LadyWurm's page

Interesting. I'd like to see this expanded on.

What in particular did they feel was hard about PF1E's character creation? Only thing I'd guess is point buy (some I'll fully admit I've used a calculator for every single time I wasn't just using 16/14/14/12/10/8.). Filling out/calculating the bonuses and feat/skill/spell selection seem like something that would be the same degree of difficulty.

For PF1, the stumbling blocks mostly came down to explaining the different ACs and what AC bonus applies to what, some confusion about how spells work for prepared casters, and just some general issues with making sure all the right bonuses were in all the right places (they played a cleric and a ranger).

For PF2, they decided to do the same, cleric and ranger. Character creation went a little faster. When we started playing, they couldn't figure out what makes someone good or bad at skills. The numbers didn't really tell them anything. Then they completely stumbled on the action system, and found it confusing and restrictive.

EDIT: I think that's part of why I find the whole playtest experience so irritating - the bits of PF2 that work are excellent, but the parts that suck are SO sucky that it's jarring.

THIS. So much this. It makes the game feel very patchwork.

I honestly feel like PF2 is off to a better start. So far in the past month and a half I have seen systems dropped and added much like in 5E.

If anything, I think feedback has been implemented much better as we have direct input from the...

Oh, don't get me wrong! Just because I thought the initial release was plain awful doesn't mean it isn't fixable. PF2 does have a number of really good ideas under the hood. It just needs to change and drop a number or things before any of my gaming groups would consider it worth picking up.

Most notably: Resonance sucks, the ancestries feel anemic and need their feats at lower levels, there's too much unnecessary repetition of rules (mostly in the classes), the proficiency system feels boring and unrewarding, and the action system needs a lot more attention.

Many of these are major revisions, but if they happen, I would happily invest in the game.

I own a whole stack of PF1 books, after all. ^__^

I can't really agree with this. Its simply because the system is new. I've devoured the book. I can create a lvl 1 martial character in P2E in 10 minutes. I can probably create a spellcaster in 15 min.

I can do the most important stuff for a lvl 12 character in like 20. It's gear that usually takes any more time. Against spellcaster are more time consuming but they always were.

It's just new. Get used to it and you'll do just fine.

Creating a character is actually fairly fast due to how anemic and simplified the game is, but actually playing it is slow, awkward, and unfun.

"It's just new" doesn't work as an excuse because we started playing 5E when it was brand new and only in playtest and we had both running and playing it just about down in literally an hour. 5E was fun from the get-go.

Weeks later, we're still struggling with PF2 and hating it constantly because the design is so clunky and even being a playtest its options and rules feel restrictive, overcomplicated or bland.

PF2 is similar to occult. It will take sometime to get used to. I dont think it will be hard to remember things after you got used to it.

I started this game with the kineticist. I do understand your pain. It will get better in time.

It will only get better if Paizo improve the game though. Right now, I don't think PF2 is in a good place, and that's a very popular consensus. Adapting is one thing, accepting is another. This is a "this need to change" not a "oh we'll just get used to this".

PF1 might look simple because we've forgotten, gotten used to, or ignored a lot of quirks. For example, the Actions in Combat table listing what is a standard action, a move action, etc, and what provokes / doesn't provoke an AoO is highly complicated; it is also incomplete and ambiguous. But we aren't worrying about it anymore, because the GMs among us have learned to work with or around it.

PF2 tries to be very precise, not to leave ambiguous situations, and consistent. This makes the rules appear heavier and nitpickier. It doesn't help that they're sometimes written with overly administrative-sounding language ("Operate Activation action" is an example).

But I'm fairly sure that after 6 months to 1 year of experience most groups won't find this more complicated than PF1.

On the contrary, I just offered PF1 and PF2 as options to a group with two new players in it, so I let the two newbies sample both. They found PF1 harder to make a character in, but PF2 much harder to play. Nothing about it "worked logically", as one of them said.

They won't go no level. It's too much of a differentiator between PF and 5e. Also not having BAB or an equivalent would cause the game to change too dramatically.

Going 1/2 level with at least a slightly larger gap between proficiency bonuses seems to be the version most people want (myself included).

Likes
1. Four spell lists and four caster types. Convenient and simple.
2. Scaling cantrips. I mean, 5e already did it, but better late than never.
3. The action system. It needs work, a lot of work, but the concept is solid.

