RatGoon's page

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I really want a second dedicated primal caster. For Arcane we have the Wizard and Magus; for Occult we have the Bard, Necromancer, and Psychic; for Divine we have the Cleric, Oracle, and Animist; but for Primal it's just the Druid.

There has to be a second concept that revolves around Vital+Material essence.

How about a Practitioner class that practices obeah, a Caribbean spellcasting and healing magic. Dr. Facilier from Disney's The Princess and the Frog can serve as an example. Though this class would work with the spirit world, they do not perform spirit magic. Instead, they pay the spirits to receive primal magic. The payment is the theme, because so many other magic classes serve a god, patron, or other spirit. Instead, Practitioner bargains for their magic and has no obligation to their spirits (unlike Dr. Facilier).

The Practioner could have Wisdom as their key ability, the wisdom to tell a good bargain from a bad bargain.

What does the Practitioner receive for payment? It would have to be slotted spells, because focus spells would be too easy to refocus via a multiclass archetype. The Practitioner would receive enough spell slots to operate as a mediocre spellcaster, but payment would give more spell slots during the day. I don't know whether the class should be prepared or spontaneous, but the abilities to generate new slots would make prepared casters more flexible.

Payment would have to be cheap but would require time, such as a 10-minute activity to offer the item to the spirits, and have limit per day. Different specialties would have different offering methods. A war spirit would want the blood of dead enemies. A farm spirit would want offerings of food, which then appear before starving villagers far away. A tavern spirit might want a small shot of alcoholic beverage. A thief spirit would want stolen items, even just pennies. An art spirit would accept gifts of art crafted from cheap...

I think this is a really cool idea!

You could even have the spellcasting type be a subclass as well. Psychic's got two subclass choices so it's not unheard of for a spellcaster.

graystone wrote:

RatGoon wrote:

Also, I've seen Overdrive vs Rage being defended because Overdrive can apply to ranged attacks. I disagree with that reasoning because it means melee builds suffer just because the class can potentially boost ranged attacks. Why should a melee build be punished for the existence of ranged builds?

Raging Thrower allows a barbarian to use rage bonuses in ranged combat. Boomerang allows for 60' range.

Rangers get both a better boost than inventors AND their animal companion. Probably the best comparison to my companion inventor who was also an archer. Even pre-remaster the ranger was just better in almost every respect.

I think just about every martial with a ranged option does better than the ranged inventor.

'Inventing the impossible' is apparently a synonym for 'doing what at least one other class can but way worse'.

Based on comments by the Inventor's designer, the focus of the class was dealing lots of damage split across different sources, which to me suggests making the class good at defense was never necessarily the primary concern. My own conjecture is that as one of PF2e's first few expansions after APG (which itself was heavily flawed), GnG still followed this philosophy of extremely conservative design and balance, where new classes were treated mostly as variants of CRB classes and were made sure not to overshadow those older classes in the process. Were the Inventor released today, they likely would have far more creative innovations, a legendary class DC, and the ability to Craft during the adventuring day, but at the time they innovated mainly by being the first martial class to have some measure of meaningful resourceless AoE at early levels, which is obviously no longer a novelty these days.

I agree that Inventor is really conservative in its design.

I disagree with Seifter's notion that the 'original' Inventor was a solid class. Some of, if not arguably the worst proficiencies of any martial in return for Explode, which is a once per combat close-range AOE that competes with every other Unstable action. Overdrive, which is an inconsistent, generally worse version of rage once you get past around 5th that also requires INT investment, and Offensive Boost which is 1d6, fine I guess.

Also, I've seen Overdrive vs Rage being defended because Overdrive can apply to ranged attacks. I disagree with that reasoning because it means melee builds suffer just because the class can potentially boost ranged attacks. Why should a melee build be punished for the existence of ranged builds?

While I agree that the Armor Inventor probably needs some serious tweaks, I think claiming that you can't fulfill the fantasy or have fun is a bit of a stretch.

I've been playing as an Armor Inventor in a homebrew campaign for about 25 sessions spanning from levels 4 to 9 so far. I am having a lot of fun being the character pulling out whacky contraptions that defy the setting's magic logic.

I definitely went into the campaign expecting more of the "ah I have a solution for this" level of toolbox build. But because of our party's composition, my combat loop generally focuses more on DPS and less on utility. Not that I can't do utility, just that we already have a lot of utility and very little actual damage.

My favorite part of the build is getting to use Blast Boots to launch myself across the entire battlefield to help lock down key enemies like a caster or boss. Bastard Sword lets me be flexible between DPR and lock-down with grappling.

