Wrapping up some playtest experience and sharing some questions, cool stuff, comments, and concerns based on some actual play. Some notes on the setup: There were two groups, one with four kineticists (earth dedicated, fire dedicated, air/water, and air/fire) and one with three kineticists (air/fire, water dedicated, and earth dedicated) and a cleric. We play with free archetype, so some of our experiences will be altered by that from the game's baseline. Everyone was 15th level, starting gear included on-level magic weapon and armor.
Questions
-How does Elemental Weapon Work? If you use an Elemental Weapon, does it lock you out of a Stone Shield? If you create a Reload weapon with Elemental Weapon, does it form loaded or do you need the first action to be reloading the weapon? Does the Elemental Weapon inherit runes from Elemental Blasts? If yes, does a Shifting Rune allow for turning your elemental weapon into anything? Are 1+ handed weapons a type of one-handed weapons eligible for summoning with this feat, or are they their own category of weapons? A thrown weapon can be used as a melee or ranged weapon, can it be used for melee or ranged blasts or does it lock you into only one kind? Lastly, aside from mechanical questions of the feat, do kineticists need to be limited to one-handed weapons with Elemental Weapon?
-Stone Shield, Can you do this with Elemental Weapon? Narratively it feels like you can, it feels narratively counterintuitive to say the nebulously gathered quantity of element which can produce infinite elemental blasts can only be shaped into one thing. Mechanically, from what the document says, it is unclear if the gathered element can only be one thing or not. Mechanically, from a game design perspective, it feels like splitting one resource (gathered element) into two resources (weapon and shield) feels like something that needs to be spelled out.
-Can I just Stoke Element as the third action of my turn? It says you can't use another impulse this turn but it has no requirement that you haven't already done so. So does the restriction apply retroactively, or can I do a two-action impulse then Stoke Element?
-Does the last sentence of Deconstruct Element matter? It's an impulse for dedicated gate only, so you have element gathered before you can use the feat. It's not an overflow so you have element gathered after you use the feat. So it looks like the last sentence is superfluous.
Cool stuff: These were things that stood out as cool, innovative, fun abilities the players were using.
Aerial Boomerang - This is cool, innovative, and fun to play with on the map. It was used several times and, power aside, was a cool tactical move trying to setup the best line expecting it to move twice.
Rock Rampart - Me and the player using this were both pretty impressed by this. The balance of needing to sustain it (which also implies it can be dispelled since it has a duration?) works against the generally OP nature of Wall of Stone, and when earth kineticists were carving up the battlefield to control enemies it gave an opportunity for fun strategic moves.
Wings of Air - We were at the level where the whole party got it, mass flight for the party quickly was incredibly useful as I intentionally staged the encounters on maps where land-based move speeds would be trouble. It was a very good buff that opened up a lot of mobility options.
Horrid Ignition - Overall, a very fun blast move. It was a cool non-overflow ability that felt like the signature move for the fire dedicated kineticist, persistent damage and enfeebled were cool debuffs, it was a good 2-action attack. The dedicated fire kineticist thought it was the coolest ability they had.
Kinetic Auras - Auras are a cool focus for a class. Winter's Clutch was the most powerful ability in our games easily, doing 15 damage automatically for everyone. Dust storm was also pretty cool to encourage people to attack the tank instead of concealed allies. I really hope this stays in the final version, and even that the class leans in harder to the aura theme.
Chain Blast - Being able to bounce attacks around the battlefield made for very fun AoE combat. Had a surprising rate of success too, usually it was used against enemies lower-level than the party and we saw 2-3 times where it hit every enemy on the map, and only twice did it fail to hit more than 1 enemy.
Extract Element - Narratively fun, mechanically cool, giving a penalty to AC and Saves is great as is getting to beat enemies up with elements pulled from their bodies. I'm concerned it is too limited for the amount of print space it occupies, since if I hadn't intentionally built this playtest to give lots of opportunities against elementally natured creatures I doubt it would be usuable in a majority of fights. I'd rather it be something more broadly applicable, because it's really fun and I'd hate to see it as something only usable every 6th session.
Observations
Does not appear to be a martial: I get it, master weapon proficiency, no spellcasting, the class is a martial. Except, I don't think it really filled a martial role. Single-target damage wasn't impressive, defenses were not impressive (other than basically being immune to fortitude saves), and the auras that encouraged people to target the Kineticist and thus would make it more of a tank were not super impactful. It was a very versatile class with a lot of options, and the damage wasn't non-existent, but it really did not feel like it slotted into any martial niche. It also doesn't feel like a caster, it feels like its own thing. Sorta like alchemist, but easier to play.
Fights take a long time when damage is coming from kineticists: We went through 2 moderate fights, a low fight, and a severe fight. The shortest battle we had was a 7 round severe battle, the other three were 8+ and we called them short for time constraints. I felt confident the party would win the encounters, they had the enemies well under half HP and were not hurting for health, while still possessing an abundance of healing. But it took a long time to carve through enemy HP. For context, usually we go 3-5 fights for any sub-severe encounter, and even severe don't often go longer than 8 for our groups.
Attack of Opportunity didn't seem too bad: I don't like that even the basic melee attack kineticists get provokes attack of opportunity. Two of the fights we ran had AoO, the party took a beating from it but none of the abilities were disrupted and the party still prevailed. It actually felt perfectly usable with Attack of Opportunity provoking on basically every class ability, even coming from a creature lv+1 against the party. I'd rather it didn't, but I don't think it feels too bad.
Concerns:
Kinetic Blasts don't feel great. They're strong weapons on a class that is not particularly good at using weapons, so they don't feel terribly good to use. Maybe my players felt differently, but I know the dedicated fire kineticist was consistently unimpressed by regular fire blasts, and the air/water kineticist bought a bastard sword to use in melee with AoO from an archetype, rather than relying on blasts or elemental weapon. It kinda feels like a cantrip more than a main feature of the class. They're not terrible, but they do seem mediocre on the class.
Solar Detonation was an outright disappointment. I didn't realize how little it actually did until late in the playtest, because I didn't read it in depth. I get that it can't be at-will fireball, but it did very little damage, at short range, with incapacitation and requiring 4 actions to successfully use. The area debuff would be neat, unfortunately it was the last round of the game before there was a decent setup to try it. It just felt bad to use at level 15. It also was the most fire-mage type ability the fire dedicated kineticist had IMO. Other aspects are cool but launching fireball-lite feels like what the draw of pyrokineticist would be, and the only way to do that was an ability that was utterly underwhelming without much real upside in combat. I'd really like to see a better AoE in fire gate in the final.
Assume Earth's Mantle is weird and counterintuitive and hard to pull off. It's a strong offensive buff. It's a strong defensive nerf. It requires wasting a full turn of the fight to apply. It feels like it ought to be a defensive buff because you are surrounding yourself in armor but shutting off runes runs counter to this. I want to like this ability, but it was used once and made very little difference. In the other fights, there simply wasn't time to use it. 3 action abilities are really hard to use for our group.
Action economy feels bad for the payoff. The party had enhanced mobility from Wings of Air, but rarely moved around much despite this because the class demands too many actions. Gather Element is aesthetically cool but feels like wasting an action. The only abilities that were conveniently usable and didn't require careful positioning/planning were the kinetic blasts, which felt mediocre. The Overflows didn't feel like they had much of a payoff at all. When the party had to engage with the fight beyond their class actions, like getting Grabbed or needing to move, they were severely hindered. The fight where people got slowed as the least fun one of the players had ever had in a game of Pathfinder 2e, because it was such an overwhelming nerf on kineticist's ability to function.
