Ryangwy's page

I'm struggling to come up with something that does this better than "take Champion Dedication on Spirit Instinct Barbarian", since that gets you what you want and is already in the system.

Possibly giving divine focus spells the rage trait so they can actually cast them while raging. But otherwise yeah, esp since the request was to spefcifically be two-handed big damage, which means that the defensive reactions and shield access are unneeded. It could well just be a variant instinct that grants Champion Archetype ala Spellshot and puts the Holy/Unholy on Spirit Instinct damage, since then it'd get heavy armour in a feat.

Pathfinder 1E's core books were setting agnostic, and it was never a problem back then. I literally didn't even learn that the Lost Omens Campaign Setting was a thing until after like 5 years of playing Pathfinder 1E, that's how setting agnostic it was. Especially since we were using d20pfsrd, I didn't even know about Pathfinder gods and goddesses until that time. None of the groups I was in ran Lost Omens, I was actually the first one among my friends to even bother to learn it when I started to get my feet wet GMing.

PF1e (and 3.5e and AD&D and 5e and 4e and...) are exactly as setting agnostic as PF2e actually. As it's once been described to me, D&D games only ever simulate D&D worlds; Vancian magic is a very notable case but there's just so many other minor things that assume the world works in certain ways that you could certainly ignore but no moreso than PF2e. I'm not actually sure what you need to drop from PF2eR Player Core besides the Golarion and Inner Seas subchapter in Introduction to meet the PF1e standard of 'setting agnostic' - classes still had forced anathemas that were in many cases even more severe and setting-implied than in PF2e, still had deities with specific combinations of domains and favoured weapons and alignments, actually has spells with specific names, which PF2eR dropped. I guess flavour text on ancestry feats, as opposed to the giant block of text on races that nobody reads?

You don't actually need any justification for those things to be in the feat buckets of certain ancestries and not others. Just like how there's no internal setting justification for why certain feats are in some classes' feat buckets and not others.

Oh, certainly. I agree. It's just that if that is sufficiently setting agnostic I'm not sure what is being asked for here besides, IDK, putting greataxes and rotary cannons in the same book? That seems to be more likely to make people throw their arms in protest at their relative die sizes than anything positive, and anyone willing to run a game where greataxes wielded by dragon barbarians deal more damage than rotary cannon wielded by soldiers can just do that even under the current model.

What is Allfinder doing that PF2e and SF2e separately aren't? I'm having a hard time seeing what big barriers there are to reflavouring that PF1e didn't have.

Also, 'setting agnostic' will kill 90% of ancestry feats. Without a setting, there's no reason for elven curved blades to be elven, for dwarves to know stonecutting, for gnomes to cast primal innate spells. You'll just be left with purely biological feats.

The main thing combination gun weapons need are legendary attacks to trigger their devastating crits which Gunslingers get post master and ways to not waste actions reloading which gunslingers also get so... yeah. Gunslingers are that class, -2HP per level is not anywhere near a problem esp when it's easily fixable.

Non-gun combination weapons are a different matter but I guess you just play fighter since bows don't care about reload.

EDIT: I forgot non reload combination weapons don't have critical fusion so nix that. Both combination bows have the monk trait so that signals pretty clearly who uses the mikazuki/bow staff (notably, both have parry in their melee form) and the Wrecker... has ranged trip?

- Inventor gets 8 hit points, auto-scaling crafting, no bonus skills, crafting is not useful in a lot of places. They should be a 10 hit poitn class like Swashbuckler...

- Gunslinger class kit makes it once again like Swashbuckler. It should get either Auto-scaling in the Skills the Gunslinger's way give and/or give it 10 hit points, it shouldn't be a 10 hit point class.

Inventors theoretically get pseudo-casting from unstable actions and stuff, though they could sure use the 10hp too. But first fix unstable actions.

Gunslingers don't actually use their skills exclusively - -some ways, like Pistolero and Sniper, use it far more than others, like triggerbrand and drifter, and you can absolutely ditch all the skill stuff in favour of other things. I mean, they won't mind extra hp, but I've ran for one and tested playing another and they don't really run into any real chance of hitting the floor. It's definitely not Daredevil level of being chained to skill progression or forced to eat every single reaction.

As for the Slayer, the class is a bit of a misnomer in my opinion, because they're largely terrible at actually slaying creatures at most levels and shine mostly through utility. I think their signature tools are terribly-designed and definitely believe they should have some measure of killing power built into their kit as a baseline, ideally some kind of execution ability against their quarry. I actually quite like their tool feats, though, and feel that the class could actually be really interesting if they got their core features sorted out. Decoupling their quarry from trophies and making quarry easier to mark I think would go a long way towards making their gameplay loop smoother, as would actually letting them use their special Lore skill to find and mark quarry before a combat encounter.

It really does seem to be more of a blue mage, a class that gains powers by encountering foes with those powers. Incredibly funny that even the much-maglined Inventor still gets offensive power baked into their defensive subclass and the Slayer... doesn't, somehow. You take the Blade or you live with being a pillow that doesn't even have any real way to get enemies to trigger your defensive abilities. And that's not even getting started on the other two tools!

I think the idea is you use Monster Lore and Society to RK on what kind of creatures you'll find in advance but... Slayer really functions on angles that don't match actual gameplay.

Sadly, Inventor indicates that Paizo really, really loves making changing damage type take at least a day.

Those are some fun ideas but also kind of complicated.

