PlantThings's page

i suggest void and death, i dont think vitality fits into the mold they are building

that would add

1 Harm
2 Sudden Blight
3 none
4 none
5 Toxic Cloud,
6 Necrotize
7 eclipse burst, execute, hungry depths
8 Dessicate
9 Massicre
10 none

its not really that many

Other than the Mastery of Life and Death feature, which treats Vitality and Void as equal counterparts, the initial description of the Necromancer also has this highlight: "These occult spellcasters seek the ever-changing borders of life and death, manipulating the energies—vitality and void—to suit their will." The only doubtful part imo is that the abilities we were shown in the playtest are as devoid of Vitality effects and damage as the Occult spell list. I think it all depends on how far they will commit to this Vitality and Void duality that has been somewhat set up.

The Void trait list is surprisingly small, isn't it? The Death trait only adds Toxic Cloud to the list too, and Power Word Kill if we're including legacy. All very Necromancer appropriate though imo.

I think major word count could be saved by using traits, like how the Fey Eidolon gives access to extra spells.

Would giving Necromancers access to all spells with the Vitality or Void traits be too much or too little? I think it would at least fit nicely and thematically as an additional entry to the Mastery of Life and Death feature they already have.

You can take Whispers of Weakness on any mystery. Lore just starts off with it for free.

Check out the level 10 Oracle feats for comparison. Those feats do have prerequisites based on mystery.

I think Teridax has the right idea here. At least for familiars, all respawns getting bumped up one notch in efficiency feels fair for everyone.

- Witches: Familiar is free, has Undying, and can respawn once per day
- Other classes with significant familiar features (like the Wizard): Familiar is free and has Undying
- Everyone else: Familiar is a feat and has Undying

Essentially, just normalize Undying on every familiar, but throw the Witch bone. A daily Final Sacrifice, twice for Witch, seems cute at most. I believe the Animist already fits into this mold, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched.

At the very least, I think the Improved Familiar Attunement Wizard deserves a naturally Undying familiar. It switches the Drain Bonded Item action to Drain Familiar so losing your familiar feels extra bad when you also lose a major action.

I assume it’s the same reasoning Witches get Undying since losing a familiar also means losing several class features. It’s a lot less extreme for Wizards, of course but maybe Witches probably deserve a little more.

Besides that, I’m surprised we don’t have a spell like Summoner’s Precaution but for familiars. Maybe that’s one avenue that could be taken without stepping on the Witch’s toes.

Divine Mysteries pg. 298-299

The hex cantrips of both the Mosquito Witch and The Unseen Broker should have their temporary immunity limitation removed.

Buzzing Bites and Pact Broker still leave their targets immune to themselves for 1 minute and, as far as I know, the major QOL change to most of the hex cantrips for the remaster was supposed to be the removal of this immunity. The immunity lines also seem completely unaltered from their pre-master version, so I have a hunch their removal was reasonably missed amongst the other adjustments made to these two spells.

Dash of Herbs (Rage of Elements pg. 34)

Dash of Herbs can grant new save attempts against diseases and poisons, similar to another kineticist impulse, torrent in Blood (Rage of Elements pg. 38), except that Dash of Herbs can potentially cause the affliction to worsen.

I think Dash of Herbs should have the same clause as Torrent in the Blood where "on a failed save, the condition doesn't worsen."

Leshy.

Plants have always been good at putting corpses to good use.

And the spirit part is there too.

A fungus leshy works too, if not too on the nose. But at this point, I'm so desperate for a leshy iconic that I'll take it.

Is a feat like the Summoner's Ranged Combatant for your thralls, or I guess for the Create Thrall cantrip specifically in this case, out of the question.

I think a feat like Advanced Weaponry, also Summmoner, that gives upgrades/options to Create Thrall attacks couldn't hurt. Or these could be feats that grant new grave cantrips options altogether that command thralls to do different things. Although I think even Create Thrall could easily afford to be able to command more than just Strikes baseline.

I'd be open to a spell slot progression like Magus/Summoner depending on what we get for it. Maybe a tad more at 3 slots per two highest rank spells instead of 2.

Or maybe just have options that allow us to sacrifice/"spell blend" slots for other benefits or to activate other abilities. You know those grave spells that need an existing thrall? Maybe if you didn't want to sac a thrall for whatever reason, you can instead sac a low rank spell slot in place of a thrall to cast the grave spell directly from yourself.

