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Just doing "Tiamat is associated with dragons in particular" was already too close to D&D for comfort- that was dropped part way through PF1, so it definitely doesn't pass the more rigorous standards of post-OGL.
Statistics for over 20 types of dragons, including expansions on the dragons found in Monster Core and Monster Core 2!Here's hoping that those expansions are IN ADDITION of the "20 types of dragons". ... I have some bad news about what "including" means. But also, some good news about "over", I guess?
Actually, Incapacitation Sucks: Have an enemy's save improved from a failure to a success by the Incapacitation trait.
--- And a few vanity ones:
I love the pivot to using Iconics in novels! It goves more opportunities to get to know them so much better! :3 I'm on Team Author OCs myself, but we have a pretty sizable back-catalogue of those for folks like me to enjoy. (I say that, but I'm still going to snap up the first Mios book to come out...)
Yeah, this was absolutely my feeling. Anytime I go to build a drone, it feels like I'm pouring all my feats into customizations if I want to make something other than a second MAP track.Mechanically, a companion IS a second MAP attack, that's kind of the balance niche of getting the second body Sure! But if you're going to offer something like Impersonator, with its permanent -1 to hit and -2 (or more) hp/level compared to other robots... it should be a little more feasible to make it okay at impersonating.
1. Mutagens don't cost much money. A level 3 mutagen is 12 gp. Compared to a permanent item of that level, you're getting a bundle of four or five. 2. Being polymorph is also an advantage. It means that any mutagen can also be used to attempt to counteract a hostile polymorph effect, and forces hostile polymorphs to counteract it to take effect. "But Quid, hostile polymorphs are pretty rare!" And so are beneficial ones? Missing out on battle forms is not some big loss, and not being able to stack Enlarge and Choker Arm Mutagen is pretty fair. 3. Being balanced by needing to be applied pre-combat isn't a huge factor when they last for ten minutes or an hour. 4. I think "barely" is incorrect here. They always give +1 more of an item bonus than you can get with a permanent item of that level, and they usually give that bonus to a lot more than a permanent item would. Just as an example for a recent concept I had- a Necromancer focused on social skills, running a scam where a fake "hero" defeats the "powerful necromancer". Deception and Intimidation are both critical for the concept, while Performance is nice to have. At level 3, that would be a Ventriloquist's Ring and a One Hundred Victories tattoo, totaling 120 gp. For the same price, that's ten uses of the Silvertongue Mutagen, which also covers Performance and Diplomacy to talk their way out of a problem, while also preventing critical failures, all while giving a bigger bonus to Deception and Intimidation than the permanent items. The only thing the permanent items have going for them is a once-per-day first-rank Ventriloquism, which is more likely to give the scam away since it always offers a save. If it were just that, it would be way too good. 5. Yeah, there's a downside. Potions, Elixirs, and Spells give way smaller benefits for the level, so they don't come with downsides. If I want to give myself a +2 to multiple charisma skills, I'm looking at a 6th rank Heroism spell, and I don't think the other two can do it at all. That's 11th level instead of 3rd. 6. I disagree about forgetting about the penalty. Why would the type make a difference there? It just means it's a penalty that stacks. This feels like padding the point count. 7. They're always a thematic group. "Bonus to charisma stuff, no crit failures, penalty to intelligence stuff, lose one trained skill". Once my characters are into the mid levels, they're almost always carrying a 3rd level mutagen on their person for emergencies because of the huge value. Skill mutagens especially, because there are so many use cases where their penalties don't have any impact at all. Cognitive Mutagen lets you spend a ten minute break recalling information with a bonus and zero chance of false info. Serene Mutagen is all upside if you're not expecting fights, or on characters who buff and heal. Silvertongue mutagen makes social situations a breeze. I dunno, it feels like you might only be looking at the combat mutagens?
With Dominate usually giving a new save every round, being uncommon, and having the incapacitation trait, this falls under "so unlikely to actually happen that it should just be handled on a case by case basis".
Yeah, this was absolutely my feeling. Anytime I go to build a drone, it feels like I'm pouring all my feats into customizations if I want to make something other than a second MAP track.
I just played this scenario, I guess the voting is over as the QR code leads to a closed poll. Can anyone tell me what the choices were and what the outcome was. I believe that the winner was "City McCityface".
Starfinder's drow were also a lot more distinct than the Pathfinder ones, so there wasn't as much that had to be removed. As such, Apostae is run by void elves now.
Fifteen is a triangle number, so I would assume one deck each for one, two, three, four, and five face cards.
