Matthew Scheele's page

I've been mulling over the choices here, as it's the main decision set when building an exemplar. These are my initial thoughts from reading through and putting a build together to test. As a whole I think they're mostly in a good spot, but there's some issues here and there and I've pointed out where I'd change things.

Root Epithets: I notice these almost all work really nicely with moving the spark into your weapon, and I like how that encourages the use of the class mechanics. All of these are in a good spot.

Brave: Free movement is good, a bit limited by directly going at your enemy but it's appropriate for the epithet. A nice way to start fights.
Cunning: Free feint, not useful with ranged weapons but still, it's free actions and it'll let you set up off-guard for accuracy hitting them.
Mournful: The flavor is a bit awkward perhaps but this inflicts a useful condition without a save. Mental trait makes a few enemy types immune, but that's fine.
Radiant: The healing is so-so - it's 2/3 of Lay of Hands. But it's free as part of something you were going to do anyways. Notably this can heal undead PCs. The only one that doesn't help you fight your current target so much, but it'll help the party just fine.

Dominion Epithets: These give you a critical specialization when using the weapon ikon and add a new activation for it. Crit specs are super unreliable, though some of these look nasty if they apply. But ultimately, it's more the active effects that are going to draw me to one or the other.

Born of the Bones of the Earth: This is a very mean crit spec since it requires a save to escape, but it's conditional on when it can work. Wound the World is a nice AoE that can be particularly effective in confined spaces by creating difficult terrain (and if you're really mean, making it greater the next turn... I can see a ranged party having a lot of fun here as this creates a shooting gallery). I do feel both parts of this are more conditional than the others though, so I probably place this as the weakest overall of them. I'd probably have it knock prone on crit if they don't meet the condition for immobilized? (Save against prone?)

Restless as the Tide: Big old splash, damage is minor though so meh. Good chance you smack yourself and/or allies with this, but it's going to tickle anyways. The activated ability however is amazing so I don't really care either. Massive repositioning effect, debuffs enemies, and then you get to strike so you're basically only spending one action for this (you were going to strike anyways if you had weapon ikon active, right?). Perfect as is.

Peerless Under Heaven: Crit spec is crit spec. While boring, this also makes it very effective with the right weapon. Reap the Field is... iffy. I'm not entirely sure it works right in the rules because you should need to finish your prior Strike action, including the damage, in order to use a new action. But a GM who actually rules that is just being a jerk since it's clear on intent. I dislike the penalty for failure on this. The actual benefit is fairly small and the risk is high (assuming you've got 60-70% hit rate, you're getting I think a 20-40% increase in total damage, but it's all or nothing). Especially if we compare to other transcendence abilities that allow multiple attacks, or similar Fighter feats (Double Shot, Double Slice)... I just don't see any reason this needs a drawback like this for balance. If you must, give the second attack a -2 for non-agile weapons, but a level 7 transcendence ability can probably skip that.

Whose Cry Is Thunder: Excellent crit effect, always works, assuming this can hit the same person you smacked it's amazing and it's still solid if not. The active is great too - built in Returning rune, ranged attack with bonus AoE damage and it scales as you level. Like Restless, I feel this epithet is basically perfect as is, I'd just like clarification on the crit effect.

Sovereignty Epithets: I do kind of dislike how late Worn Ikons get this upgrade. Plus, they're severely lacking in upgrades in feats in the playtest too, which makes them overall underwhelming (body ikons have few upgrades too, but get the first epithet selection and those are all useful and free bonuses). The playtest epithets are also all fairly specific, unlike previous epithets, and I'm not sold on that. Aura increase is universally good though. The effects on these failed to impress me compared to earlier epithets.

Teacher of Heroes: Free recall knowledge is useful. Good odds of triggering it off second attacks. Interesting how it forces the choice of info but those are all things you want to know anyways. Active is interesting, great if you've got a couple other allies in melee but much less useful with one, useless with none, so. A gamble but 10 damage at level 17 is fine in exchange for zero-MAP counterattacks from everyone in reach.

The Last Ruler: The only downside here is Demoralize has immunity, so you'll only get this once per enemy. Which is kind of iffy, but it's also a strong effect. The active is nice. I think it could just be a basic save against the damage instead of only doing double level on critical failure though? It's not exactly a ton of damage at this level.

Thief of Moonlight: Automatic dazzled if they miss, but... duration means it's less likely to do anything since they're probably only going to have one more attack under it, maybe two, and they'll have MAP. The active is good, and incap on it is totally fair since blinded is a brutal debuff. Although at level 17 maybe it doesn't need that, and special senses are a lot more likely here to mitigate it, so... hmm. Not sure.

