Loreguard's page

Honestly, I’d suggest giving the caster the choice of making it as a ranged spell attack, or ranged weapon attack(with a weapon they are treat as simple. Letting them choose the one better for them.

Have each staff have an assigned appropriate damage type, based on the type of spells in it. Normally based on the type of damage the highest rank damaging spell it has, or one of the damages it does. If it doesn’t have damaging spells, then spell types it may specifically defend against. If no spell specifies any particular damage type(not even a physical one) il’ suggest making it d3 force or d4 bludgeoning then.

It is treated as a Capacity equal to the highest rank spell it contains. It can reloaded as a single action, but is automatically considered reloaded by casting any spell from the staff(cantrip or spell slot). Striking and potency runes affect these attacks.

If you want to add further flavor you could have the ranged attack gain a trait either Forceful if the strike represents a pulse, or Backswing if it represents a beam. (Not that they would frequently be doing more than one attack this way)

Perses13 wrote:

The $5 price for Great Toy Heist is for the print version of the adventure.

Paizo's new webstore doesn't support having store pages for free stuff so now the Free RPG Day adventure PDFs are just hosted online. Some appear to be linked on the store page for the print edition (like Great Toy Heist), but that seems to be inconsistent currently.

I do think the Free RPG Day adventures are pretty great. Personally I really enjoyed Little Trouble in Big Absalom and Threshold of Knowledge.

For the Great Toy Heist, I did not find the link for the free pdf on the store page of the product itself.

Do you know where it can be found ?

I believe it is: https://downloads.paizo.com/PZO14001E_TheGreatToyHeist.pdf

....

Something to keep in mind is that it's absolutely okay to get things 'wrong', and that it's better to make a ruling and move on (and look things up after the session) rather than have a prolonged argument. This is pretty normal for new groups. If you think you understand a rule and why it's written as-is, but you disagree with it... likewise, feel free to run it differently; it's your table, your group, your fun.

....

I want to stress this is very true. The important part is to have fun with the story and play. It is important to be able to say, here's what we do... and realize if you find out better later on, you fix things from that point on, you don't worry about the water already under the bridge.

So, play how you understand to play it during a session, only changing things that become very clearly apparent when revealed and then only worry about fixing in new encounters of the applications of the rule. If people question something that isn't ultimately clear upon revelation, then agree to handle it how you thought you were supposed to and agree to research and fix future processes for it in between sessions, not bog down the current session investigating the 'right' answer.

Also, as people learn the rules and what abilities do, let them change their chosen abilities in between sessions if those abilities were not what they thought they were. There are rules for retraining, but you need not stick to that when you are first learning the game.

edit:
Toy Heist is one I have never gotten to run, or play in, but at least skimming through it when I got it, it looked like it would be a wonderful introductory adventure.

@glass
As clarification, at present there is no Primary Wand designation for investing items. Staves have the concept of there being a 'staff' slot for investing, where you can only invest one staff. Wands you can obviously have more than one now, by design. If you increased what wands could do however, if there was a concern that some of the power might be too much for multiple wands, I was leaving room for granting some benefit to only one 'primary wand' being invested. Sorry if it was not clear, but it was me trying to leave potential balancing constraints in place, to avoid people saying it was way too powerful to allow.

Except it doesn't eliminate all the mess... Because then you have to deal with bonus damage of a new type causing the main damage to be less that if you didn't have the bonus damage. Or you have to start looking at the individual damages, and looking to make sure you don't run the damage of specific types into negative.

Theoretically, you could add up all the 'potentially resisted' damage into one pile, and all non-resisted (nothing tagged could cause resistance) and compare each type of resistible damage to their resistance. That gives you an the adjusted resistance numbers, as if any resistances are higher than the damage done, they get reduced to the damage of that type done. Add up the different values of combinations of damage that qualify, and compare the sum to the largest triggered resistance. Any damages that are smaller than the resistance, the resistance needs to be reduced to the damage done. Then you have to compare all the adjusted resistances.

Then you need to decide, if one component triggers the exception to a resistance, doe it apply to all components? Does hitting a incorporeal creature with a magic weapon, cause the other weapon which is not magical bypassing the higher resistance. Does a spell count as magic for purposes for triggering the reduction of the level pf physical resistance provided? Does hitting a ghost with a weapon that grants Vitality Damage due to a spell on the wielder, cause the whole weapon damage to be considered magic. There are still plenty of questions.

And it makes the question of All even more of an outlier. Depending on how you look at it is All Physical, a resistance to all damage, just limited to Physical damage. The example given for how to handle All damage flies in the face of otherwise doing it this way.

You also point out that things like the wisp damage, like the bonus damage from support benefits of animal companions etc. will all fly in the face of this simplification of just treat it like one instance if it comes from one attack/swing, as other things adjust those damages.

I see why you feel it is simpler, but it would seem like to go with that method they need to get rid of the All damage line from the rules.

I agree that wands and staves are similar, but different, and I think there is room for them to be just that.

I don't necessarily agree with the concept that wands shouldn't be able to be used to place a cantrip in them. Although perhaps there should be special rules for when they are used. (perhaps cantrip wands grant the ability to use the cantrips for spellcasters with the cantrip on their list, if they are designated as their primary wand) Other wands by such a caster would only be able to cast the cantrip once per day, (or if they are activated by trick magic device). (although I think I'd be tempted to allow sorcerers to invest multiple cantrip wands to increase their cantrip scope, since they can't change their cantrips out as easily as prepared spellcasters. I sort of feel sorcerers should have leaned into more cantrips, if you asked me.

I'd be ok with wands potentially allowing casters with appropriate spell slots to instead of using the normal overcharge action, instead could burn one of their appropriate spell slots to cast the spell in the invested wand.

I.e. with a wand of Force Barrage (rank 1) you might let them cast the first one free using the daily use. Then instead of normal overcharge, the caster could begin using their first rank slots to power it. After using up the first rank slots, they could potentially be allowed to use their 2nd rank slots (but as the wand is only 1st rank, using a higher rank slot doesn't heighten the spell).

I think I'd maybe even allow your to make a wand of the 'same' spell, and have it have the spell in multiple ranks. Costing the additive cost. Granting one daily use of the spell in each spell rank embedded in it, and allowing them to spontaneously expend their own spell slots to cast the spell.

While I could imagine this being abusable for some things, it also deals with an early problem I had where early stories details were invalidated by wands becoming a once a day item from the multi-use role they used to represent.

You could also invent a healing cantrip that takes 1 minute to cast, and has a 10 minute cool-down per target, and then make it something a wand can have, and voila you have your easily healing stick. Higher rank ones can exist and heal you faster.

If you don't want to so greatly devalue the existing slotted healing spells, you could potentially have the cantrip not be able to heal past your Max HP - your level. So there is a small bit that might need some other source of HP to get to full. (although this would leave low rank slotted heal spells completely adequate to restoring you to full in downtime, even at high levels, which might be fine, if it is the intent)

Ok, by saying it can only be prepared in a curriculum slot you are sort of creating something akin to a daily use focus spell tied to particular spell schools.

I love the idea of more spells, but more spells with them only being usable by a small subset seems like something people may feel isn't good use of Paizo's time.

It is an interesting potential however if you had the spell be uncommon tied to the school, and had a 'heighten: Curriculum spell slot" entry that gave the spell a boost if cast from a curriculum spell slot? Alternately I'd considered having it have a trait that if present needed to be cast in a curriculum slot for full effect, and if cast in a different slot, gave a result as if a spell a rank lower, making the spell still usable by others, but less efficient/desirable.

What if you added a Curriculum heighten to some of the summon spells which allowed a Summoner school to change the spell's duration 1 hour sustained. This could allow them to pre-summon a creature in a tight exploration environment which they expect to encounter combat situations. And giving them something akin to a shields up exploration activity that is named something like Direct Summon.

"This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material or trait, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing."

To me this makes it clear one of the few times you run into this (only apply weakness once) is when you have a different damage type, and some other trait or material affecting the damage. This sounds to me like damage has to be grouped together by like types to interact with weakness and resistance.

To me the line:
"It's possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely." is a clarifying example, not an exception.

So if you get hit by a STEAM attack and have weakness to fire and water. Since the damage you take may be FIRE damage which is delivered by water, so it has the water material trait. You have one instance of damage, namely lets say 7hp (fire,water) and so your weakens: water 5, fire 4 would only get effected by weakness 2 because it is one consistent instance with both traits. If they were resistances, you'd have the same effect. Only the 5 would count because it is one common set of damage.