Hang on, my math is wrong- specialization seems to be delayed until 18th level for some reason. The feature seems pretty useless for huge stretches of time, then? The Deception is bad and just falls further behind. It feels like it was balanced against choosing a creature for its movement speeds, like getting flight.
Thanks! The clarifications are much appreciated. There are still some things that I'll need GM rulings on, but the difference that makes to how we test mines is huge.
Because remastered spells, feats, skills, damage types and terminologies don't count as "rules changes" now? Yeah, that's what they can't do. "Your honor, we did not copy D&D's dragons."
I get what you're asking a lot better now, but they have to actually make and publish new dragons, not just slap an extra coat of paint on. That's why the horned dragon is meaningfully different from the green dragon, and why the empyreal dragon is meaningfully different from the gold dragon.
Because remastered spells, feats, skills, damage types and terminologies don't count as "rules changes" now? ... Huh? I'm sorry, I'm really lost on what you want. What feats do dragons get? What damage types do dragons do that got changed in the remaster? What spells do dragons have that aren't covered by the spell change rules? Do you just want the red dragon reprinted with "Telekinetic Hand" instead of "Mage Hand", and named a "fire dragon"? Or am I misunderstanding something?
Aren't what "archdragons" supposed to be???If I recall, it's the non-OGL replacement for the term "great wyrm" - basically, the term referring to the oldest and most powerful of dragons. All archdevils and demon lords are at least demigods, though, which is why they can grant divine power.
I believe the Red Dragon becoming Cinder Dragon was mentioned sometime in one of the Paizo streams, regarding the Shining Kingdoms release. Also, we (probably) know the name of post-OGL Black Dragons; in a Reddit AMA done by Ossian Studios for the Dragon's Demand crpg, they mentioned that to be remastered compliant they've renamed the Black Dragon into the Bog Dragon. Unsure if this is canon, as someone commented that they're surprised Ossian was allowed to reveal this, and Mark Moreland replied something to the effect of "yes that is interesting" with an upside down smiley. Secrets of Magic got errata around the rules changes. There aren't any rules changes impacting the OGL dragons. I don't know what you want them to "solve". If an old book says "red dragon", you can just use a red dragon; you don't need to use a cinder dragon. If you want them to release a blog post saying, "call black dragons bog dragons and call white dragons and call red dragons cinder dragons", that won't happen because it undermines the effort by making it look like Paizo is doing nothing but renaming D&D's dragons.
All this news and still no sign of Outer Dragons? That's heartbreaking :C We're getting a divine cosmic dragon for Starfinder, and the outer dragons could be material for future primal dragons in the system. (The first one is going to be a host dragon, which I'm very excited to see.)
I don't think that Paizo is going to toss in a deity of "undeath, but dragon-flavored" when they already have a core deity of undeath. Ditto for beauty and magic. We also see from the dragon they showed us that the dragons are designed to fit into the existing world and lore as it exists. That said, it was a divine dragon with a tie to a plane, meaning that you can now connect any options tied to that plane (e.g. the upcoming nephelim heritage) to that type of dragon in your personal backstory. Well, with the announcement of nine new dragon gods, I might be eating my words on this one! Place your bets, folks!
Tanks don't exist in most fantasy TTRPGs. Tanks don't exist in most fantasy MMOs and video games. Tanks exist primarily in WW2 and later warfare wargames, video games, and MMOs. --- What I wrote above is pretty unhelpful. I'm going into the discussion with a definition of "tank" that isn't going to be met. If you don't think that what a champion does at high levels is "tanking", that's fine- but then there's no reason to argue about champion not tanking well at low levels. The useful discussion would be, "Does a champion do at low levels what it does at high levels?" What a holy-or-justice champion does is reduce damage coming at the party. It uses a reaction to reduce damage to allies, and it is harder to hit itself. The original post argues that until champion gets improved armor proficiency, it is essentially a weak point, because it's no more resilient than a fighter. I would argue that being as resilient as a Fighter is enough. The extra point of AC from heavy armor means taking less damage than most (but not all) other classes, and the 10 HP base mean that there's almost certainly someone who would be less able to soak hits. The champion does their job better at later levels, sure, but I don't think it's fair to say that they don't do a good job of it at low levels.
Bypassing precision immunity, no. There are a few ways to bypass energy immunity, but that's generally for minimal consolation damage. Precision damage already comes attached to consolation damage: the main attack. Weakness has Vicious Debilitations for Ruffian Rogue at 10, Seal Fate as a fourth rank spell, and the critical effect of the Frostbite cantrip. Thaumaturge dedication gives a creature weakness 2 against your strikes, but it doesn't scale.