Constitution feels bad. The class has no way to use it, so pumping it all the way really only impacts impulse DCs. That and the passive defensive boost to HP/Fort Saves. And HP doesn't even seem impressive since Barbarians can keep pace with Kineticist with only moderate investment. I'd like a way to actively use Constitution or barring that a way to actively use excess HP for something. I wouldn't really like to see the Key Ability Score be anything else conceptually, I just want high constitution to open doors for kineticist and make them feel more kineticist-y, and I don't get that feel.
Conclusion: The class has style and interesting new mechanics, I like a lot about the new direction for the class, but I feel it has slight conceptual problems with constitution as a key score and significant points that feel bad regarding the payoff of core abilities. I'm super excited to see the final version and Rage of Elements more broadly.
I have a few concerns about the Thaumaturge feats we have now.
First, there are a lot of feats that give Thaumaturge archetype feats in-class. Scroll Trickster, Talisman Dabbler, and Familiar Master can already get anyone benefits from the Scroll, Talisman, and Familiar feat chains for Thaumaturge and while Thaumaturge has an easier time mixing and matching those features, they get that at the expense of a larger number of unique Thaumaturge tricks. Thaumaturgic Ritualist is effectively the Ritualist dedication too but not a dedication. The easier time getting those and another dedication is nice, but it feels like a lot of space is spent on giving them that flexibility, and I would personally prefer more unique stuff for thaumaturgist over more unique ways of combining things everyone can already do.
Second and related, I don't particularly like feat chains and Thaumaturge has a lot of those. Familiar, Esoterica, Talisman, Scroll feats all are chains (and probably have to be since they are based on feat chains), and on top of that Ubiquitous Antithesis, Unlimited Demense, Shared Warden, and Quick Circle all have prerequisite feats. The only capstone available to all Thaumaturges is Wonder Worker because the others need prior ones. Having feat prereqs isn't especially taxing for 2-feat combos, but I also wonder if these are really strong enough to be two feats each. Quick Circle seems pretty restrictive in combat since Thaumaturge wants to attack and find flaws and use equipment but have to spend a whole turn Quick Circling to use it, I don't know if it really needs to be a separate feat from Draw Warding Circles rather than an automatic upgrade at 12. Unlimited Demense has a similar setup, the benefit isn't especially big if it is just tacked onto the prereq as a level 20 extra perk IMO. It feels like there are a lot of feats that build off taking other feats, and I don't know if the class really benefits from that setup. Maybe my personal dislike for feat chains clouds my judgement on this though.
The last concern I have is a slightly different issue, but a lot of Thaumaturge feats get shut off if they cannot Esoteric Antithesis. If I understand the rules correctly, a critical failure on Find Flaws gives you the Find Flaws crit fail and the regular RK crit fail effects, and a crit fail on RK prevents further attempts. So you get locked out of Find Flaws against a creature if you crit fail that initial roll. In a single creature fight, some of the most brutal fights for large parts of the game (since they tend towards higher level creatures with higher numbers that are easier to, say, crit fail Find Flaws) you can shut off a lot of Thaumaturge feats and features. Esoteric Lore (since the only benefit is you Recalling Knowledge, that you have lost with the crit fail), Esoteric Warden, Draw Warding Circles, Rule of Three, Sympathetic Weakness, Share Antithesis, Twin Weakness, Quick Circle, Esoteric Reflexes (due to the existing reactions), Shared Warding, Tresspass Teleportation, and Ubiquitous Antithesis all are dependent on Esoteric Antithesis or Find Flaws in some way. That is enough feats to be all of a Thaumaturges class feats, and is one option or more at every level except 18. That is a lot of class feats that get turned off for single creature fights by 1 bad roll, really makes something like Unmistakable Lore feel super important for the class. Admittedly, I am not sure if I'm reading Find Flaws and Recall Knowledge correctly for this one, maybe this isn't a problem. Worse comes to worse, you can always be sure not to pick too many of these options to keep yourself in business in those fights I suppose.
TLDR; I feel like there are a lot of recycled feats and feat chains in the Thaumaturge as of now, and that a lot of feats get turned off if you crit fail a Find Flaws check, and I am concerned about it. Anyone else feel this way? Am I missing or underestimating some of these options?
Recently I gave my thoughts on the Unleash Psyche ability and feats related to it, and the power is heavily tied to the power of amps IMO. The basic benefit of getting 3 free amps is, for some unleash psyches and play styles at least, the biggest benefit of Unleashing Psyche. Plenty has been said about the basic amps from Psychic elsewhere so I'll only touch on those briefly as they are relevant to the amp feats.
Mental Balm: Amp a psi cantrip that affects allies and doesn't target/affect enemies, give them a bonus on saves against emotion (including fear) and counteract Stupefied or Frightened conditions. Looks like a solid tool for support, the save bonus is untyped and fear effects are somewhat common, and counteracting Frightened and Stupefied can be especially good. Distant Grasp Psychics can't use it, unless they want to attack their allies or grab Parallel Breakthrough (Nudge Intent). It's better than the default amp for Guidance, and sometimes worth it on Message too.
Warp Space: Amp a psi cantrip to ignore up to 2 points of cover in relatively common situations. Better for Distant Grasp than Mental Balm, not a terrible option if you're running into cover a lot though it does replace the amp damage scaling on the spells you want to reduce cover for, probably worthwhile for TK Projectile since an average +1 dmg/lvl isn't as useful as hitting in the first place. Maybe not worthwhile for TK Rend considering how slow its damage scales.
Psychic Beacon: A way to get around invisibility/concealment. It's good to have in the party somewhere, useful but niche. Might be worthwhile if you fight a lot of invisible creatures or in areas of darkness/mist pretty frequently. You could get the same benefit from scrolls of faerie fire, but at least Beacon does whatever the cantrip normally does at the same time instead of needing to juggle action economy to draw and cast the scroll.
Spontaneous Ignition: +1 dmg/spell level and half the damage is fire damage. It replaces normal damage scaling, for TK Projectile it's a wash as long as the target is not weak or resistant to fire damage. Other spells have more erratic damage scaling, but I think it is only useful for those if the target is weak to fire damage and otherwise is worse than the basic amp damage scaling. Other than Daze, which outright benefits from the increased damage (but not enough to cover daze's slow damage scaling).
Inertial Barrier: I like this one. High resistance to common damage types, and it can apply to any psi cantrip, a solid buff that everyone can use. Hand it to allies with Guidance or Message, keep it to yourself when attacking the enemy, flexible and broadly useful. Might be my favorite amp.
Shatter Space: Emanation does mediocre damage to people adjacent to you. If you get surrounded a lot it might be useful, otherwise seems like it's worth skipping. Doesn't help that it competes with the feat that gives you more spell slots. It does look pretty cool aesthetically though.
Cranial Detonation: I really want to like this one. Kill an enemy and give an AoE blast from the explosive shock is cool, but the application of the amp kills it for me, at least before Level 20. You have to cast your psi cantrip without any amp, while you have the ability to amp it, and hope that you reduce the target to 0HP without the damage boost from amps so you can apply this, and if all that happens it still relies on there being nearby enemies to be hurt by it and risks hurting enemies if you were focusing on the same target as the frontliners. Feels like it wouldn't come up very often.
