Secret Wizard's page

Just wanted to say I'm very, very happy Paizo abstained from features that have reduced effect if wearing Medium armor.

I'd love for more excuses to use Medium armor as a Guardian too! Hopefully fun archetypes in the future?

I wound love for developers to have a sit down and figure out what's the acceptable power budget for classes and feats.

It makes no sense to me that Flurry of Blows gets a cooldown and Twin Weapon Flurry doesn't.

It's really weird that Shield Block exists as a General Feat but no other General Feats allowing for different defensive styles (one handed dueling, etc.) exist.

The game has a very very solid foundation but class options have never received a common sense pass to determine what they mean and what they should do.

Ok, this is going to be a long rant, but I think this speaks to the overall lack design direction on Class Feats in general.

"We want to make Class Feats the most appealing option" is a design choice, but then you have classes with absolutely heinous options – from one-offs, like a Fighter's Bladed Break, to Investigators having pretty boring Class Feats in general.

I think the problem lies on this: Multiclass Archetypes proposition PCs to develop a character concept, but Class Feats themselves are built to be tiny mechanical knobs.

E.g.: "I want my Wizard to have the training of a master-at-arms" competes for the same slot as "my Wizard's got some extra Cantrips."

I think Paizo failed to deliver with the Class Feat/Multiclass Archetype angle because while it's really fun to have options like Nimble Dodge or Stunning Fist, they occupy a completely different mental space and required powerlevel to deliver the same fantasy as Stumbling Stance, Crossbow Expert, or any Multiclass Archetype in the first place.

Secret Wizard wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

I know it's not up on AoN yet, but I think you may be happy with the Spirit Warrior archetype from the Tian Xia Character Guide. Its dedication gives you that combo-like attack that monks get, but open up the weapons you can use with it to include stuff like katanas and longswords.

I wanna like this, I really do, but there's one problem... it doesn't have a baseline class that goes with it well.

It'd work great with Swash or Rogue if I could get +2 to Strength to use a longsword or a katana effectively, but no dice.

I actually think that the new Fighter archetype would also be pretty viable if it allowed the use of swords.

Ruffian and (as of War of Immortals) Avenger Rogues can get Strength as their KAS, and both can Sneak Attack with Katanas. Only Avengers can SA with Longswords though.

Swashes and Dex Rogues would have to go for the Dueling Sword (which has always been depicted as a weird katana) to get the same "feel".

You are a genius, didn't realize the new Ruffian wording on what constituted an able weapon.

As I've previously said, more Unconscious and Conscious Minds for Psychics.

Also, a Wizard Character Archetype based around crafting Magic items.

Secret Wizard wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

I just want something similar to Warrior Poet from 1E:

• Unarmored, no shield
  
• Strength + Dex
  
• Wields a 1H weapon
  
• Focused on mobility + defence (I really liked adding Combat Expertise / Defensive Fighting feats to it)

An Unarmored + No Shield archetype for a Guardian would be sick (depending on how the class turns out).

At a glance, this 1e Archetype just kinda looks like a 2e Monk or Swashbuckler. What aren't you getting from those?

Katanas, baby, Katanas.

...So, you want to be a Champion?

Also, just use a wakizashi.

It's a whole different feeling to use a larger blade than a short blade.

I'm a huge chanbara nerd, and I'd love to make a kensei-style swordmaster. All alternatives nowadays are either heavily armored, use smaller weapons, or don't really deliver the fantasy (stuff around parrying, mobility, legendary defence...)

Again, it's a niche, just like every other ask here. But nothing captures a properly built Warrior Poet.

I'd like to invite everyone to watch Samurai Rebellion or the Sword of Doom and not come out really hyped to build something like that.

Secret Wizard wrote:

I just want something similar to Warrior Poet from 1E:

• Unarmored, no shield
  
• Strength + Dex
  
• Wields a 1H weapon
  
• Focused on mobility + defence (I really liked adding Combat Expertise / Defensive Fighting feats to it)

An Unarmored + No Shield archetype for a Guardian would be sick (depending on how the class turns out).

At a glance, this 1e Archetype just kinda looks like a 2e Monk or Swashbuckler. What aren't you getting from those?

Katanas, baby, Katanas.

I just want something similar to Warrior Poet from 1E:

• Unarmored, no shield
  
• Strength + Dex
  
• Wields a 1H weapon
  
• Focused on mobility + defence (I really liked adding Combat Expertise / Defensive Fighting feats to it)

An Unarmored + No Shield archetype for a Guardian would be sick (depending on how the class turns out).

None of which is, to me the most important thing: that, to me, the Guardian needed serious attention before the playtest period was over, so that we could then, you know, playtest the revision.

But the whole purpose of playtesting is to aid the designers/developers, and not the testers.

And the service is really useful! You are solving internal debates. You have no way of knowing what these look like, the context, the research, etc. that motivated them...

