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The druid's Battle Forms are not weak as the people think they are. They are a very versatile way to get access to many Form spells without using spell slots allowing the druid to temporary act as martial whatever the druid wants/needs.

If we compare the form stats with default martial chassis (that who gets weapon proficiency boosts at levels 5 and 13, and armor proficiency boosts at levels 11/13 and 17/19) we get:

Attack Proficiency with potency runes/ABP:
LvL 3: Martial 10|Animal Form 10
LvL 4: Martial 11|Animal Form 10
LvL 5: Martial 14|Animal Form 14
LvL 6: Martial 15|Animal Form 14
LvL 7: Martial 16|Animal/Insect Form 16
LvL 8: Martial 17|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 16
LvL 9: Martial 18|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 18
LvL 10: Martial 21|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial/Elemental Form 18
LvL 11: Martial 22|Elemental Form 23
LvL 12: Martial 23|Elemental Form 23
LvL 13: Martial 26|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 14: Martial 27|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 15: Martial 28|Dragon Form 28
LvL 16: Martial 30|Dragon/Monstrosity Form 28
LvL 17: Martial 32|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 18: Martial 33|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 19: Martial 34|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 20: Martial 36|Nature Incarnate 34

In general, battle forms follow the proficiency levels of martial, usually decreasing by one point at even-numbered levels until level 16, where the last potency rune is added, and at the following level, APEX is introduced, creating a considerable gap in proficiency that is no longer overcome.

Therefore, in practice, in terms of accuracy, especially in adventures that end before level 16 (such as in PFS, for example), the druid's battle form is not significantly behind that of an average martial master; it is simply one level slower.

That's a very good comparison, and i would agree if not because the Untamed Druid needing to spend 2 actions to "become" a martial, and still be worse than one, even if we consider runes working with their battle forms.

The Animist, in counterpart, needs only 1 action, which means they can cast Bless/Heroism on themselves (because Divine spell list) and enter battle form or just Stride+Strike immediately after entering battle form, even though both the Stalker in Darkened Boughs and Lurker in Devouring Dark options being sustained, the sustain gives Temporary HP (a good Tank frontliner) and a free Strike (a good Damage frontliner) respectively, which gets even better as a Liturgist from LV 9 onward. Making it just plain better in my view than the Untamed Druid.

JiCi wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

JiCi wrote:

*good reload feats*

That's a laugh...

Where's the reload feat that allows me to reload as a free action upon scoring a Critical Hit? or a feat that allows me to "reload" a Capacity weapon right after Striking as a free action?

Dude, the Gunslinger CANNOT strikes 3 times in a round unless it has a Repeating weapon, which for some reason are rare.

The point of a gunslinger is to make one or two big hits per turn, not 'unload' three shots off black powder weapons, though... People keep seeming to think gun technology in Golarion is more advanced than it actually is...

Says who? Jealous players who watched Gunsligners steal their thunder?

I don't see people complaining about Gunslingers using Advanced Repeating Crossbows. Why should it be an issue with firearms?

Capacity weapons feel like they should work like early revolvers, where you had to manually cock the hammer back every shot, also known as "fanning". I should be able to shoot 3 times with a Pepperbox, if I'm have a hand free.

Saying that "a gunslinger shouldn't shoot 3 times per round" is as dumb as saying that "a magus shouldn't spellstrike every round".

What's next? "A spellcaster shouldn't cast spells every round" ?

Funny you say that, I don't think the Magus should spellstrike every round..... I don't think anybody should do the same thing every round. I genuinely think combat design, class design, and player desire should be more engaging than *looks down from phone* "I do the same thing as last turn"

That are the ones that like doing the same thing, every round, from level 1 to 11 (the AP was Gatewalkers), and i'm not joking. They were pretty happy whilist also being effective, so i don't judge.

Ok since Teridax asked for some math I thought I would show the basic problem with 2d8 scaling for a psychic using their class features.

Lets look at rank 7 with basic class features that dont require extra actions.

Fire ray 49 ave damage, 98 crit damage (floor fire is a great make them move feature or 24.5 ave damage not affected by crits if they don't)
Chain lighting from a sorcerer 65.5 ave damage, 131 crit damage
Unleashed psychic OLD IW amped 77 ave ave damage, 154 crit damage
Unleashed psychic New IW amped 63 ave damage, 126 crit dmaage

Including basic class features Old IW was doing too much damage and way to much damage on crits compared to chain lighting a rank 6 slotted spell. As far as I am concerned IW should not out damage a sorcerer using chain lighting. I think Paizo made the right call to downgrade IW and by making it force gave it a different lane since that 63 ave and 126 crit is going to be just that against almost any creature.

Ah, yes the "Range Touch; Targets 1 creature (or 2 creatures when amped); Attack Roll" spell, out damage, a "Range 500 feet; Targets 1 creature, plus any number of additional creatures; Defense basic Reflex" spell.

Let me remind you again, IW can't even be properly used with Shadow Signet to make it worth while to cast at high levels. So, sure, let's just ignore the chance to Hit vs just using Save, as a spellcaster.