I feel like a more likely solution is just explicitly allowing trophies to be described as hunting notes or the result of some ritual (literal or not) associated with victory and to just allow trophies from nonlethal 'kills' with some caveats to prevent trophy farming (even then trophies aren't really impactful enough to make that feel like a huge problem even its most exploitative state).

Trophies being concerned mainly with what traits they have makes repeats kinda pointless, actually, which makes avoiding taking three trophies off the same guy kinda naff except for, I think, the odd case where you're fighting a bifurbicated enemy setup and need to quickly switch between two sets of traits on your tools rapidly (thinking AV floors 6-7). Which I'm honestly going to say that the slayer should just be able to swap their trophy of choice every 10 min anyway, it's fine.

Like, to be clear, it's a special kind of ridiculous to drag along a grothlut and an imp unconscious so you can switch between anti-devil and anti-aberration on the switch of a hat but that's really the only use case I can think of for doing so.

Yeah, Untamed scaling Pest->Animal is a perfectly fine progression for normal Druids - you can Untamed Shift for d6 agile claws until then or pick up, say, Animal or Storm Order first and grab Order Explorer at 2nd when you get Animal Form straight up. It's just not helpful for people who want to shapeshift from lvl 1, which is why this ends up circling back to 'class archetype or Shifter class' if that's the main fighting style rather than just one of several good options.

On the class archetype side, I would put forth that it gets a d6 agile finesse strike even in Pest Form (aka Untamed Shift) and its 2nd level class archetype feat lets cast the spell on roll initiative. Meanwhile, the druid also gets a 2nd level feat that lets it cast a 2-action spell when it spends 2 actions to untamed form once per 10min. Both are action savers but push in very different directions wrt spellcasting (and are deliberately antisynergestic and occupy the same level so you don't take both)

(After that comes a wishlist of things that any untamed form caster should get, like the ability to decrease size on casting that also decreases reach and getting Nature Incarnate as an option before hitting level 20, and things only the class archetype should get, like Reactive Strike and some Channel Smite equivalent)

I think for KAS at least, it depends on the amount of space. In the book itself, there is a picture of Lini on the page with Untamed Order. All an addition of "If you started with this order, you can choose Strength or Dexterity as your Key Attribute" would add is about 2 lines. There's about 2 lines past the Shield Block class feature before we get to the Lini picture, and even then, the picture can be shrunk by a small percentage to make room for a third line if needed.

You don't really need a fundamental change to a class in that case. It can just be an add-on to the Untamed Order paragraph. Pagination-wise, the page has the room.

Sure, but conceptually Druidic Orders are meant to be enterable at any point in levelling by taking the respective feats, you just get one free. So it'd be odd to have just the one order have a benefit that only works if it's your first. I'd rather they save that linespace for something that doesn't care if you get Untamed Order at 1 or 2 or 6.

(It also doesn't solve the 'pest form does nothing' issue, though you do have untamed shift as the fallback)

So, can we sum up:

1. Pretty much everyone wants a Shifter class that is a martial focused on shapeshifting.

2. Untamed Order doesn't scratch the martial shifter itch, and at best is a decent to good utility option on a full caster chassis.

3. There may be some room to improve Untamed Order martial ability, since action costs and feat costs may not have been fully integrated into the budget, but most agree there is not much if any head room there, and if it is it's only at the highest levels where it falls off. A class archetype to limit spellcasting would *likely* be the best way to get more martial potency on an Untamed Order druid.

4. If we accept that a Shifter class is available to scratch the martial shifter itch, that class could be paired with a druid multiclass to get much of what is left on the class fantasy bone for people who wanted to play a shifting focused druid. This would also allow the Untamed Order shifting to potentially change focus and allow in-form spellcasting or something similar to give shifting druids a truly unique and powerful benefit.

Agreed with all of this - functionally, a 'problem' with Untamed Order (and why the Moon Druid comparisons don't work well) is that it's not an exclusive subclass option, it's a level 2 feat some druids get at level 1. That's why you can't KAS Str, or remove spells slots, or whatever, without building a new class archetype or flat out class, because that's just not possible the way the druid is built.

Notably the class archetype will still be able to poach the elemental focus spells anyway via Order Explorer, though at 2 feats (low level ones admittedly) that's not as trivial as it is for baseline druids. The class archetype can revamp KAS and casting and progression to be like BH (messier because they need to remove half a dozen class features and re-add them but doable) and maybe the level 2 class archetype feat lets you transform on roll initiative? That's a big encouragement to not cast spells, I suppose. I mean, after you figure out how to fight in 'pest form' for your first two levels (I almost forgot about that, heh). Then you give it access to a bunch of useful martial feats like Reactive Strike I guess.

I feel there's a degree of wishful thinking going on here, where arguments from verisimilitude are being used to effectively eliminate the established differences between types of armor in Pathfinder. For starters, the claims are false: full plate very much did restrict mobility and was exhausting to wear, which was a key factor in certain historical battles such as Agincourt. Coupled with the development of ranged weaponry powerful enough to pierce most armor, this led to heavier armor being phased out over time. Second: even if we were to assume that full plate didn't restrict mobility at all in real life, that is separate from how it is conceptualized in Pathfinder as exceedingly heavy (which it was) and intended to sacrifice mobility for increased protection. We can talk about a full armor maneuver class all we like, but that's ostensibly not what the Daredevil is designed to be.