My hate list is so long that I don't even know how to pick a top 3. It's like 70% of the game. But I'll try.
1. Incredibly spread-out and watered-down mechanics that not only feel more designed to be error-proof than actually rewarding smart players, but congest the game with constant referencing.
2. A lot of the class feats or features feel bland or impotent compared to their 1e counterparts, and this is even worse for ancestry.
3. Too many "locked" features. Restricted feats, Resonance limits, skill proficiency feeling generic and un-special, etc.

I don't know what Paizo's intent was... but I do know that I visited my two large bookstores in my town and found 20-30 copies of the playtest still up for sale. They're also still readily for sale online on amazon and bn.com.

Which suggests either one of two things. One: their production line was far larger than intended or two: apart from the initial pre-orders, very few of the books have been sold. Which is not a good sign for the product's viability, imho.

I canceled my preorder after I saw the pdf.

LadyWurm wrote:

Go beyond a certain level and it feels like you need notecards just to keep track of everything.

I was going to say that you did also have to do that in PF1e on occasion, but then I remembered that usually that took the form of remembering how all your bonuses were calculated, particularly when a miffed GM asked to see your math after having an attack roll 10 higher than it should be according to him.

I guess it's trading out one mess of memorization for another, though at least the old one was a mess you didn't have to remember while in the middle of a game.

Exactly. In PF1 you pause to look up a spell, or figure out a combat maneuver ruling, that sort of thing.

Now everything requires a lookup. You're flippign to the spells section for class features, flipping to the feats section to make a skill check, and so on. It's beyond obnoxious.

If this were the final version of the game, even after the current updates, I wouldn't even bother with it. This version is so bad I actually cancelled my preorder of the book once I saw the pdf.

My houserules would involve gutting half the game.

- Remove Resonance entirely
- Change how skill bonuses work to put the focus solely on your level of training, and remove all feats that provide "skill functions"
- Give ancestries more core features
- Entirely alter the class system to remove the "feats and powers" system and replace it with simpler talent system that offers stronger, more useful features
- Make feats largely independent of class again
- Rework the action economy for more efficiency and options

I don't just mean in the sense of the game's bloat or how you have to constantly cross-reference different sections.

I mean conceptually.

A surprisingly low number of things in this game are automatic, passive, or obvious. You can't just look at a number to know if you're good at a skill, you have to reference specific feats. A lot of your character doesn't do anything at all unless you either make a choice or take an action. Your ancestry is nothing without feats. Your class is largely nothing without feats. So many things that were just passive or simplistic features in 1E now require an action, or alter your rolls, or have special conditions, and so on. This is exactly what I hated about D&D 4E and it feels like Paizo is riding that train. Why?

How can this game be marketed as a "simpler, more new-player-friendly" version of the game when it's anything but simple? Go beyond a certain level and it feels like you need notecards just to keep track of everything. This, more than anything, is why I think many people are questioning the design goals of PF2E. If the goal is to make it more approachable, it's really failing so far.

Also, I forsee class design being a nightmare for 3pps.

LadyWurm wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Aaaand Starfinder is the second best selling RPG currently, giving D&D 5e a run for its money. So chances are that Paizo will follow the route that made them bounce back, rather the one that makes them slide into oblivion.

Slide into oblivion. What's an argument among geeks without some solid melodrama!

Given how much the tabletop RPG market has dwindled in recent years, that's hardly validation. That's like being the second-best restaurant in a town with only three restaurants, and the third one has a sewer leak.

Do you have any data on this? Because all other sources I have read point out that 5e has increased the total rpg market by a significant margin

A lot of the older games have been steadily petering out in both popularity and sales, including games like World of Darkness and Call of Cthulu. Most newer games that have cropped up (such as things like Capharnaum, Pugmire and Z-Land) are so incredibly niche as to have very little market appeal. The lion's share of the market is 5E, with a fair tick going to Warhammer (that game is just immortal), some for the newer Star Wars RPG (though that's starting to falter quite a bit).

I mean, the Starfinder bestiary is currently being outsold by the 20th anniversary edition of Vampire the Masquerade and the hyper-generic game D100 Dungeon, and that's pretty sad. Starfinder is not that popular. It's not in the top 5, and it's not high in sales. I don't know where people keep getting the idea of what a "great success" Starfinder is.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-based-on-sales-stats-the-most-popular-tablet op-RPGs

They had to lower the math in order to make the Crit Success and Crit Fail option more fluid within the system. Cause before anybody getting - 10 or lower past a certain point was fairly impossible. Now because of static gain and small increases those small increases matter more. They also changed a lot of Failures to not exactly be detrimental.

