I think giving them a static bonus would be, for me, boring. I already have inventor, barbarian for that.
But yeah the martial proficiency feels kinda wasted.
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I have the opposite desires of pH I think. I desire the trace and invoke interactions over martial prowess and striking. I'd probably still use remote detonation if they capped at expert proficiency in martial weapons on exchange for better save scaling. And I'd be pretty happy. But I do understand the desire to hit things with a weapon being good. I just think I'm tired of extremely low damage martials. They have their place and they are not bad. But I'd like it if base runesmith could do better than champion/Monk Base damage. Instead of making their buffs really good and making them a kinda fire and forget class. As opposed to the current very interesting trace and invoke options that are very flexible.
I generally hate subclasses (my favorite classes are probably fighter and monk for this reason) but I can't argue that it wouldn't fit for them here. A runesinger and a runic warrior would be good
If they went with something like trips suggestion I'd very much want a caster archetype of runesmith that's gives up martial accuracy for other benefits.
I imagine any class if well done can simulate multiple fantasies to various degrees. For me the class fantasy for runesmith is the runes and the language I'd like more class features revolving around language.
So we have a martial class, who has a small set of *spells* with a equivalent proficiency to a full caster (legendary class DC scaling) and uniquely bad defenses (saves). Currently, invoking damage runes is just way better than striking. Things like engraving strike and remote detonation are good in the sense that it lets you do a martial thing (strike) with your class thing (runes) Both of these are optional feats. What is the martial proficiency doing for this class? To be clear, I actually love the concept of the class. Specifically the runes and that whole mechanic. To the point where I'd gladly give up martial proficiency for other things. But, currently your selling it to us as a martial class, who would rather spend it's time not doing martial things It's tricky, if you nerf invoke damage too much it becomes a trap option and it's a low damage martial with support spell like abilities. If you don't nerf invoke damage enough, why would I strike with a weapon, why would I invest time and resources into it? And then, there is the paranoia (for me and I imagine others) of the class coming out of the play test like the magus. With a rote action routine to force us to want to use strikes.
I'd love a rune mage.
Traced runes only last until the end of your next round. So you do have to worry about losing them. Engraving strike isn't baseline either. Hmm My thought was a limit was per target instead of pere rounds but I get where your coming from
So you desire less than 3 possible per round? What about action compression feats like engraving strike, fortifying knock, runic reprisal, etc. Do you want a cap of 2? 1?
I mean it's right there in the definition of the words and the explanation of the class The fire rune you trace, making the things resistant to fire, less resistant. You then invoke it by saying the runes true name to make the rune do fire damage. Diacritic is essentially modifying a word, which is exactly what it does. You don't tie a base meaning of language to the modification.
I don't get a mix on class identity but I also didn't look to the copy pasted photos for inspiration. I read about a class that uses the power of words to do magic and that's what it is To me if anything feels forced it's martial proficiency. Like even if this was a caster I'd have fun with it. I actually get a weird rune cleric vibe (cleric has a lot of gishy feats)
I think the reason is narrative. The invocation effect is supposed to be intrinsically tied to the rune. You use a manipulation action to trace it, and a verbal action to say it invoking the effect. So getting to choose your invocation doesn't make sense.
Yes... because of "action economy", not because of "there's no way you can properly trace more than 3 runes per round without screwing up". Mechanically it amounts to the same thing unless they print more free actions or you want less than the maximum 4 they can do themselves with feat support and/or positioning.
Or, every d8 martial gets all 3 saves treatment. After all they need the help. Many do less damage with less ooc support.
I think arcane cascade is terrible in execution and reward I think the errata... Well... I'd rather just cast a save spell and hit someone.
They are in fact currently limited by the number they trace per round. Maximum of 4 I believe with tracing trance which means no invoke that round.
I'm sorely tempted to homebrew this change back to them not having 3 save it crit save effect. Class will still be fine.
I can't say I think it's well designed Well designed aspects, but overall I just can't find a way to agree.
The average AC with 8 hit points isn't great. You don't get armor mastery until level 19 like most classes with master armor. That's a pretty painful journey to the average armor class with 8 hit points for a class that does best up close and personal in melee. No heavy armor either. Good thing they can grab a reaction to gain +2 AC (or use a shield) and grab the ability to move 10-25 feet without provoking reactions themselves. Plus with a thief they can pretty easily get better constitution if they are truly scared.