Body Ikons:
Eye-Catching Spot: Wonderful passive effect, this is a very rare type of penalty so it'll stack with basically everything else (shields, frightened, etc) at making you hard to hit. The active is bad, because Fascinated is bad. Unless they changed something in the remaster, this fails at its attempt to fix Fascinated for a simple reason - it's still going to break the instant any ally does anything hostile to the enemy group, because it only prevents it breaking when you do. Needs to be changed for that. If the wording is fixed so only you can break it then this becomes really cool - there aren't any hard taunt effects in the game yet (largely because, again, fascinated is the weakest condition by miles)

Gaze Sharp as Steel: Another nice passive. Great to maintain out of combat because it's +1 initiative and you can free action move spark after rolling. +2 AC against ranged is useful, and it's a status bonus so it stacks with a shield. The active is respectable, and plays nice with shifting to a weapon, but it has the issue of being made obsolete by a level 6 feat later. I think this needs to have a Special: If you have Reactive Strike from another source... effect of some sort. Either the strike gains a bonus to accuracy (+2 or so?), or this one doesn't burn your reaction for the turn (letting you make two, but getting that at 6, even only some of the time, might be a bit too soon).

Scar of the Survivor: A weaker passive effect, but still useful. Fortitude saves tend to be against some nasty stuff. The active is amazing and the best of the body ikons easily.

Skin Hard as Iron: Okay, I get what this is trying to do, but there's a whole thread on why it's got issues. Two main problems - most physical attacks still ignore it entirely, and the active is extremely unlikely to reduce damage to 0 at all because enemy damage has a lot of flat damage in it. That said, the active viciously penalizes multiple attacks if they're the matching damage type, since a miss means they're off guard for a round and your party can beat them up. Still, it's so conditional that it needs a buff. I'd look at letting it pick two physical types (which is also closer to having a specific weakness I feel, thematically), and add a flat bonus on the active resist to give it better odds of triggering off a reduction to 0? ...Maybe have the active still only boost one of the two resists, but it can trigger off of either still, so misses are a risk still.

Weapon Ikons:
Barrow's Edge: If I hit you, your very soul begins bleeding or something? Very, very cool. Great against multiple enemies since persistent doesn't stack and will likely match the other bonuses over time. The active is respectable, and if you combine it with Scar of the Survivor, well. That's going to be a lot of healing, but it's... probably okay? This will be healing less than Scar does most of the time anyways, but you're half doing this to move your spark to a defensive ikon effect I think. Overall, this is the most defensive weapon ikon.

Fated Shot: A weaker damage bonus because you're ranged, that's fair. The active is quite good - instead of taking a second shot with MAP just make everything save against the damage instead. Nonlethal mode without penalties is also situationally nice.

Gleaming Blade: What appears to be the baseline 2 damage per die. This is going to hurt. Also, the active is very, very good. It's Double Slice but you can do it with a 2h weapon. You don't have fighter accuracy though. Also, it completely converts the attack to spirit (Which can also be coerced to some other damage types), which bypasses a lot of resistances. This is just a universally good ikon for when your only goal is to make things hurt.

Titan's Breaker: The hardness bypassing on the passive just means that you'll still do at least some damage if you roll really badly, since otherwise it would get past anyways. The active needs clarification and has its own thread on the issues there, but it's a souped up power attack, which is a respectable ability. Depending on exactly how this is intended to work, Gleaming Blade may or may not just be better. (If it's effectively adding +2 per damage die, plus another weapon die like power attack normally does, the total damage of this is lovely. Bonus points if you can get fortune effects on it!)

Worn Ikons:
Palisade Bangles: Your aura gives +1 AC, and it's written so that it stacks with shields. It probably needs to call out shield cantrips? Maybe just say it's +3 for a shield, +2 for a buckler or other circumstance bonus. No reason to not play nice with casters. Active is a nice bit of utility, overall I like this.

Skybearer's Belt: Probably the worst of these. Giving you Titan Wrestler for free basically is nice but pretty minor and it's just the one skill feat. The encumbrance stuff is basically a ribbon. The active has some utility for combat since you can, as far as I can tell, carry any number of allies during it. Potentially saves a lot of actions, but then we come to the next one.

Thousand-League Sandals: Speed aura! Which also saves actions for allies moving up. And the active lets all your allies also move! With the speed bonus! For fewer actions than the belt! You see the issue here, I think. (Buff the belt somehow, the sandals are great, it's just that the belt is bad and totally outclassed)

Victor's Wreath: Look at me, I'm a bard! A great passive. Active is... uh... yeah. Something needs to change here I think? It looks like it can make things worse, which feels bad, but also can be spammed without limit, which is a problem for a level 1 ability. Anyways, this has a whole thread on the issues with it. Assuming it gets reworded to something reasonable this is still a great ikon, because that's a wonderful passive aura to hand out.

So, Consume Power doesn't have any clause about duration the way Dangerous Sorcery etc. do. So how broadly does the increase to damage rolls apply?

In particular, there's a number of metal impulses with sustained effects that can keep hitting turn after turn (e.g. Molten Wire). It would appear to read that each time the impulse does damage it gets the bonus, as long as you started the impulse before the end of your next turn, but I'm not entirely sure on that.

On a broader note, beyond the various sustained options - would you consider it to apply to hazardous terrain created by impulses? It's a damage roll (even if it's a flat number), but it's from the created terrain, though that's still an effect of the impulse.

The actual text of misfire under gunslinger only discusses guns, but Alchemical Shot can be used with crossbows too.

So that leaves open the question of how to handle a miss in that case. Does a crossbow misfire and require an action to clear it (I'll leave the imagery of this aside, but)?