Let's examine simply climbing a cliff.

Climb (Athletics)
Let's say that a lvl 3 Fighter (+8 Ath) Rogue (+5 Ath) and Wizard (+3) are trying to Climb a cliff side. In the book it says a cliff side is generally a DC 15 to Climb. Let's say the cliff is 30ft tall. They all have to succeed 6 climb checks to move up the cliff going 5 feet a round. Although on a crit success they move up half their speed, which could depend on the armor their wearing and all that but we're just going to assume they're unarmored.

The Fighter
The Fighter with their +8 (+3 lvl, +4 str and +1 expert) succeeds on a roll of 7 and can only crit fail on a Nat 1. He also can Crit Succeed on a roll of 20-17. So they has a 20% chance of going much faster and needing less checks and only a 5% chance of falling. If he fails he just doesn't move at all.

The Rogue
With a +5 (+3 lvl, +2 str) they succeed on a roll of 15 can only crit succeed on a 20 and can crit fail on a 1.

The Wizard with his +3 (+3 lvl) can succeed on a roll of 12 can only crit succeed on a 20 and is the only one who can actually crit fail more than once with a roll of 1 and 2.

Now that's for the base DC if it was any higher the Rogue and Wizard would be in even more danger because of their lower bonus while the Fighter would only start to be in more danger once the DC hit 19 or higher. The bonus is not that huge with the fighter having only 5 more than the wizard and only 3 more than the rogue. Also if either the rogue or wizard weren't trained in Athletics then that would be a further minus 2 which would make them even more likely to crit fail and thus fall to their deaths the higher they get.

At higher...

The fact that you have to constantly consult a page of feats just to know if you're good at something or what you're rolls even mean is not a good thing. It's tedious, it's frustrating, and it slows down the game.

The playtest has one core rulebook.

This limits what can be included, no matter Paizo's plans for P2E. Instead of the entire first edition, the playtest rulebook can be compared to what P1E's core rulebook offered. Measured by this standard, some omissions and shortages can seem less critical.

Some examples from things I've seen:

• The playtest has weak archetype support. In P1E's core rulebook, there was no such thing as an archetype. They came in a later book, and became one of P1E's most popular features despite this late start.
  
• Backgrounds are bland and pretty limited. In P1E's core rulebook, the counterpart of traits did not exist yet. These were also introduced later on, and became fundamental to character expression.
  
• The options are generic and unimaginative. The P1E core rulebook alone was also pretty stock in its options. 7 races, no alternate traits, every member of *race* was the same. 11 classes, no archetyping, very standard, boilerplate concepts like cleric or barbarian. No traits to mechanicalise your identity, class skills only came from class, so on and so forth etc.
  

Remembering P1E's humble beginning, as well as the grand scope it reached, can help in assessing P2E's beginning.

Yet those classes were far more distinctive than these. Having a ton of options for a class doesn't add uniqueness if all those options feel the same and have been watered down heavily to make them "balanced". Instead, all these "options" just wind up feeling like tiresome bloat and very bland instead of making things better.

Aaaand Starfinder is the second best selling RPG currently, giving D&D 5e a run for its money. So chances are that Paizo will follow the route that made them bounce back, rather the one that makes them slide into oblivion.

Slide into oblivion. What's an argument among geeks without some solid melodrama!

Given how much the tabletop RPG market has dwindled in recent years, that's hardly validation. That's like being the second-best restaurant in a town with only three restaurants, and the third one has a sewer leak.

Hey there folks,

The playtest last time felt a lot more complete because you could backfill whatever you were missing from 3.5. All told, the beta book was only 400 pages long as was missing large sections of the rules and a lot of versatility.

There is some of that going on here too. We fully intent to expand out some parts of the game as we make our way toward the final. The playtest will tell us what parts need more options to be a viable part of the game.

We will be releasing some revisions and hopefully one or two content expansions as the playtest continues, but there will not be an entire additional pdf revision. There is simply not the time for that sort of undertaking. That does not mean there will not be changes, it just means that those changes will be part of the final design.

Aside from correcting oversights, I would make at least some reworking of the proficiency system a priority. I've seen tons of people saying that it needs a larger disparity between ranks, and I'm one of them. As it is, it feels too much like 4th edition D&D.