...And really I'd argue that being able to do that on exactly one class isn't good game design. I mean, thief/ruffian do good base damage and outside of precision immune enemies they have one of the higher end damage in the game. Along with having more skills than anyone but maybe investigator. They are one of if not best skill monkey One of the best damage dealers I don't see no Jack here.
Guess I'll just play the rogue from more on.
I started playing a magus recently. Inexorable iron. So my thoughts are from this perspective. I enjoy having access to spells, I love the arcane list. My favorite moments were basically doing what a wizard does. Research and prepare. Using two hand weapons lead me to taking reactive strike (reach weapon) and using briny bolt or pre errata live wire. I tried psychic dedication for a bit, despite it making you literally a better magus it didn't fit my characters back story or flavor. So I accept being worse. The action economy is so rough I simply don't see it's potential burst as worthwhile. Arcane Cascade is the clunkiest and lowest reward class feature I'd rather have a 1 damage ribbon bump similar to gunslinger. I've experimented, ignoring it and using it. I can tell you, using it has set me back entire rounds and ignoring it has done almost nothing (at this point it's 4 recurring temp HP and 2 damage, I could not care less, and you shouldn't not care about your class features). At least let me enter/shift it as a free action upon spell strike hit. Spell strike is fine. But the base conflux is meh. Give me a conflux that let's me move or something that I can pick up as a feat. You suffer more in remaster imo tanking your intellect. ESPECIALLY vs ranged enemies or flying ones. Next time I'm just gonna play a ranged magus I see no reason to play a melee one ever again. I'm actually hoping this character dies, I've told my GM I won't feel bad. I'd rather play a fighter, or a wizard, or a fighter with wizard dedication, or a wizard with a bow or air repeater. I also consider the errata a nothing burger, why would I use a save spell with spell strike to add two levels of map and give the save spell a higher failure chance. It makes no sense.
Ability to lose the manipulation trait is nice to have when you need it as well.
Rune Singer also let's you trace at 30 feet for one action once per ten minutes. The Cha isn't required so it's still useful to your build.
I actually view your description of a problem, as good game design. You're having to seriously weigh your rune decisions and having to devote both actions and resources to both. You can do great damage OR save your friends, not both. But multiple invokes to me seems more of a, for lack of a better term, wanting your cake and eat it too (always hated that but it's the best I got)
I'm with you on the last paragraph but we may differ on our ideas of creativity. Main reason I didn't want multiple invokes is because I honestly don't see a way to balance their current action economy with them without absolutely butchering rune damage. The class can do too much with action compression and etchings for it to stay i believe. But I view invoking once a round as improving creative use of turns and actions. I think with multiple invokes it just boils down to how fast you can get damage runes in place to invoke as much as possible. Maybe you see something I don't though.
Glad you see my light on this Robin. Future proofing and controlling burst while not interfering overly with action economy is important to me.
Lower them to d4 Limit invoke to once per round Be careful on the new runes you introduce It's important to note that while the burst is too high, the dpr isn't far off once you remove the multiple invokes a round.
Jeeze, it's almost like runes whose primary function is dealing damage is fundamentally in conflict with the concept of a weapon-swinging martial, hunh. I'd gladly drop the martial proficiency personally for the runes. I'm going to politely ignore the hunh as I recognize I've had a bad day that went far longer than it should.
If rs is a martial it's saves wouldn't be so poor What's defining a martial it's becoming less and less clear as this game continues. But hey, maybe they will address the saves issue Make es work with ranged weapons, and they are already wasting potentially due to shield block depending on their ranged options. Es has a failure effect and as you said in interacts with map. So it isn't free. You can feel how you want, it's no skin off my back. It's also that and away not my most sought after change My sought after changes are invoke only able to be used once a round and invoke dice being d4s. You'd have to nerf invokes into the absolute dirt to make them worse than a d8 off kas strike. 1d8+3? 2d6 is already better. 1d6? Yeah I'll just not pick damage runes. Plus it ignores the fact that while it's 1 action to invoke, it's also 1-2 to set up If the class gets boiled down to spending all us time and actions into what amounts to a second strike, I'll just make you second strike.