Not the most immediately terrifying, but a subtle spell casting of Outcast's Curse is nasty. Even on a regular failure, the target will permanently have every single new person they encounter think less of them. Every indifferent stranger will dislike them, and every potential friend who would hit it off right away simply doesn't care. It's not a case where it's just a matter of finding the right sort of person, someone similar, because it's truly everyone new. And any attempt to fix it, whether through kindness, fear, lying, or simply putting on a show, is twice as hard. Somebody pats them on the back, and the rest of their life is just worse until they can figure out what went wrong. And that's the regular failure. On a crit failure, every new person they run into who wouldn't care about them instead actively wants to do them harm. If they run into somebody who doesn't dislike them, it's only because that person would have been a ride-or-die friend otherwise. (Now, without using a spellshape to make this subtle or some other delivery method, it loses a lot of that bite. "Ever since that person at the party chanted a spell and touched me, everyone has been treating me worse" is much less of a puzzle to work out.)
Obviously, "everyone" is an exaggeration- plenty of folks were quite happy to have casters getting more slots by default, myself included. We're getting a bit of conversion guide, so little things like a slot difference for casters would be easily addressed.
Technomancer is almost as "arcane only" of a flavor as Wizard. It's very mind-material in flavor, and even if you want to bring in computer spirits, those are definitely a mind-aspect parallel to nature spirits being life-aspect. I'm definitely on board with four slots, though. They seem like they could use it.
I do feel like the languages should all have an extra, "get you started" bonus. DPS++ should get martial weapon proficiency, servoshell should give you a robot familiar, Fortrun should get heavier armor. Viper should probably get a free per day spell gem? That might be too strong comparatively, the equivalent existing ability would be the Scroll Trickster's Basic Scroll Cache which is not nearly as strong and is a 6th level archetype feat. Still, I suspect it's not gonna feel great to blow your entirely WBL on basic class functionality. Some access to free spell gems should be available somewhere. All the non-Viper suggestions are approximately a 1st-level general feat. The closest general feat for Viper is Prescient Consumable, which is much higher and wouldn't solve the funds issue. Maybe a daily spell gem of a first-rank spell you prepare?
I'm a little worried that if you want a fully customized drone, Mechanic won't bring much to the table over taking an archetype on a better base class, at least before the capstone. It's not nothing, of course - free integrated weapon slot, free "dedication", tandem movement, and eventually a permanent damage bonus. Compared to Envoy boosting everyone's attack and damage while getting way more skill stuff, or Soldier getting to AoE and attack while being nigh unkillable, I'm a little iffy.
My reading was that it definitely does increase your drone's MAP... if you make the "mistake" of not commanding your drone first. "This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty." It doesn't say anything about what you do when calculating your drone's MAP, so it just checks how many attacks the drone has made that round. Regardless, it could use some cleanup on the wording. Any disagreement on impacting MAP isn't important, because you can just start by commanding your drone.
Impersonator chassis got me thinking about this, so I figured I'd see what it would look like. Ideally, not just looking like a person, but actually being able to speak on behalf of the Mechanic. So, just taking the chassis gives us trained deception, looking like an ancestry, and +2 to the DC to see through an impersonation as that ancestry. However, they can't speak or hold anything, so it's not going to hold up for anything other than "not drawing attention in a crowd". We're giving up a lot of health and damage, as well as a bit of accuracy, for this, so let's see what it takes to get some actual value. Fortunately, we start out with a free Commercial Customization, and Mechanic provides an Integrated Weapon Mount. Having a sniper rifle or something in the weapon mount probably solves our damage problems, buuut it gives the disguise away. Oh well, ten-minute install/uninstall time means it's not the end of the world. The Commercial Customization gives us Artificial Personality, critically giving us speech and the ability to attempt charisma-based checks. They still can't use their hands, which is probably a good thing to remedy to draw less attention. So we'll need one feat for Commercial Customization to get Manual Dexterity. At this point, we're doing okay: we have a person-shaped bot who can casually interact with things and lie. This seems like a great spot to point out that under the current rules, companions can never activate items! This might need to be updated to "can't activate magic items" or something like that, since it does feel like a robot companion should be able to do tech item activations at some point. A second Commercial Customization feat would help a lot, grabbing Skill Module for Diplomacy. A +1 Charisma is nothing to write home about, but this will let them smooth things over. We'll also have feats locked in for Mature, Graceful/Nimble (hopefully graceful covers charisma, unlike nimble?), Specialized, and Elite to keep our companion up to date. When we get to level 6, we need to take Tactical Customization for Expertise Module (Deception) because companion advancements were designed for animal companions, and therefore