I kind of spitballed this out in one of the other threads, but I figured I'd split it off and work through it more.

My thought here is to take a crack at Overflow feeling like too much of a downside and elemental blasts lacking damage to a degree in a single ability (and, as a separate ability, it can conveniently be something the dedication doesn't get, which gives the usual edge to main class builds).

The basic idea is that Overflow should enhance your elemental blasts. After you use overflow, you get +X damage per weapon die on elemental blasts (including elemental weapon) for some period of time. I'm not sure the exact amounts or time frames here, but there's a few obvious options:
1) Your next blast is boosted (promotes a playstyle of alternating the two, but doesn't help builds leaning one way or the other). Possibly include "before the end of your next turn" as a rider still.
2) All blasts are boosted until the end of your next turn (plays nice with agile blasts, isn't as punishing to miss, still promotes mixing up the two)
3) All blasts are boosted indefinitely. For this one to make sense, I'd mix it with a different idea I'd had - that Overflow would only partially deplete your element. You can use elemental blasts still but no other impulses until you Gather again. This is closest to being something like Arcane Cascade on Magus. Possibly turns off once you do Gather.

The actual damage amount is probably just a +1-2 or so? Option 1 would need a bigger boost probably, it's just the extreme case. I think the second or third options work best. The second option allows switching element for the blasts while having them boosted still (plays nice with a strategy of buffing with one element and blasting with something else). The third mitigates the action cost of overflow slightly and functions more as a stance. It also doesn't promote alternating as much since you just need to open with an overflow to activate the bonus, and then you only gather if you want to open up utility again (and then you want to discharge back into the boosted state?)

Even without the damage bonus, I like the idea of Overflow not locking out elemental blasts as a mitigation of the costs there. You still need to spend an action to use another Overflow or change element, but it lets you wait until it's more convenient instead of just having to do it right away to keep using your class features (and by delaying you also delay having to decide which element to gather, which is advantageous to the PC)

From a thematic perspective, I'm looking at this as Overflow impulses basically, well, overflowing. There's excess energy/elemental matter kind of just... around you? Not cohesive enough to just shape into a new impulse (except a blast?) without focusing on regathering it. And your blasts take on extra force from it by drawing some of that in extra. This mental image also leads to one other idea for a feat:

Steady Barrage (1 action)
Requirement: You have the Overflow bonus active
You Gather Element from the leftovers from your overflow, then use an Elemental Blast.

Basically, an action saver. You trade in your bonus for getting back into the normal gathered element state quickly, and then shoot a chunk of it out. The downside, again, is that you've given up the damage bonus in favor of speed - this allows you to use a 2-action overflow and then blast every turn for instance. I think it would probably limit you to gathering the element of your last overflow? Which is a non-drawback for dedicated gate I know, but thematically appropriate. Still possibly very attractive to other gates if you won't have to swap much?

Edit: Since there's not really any advantage from this to being a pure-overflow setup without strikes, maybe one other feat that lets you give up being able to use Elemental Blast in order to keep using Overflow impulses of the same element? Basically a stance, your last action / last action of prior turn was an Overflow, spend an action, can start bombarding with overflows without regathering, but only Overflow impulses and only the same element. Still has trade offs but allows someone to be basically the all day elemental mage build.

While this question first came up for me with the Kineticist playtest, Alchemical Shot also raises the issue.

Concussive says that the lower of B or P resistance is applied to strikes with the weapon. But it doesn't require the weapon to actually be doing B or P damage. If I use Alchemical Shot to convert my entire attack to Fire, it appears that this does fire damage... and checks against B and P resistance still.

Am I missing something, or is this just something that gets swept under the rug as "that interaction is nonsense"?

What is Overflow was a choice? That is, you have impulses where you could expend your gathered element for greater effect?

As an example - Aerial Boomerang. Make the return strike happen only if you expend your element. Tidal Hands could be set up as either the AoE or the damage is from overflow (that is, without overflow it gives you a single 15' cone, with overflow you get to choose its current flexible shapes. The other option is a more straightforward "if overflow, use d6 instead of d4" format).

This still doesn't completely address the issues of damage on impulses, as many of them would still underperform currently. It also allows more specialization in impulses, since you can have increased damage on some, increased AoE on others, etc. to make them attractive for different purposes, whereas right now a lot of them feel like it's just "how much does this hit for".

Other options:
Hurtling Rockfall - make it deal X damage to everything in the area. Overflow causes additional damage to the primary target specifically.

Flame Eruption - Make this deal 2d4 (+1d4/2 levels) in a 5' burst/30' column, with the current hazardous terrain. Overflow condenses it into a single 5' square, but the column is twice as tall and you use larger dice (i.e. you've compressed the explosion).

It's possible that some impulses might remain overflow-only? The level 18 ones in particular come to mind here - some of them (Ignite the Sun, Crowned in Tempest's Fury) are kind of a big bundle of effects - the only issue is balancing them to be worth the action cost, but it's hard to decide what you'd make part of overflow or not. (And I guess overflow on something that's already 3 actions is a lower cost than on 2?)