PlantThings wrote:

Imperial being my favorite bloodline, it makes me feel elated it got some love. But apparently, maybe a bit too much?

Did its other focus spells, Extend Spell and Arcane Countermeasure, get any changes too?

Countermeasure is the same AFAIK.

Thanks for the info!

Nice to hear about Countermeasure, one of my favorites. The old Extend Spell was so narrow to what it could apply to that I'm honestly glad to hear it change into anything more flexible. But we'll have to see the whole picture on all of these new blood magic changes.

I love everything I'm reading so far, especially for the cursebound trait. Also, we did it Divine Access bros! More domain access is a nice surprise. And of course, more feats for the one of the most feat starved classes deserves a big thanks!

Oh man, I cannot wait to fall in love with this class all over again! I'm always down for another round of playing with every mystery.

The glass shield changes are tight. Big ups.

Little quibbles with edge cases aside (they exist but that's for another thread), the new state of condition removal spells is SO much better, I am livin' as a Life Oracle who can feasibly (albeit with some effort!) cover all of that now. Turning 8 condition-clearing spells (Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, Restore Senses, Remove Disease, Neutralize Poison, Remove Curse, and Stone to Flesh) into 4 (Sure Footing, Sound Body, Clear Mind, and Cleanse Affliction) that address everything the old ones did and way more, and do it more practically for combat, is nothing short of blessed. ~w~

Being able to officially remove those conditions from undead PCs with those spells is really nice too since they're all non-vitality healing effects! Well, except Sound Body.

Pour one out for Plant Form.

It lost the Shambler battle form option. It only has Arboreal and Flytrap now.

Also, I know this was in the preview but Entangling Flora (previously Entangle) not requiring existing plants or fungi is much appreciated. It's now great for setting up effects that do need existing plants or fungi like Nature's Reprisal.

The number of spells and abilities which makes trees are steadily growing.

I’m excited to build my Arbourmancer!

I really can’t express how thankful I am for all the love Paizo has given to plant and now wood options in this game. They already had me with Leshies, but I never expected the ever-expanding garden of 2e to grow this big and often.

I constantly fall in the cycle of forgetting and getting reminded of Daze having a duration entry. I'd love for that to be addressed, and hopefully clarified in general for other things.

Oracle is a mess of good ideas that for me don't quite work. Maybe I am not getting it but the burden of the curse seems to high? I loved oracles in PF1, loved the detriment of 1st level that got benefits to work around/overcome it later. Now the curse/mystery forces a certain kind of playstyle great in theory but unless the optimum moment for your mystery/curse to shine present itself you are playing at a disadvantage for using your classes core mechanic the rest of the time.

Imo Cosmos is the only mystery that nets positive on the overall risk/reward. Not so much that the curse bonuses are powerful and morseo that the penalties are easy to mitigate and manage. Its decent focus spells and amazing mystery benefit are what pushes it above the threshold.

Everything else just breaks even or is worse off for playing with their curse. Life has great bonuses offset by very risky penalties. Bones has middling bonuses that almost perfectly cancels its penalties. Flame and Tempest are held back by the divine spell list more than anything. Battle's penalties are more significant than its benefits, while Time is the opposite, with its benefits lacking compared to its penalties. Ancestors is intrinsically rough due to its gimmick, but at least its a gimmick. Lore is too tragic to talk about. I haven't played Ash.

I'm pretty high on the Bones Oracle more than most, but I do think it has the worst Mystery Benefit in terms of design and deserves a second look.

It's an on daily prep decision to gain negative healing. It's too situational, both in effect and application, compared to the others it often feels like you have no Mystery Benefit to work with at all most of the time. I wish it was something you can do more on the fly instead. Maybe not exactly combat useable but at least as a 10 minute activity once per day.

The alternate effect, if you have negative healing already, isn't any better. Specifically since its improved recovery check doesn't stack with Toughness unlike Mountain's Stoutness. It's also disappointingly redundant with the major curse.

For Alchemists, I'd appreciate Double Brew and Alchemical Alacrity become more practical. Quick Alchemy brews lasting until the end of your next turn instead of the start would be nice (essentially free Enduring Alchemy), but I wouldn't mind even more of a push than that.