never advanced the starting skill. So far, that's 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th spoken for, along with 14 and 18. At 10th, we'll really want Advanced Customization for Sapient. That frees us up to retrain the Commercial Customization used for Artificial Personality, freeing up a second-rank slot, or that can be used for Upgrade Slot to get a Glamer Projector installed for easy outfit changes. At 12th, as long as we don't feel we need +2 diplomacy, we're good. At 14th, we get a specialization. It's not exactly thematic, but Bully gives us +3 to our charisma mod, and we'll take that. At 16th, Superior Customization gets us Glow Up. It "increases" our charisma to +3, when we have +4. It feels a little bad investing so much into this and only getting that +1 advantage over a tank who took another specialization. We don't know what level 18's Elite Drone does, but given how important the other similar feats are, I assume it's also important. For the capstone, Ultimate Drone finally gives us a charisma boost. Diplomat gives us master diplomacy (freeing up Glow-Up and possible skill+expertise modules), and a whopping +4 charisma. 20th level is very late, but +10 charisma helps make up for only having expert deception with no item bonuses. That's... 10 for being a DC, 24 from expert, 10 from mod, and 2 from chassis specialty. That's a DC of 46 to recognize that they're a robot companion. An on-level high perception score sees through that 55% of the time. At level 19, though, it's pretty rough, with a high perception seeing through it 80% of the time. At 13, before specialization, that's... 10 for DC, 17 from expert, 1 from mod, and 2 from chassis specialty. That's DC 30. An on-level high perception score sees through that 85% of the time. --- Overall, this feels like a lot of work and investment. It feels like we're missing pieces of the playtest, too. The animal companion specializations don't map super well to some of the options robots get, and we're missing the level 18 option. It feels like impersonator acting as face has to make a lot of tradeoffs while still requiring everything to be invested into the concept. Almost the only free feats were ones that were freed up by a customization covering something that used to be necessary. Can a Mechanic's Drone maybe get a delayed customization progression, or feat that acts like a bulk deal? Even if it's something like Tactical Drone giving a Commercial Customization and Refined Chassis giving a Tactical Customization, where you get the previous rank of customization... Impersonator Chassis feels like it should also allow any integrated weapon to be concealed while not in use unless somebody beats their Deception DC for impersonation.
Focus spells working seems to be "addressed" by the class having no focus spells that work with it; if you want to use that route, you have to go get focus spells from outside the class. "Technomancer working much better if you go outside the class for things" feels like a related issue.
While allowing a spell database to be a prosthetic eye is really cool, it feels like a superior solution versus it being a datapad or comm unit, as a prosthetic eye is much more difficult to steal or otherwise damage. Allowing your spell database to be an integrated item like this should probably be a feat. The spell database should be exclusive to a worn or held item. Instead of a prosthetic eye. An acceptable alternate to a prosthetic eye it can be a pair of augmented reality goggles instead, or a DBZ-style scouter-like implement instead. Otherwise, the spell database is a great alternative to a spellbook. Maybe that would be the case if it mattered, but it doesn't matter. The only time you need to actually get your spell database out of your gear is during daily prep, and if it's lost or stolen, you can download it again in ten minutes. "A feat to prevent needing to spend ten minutes replacing stolen gear" isn't a worthwhile feat.
There might be a way to get a tech familiar or pet via the Pet feat in the Core book (or the Tech book this class comes in), but that will still require you to invest an ancestry feat to play this class option. I mean, that's still level 3 for most characters. I'm certainly not playing Starfinder to play a human.
Yeah... I'm not going to mind some more of the techno stuff. Something at-will or passive that's useful out of combat would go a long way.
I'm going to set aside overclock and jailbreak for a moment. Technomancer has some nice illusion and summons support scattered throughout, and there are other sustained spells. Once you cast a sustained spell, though, you're kind of locked out of your thing as a Technomancer. You don't have the spare action to use a spellshape- at most, you can do it once if you were able to overclock that first round. Technomancer should probably have options other than jailbreaking to deal with the action cost of spellshapes. Meta-action feat or features like, "One action: Sustain one of your spells. You can use a one-action spellshape. You must spend focus points for magic hacks as normal." It might even be good to bundle a few options into one- "Stride up to half your speed, sustain one of your spells, or interact to draw or swap an item, then use a one-action spellshape." As a specific example, with the illusion-friendly spellshapes available, it would be nice to cast a hardlight illusory body double and then spend the rest of combat using Incognito Spell to make it confusing about who is casting. Something that makes it so that just using the regular, non-jailbroken spellshapes doesn't feel like you're playing a featureless caster. Spellshapes make up such a big part of the class that they could really use a little more love outside of the "spend one action now to save one later" setup.