If you bundle all the pieces into one damage, and then apply only the highest triggered resistance, you could have weird things happen like a flame tongue hitting a fire resistant creature for 12hp slashing and 1hp fire damage, and the creature having resist: fire 10 so it only takes 3 hp damage, despite if struck by a non-magical sword, it would have taken 10 damage.

More complicated scenarios can come up where you have resistance cold 4 and resistance piercing 5 and they take 3 cold damage and 2 piercing damage. If you limit it to only the highest (piercing 5) and then decide to say that because you only took 2 piercing damage, you are going to limit the piercing resistance to 2, then you are taking full damage from the cold damage, so maybe then you have to limit the resistances before you find which one is higher, then the cold resistance is higher, and the piercing resistance is irrelevant. Even though it is higher, you end up taking full damage from the piercing damage, and the cold damage is mitigated. Or do you have to take all the instances of damages that can be mitigated, and add them up and that becomes the new max for your highest resistance being applied.

(Well, if we are already treating these different instances, as different instances, why don't we treat them like different instances like the rules say? well that is the Gist of my interpretation and reasoning.)

I'll confess trying to add in the abilities that say to combine damage from multiple attacks together for purposes of weakness and resistance to complicate things, since before thinking it though, I would have without thinking of it might have combined any physical damage together without respect to slashing, piercing or bludgeoning if they were being resisted, irrespective of which they were. But how would I have handled the non-physical damage, and that begins to break down the consistency.

It clearly indicates that damage between the two attacks are to be combined before application of resistance and weakness, but are they all tossed into one giant instance irrespective of type. Or are common types combined? Slashing with slashing, fire with fire, etc. Or are all physical supposed to be combined. I'll confess that becomes less clear after throwing that in the mix. Since it seems likely that double-slice is supposed to let you use two physical weapons to better bypass a physical resistance, likely even if they are two different physical types. But if you allow that, what stops your from combining other damage like fire damage or others traits into the single pool for passing through resistances. It however would make having such an ability worthwhile if it only was using one weapon, yet as far as I know we only have instances of abilities like it showing up that involve multiple weapons.

I started out pretty confident in my answer, but I suppose I can see how it can seem controversial and worthy of clarification.

I do agree, Paizo should not limit their feedback to the 'masses' to only official Errata, but should also insure it provides a FAQ to include clarifications. While often, simply errata applied to rules can solve misconceptions, the reality is that in some cases, without getting too wordy, any set of rules put in print might leave room for misinterpretations, so having published FAQ's clarifying the 'presumed/official' interpretation of the rules (because anyone could homebrew something if they prefer a different take). And this seems like a perfect example of something that would deserve a FAQ. Simply perhaps publishing an example of a multi-part strike's damage getting calculated when it involves more than one damage set, along with extra relevant traits involved.

If they don't want to effectively 'publish' what are seen as rules in the manner, leave such FAQ situations as examples where the 'rules' from the books are shown how they apply. Effectively a publicly available 'sidebar' article like one might see in a book, but one that is put on the website, and added to the front of some errata document as a FAQ. I actually, thought I saw something that was officially answered as a FAQ recently, and was happy with the response, but I can't remember exactly what it was.

5 players is better than 3 players. With 5 instead of 4 encounters will end up being easier for them, which especially for newer players is probably better than harder because of too many. Do I wouldn’t worry too much about rules on making the encounters harder until you feel more comfortable.

But eventually you will want to up the challenge a little and will want to add some to some encounters. But as an example, going from one boss (tough) creature to two of them on an encounter that was supposed to be hard, might become deadly.

The Encounter budget rules helps you understand how tough an encounter is likely to be, and leaves you with adding some extra minions to help balance the difficulty out better. But as an example, if you had an encounter against four orcs or goblins, as adventures are often balanced for four characters, you can probably expect you can add a fight and the difficulty would probably balance out.

There are some other options you can leverage by adding a weak or elite creature templates to one or more creatures to adjust the threat level a bit.

I thought (maybe because of the clarifications Hammerjack references that it was not A) and have operated that sets of damage with different traits were different instances. But instances of damage could occur at the same time, which is why I wouldn't have taken the approach that taking damage while dying would count as two or three from one source. Different instances are ways of sub-counting your damage, which in the end gets added up after dealing with the appropriate modifiers to it.

So a creature with Resistance: Slashing 5, Fire 5; Weakness: Bludgeoning 5, Holy 5 would have the following happen:

When struck by a flaming longsword for 8hp damage, and 6 fire damage, would take a total of (8-5) + (6-5) or total of 4 HP of damage. After which if they are struck by a Holy Mace for 4hp from the mace with 5hp of holy spirit damage would take a total of (4+5) + (5+5) or 19hp damage. If the holy mace only made the weapon damage holy, not adding a block of spirit damage that was holy, it would have meant they would only take 9hp of damage (losing the5 hp spirit damage from the other instance, and losing the weakness the other instance triggered).

Things like double-slice have you combine damage for purposes of damage instance (affecting weakness and resistance to have them affected collectively) Now, I have to admit, I hadn't considered what would happen if you double-sliced with the flame sword, does that combine both instances within that one weapon, or would it only merge similar type weapons (physical to physical). That does bring up questions I hadn't considered.

But for me I wasn't handling holy differently than other types of damage.

Squark wrote:

You... do know that wands are priced simply because that's what a infinite source of a consumable is worth, right? There's a rule for making wands of any kind of consumable, called Gardens. It has nothing to do with trick magic items, except inasmuch as people with 2nd rank slots like 3rd rank scrolls more relatively than people with 4th rank slots, but that's not a problem with wands

Hey can someone link me this rule on AON by chance please?

I think this is what they are talking about.

Happy for others to disagree with me, but it really seems like a class that only has one feature is outside of the general design principles that made up the transition into second edition. That said, I think people wouldn't like being a class that is a one-trick pony.

However, you have some flexibility with the way you do the tricks, so there is some wiggle room to argue one could get enough from it to potentially be happy.

I love the flavor of Arcane Cascade, but admit that it is hard to justify going into frequently in play the way it currently is, so I imagine many people wouldn't feel like they were losing that much if you removed it. (But again I love its flavor) I confess that I sort of feel cornering the magus into only being able to learn one study feels a little like they missed a chance to encourage them to use the features more. (again making less use of the existing feature) So basically, I'd hate to see it go, but other's might generally not be as attached to it.

Your proposed spellstriking slots are basically sort of turning their spellstriking spells into focus-like spells letting them cast them theoretically unlimited times every day. But I suppose since they would have to be 'attack or save spells' maybe that excludes the sort of utility spells that allowing someone to cast it many times a day would cause problems for.

I'm wondering.... it sort of feels like the magus should have the flexibility to do some basic casting that are combat related, but not spellstrikes. A simple example that comes to mind immediately would be a shield cantrip.

What if keeping in mind your suggestion, the class gets to prepare two cantrips (at least one of which must be eligible for their spellstrikes) like you mentioned, and a spellstrike slot. However, the cantrips can be cast as part of a spellstrike (if spell-strikeable) or as standard spell. Have them begin with a spellbook of 5 cantrips and 2 1-rank spells.

Start an encounter with Spellstrike active. Spellstriking with standard cantrips don't expend the spellstrike ability. Spellstriking with a slotted spell, expires the spellstrike. They can regain spellstrike by spending an action, or casting any cantrip or other spell using at least 2 or 3 actions, or by casting any cantrip which is spellstrike-eligible as a regular cantrip.

This would allow a magus to choose to prepare a Shield Cantrip, as an example as one of their cantrips. As they advance, they would gain additional cantrips and spellstrike slots, and slots at higher ranks as they level up.

I sort of personally dislike the whole swapping of save effects, as it feels complex in a way I don't think is elegant. But I have to confess, I don't normally worry that much about complexity if it feels right, so maybe this concept is just coming from a first impressions for me. If given a chance to use it for a while where it was normal, I might be perfectly fine with it.

I'm assuming that if your took the expansive spellstrike feat, you would have all the individuals other than the primary target, do normal saves against their spell.

I'm going to ask the following question however. If you make these changes, what would you have the Magus Dedication grant?

What if you add the Trademark trait to both any Psychic Amp, the magus' Spellstrike action, and the Eldritch Archer Eldritch Shot. Then simply specify that you cannot combine any two abilities which have the Trademark trait to them.

I don't know that there are any such cases where it would be problematic, but as an example, if composition spells were problematic for multiclassing with a Psychic or Magus, they could for instance apply the Trademark trait to composition spells.