Is being stunned on your turn is still up in the air? There was recent errata that touched on stunned in general, but I don't remember if it actually addressed that specific timing.

The big 2 for me are already mentioned. Recall Knowledge. Negative healing/undead trait rules, specifically the undead trait entailing immunity to healing effects. I do believe that's the final loose end of those rules and removing it cleans everything else up.

Additionally, I think the removal of the word "mitigate" to convey what you can and can't do to circumvent Oracle curses would go a long way. I think every other word used (reduce, remove, negate, and ignore) is comprehensive and clear enough, and mitigate just muddies this.

Life Oracles are set up to have a neat and unique healing playstyle in combat.

What you lack in free Heal spellslots, you make up for with damage redistribution with Life Link. Gradually mitigating damage from your party makes for efficient 3-action AoE heals. Your natural d12 Heals under moderate curse makes for great burst heals, which is perfect for your personal Heals since you redirect a lot of damage to yourself.

Often this means you are the one in the most need of healing, which seems horrible due to minor curse. But since this leaves the rest of your party generally healthier, you can actually save up on actions and Heal spells. You don't have to chase allies down too much, they go down less from the HP buffer you provide, and maybe you burst Heal yourself once per encounter. Sometimes not even since with Battle Medicine, on top of everything else, you're pretty good at keeping everyone standing by the end of the encounter. Maybe not topped off on HP but standing. And at that point, you can Treat Wounds your problems away.

This becomes more serviceable at higher levels when Life Link gains more targets. A bit dependent on party size too as Life Link's heightened scaling is awkward.

1 psychic refocus

This and eidolons using mundane items I'm super curious about.

With the influx of Summoners and Psychics at tables I've played at recently, I've noticed GMs are pretty 50/50 on how they rule these two. We even had a long but fun quibble on the psychic refocus trick with one table. Hilariously, the Psychic player wasn't even the one who brought it up.

Healer’s Blessing, in particular, does take the penalty separately because it is an additional healing instance to the triggering heal. If it was simply a bonus to a heal, like Undeath’s Blessing, there would be only one instance of healing to penalize.

Two changes that are constantly at the forefront of my mind:

1) Enduring Alchemy should be removed as a feat. Quick Alchemy's last sentence should then be changed from "it remains potent only until the start of your next turn" to "it remains potent only until the end of your next turn."

At the very least, it's a courtesy to Double Brew and especially Alchemical Alacrity. I think it's perfectly appropriate to expect those class features to function effectively without having to take a separate feat. Alchemical_Genius already touched on this, but I think it's worth reiterating for much it smooths out for such a tiny change.

2) Oracles should get one Divine Access feat for free at 1st level. Divine Access should also at least be a level 2 feat.

With the clamor for Oracles getting more spells to better support each mystery, utilizing the already established Divine Access seems to make the most sense. I especially like how it showcases early on how integral and unique the Divine Access feat is to the class, even if some mysteries are more thirsty for it than others.

Not the most pressing but I’d appreciate any clarification on the intent of what “mitigate” means for Oracle curses.

More than anything though, I want Life Link to have its heightening improved. It’s primed to neatly heighten +2 instead of awkwardly heightening at 3rd then at 6th and 9th. I’m biased though. Life Oracle is my favorite single entity in the game.

Compare flame oracles options with spells to what tempest has.

This issue here is twofold. Fire spells are more ubiquitous in the CRB, and deities don't update their spells with new releases.

We got some new air and water spells in SoM, but I don't think any have appeared in any new deities since. It's just the waiting game at the moment, unfortunately. Although I do hope for a custom deity ruleset, similar to personal staves, that would easily squash this issue.

Excited for Wood Kineticists? You'll have them in August.

Absolutely! I just don’t know which plant ancestry I’ll pair it with first.

I’ve been pretty spoiled by 2e when it comes to plant options. At this point, the only thing I could really ask for is more options that give the plantmancer vibe through subclasses. The Druid has never filled this hole for me, even outside 2e The Plant Summoner does though, and I love it. I wouldn’t mind more of that.

I don’t even care which classes get a plant-themed subclass. I’d take as many as I can. Sorcerer and Oracle would probably be the most likely out of the casters; I’m really fishing for cool low level plant focus spells. Maybe Alchemist and Barbarian for the martials?