At the moment, ServoShell seems fundamentally just sort of unusable unfortunately. I'm honestly surprised there wasn't an option to acquire a familiar with the Tech trait, just as a nice flavor thing and also because one subclass just straight up doesn't work without such an option. Of course, having access to the robot companions the Mechanic gets would be even better! That would still require an archetype likely, however. I'm hoping this gets rectified eventually, but there was certainly a big oversight with that specific programming language. Yeah. Part of the reason I named the thread what I did is that even adding a familiar feat or branching out into an archetype doesn't fix level one.
I'm not calling for a class renaming, and those threads tend to rub me the wrong way, but if this had been introduced as the "Spellhacker" instead, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. Technomancer was always a bit lacking in "technomancy", though, so I'm not hugely concerned. Things like Ammo Infector Virus, Delete Root Access, and White Hack Hack are the same level of "techno" that the old one had. There's just a lot more metamagic.
You have martial proficiency and a skill increase line with skill feats. For my old Exocortex character, I'm just flavoring that martial proficiency as being from a targeting computer. There are some mid to high level feats for built-in targeting systems, too.
Illusionary Creature at 2nd rank only takes two actions to cast, but has it's own issues since while it's an excellent spell, a minion that pops as soon as someone hits it is not something you want to tie your class features to. It's a pity, because commanding a familliar while also getting to sustain a spell would be amazing. Illusory Creature can't be targeted for Overclock- it is neither a minion, nor does it have the tech trait (which the Overclock Gear action lists as a requirement). Sure, outwardly it looks like one (that being the point of the spell), but it is not one, nor do you ever Command it. You just sustain the illusion and make it take two actions.
3/rank is going to greatly limit your ability to actually jailbreak much at lower levels. Overclocking and maintaining the ability would seem the smarter play, except only two of them (DPS++ and FORTRUN) provide any benefits that don't require additional spellcasting or ruinous resource expenditure to actually use. ServoShell needs to be, what, three rounds deep before it can have a sustained plus summoned spell up and start saving on sustained actions? And I don't think that actually works since you have to cast on turn 1 to overcharge, 3 action summon on turn 2, then only on turn 3 is your overclock benefit available, but you don't have an actual sustained spell available. So you cast that on turn 3, and finally on turn 4 you can sustain it for free. Yikes. Nope, even that doesn't work: when you overclock, you need to already have a tech minion to target for the overclock effect, so sustaining that turn 2 summon won't actually do anything. "Overclock Boost (minion) Whenever you Command an overclocked minion, you can additionally Sustain a spell as a free action."
ServoShell seems like it is stuck in ServoHell. Overclock Boost targets a minion, and from the Overclock section, it must be a tech minion. When you command that minion, you get to sustain a spell. There aren't any familiar feats, and your ancestry-provided familiar won't work because it's not a tech minion. Even if there's a general feat to get one, that's level three. At level 1, all you have is Summon Robot. Unfortunately, Summon Robot is three actions. Overclock Gear is one action, and must be used on the same turn, so Summon Robot can never be overclocked off of. Well, fine. We'll get ourselves a minion the first turn, and we'll cast a spell next turn. Second turn, cast a spell for two actions (preferably a sustained spell- Animate Rope or Leaden Boots seem to be the only Pathfinder options). We're out of slots, but we'll be sustaining two spells at once, and can use a cantrip alongside it! ... Except no, we've just used all three actions, with none left to sustain our robot. It vanishes. All right, let's go check our focus spell. Signal Relay- for one action, if the next action is casting a spell targeting you, it affects your minion instead. This is normally just a three-action setup that will result in our minion getting dismissed because we can't sustain it. If we somehow Jailbreak it, we copy the spell to target both ourselves and a minion. We'll have an action to sustain with then, but at first level, we can't use this even if we solved the action issue, because we need one non-cantrip spell to get a minion, one non-cantrip spell to overclock, and one non-cantrip spell to make this worth our trouble... but we only have two non-cantrip spells. --- Summon Robot doesn't work with any of the abilities because it's three actions. The subclass needs to go outside the class to have any of its features work. Even with an archetype, you're spending the first level with two spells, five cantrips, and your only feature being the ability to hide the fact that you're casting. And, I guess, you can use a focus point to spend an action to be able to cast a self-only buff on a familiar if you got one from your ancestry? I love the great illusion/minion support the subclass has going on! But I think a class that doesn't do anything until you go take an archetype is the sort of thing that playtest feedback is important for fixing.