(edited)

I agree, if they wanted to, limiting the bonus damage of lower quality materials to certain values seems completely reasonable to me, although it is a notable enough complexity I might understand why they might have felt like not implementing it. However, I think the weird complexity situation where steel or just normal oak for a staff is the 'best' material, and all these other materials are problematic. It might open up questions like, ohhh... this creature has weakness to water 10 do I have to have special purified water in a flask to throw it on the creature and do the full weakness damage.

Sure some materials might have weird magic interactions and some you could argue might require more special refining to interact with magic, but it feels like it shouldn't be the norm for all materials except for steel or normal wood.

edit
Can't remember for sure, but I'm thinking it might have been that in the original playtest, instead of the potency runes, was the material/manufacturing quality, and the striking and property runes limitations were limited by the quality of the weapon (instead of a potency rune) But I think they may have also made it sound like you couldn't upgrade a weapon/armor, you had to replace it with a newer higher quality one if you needed to upgrade. I think people really didn't like the idea that a character couldn't use their grandfather's sword through their entire adventuring career without sacrificing significant capabilities. (or beginning the game with something no first level character should be able to afford to have)

Ohh... interesting thought.

While the above thought on Niche spells was just to make some spells less common, but not fully uncommon. If these spells tended to be more 'niche' and not useable in really wide conditions, you could potentially have them have a mechanical effect.

Niche spells get associated with a slot, but if you choose to slot a niche spell into a slot, you can select a second alternate niche spell to slot in with it.

So lets even pretend that although we all know there is a Resist Energy spell that is common.

Lets suppose there could exist a Resist Cold spell, that is Niche. It only gives you the choice of granting resistance to cold, not any of the others. Perhaps due to this limitation, it might actually grant Resist Cold at 6 instead of 5. There might also be Resist Electricity, Resist Fire, etc. spells. It might be easy to understand why the Resist Energy spell has taken over being Common, as it is far better in the wide sense. So it isn't as easy to find the more individual spells. But if someone had several Niche spells they might get some use out of picking ones they know will likely be useful, because choosing the Niche ones they get more choices out of it than their total number of slots.

I'll admit although I think that has some validity to it, I'm not sure if I just prefer the simplicity of making some spells be not common, but not entirely uncommon, with all that baggage. Doing the above would mean we would have to insure that all such spells were not as widely versatile as it grants additional spell choices. I'm not positive I'd always want that to be the case.

I'm one who thinks the idea of having new additional Arcane (non-focus) spells that are uncommon and unlocked by specific schools.

I think in the past I actually suggested that one thing that could get tied into school spells would be having certain schools have 'variant' versions of a spell in their domain. Wizards of the school can prepare the spell and can cast it as normal, or cast the variant as a choice at casting time.

These variants would otherwise be uncommon spells. And guess what, these uncommon spells, as they are created, also provide additional content that Spell Tricksters can choose to pick up.

Guess what, having uncommon spells also brings back more value to spellbooks. Because if a spellbook has an uncommon spell in it, someone could potentially make it a spell known, and then access it later. Uncommon spells wouldn't be easily poachable out the bat by sorcerer or witches who might otherwise have chosen arcane.

Make some of these uncommon spells things that support a Wizardly lifestyle including some spells that are downtime supportive.

Another option that might be interesting. What if we created a rarity that was between common. (basically available to everyone easily) but not entirely Uncommon. Lets call it Niche. Niche spells are not so uncommon that you normally need to unlock it by paying a feat, or choosing a specific ancestry, or being from a particular country. Instead it normally requires bothering to pay someone for a copy of it. Not ubiquitous, but not uncommon.

Niche spells "Don't" automatically become available to casters who don't have spellbooks/familiars defining their spell limits. They aren't automatically available for choice by Repertoire spontaneous casters either, but they aren't that hard to get with some looking around.

You could even create some Niche divine spells that clerics automatically know. Niche might even be great things for Rituals too. IN fact, I think Clerics should start out learning a few divine Rituals/Rites as part of their starting kit. Allow all clerics to know them, the oracles don't necessarily get a pass on getting access to them, but they could invest to get them if they really wanted.

I think one of the issues is how 'steel' the 'common' item, is the item which is of the finest grade and used for the best items.

So if you want to add a powerful rune on an item, you have to be using steel, or if you are using a special material, you have to pay for an even more expensive special material.

Instead, I'd have been fine with the concept of finer grade of material for weapons, move some of the cost of the runes implementing grades of weapons, and make it clear that you can take your grandfather's old axe and take it to the blacksmith and they can upgrade it to a higher grade, and add the rune in a short time, just needing the money.

Really, I don't see how mitral or adamantine could be anything but a high grade? at least they don't, as far as I can tell have low grade. But if you had to make sure to upgrade physical properties of your weapon to use stronger runes, then it might make more sense to pay a little extra for high quality Dawnsteel than high quality steel. But having the steel sword made by the local farming blacksmith being the highest quality material that can naturally take on a major striking rune and a +3 potency rune, but 'sorry', that Dawnsteel sword made by a master dwarven craftman, it isn't made well enough to have those runes work on it. It kind of leaves an odd taste in the conceptual mouth. I think when they simplified it from the playtest they pulled the rug out from under the special materials.

This optional rule is intended to help bridge some of the differences between prepared, flexible and spontaneous casting. It boosts everyone in a small but meaningful way.

Reserve Spell Pseudo-slot (Campaign System Archetype)

Prepared Casters:
During your daily preparations for each rank of spells you can cast, you can select a spell you have access to of that rank to designated as that ranks' reserve spell. It doesn't count as a full slot. But you can at any time use up the Reserve designation, and another spell's slot of the same rank, to cast the reserve spell.

Spontaneous Casters:
Pick a spell which you have access to and are on your Spells Known, but not in your current repertoire. During your exploration or downtime activities for the day, you may cast this spell using a spell slot of one of your highest two ranks of spells. The casting process takes around 10 minutes in total to complete but the effect can, if desired begin shortly after the activity begins.

Flexible Casters:
During your daily preparations, simply pick an extra individual spell which you have access to which you could normally add to your collection, to consider your reserve spell for the day. This reserve spell will be added to your collection in every rank which you could cast it.

Likely, if you qualify for more than one of the above, you pick one magic pool to apply the adjustment to.

None of these reserve designations grant you a new casting of the spell. It only grants you the ability to choose to cast the reserve spell in place of some other spell you would normally cast out of a designated slot.

What if casting any two or three action spell let you either enter Arcane Cascade or recharge your Spellstrike for free(your choice). The one action Cornflux spells also provide that free choice, even as only a single action spell. This would naturally keep people from constantly spellstriking each round in a row, although not completely eliminate it. It would encourage more use of Arcane Cascade... which if we buffed (I like it doing damage to people who react-strike the magus, or who crit fail on a melee attack against the magus)

You mentioned having an ability other than Arcane Cascade or Spellstrike. What else would a Magus have?

Doesn't this effectively mean that instead of getting 2 or 3 spells + a school slot of each rank, you are basically working up to 10th level where you get 6 highest rank spell slots, with some strategic applications where you can get some lower rank spell slots by choosing a spell with a lower rank you will use later at your highest spells slot?

This sort of feels like a wave caster, but on steroids. Which admittedly you are going from full caster to this, not from wave caster, but it still seems like having that many highest level slots seems like a lot.

spells that are effective at multiple ranks are obviously going to be most effective at this. Ones that do well at their rank, and then scale up, but poorly are going to be non-ideal. Or spells that are decent utility at rank 1 and don't need to be heightened to work, just become numerous castings of the spell as you advance.

I worry the mechanic would encompass to many strategies where it would be all gain, and little cost. I do see it does probably reduce the total different spells known at a time, although the school slot mitigates that significantly, within a certain theme.

I do like the theme of being more tied to their spellbook however.

I'm trying to argue with myself. Admittedly, spell blending, allows you to go from (2-3)+1 to (3-4)+1 slots of a couple of their top rank spells for giving up a number of their lower rank spells. This pushes that sort of stat by around 1 but effectively limits your total spells known any particular day down below what a sorcerer generally knows. (but they can pick them out daily as the day progresses) Granted that ability normally eats up a thesis. You have it cost a 2nd level feat. The question being does needing to cast lower rank versions of the spells earlier make up for the extra slot? Hmm... looking back the Arcane Bond can still get you an extra max-rank spell casting.

It definitely is an interesting mechanic you propose. I'm just worried for some people it might give them too much for too little. But I confess I'm not positive.

I disliked the idea of not being able to use focus spells on spellstrikes, but I think it being tied behind having Arcane Cascade doesn't feel bad to me, especially if it gets easier to get it started.