I do think, as a person who made a rodelero class and thus put a lot of thinking into what 'rolling around' even means, that once again it comes down to - 'who is the daredevil representing'? Which, once you take away the people who are more swashbucklers, is some combination of 'modern-day superheroes' and 'nobody'. Which is not to say the time period Golarion is set in doesn't have people tumbling through enemy ranks and disrupting formations with shoves! They're just, generously, medium armour at minimum because it turns out if your goal in life is to roll through a pike wall you better make sure you don't bleed that easily.

Of course, most people have never heard of the rodelero because, well... it's not a great strategy. Inasmuch as maneuvers are used in RL warfare, it's to keep people in one place (mostly by, well, armoured knights who have dropped their weapons to give you a big hug and knee you in the groin), not move around all over, and the conceptual space for that moving around is covered by the swashbuckler (who's setting up for the perfect shot) and the monk (who does that while punching you).

That said, this piece of feedback is likely not going to make it through, so you're probably right that we have to accept the designers really like Daredevil and Robin and work with the class fantasy they gave us, not the one we want.

So, regarding the armor issue, I think many are focusing too much on the modern context of daredevils, considering only our contemporary world where armors are light in general. I can't see the same problem when translating this to a medieval fantasy world, where this type of daring character can't wear medium armor.

I actually made a 3.5e class based exactly around a real life example of such - the Rodelero, a heavy armour class focused on Tumble Through to people to sneak attack them. It's... not quite what the playtest daredevil is, more of a 2e swashbuckler mechanically that only cares about acrobatics, but it's important to note that 'heavy armour person rolling up under some enemies with too much reach so they can shank them' is in fact a RL guy from exactly the period D&D and PF are primarily based on.

The issue is, what does the Druid do when the party has a Cleric and a Sorcerer already? It doesn't compare well to either class in their niche and doesn't really have a niche of its own. It feels very much like a 3.x/PF1 bard, where it's a good fit once every other role has been filled, but never something a party would want instead of a more optimal setup.

I mean... it does compare fairly well to their niches, actually? You probably replace the cleric with the druid if you are in a campaign with few undead/unholies and more things with elemental weaknesses so you aren't twiddling your thumb where there's nobody to heal (Outlaws of Alkenstar comes to mind). The ability to off-tank compared to a sorcerer would also matter if your primary DPS is ranged for whatever reason or enemies themselves are ranged or have a lot of movement options (again, see Outlaws of Alkenstar). I understand they taper off at higher levels but they get good focus spells very early on and can accumulate them cheaply. They may taper off at higher levels but I'd actually argue that at 1-4 when slotted spells for damage sucks a druid beats the sorcerer and oracle and still has time to give everyone rank 2 tailwind.

The fact that the Untamed Druid is sitting on a full caster's worth of spellcasting proficiency and spell slots is in my opinion a strong reason to let their shapeshifting power come from mixing battle forms and spellcasting.

Agree with basically everything here. People don't want a caster with twenty unused slots because they turned into a bear, they just want someone who turns into a bear and punch faces and they're locked onto the druid for lack of options. But at the same time many people want to turn into a bear while casting spells, and that's valid too (and close to what PF2e druid is). Split the class fantasy so they can actually be good at what they are.

Well, yes. That's why letting the druid do limited casting when they cast untamed form will be of the biggest help to untamed fullcaster druids, not adding more stats. That lets them leverage what their actual strength is and not leave them in a quantum state where the sum total can be too powerful but also most people will run it badly.

(Note that the druid is a 'specialist' as a caster already - they're basically as good as a cleric at healing in any single combat, though they deplete heals faster, they get access to the best blasting spells, though not the status bonus sorcerers get, they still get access to the really good buff spells like, I have to reiterate, haste and slow. They can just cast 2nd rank tailwinds out of every slot too, and have the cheapest baked in access to mounts for free moves. The issue is that untamed pushes them into an area they aren't a specialist in, in the same way say, scroll thaumaturgy does for thaumaturges, which doesn't really stop them from being perfectly competent in their role any more than spending an entire turning casting a single scroll spell does for thaums but if a thaum refuses to do anything other than cast scroll spells they suck too; giving thaums full casting is not a solution to that.)

I feel like I need to reiterate that giving the druids buffs to lift up their later level performance, where their early game chassis advantage over casters not named 'animist' or 'oracle' (gag) fade away, is fine. Smoothing over some pain points for shapeshifting is great. Making a class archetype or even a flat out shifter class is great.

The problem is that this keeps, somehow, returning to making the druid shapeshifted to be pegged to the higher end of martial play without accounting for their spell slots. Because you can't separate the spell slots from the druid! The druid is a perfectly good buffer, can cast heal spells and has a selection of great focus spells. Even if the primal list is constructed in a way to make casting 1 action spells into untamed being not great, that doesn't shake the fact the druid can, at any time, unshapeshift and cast heal. Or cast Haste 6 then shapeshift. Or... well. It's why I think letting the druid cast a spell in conjunction with shapeshifting is a better solution than giving them numerical buffs to shapeshift forms, because then you eat up those spell slots to do so and account for them.

And also because the other usecase for untamed, being a cantrip that gets around spell resistance, is a very good option at low levels. I mean, even non-druids tote around shapeshift spells for a reason.