Dual Amplification: Two amplifications for the cost of one, this makes a lot of the situational amps pretty good as it takes out the opportunity cost for cantrips with good amps by default or damage cantrips which rely on amps to scale their damage. Cranial Detonation becomes less situational. Not sure it's on the same level as a 10th level spell slot, but it is good.
Overall Thoughts: Lots of these are limited or campaign dependent. Not many seem outright bad to me but plenty do not seem as good as the feat they cost. Most don't seem as good as focus spells, and depending on what psi cantrips you use many don't seem as good as the default amp. Maybe the flexibility they offer between the base amps and the other options makes them more useful in play than on-paper. I'm also concerned that a lot of these only apply to offensive cantrips, it'd be nice to see more support amps. Overall it feels like a lot of the psychic class, stylish but undertuned.
Lots of the discussion about psychic focuses on the amps, and they are a big deal, but Unleash Psyche is also a big deal for the class so here's my take on the various Unleash Psyche stuff.
To start: the basic benefit all of them share, 1 free amp per turn for 3 turns that cannot be stopped, is about as good as the amps provided. Effectively lets you cast 5 focus amps per fight (assuming you can refocus after every combat), pretty cool overall. But if your amps aren't impressive, this benefit isn't that impressive either.
Unleash Focused Intent: You meet the requirements automatically, which is pretty good if you have trouble with other options or are uninterested in other psyche feats. Bonus to spell slot damage is fine but a bit odd that it doesn't synergize with psi cantrips. The drawback is steep, a big AC penalty that stacks with everything on a low armor low HP class is going to hurt. It feels like it pushed the class towards blaster options a bit, since if you don't do spell-based damage options (or don't have any at first level when you know 2 spells) it's big benefit does nothing.
Unleash Self-Defense: The benefits are decent, better saving throws and more AC is good, nonlethal damage is only a problem in a few fights. It does feel small though. Drawbacks seem pretty rough though, another untyped penalty that stacks with everything and it applies to several of the psi cantrips, and psychic isn't exactly a damage dealing powerhouse in the first place. If leaning hard into support or non-damage spells it's a decent pick.
Unleash Calculated Reasoning: Not much to say. Not much of a benefit, but no drawback and easy requirements makes it a nice enough option. Might not be worth grabbing over something like Parallel Breakthrough, but a psyche that isn't going to hurt anything is nice. I also like that this and the next one give different feels to the subconscious minds.
Unleash Soaring Passions: Requirements can be met without spells using emotion effects like Demoralize, that's neat. My concern with both the benefit and drawback of the spell is how late it applies in the fight. The round you unleash you need to do something to the target before you get either benefit or drawback, so you probably don't encounter it until around round 4. For a support psychic the drawback might never apply, and that's neat.
Unleash Dark Persona: Looks good in single-creature fights if you can take the 2 hits to meet the requirements. Benefit like Unleash Focused Intent, but applies to psi cantrips too. If you're a blaster it might not be a problem that you can't cast beneficial spells on your allies, and the penalty only applies if you stop focusing fire to target someone else. Low HP on psychics means taking damage twice in a single creature fight might be dicey, and I don't love that the enemy has agency over when this triggers rather than the psychic. But if you are going for a blaster, it seems could be a solid tool to have on-hand.
Unleash Reflexive Sustainment: I have another thread about this one, but TL:DR; it feels weird and kinda bad. Only benefits for 2 rounds of the psyche and it doesn't give as much as it takes away.
Unleash Instant Gratification: If you really need the free amps this is nice I guess, like if you couldn't refocus or you have multiclass focus points that dropped your refocus ability. Though I'd rather wait for Unleashed Focused Intent requirements to be met than take Stupefied 1, the flat check chance of losing your spells is a big deal.
Unleash Poltergeist Phenomena: A blaster option that gives you a telekinetic zone hurting everyone around you including yourself. I doubt psychics have the HP to be damaging themselves, especially not every round for 3 rounds, and it makes it actively punishing for allies to get closer to you to give you any beneficial effect (like touch-range buffs or potions or whatever).
Multifaceted Psyche: As capstones go, this one doesn't impress me. Taking twice the drawbacks is a bit of a non-starter for me, plenty of them are severe enough on their own. Not many of the benefits seem especially worth double drawbacks unless I'm missing an incredible combination somewhere.
Overall thoughts: Like a lot of psychic, super cool and flavorful but a bit undertuned as a whole. A few seem fine, not many seem great. If psi cantrips get a lot stronger, maybe many of them are fine. I think it overcompensates for how much the basic benefit of 3 free psi amps really gives to the class.
I've been working on a psychic who doesn't use damaging spells, and Unleash Reflexive Sustainment caught my eye because at a glance it looks pretty useful.
Unleash Reflexive Sustainment wrote:
Your mind partitions itself to automatically handle some of your ongoing spells.
Benefit You become quickened and can use the additional action only to Sustain a Spell.
Drawback Partitioning your mind into a second consciousness
makes it more difficult to maintain spells. You can’t use reactions or free actions on other creatures’ turns, nor can you Sustain a Spell as a free action, such as with the Effortless Concentration feat
So quickened for 3 rounds, effectively sustaining a spell for free 3 turns in a row. Except it doesn't give you 3 free sustains, it gives you 2 free sustains. Because quickened says:
Quickened wrote:
You gain 1 additional action at the start of your turn each round. Many effects that make you quickened specify the types of actions you can use with this additional action. If you become quickened from multiple sources, you can use the extra action you’ve been granted for any single action allowed by any of the effects that made you quickened. Because quickened has its effect at the start of your turn, you don’t immediately gain actions if you become quickened during your turn.
So the round you Unleash Psyche you don't benefit from Quickened, and you are probably spending an action sustaining a spell as well as one to Unleash leaving you with tight action economy the turn you worked to improve your action economy. You only benefit from the benefit on rounds 2 and 3 of Unleash Psyche. It doesn't feel like much benefit, especially with how severe the drawbacks are. Does this feel odd to anyone else?
Draw Warding Circle plus Quick Warding Circle makes it easy to quickly deploy circles in combat, but I'm not sure where to center the circle. My impulse is to center it on a corner of the Thaumaturge's square, since Quick Warding Circle says they fling the components around them and that's the easiest adjudication, but it seems ambiguous to me. Am I simply not seeing some text in the document?
Does Thaumaturge have enough skill increases to keep up with Divine Disharmony? I'm making one right now, and between the pressure to keep knowledge skills high and the relatively small use for intelligence it seems hard to justify keeping up with Deception or Intimidation to use it. The character is for a high-level oneshot so I managed to fit it in, but I'm not sure I'd bother if I was starting from level 1. I like the ability, but it seems to clash with the class mechanically a bit. Thoughts?
A player of mine pointed to Urazra in their character's backstory as one of the antagonists that pushed him towards a Giant Totem. I think the notion of a god who is younger than the majority of his worshipers is pretty interesting, but otherwise he seems like a bear-themed Gorum to me. Curious if anyone's done anything with him in their campaigns, as well as if there is anything I should keep an eye out for regarding new information about him.
