I forgot to mention the other major idea I had lying around for Necromancer: false villain kitsune necromancer and false hero tanuki disaster scam couple.
The class is very good at making lots of easily-dispatched creatures that look more impressive than they really are, at least for a little bit. That means that you can play an excellent heel, making somebody look really good.
Kitsune Necromancer, pick up Alchemist multiclass to take mutagens in order to boost deception and performance. He shows up in disguises to a small village, makes sure there's no actual hero already there, and starts terrorizing the local populace. (I'm thinking a bit of a laid back theater vibe outside of the role.) Shortly after, a dashing heroic human swordsman shows up, hot on the heels of a vile necromancer. In reality, it's the kitsune's tanuki boyfriend in disguise. (I'm thinking the tanuki is much more ego-driven and aggressive outside of the role.) Stage a dramatic confrontation with the necromancer, really selling how "difficult" the zombies are to fight through, and eventually defeat the foul necromancer.
The hero basks in the rewards and adoration of the people for a few days before an urgent runner from another village shows up asking for the famous and well-regarded undead-slaying hero. He "reluctantly" accepts any aid that the village can provide him to end this menace, and the two head off to enjoy some time together between cons.
The tanuki is the one who really gets a thrill out of it, while the kitsune is along for the ride and learned just enough necromancy to make thralls.
Being able to command the thralls is a huge improvement on how easy it is to sell the lie, since the zombies can be ordered to lurch forward instead of just attacking and standing still. Also, Master of Life and Death's new version really lets the class pretend to attack someone without any risk of injuring them.
The thing is the "no more evil character" also affected "no more evil act"...
Necromancy is usually evil, but for some reason, Paizo didn't twist it to make it "non-evil".
What happened to "an Orision mage summoning mummified ancestral guards", "a Mwangi sorcerer called juju zombies" and whatnot?
I don't understand. You're complaining about things not being evil anymore on the thread about Necromancer and Runesmith... And then saying that necromancy is an exception and it's still evil?
If that's the case, why are you posting about goblins here?
"No evil characters" was one of the most common recruiting rules when alignment was part of the system. Now that you don't need to decide whether your goblin is a mean-spirited neutral or officially evil, it is probably easier to do?
But, most people don't want to play with an uninhibited pyromaniac with a penchant for animal cruelty, so yeah, you're going to see more goblins that aren't that. Remaster or not, you need a group that's chill with what you're playing.
Slightly more on topic, before this, Necromancer was just a category of Wizard. They were similarly morally gray.
I think it's pretty safe to rule out the Rare tag for Necromancer, seeing how there's an entire school dedicated to training them. That would make them at most the sort of regional Uncommon that Gunslinger and Inventor are, although I suspect that necromancy is more widespread than that.
TheTownsend wrote:
Much as Necro is my favorite of the two, I'm curious how the Runecarver shook out. I don't remember the playtest for that one as well but it seemed a little strained on hands and action economy. I suspect a pretty big overhaul is coming and I'm fascinated to see what shape it takes.
I'm glad we'll be getting some information on it soon. It's a lot harder for me to speculate on character ideas, since at least some of the runes are changing. I feel like having a "signature" rune or two is pretty key to settling on a Runesmith character concept for me.
First off, Vin, a kholo with a knack for object reading. He used his psychometry on destroyed undead skeletons, tracking the bones back to where they were raised and stealing the necromancer's secrets. He uses his own skeletons to do all sorts of menial work for him, and delegates more complex tasks to the few intelligent undead he's managed to put together. I'll be looking to get the undead creation rituals, subtle casting, and at least one "scarier thrall" focus spell. Definitely the bone subclass for clean thralls that move faster.
I was recently thinking about the expansions to the Snarecrafter archetype and how it allows making magical snares and detonating them. Necromancer is also pretty keen on making something temporary only to detonate it later, so I began thinking about combining the two. I came up with a bog dragon kobold who makes shoddy imitations of proper bog mummies, and uses his necromancy and bits of bone and sinew to set up half-magical snares. Since there aren't a lot of smaller creatures for a kobold to trap and force to tell him stories, I was thinking of giving him a cage on his back with a trapped sprite. (That would probably be by taking Undead Familiar and asking the GM to waive the "undead" part for flavor reasons.) Obviously needs to be the flesh subclass for shoddy bog mummies.