PF2E definitely needs to move away from making characters feel "samey". The underlying system is good, but the outcome is not thus far.

All of this. I second ALL of this. There is too much thick terminology and too much scavenger hunting around from definition to definition before you find out what an ability actually does.

Omg yes. This book is dry, awkward, terribly organized, and nothing feels interesting or exciting. I swear it's like the writers of PF2E had no idea what makes an RPG fun or appealing.

But then again, they did make Starfinder, which my entire gaming circle rejected utterly.

Right now, this game has too many things you have to reference, a crazy amount of things to keep track of even compared to 1E, the layout is terrible, the proficiency system is bland and makes everything samey...the game just feels very poorly conceived overall.

+ Backgrounds (and stats generation). I like this. It adds flavor and feels very functional.

+ Action system. I like this in concept, but the execution needs a little work. The multiple attack penalty feels awkwardly carried over from 1E but it works kinda badly in this version.

- Proficiency system. This is just absolute garbo without major revision. Making every character feel "samey" with this whole "everyone's mostly equal" philosophy is terrible. Straight up terrible. This mechanic ALONE would make the game a pass for me. Characters need to be diverse. Specialists need to be more of a thing. Not because of feats, but because you can tell at a glance who's the best.

- Feats. I never thought I was say more feats would be bad, but it is. There's so many feats and so much that relies on feats that this game feels like a wall of text compared to 1E that you have to constantly reference to even know who's good at what.

In short, this game creates characters that on paper feel very generalized and not very unique. 4/10, needs massive amounts of revision to be viable.

In the hunter thread, I said that the hunter is definitely going to need another round of playtesting, and likely the shaman too. However, I also said the investigator may need another round due to some prominent changes in abilities and balance.

What do you guys think? Does it need a round three?

LadyWurm wrote:

Look, let's be practical about this. It's 12/3 now in favor of spontaneous.

Remember, this is not a democracy. We're not taking a vote about what to give the class. Just because 12 people on this thread think it's a good idea doesn't mean it should happen.

I know. I just meant it's a popular desire for the class. :)

Great news about you guys trying out the spontaneous casting, and about the hunter combat style! The improved empathic link and hunter's tricks would also be very nice. I imagine this news is going to make a lot of people happy.

More useful casting + less empty levels + more options + better survivability for the hunter herself = awesome. ^^

And you can only use the small selection of spells you've chosen, meaning you will never be able to have the flexibility to handle multiple different situations. I still don't understand the benefit of being a spontaneous other than getting another single use of a spell per day that you could easily prepare anyway.

So, basically, you have a favorite selection of spells and would prepare them or choose them spontaneous regardless? If I'm understanding correctly. And by going spontaneous, you get, what, another daily use of said spell selection?

Okay, let me break this down in very clear terms. Let's start with the prepared version of the hunter. As a 10th-level hunter, these are the spells I would have prepared (assuming an 18 Wis):

0th: create water, detect magic, light, mending, stabilize
1st: cure light wounds x3, entangle, faerie fire, speak with animals
2nd: barkskin x2, resist energy x2, spider climb
3rd: cure moderate wounds x2, greater magic fang, quench
4th: cure serious wounds, flame strike

Now here's my spells known with spontaneous progression at the same level:

0th: create water, detect magic, detect poison, light, mending, stabilize
1st: cure light wounds, entangle, faerie fire, obscuring mist, speak with animals
2nd: barkskin, flame blade, heat metal, resist energy, spider climb
3rd: cure moderate wounds, neutralize poison, quench, stone shape
4th: cure serious wounds, flame strike

You see the difference? Because I'm not having to use up multiple slots taking care of "priorities", I'm diversifying into utility. I'm not worrying about having enough copies of a spell to survive, so I'm able to spend more time thinking about the magical tools my hunter could use to accomplish tasks.

I think that this class would do well as the "Divine Wizard".

Drop its BaB and HD down to d6 and let the Shaman choose its spells daily from both the Cleric AND Druid lists. Let this be the definitive "divine caster".

d6, low BAB, but all divine spell access? I think you and Scavion are definitely on the right track with that. It's something we don't have, it would give the shaman a "thing", and it makes sense for the class.

I'll third this idea.

I think if the class loses the Divine Power from the list, I'd be happy. As a Caster its more powerful than both the Druid and Cleric. If it keeps Divine Power, then as a Caster is has potential to become an even more devastating potential melee combatant than a Druid OR Cleric.

