It's extra sad since some of the other curse benefits were moved to class feats but battle didn't get any after loosing arguably the most out of any mystery for their specific play style

Feels very weird to consider battle oracle as it is now as a caster that powers itself with the idea and cosmic force of war and conflict but cannot actually participate in its own flavor. The suggested play style is still utilizing weapons in some way, shape, or form and it should be judged based on what it's trying to do as much as what it is actually doing and it's incredibly bad at what it's trying to do at the moment. Whatever the war of Immortals might have to "fix" it with new content or class archetypes doesn't really help what this is. It should stand on its own.

Only other thing that I could rationalize to make this make sense is that medium armor was not included in the core features by mistake.

Paizo has been willing to buff things with errata's in the past so let's hope weapon trance gets a revisit at some point. Some obvious fixes could include the bonus damage they used to have, temp hp on hits to add back their staying power, and either make it last a minute without sustain or allow a strike when you take the sustain action.

Not sure what to do about the armor though. It's in the boat with warrior bard now.

I hope weapon trance existing isn't a portent to what might be the final version of embodiment of battle. I just couldn't take them existing simultaneously seriously

If the new spell was like the playtest animist spell that works similarly, I wouldn't mind it. Right now it's absolutely yucky

I'm guessing you can still swap your legendary tactics out between combats after their once per day use.

I hope the Reload! Tactic allows the commander to reload as well. Gotta have my 40k commissar concept lol.

I don't mind dirty trick having the attack trait. Sort of feels like the cost of being the most SAD style. Hopefully there's more to it than just dirty trick though.

Powers128 wrote:

Lookin good! Love The Dead Walk. I'm going to assume it will scale

I don't think it will. It gets more powerful as your curse gets stronger since you get more spirits that attack your enemies. According to the post higher levels mean you can shoulder more of your curse, so you can potentially get more power from this ability.

If the new cursebound works similarly to the old curse, you will usually start a combat either without it or at least with only a very small effect from it. The means The Dead Walk gets stronger the longer any given combat lasts since your cursebound condition will increase during combat.

The best use scenario is most likely relying on your spells coupled with free action or one action cursebound abilities for the first 2-3 rounds of combat. Then use The Dead Walk to finish off your opponents.

That sort of counts as scaling I guess. Hopefully they don't suffer map then amongst themselves

Lookin good! Love The Dead Walk. I'm going to assume it will scale

Powers128 wrote:

I think the larger issue with ruling that such an ability only works with shields is that the GM should probably advise against taking the feat in the first place if they don't want to deal with damaging objects at all. It would become too niche to be fun

"only works with shields" isn't exactly a detriment depending on the table and campaign: if you're dealing with mostly humanoid creatures and often run into shields, "only works with shields" is more than enough benefit. It's much the same as allowing it to work on what is listed [traps, structures, vehicles] in a game that features few if any of them: A DM should warn players of ANYTHING that might be an ill fit, like a School of Mentalism wizard in a game featuring a lot of mindless undead and/or other creatures immune to mental spells.

My perspective on the issue is that it's not only an uncommon use case, it's an uncommon ruling. When a player looks at an ability that mentions "objects" I don't think they'll read it as "shields". Most GMs wouldn't be so stringent and if they are, they would need to clarify that about such apparently general abilities. Although, by level 16, it would probably be obvious how the GM treats object damage lol.

With shields... it's normally not a case of the Strike targeting the shield, but of the creature targeted by the Strike redirecting some of the damage onto the shield as part of a Shield Block.

AFAICT there does not seem to be a rule allowing to, say, specifically target a wielded shield -- say, in an attempt to intimidate the creature holding it, while hopefully making it clear that you were trying to do only that and not actually trying to kill the creature.

I would tend to think that allowing the targeting of equipped objects would open a massive can of worms, where at some point it might be far easier to destroy enemy weapons outright rather than 'Disarm' them or where people start arguing that AoE damage effectively should also damage all carried equipment.