During the playtest, I played a tanuki Necromancer gal, Ira, who used Teakettle Form to turn into a talking skull. With the new version of the class, it's possible for her to to cast Create Thrall, turn into a skull, and direct the thrall to carry her around for the next minute. It seems pretty reasonable to ask a GM for a bit of leeway to maintain a single thrall while in skull form in order to keep up the gimmick when needed. (Could I just play a skeleton? Sure. But this is funnier.) She's definitely specialized in skeletons, having teeth sewn into her clothing that open to extradimensional maws containing all her raised skeletons. I'd probably be picking up Body Shield or Bony Barrage for her, and looking into Necrologist.
I also wanted to have something for the new blood subclass. Blood is produced from bones, so I was thinking about making a skeleton Necromancer with the blood focus instead. Make a party of fake clergy of some deity or another, always transporting the alleged bones of a saint in a fancy glass reliquary coffin on pilgrimage. She lies still and looks stately whenever they're passing someone on the road, but opens the lid and chats while there's nobody around. If there's trouble, though, blood starts flowing from her bones and forming into thralls. Conceal Spell allows performing "miracles", and Invert Harm allows for some blessings if Soothe doesn't cut it.
My friend is fond of necromancers in general, and wanted to make a flesh-specialist poppet that makes mindless zombie "friends", having tea parties with them, getting pulled around in a wagon by them, and so on. Grabbing the Undead Creator feat to eventually be able to make an actual intelligent zombie friend, as well as Body Shield so their "friends" can look out for them.
Listen, if Pharasma would just update the River of Souls to the latest branch, there's already a fix to the reality leak caused by faulty undead soul garbage collection. "I don't want to have to restart reality; I'm busy"- whatever, just let it update overnight when you aren't using it.
First rank spells are already a good deal on staves- you get at least twice as many castings of them as you do of the second-rank spells. Spontaneous gets more options for what to do with a single charge.
Since Hallowed Necromancers exist, what holy sanctified deities support Hallowed Necromancy? Which deities would such necromancer's worship?
Hmmm. Well, if I had to pick some off the top of my head, I think I'd say Abadar, Calistria, Irori, Nethys, Lissala, Cihua Coatl, Pahti Coatl, The Readied Strike, Aroden (you are a necromancer), Gorum (ditto), Thoth, Otilaz, Sarshallatu, Turvu, Dammerich, Neshen, Ragathiel, Uskyeria, Valani, Vildeis, Yrmidar, Teki Stronggut, Belech, Valmallos, Kalekot, Lubaiko, Mahja Firehair, Besmara, Brigh, Casandalee, Dajermube, Followers of Fate, Genzaeri, Grandmother Spider, Hanspur, Kaldemash, Sekhmet, Set, Sobek, Zjar-Tovan, Cosmic Caravan, Seafarer's Hope, Sorrow's Sword, Talons of the Godclaw, The Freeing Flame, The Godclaw, The Last Breath, The Perplexing Jest, The Resplendent Court, Urban Prosperity, Wards of the Pharaoh, Baekho, Mugura and Nrithu, Nalinivati, Sun Wukong, The Lady of the North Star, Yaezhing, Yamatsumi, Ashukharma, Chamidu, Raumya, Ravithra, Suyuddha, or Vineshvakhi. Possibly Arazni, depending on the exact theming of the thralls that you go with.
Spoiler:
That's a pretty broad question. The easiest answer seemed to be filtering for deities that both allow holy sanctification and permit Harm for their divine font, and then doing a quick manual check of any deity that mentioned "undead". Luhar was eliminated for having a hard stance against not only creating undead, but even just speaking to the dead. Anubis was eliminated for being pretty keen on destroying undead. Arazni, predictably, gets an "it's a bit complicated" exception.