I do find myself wanting more out of combat. The class gets three things: - Combining three toolkits into one. I... would not count this, because the only thing that weighs the one bulk is basically a 3D printing table. The feature feels like "save the party one bulk". - Gain hover for one action. Yeah, it's fun. - Three skill proficiency increases and skill feats. Absolutely, a very important and useful thing for the class that lets them feel like a Mechanic! I don't know what else exactly there should be, but... I could definitely use another thing, or making the custom rig feature actually matter. Maybe make it hands-free?
To me, it seems like it'll be a real issue. DPS++ will probably be fine since it's boosting weapon attacks, but something like ServoShell? Woof... your overclock only benefits spells. That's 100% of your features focusing on your spell slots.
One of the things I've been looking forward to in SF2 is building Arendi, my ysoki Mechanic from SF1. (Technically, he was a dual-class Technomancer, but that was more to get a drone and an exocortex. In SF2, that'll just be a free archetype game with the Technomancer multiclass archetype.) Arendi had a comfortable live growing up on Verces, and studied to become a programmer and engineer. He took a shot at becoming a tech Space!YouTuber, as many such people are wont to do. He was starting up a series of programming tutorial vids, and tried to include some humor in it. So when he was covering how to run a program on a set schedule, he jokingly picked "daily prayers of appeasement", automating his prayers to Lao Shu Po, Grandmother Rat. Basically like if you programmed your computer to say "bless you" when it detected a sneeze. He woke up the next day with a rat sitting up at the foot of his bed, carrying a messily written note on ancient rice paper. It expressed disappointment that he refused to speak to his own grandmother and concern that Verces' cities were no place for a young ysoki to learn what life was really like. The writer had made arrangements for him to participate in a planetary expedition in six months. The letter was signed with a bloody pawprint. He spent the next couple of months cobbling together a drone with sonic weaponry and an aim-assist AI chip in his head, since that was faster for him than trying to train himself up to competence with weapons. The drone is named Ban, short for "Banshee", and the AI is named Shasa, short for "Rakshasa". --- So, for Arendi, we want: martial proficiency and a big drone with sonic weaponry. Fortunately, the class starts with martial progression rather than needing a subclass for it, so we'll just flavor his exocortex as providing aim-assist. Well be going with the drone subclass. Ancestry: Ysoki
Stats: +4 Int, +3 Dex, +2 Con, +1 Cha, +0 Wis, -1 Str Level 1 Mechanic:
Question: High-Tech Medic has you store medical items in your custom rig, and lets you have your drone deliver them. At low-levels, your drone has to be adjacent for you to use this so it makes sense. At higher levels, though, you now have medicine teleporting from your rig to the drone? It's also a little weird how you have to be adjacent to your drone, and... maybe it needs to be adjacent to the target? It says you command your drone; does it get the two actions from being commanded? The wording could use a little clarity. Note: Not for this character, but I love Multidisciplinary Mechanic! Especially Necrotech! It does feel like "Necrograft Lore" is a lot narrower than the others, and wouldn't let you roll for (as an example) recalling knowledge about Eoxian necrotech ships. Level 2:
Level 3:
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Level 20:
--- Overall impression: I enjoy this class a lot, and it does a good job of letting me make a good drone controller. It does feel like I'm dumping an awful lot of feats into a companion, like... a lot a lot. With all the customization feats on offer, it feels like at least Modify Drone should be a freebie. Once you hit level 4, you're going to be investing the drone a bunch, so having such a boring tax feat before then instead of something fun? It's a bummer! I know that the game doesn't take free archetype into account, but this particular subclass does feel like Mechanic might not be bringing much to the table vs. a robot companion via archetype. That said, if that's really the case, you can always go Mechanic-Turret/Mines-Robot. I'll definitely need to look at turret and mines in depth later, but I'm happy at Arendi feeling like Arendi.