I honestly don't know where to place the Shaman other than that.
Comparatively to each class,
Cleric- I get all your awesome buffs, Life Spirit gives me your condition removals, I have 3/4ths BAB, and Medium Armor. To kick sand in your eyes, I get to pick which of my Spirit/Domain spell it is for the day on the fly. Also I actually get class features. *Gripes a little about clerics*

Druid- Till high levels, pretty even casting. Wildshape grants the Druid a level of combat versatility I wont be able to match. High levels while abusing the Lore Spirit tremendously, I can burst my combat potential slightly higher, but doing so expends a great deal of my resources. At these high levels however, I am also a more versatile(Read more powerful) caster.

Witch- I haven't played a Witch ever. I can see a little of the hex thing going on with the Heavens penalty to attack rolls. The Shaman hasn't robbed enough of the Witch to make it feel awkward yet.

I think it needs to take a step back, and find something to do that isn't bothersome to everyone else. I think being THE divine caster is it.

I think you're definitely hitting the nail on the head here. The real problem with the shaman right now is that it doesn't have a "thing". A niche. That thing that makes you say "I want to play a shamsn so I can do X, because I really can't get X without playing a shaman". The shaman is trying to be everything it seems, and doing better at it than some of its more balanced predecessors. You look at warpriest and see Sacred Weapon, you look at bloodrager and "I can rage and cast spells!", you look at swashbuckler and see a melee gunslinger ginsu knife. They have a "thing".

This class seems to have less of a "thing", and more of a "hey, how would you like to do all the cool stuff those other classes can do?" :P

LadyWurm wrote:

Still no official comment on spontaneous spellcasting? :/

How do you think making this a limited-spells-known-with-spontaneous-caster improves it?

Because it's more helpful in combat, and it feels right for the class. It frees the hunter up to just keep dropping things like barkskin, magic fang or cures, or ranger spells she might use constantly, like gravity bow. Simply put, the hunter doesn't need some prepared diversity, she needs the ability to cast helpful spells repeatedly.

Read back through the hunter thread and see how many people support this idea. It's gotten a lot of votes, and I'd imagine exactly for the reasons I stated above. :)

The druid list grants magic fang and greater magic fang, which boost the animal companion, with the idea that the animal companion may be doing most of the attacking, and the druid will be in wildshape.

Hunter is supposed to share in the attacking and has no wildshape. What does Hunter get?

Currently? Um...nothing. :D

You know...I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet or not, but since the brawler is a dedicated melee class, why doesn't it have Fast Movement or something similar?

Since it is just us, Wurm. What are you looking for out of a shaman that you don't see here already?

I would say that my big issue with the shaman is that almost everything that makes it a shaman feels like flavor text. I would see a shaman as having core class abilities (not a selectable theme) that involve actually communing with local spirits (not just milking them for powers), physically or astrally traveling to the spirit realm, having the ability to bolster or banish spirits, and so forth.

I would also expect them to have some skill in special medicines, and the ability to perform rituals.

Wurm,the familiar is a physical manifestation of the spirit. It isn't so much as it is kill as banished by death. And given its purpose, it is the inherent strength and weakness of the class. It is a divine focus in this case, and it is an overlap, not a redundancy, which is exactly on par with the nature of the design.

At this point, the ideal is a 50/50 mix of witch and oracle which as far as I have gathered, has been to give make the patrons have a more profound effect rather than merely granting bonus spell knowledge. Remove the familiar and you have an oracle, simply put.

I'm just not sure why a class that already feels kind of underwhelming needs another "weakness". Admittedly, it doesn't seem as bad as the witch's familiar in regards to drawbacks, but I have to ask the logical question:

If a shaman can commune with spirits, including spirits of the dead, why does the spirit animal need to be alive for the shaman to gain spells from it?

Oracle list does feel right either, Divine Power and righteous might just feel off. To me a Shaman should primarily be a caster, not yet another Codzilla class.

Give it both list and hit it with 1/2 BAB.
Or
Give it its own list.

A lot of people have been saying the shaman should have a unique spell list that borrows some spells from both classes. The spirit feels too much like the witch familiar, and honestly, I didn't really want a second class saddled with those problems. I don't know why a shaman has a "familiar" anyways. The spirit should be a spirit, not an animal. It shouldn't be a physical, killable thing. That's too much redundancy with the witch, and it doesn't feel right for the class.