It's not the best list since I'm not somebody who plays holy characters, but it's probably a decent starting place for folks to consider.
another interesting question is: How does the Blood Facination's HP recovery scale?
Should be 1hp at first and go up by 1 every four levels after that. 5 HP per thrall at 17 is still a tidy bit of healing for things you're already doing.
Thralls no longer blocking enemies but instead acting as difficult terrain is a HUGE change to the class' combat dynamic. It's a hell of a nerf, but allows for so many other necromancer themed options to exist within the power budget.
I guess that's why they are fine with 1st-level necromancers creating as many as 7 thralls in one round now.
I wonder if super thralls at higher levels will be solid enough to block foes?
Glad to have something a lot more workable. The old version felt very off and like the game's mechanics were showing.
The new version avoids the "can't tumble through two enemies" problem and also doesn't let you make a checkerboard that blocks large creatures, while still slowing enemies down.
I like that flesh thralls are equally troublesome intact or destroyed, so they're a great choice to slow enemies and to reduce the incentive to destroy them.
Any time somebody needs to call on a bunch of different things, I would consider a reflavoring of Animist.
Going off the Pathfinder wiki, you've got fourteen commonly known demon lords and seventeen lesser-known demon lords. Animist currently has fourteen apparition to work with, and will be getting more later in the year, so if you take the time to map the demon lords to the best-fitting apparition, you can have your character calling on different Outer Rifts patrons each day depending on what the situation needs. If you have any apparitions left at the end which are unassigned, just go look back and see if they fit some particular aspect of a demon lord.
As a "knows the whole list" prepared caster, it's very easy to swap things out after a day to perform just the miracles you need. This seems like a character who fits the idea of having a few patrons for the road, and when they arrive at some new city, spends the rest of the day figuring out who to call on the next day. Unlike Cleric, you actually have the number one feat for being a caster up to no good, Conceal spell. Sadly, you don't have quite enough familiar feats in-class to get an imp, but so long as you don't lock down an apparition choice with Medium/Relinquish Control, you're good.
As for how to build them... well, I'd make sure to get Additional Lore (Outer Rifts), ask the GM to count worship of the Outer Rifts as a specific unholy deity for skill feats, and generally focus on Religion, Deception, and Diplomacy. And most importantly, I would make sure to never take both Lamashtu and Pazuzu as patrons on the same day.
(Just as a note, though, PF2 doesn't have a specific Outer Rifts mystery for Oracle, at least not that I saw?)
Add an extra roll to most spells, make casting more unreliable, punish using lower-rank spells, works asymmetrically, and requires weird area exclusion stuff. Seems like a good thing to put at uncommon so you run it by your GM.
I imagine it might be more okay in third-party where you also posted, but... yeah, dropping a copy-paste ad at the very least doesn't fit the vibe here.
On the flip side, I'm happy to see third-party producing what seems like good quality work from the quick look I took. Just... maybe talk about it, rather than pasting something that comes across as a bit spam-bot-ish?
I did a little search, and there was a reddit post from someone at the company talking a bit about making the adventure. That sort of thing would be more appropriate, if there's time to talk about the conversion work or something.
Pretty much yeah, The flavor of ones spellcasting is largely up to the player and GM, after all one of the examples is to whistle as part of the verbal incantation.
To me though, that is a problem.
A GM could decide that most spell casting gesture are very noticeable. And since the subtle trait doesn't specifically interact with it, that you're still making obvious gestures.
Which defeats the point of subtle.
If I'm the GM running the game, I would simply say "subtle also includes adjusting the gestures, making it so that while you need to provide gestures they are subtle gestures". We all know hand talkers, I gesticulate a lot when speaking, and I'm imagining subtle would allow you to weave movements into something that looks "normal" for people who gesticulate while speaking. But I'm also a GM who wants the thing to work as intended.
Some GMs are not that.
Subtle hides the manifestations and the spellcasting actions, though.
From Conceal Spell, "The trait hides only the spell's spellcasting actions and manifestations, not its effects, so an observer might still see a ray streak out from you or see you vanish into thin air."
