OrangeyPeel's page

After looking through PF1e classes, I was inspired to begin working on an adaptation/revamp of the Hierophant, which I'm dubbing the Apostle for now. The basic concept I had was to fill in the gap for a Wisdom-based martial (both because Int and Cha already have their own dedicated martials and to fill out the small amount of Wisdom-based classes to begin with). Currently I'm playing around with the idea of incorporating the new sanctification mechanic into their core class design, with Holy, Unholy, Unsanctified, and a sort of "Dualistic" sanctification (access granted by worshiping deities that allow holy or unholy sanctification) serving as the subclasses.

I also considered the idea of making this class a divine counterpart to the Kineticist, though I am less confident in that idea.

My very rough initial idea is for a mechanic known as "Divine Pulses" (name shamelessly stolen from Fire Emblem) which would serve as ways to directly channel your deity's power, perhaps to buff specific aspects of yourself. Say you predict the need to make an important saving throw approaching, you would take an action to channel your deity's power, routing it to your body so they can protect you directly. Or if you need to make an important attack roll, you would bless your weapon and sanctify it for a time, allowing your deity to guide it as if they were wielding your blade alongside you.

I feel like this idea in and of itself is a good basis but the mechanics are where I'm stumped. The flavor isn't quite there yet, and on-the-fly circumstance bonuses would be the easiest idea but isn't something I feel fits the gameplay loop of PF2e all too well. I like the idea of Divine Pulses being more like close-range kineticist impulses, to still have focus on the martial idea, but I want to try and steer away from simply making this class "kineticist but divine," what are some ideas to bring out the flavor of a warrior using power directly from their deity to perform unbelievable feats of martial prowess?

The first boss fight is coming up in my first campaign of PF2 with three other system newbies (Champion, Fighter, and Psychic). I have three combat encounters planned so far (a big battle with the PCs and NPC allies vs a small army of skeleton guards, an optional battle against an Animated Armor that will reward a little macguffin + lore that can debilitate the boss a little, and the boss fight proper) and I've been running combat simulations of all these encounters for weeks now, yet I'm still unsure on if my boss encounter (Level 2 + two level 0s) is solid.

The level 0s are two brutes (skeleton warrior and a reskinned skeleton goblin) but the boss is a somewhat intelligent, gish-y spellcaster (his memory and mental faculties are a bit shot as he's been reanimated against his will by a much stronger necromancer). I'm trying to strike a balance where the party (3 level 1s and a level 0 NPC) will be in danger but not have a TPK happen, and I know how swingy low levels can be just based on my combat tests.

I found in my testing that the boss is extremely vulnerable to the Champ and the Fighter as they have a really good synergy with the Champion wielding a bo staff and being able to reach Trip while the Fighter flanks and Double Slices and AoOs him to death, and Warp Step led to the boss really struggling with action economy as a result of needing to Stand and then Warp Step to reposition effectively, so I deigned to give him an action that essentially gives him Warp Step for 1 action without provoking reactions (if he is prone he can use it to Stand in place of one of the Strides, but this Stand still provokes reactions as normal) as well as ways to inflict Grabbed and Sickened on the party (he has a fist attack that does negative damage with the Grab trait, and an action that forces a Will save on whoever he has grabbed against being Sickened). The arena is small enough that his mobility won't lead to completely out maneuvering the party, but it will require the Champ and Fighter to be mobile in order to get into position, or make use of Delay to be reactive to his mobility.

I've been planning to run him as casting Guidance on his two lackeys at the start so they can potentially chunk some people in the party down as he kites around them with Phase Bolt, and when his lackeys go down he'll be utilizing True Strike in combination with his melee attacks.

I'm trying to be creative in how my bosses use their action economy, but I'm worried this is too much for the first boss. Any tips on where to go from here and how to run these low level bosses?