Currently I'm working on higher-level variants of some creatures as part of fleshing out a few different factions of monsters in my setting and find the hardest part is choosing a good thematic title to fit a role. Stuff like Xulgath Spinesnapper or Bilebearer, Boggard Swampseer, Bubear Tormenter, Dero Strangler, Ogre Glutton, Duskwalker Ghost Hunter etc. All of these are great and evocative titles, and I feel that if I had that name/basic concept I could pretty easily come up with special abilities to match. Trouble is, I am grasping at straws for inspiration to find these cool names, especially if I need to flesh out the society on my own.
Does anyone have a solid source of inspiration or method of coming up with such naming conventions? Right now I'm looking specifically at fleshing out groups of Zoogs, Fungus Leshies, and Girtablilus if it helps, but I'm more specifically looking for a process to help come up with cool titles or names for creatures. Where's a good place to start finding a name?
Currently I have plans involving Count Ranalc and his clergy in one of my campaigns and am trying to come up with Deific Boons and Curses that fit him. So far I've come up with a first draft and I'd appreciate some feedback on if these seem balanced and on-theme for Count Ranalc.
Minor Boon Count Ranalc conceals your treacherous intent. Once, when you roll a failure at a Deception check to Lie, you instead get a Critical Success.
Moderate Boon Darkness hides no secrets from your eyes. As long as you remain in Count Ranalc's favor you gain Greater Darkvision.
Major Boon In the eyes of your enemies you can do no wrong. Once per day, you know just what to say to Lie to a creature who views you as an ally and can automatically receive a result of 20 + your Deception modifier on your Deception check instead of rolling. This does not increase your degree of success like rolling a 20 would. If there is legitimately nothing you could say that the creature would believe, you learn that and you don't expend your daily use of the boon.
Minor Curse You become blind to betrayal and easy to fool, you take a -2 penalty to your Perception DC to resist Lies and whenever you roll a failure on a perception check to Sense Motive you instead get a critical failure.
Moderate Curse Shadows dance to protect your foes. The flat check DC to successfully affect a Concealed creature increases by 2, and creatures in dim light or darkness are Concealed to you even if you have Low-Light Vision or Darkvision.
Major Curse You are exiled from all other creatures, you can no longer communicate with any creature nor can you feel their touch.
I recently GM'd a playtest session for a party of four level 10 characters. Party consisted of a Weapon Inventor, Drifter Gunslinger, Pistolero Gunslinger, and Champion.
Character Creation A few concerns manifested while building characters. These have largely been noted elsewhere, but the Pistolero realized pretty quickly that he could not dual wield without having to stow his second pistol frequently to reload. This wasn't super satisfying, but working with it he settled on having one primary pistol to use for attacking and damage, and bought a second one to use with feats like Redirecting Shot and Warning Shot. Both gunslingers felt like they had to take a feat to make reloading more interesting than just an action tax (both had Running Reload and the Drifter had Reloading Strike) and I believe the class should get an ability by default that makes reloading more fun.
Another concern during character creation was Rebounding Assault. None of us minded the flavor of the ability, it feels kinda cartoonish but so do our normal sessions. However, it didn't seem to interact with doubling rings. The playtest specific doubling rings only work while wielding both weapons, and the normal doubling rings point out that once a weapon is thrown it is no longer wielded. This meant having to sink money into a second weapon at full cost so one of the Drifter's core features would work. It also feels weird as the mandatory drifter deed, it seems niche and more appropriate as a feat.
The inventor didn't have any major concerns during character creation. I was slightly bothered by not getting many breakthroughs or options for innovations, and the Inventor player felt compelled to go for melee as there aren't many ranged options. Also the class has several feat chains which bothers me though not the player. I don't think I would ever take Megaton Strike or Megavolt without taking the followup feats, and the Construct Inventor has to take a feat chain to keep their companion relevant. These were all fairly minor problems.
In-Play notes: I want to say at the top that everybody had an absolute blast playing the new classes. Guns were fun despite issues noted above, the inventor's super weapon was cool and useful, overall we are all excited for the final version. Most of the feedback I have is negative, but it's important to note that despite any problems that arose the classes were fun to play. Warning Shots, Pistol Twirling, Overdrive, Tamper, these are all dripping with flavor. Misfire feels like a huge improvement over 1e now that it only happens by choice. Now some of the problems that arose:
First, both classes felt squishy. The Inventor was a glass cannon, and while it doesn't feel inappropriate for an Inventor to not be super resilient, it would be nice to have more ranged support. The Drifter and Pistolero were both similarly squishy, and this felt worse than the inventor as the class feels like it plays on tropes of tough and tenacious western protagonists. These two ways don't have long-ranged options, and Drifter actively pushes you towards melee, so it would be nice to have more HP or defensive options.
Second, back to Rebounding Assault, in play it sucks to lose a weapon in the enemy square. It happened a few times and didn't feel fun. When the setup all works well it feels really cool to throw a trident into somebody and then shoot it back into your own hand, but losing it in the enemy square means having to close into melee and burn an action recovering your weapon after specifically trying to engage at range. And that's additional punishment on top of already failing your attack.
Third, getting Grabbed as a gunslinger sucks. It happened several times in the session, and it forced them to stay in melee when they don't have a lot of health and it made reloading feel even worse than normal because it would periodically fail. And it was hard to stay far enough away from the fight to avoid monsters approaching them and grabbing them because one-handed firearms have short range, which makes me feel like this is a bigger issue for someone using one-handed firearms than for other ranged characters. It's worth noting that the party did not prioritize escaping grapples, none of them wanted to give up their first shot (and best chance at a fatal crit) to Escape, which may be a tactical blunder on their part.
Fourth, as a GM I was underwhelmed by Gigaton Strike. The weapon inventor took Megaton Strike and Gigaton Strike, and it was pretty useful for this group to knock an enemy back away from the gunslingers. The extra damage was also nice, and when a Gigaton Strike critical hit landed it felt really nice. However, for a once per fight ability (before negative consequences start building up) and a two feat investment it felt a bit underwhelming from my side of the virtual screen. I think it could use a bit more oomph somehow.
Fifth, I'm lightly concerned about environmental interactions with gunpowder and gunslingers. This playtest involved the enemies lighting the party on fire at one point, and the party fighting alongside river banks and getting wet. In 1e, that could have meant them wasting exploding or getting useless wet powder. We didn't have rules to playtest this factor so we ignored it completely, but the gunslinger may need some ways around this. Extra-dimensional storage probably can handle a lot of it, but it feels worth a mention.
Finally, I think a lot of the wow factor in Gunslinger was absorbed by fatal firearm crits, and this might be a misstep. In play the Pistolero managed to get two firearm crits while the Drifter did not score any, and the Pistolero player felt the crits were really fun while the Drifter was disappointed that they hadn't rolled any. This is due to random chance and not directly the gunslinger's fault, but I think the disappointment would have been alleviated if the gunslinger felt less focused on crit-fishing and had more steady cool powers.
My usual play group have paused our current campaign and are working on playing unrelated modules in the meanwhile, planning on picking up the old game when we are in person again so I'm looking at converting modules from 1e to play during the break. Thought it might be fun to have a discussion about good modules to convert and run online, so what would everybody recommend as a short online campaigns?