I'm not certain going as far as never needing to recharge your spellstrike after having started Arcane Cascade, but what if while in arcane cascade, your spellstrike would refresh if you cast a spell using a slot, or a focus point. (i.e. cantrip spells would not auto-refresh spellstrike)

An issue with the concept is it makes the Conflux spells losing a fundamental part of their purpose. If not doing anything with them, it makes the existing focus spells for the Magus even worse, which would even further erode staying in class to get your focus options.

What if entering Arcane Cascade wasn't always free. Make it free if you spellstrike with any arcane spell, or cast an arcane spell powered by a spell slot. Otherwise, expand conflux spells to offer free recharge of spellstrike or free entering of Arcane Cascade.

Limit ability to spellstrike with non-arcane spells as well as focus spells to when they are already in Arcane Cascade?

This encourages people to consider that Spellstrike isn't the only Magus feature, and helps to get them to consider getting into Arcane Cascade.

This means you can cast a slotted arcane spell, or spellstrike with an arcane spell. You have to use a resource to get it. (either a slotted spell, or using your spellstrike)

@Teridax
I think I understand now, but I had been operating on the basis this was an alternative way of making IW no longer a must have, along with the clamoring that IW amp'd was simply too powerful to allow. You made this a focus spells so were trying to make it equivalent to the IW which cost a focus point. You have a point that with it costing a focus point it could do more than your average cantrips. I still feel it is awfully strong. (and since it is targeting a level that others are asking for the thing you are using as the benchmark should be removed or nerf'd it seems like it would get lots of similar attention) I certainly like the flavor as something for the Magus though.

@Ascalaphus
At least at first glance I like the general idea of your spells, but note they don't seem to have any heightened ranks. Maybe what they do, its utility continues to increase in its value naturally without needing it to be able to do more at higher ranks.

I wasn’t just comparing the spells at rank 1 but also comparing their heightened damage.

As you had it in spell strikes yours was surpassing Imaginary Weapon damage by rank 3 with 19.5 average damage, vs Imaginary weapons 18 damage. By 5 or higher I imagine it is much better than IW. That isn’t even counting the benefit of damage on a failure. I remember reading it, but it didn’t register when I read it the first time.

One other errata on it. Technically crit fails use the failure effect unless they have a different effect called out so you would near a crit failure effect of no damage. I think devs really highly value damage on miss, so that really makes it seem too powerful for the spell to scale to more damage than IW quickly, as well as doing half damage on miss. I suggest you consider reducing the die, and you might consider instead of half damage have it do 1hp per die (effectively minimum damage) on regular misses, and none on crit miss.

It would still be a very powerful spell and good at potentially triggering weakness effectively.

A suggestion for a boost to Cascading Energy.

If you currently have a MAP penalty, you can make a simple melee strike as a subordinate action if you choose to after you enter your Arcane Cascade (so bonus damage from cascade will apply).

This encourages this to be used towards the end of the round, giving it a free strike, but only when you have a penalty, when people are probably hesitant to make a spellstrike.

As to feedback on the Resonant Bolt, I like the general idea but worry that d12 might be too big a push. (at higher levels unless mistaken it will handily outperform IW) I note the normal spell is only one action, and with a spellstrike you have to spend two actions (could be up to a two action spell) so I'm imagining that is part of why you doubled the die size, but it still feels too big.

What if you make spellstrikes boost the damage to d10 for melee spellstrikes, or d8 for a ranged spellstrike.

I think that would make it competitive at higher levels with the non-amped Imaginary Weapon, but likely much easier to get. It acknowledges and rewards the Magus using melee for the extra danger they put themselves in, but also gives a Starlit Span a bit of reason to potentially choose to get the spell for spellstrikes.

Well I already ran into the fact that as now dragons are tied to multiple traditions, it made sense to accommodate one of my players who wanted to have a Dragon Eidolon but have it be Primal tradition. I let them use the normal rules for Dragon, but let them choose the Primal tradition for their spellcasting.

One reason I suspect the Psychic is gong to get more than a token pass is that one of the main gimmicks of the class on release was "more efficient refocus" from the start, but now that's something everybody gets for free. So they need to get something just to spend the class power budget.

And the change giving that to everyone was something that gave a piece to the dedication that was supposed to be a full class only aspect, effectively strengthening the dedication more than was intended. This reduced the reason to take the full class over just taking the dedication, starting with a different class.

While I don't think Multi-class dedications should be weak, and they should not be without flavor. However they shouldn't give you the full version of what makes the main class special.

If someone with a psychic dedication did choose to get other amps, even if you limit it to one amp per refocus, would still be getting the increased flexibility of choice of amp, as well as getting an additional focus point to spend on their main class's focus abilities. So I'm not sure that wouldn't be an Ok investment if they really want it. Alternately you could make the rule that you can't use any particular specific Amp more than once per refocus. That is theoretically more bookkeeping, but would be doable as an option.

It should specify a length of time. You can either set it to a minute, like others say, or give the user an action they can do to rid themselves of the condition. Basically a 'shake it off' action that they spend with a concentrate trait which involves forcing yourself to realize what is real and what is dream.

In retrospect, I'd almost guess that the stupefied condition would last from the point it was imparted until the 10 minutes of the rune's activation expires. So if hit with a critical right after the rune was activated, it would last nearly 10 minutes. If hit with the weapon 9 and a half minutes after activating the rune, the stupefaction would only last around 5 rounds, to when the rune deactivates.

Amps are already incompatible with spellshapes. The Amp rules state that specifically.

Where exactly does it say that, I haven't found it in Archives of Nethys.

So here is a question that I think might be valuable to examine where the problem is. We know that a Magus taking a Psychic Dedication to get Amped Imaginary Weapon is seen as problematic, as it breaks expected thresholds that seem to be intended.

Here is the question, would a Psychic who takes the Magus Dedication be similarly 'broken'? Since it seemed like the problem was spamming amp cantrip spellstrikes, it wouldn't seem to be because of the effective limitation of using the spellstrike, and needing a minute to be able to do it again.

Imaginary Weapon does do significant damage, even as a cantrip, but it does physical damage so may be more likely to be affected by resistance. It seems like the bigger issue is the significant damage boost per rank in heightening from the Amp.

So is there any other AMP spells that are problematic for magus from Psychic dedication? If not, would it literally be easier to say in the Psychic weapon Amp description that it is not compatible with any spell shape which combines it with another strike/attack. That would make it become ineligible for the a spell to be used in its Amped form for either the Magus or the Arcane Archer. Would that really solve the problem? Or are there other Amp spells that are likewise problematic?

I kind of hate to make Amps be a spellshape and have them be incompatible with any spellshape, because I could imagine justification for allowing a reach, widen, or conceal spellshapes for to work if they get the ability, and cutting off all such options may be over-reacting.

I think a key component in going to through the trouble of fixing it is that it is something that has sparked the interest of someone and they either already invested in it (before discovering the issue) or it has come up because they started proactively looking at it and realized something didn't occur as it might have sort of felt it was 'advertised' as.

If some spell that no-one will likely pick has an issue, it can remain a non-issue by lack of involvement. But if the game gave you a wand of the spell, or the player took the spell thinking it would deliver one thing, and in retrospect is delivering another is when you start looking at fixing it.

If you can't fix it, you should at least let them retrain it away for relatively free. (i.e. refund)

Would it potentially be as simple as looking at the magus dedication and give the baseline psychic two cantrips, have a feat that gives them access to an amp and focus point, but it might potentially limit them to one amp per 10 minutes, similar to spellstrike limitation within the dedication.

or maybe you can keep the dedication giving them only one cantrip and a focus point, but place the once per 10/minute limitation even if you have extra focus points or abilities that recover focus points.

You might be able to have a higher level dedication that changes the limitation, perhaps enabling you to regain your ability to do an amp if you use an ability that grants you back a focus point during an encounter.

I honestly don't like the idea of making spellstrike inaccessible to focus spells. Focus spells provide extra flavor for actions with a Magus so I'd hate to see that go because of a bad interaction with a specific one.

The psychic class gives you two focus points to cast your psi cantrips as Amps, because it expects you to be making significant use of them. As a dedication, you only get one focus point, because it isn't expected that it should be your bread and butter, just that you have the flavor and can use that action. This is why I think limiting Amp spell usage in the dedication to once per 10 minute seems reasonable. You could do 1 minute, more similar to spellstrike, but that requirement requires you to do a 1 minute activity. I'm suggesting rather than a specific action to recover, just putting a burn-down timer, suggesting its recovery would be natural in their subconscious.