I think the best use I've personally gotten out of the various details of the afterlives was for my Skull & Shackles character. She had some violent natural inclinations, but grew up with a family who attended a church with a focus on the horrible afterlives awaiting the wicked, and particularly in Abaddon with its damned souls preying upon damned souls. She did her best to keep herself in check, but when she was press-ganged, decided any chance at a peaceful life was gone, and opted to go all-in in order to show up in Abaddon with as powerful of a start as possible.
Is that exactly how it works? Well, we have hints of it in the origins of some of the Riders of the Apocalypse. It's certainly something someone could believe, especially with motivated reasoning.
I would not allow using the same weapon as two ikons, although I would consider making an exception if it's something weak like a dagger. Being able to get the benefits of moving your spark AND the benefits of weapon ikon damage boost AND the benefits of a two-handed weapon feels cheesy and against the spirit of the class to me.
Folks have talked plenty about the RAW wording, and I'm less concerned with that than the way it invalidates the thing that makes the class interesting: flowing between different modes.
That citizens/characters from Golarion/Lost Omens inherently know a decent chunk of the lifecycle, of the above hearing about it, living it, growing up in a world that knows about the river inherently. But most players are confused what a Daemon, Demon and Devil is or that there's angels anywhere but Heaven, let alone the cycle and where they exist in it. The pre-conceptions. People can't roleplay a character from Golarion because they don't know what that is, and it's too much to convey quickly/respond to quickly, after the fact it's a lot of information.
I'll talk a little bit about this, since it's what stood out to me.
I don't think most people on Golarion do know all that much about the lifecycle of the soul. Or at least, what they know fits in a quick five-minute summary.
"When you die, you are judged by Pharasma, and sent to an afterlife that fits your deeds. ('No, she judges you on your soul, not your deeds!' somebody shouts from a place of equal ignorance.) Pharasma doesn't like undead, because, something about mucking up the soul. And, uh, rich people can come back if they have enough money? I don't know how that works." - That's probably a fair enough summary of what a lot of people know.
Non-experts in novels conflate different types of fiends, and even lump in tieflings/cambions out of ignorance. Your average Chelish citizen almost certainly knows the difference between a devil and a demon, but wouldn't know what to expect from a daemon or have a very accurate impression of angels. So, as a GM, you only need to quickly go over the key points of distinction for devils and demons for that player. For the rest, that's fodder for the story- it's fine to have that character encounter something outside that experience from a place of ignorance.
Now, certainly there come times when a character will have the Religion modifier to justify knowing more, they have a backstory that gets into some detail or another, or the details are relevant to a spell. That's a good point to start explaining things a bit, or ask for a knowledge roll. It sounds like there might be a bit of an issue at that point of the process?
I will admit that my experience with consistent groups and talking with friends is probably very different than working with random people. That personal connection means they enjoy listening to me talk shop about Pathfinder setting tidbits I enjoy, and I know them well enough to know when to offer some details to help tie their character into the setting more vs. when to let them add their own lore. We are in longer campaigns, so any explanation is useful for months rather than just a session. And you already know this- you've got those tight-knit groups as well.
As for having folks to talk about lore with... I guess I'm not much of one for discussing the intricacies or implications of the River of Souls. I'm more of a "fun trivia about Nidal or Eox or whatever" person. The breadth of the setting's lore mean that there are parts that interest me, and I gravitate towards those. Folks not knowing about it doesn't bug me- I can share the parts I think they'll enjoy.
So, overall, I think it's suited to longer games, and trying to bring it all to one-shots/Society is just approaching one-shots/Society with the wrong expectations.
Squggit, in another thread was wondering what a luminary…does each turn. A level 1-20 build shows what Mr Sir…is but what does Mr Sir…do?
And how did Mr Sir’s turns work in your level 3 playtest? As expected?
After the PaizoCon stream mentioned that they especially wanted to test out the core class features, I intentionally playtested it the level before I would get anything that I mentioned. I can safely say that the lower levels aren't bringing much before later feats add some interesting options.
I'll be playtesting a level 4 version later so that I can actually use that Illusory Creature option.