Working on getting a smattering of spells converted from 1e to 2e for various reasons, Serren's Armor Lock caught my eye and I'm workshopping some different effects for the condition imposed. Here's what I have so far for Armor Lock
You bind the target’s armor in otherworldly chains stiffening their joints and restricting their movement. The target makes a reflex save, if the target is wearing heavy armor they take a -1 circumstance penalty on their save.
Critical Success: The target is unaffected
Success: The target is encumbered for one round.
Failure: The target is encumbered for one minute and must make a DC 5 flat check to perform actions with the manipulate trait.
Critical Failure: As failure, and the target is slowed 1 for one minute.
Heightened 6th The spell can target up to 10 creatures
Does this look about right for a third level spell?
So you're building your cadre of animated objects and you get a critical success, what single goal do you have it follow single-mindedly to completion? Some thoughts:
Turn this wheel forever. Have them turn a wheel/gear forever and use that to power other more complex devices. Do it to a squirrel figurine and install them into your giant robot man.
Perform this dance forever. Gives you some fun animatronic decorations for your grand foyer. Maybe your fountain has stone fish that swim and dance about it, statues of yourself dancing or brandishing weapons, statues of your greatest enemy falling at your blade, etc.
Sweep the house forever. An obvious command for an animated broom. Also mop the house forever for an animated mop, dust the furnishings for an animated feather duster, etc. etc. etc.
Manipulate
Source Core Rulebook pg. 472
Trigger You fall from or past an edge or handhold.
Requirements Your hands are not tied behind your back or otherwise restrained
When you fall off or past an edge or other handhold, you can try to grab it, potentially stopping your fall. You must succeed at a Reflex save, usually at the Climb DC. If you grab the edge or handhold, you can then Climb up using Athletics.
Critical Success You grab the edge or handhold, whether or not you have a hand free, typically by using a suitable held item to catch yourself (catching a battle axe on a ledge, for example). You still take damage from the distance fallen so far, but you treat the fall as though it were 30 feet shorter.
Success If you have at least one hand free, you grab the edge or handhold, stopping your fall. You still take damage from the distance fallen so far, but you treat the fall as though it were 20 feet shorter. If you have no hands free, you continue to fall as if you had failed the check.
Critical Failure You continue to fall, and if you’ve fallen 20 feet or more before you use this reaction, you take 10 bludgeoning damage from the impact for every 20 feet fallen.
If you fell past a flying creature large enough to support your weight (dragons, griffons, night gaunts, whatever else), could you use Grab an Edge to grab onto it? Like snag onto a talon or horn or tail or whatever? And what happens next if you do?
Basically the title is the question here. What false info do you give players for combat? What is off-limits or too-far?
For me, I try to make the misinformation something that will quickly be discovered or have a small impact. Biggest way for that is giving fake weaknesses and resistances to specific kinds of damage.
I'll give a false weakness to a damage type the party doesn't typically use (but could), they'll try it and immediately see that the information was false, but they will then just switch back to normal. Not a huge effect, still an effect.
I'll give a false resistance to a damage type the party might use, but isn't reliant on. Them not using that damage type does affect them, but not hugely because they have another viable damage type available, it just limits the options they feel like using (until they spot the deception).
A big caveat however is that I don't do this if it is going to screw them over too much. For instance, if the party's only splash damage or aoe is acid splash I won't tell them a swarm is resistant to acid. If the creature is normally resistant I won't tell them the monster is weak or vice versa. That feels too punishing for my taste.
I just recently got my Lost Omens Character Guide and have found I have trouble with the pronunciation of the several names in the Magaambya section. Specifically, Uzunjati, Magaambya, Aengasi, and Demuwe. How are they meant to be pronounced?
I'm working on a campaign that will be going into the Mana Wastes, so I've been trying to draft up some good mutant creatures that roam the wasteland, here's the first pass at a new mutant adjustment:
Mutant creatures tend to have two mutations, one positive and one negative. Elite mutants might lack a negative mutation or possess two positive mutations while Weak mutants might lack a positive mutation or possess two negative mutations.
Negative Mutations:
Fragile: The mutant treats all fortitude saving throws as one degree of success worse than normal.
Fractured Mind: The mutant treats all will saving throws as one degree of success worse than normal.
Mutant spasms: The mutant treats all reflex saving throws as one degree of success worse than normal.
Clumsy Frame: The mutant is permanently and incurably clumsy 1 and increases the value of any negative effect that makes them clumsy by 1.
Light Sensitivity: The mutant is dazzled while in areas of bright light.
Lame: The mutant takes a -5 penalty to all speeds.
Vulnerable: The mutant gains weakness equal to their level (minimum 3) to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, fire, electricity, cold, or acid damage. If the mutant is normally resistant to the chosen damage type that resistance disappears. If the mutant would normally be immune to a damage type they cannot be vulnerable to it.
Positive Mutations:
Armored: The mutant gains a +2 status bonus to AC
Bulbous Eyes: The mutant gains darkvision and low-light vision
Many-Eyed: The mutant can only be flanked if they are within reach of at least 3 creatures. The mutant gains a +2 status bonus on perception checks to seek using sight.
Many-Eared: The mutant gains blindsense (imprecise) 10' based on sound and a +2 status bonus on perception checks to seek using hearing.
Digging Claws: The mutant gains a burrow speed of 10' or increases their burrow speed by 5'.
Resilient: The mutant gains resistance to it's level (minimum 3) to any one of the damage types listed in the Vulnerable negative mutation.
Springing Legs: The mutant gains the Swift Leap action..
Ghoul wrote:
Swift Leap Single Action (move) The ghoul jumps up to half its Speed. This movement doesn’t trigger reactions.
How do these look? My goal is to be able to apply one positive and negative mutation to a creature without adjusting their level, as well as to have some extra strong/weak mutants to go with the elite/weak adjustment. Any of the numbers seem off or are there any particular negative/positive mutation pairings I should avoid?
In the Lost Omens World Guide it says the gates to Refuge (Nex's personal demiplane bunker) opened in 4716, 3 years prior to the current setting timeline. Did that happen in an adventure path or module or pathfinder society scenario that I didn't happen to catch and could look at to learn more, or was it off-screen?
Seems like a few items have some price errors.
-Aldori Dueling Sword was confirmed on a podcast to be 20sp not 20gp.
-Swim Fins and Jellyfish Lanterns might be overpriced, both seem like their price (5 and 2 gold respectively) should be silver for what they do.
-Black Pearl Aeon Stone is 2000. Not 2000 gold or silver or copper or platinum, just 2000. I assume it is supposed to be gold.
Anything else seem mispriced?
Uncommon, Abjuration, Invested, Magical, Tattoo
Price 90gp
Usage tattoo; Bulk -
You can activate the tattoo as a reaction instead of a 2-action activity, triggered when a demon attacks you or you attempt a saving throw against a Demon's ability.
Activate 2 Actions Envision, Interact;
Frequency once per day; Effect You gain the effect of protection against evil.
The item has no alignment tag, neither does it's activation. Can a non-good character use the item? Or does the alignment tag on the spell shut it down?
With all the changes to summoning, I thought it might be good to discuss tactics where you should or should not summon. Here are some of my thoughts on tactical summoning:
First, you never want to summon out of a slot that is not your highest level. They are just too far behind for that to work out well. Similarly, you don't want summons to engage with bosses, or even on-level threats. This doesn't make them worthless in boss fights necessarily, but they should only go after the mooks or else serve to block mobility for the boss.