This does get into some interesting questions though with existing feats. Cyclic Blast at 6 actually negates the cost of overflow to a degree, since it's basically Quick Draw for kineticists if you choose to do Gather Power>Elemental Blast (also, as written you could actually use the element you just overflowed this way, but) to do a standard Strike>Cantrip type turn. And of course overflow isn't much of a cost if you were thinking about swapping element anyways because you're a multi-element build and want to bring out something different. Both of these, however, don't apply to Dedicated Gate, which doesn't get any mitigation of overflow until 19 (kind of just reflects the issue of overflow more than anything, and my proposed change makes the playing field a little more even there I think)

Edit: Further variation! What if each gate had its own overflow you could always use? E.g. dedicated gate gets Overflow: Increase the die size of a blast by one step. Dual Gate gets an overflow that lets them change to their other element (so rather than empowering that impulse, it removes the action cost they'd normally incur in swapping elements, letting them use both more freely). Not sure what I'd do for Universal gate? Edit 2: Swap damage type of the blast out maybe? A focus on flexibility... though it still feels like it may be iffier on its own.

So, a couple questions come to mind with Elemental Weapon:
First, does the Two-Handed trait work normally for it? (Can it be summoned into a two-hand grip, or do you spend actions?)
Second, do ranged weapons get conjured up loaded or unloaded?
Third, does doing the same damage type as the elemental blast include any versatile traits of the blast?
Fourth, are 1+ handed weapons valid choices?

Because it would be funny to summon a water gun loaded, and you never reload because you're just expending the thing, etc.

I'm going to go over the various impulses here. For blasts, I'll be focusing in particular on their damage against comparable focus spells and abilities. Electric Arc is going to me my main comparison point. However, due to action economy, I feel that each additional action over Electric Arc should be another 20-25% damage (considering the ability to pre-load, split reload across turns, etc). Higher level stuff should offer some appeal over earlier things as well, but I don't think early impulses should be invalidated either since unlike spells you don't get to swap things out for free as more powerful stuff becomes available. Also, I feel focus spells become a better comparison at higher levels when casters can refocus more points at a time, though I'm uncertain of the right benchmark (Dragon Breath is the king here, being 1d6 less than Fireball at all levels).

I'll be doing this in chunks, one element at a time. I'm not claiming to be correct (except on my math), but this is my take on them after reading them and thinking about it.

Also, as a note - I generally want to praise the names on these. Especially the level 18 ones, which are just wonderfully evocative.

Air:
Level 1:
Aerial Boomerang:
This averages 5 damage at level 1 and adds 2.5 damage every two levels. The initial damage is a hair behind Electric Arc on a hit, but the scaling is identical. If this just hit once I'd say the damage was slightly too low. However, because it returns for another hit this is excellent output, assuming you can position to align the return stroke (but the potential value/difficulty of that is unclear to me). I don't value the hovering in place at all. As written it will never matter. I feel that it should said "enters or ends its turn" though because why don't you take damage for walking through it? But despite that I can't complain much - this is a very unique effect, the damage is respectable, the only thing I'd do is that one tweak.

Air Cushion:
Not much to say. Feather Fall for free as long as you've got air gathered. At 8th level your party effectively becomes immune to fall damage. Some interesting tactics are available with this, since not taking fall damage means you don't fall prone from a drop.

Fair Winds:
A respectable aura, this helps protect you and your allies by taxing enemy movement. If you pick up Aura Shaping at level 8 this seems like it should become respectable battlefield control.

Whisper on the Wind:
The first impulse I don't like. Message is not the most impactful cantrip. The saving grace is not needing line of effect. The scaling is a bit awkward, jumping from 120' to 500' at level 5 and then a mile at level 8. I still think this is going to be a rare choice, but it's not completely without merit. I doubt anyone but a dedicated gate has cause to spend a feat on it, however.

Level 4:
Flinging Updraft:
I was going to be negative on this until I noticed one critical detail - this isn't an overflow. However, not taking fall damage saddens me because it means you can't make them fall prone with it. The upside here is that this trivializes many obstacles in exploration mode and lets you reposition allies in combat. But it's borderline to me. The upgrade at 10 however... well, shuffling enemies and allies around at will like this is something nobody else can do. Overall, this is subtle but powerful and I'm more or less okay with it as is.

Soothing Breeze:
Basically focus healing. Averages 7.5 HP and adds 2.5 every two levels. This is more or less half a 3-action heal for four actions and that 10-minute cooldown. Your party will always enter fights at full health (much like focus healing). Respectable as an effect overall. The blowing stuff around mode is probably never going to be relevant and I'd rather replace it with a focused single target mode that does increased healing.

Level 6:
Clear as Air:
Invisibility is strong. You can easily precast this before fights and get the jump on people. Can't complain about the obvious utility here and there's not much else to say.