Happy to help! For my part, I really enjoy Pathfinder's approach, since it means gods don't have to all share a motivation. (Worshipers are still useful as a way for deities to influence the world without provoking other divine intervention in response.) Also, whoops... looks like I was completely wrong in thinking the remaster clearing the categories out! I see that all three categories are still mentioned in both the GM core and Divine Mysteries, so I'm sorry to have gotten that wrong. (And in fact, the empyreal lords are mentioned as being demigods, and I missed it.) I've done a little more reading, so hopefully this doesn't have any similar mistakes. In Pathfinder 1e, the categories were gods, demigods, and quasi-deities. Deities offered 5 domains, demigods offered 4 domains, and quasi-deities anywhere from 1 to 4 (with the highest end being on the cusp of becoming a demigod). Gods never had combat statistics, demigods might have statistics (generally with mythic involved somewhere), and quasi-deities almost always had statistics (or if they didn't, simply lacked them for space reasons rather than power reasons). Demigods covered things like demon lords (Lamashtu being the sole exception as a full deity) and other similar power levels, like the empyreal lords, while quasi-deities were things like nascent demon lords. Moving from demigod to god was pretty rare, with examples including "Lamashtu killing a god to become one herself", "Nocticula's redemption, which also involved ascension to godhood", and "the sort of thing you could do post-Mythic level 20 if you wanted to leave the rules behind". In Pathfinder 2, counting domains was dropped as a measure of power. Gods are beings with nearly unlimited power, demigods are still very powerful but either less than a god or they have their power in service to one, and quasi-deities are things like recently-ascended mortals, planar beings who have obtained a great deal of power, and so on. ("Major" gods versus "minor" are just a matter of power ranking and not official categories- Pharasma and Cayden Cailean are both full deities, but there's a clear difference in their respective power.) The distinction is also that there's no mortal way to kill a god, a demigod would be implausible for mortals to kill, and notable quasi-deities are in the territory of "upper end of a level 20 game's difficulty". Quasi-deities becoming something more depends on the exact nature of their power. For some, it's just a matter of solidifying their power and quasi-deity is only a transitional state. Newly ascended mortals seem to have a gradual adjustment period of sorts on their way to full godhood, with examples like Aroden spending less and less time in the world, or mythic player characters with the Godling mythic destiny. Others, like nascent demon lords vying to become proper demon lords, have simply accumulated enough power to get close to becoming a demigod, but still need something to push them the rest of the way. Long-time demigods becoming gods doesn't seem to happen a bunch. There are a few noteworthy examples like Lamashtu and Nocticula, or Arazni reclaiming her soul cage from Tar-Baphon, but it's always for specific, noteworthy, and character-defining reasons. Off the top of my head, Halcamora could perhaps become a full god by Erastil choosing to bestow his power on her and pass his duties on. Demigods do include some pretty powerful and widely-worshiped entities, too- the apocalypse riders are demigods rather than full gods, despite being practically in charge of one of the nine major outer planes. There's less focus on demigod-versus-god in PF2, since from a mortal perspective they do a lot of the same thing, and it's noted that demigods have enough power to provide for all their worshipers. Hope that's helpful!
I read Erastil's article on the Pathfinder Wiki and it seems his attitude (in that era) was very pro-rural, anti-urban. So if those values haven't changed then just take most of what I wrote and switch it to his daughter Halcamora instead. Maybe with that she might pick up enough worshippers to ascend to full divinity? Obligatory mention that worshipers granting divinity is a D&D thing, not Pathfinder and Starfinder. No amount of worshipers will turn someone into a deity, nor make one any stronger. (Admittedly, with a possible exception for the goblin hero gods specifically working a little differently than other gods.) That said, a bit of good news- Halcamora probably counts as having "full divinity" now! Moving away from the OGL also meant dropping a lot of the "quasi-deity" and "demigod" qualifiers. To the best of my knowledge, she's now just a deity in a lower weight class than some of the heavy-hitters.
They do not, no.
See... this is all well and good. But what you really gotta do is bring in your character from a custom setting home game. Some day, I'm going to take my very relaxed magical trust-fund kid Thistil and drop him in a Golarian game, acting on the wrong setting's lore. "The gods we know are only those that remained behind and didn't ascend, clinging to their thrones.""Nobody knows for certain what happened to the gnomes, and I'm personally not sure what is pretending to be them now." "The god of war maintains an endless cycle of self, cheating the natural order by overtaking each usurper's being- wait, what do you mean he's dead? When did that happen?"