I'm definitely aided by the fact that our team has a Guardian, so while I have good survivability compared to most of the party, the Guardian can make it so I can actually survive for a lot longer. And he likes that I can repair his shield super fast.

Also helps that my DM has given us ample down-time for me to invent my gadgets. And more than once I've been able to cobble together some kind of steam-punk macguffin to help us with some plot issue.

Your innovation is a cutting-edge suit of medium armor with a variety of attached gizmos and devices.

This gave me an expectation of durability, which although an Armor Inventor is more durable than other Inventors, that bar is incredibly, incredibly low. Its features are simply too weak and underwhelming to sell the advanced armor fantasy to me.

I think claiming that you can't fulfill the fantasy or have fun is a bit of a stretch.

When did I claim it is impossible to have fun with the armor innovation? Fun is subjective, I know I can't be the arbiter of what is fun to who and what isn't. Now what I can claim is that you're decently likely on average to not have fun with Inventor compared to other classes, as someone else pointed out it came dead last in a satisfaction poll.

Just to clarify, normal retraining doesn't allow you to Retrain UP a feat/tier either. You cannot, as an example, when you hit level 8 Retrain a level 2 feat to a level 8 feat, nor a feature choice.

So, the "extra limiting" factor seems to be that you cannot use Reconfigure to change to a lower type of modification compared to normal retraining.

I worded it in a very confusing manner so I'll clarify.

If you want to retrain up or down a tier, you need to spend a full week.

What I meant to get across was, if you select a lower-tier modification when you could've selected a higher-tier one, you cannot retrain up to that higher tier you could've taken without a full week. I didn't mean getting a second breakthrough modification by retraining your initial modification at 7th for instance.

I was going through Inventor's class features while I was developing my own version and noticed something weird about Reconfigure.

On a success, you can change one modification you've chosen for your innovation to a different modification of the same kind (initial, breakthrough, or revolutionary).

I don't believe this is in reference to your kind of innovation, as in the text for both the Breakthrough Innovation and Revolutionary Modification class features that is referred to as 'type', not 'kind'.

Therefore, I think this means that if you use your Breakthrough Innovation modification opportunity to instead take an initial modification, you can only use Reconfigure to retrain that initial modification to another initial modification. The same would apply to using your Revolutionary Innovation modification opportunity to instead take a breakthrough or initial modification. If you want to retrain up or down a tier, you need to spend a full week.

I believe the only exception is with Infinite Invention at 19th, as that doesn't reference a 'kind' of modification. But given that's not until the second last level you're dealing with this, frankly, bizarre limitation for the majority of the game unless you start at a higher level.

This seems like a really strange limitation to me. Normal retraining doesn't force you to retrain to another class feat of the same level, so why does Reconfigure effectively do this specifically with modifications?

whereas the inventor gets to be exactly on par with every other damage martial on a success)

Overdrive isn't even equivalent to other damage martials the higher level you are. Critical Overdrive is an 8 damage bonus at 15th level (assuming full INT investment except for an Apex item) while Fury's considered one of the lower damage instincts with 13 damage at 15th level. Inventor needs Offensive Boost at 9th (1d6 which is an average of 3.5 additional damage) to still be inferior to the lowest damage instincts (Animal and Spirit both do 12 at 15th) by doing 11.5 additional damage at 15th. If you don't get Critical Overdrive? You're only dealing 8.5 damage on average.

Sure, you can use agile or ranged weapons, which a barbarian can't unless they take Raging Thrower, but that just ends up making builds that either aren't agile or ranged worse off because they get a lower damage bonus with no benefit.

Given how limited funds and manpower are, though, I don't think we're going to see a rework for quite some time, if ever.

Honestly if Guns & Gears actually fixed Inventor I probably would've bought it out of sheer gratitude. But given the debacle with losing a lot of products I wouldn't blame Paizo for not doing a full rework.

Far from the worst class in the game

I wouldn't say it's 'far' from the worst class in the game but there probably are classes (maybe Psychic?) and class archetypes (Bloodrager?) that are worse off.

Another thing Inventor fails at is not only the expected class fantasy, but also the fantasy it lays out in its flavour text.

You don't set out to achieve anything as banal as simply winning a fight; you seek to collect valuable data that can be used to improve your creations!
What, improving my innovation only at 7th and 15th? There's only 9 modification feats (for comparison; Animist, which was released nearly 3 years after Inventor, has 12 wandering feats) and most of them ironically belong to the Armor Innovation.