So the 'perpetually shapeshifted' class needs to not be a fullcaster druid while having a full martial chassis plus benefits, and the fullcaster druid could use some touch up to make shapeshifting work better with the buffs on the primal list that really should go well with it as well as fill out that nasty remaining gap, but please don't conflate them. Putting both goals as the same class... I won't say will never happen, because PF2eR has been playing a lot looser with balance than I'd like, but I won't enjoy it.

druid design would be to introduce a structural split similar to the Warpriest and Cloistered Cleric distinction. Providing two clearly defined paths—one emphasizing martial capability and the other emphasizing spellcasting—would allow players to intentionally choose the role they want to excel in. This avoids forcing a single baseline that inevitably leads to circular debates about what druids “should” be good at.

1. Druids Already Carry Unique Restrictions
Druids operate under anathema and are bound to protect nature. These thematic constraints limit their behavior in ways other classes do not experience. It is logical, then, that they should receive compensatory mechanical strength. A class with additional narrative burdens should not also be mechanically underpowered.
2. Their Identity Is Built on Being a Force of Nature
The druid fantasy is not that of a mild generalist. It is the image of someone who channels storms, commands beasts, and reshapes the battlefield. A class with such a strong thematic identity should have the mechanical tools to express that identity
3. Versatility Requires Meaningful Specialization
Druids are inherently flexible, but flexibility without specialization leads to mediocrity. By offering distinct paths—martial-focused and spell-focused—the class can preserve its versatility while still allowing players to excel in their chosen role.

I mean... that circles back to 'make a class archetype or a whole new shifter class', not 'buff untamed order' because untamed order exists as part of the flexible druid who grabs that, animal order and storm order all at the same time.

I am entirely in favour of a brand new martial primal class or class archetype which is fighter-level (keeping in mind wildshapes inherently have every maneuver tag baked in and the ability to splice new movement options so we're talking freehand fighter not two-handed fighter) while having next-to-no spellcasting.

... Also, druids have always been versatile, they were always the animal companion and wildshape and cast lightning and cast heal class simultaneously. It's a 'strong' thematic identity in the sense that it's the primal spelllist, which means the druid already has all the tools it needs, by casting spells. Their anathema has at most cost them some AC in times past, not any meaningful restriction on their offensive output. We're not talking monk or gunslinger level of 'ten thousand buffs to make subpar weapon work'.

It is illogical to balance out of combat utility versus in combat.

Yes every class should be aimed at around the same power.

Then you'd be better off knocking down the fighter and rogue rather than trying to drag all... how many classes up to their standard?

Besides, untamed druid, which has the fallback of being a 3 slot primal caster with full access to the spelllist, isn't just purely out-of-combat versatility. The versatility is very real in-combat too. Awkward, but real. Just putting heals in those slots is already good. That's always the tension, a very real one. Spellcasters can't be balanced around people not casting spells, because 'cast three top rank slots of good spells' is always the most effective thing to do in an encounter. Unless it's an encounter with lesser deaths, I guess.

I'm actually well aware of how powerful spellcasting is—probably more than you think. I just think it's a bad reason to try to nerf an order. If Swashbuckler and Investigator are weak, then they need a tune‑up; the answer isn’t to drag Untamed down. was your question actually serious? The argument of “they should suck so I feel better” is the worst. If you’re too weak, seek remedies—don't seek to down other classes.

This isn't a 'they should suck' this is a '(remastered) swashbuckler is the gold standard of balanced martial power' and 'investigator is roughly where martial with heavy out of combat investment is' which is where a untamed order druid who never uses spells in combat should be, logically.

Maybe investigator could be bumped up a bit but if you try to get everything chasing fighter highs that's just asking for power creep and isn't going to be particularly healthy or fun. PF2eR Rogue was a mistake, for instance. It's not like I'm asking for a nerf to Untamed, I've actually suggested several buffs - I just want to be clear that the buffs should not be with an eye to make them match fighter, because fighter is very close to being a mistake even with them getting nothing else and druid chassis does not qualify as 'nothing else'

And just to be clear, I’m not asking for the Druid to overshadow the Fighter. I want the Druid to be competitive, not dominant. If the Fighter is outputting around 80, the Druid should reasonably be able to hit something like 65. Right now, it feels more like Fighter 80 vs. Druid 40, and that gap is simply too wide. and in fact not balanced

Serious question: where do you think Swashbuckler or Investigator lands on that scale? Because the Fighter is slightly ovetuned and very easy to optimise, but the druid needs to not overshadow all martials.

(And like... you really cannot underestimate how much having access to the entire primal list, for free, does to the druid. The tricky part is unlike the animist you can't doublecast your best buffs with shapeshifting at the same time - I should mention Floating Flame as an otherwise very useful prebuff - but even then you're the one who gets free access to casting Mass Haste to start the battle, for instance)

Re: balance I think anyone thinking small bits of Resist All being dolled out in places other than incorporeal and champion reactions were balanced on blocking every damage type separately may have forgotten the Guardian playtest - I think Paizo just thinks they're neat and only care if they exceed a cap. 'Bad high level feat' is kind of par for the course ever since the beginning. A Port In Every Home is still there.

They will also not actually say that because has anyone ever seen MaRo's inbox? You need to have very specific wiring in the brain to respond to the nth comment about how [current thing] is destroying the game, sales are not a valid metric and player satisfaction is clearly being measured wrongly by calmly telling them they really, really don't have the full picture and need to think boarder than their own local community.