The fungi inclusion is something I didn't know I needed until now. Thanks Paizo!

A common grievance I still hear about is how being two targets is a huge liability for the class. I think too often that weakness is overexaggerated while the benefits that come with it are largely undersold.

In actual play, the advantage in the large area you threaten on the battlefield by being two separate bodies has been quite impressive. The ability to impact two completely different points on the field, often possible in a single turn, is huge. Being two target points for healing makes range limitations a rare issue and surprisingly comes up more than I expected. Being two bodies also bypasses key immunities to allow double-dipping with things like being healed by Battle Medicine or using Demoralize on the same target.

Purifying Icicle has a fortitude save entry that isn't clear what it applies too.

It stumped us during a game the other day so we just played it like a regular spell attack. Are we missing something here? It reminded me of very similar spells, Searing Light and Chilling Darkness, that I looked back to for clues, but no luck.

I've only dabbled with the Psychic so far and it has been a wonderful experience. The freedom it has at early levels because with its amps and cantrips compared to other casters is a big boon.

I'm also a huge fan of playstyles that get boosts at risky costs so Unleash Psyche really scratches that itch. There are a few feats that push this dynamic even further, but Strain Mind is what really captured me. It's a feat I wish Oracles had an equivalent. It's also all very thematic to many psychic tropes, so I appreciate that.

Speaking of, the one I'm having the most fun with right now is my Silent Whisper Psychic. It shocked me how I can fully commit to the telepath trope and still perform very well. I'm offensively useless against the many mindless enemies in our campaign for but the party support it provides outside wrecking the mindful makes it barely an inconvenience. My party was a bunch of naysayers so it's been a joy proving them wrong.

Speaking of the divine list, more spells that are true neutral deity friendly moving forward would be appreciated. Some SoM spells, like Deity's Strike and Divine Armageddon, do this already. Sure, both spells are less powerful when used with a true neutral deity, but it was nice they worked at all unlike some of the CRB divine spells.

With Dark Archive out, Oracles have a new fun venue for non-cursebound spells. Psychic Dedication can give you stuff like Amped Message or Amped Guidance.

Yeah, it’s pretty great as another one feat investment, and it even gives you several options. Amped Guidance stands out as it fills a reaction slot Oracles typically don’t use.

We're already seeing something like this in the game. it's minor, but if you check out the deities in Knights of Lastwall you'll notice that they grant different spells than their core rulebook counterparts in some cases, usually to favor more knightly, martial characters. Sarenrae grants Ant Haul rather than Burning Hands in KoL, for example.

I'm not sure why that info isn't up on AoN. Either way it's a glimmer that shows that a deity's granted spells aren't set in stone and presumably different regions or professions can ask for different spells.

I did not know that. Very cool.

I want a way for newer spells to be accessible through deities. As of now, we can only hope for new deities to incidentally provide such spells. Otherwise, they fall quite a bit behind.

This can be done in several ways but personally want it to develop as rules that allow you to personalize your deity's given spells in some way. It could replace some of the default spells with another spell with obvious limitations and guidelines to keep it in theme with the deity. Limits could include spell level, traits, or a combination of both. Maybe there could be something done to incorporate deity domains, but I'm not too sure.

We've adapted the custom staff rules to simulate something similar with some success. Since SoM, our Cleric players in particular were quick to point out that they had no natural access to many of the new toys that book flaunted. Thankfully, the custom staff rules came in the same book, so we just used that to allow a deity spell switch given a similar trait that wasn't too broad.

I think it would do a lot of good if the "don't benefit from healing effects" clause under the Undead trait was removed. After that, change target entries that specify undead vs living on non-positive effects as appropriate to intent.

If implemented together, the sole gatekeepers of healing HP on undead is simply the Positive trait and target entries that specify "living creature". Easy to remember and, in my opinion, the least disruptive change to already established rules and trait configurations.

I'm admittedly biased because there are several healing effects without the Positive trait and any HP restoration and can naturally target undead, which I think would be great boons for Undead campaigns and PCs. The big utility Rs: Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, Restore Senses

I've also always thought Soothe's distinction of having the Healing trait but no Positive trait was meant it was a neat healing spell that could heal non-mindless Undead. It seemed perfectly thematic for the Occult-exclusive healing spell. Then I'm saddened when I remember both the target entry and the Undead trait presents a double threat invalidation.