As mentioned, another option might be to allow the Amp ability come back only after an ability or activity recovers a focus point. (meaning a 10 minute activity would, but potentially other options might be available via other feats)

I think it is reasonable to say not all Necromantic spells are necessarily unholy, etc. But they do affect life in fundamental ways that in many cases are.

I think it also need to be made clear that mindless undead, are not automation, robots, which stand and do nothing unless they are told. The description of them tends to be that they instinctively seek out life to kill/extinguish it. They aren't doing in a mindful way, just a baseline instinctive way. Kind of like Star Wars and the force... the dark side has many shortcuts... with anger and hate. You can animate something easier than regular objects if you take a body and a part of its soul and feed it void energy properly, you have much less effort needed to make it raise and follow your instructions. (you just deal with its wilder instincts while you aren't focused on it, but these behaviors may be in your own interests if they increase people's fear of you, if you are that sort of person)

So a summon undead may be viewed as creating a temporary mindless undead, which is probably still viewed as an abomination by Pharasmites. Likely less a priority than individuals making theoretically permanent undead, but likely still disliked.

Now if you do an Animate Object ritual on a set of bones. That may well be something other than an undead. It is an animated object. It isn't being driven by a shard of a soul, trapped in an envelope of void energy driving it to consume other life around it. But I'd argue that animating sets of bones (while potentially a concern for Pharasmite priests from the standpoint of potentially being disrespectful to their bodies after life) isn't necromancy.

Now some words, maybe the GM decides that is what summon undead does, just animates a shell of a body, it doesn't do anything with souls and life forces, just moves a body around. But I don't think that is the default intent for how such magic works in Golarion.

Again, saying that some necromancy may not be bad, doesn't mean the ones that are are less bad. Learning things about necromancy may well lead to tools to fight necromancy very effectively, but it doesn't mean that all the bad things you can do with it are justified, by the good tool you learn.

Granted, there will be the subset of individuals who will argue against that last point. And that is where a potential story may lie if the player and GM wants to explore it.

It sounds like you are saying in your world you have first edition and second edition heroes all coexisting in the same world and you use the rules related to the heroes for things except for things that can't fit which you just have not work for them.

In that case, and you are saying these wands already exist, and you want them to be better than unusable for the second edition heroes, I might have an option for you to consider.

Make a second edition character who can cast the spell in question contained in the wand able to cast the spell from the wand as if it were a second edition wand. It would be limited to 1 casting per day, unless you risk overcharging it. It would actually, as is the nature of the first edition wands, also consume one of the first edition charges. I'd probably suggest if you fail your attempt to overcharge it you burn out the ability for a second edition character from being able to use the wand ever again, and would also consume a single charge from the wand, but the wand would remain with whatever 1st edition charges which would be able to be useable by a first edition character. (i.e. it could be sold)

Alternately, if you want them to be able to more easily use more charges of a first edition wand daily, you could allow them to burn a focus point along with the wand's charge to skip the overcharge roll for the wand.

I'm also a little curious about how you handle the pricing of things, since Second edition moved to a Silver Standard, so things that used to cost 1gp were normally costing more like 1 sp. So unless you made your first edition gp worth about 10x as much, you their stuff would probably be super expensive in your world.

Again, I'd suggest using magic items crossing Affinities, I don't think that the 'foreign' wands should be better action economy than native scrolls, but you need to juggle that yourself to make sure it feels right. I think the right answer is to make them less action efficient, but easy to adjudicate, but it seems like you really want the answer to to be they should just be able to use them. The most important item is insuring you and your players are happy with what you choose.

edit: I forgot to mention, as number of base-line spell slots went down going to second edition, it isn't unreasonable to perhaps establish that one spell slot in second edition consumes two charges from first edition devices. So a 1st edition wand would only produce 25 charges. Which if I recall with my math above, made the charged version of wands cost close to the same amount to start but progressively higher at higher ranks.

Well depending on your specifics, casting from a scroll theoretically costs an action to get the scroll out. (unless it is already in your hand) Granted, you can argue, this takes getting the wand out (one action) and then one more action per time you cast it. This is intentionally designed to make it less efficient (but more consolidated) than a stack of scrolls.

Also note, my suggestion the activation made the spellcasting action available until the end of the next turn. Which means you could use it and cast a two-action spell that round, or if it were a 3-action spell you would have to do it next round. One action (or even reaction) spells could even be done this way, though someone will complain it is sort of doubling the actions to cast it (but if casting a spell with a scroll that is already sort of the case).

As to the costs, unless you require an action for each time it is used, you effectively are making it better than scrolls, which would sort of demand you raise the per spell cost, not lower it.

You could have a feat that lets you when attuning to it in your daily preparation, spend a spell slot of the appropriate rank to get a temporary charge good for use that day. This would effectively giving you the ability to treat it similar to a permanent wand, at the expense of a spell slot per day.

If you made it cost 1:1 then a 1st rank wand would cost you 200gp for a 50 charge wand. A traditional wand of the same spell would cost 60gp, but would be far less flexible. While true, the 50 charge version would be consumable vs. permanent, but again the flexibility of being able to cast it as many times you need a day, makes it more valuable. If it has better action economy because of not needing to retrieve scrolls, it becomes even more valuable.

If you gave it the old discount in PF1(40%), and reduced the charges in the wand by default to 25 charges. That would mean that the 1st rank wands would cost the same, choice of 1/day at 60gp, vs a 25 charge consumable version for 60gp. 2nd rank spells, that would go to 160gp for the 1/day wand, and 300gp for the 25 charge consumable one. 3rd Rank ones would be 360gp for traditional ones, and 750gp for the consumable one.

Again, granted consumables get used up, so they would be certainly a real expense, but that seems to advance somewhat like the traditional 2nd edition wand. Again, primary concern left in my mind is to not make the wand better than a scroll in action and hand economy.

If your ultimate goal is to make spell slots more available, and want consumable to be cheaper across the board, you might consider some other options (although potentially re-instating first edition wands is one). But you could also create multi-use scrolls. Have it be a scroll with multiple charges, only a portion of it crumbles away. You could have first casting of the spell cost full, additional castings of the same spell for the scroll could be 'added' during crafting, by adding an extra 75% gold per additional casting. (i.e. 25% discount)

Then you could have wands be the 'bigger' bulk. If you are trying to make the PCs have more slots at their hands easily, you could make the wand have a bigger discount. (such as the old 40% discount overall) In such cases, if you already allowed scrolls to be multi-use, there might not be as much need to limit the wands as much, especially if your goal is the reduce the importance of peoples daily spell slots, making money being able to more readily replace them.

Actually, I like the idea of having the wand have an activation action. As a single action, but I'd suggest that it only be a concentrate action, and require the wand be in one of your active hands.
By activating your wand it is enabled until the end of your next round. While activated, it allows you to once, spend the actions to cast the spell as if you were casting it from a ranked slot per the rank of the wand, but that casting adds the manipulate trait (waving the wand) if it doesn't already have it, and if cast it consumes a charge from the wand. If activated, but not cast, the charge does not get consumed.

This means while the wand is logistically easier than a scroll, but the wand won't actually blow the scroll's action economy out of the water. It still enables the casting of three action spells, and you can potentially justify a small discount, since it would be similar action economy of scrolls or slightly worse.

Something else to consider would be if the wand activation would be a form of spellshaping, as if so it might keep the wand from being useable with spellstrikes or other spellshape actions. I could see reasons to potentially go either way.

Some people may like rolling a skill check for the casting, others may consider it cumbersome. I don't think a critical success should cast it without using a charge, but potentially making it a free action seems reasonable. I might also be ok with, on a critical success allowing the 'option' to expend a prepared/spontaneous spell slot of your own of the equivalent rank if you have one of an appropriate tradition for the spell instead of a charge. Which would let you extend the life of the wand a little on critical successes, but would technically be keeping the payment of consumable/daily resources upheld.

At first I was going to say, sure, just make it cost the same as 50x a scroll. But I hadn't considered the thoughts on the actions to pull out scrolls and change them, so yes that would give the wand an advantage in those aspects over a scroll.

Some might say that you should then make them cost more, but I don't know, perhaps having them be a concentrated, item make them a bigger risk and that might be enough of a drawback for the cost.

I'm guessing however that your plan was to make the wand give you a per-casting discount as if a bulk scroll. I suppose that means that how much it breaks things would just be by the amount of the discount you give them for them being a bulk consumable spell device. If you make it anywhere close to 50% you are making such wands significantly discounting their cost. If you make it a 40% discount like the old wands, that is close to 50%. If you make it a 10% discount, it gives a reason.