Like to be clear reload weapons aren't good but the gunslinger gives them the perfect set of buffs to make them good, in my experience. Bows are weirdly overtuned (they could really stand to lose the deadly IMO, both from a balance perspective because they get composite and from a realism perspective because they're the least lethal IRL ranged weapon in the game, Hollywood is obsessed with unrealistic arrow OHK that don't exist IRL) and I think get really good in ranger/monastic archer hands but the non-archetype bow fighter is not it.

But gunslinger subclasses are mostly good (mostly, I'm looking at you Vanguard) after they fixed spellshot, dual wielding and combination weapons. You can do better with FA and the right set of archetypes with bows but monoclass players without FA are unlikely to be disappointed. My Sniper Gunslinger player described it as the perfect AFK build - he wakes up when I say it's his turn, quickly figure out which 2 action shot and 1 action reload he wants to do, rolls once, then goes back to sleep. It's apparently quite zen.

Slinger's precision is...fine I guess? I mean, composite bows add half your Strength to damage so I guess the damage is comparable to that? I don't know why crossbows have to deal less damage though. They are already worse than firearms if that was somehow possible.

Large Bore Modification is the equivalent to Composite, IIRC, but I think most gun users who aren't doing melee hybrid would be happier dumping Str for other stats. Snipers get the best Power Attack in the game IMO, too. Bow fighters really do suffer from how little the fighter chassis benefits them beyond the starting +2 IMO but I've not really seen one do the whole 1-20 so I can't be sure. Level 20 Sniper gunslinger, though. Outdamages the barbarian consistently.

Crossbows premaster suffer from being all simple - that's fixed now, and they have their uses, though they compete with beast guns in the niche of 'I can't crit, now what'. I wouldn't play gunslinger for crossbows but a backup crossbow does quite a bit to help (that said, I was generous with fully runed up weapons as loot since I knew my players wouldn't sell them off)

Well, Gunslingers specifically get around that with their innate flat damage buff and their slinger's reload and stuff. Bow fighters don't get any of that. Still sucks for, uh, everyone else, I guess, except level-5 mooks who were only hitting you on their first shot on a 19 or 20 anyway.

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It will take me a few days to respond to everyone who have kindly posted in this thread; work, medical visits, and family have taken up a good chunk of my free time recently.

I already have a few things I want to further develop:

1) Using tools to perform the math to determine crafting times and earning income.

2) Moving away from the mindset of "Cure Light Wound Wands" and "Scrolls of Knock, Sleep, and Magic Missiles" that saw so much heavy use in 1E (I understand it is a "new game math" in 2ER, so they are no longer needed.)

3) How to determine different "Security Levels" for banks, magic shops, and rare materials/commodities on a scale from "A Locked Door and a Guard Dog" all the way up to "Stored in a Pocket Dimension and protected by an Immortal Guardian". I had to learn how that kind of thing worked in 1E, now I have to relearn it again for 2ER.

Along the lines of "What would stop someone for casting "X spell" and just walking, teleporting, ghosting, or appearing inside the bank vault and robbing the place blind without leaving a trace"? You know, the kind of things creative players like to pull on the GM.

So, 1 is already in AoN. Not everyone likes those times (they're not livable wages, the rationale being that adventurers aren't doing all the work to make sure they can create and sell stuff smoothly that dedicated NPCs would) but they're there.

For 2), the replacement for wands of CLW is either Treat Wounds or a healing focus spell. These are all very efficient, especially as you level up! Let them be.

3) The basics are the Simple DCs and the DCs by level table (depending on circumstances). The more advanced fact is that many of the 'ghost mechanisms' are uncommon or rare, so teleporting inside the bank vault might not even be an option. And NPCs are allowed to have asymmetrical options! Players trying to do that might need to pass an on-level skill challenge based on the magical skills to get in, even though there's no published ritual to do so!

I think part of the problem is no matter what you do the druid will always be a full spellcaster. So untamed CAN'T be as good in melee as a pure martial class, because all of a martial class goes into their melee (in this case), and the druid will have a secondary option even if they otherwise invest entirely into being a melee shapeshifter, so by nature, they need to be a little behind, so that versatility doesn't make them just outright better. Its a VERY narrow space to try and get a balance right in.

Yeah any further way of 'buffing' the untamed druid needs to drain the spell slots somehow, whether it's as a wavecaster or baking in the ability to cast a single spell into the focus spell or special shapeshift-only primal spells, because otherwise you have an entire 3 slot legendary spellcaster just... there, able to switch on a dime.

Because in the end untamed form is a free top rank encounter-long spell (until 19th) and sure you're putting in a few feats for it and shapeshifts aren't the strongest spells but that's still a lot of free spells on top of your regular spells.

It would be reasonable to adjust "Market Value" by a settlement's location, access to trade, and demand for specific items accordingly?

A sleepy peaceful farming village out in the boondocks with no real threats might not have many too few magic items available for sale/barter, while a thriving costal town near a hotbed of local threats on a major sea/land route might have a thriving market for specific magic items?

Yup, it is! Even in published APs, we see things like settlements having a higher level for specific items ('consumables up to 8th' on a 4th elvel settlement, for instance) and price markups and markdowns (I've seen up to 150% and down to 90%) on specific categories of items.