Their offense is so low against strong opponents that the boss will probably not bother unless the summon is in the way of them. That said, physically larger summons could plausibly slow an enemy down by taking up more of the field. They can also provide flanking. As soon as a boss starts focusing on the summon they quickly die. This is good, every attack a summon absorbs is an attack that doesn't kill the party and damage that doesn't need healing.
They might actually be decent in fights with lots of foes. More enemies tends to mean lower-level enemies, so they might be weak enough for the summon to contribute damage. If the summon does damage reliably they also become a target for the enemy, which as mentioned above is generally a good thing.
Golems are now uncommon it seems, was this the case before? Most adventurers I've played in 1e ran into them, they were used by ancient empires as well as wizards in several nations. Magnimar is famous for the golemworks, and there are golem forged in kaer maga and absalom as well IIRC. Seems like there is plenty of room for stories about them to diffuse across Golarion. Were golems more obscure than I thought?
The new rod of wonder is kinda disappointing compared to the previous. I'm fine with things like the item eventually being somewhat obsolete due to math or the item being rare (and not allowed by the GM) and the chance that nothing really happens because monsters imagining that they grow leaves doesn't really impede them. That stuff was in there before after all, if you used the rod you accepted the risk that nothing happened, and if the GM didn't like the rod you generally didn't find it. What I'm less fine with is the cooldown. See, before you could spam it for as long as you dared to get an effect that suited the fight. You shouldn't necessarily, it raises the risk of friendly fire, but the option was there to make it less disappointing. Now you get one chance every d4 hours, and that comes with a good risk of doing nothing. Does anything break if that cooldown is cut out?
We finally have a description of the gnome flickmace! Released in Gnomes of Golarion with the flavor text cut for space, it has been bouncing around golarion like an undefined ghost of a weapon until 2e gives us this:
Core Rulebook pg 285 wrote:
More a flail than a mace, this weapon has a short handle attached to a length of chain with a ball at the end. The ball is propelled to its reach with the flick of the wrist, the momentum of which brings the ball back to the wielder after the strike.
Given that I've wanted to know what that flickmace looks like for literally years, I think this might be one of my favorite things about the new edition.
Abjuration Curse Force
Source Core Rulebook pg. 371
Traditions arcane, divine, occult
Cast Two Actions somatic, verbal
Range 30 feet; Targets 1 creature
Saving Throw Will
You cause any spells cast on the target to spill out their energy in harmful surges. The target must attempt a Will save.
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success Whenever the target becomes affected by a spell with a duration, the target takes 2d12 persistent force damage. Each time it takes persistent force damage from spellwrack, it reduces the remaining duration of spells affecting it by 1 round. Only a successful Arcana check against your spell DC can help the target recover from the persistent damage; the curse and the persistent damage end after 1 minute.
Failure As success, but the curse and persistent damage do not end on their own.
Critical Failure As failure, but the persistent force damage is 4d12.
I'm having a bit of trouble understanding some parts of this spell.
First, does persistent damage stack? I'm inclined to say no, but I can't find anything on Archives of Nethys indicating that it doesn't.
Second, the success effect, does the curse reduce it's own duration when triggered?
So, lets say you have 7 rounds left on both a 1 minute spell and spellwrack affecting you, and before the next round someone lands 2 spells with durations on you. First, do you take 2d12 or 4d12 persistent force damage? Next, does the duration for your buff and spellwrack both go down to 5 rounds, or is it just your buff? Third, lets say next round you recover from all persistent damage but someone hits you with another spell with duration, do you begin taking the persistent damage again?
Attack Evocation Force
Source Core Rulebook pg. 377
Traditions arcane, occult
Cast Two Actions somatic, verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature
With a rush of telekinetic power, you move a foe or something they carry. You can attempt to Disarm, Shove, or Trip the target using a spell attack roll instead of an Athletics check.
There are some odd interactions between this and the Disarm, Shove, and Trip actions, best shown through Shove.
Archives of Nethys wrote:
Shove Single Action
Attack
Source Core Rulebook pg. 243
Requirements You have at least one hand free. The target can’t be more than one size larger than you.
You push an opponent away from you. Attempt an Athletics check against your opponent’s Fortitude DC.
Critical Success You push your opponent up to 10 feet away from you. You can Stride after it, but you must move the same distance and in the same direction.
Success You push your opponent back 5 feet. You can Stride after it, but you must move the same distance and in the same direction.
Critical Failure You lose your balance, fall, and land prone.
It seems you still get the free stride after you succeed/crit and still fall prone if you crit fail. Which I don't think was intended, but I can't find anything to suggest otherwise. Am I off base for thinking this is odd? Is there some obscure feature of the rules that makes this not work?
You raise a magical shield of force. This counts as using the Raise a Shield action, giving you a +1 circumstance bonus to AC until the start of your next turn, but it doesn't require a hand to use.
While the spell is in effect, you can use the Shield Block reaction with your magic shield. The shield has Hardness 5. After you use Shield Block, the spell ends and you can't cast it again for 10 minutes. Unlike a normal Shield Block, you can use the spell's reaction against the magic missile spell.
This can be read two ways. First, that the magical shield can be used with the shield block general feat. Second, the cantrip gives you the Shield Block reaction EDIT:without the feat and only with the magic shield /EDIT. Am I missing something?
With the newest alchemist updates, advanced alchemy and quick alchemy make any items created infused. Including poisons, it seems. Which means powerful alchemy feat sets the DC of any item made by advanced alchemy/quick alchemy to class DC. And potent poisoner gives a +2DC, but caps at class DC. So, does the feat do anything? Am I missing something about poisons never being infused in 1.6?
Splitting off from some of the other threads to start a place to discuss some of the changes for 1.6 other than the paladin change.
Note: Please, take the discussion of the paladin alignment change somewhere else. Maybe over here. Or to the next paladin's should/shouldn't be LG-only thread. This is more for the rest of the 1.6 stuff they released.
First with the update post in the 1.6 update thread, and a big thanks to Ediwir for giving a quick summary of the livestream for those of us who can't twitch.
Ediwir wrote:
So many red flags on this stream.
Top 5:
5. Stances: no more Open trait on stances (still 1/r)
4. More class options. Rangers get early level “ranger edges” (flurry, precision, stalker). Rogues get “techniques” (finesse, brute attack, feint)
3. Monks get more Ki powers, buff on Ki strike, everybody was kung fu fighting, more flexibility on abilities.
2. ALCHEMIST. Lots of stuff. Big deals include: removal of resonance alchemy, replaced with infused reagents similar to resonance playtest version. ALCHEMISTS GET RESEARCH FIELDS like bomber, chirurgeon, mutagenist (lower level mutagens will be a thing), poisoner.
1. PALADIN. Removed from the game. That's what Stephen (senior designer) said, I swear to Asmodeus.
Spoiler:
He was kidding, paladin will be Any Good rather than Lawful Good, but with slightly different codes (Defender LG, Redeemer NG, Liberator CG). Don't smite the messenger.
Someone read my alchemist rants <3 happy me.
This thread is still being edited and added to at the time of posting.
Also notes:
Some more minor updates COULD happen but will not follow a schedule and will not be of this magnitude.