This class excels at doing the one thing it's supposed to be good at: targeting and taking down opponents. It lives up to it's name. Given that it can't tank as well as the fighter or deal out as much brutality as the barbarian, nor does it have the versatility of the rogue...I'd say it feels like it's in a good place overall.

A few good teamwork feats and some ranger spells like Gravity Bow and Lead Blades and it'd be super. I'd prefer spontaneous Bard style casting off the Druid list, because it'd be more interesting and thematic, but I'll play the Hunter as is.

Exactly what I want! Don't settle, demand better. You've got the right idea. Join me in fighting for it. :)

I believe SKR said that this class is more of a beastlord than a hunter.

Don't get so hung up on the name.

Then why name it the hunter to begin with? Was someone too busy playing WoW to actually consider matching name and theme? I mean, to come right out and say "well, we made this hunter class, but it's really more of a beastlord than a hunter"...I mean, seriously, am I the only one offended by how derp that is?

Also, we already have the "hang back and be supportive while my companion does everything" class. It was called the summoner. :P

1) Why are you assuming spear style for melee hunters?

2) What does this provide to help it hit aside from weapon focus and precise shot?

This looks interesting.

Thanks!

1) I was going for thematic weapons. Like, what would a hunter (as in a game hunter) actually use on a daily basis? Bow, net, spear, bolas...I could also see an argument being made for a style involving the javelin, blowgun, or kukri. Swords would be something they use to fight other people maybe, but their primary training would be in the tools of hunting.

2) Obviously those two do help. Hm. Maybe I could add Improved Weapon Focus to the feat list? I've been going for flavor and balance, so I'm not sure what would be OP for the class.

You're missing the point.

Every class in the game that requires hitting it's opponents has ways to buff it's chance to hit in addition to whatever magical items it acquires (other than the core Rogue, which is widely accepted as awful in combat). This class offers nothing that isn't replaced by an item.
So how does a 3/4's BAB class with no bonuses to hit... hit?

Exactly. The elephant in the room is the fact that the Hunter still isn't very good at hunting. Kind of a major oversight. :D

LadyWurm wrote:

Neo2151 wrote:

Besides, if I wanted to focus on spellcasting, there is ZERO reason to play this class over a Druid. The "update" has done nothing to fix that.

That's exactly why I want the Hunter to be a spontaneous caster. It offers something different that you can't get from the Druid. :)

While I don't think that would actually fix anything the class is having issues with, I do support it. It goes a long way towards making the Hunter "the pet class" (as Animal Empathy is Cha-based).

Okay, so here's how I see the Hunter shaping up, if I was going to fill it out.

Spellcasting: Bard spells per day and known, Druid spell list.

Animal Focus: Add the following options:
Bat: The hunter or her animal companion gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet, or if they already have darkvision, the range increases by 30 feet. At 8th level, the range of their darkvision extends another 30 feet. At 15th level, they gain blindsense out to a range of 10 feet. If they already have blindsense, the range improves by 5 feet.
Wasp: The hunter's attacks with a piercing weapon, or her animal companion's natural weapons, inflict an additional 1d4 points of acid damage. This improves to 1d6 at 8th level, and 1d8 at 15th level.

Natural Trap Lore (Ex): Starting at 4th level, the Hunter gains a +1 insight bonus on Reflex saves to avoid natural traps, Perception checks to find natural traps, and Survival checks to set/disguise natural traps. This bonuses increases by +1 every three levels thereafter, to a maximum of +6 at 19th level.

That's what we're talking about. It's not even about the actual damage, it's about (a) alleviating MAD and (b) not pretending that Dervish Dance doesn't exist. I can see why they don't want to balance a class around a non-core feat, but on the other hand, anyone with the ISWG or an internet connection has access to the feat. If they decide the Swashbuckler's damage should be X, and they're not factoring in Dervish Dance, then a great many Swashbucklers in practice will have X+Dex.

In that case, I think we may be reaching a consensus here. Devs, I hope you're reading this. :)

I just realized you could do Simon Belmont with the Warpriest. :D

Massive whip damage plus spells and screen-clearing attacks on undead!

DEX to damage on guns and DEX to damage on melee weapons aren't apples and apples.