You can also argue potentially, wands can't be used to learn a spell. You could also make using such a wand such that it can only be activated once per round. (or make it once per minute)

You could even have 10 charge wands either cost even for 10 scrolls (or maybe (5% discount). While 50 charge wand might give you a 10% discount (might even have a longer delay between castings, to say a minute)?

Does it break things... if it makes it so no-one would want scrolls, that is probably problematic. But you can probably make it so there are good aspects as well as bad for the choice, it would likely work. The biggest thing is making sure such a change improves the feel for most or all your players. (frequently they like things that make things easier for them, better for them, so might not be hard to have them like it)

Wait wait wait! They can cut your head off but you don't die? I'm interested to see these mechanics.

Perhaps the perfect companion for the King who is just a little too free with the 'Off with their head' anger issues, but who'd prefer to stop losing the few friends around them so much... but insists on sticking to their decisions.

"Off with there head..." Umm... thinking a second. "Vorpy do you mind doing it? I'd like for them to finish their turn quickly so we can resume the game."

Splash as a drink gets spilled on them. "Off with your head! This was my second best tunic." casting a quick cantrip to clean it themselves causing no actual permanent damage to the garment. "Send them downstairs and have them put on display afterwards."

"Ohhh... Vorpy... please don't let this disrupt you, my friend here needs to finish their turn after you are done."

Note that in 2nd edition, you don't really make actual profit by crafting. You pay for half the cost of what you make in raw materials (starting cost) and you either pay the rest in raw materials or use Earn an Income with the level of the item to earn value to replace what would be raw materials cost.

Then if you decide to sell, you sell for 50% of the price... or basically your raw materials starting cost. So by the rules PCs lose either time or money from crafting for sale, unless there is a specific story reason for them to have a customer willing to pay full price for a specific item.

But otherwise, again, I'm not interested in making new consumables that might be worthwhile having, but trying instead to make existing consumables something to make them have more tangible use for people when the cost is a notable part of their resources, rather than waiting for it to become either cost-negligible when they can buy them up and use them for full effect.

I'm trying to make it so that you are more inclined to use the various scroll you find, instead of selling it for a wand of something like Tailwind.

I'll admit that maybe +2 may be too strong, but I guess I was hoping to get feedback that that would be the only thing wrong with the idea. Pointing to making other permanent items or different consumables to do something else that might be useful doesn't seem to do much to make Scrolls more useful as loot and on-level resource.

I've also considered the idea of making consumables more likely to be used than just sold off by changing the 'standard' sale of consumable from 1/2 the prices, to down to 1/4 the price. that at least would give the advantage of insuring that you should be able to reduce how much of Wealth by Level any consumables should take up in treasure calculations.

Going a bit back to the original question... in the very beginning, it was accurate that the smaller races frequently had STR flaw, and some of the larger/bulkier ancestries tended towards having STR Boosts, and in the beginning you could sort of say that the change in damage was just a factor in the STR. That sort of gave a feeling like it could be a somewhat workable explanation.

Of course then there were eventually complaints that sticking an ancestry with a flaw, meant that someone's concept for a character might be impossible due to this expectation and the push was to make people pick any arrangement they want irrespective of their ancestry.

Also, originally, all ancestries were either small or medium, and equipment didn't' have a different size for use between the two sizes. And when dealing anything monster related (which was the only place you had creatures which were not either Small or Medium) were all using different arbitrary rules already.

So the argument that people should have brought this up before during the playtest, the sizes where it starts being a factor. (they are treated differently, technically by the rules, despite in the manner of damage treated the same) So in effect this was a moot issue then... the differences didn't really exist as options then.

Although, I'll admit I remember having conversations with people about it seeming wrong at first when first trying second edition. The factors that no longer really exist (ancestry driving flaw and boost), and Small and Medium being the only two sizes for characters, and them being technically the same size for equipment. Are no longer the case in the expanded and remastered rules that come to be over time.

In my mind there is room for it being a factor that could be introduced, without making that factor as overwhelming as the first edition rules were, which were as mentioned kind of prone to double-dipping benefits/costs and gave people an extra die of damage after a step or two.

If a Pixie with a tiny long bow and 16 STR did 1d8 +1 str -1 size (1d8 damage)
vs. a Human with a medium long bow and 18 STR did 1d8 +2 str +0 size (1d8+2 damage)
vs. a minotaur with a large long bow and a 18 STR did 1d8 +2 str +1 size (1d8+3 damage)

I don't see a big issue with it. Especially if the Size modifier only got applied once, not per die of damage. The pixie being down a hit point of damage isn't a giant thing in my opinion, since they can duck through the big-bad's cat door and shoot them from the kitchen without having to make a squeeze check like the party's gnome that follow them to unlock the door.

Honestly, it while slightly bothersome... hasn't been worth fixing, because, as I mentioned it is rarer in the Medieval fantasy genre, and is only as blatantly wrong for short-bows doing less damage than longbows for being smaller, however, smaller longbows smaller than the shortbow do more damage than the shortbow. It becomes a more apparent issue in the Sci-fi setting where someone's holdout laser pistol can't do as much damage because it is smaller, but a full sized tiny pistol of smaller size, can do far more damage than the larger holdout pistol, because of its size.

But anyway, I don't think it is the largest of issues that Second edition had, as other have said. I also say it isn't an unfounded concern for people though, as it took me a while to not feel like it was not significantly problematic. It took me a while to realize that there wasn't going to be a differently sized weapon for small or medium creatures, its just regular, so no need for different damage on any of them. Then it stopped being much of a concern. Just getting over the categorization affecting creature size, but not actual equipment size. And other sized equipment, although could exist, generally was out of scope for PCs since you didn't naturally get any such size other than s/m without a spell which gave you any rules you needed to know.

Perpdepog wrote:

I'm partial to a mastery system, myself. Let everyone use all the weapons, but weapons will have very simple profiles with minimal traits unless you are a martial class or otherwise have some special training. Then you have one, maybe two tiers of improvements a weapon can have to its traits or other statistics.

Honestly I think this is a great idea and also avoids the issues with divine simplicity, [ancestry] weapon familiarity and such. Every weapon group gets one or two simple weapon profiles (for one or two handed). Martial weapons are described as one or two additional traits (some traits are worth more than others) added to a simple weapon, plus another tier of one to two traits you can add on to become an advanced weapon (so most weapon names cover both a martial and advanced version and technically a simple version). Maybe some weapon groups have no simple versions if it's important that there are no e.g. simple bows. [Ancestry] weapon familiarity can just add a new set of advanced traits you can slap onto certain weapon types.

Honestly, this does sound appealing, having proficiency unlocking additional traits, or improvements on the weapon.

This way technically, wielding a sword may be much like wielding a club for someone not particularly skilled at the sword, but by having more acute proficiency with it might unlock greater damage die, and the versatile P.

Some weapons might actually have some traits even with simple proficiency, but greater proficiency would be able to unlock additional traits. In some cases honestly, it might make some weapons that are different in simple form, share a lot of the same traits by they time they get to martial proficiency but that still leaves the value and flavor as becomes meaningful for those whom aren't a proficient in the world.

I'd almost say the biggest impact would be it would complicate the weapon tables more.

I'll grant that first reading Second Edition rules, I found there not being a change in damage for size changes was a bit perplexing. However, it didn't take much to explain SOME of it away quickly. Simply put, putting a giant's sword in the hand of a medium person and expecting it to do more damage, when the weapon clearly wasn't made for an individual or that size, when you think about it, actually made sense it wouldn't cause more damage. (in fact, it maybe should do less damage if you want to cite 'realism') The leverage and such would simply not provide that much advantage, and might literally make it worse. So from that standpoint, it made perfect sense to not have it affect die size unlike how it had in first edition. A two handed sword in the hands of a gnome, may very well do more damage to someone than a longsword in the hand of a human. The gnome is using the leverage of multiple arms, vs. the human's one hand. And if using two hands, not optimized for two hands, just using it for a little extra.

Where I have to admit the 'view' seems to fail is when a Tiny Sprite's longbow, and its arrow does more damage than a human's short bow. The long bow is supposed to do more damage because it is bigger/better leverage right... but it doesn't in this case, it is smaller.

In the game, the game doesn't differentiate between small and medium... they are considered the same size, just with two different sized creatures using them. That seems a reasonable abstraction for me, though it took some getting used to. But it did bring up the idea that while considering them a S/M combined size, it seemed like there could be an acknowledgement of other sizes.