Storm Spiral:
We finally get another damage impulse to look at after a long list of utility. This averages 18.5 damage and increases by 6.5 every... 3 levels? Okay we need to talk, scaling on 3 levels is really odd and please don't do it. Literally everything scales every level or every odd level (i.e. spells and equivalents). So anyways, this caps out at level 18 for 39 damage on average. Now, for comparison... Electric Arc hits for 28.5 there (assuming +6 from stat becuase of apex), and goes to 32 at 20. A 10' burst isn't all that big, so it's probably safe to assume they'll both hit two targets or so (in reality though, it's much easier to aim Electric Arc). But the problem is this is a 3-action overflow, meaning you're spending double the actions of Electric Arc for only 30% more damage. The push is cute, but so small as to be mostly irrelevant imo. My suggestion here is to change it to starting at 4d8 (average 18 damage, basically the same) and scaling +1d8 every two levels, same speed as a spell. This is a significant gain in scaling, bringing it up to 49.5 average. That's now 50% more damage than electric arc... eventually. I think this perfectly reasonably for something you burn 4 actions on. It may still be somewhat low if we look at focus spells though.

Level 8:
Celestial Palisade:
The first of a set of impulses that replicate wall spells. This is a half-size Wall of Wind. Which... is not the most potent of walls. And you're spending 4 actions on it because overflow. And you have to sustain it. Oof. The difficult terrain is barely relevant as it's only one square wide, so this mainly just blocks ranged attacks and interferes with flying. Kind of narrow for the cost of 4 actions and an 8th level feat, so I'd have to suggest skipping it. Especially because it has to be sustained, eating another action each round. Bare minimum, drop the sustain, make it dismissable. And even then I don't think I'd take it.

Wings of Air:
Especially not when this is my other option. This is at-will flight with no restrictions at level 8, and it increases to cover your party at 14. This is amazing and there's no point even having another option at this level unless it's truly ridiculous. The only possible competition here is Aura Shaping, and whichever you didn't take you're taking at 10. This is an impulse I have absolutely nothing bad to say about.

Level 12:
Circulate Qi:
Another healing impulse. Not really for healing HP (it does not scale favorably there), but broad selection of conditions you can try to counteract. The problem is... you only get once chance. Ever. I'm really not a fan of that, at a minimum this should allow retrying the next day, because anything that lasts that long is going to see a caster throwing spell slots at it for basically free anyways (assuming you've got some downtime). As for the HP? Lay on Hands is healing 36 HP and can potentially be twice every ten minutes. Maybe in a pinch, but it's a heavy action cost by comparison. Definitely needs a little love I think.

Wiles on the Wind:
Ooh, trickery. Oh wait, it's just Fascinated. Fascinated is, generally, an incredibly weak condition in PF2. Being able to make arbitrary sounds is useful, however, even if the condition is worthless. This doesn't specify a duration, nor is it sustained? That seems like an oversight. No combat utility to this ultimately (because Fascinated is just awful). I really don't think this effect is worth a 12th level class feat.

Level 14:
Body of Air:
Gaseous Form but with scaling resistance. Not really sold on this, since it starts at just 10 and Gaseous Form has a lot of drawbacks. And is slow. Some utility for exploration of course, this can let you sneak into basically anywhere. Not sure on the resistance values, with it scaling that fast it feels like the base resist should be higher though. Ultimately I don't know where to put this, but it doesn't appeal to me personally.

Ferocious Cyclone:
A big linear wind blast. Averages 38.5 damage and increases by 5.5 every... 3 levels. Remember what I said about the last one that scaled this way? This tops out at 49.5. But this is only two actions, so I think it's okay? The push, as usual, isn't very relevant I feel. Now, my real suggestion here is thematic. Make this a fortitude save. You don't dodge this, you withstand it. Also, maybe make it a double wide line. Tornados are nasty beasts. Overall, it's not bad, I just think we should have at least one fortitude save here somewhere. Also, it should be noted that a double hit of Aerial Boomerang caps out at... 55 damage on average, which... all the other blasts need to do something extra to compete. Storm Spiral's thing can be easier aim and use. This? This feels like it should evoke the brutality of a tornado somehow? Ooh, make it so there's no save against push - nothing is alowed to stay within the AoE afterwards, it all gets shoved aside. That's a cute ribbon to put on this (instead of being double wide). Also, rewrite the base damage and scaling to not being level +3, please.

Level 18:
Infinite Expanse of Bluest Heaven:
The first of the epic named level 18 impulses. The question is if it holds up to the name. (Spoiler alert: At least it can't do as bad as water. I'll get there eventually) So the problem here is that this illusion is tiny. 10' burst within 60'? That's pathetic, especially since the illusion ends the second a creature leaves it. And the worst case effect is... fleeing, with a 50% chance of breaking the illusion. On a normal failure this ends once they stride and escape the tiny area. Honestly, this feels... really awkward. I would have the effect of the illusion persist for a round after they leave, at least (especially the flat-footed). Given the level of this it should probably be bigger as well (not TOO big without having the ability to exclude targets, but). Can enemies inside actually see out of it? The description sounds like they can't (nothing but sky), but it doesn't mechanically say that. If that's the case, it may be fine as is, since potentially sealing an enemy out of the fight lives up to the name (I'd say straight up can't be detected by vision, and is at least concealed to all other senses due to the disorientation?)