Guns. Are. Terrible. Sure they are capable of targeting touch AC, but there is so much stacked against them. The awful misfire stuff, reloading, cost of ammunition. The Gunslinger essentially spends 20 levels overcoming firearms.

Excellent point, and agreed.

Instead of an addition, I think this class needs more nerfing, and I've seen several people saying the same thing. It's power and versatility are incredible.

- d4 hit die, indicating that they're even more of a shut-in than Wizards.
- Instead of all simple weapons, maybe just a couple (dagger and stick :D).

My thinking is that this class is so intensely devoted to magic, and has achieved such a great mastery of it, that there's literally no room for anything else in their life. The Arcanist would by the guy who can't even tie his own shoes without a spell.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

A) It should not be strictly better than the parent class at everything the parent class does (as the previous version was)

i think the parent class concept is hurting design potential.

Agreed, and I've said something similar. Several of the classes have grown out of that, but some are still being crushed under that weight. The Investigator, the Hunter and the Skald are still feeling restrained. Better, for sure, but still held back by their parents.

Definitely a lot of improvement here, especially with Cha feeling more useful. On the other hand, I agree with people here who are saying the weapon restriction still causes a thematic issue.

RJGrady wrote:

If you want to be the cantripping detective, why not just take one level of Arcanist?

a) because I want to play an Investigator

b) ASF

Best answer ever. ^^

I don't know about just giving them cantrips. Or at least, giving them cantrips that we are actually calling cantrips. Maybe the alchemist can get a special resource of "utility extracts" (3+int per day) that will give him access to a short list (like Graystone's first list) of cantrip-like abilities for hours/level a day.

Then perhaps as a talent, she could instead use these "utility extracts" to grant herself one or two useful investigator-y spells (like detect charm, restore corpse, or keep watch) that can be cast like 3 times during the duration of the spell.

The Investigator is not the Alchemist. It's a separate class. In fact, I think the biggest, hugest mistake this playtest could make would be to hardline any of these new classes into gaining nothing that the "parent classes" don't have. The whole point of a new class should be to get something new. In fact, every class in this book should offer at least something that the parent classes can't.

In other words, the two classes forming the base should be the inspiration for the new class, not a literal restrictive hardline under which it is created.

I think one of the reasons people have such different views of how the swashbuckler should be like is that the concept is all about how the character does things far more than what he actually does. Having charm, grace, speed, and dynamic action makes a swashbuckler, not the specific weapons or fighting style.

Absolutely agreed. I'm just happy the class feels like a Swashbuckler. :)

I think both the Shaman and Hunter suffers from the same problem.

The hunter is just a nerfed druid (lacking some important ranger spells) and the Shaman is just a more powerful version of the Oracle.

Another problem with the Shaman is the spell list. As pointed out by many the Druid list lack a lot of appropriate spells, but so does the Oracle list and the Oracle list comes with yet three more problems.

The Shaman not only doesn't really feel like as much of a shaman as it should, but it doesn't stand up well overall. I'm afraid this one might need a mulligan, or at least heavy revision.

A spell list unique to the Shaman would be a good start, totally agreed there. It also just needs more stuff dealing with spirits or the dead.

As for the Hunter, I proposed giving them spontaneous casting and Hunter-specific weapon training as a solution. It's not a good class right now, but it's a lot closer to being a good class than the Shaman is. :/

what if the rage powers applied regardless of weather they accept the "full rage" or not. that way even squishy magic stick man elf can benefit from hearing the skalds music even if he doesn't want to lose himself in it?

Pass on the rage but accept the rage powers? Now that sounds useful! Who wouldn't want to temporarily gain +DR/-, or elemental damage added to their melee, or extra movement? :)

...well, that plus they need a core feature that doesn't nerf 90% of potential party-mates so that people actually want to utilize the buff.

Yeah...that would be the other elephant in the room. It might be a big boon for maybe a Fighter or a Brawler, but most classes - even the other big combat classes - have tactical abilities. Class features they employ to gain advantages. Or some spellcasting.

You're absolutely right in that raging song doesn't feel like a very party-benefiting ability.

Some of the classes in this playtest have been fantastic right out of the gate. Some have been problematic but promising. But the Shaman...I'm not seeing it. I mean, I'm not sure what the point of this class even is. What role is it filling exactly? I mean, sure it's kinda nice to have an alternative to the Oracle for similar abilities, but...eh.

It's not a bad idea for a class, I just feel like it doesn't really have any direction or niche at current.