You might often look for opportunities to acquire patronage to fund some of your more expensive or unorthodox experiments. After all, the materials needed to assemble your inventions don't pay for themselves!
Same class where the only Charisma-related abilities are on the Construct Innovation, good luck actually investing in Charisma at all, and none of the Inventor's abilities require gold or even materials at all!

You study the design and construction of the environments you explore ardently, making note of clever traps, ingenious mechanisms, or especially keen architecture you come across for later.
Inventor's got some of the worst Perception progression in the game, if not the worst.

This is probably extremely nitpicky but come on, Inventor can't even do what it advertises!

I agree with the fundamental criticism: no matter what one wants the Inventor to be, in the end a large part of the class is always going to be a mediocre Barbarian with a bit of AoE mixed in. I had the exact same expectation of the Inventor when I first heard of the class, and very much wanted to be Iron Man flying around in an advanced suit of armor, supporting my team with helpful gadgets and inventing more during the day (in a cave, with a box of scraps!). In practice, though, the class isn't all that big on utility, not that big on gadgets, and not at all big on inventing during the day, as they can't Craft items quicker than anyone else. I unfortunately don't think this is a problem that can be solved with anything short of a larger-scale rework, as a lot of the class's power is put into things that aren't central to the above (like their on-hit damage), but it would be nice to see an Inventor class at some point that properly achieves its fantasy.

Inventor inherently being geared towards damage, whether through additional Strike damage with Overdrive or AoE damage with Explode was a big misstep. It makes every Inventor serve a very similar role because they're always specialized into damage regardless of innovation.

When I first came to Pathfinder Second Edition, I saw the Inventor and though "wow, this sounds cool!" and then saw that there was an armor innovation and though "wow! even cooler!".
Little did I know I had saddled myself with what is the worst class in the game AND a character fantasy that is extremely hard to replicate with any other option.

What someone thinks when they hear "armor inventor" will, naturally, vary from person to person. For me around five years ago, it makes me think of characters like Iron Man, Techmarines from Warhammer 40k, and general concepts like durability and being an absolute wall. Nowadays I'm just disappointed.

The Armor Innovation is inherently held back from that fantasy because, for some reason, Inventor is geared towards damage regardless of innovation. Further, while 8hp isn't the worst, it isn't great either, and having some of the worst save progression in the game, being a MAD class (INT, STR/DEX, CON, WIS) all combines to make Inventor's chassis really bad for not even tanking, just wanting to be durable in general. The only feature that can really help out is Shield Block, but I have a lot of fantasy issues with it that I'll delve into later.

Alright, so the big armor fantasy is really clashing with Inventor's chassis and features, but maybe the Armor Innovation's got enough strong features for this to be workable?

You start with heavy armor AC at least, but I swear, armor's modifications are one of the worst pools of options I've seen in this game.

Initial Modification, your options are one of: a grouping of two elemental resistances, an athletics bonus that becomes equivalent to Furious Bully but is worse than Kineticist's Skill Junctions, a stealth bonus of the same nature, or a +5-foot speed bonus that is +10 in overdrive.

Those elemental resistances aren't doing anything unless you know that you are fighting enemies with those damage types*, or you just take them and hope you get lucky (this is a bit of a theme with Inventor). You can make a grappler build but then you're praying that 1 AC compared to most classes is enough to compensate for your atrocious defensive scores, and there's only one feat, Oil Fire, that specifically interacts with grappling. Since Oil Fire is Oil Fire you pretty much don't get any grappling feats from Inventor.

Breakthrough Modification, after struggling through six levels of not really contributing anything, maybe this will be the game changer? Options are: Antimagic Plating, a solid stealth improvement, a physical resistance modification for each type, increasing the elemental resistance to be your level, the Bulwark and Entrench trait, and a better speed boost.

Antimagic Plating is honestly not bad but it comes too late to save Inventor's terrible saves. Camouflage Pigmentation is fine, I guess? 7th level is when we finally get some physical damage resistance! For one damage type! And there's no flat bonuses like with the elemental ones, even in Overdrive! Is resistance to a single physical damage type really that strong? Champion is getting Expert in armor at that level and Armor Inventor is getting bludgeoning resistance? The elemental resistance increase is alright if you, again, know what you're fighting*.

And somehow, that's not even the most infuriating breakthrough modification to me. That title goes to Heavy Construction. So Inventors with the Armor Innovation are supposed to be good at inventing armor, right? So why then, does it take until 7th level to get the Bulwark trait, which is on a 2nd level item, full plate. Sure you get Entrench, but is someone seriously going to tell me that Entrench takes what is a 2nd level trait all the way up to 7th? This really screws over Power Armor Inventors, Inventors are already incredibly MAD so not being able to dump DEX is really painful. Oh yeah, that's another thing Heavy Construction doesn't do, it doesn't transfer the 1 DEX cap into a 1 increase in the AC bonus, so you're never able to even THINK of getting rid of that 1 DEX investment, so much for being an ARMOR INVENTOR. You have to use an Armored Skirt to do it for you.

