Reticent's page

107 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.




I understand what the sigil is supposed to do, but as written the sigil goes WAY beyond that:

"The link between you and your eidolon takes the
form of a magic glowing sigil on each of your bodies.
This symbol can’t be obscured either magically or via
mundane means, as it either shines through the magic or
appears over top of whatever you use to cover it."

Can't be obscured by anything? So if I close my eyes, my eyelids won't obscure my view of them? A wall won't? A mountain? Invisibility?

Anyway, clearly the intent is just that the link between eidolon and character is always obvious, rather than anything silly like the above. I'd just suggest taking another pass on the wording used to describe the sigil.


I realize that many of these are discussed in detail in their own threads, this is just a review of feats with issues as they seem to me at present. If I don't mention a feat, it's because I think it's good or very good.

Raise a Tome: as mentioned elsewhere, this is nearly incompatible with the Magus Synthesis features. Also, it could stand to have the flavor text explain the the book is mystically protected or something, because as described it's pretty implausible.

Spirit Sheath: nice feat, but the action economy benefit of getting a free interact to draw with Striking Spell might better be spun off into its own level 1 feat that would work with any sheath, not just a "spirit" one. Or better yet just make that a default benefit of Striking Spell.

Spell Parry: this feat should also benefit from an additional +1 if the weapon in question has the Parry trait. That aside, this is probably my favorite feat chain in the class.

Strikers Scroll: as a feat, this is pretty bad both mechanically and aesthetically. I'd suggest dropping the requirement to "affix" the scroll- this just isn't strong enough to burden it with a prep time. Even then, this is really limited for anyone who doesn't also have the Scroll Trickster archetype

Martial Caster: all of the level 6 feats are strong, but this one is so essential to the class that the other two are almost trap options for their level. It's fine that the Magus is spell-slot starved as a balance feature, but that makes anything that gives additional spell slots EXTREMELY valuable.

Comet Spell: Shooting Star is already the synthesis that see the least benefit from Striking Spell, and this feat requires both a battlefield geometry that will rarely happen and target selection that likely won't be optimal for the situation. This feat needs to be much stronger to give Shooting Star some teeth- right now a Shooting Star Magus would be better of with any of the other available level 10 feats (Cascading and Quickened are just much better than this).

Whirlwind Spell: While I acknowledge the action economy inherent in this, I'm not convinced it's so strong as to warrant its level 20 requirement. Consider dropping this to level 18 (or lower?).


HEAL ANIMAL FOCUS 1
UNCOMMON DRUID HEALING NECROMANCY POSITIVE
Cast [one-action] to [two-actions] somatic
Range touch or 30 feet (see text); Targets 1 willing living
animal creature
You heal an animal’s wounds, restoring 1d8 Hit Points to
the target. The number of actions spent Casting this Spell
determines its effect.
• [one-action] somatic The spell has a range of touch.
• [two-actions] somatic, verbal The spell has a range of 30 feet
and restores an additional 8 Hit Points to the target.
Heightened (+1) The amount of healing increases by 1d8, and
the additional healing for the 2-action version increases by 8.

Okay, so I DO have a degree in Biology- but I don't really think I need to go into too much detail to explain the problem here.

Thoughts?


CLEAR THE WAY[two-actions] FEAT 6
ARCHETYPE
Prerequisites Mauler Dedication
Requirements You’re wielding a melee weapon in two
hands.
You put your body behind your massive weapon and
swing, shoving enemies to clear a wide path. You
attempt to Shove up to five creatures adjacent to
you, rolling a separate Athletics check for each
target. Then Stride up to half your Speed. This
movement doesn’t trigger reactions from any of the
creatures you successfully Shoved.

I find that the initial way I read this feat is not necessarily the only way to interpret it. Is there any clarification available on which of these interpretations is correct?

My initial reading was that you attempt one Shove, modified such that you apply that Shove against up to five targets rolling separately at all the same MAP. Then, whether you followed up with a Stride as described in the Shove action part of the resolution of that Shove or not, you get a further half Stride at the end that potentially avoids reactions based on your shove outcomes.

Another way to read this is that you are attempting 5 Shoves one after another, which would increase you MAP as normal after each Shove. If this is the case, as you can do a limited Stride as follow-up to each successful Shove, you could end up Striding up to 6 times as part of your action. Furthermore, the enemies you are adjacent to will change as you go, so who is a valid target- enemies you were adjacent to when you declared the Clear the Way action, or enemies you become adjacent to as you follow-up successful Shoves? And can you Shove the same target repeatedly as part of this action?


6 people marked this as a favorite.

For brevity, I’m only going to talk about things that should be revised. If I don’t mention something specifically, it’s okay as is.

As others have mentioned, Key Ability should be changed to Wisdom or Strength. Without this, certain short races are flat out not viable as Wild Order Druids.

Metal Armor probably shouldn’t be Anathema. It’s enough that Druids are not trained in it- making it Anathema seems to needlessly hurt Druids who take Fighter Archetype.

Storm Order mechanically fine, but the Order Anathema should be reworked. As is, Storm Order could arguably disallow creating any storm, or conversely be allowed to create any weather pattern at all (even Florida has naturally occurring cold snaps).

Savage Slice should be usable with all Druid weapons. Only 3 Druid weapons do slashing damage, and 2 of those are very weak (d4). As is, any Druid taking this will only be weilding scimitars, which is needlessly monotonous.

Woodland Stride has a typo; the header says Feat 1 but it is in the Feat 4 section.

Green Empathy is awful. Even for Leaf Order, it only gains you favor with things that are essentially incapable of being any help. The effect should be reworked. Perhaps it should also enhance plants’ intelligence for some duration?

Insect Form should be moved to level 4. The spell it casts is level equivalent to the spell Animal Shape casts. As is, there's lots of justification for even a Wild Order Druid to skip this.

Storm Retribution will never be taken, outside of Storm Order getting the d12 special effect anyway. It is a powerful ability, but only triggers in a situation you strive never to have happen, and it’s expensive to boot. Maybe make it 1 spell point?

Form Control should be dropped down to level 6. There are too many Wild Shape related Feats at level 10 (and level 8) already, making this available earlier will reduce the complaints about the lack of utility Wild Shaping, and it the change won’t actually do much to alter the combat power curve across the levels.

Nature Sense is awful if humanoids don’t count as animals (which could go either way depending on whether you are talking biologically or sociologically). Even if they do count as animals, not many characters are actually going to take this at this high a level. Detect Magic itself is only a cantrip.

Green Tongue is awful, see Green Empathy. Conversations with something mindless might be thematic, but aren’t useful game effects.

Verdant Metamorphosis ought to spell out the advantages of having the ‘plant’ type. This might or might not be a good Feat to take, how would you even know? The tree transformation is thematic, but by itself not nearly worth taking the Feat for at 18th level, even for Leaf Order.

True Shapeshifter is terrible. It looks nice, until you actually read the Shapechange spell. It lets you Wild Shape for one minute into something you probably already could Wild Shape into for a full hour. The additional polymorph spells it lets you choose from aren’t nearly good enough at level 20 to make this Feat worth taking. You can’t even get Monstrosity Form from this. Either other level 20 Feat is a more effective choice for a Wild Shaping Druid than this is.