Crowned in Tempest's Fury:
This is a hell of a capstone, giving a whole host of benefits. You absolutely need to have Aura Shaping for this though to exclude your allies from the storm aura (I might change that to always exclude them). This is generally a broad spectrum buff, making you faster, zapping anything around you for 13 damage average (does this work if they enter because you move closer?), and boosting your air blast (a shame the base damage is so bad - this isn't enough to make it even the equal of unbuffed water or earth in damage, it's slightly above Fire now, but that should be fixed by buffing the base numbers, not a level 18 stunt). ...the problem is, this replaces any other aura. If you're not increasing aura size, I can see this being useful, but since you need Aura Shaping to exclude allies, which lets you use a 30' aura at this level, I'm unsure if I like this over Fair Winds. Additionally, since water can do 20 damage with a level 1 aura, this may need to hit a bit harder somewhere, or offer something extra... I'm unsure on where to call it there.

Overall, I think air impulses are good... aside from a couple exceptions. Aerial Boomerang kind of overshadows the other damage options by being pretty good (the two turn split hurts a little, but it's hard to fire overloads every turn to begin with). The solution here is to improve the other blasts, however.

So, this one's been around for a while, but -

Monks get the Abundant Step ki spell via a feat at level 6. The spell is listed as level 4.

Per the rules on focus spells, "You can’t cast a focus spell if its minimum level is greater than half your level rounded up, even if you somehow gain access to it."

Am I correct to read this as the feat gives you a spell you can't cast until you level up again?

This story really captures the spirit of the class I think. Very nice!

Agh, the suffering of waiting for the next part resumes!

Nothing in the book says it isn't. But it's also explicitly stated to be an Arcadian weapon, and Arcadia doesn't have powder weapons generally.

If a gunslinger is using a Gun Sword, for instance, do they have to apply different proficiency levels to each mode, or does it benefit from their firearm proficiency in either mode?

The Jezail is a fairly unique gun, being 1h with the Fatal Aim trait, which allows it to be used in two hands to add fatal (and also adds some restrictions to the one-handed use, but).

But I have some questions arising from that and how it interacts with the various gunslinger abilities that call out one-handed weapons.

To start, Ten Paces clearly allows you to draw a Jezail, but would it allow you to draw it into the two-handed grip?

Can you use Pistol Twirl while wielding a Jezail in two hands?

Are those alchemical depth charges I smell? ...okay I might just be smelling Fumbus's choice of reagents, but still!

Bigger bombs are better bombs!

Just a quick thread for one of the important details of a martial class - how hard do your strikes hit?

Since the key stat is not STR or DEX, you're basically behind .5 on average to hit compared to other martials (-1 at 1-4, 10-14, and 20).

You get two forms of damage bonus for your standard martial boosts. First, we have the custom weakness of Esoteric Antithesis, which needs 1-2 actions to turn on against an enemy, and functions sort of like Hunt Prey. It applies to all of our strikes though, and is either the natural weakness of the creature or 2+half your level. The trick here is how much ahead this gets of what other martials can do to apply weakness (well, I won't count alchemist as easy weakness targeting is one of their advantages).

Second, Implement's Empowerment gives a flat 2 damage if we have a free hand (or it's holding an implement we aren't striking with). This scales to 8 by 20.

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With the actual benefits listed out, my opinions:
I think the accuracy drop may or may not work out, pending testing. I think it would be worth considering +1 status to hit against an enemy you've used Antithesis on (the level 6 feat then increasing it to 2?), but I'm not sure this is a major issue for the class. There's some good flat footed options, etc, and you get various easily reusable effects (hello Chalice sips)

I'm not sure about Antithesis overall. Mainly, it comes down to how easily other martials hit existing weaknesses at later levels. I view this as most comparable to precision ranger. It can take another action to turn on sometimes, but it applies to every hit you make. And it doesn't always equal added damage other classes can't get (a lot of level 20 enemies have more than 12 on their highest weakness already). Possibly this should increase more, to allow forgoing Empowerment for a shield or be ahead of most weaknesses at higher levels?

Empowerment though I'm really wary on. Not having a shield is a potential issue without any other AC boosts available in close quarters. Technically a buckler may work. But... with 8 HP/level... I worry this is going to be difficult to take advantage of. I'd suggest a "Raise a Talisman" feat or something as a shield alternative, but some of the talismans do provide survival benefits... of course I don't think them stacking with a 1/2 circumstance would really be a problem.

Overall, I think that the expected damage of a Thaumaturge should end up fine at first glance, but I'm concerned about the drawbacks and that at late game Antithesis isn't actually going to be boosting damage much compared to other martials.

This book is absolutely wonderful. I love all the deep dives into the numerous cultures of the Expanse and I look forward to getting more of these in the future.

Looking at the initial options for innovations, it feels like there's a decided lack of options if you aren't going with construct.

Literally every option for the Armor route is some form of resistance. With the partial exception of Complex Simplicity (which is admittedly very nice!) all the options for weapon are basically "add combat maneuver trait(s) and Versatile/Modular".

Meanwhile, the options for the construct are much more varied - swim speed, better land speed, dramatically better senses (low light, darkvision, AND tremorsense!), skills, or built in ranged weapons.

On top of that, weapon innovation gets very few options overall for ranged weapons at all at any tier, and armor feels pretty narrow on higher tiers too.

Let us get more options in our kit. Move more interesting weapon traits up. Add more things. I dunno.