Sniper Gunslingers have some very proscribed actions (that go to hell if you drop a titan with multiple AoO on them, fun times) but I'll say they're in the late game by far the most reliable way to deliver at least one big crit at the beginning of every battle because unlike melee plebs they can just have hidden for their attack option trivially. That no need for teamwork works in their favour, IMO. They maintain their ability to 'collapse the flank' past the point the Str bonus for melee attacks are a rounding error on damage and the need to actually get to the enemy (and not death spiral afterwards, costing your party actions in subsequent turns) make sending a pick user, say, less appealing

Slayer is sorta weird in that the risk half of the class (everything about Quarry) and the reward half of the class (Tools and trophies) are almost totally separate. I can see how on paper they look like they meet, but in practice they don't, and I don't think many people are particularly attached to Quarry at all. Should just go full Thaum/Exemplar and put everything into the tools and trophies. Make the tools a bit more niche and give more ability to swap them out would be enough of a reason to want to study your 'quarry'.

Toughness does not increase your Fortitude save though.

At 1st level, it is only 1 more HP. I think it can wait till level 3.

Warpriests start with expert Fortitude, they'll be fine. Retraining heavy armour into Toughness and potentially dropping Con for more Wis is entirely survivable, basically.

Something else I need to consider: as a Versatile Human, she gets a 1st level General Feat. So far I've only considered Toughness, which fits the concept, but I'm not sure the +1HP/level helps as much as other feats might.

Everyone has the retraining advice, but I should note Toughness is essentially +1 Con, which means you effectively start 3 all in your important stats. And if you really want to lower Con for Cha or Wis, you can do it.

In my initial read through I immediately recognized that Adrenaline is there to guide you into the intended playstyle of using predominantly maneuvers by turning on the class' features. I don't think this is inherently bad. In fact, its kind of neat that the class guides you into taking actions you might not ordinarily take as your first action in order to get Adrenaline.

WRT that I feel like the only encouragement the Daredevil needs to use maneuvers currently is to be the worst martial class at Striking and to have most of their 'good' stuff be maneuvers. Swashbucklers need to be poked in that direction because they get Precise Strike to make 'just keep stabbing' entirely good and also it keys into their powerful Finishers that need an off button. Adrenaline just means you have to use maneuver A before maneuver B, which would matter more if there was any logic or consistency in what makes for a risky action. And I mean, that's what the press trait is for already!

I'd rather avoid a solution to Daredevil that involves simply giving them a metastrike. Martials have the capacity to do more than Strike and deal damage and provide for a team, and Daredevil is a good time to expand on that. While Stunt Damage could potentially use a second pass, I think many people are trying to put it into a damage dealing role it's not supposed to have.

I'd rather see more emphasis put onto giving it some of the best maneuver capability in the game, with reliable stunt damage being a nice side bonus for being a good switch-hitter/controller type.

It's tricky, because the best maneuver capability in the game is... a free hand, maxed athletics, and some combination of Str KAS and a circumstance/status bonus inbuilt. You're up against Fighter (can do it with their superior +2 weapon bonus and get free damage along the way), Monk (can grab both a circumstance bonus and STR KAS and Flurry of Maneuver/Mixed Maneuver), Gymnast Swashbuckler (circumstance bonus is actually ahead of STR KAS at many breakpoints, free increase, finishers turns all the AC penalties into actual payoff), Armour Inventor (same, plus big armour flat out and easy access to save damaging abilities) or Exemplar (gets a bunch of wild control abilities with epithets). What can you do that those can't already?

So, in summary, the Daredevil is able to use all its actions on offensive abilities, but aside from Caroming Charge, most such activities are significantly lower impact than their same action equivalent in other classes? So you roll the dice more often but it ends up being less impactful, like some sort of reverse-caster issue (where they have very impactful 2-action limited resources abilities)?

I don't really see why the daredevil needs the extra feat (from a design perspective at least), because everything that justifies the daredevil having it could also be used to give any martial class an extra 1st-level feat too if we are honest. Barbarian comes to mind, having three feats (Moment of Clarity, Raging Intimidation, and Raging Thrower) that IMO should be baseline options and not optional feats you need to take.

blinks That's an incredibly terrible comparison being made here. Those three barbarian feats are the definition of optional: one requires you to have concentration actions worth spending an additional action to use, one requires you to invest in a skill that isn't even your key stat, and one requires you to use a specific kind of weapon.

The better comparison would be inventors and unstable (except they get the good Explode straight up) or swashbucklers and finishers (except they get the good Precise straight up) or... huh, actually, I think that's it for 'martials who specifically want actions with trait' and both get a straightforward reliable damage option for it.

Which is kinda the issue for Daredevils, isn't it? Risky actions can't, by definition, be reliable damage dealers (stares at Carroming Charge) and the Daredevil design seems to in general be against doing damage, but that leaves you with a bunch of niche unreliable tools, and so the Daredevil needs two of their choice out of the gate. But that's just patching away the fundamental issue that their feats are too niche for any one of them to be a good pick and their class features too lightweight to carry the class through like some other martials can.

(On further thinking there's one more candidate for 'you implicitly need one such feat' and that's monk; if they don't grab a stance or monastic weaponry they're stuck with powerful fist, which might happen if they grab ki spells)

I wouldn’t say battle harbringer worked as a martial cleric. It’s probably the worst class in the game. It’s basically a magus with a worse spell list that swaps out spellstrike for the worst martial damage boost gimmick known to man. Even if you can manage to get the crit fish gimmick going (after many action taxes!) the very fact you did so means that you already crit the enemy a bunch of times, not the circumstances under which you most need a damage boost - being able to win harder doesn’t stop you from losing.