It says that once a turn, you can use an action to do something. Regardless of what that "something" is, the vessel spell doesn't let you take that action. So my reading of the rules would be "no".
Now, if I just look at what the overall effect is, you are spending an action to sustain the focus spell, and that focus spell gives you a skill or perception bonus, and not even a bonus to Medicine. If you wanted to do this little combo as your character's schtick and you weren't trying to combine it with something like Elf Step, I would probably allow it. But I would definitely recommend approaching it as asking to fudge the rules for something cool.
I don't think it would be a net positive to bake fiddly resistance stacking interactions into the class. The class has blanket resistance that is stronger than any of the armor specializations, conditional on wearing heavy enough armor. Thematically, the role that armor specialization covers is fulfilled already.
If someone wants to stack them for some reason, that's available through at least two archetypes.
Sorry if that's all a bit dramatic. I guess some of it boils down to not being able personally benefit much from the roles.
Mr. Sir has nothing to target saves, except Demoralize, but he needs the spotlight on himself to do that with Performance. So even the costly ability to spend an action to lower the Demoralize DC by one isn't available to him.
Mr. Sir has a powerful -2 penalty to the highest save, at the expense of raising the lowest save. But in order to find out if it's a good idea to use that, he needs to set it up without knowing that, apply the same tradeoff to himself, and spend an action to roll a knowledge check.
Those both take a feat too. Without the benefit of feats, he can't really use the penalties he can apply. He's also only as likely to crit as the casters shooting their weapons are, so the crit abilities aren't great fits.
(He could go use an area weapon instead and apply the Comedy role to enemies, but that's the wrong mood and feels like a "should be playing Soldier instead" situation.)
Having played it at last, the role effects were so minor that it felt like it would have been appropriate to let all PCs have their roles permanently active, and all enemies have their roles active for combat once assigned for an action.
Having it instead be one spotlight being bounced around to try and get it on somebody when their role might be relevant is a poor experience.
Now, I don't think they should actually make that change, because the spotlight is pretty thematic, but I think it needs to be enough to feel like having the spotlight on you.
After playing Luminary at level 3, my overall impression was that it was functionally like not having any class features or class feats.
- My focus spell (Star Contestant) couldn't help out of combat because all the checks didn't have retries. It couldn't help in combat because the Rhythm Mystic had a much better focus spell to give +1 status to attack (and damage) to everyone. I used it to provide our healer with the Romance role for the full combat to discourage attacks on them.
- It's a lot of actions use Dark Sarcasm in combat, and needing to have the subject in 120 feet means I couldn't use it out of combat to prepare in advance. Using it in combat meant penalizing reflex against a bunch of enemies with grenades, which is what I learned from using it in combat. Getting the spotlight off my character ended up being the most important thing I did with the mobile spotlight.
- The critical hit roles didn't do anything, even with the ability to assign them reflexively. The Mystic-buffed Sniper Operative always killed on a crit, and the Mystic-buffed Soldier had a Magnetar Rifle so he also always killed on a crit.
- It felt like the only meaningful things I could do would be spend an action to give one target -1 reflex save against the Soldier's AoE attack, or give one ally the romance roll to make them harder to hit with non-AoE attacks.
- The Boost action on my weapon was more useful than anything the class could do with its actions.
- Tracking the spotlight was busy work and hard to do in a big fight with no visual aid.
- Hardlight Prop was used to block off windows more quickly (but less reliably) than moving crates, and for "#1 (Organization We're Talking To) Fan" mugs as a gag.
The most useful thing I got from the class was free advancement for Performance, which was used in an influence check, and the ability to use Performance for initiative.
At level 3, I would rather play a less thematic class that can do something more than shoot their gun.
---
What did this make me want?
- Luminary felt shockingly bland out of combat for what it is. I should be shining a spotlight on allies to always be rolling Aid using Performance, or on myself to get automatic circumstance bonuses.
- The class feels way too reliant on having an offensive-focused caster to use any of its stuff, and way too geared towards low enemy counts. Sure, -1 to Reflex helps Soldier, but only against one target of their AoE. I don't know how to fix that, but I wanted spotlight to feel like it made a difference. "Roll damage twice and take the better", "if damage is less than average, take average", something.