Wishful thinking something is in the works. Even before BotD, this has been a common topic of confusion for new and old players alike, and it still is. It took a while to grasp as well, so I get it. But ever since the contradictions brought by the undead book, of all things, I think an errata is reasonably called for at this point.

It definitely feels like the revelation spells are supposed to make up for the curse, rather than the curse itself having pros and cons.

That's the vibe I'm getting. The amount of extra actions you create with Time Skip by the time you have you have access to major curse against the one you lose seems like a pretty good deal. It's a short term deal as slowed catches up to you, but it fits the theme of the moderate curse's duration halving effect. As a time oracle, you really want everything to go as quickly as possible, especially the encounters.

I think what irks me the most now is the wasted initiative bonus on the major curse. There's no playing around it and playing into it just leads to a bad time. Imagine purposely going into battle slowed 1 on just to get a +4 initiative bonus...

You can normally be both Hasted and Slowed. I think that's the exact situation that describes the Time Oracle under both haste and its major curse. You're still at one fewer action than you would have if the curse was not active, so I wouldn't view the curse as "mitigated", "reduced", or "removed".

Interestingly, there are actually two other words used to describe what you can't do with your curse. "Negate" is similarly found under Oracular Curse where true strike vs concealed is given as an example. "Ignore" is used twice under the Flames mystery's Curse of Engulfing Flames as reminders.

Groups I'm in, where we've previously battled over this very thing, have formed a habit of simply putting less emphasis on "mitigate" and heavier emphasis on the other words in tandem. It's worked very well; less endless arguing, more happy players. There's just something about that word "mitigate" that gets everybody in a nitpicking frenzy compared to the others.

I think the playability of the Time Oracle comes down to "what your table thinks 'You can’t mitigate, reduce, or remove the effects of your oracular curse' means."

But this is basically the same question about "what about resistance to the same thing that my curse gives me weakness to, I'm still taking more damage than I would without the curse" that tables will disagree about.

This is still why I wished the word 'mitigate' wasn't used in that description. It's too broad a term compared to reduce and remove that it's almost always the cited word whenever I've witnessed people argue about it, including myself.

My favorite example that still comes up is armor being argued as mitigating the Battle Oracle's curse. It technically does, but it's too terrible for any group to actually follow through.

For Oracles, a single line that says they get a free Divine Access feat at level 1 is all that's truly needed. The amount of issues it solves for many people and the class itself is crazy for how tiny of a change it is.

Other than that, a reevaluation of curse benefit/penalty ratios in some subclasses would be a nice bonus. Just bring everything in line with Cosmos mystery as close as possible. But if nothing else, let's just revamp the Lore mystery's whole curse mechanics.

Bones: I don't have any difficulties with the curse, and it isn't unusual for me to purposely advance it quickly. The minor curse is only really annoying at lower levels when magical healing is less readily available. The hit point loss from the drain on the moderate curse, is mostly made up with a single application of Soul Siphon if the target has a successful save. On a failed save, you gain more than you lost. The minor negative to fortitude saves is more than made up with the various bonuses versus disease, poison, and death effects...most of which are fortitude saves. The major curse could get you killed, but, in my experience, is scarier than it seems. Sure, you're one step closer to death, but you can choose to directly control every other step along the way.

It took me a bit to get to this point on Bones. I thought the curse was too scary to keep high at first but actually, it peaks at the Drained condition on moderate. In practice, at least for me, the rest of the penalties are easily manageable. I even thought I needed Diehard to play. It does make it a lot safer but it ended up not being an auto pick depending on party composition.

Soul Siphon really is the MVP at mitigating the Drained hp loss. I thought it was Armor of Bones at first but Soul Siphon was more universally useful in my experience. Keeping the temp hp up is easy, even out of combat, since it has no duration. It’s fairly easy to spam willy-nilly to constantly refresh the temp hp but there’s always a best target for the most temp hp.

I do like Cloudkill shenanigans with Bones but mostly for fun. It’s often enough that somebody else on the party that likes to cast disease, poison, or death aoe spell to make full use of your curse bonuses.