FWIW Druid already baked in a better mechanic for a wavecaster martial version, that being the weird +2 status bonus they can't hit by themselves. Change the KAS to Str and give them martial progression (somehow, because unlike clerics they don't have doctrines to let them rip off existing proficiencies and replace them) and you now have an effectively fighter statline (that works less well with bards but shhh). Give a 1/encounter ability to cast untamed form + another 2-action spell for 3 actions so they can prebuff or drop chain lightning, their choice.

And some other feats that probably any untamed order should get, like feats to scale form spells that aren't updating (probably need to pen it in per individual spell given how there's no terminology for 'heighten levels that do nothing') and feats to keep yourself at a medium size.

I think if they go with focus spells built into the class I'd like for all the subclasses to get a different one that reflects the effects of their focus spell so they still get to do Cool Stuff. At a baseline, 2d4, +2d4 per level, add the conflux spell effect? Well, that doesn't work for Spinning Strike, since you can't hit two people with that one... 2d8 for them if the staff is wielded in two hands? Lesser damage than fire ray (mostly) but you can do the conflux spell effect which you presumably wanted to be doing anyway.

Strength of Thousands is also 70% episodic but the remaining 30% is a dungeon. Most of the story can be passed between players. I run it as my 'only three people made it' dual-class game and it holds quite well.

I actually think dnds current moon druid is a good example fighters is much better in melee then moon druid but by using resources you can compete and even spike ahead sometimes ,after a few battles you will run out of spell slots and the fighter keeps going 24 /7 but even without spells the druid can do ok

...If you think 5e fighter is better than 5e moon druid that explains a lot actually about your stance.

But no. No, it isn't. 5e moon druid is also CoDzilla (if slightly less so than 3.PF1 due to 5e concentration) and if you never noticed that, well, Paizo can't design around players not using their kit to the fullest (fullest in this case means 'cast spells')

Ya i just think your thinking is wrong. why cant a legendary caster channel their spells into doing ok melee? then can do it at range with spells. this is what im talking about with the gatekeeping .

Because... we had two editions of seeing what happens when a fullcaster is capable of buffing themselves to be as good in melee as a dedicated melee person, it's called CoDzilla, it was fun for very few people.

Like. If you want to sacrifice enough to be a full martial, you need to... be a new class from scratch. There's no way around that. I guess you could also be, IDK, battle harbinger but druid, though I'm not sure if the class archetype framework can accommodate it since druids don't have doctrines to let them mess with weapon proficiency.

It's not gatekeeping to say something you're asking for is broken based on past references.

In fact if you try to be a better striker you will pay for it with little reward rather then if you just maxxed wisdom and threw spells.

there should be a way to fuel the spells to boost the forms further that way you are using your spells but are not being strong as a martial for free,

but fueled by consuming more spells or losing some spell slots when you pick untamed order . this would be at least a little better then current.

I dunno how to put it to you, but you're asking for the druid to sacrifice so much that this isn't the druid, this is (at best) a class archetype or, well, the Shifter.

The druid can't stop being a 3-slot legendary spellcaster with easy access to all sorts of good focus spells. That's why people are telling you that forms need to be subpar compared to full martials, since they're stapled to a fullcaster.

The Raven Black wrote:

Spellstrike is plenty good as is.

It should directly be a once every 2 rounds thing to nerf Starlit Span back to the other Studies' level. And put the range of spellstrike to the lowest between the Strike and the spell too.

Also nerf the MC Dedication's Spellstrike to be unable to crit succeed on the attack roll.

To be honest I don't like this. Nerfing all the melee Magi because of the ranged one being too good leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Also the entire point of Starlit Span is to spellstrike from afar, nerfing it so it conforms to the spell's range seems like it's going against the point of the subclass. I don't think the range is the issue as much as the spellstriking every round.

The issue is that the design of the Magus is very clearly meant to Spellstrike once every two rounds (see: conflux spells, arcane cascade) so either we take out the design of almost every element of the Magus except for Spellstrike and kill it or we find some way to make people suck it up and space out their Spellstrikes - I would prefer buffing conflux spell attacks and arcane cascade to make an off turn almost as good but either way.

Starlit Span is also the only hybrid study to have the special clause that it works even if the range of the spell is lower so cutting that is just reverting to norm. They don't need it, clearly.

(MC Spellstrike is fine unless battles only last 2 rounds for some reason in which case it's a your table problem)

I do hope they add shifter but they should also fix untamed order and clarify what works with what. I cant take seriously players who claim to care about balance but gaslight as to why it should still be bad. and yes its bad. its the same mentality that, fighter players of wow had being happy feral was awful."go back to healing" attitude

I mean, no matter how you look at it, untamed is a focus spell that with some (not a huge amount, just some) feat investment, gives you a max rank spell effect. Sure, there's an irritating point at 19th where it falls off, but that's a problem to be fixed by a level 18 feat, not by buffing the already good baseline order.

Untamed order is only bad if you refuse to cast anything other than your focus spell, which... yeah, in that case just prep three top ranked form spells and pick leaf order or something. That's not an issue with the order though (and druid, due to being able to pick every single order, really doesn't want any individual order to do too much).

If you want to play a martial that turns into an animal, pray for shifter and play animal barbarian in the meantime. I do think the warpriest-avatar interaction could use some help, but form spells are already a very budget-friendly way for casters to pick fights they shouldn't be picking and win; we're not talking about summons here.