- As a Contest Luminary, I want to feel like I'm putting somebody on the spot! I want there to be a feeling of applying pressure, of upping the consequences for failure, of making somebody sweat for the entertainment of an audience. Instead, I felt like I was flicking light switches.
I'm looking forward to the iconic encounter, which I feel is where we get to see the character properly. I wouldn't really want iconic backstories to twist themselves in knots to avoid "common reasons for somebody to become an adventurer".
I'm pretty happy. It's the sort of thing I'd expect for an iconic necromancer, and I think it works better than a single deceased loved one. It's very cool seeing the cultural integration of necromancy into an iruxi society, and the limited term of "service" after death is a nice way to strike a balance.
I'm someone who does want to play selfish necromancers who care more about living a comfortable and easy life than a few tatters on the edges of some dead farmer's soul. This is a good option for the iconic for the class- I'll happily take it over another Maligaster.
I especially like having an iconic necromancer who is going to give us interesting skeletons. There are more than enough pictures of run-of-the-mill animated human skeletons. Easily my favorite thing about the new iconic is that we will get new and fresh art thanks to him.
you can hire me,
I will work for the sole privilege of being able to share my ideas with you all. I.e. Free. last I checked... you seem to be missing a psychic warrior class.
A good place to start is Pathfinder Infinite, where you can publish your ideas referencing Paizo's material. It shows a bit more commitment than just making some forum posts, too.
I'll be playtesting Mr. Sir at level 3 this weekend. We had to pick between level 3 and 4, and went with the former because it feels like a better playtest of the class' mechanics to not have those level 4 feats giving an additional focus spell option to lean on.
Somebody pointed out that Cutaway Shot triggers on somebody rolling a crit, so you should be able to use it to shove the spotlight onto somebody and make sure they have the Horror or Epic role for the crit effect in time to work, so that will be our second-level feat.
I will be doing my best to keep track of when the spotlight makes a difference (i.e. changes an outcome).
Note: While I'm playing Elebrian, I'm not going to grab proficiency with the Magnetar Rifle, because it feels like it warps testing too much to get a weapon that's so much stronger.
We did have a few specifics confirmed in the Paizo Live: two Animist aparitions and three feats with a summer theme, as well as a new Druid order that had something to do with flowers and maybe mourning? (The audio had issues, so I'm hoping I got both of those correct.)
I'm glad to be getting a book that talks about what spirits are. It was vague in PF1, and continued to be vague into PF2 even as things like undead got much more fleshed out, so having a book talking about it at length will be nice.
Having different perspectives from different societies' practices will be interesting and probably avoid spirits being placed in too small of a box.
I'm hoping that the seasons theme that seemed to come up in the player options a bit doesn't overwhelm the spirit aspect.
- I checked Pathfinder Infinite, and it doesn't look like there is one. That's where a professional conversion would be. If that were to happen, though, I would expect it to not be until the class is in a finalized form.
- I don't know what kind of money you've got to put towards a professional conversion, but you could reach out to someone whose conversion work you liked on Infinite and ask to commission a conversion.
- Your friend can probably find an SF2 group to try it out. Just because your group doesn't play SF2 doesn't mean your friend can't! The playtest runs for more than another month, and is legal to use in Starfinder Society for the playtest. That's also a good way to find a second permanent group. Other alternatives include keeping an eye on the Starfinder Discord recruitment.
- There's always a non-professional conversion where you work with the group to homebrew up something together.
Thank you, that makes so much more sense! I was checking griefninja's post history to make sure they weren't a spambot, but I forgot about the possibility of a deleted original post.
Or, to elaborate, I'm gonna need you to elaborate. Where did you see "quardle" such that it made you wonder if it is a Starfinder thing? I duckduckgo'ed it, and without further context, it's a game like Wordle.
According the Windsong Testaments, Desna was one of the first eight deities willed into existence by Pharasma through the Seal.