"X Form" spells that use bestiary stats cannot be a thing because bestiary uses different creation rules that are not fitting for the PCs and would end up in cherry-picking monsters (Personal note: 3.5 Hydra form wizard with shared spell familiar anyone?)
1e to 2e conversion was talked about mostly in monster terms but republishing old adventures in 2e won't likely sell much.
Once the playtest ends in December, some information blogs on final 2e will come out - the proper form of this is still in the works.
LV12 bunnies issue: On one side, a GM creating an adventure will set a DC to challenge a party if the situation demands it. On the other, a GM creating a world will set level challenges regardless on when players meet them. Meeting the two is the issue and they need to work on conveying that idea. The chat demands a shrubbery to climb.
I tried to ask about mandatory item bonuses (working the question in a little less loaded way) but it wasn't picked up. There's a bit more discussion I didn't jot down, so feel free to check the stream if you want more details!
STREAM ENDED AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE ADDITIONS
My own thoughts on the updates:
Monk stuff looks pretty cool. I wonder how ki strike is going to feel more powerful, maybe it will add a die of damage on top of the accuracy bump, or come with something like bypassing resistances or concealed. More ki-monk options is a definite plus.
I'm curious how the new 'rogue techniques' will be different than the current paths we have now. Maybe more feat support later on for brute/feint methods? Maybe there will be better weapon support for brute rogues or better damage support for feint rogues?
I absolutely love that poisoner is going to be an alchemist specialization option now. Other specs for them are cool too.
Any thoughts on how the stance change is going to work out in play? I like the idea of getting into dragon style round 1, then swapping to crane style at the end of round 2 for some defense after a strong opener. Also seeds in some support for an eventual Master of Many Styles that might be able to enter multiple stances at once. Or maybe the stance change is only for fighter stances and monk styles are still only at the start of the round.
Came up in the playtest, characters got so enfeebled they were rolling less than 0 damage. What happens? Do they default to 1 nonlethal (the PF1 default)? Does damage stop at 0 HP? Doe they heal the target by accident?
Fun situation came up in the playtest earlier this week. Party was kinda split up, and the enemy was coordinating by shouting at eachother, didn't always have line of sight to each other. I was a bard, and wanted to try and interfere with this communication, so I think about yelling "The cleric's going upstairs" and rolling deception to trick the enemies into going on a goose chase. Thought I'd go to impersonate (mimicing the enemy's voice) and found out it takes 10 minutes to impersonate someone. Doesn't seem to make a distinction for purely verbal impersonations. Checked lie, but that takes a full round. To say something it wouldn't take me a full 2 seconds say. I'd be fine with an action, but a full round seems excessive.
New update gave us multiclass rules for paladin. The first feat says you are bound by being LG and by your deity's anathema. It also is the only way to get instant heavy armor proficiency. And the only things you lose for violating the code is the benefits of feats you don't have to take. So, for example, a CE monk could take this while violating the paladin codes all the way, and still get a fun weapon and some good armor proficiencies. And now can take a feat for divine grace (about as good as any other monk reaction IMO) and another for armor expert.
Is this supposed to open up 'paladins' of every alignment?
As the title suggests, I don't see any reason to ever pick bear, wolf, or bull totems in comparison to other totems.
Bear gives you claw and bite attacks, and a slightly faster movespeed with animal rage. Which is supposed to compete with cat totem, which does all of this except the claws are better and the movespeed is faster. No disadvantage here, no area where bear is better, just a bear+.
Wolf and Bull give you a single natural attack, and with animal rage gives you a slightly better speed. Deer does this too, but is faster than either of the other two with animal rage.
The other totems have a niche IMO. Ape is the fastest climber, so if you adventure in a region where climb speeds will be incredibly useful it might be good to be the best here. Shark is the fastest swimmer, as ape but for water. Frog is slower at swimming than shark, but has a landspeed and some reach, making it decent if you are going for a more amphibious environment and helps compensate slower speed by not needing to go as far. Snake is slower than any other option, but it can climb, swim, and move overland. Not every campaign or playstyle will benefit from these, but the benefits exist.
For wolf, bull, and bear, I just don't see a mechanical reason to not be a deer or cat instead. Anything I'm missing? Does this bother anyone else?
In a fight, can you apply poison to an ally's blade? I can't find anything prohibiting it (and think it would be a pretty neat buff style for an alchemist).
Related question, if you apply poison to a weapon, does it stay on the weapon until a strike is made with that weapon, allowing a character to walk around with pre-poisoned arrows/blades?
Sorry if these have obvious answers, some of the alchemy and poison rules are all over the place and I want to be sure I know how applying poisons work before making a poisoner.
The weapons section is probably one of my favorite parts of PF2. Weapon traits feel a lot more important, useful, and interesting than they did in PF1, they actively encourage using weapons, and weapons with more of them feel better than weapons with less even if they do the same damage. There are some duds (like the ancestry ones, or volley) but the mostly I really like the change. Weapon specialization takes this one step further and makes each weapon group a bit more unique and useful for highly skilled users than the average warrior. It is a fantastic framework.
That said, the armor section is severely disappointing, especially when compared to the weapons section. Armor traits do the opposite of weapon traits, they actively discourage use. You aren't encouraged to use armor because it has interesting features that help with defense, but instead because it doesn't have features that harm your defenses. It feels like armor choices that have the best numbers are actively punishing you for not picking something else. That doesn't feel right to me. I'd really like to see armor traits that encouraged using armor rather than discouraged using it. Like having some armor be swift and have a lower penalty to speed if you are striding more than your move speed (worded carefully to allow for things like sudden charge) or other armor be steady and give a bonus to any checks or DCs which would prevent you from losing your balance.
Also, maybe not for the CRB2, but eventually getting some armor specialization feats and features would be pretty cool too.
Aberration Sorcerer gets the first level power Tentacular Limbs, but this doesn't really do a lot for them. It gives 10' reach for touch spells and strikes with the arms themselves (but not weapons), which is neat but the Occult spell list doesn't have a ton of offensive touch spells. You can take chill touch, which is okay. They get touch of idiocy, which is level 2. Not a whole lot at level 1, and I don't see a ton of options at later levels. I guess it helps with some buffs, but it seems kinda underwhelming. Any gems I am missing?
Saw some interesting discussions of PFS and PF2 rules and how they should interact, thought it was worth a thread of its own instead of being tucked in other threads.
How much should PFS experience and demands influence PF2's rules? How much do we suspect it will?
Will it be difficult to add homebrew creatures to the playtest without skewing the results? I ask because I am working on a 2e homebrew playtest game (right now just the story and an estimate of CR) and it hinges on a couple creatures in bestiary 5 (specifically deep ones and greys), which means I doubt the playtest bestiary will include them. Do we know if there will be guidance on creating monsters/expected numbers, or if there will be similar creatures in the playtest bestiary?
We know that shields can be destroyed in use, and as such can be considered a consumable, at least for low-level shields.
We know that Resonance ties magic items to character ability to manipulate magic more than item slots did.
We know that the new Alchemist is focused on alchemy more than the old one, rather than being a bottle-caster like before.
We know that the new magic items aren't going to be based on the big six any more, with a wider array of cool items that aren't competing with the ability to maintain competence/excellence as an adventurer.