I don't think I'd considered the idea of boosting the floor or reducing the ceiling of damage, but I had considered size differences past the S/M baseline having a +1 damage (or +1 per die) bonus per the size. I imagine someone is going to complain that it hurts their sprite concept, but I honestly don't think a sprite doing 1 less point of damage a strike less being concept breaking (especially if rather than per die the adjustment only applied once). And honestly, if anything could actually make a sprite with an 18 Str and a polearm even more fantastic, since it would do so much damage, even overcoming a slight disadvantage.

Ohh... and for clarity... the bonus damage doesn't come from using a larger weapon... it only would come from a larger creature using a larger weapon. Giant Barbarian's have different rules which override this more mundane effect, which enables them to use larger weapons effectively. That is fine, but as a general rule, someone needn't get more damage from a weapon because they pick up a bigger one of it.

Ok... I might have forgotten a detail, but if we have established subscriptions, do we have to sign up for Paizo plus or are we pre-enrolled. If we aren't pre-enrolled when do we need to do this to have our first subscriptions from the new system count towards our Paizo plus?

I like most of Teridax's suggestions for the most part.

For the selection of the weapon, I agree rather than having a list of specific weapons, I'd suggest you could simply make the choice for your Dueling weapon being either a staff (which you then treat as finesse) or any simple or martial weapon which you have access to that already has the finesse trait. Then treat this specific weapon as a simple weapon for purposes of proficiency. This would get all the weapons you want, expands to offer some others that might pop up in the future, but gets you the feel you expect. (This also avoids just giving them full weapon martial proficiency which might be seen as granting too much)

It seems like your Warding Sign should be targeting one item. And you have the choice of targeting an Armor (generally active), a Shield (only in effect when raised, but potentially easier to transfer), or Clothing (if no armor). The +1 to Saves seems reasonable, it being circumstance rather than status is interesting, but could work. (I think Teridax recommends it becoming status and applying to saves and AC) I wasn't familiar with the Spellwatch rune, but I'd be tempted to instead of using that, would allow any spell saved against by the recipient, trigger a reaction allowing the caster of the Warding Sign to spend a reaction to attempt to counter the spell as long as they are within 30' of the target. (or maybe this distance could be 100' to be more useful)

Star Sign sounds confusing to me, I'm not entirely certain what it is supposed to do, and as was mentioned, probably being a focus spell shouldn't have a specific number of activations, and needs to be more clear. The stealing spells also sounds confusing, but if it needs to stay, might be something to enable via a heightened version.

I sort of feel like the cost of scrolls is a lot for low level characters, making them too expensive, but then the cost goes down significantly as the character levels up.

What if to help make scrolls of on-rank spells be more worth the 'relative' wealth they cost for spellcasters, do the following. Any normal (permanent consumable) scroll when used to cast a spell, gives the spell a +2 status bonus to its DC or Attack roll, as long as the caster's level does not exceed twice the rank of the spell on the scroll.

This would mean that for casters investing in on-level/rank consumables, which are expensive, it gives them a 'boost' to their use of the consumable. If the caster can cast higher rank spells, it stops boosting their ability, because their ability surpasses the extra oomf able to be packed into the consumable.

My definition of permanent consumables is to say they are a consumable that is paid for and remains until used. If any ability produced 1 or more scrolls that would be good for a day or until used, that would not be a permanent consumable, so this rule would not boost that scrolls spell effect.

This gives a caster a reason to want to invest in a scroll of a useful spell that is on their top rank, despite the cost, as it would give them a boosted effect. A little like having a masterwork arrow, so to speak. But by making it not apply when someone's level exceeds the rank it keeps low level scrolls from providing a cheap boost. They have to be willing to spend enough to get the rank of the spell up to their level to get the boost.

It also makes higher level scrolls potentially a little easier to pull off, as scrolls use the DC/attack of the caster, not creator.

I'm not sure how one could do something similar with potions (or if we'd want to) but it is another thought.

Since wands/staves are daily items, I don't think they need such a boost beyond what, for instance staves provide some spells. The premise is to make the commitment of wealth to consumables, give you a notable benefit, in the particular moment beyond what using a renewable resource would have gotten you with no longer term cost.

I think over the by now decades the idea of what class does spells in what way and why has drifted. Perhaps drifted a whole lot faster in PF2 than before.

For me one of the key elements of the "wizard fantasy" is that a wizard goes out into the world to learn new magics and is really excited to get hold of a defeated rival's spellbook. If you just knew all the spells already it'd take a lot of the wind out of those sails.

But it's already a bit busted in PF2. The "Learn Spell" activity can also be done by talking to someone who already knows the spell, doesn't require it be the same tradition. So a wizard can just find a druid buddy who automatically knows all the common primal spells. And then just take notes on all the spells that happen to be on the overlap of the arcane and primal list.

The way that clerics and druids automatically know all their common spells also seems like a bit of an archaism to me. Back when, a fair bit of those spell lists were really really circumstantial things. Not spells that you'd normally use when adventuring, but things that you might use to run a temple as a social organization, or to position yourself as the mysterious person in the wood who's awakening animals. A lot of that stuff has been turned into rituals instead (which helps trim the spell lists down to stuff that makes sense during encounters).

My big dream is that by the time of PF3 we'll mostly migrate to everyone using spontaneous casting, but that classes like the wizard have a better ability to switch a few spells from their repertoire during the morning.

It's already pretty rare that you switch a majority of your prepared spells. Usually you just make a few tweaks. Often you can't really predict what you're gonna face, so you pack a fair amount of generic spells that work well against any kind of enemy. I don't think the supposed advantage of the wizard of being much more versatile and preparing the perfect silver bullets (compared to a sorcerer) is really happening. In fact it's more likely that...

I agree that part of the lore basis of wizards trying to expand their spell book was deflated significantly by other casters whom automatically know all the spells of their tradition. As you mention chatting with someone you know of another class becomes a much simpler method of gaining access to vast sets of spells.

As to the suggestion from someone about granting them automatic knowledge of some non-common spells. I don’t think having the thing wizards get being automatic grabbing of a few uncommon spells, as by definition, uncommon and such spell are supposed to be acknowledged as gated, and someone would argue their class ability gives them the right to override the gem not wanting to give them some spell that the GM may consider detrimental to the game. I think that would be the wrong direction to go. It seems like opening up a bad can of expectation worms.

I do also agree that the spell book (and familiar) mechanic does rely on gm or adventures insuring there is an opportunity to learn new spells. It is something I could imagine some GMs failing to allow for it.

I agree that the difference between Prepared casters, whom have full access, and Prepared casters whom are limited to known spells is a significant class difference which isn't really strongly addressed. I think originally the Divine list was supposed to be a generally weak list, but with boosts of select spells by relevant Domains, would make them excellent with healing and various buffs, and debuffs with some specific thematic other abilities which could be tied back to choices and their original choice of deity. Druids I think were given the same benefit, less because of Primal being bad, but historically druids being similar to clerics. I think they likely felt that Druids didn't need the boosting of other spells to 'augment' their more limited list.

The spontaneous classes, don't have as much of a problem being able to select from their entire list, because, of course, they don't get their whole list, they get a 'preset' number of spells they have to choose out of the large list. As the list gets bigger, they don't get more spells, they just have more competition in what spells to pick to have.

I honestly wish that clerics and druids started with only a subset of their spells, even if it was more than your average wizard or other such classes had as known spells.

There would be the option to give wizards or all prepared spellcasters spell substitution, and it doesn't seem like a bad option, and is simple save that it eliminates an existing choice(one some feel is too mandatory). But you could even further and potentially allow the prepared caster fill their spell slots with the spells they want, and allow them to cast any spell from a slot they have that they haven't used that encounter, as long as they haven't cast more spells of that level today. I.e. the difference being if you picked a magic missile, a flaming hands, and a heal, with your three slots, in your first encounter you could cast one, two or three of those spells. In your second encounter, you would have the same selection, but if you had already cast one spell, your second encounter, you'd only be able to cast two of the spells (any two). And if you'd cast two spells, you'd only have one left (but for the encounter it could be any of the three). Granted, doing this takes away a lot of what makes a spontaneous caster supposed to have a strength, so it would seem like they should get something. I actually wonder if spontaneous casters need some way to cast spells not in their main known set more easily in exploration (or more importantly downtime) without having to sink money into consumables. Something like a non-combat slot, that requires longer to cast, but gives them access to the ability to know and cast other spells in the background.