Concordance of Rivals is substantially more credible as in-setting sources go, and it cites Pharasma as the oldest* being in creation. So even if Pharasma didn't create Desna or it didn't go like the Windsong Testaments described, Pharasma is probably at least older.
*(Yog-Sothoth is coterminous with all of time and space and is generally not counted.)
The spells were described as fitting in the "we must find such-and-such spell to defeat the wicked so-and-so!" vein, and being the spell equivalent of artifacts. So I think they're intended to be used in a campaign with a particular purpose already in mind.
Watching articles on how Hasbro is taking D&D to subscription based service. Makes me even more glad I've been boycotting them since they killed my favorite product in favor of a crappier one with a big name.
Please tell me that Paizo is staying away from this subscription nonsense.
The bad news: Paizo has always been subscription-based.
The good news: it's the original meaning of a "subscription", where you pay to regularly receive something permanently.
This keeps being marked as spam, but I thought it was someone who genuinely wanted to do world building similar to these Dutch markets... Can I ask for a community lifeline? Is this spam?
I held off on flagging myself, although I'm on the fence. First post with a link to a commercial site is fishy, and the questions are... well, I have at least seen AI do similar.
(If you're a new person, welcome! Sorry, we just have a lot of bots posting links to foreign businesses.)
Ah, yeah, as a start-of-combat thing, that doesn't hit any of my concerns- initiative is already being handed out. Swapping initial initiatives is cool, so long as the player getting bumped down is cool with it, and feels like it's not covered well.
Thematically, if someone gets the spotlight on them, shouldn't they go next? In a play, if you get the spotlight, it's likely to mean it's your turn to say or do something. I find one of the hardest parts of teamwork in the game is having a plan, then it falling apprat becuse the random initiative messes it up. So what if sometimes giving someone the spotlight moves them in the initiative order, so they go next?
Yikes, no thanks! I don't want to be shuffling initiatives constantly. If someone already acted in the round, having them act next is different than if they haven't acted yet. That makes the initiative order weirdness worse, not better.
I think this is already covered well. If you want this specific feel, use the reaction to move the spotlight at the start of the turn. But if someone with the spotlight shoots someone, it makes sense to throw the spotlight over to show them getting hit. You don't need to make the enemy act next- the spotlight is there to show their reaction.
My approach would be a little different, but in the same vein- as soon as you Raise a Shield with your buckler, you're no longer wielding anything as an improvised weapon. You've got your buckler up, so you're not holding out a fan menacingly.
I'm probably not going to charge any extra actions for regrip, but you're not going to be able to use any Fan Dancer two-fan reactions while you've got your arm positioned to block.
Does the Multiplatform Luminary feat allow for the selection of another Platform for the Luminary class?
No. It only gives you the focus spell.
Berselius wrote:
If so, is it possible to combine uses of both Platform's?
Same as above. Additionally, "If you cast a stagecraft spell that creates a spotlight while you already have a spotlight from a stagecraft spell, the first stagecraft spell ends immediately." You can't even have both starting focus spells active at the same time.
Berselius wrote:
Would it make more sense for the Luminary class to already give access to another Platform at higher levels and then depending on what Platforms you choose you can access higher level Feats and Focused Spells that can only be accessed via two specific Platforms?
I don't think that would be a great use of space. There are five platforms, which means there are (5 * 4 / 2) = 10 platform combinations ignoring order. If you had one ability for each combination, you could instead add two options for each individual platform. It also means that characters who fit a particular platform are forced to work in an off-theme platform at higher levels.
Letting the cross-platform feats give a little more does seem like a good idea, since right now the first focus spell will always conflict with something you already have.
Eh, PF2 may not be suited to this, but any system that is will probably need a lot of buy-in. So any other system would probably need a crafting subsystem stapled on anyway.
If you have player buy-in for PF2 and a whole bunch of custom subsystems, I would still say go for it. I can understand being pretty happy with PF2 as a base for classes, spells, and an engine, but wanting some campaign-specific mechanics. Buuut I do think "keeping Crafting close to the rules" and "tracking things like production supply lines for fibers" are mutually exclusive- either keep it simple or rip out the original crafting rules for what you need.
