasting feature to use those functions. This means either your base class, or an archetype dedication that grants the Cast a Spell activity."

To me "cast a spell" is an activity, not an ability, therefore anyone can do it. If you don't have spells it won't do anything, but that doesn't stop you from being able to do it.
I glanced through a few of the classes and don't see anywhere that they give anyone exclusive access to this activity so I see it as available to everyone.

Maybe I'm missing something here and you or the forum can correct me?
Thanks in advance.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=3144

The cast a spell item activation rules cover this.

It's a bit of controversy in spellheart discussions because some of the descriptive text talks about anyone being able to use them, but it seems pretty clear RAW.

Theaitetos wrote:

less useful because of the static DC

Spellhearts have special rules and may use your Spell DC. Depending on your build of course, the item DC is often irrelevant.

My understanding is that the cantrip uses your spell DC, but it doesn't mention the other spells?

"When casting a cantrip from a spellheart, you can use your own spell attack roll or spell DC if it's higher.".

That's a cool guide!

In general, I would recommend to switch the ratings towards the different versions of the spellheart, e.g. don't rate the spellheart itself but the base/greater/major version. For example, the base Jolt Coil is the best spellheart around its level but the higher-level versions are less useful because of the static DC and it giving less resistance than other spellhearts.

As for the ratings themselves:

You underrated the Jolt Coil, as its base version is definitely the best spellheart (around its level), as Electric Arc is the best damage cantrip and electricity resistance is fairly useful.

The Foxglove Token is also critically underrated, as there is no other way to get poison resistance that easily - you can always get energy-resistant runes for your armor against fire/acid/cold/electricity damage, but poison resistance is super hard to get and poison is fairly often encountered, especially as it reduces all persistent poison damage.

The same is true for the Heartmoss: mental resistance is hard to get, but also a more rare damage type compared to poison.

The Perfect Droplet is very campaign dependent, as its resistance is to the water trait, not any specific damage type. In an aquatic campaign this might be valued as if it were hardness.

Same for the Polished Demon Horn: in anti-demon/anti-devil/anti-undead campaigns the resistance to unholy triggers very often.

The Warding Statuette seems very overrated imo, as you have both the issue of fixed spell attack and spell attacks being weak in general; in other words, you never really hit with the spells and thus never get the bonus AC.

The ratings of the cantrips should probably be based on Gortle's Spell Guide, as Puff of Poison is much worse than Scatter Scree - an AoE cantrip that you can use against swarms for example.

The save bonuses in general can be disregarded, as people usually get a resilient armor rune as soon as they can, at least before getting a spellheart if possible, and the item bonuses don't...

Thanks for all the great feedback!

I'm good to upgrade jolt coil to ****, and I'll make a note as the heavy weight of the cantrip (which already had four stars).

I'm good to move Foxglove to a ***, and the poison resistance is a good note.

heartmoss is already a ***, meaning a good choice that fits a lot of situations.

I'm going to leave the droplet & demon horn at ** for being situationally useful - there are absolutely cases for them to shine, but in a more general guide, they fall flat.

For the warding statuette - as yellowpete mentions, the ac bonus activates on the hit with a Strike as well as the one of the spells, so stands a chance of always proc'ing in melee. And I'll add the note that you can give it to yourself as well.

I did try to align with Gortle's spell guide, but did focus as much on damage types as general usefulness. I'll go through and take a second look. Thanks!

For the saves, the bonus's tend to be +1 compared to the on-level resilient rune, but also more targeted, so I still see them as useful. but I'll go through and subtract stars for those that are too niche are don't follow that pattern.

Thanks for the catch! I've added those to the name section.

Hey all -

First time posting this sort of thing, but I really enjoy spellhearts, and I think some folks find them confusing / difficult to pick, so I put together this rating / guide doc.

Spellheart Ratings

I'd love any thoughts/feedback/comments.