But [be]we have to assume that what is tested stems from these controversies.[/b] Otherwise, what's there to test? If the design was fully polished, we'd be doing editing/errata hunting instead.

I hope you get that your spontaneous gut feeling, unguided, is much more powerful to solve these dilemmas than any conversation you could have with Paizo's team. When the product is out on the shelves, that's mostly how it's going to feel.

Quote:

Look, you have a perfectly good forum thread, right here under your nose, about people talking about how -AC on Rage fails to deliver on its premise by creating several "bad beat" games in which the Barb gets blown like a piñata.

Perhaps I'm just harboring older design sensibilities, but the risk of getting blown like a piñata is an important part of the fun of playing a character with Rage. Losing it is sad.

I can see why PF2E would remove it. The game has continuously sanded off things that trade risk for greater reward, in my estimation, to keep performance ceilings in check; and the game probably doesn't actually have the room to give a damage reward for the AC penalty that feels fun and appropriate in the moment while also maintaining said performance ceiling. It's a little disappointing to see it go, since I feel like that risk/reward was one of the most defining aspects of Barbarian. But I've kind of accepted PF2E is a very... streamlined and managed experience.

I understand where you are coming from, but, also, what's the reward?

Both the Fighter and the Barb lived for the same amount of turns, dealt basically the same amount of damage...

...but the Fighter dealt a little bit more damage, and the Barbarian had swingy turns where it'd be critted consecutively and die.

If there was some real incentive to take the risk, sure... but just to stay at parity with the Fighter? Doesn't make sense to me.

exequiel759 wrote:

when I turn to see the barbarian that absolutely didn't need any changes whatsoever but received one of the most sizeable buffs in the whole book

Yes it is hard to understand.

Paizo have listened to the Fighter is just flat out better than the Barbarian argument - which I always thought was over done - by buffing what was already a strong class. No one else got +1AC and an extra action to start every combat. Fighter Barbarian and Rogue are a clear step up from the other martial classes. I still haven't seen the details of the new Investigator or Swashbuckler but I doubt it is going to be good enough.

[...]

They touched Fury but really didn't fix anything. That is a frustrating miss.

Look, you have a perfectly good forum thread, right here under your nose, about people talking about how -AC on Rage fails to deliver on its premise by creating several "bad beat" games in which the Barb gets blown like a piñata.

@On Fury: they actually gave them new feats, don't knock it until you try it.

@On Investigators and Swashbucklers: I think knocking them before you try them.

And if they suck... just like the Ranger came back a little bit lacking... I think it's more about pushing for the changes that you want to see rather than advocating AGAINST buffs to other classes. It's not a zero sum game.

Secret Wizard wrote:

Classes in PF2E, are, in general, undertuned.

What's that supposed to mean? Undertuned compared to what?

Compared to player expectations.

This is, of course, as subjective as the next thing, but I think that the competitive edge of PF2E over DnD is players who want more decision points per turn and encounter.

The proliferation of Free Archetype games is a display of people wanting to get more out of class chasses / feat loadouts and really exacerbate that difference.

I think most classes in PF2E are just shy of delivering the depth that players want, and anything that powers them up is welcome.

Classes in PF2E, are, in general, undertuned.

That the Barb is getting closer to the ideal power-level is a good thing.

Rangers should get there too.

Thank you Paizo!

Removing the AC penalty from Rage is massive. A lot of character concepts I wanted to build are now enabled.

Better Fury is great. I really like the new feats too. I know it's not as good as other Instincts, but it's got a solid niche.

For those of you saying that "the Champion class fulfills the Guardian's role of tank better," just wait until Player Core 2 drops.

Paizo has been known to reduce the power and capability of existing content in order to increase sales of new content once on a while.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if something like that happened between these two classes.

This is probably the dumbest ending out there.

People are tacking on Free Archetype / Ancestral Paragon to all their games because they are dissatisfied with current power budgets, and you are proposing we end up with lower power levels?

When the Fighter got even stronger?

I mean what you're fundamentally describing is that the utility the guardian brings doesn't compensate for its offensive deficiencies. Giving the class damage steroids is one way to solve that but not necessarily the only one.

But give it so much defensive utility and you either (a) trivialize encounters, or (b) risk becoming unidimensional and useless in any situation that doesn't adapt to your specific niche (AC tanking).

Offensive power IS versatility.

And considering how combats are violent in PF2, I think there's space for a more dedicated tank than the Champion. And it's not a problem by itself as a tank should definitely find a place in a PF2 party without being a liability.

I don't agree. I think tanks need offensive capability to be a realistic threat to enemies, so as to concentrate their focus.

Also, even the most defensive/utility casters have offensive options... the Fireball of an utility Wizard usually hurts as much as an offensive one. The Heals of the support Cleric can bring down hordes of Undead.

Guardians should have their situational damage options too.

Why not make this simpler?