I’m an advocate for Enduring Alchemy getting the Powerful Alchemy treatment as well. On top of what HumbleGamer mentioned, it would really smoothen out Double Brew and Alchemical Alacrity as class features.

The last thing for me is their signature items from the errata. Remove the last line from their description like this:

Your research field adds a number of formulas to your formula book; these are your signature items. When using a batch of infused reagents to create your signature items using advanced alchemy, you create three items instead of two. Each time you gain a level, you can swap one of your signature items with another formula in your formula book. This new signature item must be on your research field's list of possible signature items.

I get it’s meant to patch up the levels before you get Field Discovery, but it irks me how signature items becomes completely obsolete and meaningless afterwards even though you can still them out every level. Anything to make signature items meaningful at all levels, really. It was a neat idea beyond being an early level crutch.

2) Feats

I hate how class feats are split up, so there's a new category at every opportunity. It makes me feel like if I don't take a new feat from the highest possible category, I'm playing wrong. And oftentimes I would be; the power level between a 1st-level rogue feat and a 2nd-level rogue feat is pretty crazy by itself.

This whole section speaks to me on a cosmic level. But especially this part I’m experiencing first hand. There are very few class feats that feel good taking if they aren’t on-level. The exceptions are often innately unique or part of feat chains/trees.

Just wanted to say this is basically a perfect summation of pf2s issues (as is evident by the number of likes it has). I have a couple other smaller ones, like how abp should have been he norm, some monsters shut classes down way too hard in an unfun way, and unclear or silly rules such as crafting, hands needed, battle form math. But really this is like a master list of the biggest issues.

The only other major unaddressed issue I can think of is Recall Knowledge rules. Both in terms of clarity and structure.

Oh, and Wizard getting a Thesis which integrates Spell Trickster stuff would be sick :3

My god, that would be my forever thesis.

This is rather minor, but Effortless Concentration not available to Clerics and Oracles seems mostly arbitrary. It was interesting that it somehow affected the two full divine casters when I first found out about it, but now, I don’t think there’s a really good reason for it. I still wonder if there’s a lore reason. Otherwise, it has the same vibes as Druid not having access to Cantrip Expansion.

Not a subclass and more of a potential class archetype, but for the Oracle, I want a style that mimics the curse advancement in the playtest while still interacting with the focus point mechanic.

Something along the lines of revelation spells only requiring you to advance your curse; no focus point cost. BUT, if you do use a focus point to cast a revelation spell, it doesn’t advance the curse. With how much fun a bunch of the Oracle focus spells are, I want style where they aren’t constricted by the curse rules. I don’t know what it should take away from the Oracle though, but with how curses are already, I’m all-in for more punishing penalties for more bolstering boons.

Now that I've gotten a bit more experience with my (Lv 3) Life Oracle, I've found that the server tends to have fights that are either fairly trivial or get very desperate due to lots of crits. (Nothing specific to that server; the GMs I've had for that character just express weird all-or-nothing luck.) As silly as it may be, when the dice are hot you can't always be too conservative with estimates, and if you're the primary healer you also have to recognize how stretched your actions are, and in my case (having Wellspring Mage as well), how stretched my spell slots are too.

I hope you get to 5th level soon. Life Link with two targets will make your life so much easier on blanketing the party. The extra padding it gives grants so much battlefield positioning freedom for its targets, you don’t have to chase down your partymates just to be in support range as much. And if you do need to, everyone gets more time to react to emergency situations.

Being a Wellspring Mage is interesting though. The reduced spell slots really scares me for the Life mystery just because of having no Healing Font and all. How has it treated you so far?

You're overwhelmed. You refocus to regain focus points and reduce your curse level from your max curse level to minor. You're still overwhelmed. You can't cast revelation spells, but you can cast a 5th level spell with mystery conduit to progress your curse from minor to moderate. You're still overwhelmed.

This has only come up for me on my high level Tempest Oracle with Blaze of Revelation. The risk of being overwhelmed just isn’t worth it outside of activating that feat.

It’s a neat interaction to be aware of, though. To know that your focus pool isn’t completely screwed once you’re overwhelmed. Still a bummer you’re stuck at your minor curse for the rest of the day with no cursebound focus spells; I don’t recommend it.