Maybe PF2 is going to be more supportive of consumable items than PF1 was. In PF1, from my experience, a lot of consumables took a back seat to renewable resources simply because they were a gold sink. First level wands were common (because they were super cheap) and a couple of scrolls or potions for utility were as well, but after about level 4 or so things like 1 time use magic items or alchemical weapons and remedies tended vanish as they didn't scale and cost too much to keep up with, either in gold or action economy or both.
Now we have a new magic item system that can make these consumables reusable at the cost of a daily resource, we have a new crafting system and a class focused on making items that were traditionally consumables, we have a reason for magic DCs to scale with level, and a big defensive boost that can be purchased for a time. Any thoughts? Have I missed something that supports or rejects this?
So, we know that in PF2 Goblins are a player race. We also know that something happens to make this more palatable than it currently is for those opposed, but we (and potentially paizo) don't know what. So, what changes might occur in 10-12 years to completely alter their role in society?
3. There is more to the shift in goblins that I can honestly talk about here. Some of it would be a spoiler for things that are still in the planning phases, making them way to premature to talk about. Even if I could, I would not want to ruin the reveals.
What key features of the game do you think establishes the feel of Pathfinder for you, instead of D&D or any other game?
What do you think PF2 should incorporate to make the game feel like Pathfinder, but better?
Curious what others think as I personally have very little experience with RPGs beyond PF and I'm not sure what would constitute achieving the design goal PF2 has for being True to Pathfinder.
Is the Giant Mantis Shrimp supposed to have the aquatic subtype?
UW has a vermin companion for Giant Mantis Shrimp. It is described as aquatic in the description text (colorful aquatic vermin), has a swim speed, and is based on an aquatic creature. However, there are other aquatic animal companions in the book which have the aquatic special quality in their write-up. The Giant Mantis Shrimp has a special quality called "aquatic blindsense 10ft" rather than having aquatic and blindsense 10ft. The former implies blindsense in aquatic environments, the latter simply means a comma is missing.
If an Envoy uses Clever Attack with a ranged weapon while threatened, does he provoke? Does an ally using a ranged attack against a clever feinted foe provoke? I don't think it does, because flat-footed prohibits reactions (so it would provoke but the for couldn't do anything) but I'm not sure if I'm missing something or if this is against the intent.
Relevant text from SRD:
Clever Attack wrote:
As a standard action, you can make a single attack against a target within 60 feet and gain the benefits of clever feint (attempting a Bluff check against the target as normal). Apply the effects of clever feint before resolving your attack.
Clever Feint wrote:
As a standard action, you can fake out an enemy within 60 feet, making that enemy open to your attacks. Attempt a Bluff check with the same DC as a check to feint against that enemy (though this isn’t a standard check to feint, so Improved Feint and Greater Feint don’t apply). Even if you fail, that enemy is flat-footed against your attacks until the end of your next turn. If you succeed, the enemy is also flat-footed against your allies’ attacks until the end of your next turn.
Flat-Footed wrote:
At the start of a combat, if you are surprised, you are flat-footed until you become aware of combat and have had a chance to act. Many other effects can cause you to become flat-footed. You take a –2 penalty to your AC and cannot take reactions while flat-footed.
Out of curiosity, what are the most popular UMD scrolls/wands/etc? I would imagine enlarge person and grease, as well as ill omen familiar shenanigans, any other popular ones?
One of my favorite archetypes from Horror Adventures, Mad Scientist, unfortunately requires a bit of advanced preparation to work. Fortunately, here are tables for each level of extract. Don't know if anybody else ever plans on using this archetype, but I certainly have a number of NPC's lined up for this, and want to make a PC Mad Scientist if I ever get a convenient chance.
2nd Level Extracts:
First roll (1d3-1)x10. Then add 1d10. Redo if the result is 30 until a valid result occurs.
1:Aid
2:Alchemical Allocation
3:Alter Self
4:Barkskin
5:Blur
6:Bull's Strength
7:Cat's Grace
8:Cure Moderate Wounds
9:Darkvision
10:Delay Poison
11:Detect Thoughts
12:Eagle's Splendor
13:Elemental Touche
14:False Life
15:Fire Breath
16:Fox's Cunning
17:Heroic Fortune
18:Invisibility
19:Levitate
20:Owl's Wisdom
21:Perceive Clues
22:Protection from Arrows
23:Resist Energy
24:Restoration (Lesser)
25:See Invisibility
26:Spider Climb
27:Transmute Potion to Poison
28:Undetectable Alignment
29:Vomit Swarm
3rd Level:
First Roll (1d3-1)x10 then add 1d10 or 1d4 if the result of the first roll is 20.
1:Absorbing Touch
2:Amplify Elixir
3:Arcane Sight
4:Beast Shape I
5:Bloodhound
6:Cure Serious Wounds
7:Displacement
8:Draconic Resevoir
9:Elemental Aura
10:Fly
11:Gaseous Form
12:Haste
13:Heroism
14:Nondetection
15:Protection from Energy
16:Rage
17:Remove Blindness/Deafness
18:Remove Curse
19:Remove Disease
20:Seek Thoughts
21:Thorn Body
22:Tongues
23:Water Breathing
4th Level:
Roll (1d3-1)+6 then add 1d6.
1:Air Walk
2:Arcane Eye
3:Beast Shape II
4:Cure Critical Wounds
5:Death Ward
6:Detonate
7:Discern Lies
8:Dragon's Breath
9:Elemental Body I
10:Fire Shield
11:Fluid Form
12:Freedom of Movement
13:Invisibility, Greater
14:Neutralize Poison
15:Restoration
16:Spell Immunity
17:Stoneskin
18:Universal Formula
5th level:
Roll (1d3-1)+5. Then add 1d10/2(minimum 1)
1:Beast Shape III
2:Contact Other Plane
3:Delayed Consumption
4:Dream
5:Elemental Boddy II
6:Elude Time
7:Magic Jar
8:Nightmare
9:Overland Flight
10:Planar Adaptation
11:Plant Shape I
12:Polymorph
13:Resurgent Transformation
14:Sending
15:Spell Resistance
6th Level:
Roll (1d3-1)+5 then add 1d10/2(minimum 1)
1:Analyze Dweomer
2:Beast Shape IV
3:Elemental Body III
4:Eyebite
5:Form of the Dragon I
6:Giant Form I
7:Heal
8:Mislead
9:Plant Shape II
10:Shadow Walk
11:Statue
12:Transformation
13:True Seeing
14:Twin Form
15:Wind Walk
Hope that these lists might help anyone else thinking of using this archetype.
Barring GM fiat, is it possible to wear armor underneath your normal armor?
Not for any benefit mechanically of course, but is it possible to wear a chain shirt under full plate? Or maybe even Chainmail under full plate? Would it change if the chainmail were mithral?
I'm asking with regards to a sunder character, covering some bases in case of GM's deciding to start sundering my stuff.
Recently Horror Adventures was released with the Living Grimoire Inquisitor within. A quick skim and you see that it is an Int-based, prepared inquisitor. The same quick skim shows it is an awesome archetype thematically. But while it removes most of the wisdom-dependent class features (Monster Lore, Cunning Initiative, spellcasting, and True Judgement), it keeps the ability to change teamwork feats based on wisdom, as well as keeping wisdom-dependent domains. Was this an oversight (like Slayer) or is Living Grimoire supposed to be slightly more MAD? Or am I missing the lines where this is corrected?