Unicore wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

Unicore wrote:

The extra damage from fire ray is a pretty bad effect. The damage only triggers if the creature ends their turn there and there is almost no encounter where a creature probably shouldn’t spend one action moving. It will occasionally happen, but it is extremely rare in my experience, and it is not enough damage for a party to plan around keeping a creature in place unless that was already going to be advantageous to them. Hitting a second target with the remastered Imaginary Weapon is probably twice as good of a rider ability than the extra damage at the end of a creature’s turn from fire ray.

Lots of encounters the enemy may not want to move. Or it may be tripped, or grabbed, etc.

But besides that, the issue is fire ray has 60 feet of range vs the touch range of IW. That is a rather massive advantage, particularly on a squishy caster.

But it can never affect 2 enemies. That boost in damage potential is so much better than what fire ray offers.

You only get the additional IW target if there are two targets withing 5ft of each other, and you're willing to walk right up to them. That's much rarer than fire ray's rider. Enemies are unable to move or would take punishment for moving fairly often, and the only time the rider is useless is if the enemy planned on moving out of the square anyways so it didn't cost them anything - if they move to avoid the damage that's a W, action removed.

Just having a Fighter with Reach weapon (or anyone with a reach weapon and a Reactive Strike like reaction) makes any creature on the square affected by Fire Ray be on a lose lose situation. It's ridiculously easy to pull it off, so idk what "dificulty" could be talked about.

I started from the position that the new version is a downgrade from the original. That force damage changes its lane. And that the the change made IW damage more comparable to other options rather than higher.

If you saw my earlier posts I said maybe they over corrected but that I also saw forcedamage as opening a lane for them. And that part I stand by. Constructs? bypassed. Undead? dont need to worry about what type. Devils? no problem. Adamantine dragon? ah damn not going near that thing. But you get the point.
Enmeis are immune to mental effects and resist physical? and your known spells are full of them? you still can contribute.

Constructs Hardness are still not bypassed by force damage. And, more importantly, Teridax and Tridus (and even i) already explained that's still not worth. So, just requoting them...

Teridax wrote:

As an aside, I think we can also dig a little deeper into the benefits of force versus bludgeoning or slashing damage on imaginary weapon: in my opinion, it's not enough that force can bypass certain resistances; those resistances need to be high enough that bypassing them constitutes a net increase in damage. I'd push on this and say that the net increase in damage needs to be rather high in order to justify a damage reduction in virtually all other circumstances, but let's be generous and just stick to any net increase. Because the damage die downgrade represents a drop in 1 damage per damage die, this means that all else held equal, amping imaginary weapon and dealing damage on a hit is as if you were hitting resistance equal to 2 per rank of the spell. Thus, the resistance on a monster needs to be higher than that for there to be a net increase, ignoring how it would need to be unrealistically high for a crit to deal more damage than pre-remaster. To grossly simplify, this translates to the monster needing resistance at least equal to its level for the bypass to be worth it. The question is: when a monster resists bludgeoning and slashing damage but not force, are the resistances high enough to constitute a net increase?

This is a great point that I totally ignored that makes the comparison even worse. In my earlier example, there was one encounter in SoT book 3 where the IW change helped because it has resist 10 (and another where it didn't help because the resist was only 5). But as soon as you amp IW, the change costs you more than 10 damage and now you're actually negative again.

Gods, the more I look at this the worse it gets.

...with the old one, it was much easier to find "just two enemies close to each other that do not have reactions" compared to "two enemies close to each other that do not have reactions, and are also resisting physical while not being incorporeal...

They also gotta have enough resistance for the change to be worth it, since if something has 10 physical resistance, but old IW would have dealt 10 extra damage over the current IW just bypassing it, would mean that the total damage is the same, and so, not worth the change.

A couple of thoughts about understanding "the design space":

1. You can't use rank 3 focus spells (like dragon breath and pulverizing cascade) to compare to rank 1 focus spells...

4. ...Amped IW should not be a better single target damage spell than amped Ignition.

About these two points, for the first, i agree, the fair comparison would be Amped IW VS Flurry of Claws and non-Amped IW vs Gouging Claw, which IW is just worse in both regards in almost all cases.

And about the second, one thing very important is that Ignition has reach, and anything with reach should always deal less damage than things without reach, so i disagree heavily with your reasoning.

Thats is because Imaginary weapon was overtuned at d8s. It was a downgrade for system consistency.

Try that same analysis with contemporary focus spells for the ampted version of IW as it is now rather than comparing it to the d8 version we know was overtuned to the point magus players saw it as a holy grail of focus spells.

Compare it to what else they could have now. Did they overcorrect? Possibly. Does it have a lane of its own? I think so.

Whitering Grasp was always there, same for Winter Bolt for example. And, Ingition amp, on the same book (and on the same class), did and does exactly almost the same job as old IW, which also is able to deal cold damage if necessary as a psychic. It was a "holy grail" cuz it didn't lock you into a Deity (which is against the roleplay of many) and did the same type of damage as their weapon 99% of the time (compared to Ignition).

And compared to now, it's even worse, it's an overcorrection and i don't think it even has a lane of it's own, cuz Flurry of Claws exists (and works with Shadow Signet), and all the mentioned before didn't change a bit (not including the ones that also got remastered, such as Fire Ray).