I did recently have a use case where I needed to think of object destructibility, because the party decided to use a cast-iron bathtub as mobile cover for one character to slowly navigate a trapped hallway, with the idea that the bathtub would soak hits and provide some time for the party's thievery specialist to disable the just-triggered traps before they reset. It was an amusing yet reasonably logical approach (other than that I was probably underestimating the tub's weight, but hey, the character underneath it was a physically strong fighter), so I let them run with it, rolled some dice for the traps going off, and figured that the tub would probably be dented but not breached.

I think the larger issue with ruling that such an ability only works with shields is that the GM should probably advise against taking the feat in the first place if they don't want to deal with damaging objects at all. It would become too niche to be fun

Yeah, ending your turn with panache is more limiting but doesn't stop you from using finishers with the right pattern of actions

The broken condition would need to be improvised for whatever doesn't have a specific effect when broken like armor or shields. I don't know if something like a glass window should be "broken" before it's destroyed though practically. Not worth the effort to make a distinction.

That would be a really great incentive to keep panache at the end of your turn that plays into your core mechanics.

Could be that keeping panache will become more attractive so the brief panache duration won't be too redundant with how the class is currently played. That's my guess.

I worry if it's thievery, your panache action will be to steal which is really niche in combat and has a massive -5 penalty at the start. Maybe the new bravado actions will have a better option

I'm trying to figure out how the rascal style will work. Thievery? That would put it in a really good place since you can focus on just dex.

The new bravado actions are good news for stats in general too. Starting with a 14 charisma isn't so bad when you can gain panache on a failed check.

I'm not well-versed in the class but glancing through the online guides it looks like swashbucklers get dramatically fewer effective control mechanisms than I would expect. A huge part of swashbuckling is being actively confusing like a proper trickster so that opponents partly defeat themselves.

Yeah I hope either the new bravado actions or new finisher options can deliver on more unique and useful effects.

The one thing I'd like to see simply do more damage is the basic finisher on the archetype. It aught to mirror archetype sneak attack with 2d4 at first and then 2d6 at 6th level. 1d6 forever on a finisher is really sad for multi class PCs

Powers128 wrote:

The issue I have with just comparing swash damage with rogue damage is that finishers occupy a different niche than sneak attack that isn't just dealing damage. Your finishers have other jobs.

Confident, Bleeding, Impaling, Dual, Lethal, and Perfect finisher are all about dealing damage.

Only mobile, stunning, targeting, and unbalancing "have other jobs".

So it's less "finishers are for other things" and more that there are a couple finisher feats that can let you apply debuffs instead.

... That also feels like a weird point in a comparison with Rogues, because Rogues get debilitations natively. So the "not just damage" argument seems to favor them too.

Dealing damage in other ways is different enough for me. Impaling has multi target utility and bleeding is really good persistent damage. Debilitations are a 9th level feature which swash also has some similar buffs to their finishers. Braggart is particularly good.

The point was that finishers have additional effects from the get go. Whether or not those effects are in a good place or not is another question. That's where I'd like to see improvements instead of just pointing to damage. Finisher effects are a little unbalanced rn imo. Bleeding reigns supreme until perfect finisher. There's definitely room to make them more interesting.

The issue I have with just comparing swash damage with rogue damage is that finishers occupy a different niche than sneak attack that isn't just dealing damage. Your finishers have other jobs. Only the basic finisher can be compared neatly but even damage on a miss is unique at first level.

Looking forward to any more new finishers that might make it.

Yeah that always seemed to be the way to go with swash to boost your potential damage. Sticking to just doing one attack per round as a hard rule would be boring. Plus, your precision damage on regular hits is decent. I wouldn't want to ignore it completely.

Nice! Twirling throw looks great. Easy enough to have throwers bandoliers as insurance on a crit fail.

Yep. Shrouds interpretation is valid. It's also very narratively sound.

I believe there actually is one instance where a weapon is both ranged and melee simultaneously and it's mind smith weapons with the mind projectiles feat. I don't think it has any weird consequences though.

If you consider martial performance to be an "effect of a hit" then it aught to work. I don't see why not

This has gotten pretty irrelevant to the new champion though.

I like the new champion!

A focus spell is only a conflux spell if it says it is so that would limit them to only the magus focus spells.