I don't recall seeing a paizo design goal anywhere. And I'd prefer something like engraving strike baseline because then one trying to be better than the other is moot. If tracing runes is less appealing I really don't see their purpose outside of you for some reason being unable to get into melee range. It's also not 1 action, it's 2-3, 4 if you throw in diacritic. It's just 1 to set up
Primarily ranged, level 8. Air repeater, bayonet, rondache Human
Team
Goal is to stand 15 ft from paladin (in range of his reaction) Most action routines were 2 action trace+remote detonation Etchings were Ramparts on champion to raise his shield for him
Working with the assumption that tracing trance doesn't disallow the unique runic reprisal Using transpose and rune singing for emergency action compression War priest flanks and blesses with champion Ranger plinks further back Experience 2d4+astral rune+invoked rune fire 6d6 sounds a lot on paper but between all 3 actions and save effects having a different balance gradient to strikes means more often the enemy saves (one enemy saved on a 6, another saved on a 9) meant I didn't out damage the ranger on normal action routine rounds and regularly did less. The champion appreciated the occasional free action shield raise. I really invoked my etching instead using it to ensure constant bleed. But if the enemy rushed me it was an option. I could burst well if I wanted to dedicate the time (actions) First encounters we decided to do some of my own suggestions Lowered invoke damage to d4s Made it so I could only invoke once per round (again, ignoring runic reprisal special reaction invoke) It seemed much more acceptable, General feedback, My normal action routine was a bit boring but self inflicted. It wasn't bad at all and remote detonation invoking on miss is very appreciated. Damage felt high but not as high as you'd expect by the nature of saves. Install it was smoother than multiple attacks but I didn't steal the flurry rangers thunder. Defense with my build in particular felt adequate to good for a round or two. Beyond that I wanted to get away. Mobility was hohum, not Paramount for my build but it definitely impacted turns. Once we made the house rules, my damage curve still felt good, same minimum, less maximum, and the multi invoke cheese died (I only used it once)
Just making engraving strike a baseline feature solves it The new Errata for magus is a big nothing because of you have the up front actions, your actually better served to strike+cast a spell and you don't have to force fang next round.
Striking isn't simply better than using runesStriking must be better than using Runes. If you Strike, you need both maxxed out Dex/Str and Intelligence when if you just Trace you only need Intelligence. Also, if you Strike, you need a fully runed weapon to be effective. And finally, you need a weapon at hand, which is problematic on a class that needs a free hand. If Striking is not better than Tracing then it's a worse choice than going full on Tracing. And if striking is better you never have a reason to trace, catch 22 Sounds like engraving strike needs to be baseline.
It's key that whatever they do they maintain these elements Striking isn't simply better than using runes Don't change the action economy Basically if you nerf invoke damage too much you only ever strike, not enough then the play will simply be to use every available resource and action to burst. So the issue isn't the runes damage necessarily, at least not completely, it's how they stack. There are multiple ways of doing this. You could make it so a single creature can't have more than one of each type of rune on them. Creature, weapon, shield, armor. This will limit a creature to taking two instances of damaging invoked runes currently in the play test. Things like impact/whetstone and fire/thunder wouldn't stack. Next you make it so you can only invoke once per round, this would hard lock a single target to not being hit by more than two damaging runes a round (which is still his savage btw). Thirdly, you probably need to make engraving strike baseline , as it is right now I can play a rune Smith that simply never attacks, and TBH it feels better than attacking. Throwing out buffs and debuffs to invoke later.
I too share your views. At no point did I experience a disconnect because they aren't Diablo necromancers or some other popular trope.
100% this! Not attacking with your thrall so you can do an attack spell, basically negates part of the reason to summon the thrall. It basically makes your focus spell simply a 3 action spell, and as they are, they aren't worth three actions on their own (granted I know they can still flank, but still...)Thanks for the feedback! I don't wanna only hone in on a small part of what you said, but IIRC isn't the Summon Thrall attack optional? You can create a Thrall, choose not to attack, then two action spell attack at no MAP right?Yes, it's optional, and the best option if you want to use a spell with a spell attack. But it's obvious that you're giving up the possibility of dealing this extra damage, even if it's not that great. I think that incentivizes the use of spells with a save. I don't think dismissing the fact that they can flank is wise That is not a "but still" That is a big caps holy crap this is awesome and strong I but the thrall attack as a more commitment no resource bread and butter option, not something I'm missing out on if I choose to go a different way.