Clearly we should add a free move to Spellstrike.

... that might actually be a good idea?

I do think that the way the Magus class is written, a lot of power budget and subclass differentiation is invested in the off turn of conflux spells and arcane cascade and such. It's also the one thing keeping Starlit Span from running roughshod all over the other subclasses. There's a magus class that went in with the conflux spells all being attack roll spells instead, but that's not where we are, and I've made my opinion on what happened when Oracle got their friction removed quite clear.

I'd really rather Magus gets cantrip buffs - we know classes can get cantrip damage buffs, and now that Imaginary Weapon has been retired this, plus an attack cantrip for every damage type arcane gets, should make cantrip spellstrikes sufficiently attractive. If tying it to arcane cascade is too slow, we could build it into the subclasses, giving them a rider whenever they cast a attack cantrip from the Magus class - what if Sparkling Targe got to Raise a Shield whenever they cast an attack cantrip? Then just make Starlit Span's ability to raise their range to your equipped weapon's first range increment since that's what you're doing anyway.

Or, if people really, really want focus attack spells, if there's space in the new book maybe make a focus attack spell for each subclass. A lot more work and makes the Tian Xia subclasses in a tough spot but that should still maintain the character of each subclass?

Ryangwy wrote:

I'm going to propose Arcane Cascade increasing cantrip damage again, since that would give spellstriking with cantrips past the first round a big boost - if we increase it to be on-par with Fire Ray that makes the intended spellstrike gameplan of 'slotted spell - cantrip - cantrip if battle lasts that long' more attractive than triple focus spells

The end result of this is archetyping for a free action focus spell to enable immediate arcane cascade and begin spellstriking. Witch's cackle is the best one to access assuming you'll be allowed to cast it for no effect. Otherwise, you'll archetype cleric for oathkeeper's insignia off the duty domain.

Ends up as a straight buff as you get both focus spell damage and still get to recharge twice with force fang.

That's still better than the current state, and only starlit span can do that anyway; every melee study now gets to cast shield+arcane cascade+move or strike which is a lot better than their current awkward situation if you don't want to blow a spell slot.

Like, blowing a focus point on a zero-action focus spell that does nothing other than activates spellstrike is, well... it's a choice you can make, sure. I think it still narrows the gap, at least.

I'm going to propose Arcane Cascade increasing cantrip damage again, since that would give spellstriking with cantrips past the first round a big boost - if we increase it to be on-par with Fire Ray that makes the intended spellstrike gameplan of 'slotted spell - cantrip - cantrip if battle lasts that long' more attractive than triple focus spells

One of the examples you cite contradicts your point, I think: the Champion is very different from D&D 5e's Paladin, and yet is an extremely popular class. Although there are certainly people who will always ask to have a class with a specific name stamped on it, I do think that if Paizo had done something similar with the Ranger, and allowed the resulting class to easily pick nature-flavored feats (which is already the case with the vanilla class), then players would still be saying stuff like "The Hunter is the Ranger done right."

I think this is partially because paladin was already established as one of many similar classes, whereas that's not true of the ranger, and partially because paladin ahs been perfectly good all the while so 'good paladin' isn't something people are seeking out.

Ranger (and monk) genuinely is in that space where making a good version of them is something people actively seek out, with all their weirdness and accumulated baggage, so there's name recognition there.

(I think you could just stuff alternatives to nature hunting under the ranger to start with, if making 'aberration hunter' was important to the base class list, but I'm also not sure that 'hunter' is a strongly requested base class outside of specifically the ranger)

I feel like the sheer number of 'thank goodness the ranger is actually good in PF2e' posts we see indicates that we do, in fact, need a ranger with that particular D&D baggage (it's hardly the only one - fighters, clerics, druids, paladins and monks all stand out as 'this is not how it would be implemented in a fantasy game starting fresh but fantasy d20s need them')

(I should point out that Hunt Prey being also a good mechanic for bounty hunters and assassins is somewhat backwards - it exists because of trying to distill the ranger flavour into something workable in PF2e, not because a generic hunting mechanic was desirable for PF2e to begin with)

It's sort of funny that they already figured out this issue when remastering Investigator and yet won't apply the same logic here (that is, let all the minions of the boss be applicable for the combat use of marking), but on the other hand they were so willing to apply the panache lesson to daredevil that risky has no risk (because it triggers hit or miss)

I do think that mechanically, the class is distinct from the Swashbuckler and would be difficult to bring into the other class: the Daredevil from what I've been experiencing isn't actually about being flashy or finishing enemies, so much as pinballing around while inflicting as much chaos as they can. They're not at all elegant, they're actually quite chaotic and scrappy in a good way. Were it not for their flavoring, which for some reason makes them come across as more showy and performance-oriented than they ought to be, they'd probably escape most, though not necessarily all comparisons.

Mmm, the swashbuckler already does a lot of things under the banner of 'flashy' - the main thing the Daredevil doesn't have is Finishers that stops panache, but the Swash that doesn't use finishers was already a build (largely from premaster days, if I recall, due to how much harder it was to maintain panache in those days) and I'm not sure the daredevil is colouring outside the lines mechanically so long as 'risky' (which is less risky than bravado for whatever reason) is their on switch.

Press actions (and wanting to be under MAP in general) would be a more compelling mechanical identity but as it is the daredevil is very swashbuckler-shaped mechanically. It's [do skill action] to [do better action] every turn.