I do think it's possible that objective morality exists but it's not possible to know it in its entirety for anyone who isn't pharasma. That keeps it practically subjective for players operating in the setting. Narratively, paizo doesn't actually need to create an absolute morality system since the inner mechanisms of pharasma's decisions do not have actual criteria we know about.

That's my understanding of it anyways. It justifies sanctification and extreme outsiders without undermining player choice since it's the only thing we have to work with regardless.

I'm not a fan of moral relativism, neither in ttrpgs nor in real life. Seeing the holy/unholy paradigm in the remaster brought a smile to my face bc it seems like a stronger more definitive judgement call than what came before. Some forces want to be selfish and harm others, other forces want to be selfless and aid others. These qualities define those that either likened to literal devil's and demons or likened to literal angels. That was a STRONG statement and I'm all here for it.

Yeah, demons and devils I think we can safely say are evil. Of course, there are exceptions and that makes for interesting story telling but the typical fiend is fairly rotten by default and that's their purpose.

I think the appeal to pharasma might have been stronger when she was actually omniscient. I recall that being changed at some point in the lore. Is that right? At the very least, I would agree that her views are probably the most valuable if they're not technically objectively true. That's good enough for me

Powers128 wrote:

the issues of loosing it are similar to the issues of loosing a spell book. It probably won't come up often but it should be simple enough to fix.

Only recovering esoterica costs nothing apart from maybe a bit of free time, but if you really lose your spellbook - it's really lost. Then you really need to buy or craft an empty one. And it's really empty. If the GM is kind, maybe you can write your last prepared spells for free (or with a great discount). Probably you don't need to re-learn anything you've learned separately. Maybe you can fill 1st level amount there for free. Maybe you can write there everything you knew for a cost of Learning a cantrip (per spell) without a check.

Or maybe not, and for everything you need to Learn a Spell with all the costs.
But anyway spellbooks and esoterica aren't the same and aren't really comparable.

I meant it's similar in Just that it hurts/disables your class mechanics if it's lost. There's probably a closer comparison I haven't thought of. Inventors innovation?

Absolute morality is in an interesting place in the lore since it probably exists because of pharasma but we don't/can't know her criteria exactly so we're still forced to use our own judgement.

On some further thought, my rule of thumb would be to separate instances into two definitions. One would be each individual damage roll and the other would be the damage types in those rolls. I'd add up the damage types in each roll that could trigger weaknesses but I wouldn't count a damage type more than once.

Esoterica is my favorite class mechanic because it does actually give you permission to take out whatever weird object you want as long as it's negligible bulk and has no value. It's a creative tool for rp as much as it is for combat and the issues of loosing it are similar to the issues of loosing a spell book. It probably won't come up often but it should be simple enough to fix.

Powers128 wrote:

I'm hoping they'll make the revelation spells automatic. Never liked needing to take class feats to justify a subclass.

Seems unlikely since that's how other casters work like Cleric and Sorcerer. But it would definitely be nice if it did work that way.

It's not how psychic works and I wish more casters operated like that

As far as I know, cosmic alignment still exists. It's just not a thing you write down. Pharasma figures it out when you die. It's just something we don't need to worry about in game

Powers128 wrote:

Nelzy wrote:

Its a requirement for a functional poison Thrower Alchemist, but its still not that fun since you cant use any other attack action then basic Strike that come with quick draw, making your entire build kinda bland.

Would love them to make Quick Draw a free action like in previous editions, so you can combine it with something else.

It's a requirement for any thrown build really that would want to trade their returning rune for the throwers bandoliers. Thaumaturge is probably the best use case since they don't have much specific strikes to take

Yeah, IMO it is a glaring issue that Paizo split the Property/Striking runes into separate categories, but then put damage-improving runes in direct competition with Property runes. To the point that 1d4 weapons benefit *more* from elemental runes than Striking.

I really do not think that design is okay, it completely defeats the point of the separation. I sure would have loved for it to have been addressed in the Remaster in some way.

Even just a nerf to the damage half of the elementals would have helped the mental math of it, but I would prefer a full Strike damage conversion effect instead. Completely changes the purpose of the rune, but IMO it would be an improvement to the system.