Honestly, I'd dislike taking learning new spells from a wizard. They are supposed to go out and encounter new spells, and learn them, not know them from simply being a wizard. Removing the restriction of them needing to learn spells would actually be a Nerf on the flavor of the class in my opinion. The selection of what spells the wizard knows is, and should be important in my opinion. But I can understand why others looking at it from a mechanical stance may feel it is unfair, so I'm at least sympathetic of the idea of wanting to get rid of that limitation. But rather than making it a bonus, I'd suggest you try to find ways where it is a trade-off, rather than specifically an asset.

Another quick though, what if:
You offer spell substitution to all prepared casters.
But Wizards keep their 'School' spell slot. With a 'special' ability attached to it. They wizard can spontaneously use one of their other prepared spellcasting slots to cast their slotted school spell of the same level if they so choose. (they can also later in the day substitute their school spell to a different spell if they wish, even if they used a different slot to cast that spell) This would allow the caster to prepare less likely used spells as backup, and can count on using them as one of their school spells if those prove a better use. It doesn't step completely on the spontaneous spell casters ability, but it opens up the wizards flexibility some more which may help it lean into preparation of flexibility.

I agree conflux cascade could be made a 1st level feat. Actually at first, I was concerned spending focus point for casting it was too much, but it occurred the feat would grant one, and it isn’t as difficult to renew them now. But I had actually contemplated if it could be made into a cantrip, so it would occupy a cantrip slot if they wanted to prepare it but would make entering cascade much easier to do.

The shield feat seems overly powerful from an initial impression but I haven’t been looking at 16 th level feats as much so it may be more reasonable than I feel.

I’ll admit that I like the staff one, but I feel that it should probably have the caveat the spell needs to be cast out of a person’s spell slot and not cast from an item be it the staff itself, a wand, or scroll for instance. (Even with that I have to admit that boosts the doubles potential charges from the standard staff charging bonus.). Might require further thought and balance consideration. But I like the flavor.

Honestly as to spellcasting defenses, I’m inclined to give magus a circumstance bonus vs attack reactions against their spellcasting, as a baseline. And I have contemplated an ability that would change a critical success on reaction attacks to a regular success unless the roll generating it was a natural 20. My philosophy is that magus should provoke and be risky, but less likely to have ‘the Worst’ results of it. ( I also advocate melee reactions that hit them when they are cascading, as well as genera melee attacks that crit miss them during cascade do the baseline damage that cascade normally boosts attacks as a free action. This is partially inspired by special materials used by armor and natural attacks by creatures with weakness to the material)

I’ll confess the flight spell, I’m tempted to have it require being in cascade, and potentially be like early flight and require landing between move actions. I suppose requiring arcane cascade would mean it couldn’t technically be used out of combat, which might be too strong a nerf. What if speed was 1/2 your normal speed unless in arcane cascade (I.e combat) in which case it is your normal movement. But then as I consider further, it is a rank higher than normal fly spell with a shorter duration, and shorter casting actions ( and by being focus spell more repeatable than slot). The more I think about it it seems remote reasonable… but makes me wonder about a lower level one with more limited flight and requiring being in cascade being an option.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of allowing players to override an item’s DC with a level-based or class-based DC, and my first impression is that it’s generally a bad idea. Item creation rules are already somewhat arbitrary, and DCs are a core part of an item’s balance. Presuming all items should have DC's consistently based solely on item level seems like a bad step.

Examples:

Frost Breath (GM Core): Its standard DC is three less than the normal DC by level. Simply scaling it to “level-based DC – 2” could make the item unexpectedly powerful when a character advances a level.

AP Items (Mindrender Baton, Drover’s Band): These may intentionally not be scalable. Drover’s Band has a target-level limitation and the incapacitation trait, suggests to me the DC was designed to be a hard DC for its maximum-level target which is 3rd. The Mindrender Baton isn’t even intended as a proper magic item, so scaling it with investment could break its intended role.

Conversely, some items have higher-than-normal DCs by design. For example, the Ring of the Ram is roughly +2 DC above its expected level, implying it should be a hard DC. Automatically scaling DCs based on wielder level would undermine these intended effects.

A Potential Approach:

Rather than automatic level-based scaling, I prefer limited scaling tied to Investment and item level:

Modest natural scaling: Items could scale only 1–2 levels relative to the difference between the wielder’s level and the item’s base level. This could occur if the item is assigned as “invested” in the character’s morning preparations, even if it normally doesn’t require investment.

Further scaling via GP investment: Beyond 1–2 levels, scaling would require gold investment as well, again still capped by the difference between the wielder’s level and the item’s level. My recommendation, it could cost roughly half the difference between the base price of a permanent (or consumable) item of the original level.

Tier limits: If a higher-tier version of the item exists, this boost can only reach the level immediately below the next tier. Reaching a new tier would still require a full upgrade, although prior GP investment would count toward the cost of that upgrade.

This preserves design intent—hard DCs remain hard, easy DCs remain easy—while allowing low-level players to make newly found items functional without breaking balance. It also encourages strategic investment: hold onto lower-level items, gradually grow them, or upgrade to higher-tier items when available.

Exceptions & Considerations:

Some items, like Drover’s Band, should remain fixed to their intended target levels, as scaling could create unbalanced scenarios. Items that explicitly call out maximum target levels, for instance may fall into this.

Items with DCs far outside the normal range (±2) could be flagged as potentially “non-scalable,” be recommended to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the GM.

Consumables most specifically scrolls are unaffected, as they already scale with caster level.

Lore justification:
One could say a higher-level wielder could purchase costly oils and other materials to better care for an item. By investing time and attention into the item, the item gradually empowers itself, making future magical upgrades easier. This adds flavor while maintaining balance.

If one did the above, would it be reasonable to make the limit of (just daily Investment) allow boosting One (or should it be Two) levels worth of boost? Does the cost base being 1/2 the cost of the difference between items of the given levels seem appropriate cost for the natural upgrade cost for going past the first or second level boost? Or should it cost more/less than that?

Honestly, I think one of the potential weakest points on this idea is the question about how this would affect consumables such as poisons, as I haven't interacted with them nearly as much. Does scaling them make them too powerful, does requiring the investment usage limit the doses too much? Would/Should one investment cover 4 identical doses of consumables such as poisons, similar to crafting rules, or is that too powerful?

While obviously such changes/recommendations would have been something that could have more easily be implemented in Remaster, it seems like with some considerations, it isn't that impossible to put forward a set of generally viable guidelines. They could be adopted officially, or put forward as a set of optional rules, such as the ABP for Free Archetype rules, helping people hone into a more enjoyable play style. Admittedly it might be hard to find the right 'book' to include such an updated rules/option in.

You could perhaps define a Sling proficiency, treating it as an Advanced Weapon proficiency.

You could boost the damage by 1 die step as baseline, and give the weapon wielder the option if all adjacent spaces next to them are free of obstruction (inanimate, friendly, or hostile) above the ground, they get the damage boost granted by Vicious Swing, and it counting as two strikes for purposes of MAP. A part of me considers making it Deadly D8 as well, since you are going from Simple to Advanced, and the requirement to have space around you free/safe.

For what it matters I felt that Gunslingers absolutely should have included slings in their forte, if not by default, as a Way since they shared such a significant part of their name with it, leaving them out was a missed opportunity.

It might be mitigated in part by having set number of your 10 investments which would allow you to boost the DC of effects by the difference between the item level and your level. So Investing the item with the 'premium' investment slot would allow a 10th level character investing a 4th level item to boost its DC by +4.

There are a variety of ways you could set the number. It could be based on a fraction of your level (min 1), or could be 1 + your CHA modifier. By setting the number low enough it forces you to make choices, you make it a viable limitation and encourage people to pay for leveled up items when such a version is available. By having it affect the DC, but not the damage, etc. it leaves value to investing your wealth in available upgrade. I'd also suggest incorporating official means or offering official upgrades for some items that might only have one version now, if implementing something like this.

As an example the Ring of the Ram, there are reasons to want to 'upgrade' your ring to the higher levels, but in the in-between levels, it might be enough to enable an option to boost the DC for the in-between levels.

You could potentially even allow the option to 'invest' consumables with these slots to provide a means to upgrade the consumable's DC like this. This would be potentially expensive to spend a premium investment slot to get the higher DC for a one-time use item, but might also be worth it in some cases.

This avoids the situation where an item might have a DC based on how effective the item is. (relatively High DC for an effect that isn't too impactful, but useful enough to use in certain circumstances) or might have relatively Low DC for a particular Level because the impact of the effect is rather 'strong'. If you have it always jump to some Class DC, that might be bigger jump than would be really balanced.