Now to explain why there's a '*' after every mention of 'know what you're fighting'. It's retraining! Specifically, Reconfigure, which is Inventor's retraining feature at 3rd. Now while I could go into how this is an abysmal feature in the modern context of Animist existing, I'm instead going to explain how I believe this screws over the armor innovation at 1st and 2nd.

For the elemental resistance initial modifications, not having Reconfigure at those earlier levels means that, unless the DM/GM tells you what you're fighting, or there's some story reason, you are locked into those modifications UNLESS you get a week to retrain. Modifications that, again, have a good chance of contributing nothing to your performance. Now once you get to 3rd level, you then get to deal with spending 1 day just for the opportunity to make a HIGH DC Crafting check to retrain ONE modification, but that's a big rant for another time.

The last group of modifications, Revolutionary, is still somehow infuriating to me.
Automated Impediments - Equivalent to a 2nd Level Guardian Stance Feat.
Energy Barrier - Using up two modifications for decent elemental resistance is way too little, way too late.
Perfect Fortification - Actually reasonably-leveled equivalent is 2nd Level Guardian Stance Feat.
Physical Protections - This one, this one in particularly is just actually baffling. Guardian gets this at 1st Level. What is a 7th and 15th level class feature for Inventor is at 1st for Guardians. What an utter joke.

While I originally wanted to detail the Armor Innovation's feats, this essay is long enough as is so I'll end it by saying: in my experience with Inventor in general, and specifically with the Armor Innovation, I have learnt that this class is a joke. That is how Paizo has treated it with a Remaster that fixed none of its core issues and failed to bring it up to the same power level as the other classes, and the release of classes like Animist, Exemplar and Runesmith that have eaten heavily into Inventor's niches of retraining (Animist specifically), AOEs on a martial and item modification. This definitely reads extremely harsh but I don't hate Paizo with a passion because one of their classes is a joke, I hate the fact it took me so long to realize that Inventor was a joke.

My list based on the classes I've played and the Inventor innovations that aren't armor, because I have done a LOT of research on Inventor so I can despise it correctly.

Very good: Barbarian (Animal Instinct), Fighter
Mediocre: Inventor (Construct Innovation)
Bad: Inventor (Armor Innovation)
Very Bad: Inventor (Weapon Innovation), Inventor (Munitions Master)

Animal Instinct Barbarians can be absolute walls, not only because of their really good raging resistance, but also because of not needing hands. You can both hold a shield and also use athletic maneuvers, which you can enhance with Furious Bully at 8th. At certain levels you have above-heavy armor AC with Animal Skin without heavy armor's speed penalty. Your rage damage bonus might be behind the other instincts but a d12 unarmed attack is nothing to scoff at.

Fighters are just good, accelerated accuracy tends to do that, plus really good initiative and additional feats. With the Exemplar dedication I took Barrow's Edge, combo that with Vicious Swing, above average crit rate due to that accuracy and a scythe and I had a lot of staying power from the healing ability of Barrow's Edge.

Construct Innovation seems like it's really good at low-level, but from what I've heard companion scaling somewhat falls off the higher you go, and the feat taxing can somewhat hurt.

Armor Innovation is just a disappointment to me. I went in expecting a tank and ended up with what felt like an indecisive glass cannon. The modifications are boring or in modern context absurdly weak. I'm playing a character good at inventing armor but I can't get Bulwark until 7th with my Breakthrough modification? I get resistance equal to half my level to all physical damage for my 15th level modification and Guardian gets it at 1st??? That on top of Inventor for some reason being inherently geared towards damage with Overdrive, Explode and Offensive Boost, some of the worst save progression in the game, and 8hp per level leaves a subclass that near-completely drops the ball on its fantasy.

Weapon Innovation and Mortar Innovation both don't seem to do a whole lot. Weapon Innovation can get a lot of weapon traits but I'm not sure that's enough to justify a subclass, and Mortar Innovation doesn't seem to give enough power given how unwieldy it is, and the risk of your mortar being destroyed.

I think this is a really good way to improve the Inventor's existing class features. Makes Overdrive more similar to panache for consistency and also makes Unstable less punishing if you roll bad. I've tried to fix the class by completely reworking it from the ground-up but if someone liked the current playstyle of Inventor but wanted it to be better I'd point them to this.