Amped IW wasn't even particularly strong on psychic itself past early levels. It's horrifically dangerous to use. And the damage nerf is a direct nerf to IW's safety: it is much less likely to finish off enemies at early levels.

I haven't seen anyone mention, but did they at least increase their spell slot count if they reduced the focus spell damage...?

No, sadly.

Ok let me give you a scenario I know happens(maybe not to you, but I have seen it).

Your party is facing a creature. You don't know what it is, no one RKed to bother finding out. You just know how the GM described it to you.
Its medium sized crab like thing but deformed looking.

If you attacked this thing with gouging claw and chose piercing you would have hit resistance 10.
So now you know. Ok you try it again but with slashing but again resistance.

meanwhile if you were tangible dream and had IW you didn't play that game you just did your full damage. In fact you pretty much never have to RK to know if your damage will go through.

Force does not play RK. and not playing RK is a damage increase where it matters.

Creature was a Gongorinnian this time. Next time it could be a demon or a any number of undead and for some reason we are talking about how few creatures have resist physical or resist both piercing and slashing when these kinds of creatures are exceptionally common in a lot of campaigns.
And yes the ghost or construct are less common in terms of quantity that show up but they usually are there, people and APs do like throwing them in. And those are the fights you either are prepared for or struggle with. IW is always prepared cause it dont play RK.

Old Imaginary Weapon would deal, considering a 9th level psychic, ~10 points of extra damage, compared to the remaster version that would ignore its resistance cuz force, we then would end up with the exactly same amount of damage, making both the "same" deal in this situation.

BUT remastered one almost always, and many have already explained you this already, loses in every other scenario, compared to the old one.

And now, in my personal opinion, resistance matters most if you deal multiple damage low ticks, not when you deal one damage big swing (which is exactly what old IW was), sincerely.

I lean more (and rule as) to the Vehicles rules cuz the broom says "passenger" specificaly on top of you can't rly turn it when moving it, which is both normaly used for vehicles, so yea.

You say "just Snapleaf" as if having the Legendary Acrobatics upgrade of Cat Fall (usually a level 15 boon) always on at level 1 is pretty much nothing.

Snapleaf is an extraordinarily good item, yes, but it does have its shortcomings, and having a passive version of it is definitely as good as a niche trait success>crit success modifier imo.

It's not that i view it as nothing, it's quite the opposite, is that i view it as overkill, like, when does lightning strike the same place twice? Snapleaf turns something that maybe lethal into a warning, and since you than know something is off, you normaly can evade it just by being carefull. And so, Snapleaf does sufficient job at it, and i would prefer something that comes up more often (say, the difference between 20 feet and 30 feet of movement or needing 20 climb speed, as an AA).

And... from lv 9 onward since your fly speed is permanent, you can use Arrest Fall (Reaction, 15 DC Acrobatics check), and that kinda overlaps with the Heritage.

Dragonblood is a heritage, so you are giving up your heritage slot for it, too. Arguably the same investment as tengu, but dragonblood get a whole new list of feats at the same time as their normal ancestry feats so there's a give and take there.

Honestly, if your fantasy was going to be "I want to be a crane flying around on the battlefield" or something similar I don't think you're really going to miss the one extra ancestry feat as long as, at the end of the day (level 9) you get to be flying around on the battlefield. It's not like the other AA heritages match the idea of a crane, so you were always going to pick flying.

Dragonblood evades being a tax as the AA and tengu heritage in my view cuz it does give you something good (sucess = critical sucess against fear) on top of the diverse new options for feats, whilist the other heritages are just Snapleaf...

The Off-Guard is a cherry on top of the other buffs to what used to be a social-only ability.

It's icing, not the whole cake. The cake is getting information from goons and mob bosses and at the same time getting a free Off-Guard that doesn't mess with your CaD cooldown.

I just view that i could just Coerce the goon or boss outside of combat, i normaly just ask for my team to not kill it. And needing it in middle of combat is such a narrow use that didn't even existed before... it can be good but... as the second comment in this post and others said (i don't like "No Idea!" as a answer rly...), not many like the ideia of the boss just saying how to beat their plan or smt by just an action...

And CaD cooldown right at lv 2 can get better if the objetive is just off-guard a creature, doesn't rly need that hard of a investiment since you are a Investigator.

I don't rly have a problem with retraining feats that are overshadowed by "the same thing but stronger" at high level, Canny Acumen is literally that.

And, AA requires the most investement (Heritage + 3 Feats) between the three, while the Dragonblood the least (2 Feats). A Snapleaf substitutes both the AA and Tengu entire heritage, buy it for your Dragonblood, it can save lives and is superr cheap!

Just saying... don't like how people are saying "the Off-Guard is good" when Create a Diversion + Confabulator exist and doesn't require you to use your methodology choice for something that grants a useless skil feat and a 1 once per hour per creature feature... that can potentialy do nothing many times depending on the target also... the Interrogation's Pointed Question has similar value to one usage type of a skill, that also uses the same atribute as it, not even a different one! That's not good.