I know we have remote detonation. I dunno about you but I'd much rather have engraving strike at range considering invoke can already be done at range.
I'd like these feats more if they gave critical specialization to said weapons.Proficiency bonus is off the table w/ PF2's principles, so Crit Spec might be all they can add to at least match the Ancestry feats (Class feats being more costly). So yeah, that's a minimum need, and I'd actually like something more, otherwise I feel these are traps for non-martials. They can be worthwhile for a martial though, though not via an MCD unless already headed there. I disagree,I don't think they are traps for the necromancer that wants to fish.
I remember being excited for the compatibility but then I saw how combat worked in sf2 and immediately became less interested. Playing a necromancer is rough? At least you have spells. Playing a champion would be rough.
Flurry of blows dedication in remaster calls for a 1d4 cool down.
If it's once per minute or greater, it's usually once per fight. That's how I look at it. So I haven't run into the issue with tracking on things unless it's both variable and can happen more than once in a combat, like fob dedication in remaster.
I spend an action and boop here they are.
I'd like these feats more if they gave critical specialization to said weapons.
I do wonder if the strictures of Pathfinder 2R’s balance and elegant design are to me, a straitjacket that stifles truly engaging or inspiring class design, or if conversely, I wish for too much from the system (or something just thematically different - I hear that the kineticist is inspired, but I have no interest in it at all) - I imagine it is a little of column A and little of column B.It sounds like neither, tbh. You have some very specific design choices you prefer and Paizo has chosen to do things in a different way. I don't see why that has to be some innate failure of the system.Well, once or twice, I might agree with you. But there were plenty of classes designed for PF1 both by Paizo and 3rd party publishers that I found inspired or interesting, but PF2, not so much. It seems tight and constrained. I live in hope. It's tight and constrained with a purpose is the main thing. The moment they are no longer this way is when this system starts to come apart.
Just let the Thralsl move and attack via a cantrip and problems be solved I think. That gives a fair amount of additional mechanical power is the problem. Suddenly one character has 5+ mobile units that can flank and you can choose which one attacks. I believe that's why they simply didn't give them this option.
I think this deserves it's own thread. It's obvious at this point, that with creative use of etchings and feats, that this class can reach high burst potential. My fear is that to nip this, devs will decimate this classes action economy and limit it to a bog standard routine. So my thought was, what is there was a limit on the number of runes you can have on a target. But that limitation was based on the legal application of the rune, not a hard number. Currently runes can be put on weapons, armor z shields and creatures/objects. So what if we could only apply one creature rune on a creature at a time? What if only one weapon rune on a weapon. One shield rune on a shield. Etc. You don't touch the classes action compression, you still have a ton of room for creativity. But you'll only be detonating 2 runes for direct damage typically. A weapon and a rune on a creature like fire or thunder.
I feel like with undead Master right there, it's a waste of time to just transpose that to this class
Only being about to trace or invoke 3 times a fight quite kill interest in the class I think. It doesn't really work without a massive redesign.
Lol...Well OP clearly wanted non-combat runes. But I think just copy pasta of the same old underlying damage rune with a minor flavour based difference (e.g., cold reduces speed) is the wrong way to go because you'll end up having multiple stacking runes, boosting the existing burst damage of the class. I'd much rather a elemental rune (fire/cold/acid/electric/sonic) and physical rune (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing) that gives versatility but doesn't eat up rune count. That provides a hard cap to damage rune stacking (since only two could stack) and prevents you feeling 'required' to spend all your runes on damage. It will take less page count to even add those flavour boosters based on damage type as well if desired. Everyone can spare 2 runes which opens up people to take a weird corner case rune or diacritic modifying rune.I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around. Currently, each rune has a highly specific and unique trace effect What you suggest is certainly more modular but I fear the unique trace effects might get lost. Is every arcane rune going to become just resistance lower?
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