==============

Instead, we are left with a situation that any weapon using a Returning rune is an admission of an inadequacy, and all PCs are motivated to find shenanigans to avoid using the rune at all costs.

The entire suite of fun and interesting property runes is left to seriously struggle to justify themselves against +1d6 damage, especially when significant crit effects are also included.

I would love to spend some gp on meaningful flavor at higher levels, and make a Merciful Pacifying weapon, but in pf2e's rules, I would have to be crazy to do so. No way would I surrender "more damage" on my attacks, putting the entire party in danger because I want to RP a character that is willing to put effort into...

I get you but I'm not sure what that had to do with quick draw and throwers bandoliers.

I'm hoping they'll make the revelation spells automatic. Never liked needing to take class feats to justify a subclass.

Ascalaphus wrote:

You can't do someone cold iron damage with no other type to "carry" it;

I think you probably kind of can, even if such damage type doesn't exist. "If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by it." There can be discussions on whether cold iron itself does 'normally' deal damage, but I still think that some fey holding cold iron... spoon will take weakness damage. Removing such iconic things from the game feels boring.

There's also oracles dread secret spell which could trigger material weaknesses without a damage type specified.

Its a requirement for a functional poison Thrower Alchemist, but its still not that fun since you cant use any other attack action then basic Strike that come with quick draw, making your entire build kinda bland.

Would love them to make Quick Draw a free action like in previous editions, so you can combine it with something else.

It's a requirement for any thrown build really that would want to trade their returning rune for the throwers bandoliers. Thaumaturge is probably the best use case since they don't have much specific strikes to take

Intuitively, I think an instance should be anytime you add up damage from a single roll. So runes and additional effects would be part of one instance. That would make sense with the context of abilities that ask you to combine damage for weaknesses/resistances. It also contradicts those comments from Michael though.

Powers128 wrote:

I'm sure this has been talked about enough but is there a consensus on exactly what instances are in regards to weaknesses? Or perhaps a best guess?

In short... no.

The best we can do is point out the various edge cases that need to be considered so that tables can create a ruling table that meets their needs and expectations.

HammerJack wrote:

For the demon example, if you have a sword doing Cold Iron Slashing damage and Holy Spirit damage then yes, each instance triggers a weakness. But if you instead had a Paladin whose Strikes have the Holy trait with a Cold Iron longsword, then you have one instance of Cold Iron Holy Slashing damage, so only the higher weakness applies.

Now do the one where you have a sword with a Flaming rune, the Flame Wisp spell active, and Energy Mutagen (fire) going at the same time. How many instances of fire damage is that?

Actually, I'm not sure if the rules on resistance cover examples like that either. Can't apply the same logic from earlier unfortunately.

Dang. Was hoping there might have been a breakthrough since I last got a headache from it. Figures.

There is absolutely no reason to think that the definition would be different for weakness than it is for resistance.

The main argument seems to be people who think that the way Resistance to All damage works is a special, unique case instead of a clarification (meaning that Resist All would apply twice against a flaming longsword, but having both fire resistance and slashing resistance would not). I do not endorse that reading, but it still exists among some people, because the only developer post we had confirming that each damage type was a separate instance for weakness was back in the PF2 playtest and not after the system release.

To be fair about it, things could reasonably have changed about this after the playtest. Reading the released product, though, I've never believed that they did.

I remember the comments from Michael about the thaumaturge that brought a similar amount of attention. I think it's safe to assume the intention based on those. It's just weird that resistance is more defined than weakness and instance is still not defined.

Powers128 wrote:

I guess I can see level 16 and 18 not being very good for 2 handed fighters but other than that, the feat selection seems pretty good.

Since level 10 has at least 2 feats you want regardless of style, you start having to play catchup, and can easily run out of levels to do so.

I'd argue you can skip reflexes for ranged and dual wielding builds. What was the second feat though? Cut from the air?

I'm sure this has been talked about enough but is there a consensus on exactly what instances are in regards to weaknesses? Or perhaps a best guess? I'm tempted to just run it like inverse resistances in which case every damage type is its own instance and the only exception would be special materials. Thoughts?

I guess I can see level 16 and 18 not being very good for 2 handed fighters but other than that, the feat selection seems pretty good.