Armor I feel should maybe have things like swim/climb speed as options without taking feats for them? Or similar sensory upgrades as are available to constructs (integrated darkvision unit, some kind of limited blindsense?).

Weapons need more interesting things - the second tier has much more unique traits like being able to get Free-Hand and Tethered/Ranged-Trip. But then it's doing things like... Sweep/Versatile S. And just... why. A reach increase doesn't need to be on the third tier at all, I think - barbarians and fighters both have ways to get better reach much sooner (albeit as feats, but still, they're very early feats).

I dunno. This is half a rant from putting together a playtest char. And I'm looking at Dual Form and basically the only meaningful form change right now feels like if mode 2 is a ranged weapon, because otherwise I just get melee weapon with maneuver traits #1 and #2. There's so much versatile flying around that hardly matters, and the 2-action change cost means I can't do things like beefy weapon/agile weapon so much.

Are there other things you think should be available for these types, or moved around?

I think the Press trait is fundamentally incompatible with Gunslinger. Generally speaking, action economy makes it very hard to shoot twice in a turn without having set it up the previous turn.

Your options (without involving multiple guns, although since you can't quick draw while using a different feat that doesn't change the numbers) are to either start the round loaded and Strike, Reload, Feat, or to Risky Reload/Quick Draw, Reload, Feat. The only way to move during the turn at all is via Running Reload.

Compare this to Fighter, who also has lots of Press feats, but with the exception of Exacting Strike (which is useless if you're not making 3+ strikes in a turn) they all work very flexibly because they don't need actions to reload.

The following feats are all Press:
Glancing Shot
Incredible Ricochet
Assisting Shot
Two-Weapon Flurry

Two-Weapon Flurry is especially bad, because it's also a Flourish. No Risky Reload option allowed - it is literally impossible to use this if you don't start the turn with two loaded guns (or are doing sword and pistol, granted)

I don't even understand the idea behind Incredible Ricochet. Deliberately taking a bad shot and burning two actions just to set up a shot that ignores cover on a level 12 feat? Ranger gets this against their prey at 14, and it's still Press... but not, importantly, Flourish. Ranger gets to do this after flurry attacks, Hunter's Aim, etc. And has no restriction about having already attacked that target (which makes Press really make no sense there, but).

Assisting Shot is a nice way to support your allies. You have a decent chance to hit on your second attack... except... well, you can't do it every turn unless you're rolling Risky Reload each time.

Glancing Shot is basically the same as an existing Fighter feat, and is perhaps the least bad of the bunch? It's the only one that's serving the role of "not as bad as missing", so if you don't get a second attack anyways it doesn't matter.

I think the action economy costs of firearms and crossbows make them a real struggle to justify putting Press feats on a class focused on using reload 1+ weapons. They are dramatically harder to use in play solely because of that. If they're going to stay, they need to have their power boosted to account for the difficulty in being able to use them more than every other turn at most, but frankly, given the comparables in other classes, I'm not sure that's the answer.

I'm writing this coming off a playtest session of 1-14 with two inventors in it.

Between them, I think they failed 2/3 of their overdrive rolls. One of them hero pointed to dodge a crit fail (and mercifully flipped it up to success).

I don't like that this class feature is unreliable. Yes, variance in outcome is thematically appropriate, but the failure rate and failure states are awful. At level 3, I believe the best possible roll is +11 against DC 18. That still leaves a 1/3 chance you spend an action for literally no result.

Adding 2 damage for a minute is a strong outcome, for sure. The crit success of 4 damage is extremely good, and there are nice class feats to support this, leading to a capstone of being able to overdrive the entire party at once... although the scaling of the ability makes it much less exciting at that point.

For a bit of comparison, look at the Precision Ranger. They get 1d8 bonus damage on their first hit each turn against their prey. That's 3.5 on average. This requires no skill checks and is active indefinitely for a single action that doesn't even have to be used during combat depending on the situation. They can share that for an action per turn at level 8 and permanently by 14 with Shared Prey. It scales up to 3d8 by 20, which vastly outperforms Overdrive's mere 3/6 damage cap (and applies lesser dice on subsequent hits still). Overdrive is behind at level 3 and can't even compete at 20 (the action economy of Hunt Prey isn't a major drawback with two-for-one strike actions and such coming at level 1). I will grant, though, that rangers are more martially focused, so a stronger damage boost is perhaps acceptable.

So this leads me to two issues I have with Overdrive. First, it isn't reliable. Watching a party member burn their whole first turn just powering up their core damage buff because they got unlucky is painful. Second, it doesn't scale well. If you've got 18 int it's a decent boost, but with 16 or less I'm not sure it's even worth using at level 3 (and inventor has lots of stuff that doesn't care about that). And at higher levels I'm not sure it's ever worth the action and roll against a scaling DC that basically requires crafting be taken to master+.

The following abilities are part of the 1e summoner:
Life Link (Su): Starting at 1st level, a summoner forms a close bond with his eidolon. Whenever the eidolon takes enough damage to send it back to its home plane, the summoner can, as a free action, sacrifice any number of hit points. Each hit point sacrificed in this way prevents 1 point of damage done to the eidolon. This can prevent the eidolon from being sent back to its home plane.