Moderate or greater tentacle potion permit to hold an item, no ? Wielding is different from holding. The best example is that you can hold a two-handed weapon in one hand, but not wield it. "Some abilities require you to wield an item, typically a weapon. You’re wielding an item any time you’re holding it in the number of hands needed to use it effectively. When wielding an item, you’re not just carrying it around—you’re ready to use it. Other abilities might require you to be wearing the item, to be holding it, or simply to have it." Because the tentacle potion never lets you make weapon attacks, you can't wield the fans as weapons with it. --- HOLD ON. I'm sorry! I looked up Fan Dancer, and I looked up Tentacle Potion. I thought I remembered Spirit Warrior, and so I didn't look it up. I was thinking it was just another "you need a free hand" situation. These two actually work just fine together without the Tentacle Potion, because Spirit Warrior doesn't require a free hand. It frequently references fist attacks, but you are allowed to make those with kicks instead. We even know that it's intentional, because dedication allows you to be using a two-handed weapon as long as it's agile or finesse. SO. For Fan Dancer's feats, you need to be wielding a fan in each hand. If they're regular fans, you're using them as improvised weapons. Transcendent Deflection requires you to be wielding a one-handed weapon (you are in fact wielding two, so you're good). As a reaction, you can break one of your fans and swap it for a spare you have on your person- say, in your belt. No free hand is required. Intercepting Hand's Disarming Deflection reaction requires you to have your "fist" positioned to parry. Pathfinder unfortunately chose to refer to all of the default unarmed strikes as "fist", but that can include kicking with your foot. (I know, I know... it's incredibly silly that we've been pointing out that "hold" and "wield" are different, but then we go on to say that your foot is a fist.) So, if you spent an action last turn parrying with your foot, you can use a reaction when a weapon strike is made against you or your adjacent ally to try to disarm them. Normally, this is where things would break, because disarming requires a free hand. But, if we read the reaction, it say if you have a free hand, you can catch the weapon on a successful disarm. So, you're kicking the weapon out of their hand. And, finally, here's where the tentacle potion does something. If you have the tentacle potion at a level where it can hold something, the GM may decide that it counts as a "free hand" to catch the disarmed weapon. What you want to do works just fine. Fan Dancer is more restrictive than you were thinking, but Spirit Warrior is less restrictive than you were thinking. The two balance out, and the concept is still possible. I'm sorry for not looking into all three parts earlier!
When we heard about Press Gang the Soul, I assumed that it would be around 12th level, that each soul could be used once before it escaped, and that there would be a one-hour time limit between killing somebody and using the soul. Instead, it's eighth level, using the spell is at-will, and each soul is bound for as long as the phase cutlass survives. Heightening of the spell is effectively restricted by the number of phase cutlass killing blows with a reaction available, but sustaining the spell is wrapped into any successful strike (including metastrikes). To me, this absolutely encapsulates the differences between what PF2 has led me to expect and what SF2 is offering. The coolest-sounding option, the one they chose to give an early summary of, lives up to the hype. It's exactly as cool as it sounds, and there's no suprise catch to it. (And this is not to say PF2 never has cool, strong things! But my expectations are tempered for a reason, with the occasional pleasant surprise.) The not-a-surprise catch to it is that it's an innate spell: Charisma based DC, and trained DC until 12th (unless you have casting from another source). Looking at the rest... The dedication is fantastic. You have proficiency bump to Piloting, a start-of-combat demoralize on everyone in a huge area, and a difficult-to-use bonus to Coerce within a minute of initiative. Even that last one is very in-keeping with how pirates work: you do best if you wrap things up quickly and get to the demands. (As a GM, I'd give the bonus to any Coerce attempt that starts with the flag active.) On top of all that, you also get proficiency with piratical weapons, including eventual critical specialization. The main thing it's doing is giving you the phase cutlass proficiency you need, but by including everything with the razing trait, the list will grow over time and can potentially include some thematic guns. Broadside Charge is a nice bit of compensation for going sword-and-pistol. This is the one that feels most like it could be a solid PF2 archetype feat. It's good, but it's making up for two one-handed weapons being weaker than one two-hander. (There are also two very good demoralize feats available at this level, but the dedication is such a good option for your one demoralize per combat per person that these will probably get passed over. I'm happy they're there to support somebody going all-in on scaring people, or for characters who need to use the initiative free-action trigger for something else.) Pirate's Parry really doubles down on sword-and-pistol being a good idea for the archetype. You get up close to a melee enemy with Broadside Charge, then punish them with a nasty +2 AC on reaction and a retaliatory attack if they crit-miss. I do think this is not as strong as it appears at first glance, because it only works against adjacent melee attacks- a less-common situation in SF2. And finally... Press-Gang the Soul. Already talked about this, and how it lives up to how cool it sounds. Wisp Ally is one of the few save-based spells that feels 100% fine to have a weak DC on, because you force one save per rank. This is also a feat that proves you have killed at least a certain number of people by running them through with the very phase cutlass you are holding in your hand. Very useful for convincing people that it's not worth fighting you. Going over the archetype, I don't think this is as overwhelmingly good as it might seem from a first glance and a PF2 perspective- the anti-melee feat won't see quite as much use in SF2, and there's more room for powerful feats if they're also locking you into a weaker, pricier weapon loadout. Incredibly thematic and cool, strong without feeling like it's a must-have, and no wasted space. I will be thrilled if this proves to be the standard for SF2 archetypes.
Glad to help! I like that there are plenty of different angles that one can take the muse concept.
No, definitely not. Fan Dancer's requirements aren't "you are holding two fans", they are "you are wielding two fans", and the archetype specifically calls out that a regular fan is being wielded as an improvised weapon for the archetype. The tentacle potion doesn't let you wield weapons, so any fan held by it won't qualify. |