(tether part omitted)

Life Bond (Su): At 14th level, a summoner’s life becomes linked to his eidolon’s. As long as the eidolon has 1 or more hit points, the summoner is protected from harm. Damage in excess of that which would reduce the summoner to fewer than 0 hit points is instead transferred to the eidolon. This damage is transferred 1 point at a time, meaning that as soon as the eidolon is reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to its Constitution score, all excess damage remains with the summoner. Effects that cause death but not damage are unaffected by this ability. This ability does not affect spells like baleful polymorph, flesh to stone, or imprisonment, or other spells that do not cause actual damage.

Which is to say, at level 14 the class basically has a single HP pool already as long as the eidolon is out, since neither will ever go down until both do (there are probably some edge cases where it's tactically better to not use Life Link, but Life Bond isn't optional).

So is this really them doing anything new here? Or is it just making something that functionally happened in 1e explicit?

Go Fumbus!

This is not a thread for the debate on how evolutions should be handled. This is for suggesting and discussing changes and additions to the existing evolution feats.

To address one existing issue that's been brought up:

Mounted Eidolon
You can ride your eidolon without penalty. Your eidolon's size may increase to L to facilitate this. If you also have Hulking Evolution, increase your eidolon's speed by 5 feet.

Covered Rider
When riding your eidolon you benefit from constant cover. This does not impede your own attacks. (Maybe a reaction?)

Hulking Eidolon
Add increases reach by 5 ft this this, remove the mounting ability.

I'm wondering if the size increases should be optional though - allow you to manifest the eidolon without them, but then you don't gain the reach increase (or speed bonus on mounted). The speed bonus on mounted is to cover the redundancy - if you have both, your eidolon is really good at being big and can move a bit faster to compensate for the redundant increase to L.

Edit: For reference, Mark made a post going over the evolutions from the original APG summoner and how they're available (or not) in the playtest document: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4363f&page=8?Welcome-to-the-Summoner-Class -Playtest#371

So, for the most part I think the way eidolon stats work is great. They should always be fine in combat with a beefy 16/16/16 line.

But they start with very low mental scores. This is mainly a concern for their ability to use skills that rely on them - two of the types start out at 12 in WIS, at least. But that only lets them reach a max of 18 ever at level 15 (as 19 is wasted).

My thought is basically to loosen up the initial eidolon stats slightly by allowing players to assign a small portion of them - give 1 or 2 ability boosts at level 1 and reduce the stats accordingly.

Part of my concern here is that the Beast eidolon starts at a mere 10 CHA. But it gets a dedicated Intimidate ability at level 7. Even if the summoner gets an immediate master in Intimidate there, it's still only going to have 12 CHA backing that. I think that's silly, and it should be able to at least pack 14, if not 16 (at a price).

I'm trying to decide if I like this or not, and there's one use case that came to mind on it I'm unsure about.

The maximum sustained duration is 1 minute. The immunity is 1 minute. Is that from when you cast it or when you stop sustaining it? Basically, can I keep casting/sustaining it in order to give a seamless +1 to a party member so that it applies to longer activities?

Because I want to look at it and be able to just name Discern Secrets as an exploration activity so that the guy in front has +1 perception. Then throw it on the medic for +1 medicine while patching people up (granted, Assurance Medicine is popular). Etc.

Well, that confirms the outcome of the other week's story.

Sudden Charge allows you to use it with any special speeds you may have, including a climb speed.

Climbing requires two free hands. Weapons generally also require free hands.

Does this mean Combat Climber is required to be able to Sudden Charge while using a climb speed, and that it is impossible to do so with a 2h weapon, or a shield, etc?

Fire resistance is fairly common, but Moonbeam has this clause:

Moonbeam deals silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like.

Do you read this as "in addition to" or "instead of" fire?

Alternatively:
Moonbeam hits for 10 damage.
How much damage does an enemy with fire resistance 5 take?
Fire immunity?
Fire immunity and weakness to silver 5?

The wording is inconsistent on the druid orders where they grant the initial focus spell.

Two of them say your focus pool increases by 1, two do not. None of them actually say "you gain a focus pool", though that's covered by the global rules for focus spells.

So does this mean Leaf and Storm druids are starting with a focus pool of 2 while Animal and Wild start with 1?

(Another questionable one is Champion's Deity's Domain, which grants a focus spell but not +1 pool)

Evil effects often manipulate energy from evil-aligned Outer Planes and are antithetical to good divine servants or divine servants of good deities. A creature with this trait is evil in alignment. An ability with this trait can be selected or used only by evil creatures.

Buried in the back of the book is an absolute prohibition on non-evil characters using anything with the evil trait. Both the Demonic and Diabolic bloodlines give abilities with the evil trait, however.

Diabolic's second and third bloodline spells (Embrace the Pit, Hellfire Plume) are both evil, making the feats to take them null (Unless for some reason you want more castings of Diabolic Edict).

Demonic gives the 5th level spell Abyssal Plague, which is also evil. And unlike Diabolic you are forced to take this as part of your spell repertoire, but can't ever cast it.

Should I just avoid these bloodlines for now for PFS2 characters?