When you Taunt, allow you to make a melee strike for free, no MAP, if the Taunted enemy attacked someone who wasn't you last turn. This would be BAKED IN on the Taunt action

This way:

1. You deal more damage to enemies who don't focus you.

2. You have an incentive to be close to enemies, not far.

3. You kinda want to Taunt every turn and enemies start reconsidering not attacking you.

The whole set up of the class provides very little in helping bring fights to a close, and from my party's quick arena death match yesterday, I kinda wished we had a Fighter or Monk instead to draw the fight to a close faster.

So Ferocious Vengeance is very nice, a very good damned-if-you-don't...

...but we are missing the damned-if-you-do! The class is missing a "you hit me, now I get to put some extra hurt" somehow.

Namely, it would make a lot of sense to have a "Come Get Me" reaction from Taunt -- it's not easy to get off, so some way to punish those who actually hit you would be great.

This all being said, it's hard for me not to want to see both Threat Techniques as necessary for the class.

I do think the Guardian is missing an Action/bonus that defines their turns radically.

Intercept and Taunt are cute but they are sometimes foods.

Barbarians Rage, Rangers Hunt, Monks Flurry... the Guardian cannot be entirely reactive, and if it is, it needs to be a little bit sexier, I think.

Secret Wizard wrote:

All I want is a reason not to use a shield.

I hear this thing about Monks and Shields and yet none of my monks have used them to date and their AC was best at table.

Am I missing something?

In addition to the other things folks mentioned, you have no native Reactions and ways to get this circumstance bonus to AC.

I kinda wish class chassises were juicier and Monks had Crane Style in-built and you basically got to pick your "offensive" Style to go with it, which would make Stance Dancing less onerous in the feats too.

I understand a Cleric of Gorum, for example, will not be granted any spells from a dead god after a rest.

What happens, though, with any spells you haven't expended?

If you used one after August 1st, would it still take effect? Or would it not work at all even though you still have that particular spell prepared?

I ask because let's say I still wanted to play a Cleric of Gorum even after Gorum's death. I'm thinking I'd have to be VERY judicious with spell-use because I know I'm never going to get them back after he dies.

Casting a Heal spell becomes a HUGE deal for my character and it had better be for a DAMNED GOOD REASON!!

Baller idea, mad respect.

All I want is a reason not to use a shield.

You know what would be cool and maybe balanced for low level play? A reaction strike that triggers when the barbarian gets crit. Soaking that big to risk one of your own, or getting one last swing before you drop, feels very barbarian.

Storm druids can do do that with Tempest Surge at level 6, but I think it could work as a level 1 barbarian feature. Doesn't seem likely, though, since ranger and rogue didn't get built in reactions.

Everyone should have built-in reactions to devalue how powerful Shield Block as a general feat is.

Not just Barbs but Monks, Rangers too.

-1 Ac represents an overly aggressive approach to battle when raging.

This is the wrong way to go about it if you ask me. The way to represent they are more aggressive than defensive is getting them stuck on Master proficiency of Medium Armor and not give them any means to increase AC, which already happens everywhere else in the chassis.

Compare with Rangers who get options like Outwit, Skirmish Strike, Twin Parry/Riposte...

I feel the -AC is an artifact of a bygone era where you couldn't shape an experience with class feats.

I've said my piece before, to some controversy:

- I hate the -AC penalty in Rage. I don't think it serves any real purpose and you become an HP piñata early on. Very counter-intuitive for new players. I get it that very experienced folks rage when lower in HP, but I want to allow my players to play intuitively out of the box... this was the same problem that +CON had with the 1E Chained Barb.

- I think they should smoothen Fury Instinct to be comparable to the others. No reason why roleplaying railroads should give you power. I think we've left that design principle by the wayside.

- I honestly believe the class / playerbase is disserviced by forcing Edicts on them as Barbarians. Less roleplaying railroads, please.

- I think that things like Cleave should be General Feats, and Class Feats saved for things that really really tie to your class. Why can't any class Cleave? I want my Barbarian feats to be very unique to what my class does.

I don't expect everyone to see eye-to-eye with me, but I do think these changes would be closer to the PF2E ethos than what we have right now.

I think people here are interpreting this the wrong way.

A Reaction is a must for every character as it is a massive boost in action economy.

The fact that you get an unusable one as a Fighter is a "feels-bad moment" that should be avoided.

Fighters should have been allowed to pick up a thematic reaction, whether it is a Dueling Parry, a 2H Block, or a Shield Block.

Same goes for Paladins, and hell, why not Monks, Rogues and Rangers?

The penalty to AC is both something that barbarians have for tradition since it is common to have barbarians being "clumsy" in lieu of them being hp sacks that hit like a truck.

It's also common to have them be really sturdy, which isn't the case in practice. If DR started at level 1, sure. Because it doesn't, I think the AC penalty should go.

I think the Action restriction is penalty enough.

1. Get rid of Anathemas. I wanna play a Barbarian without being told how they should act. If you want to keep them, keep something SUPER specific that won't interfere with the regular flow of character building.

2. Get rid of the AC penalty on Rage. -1 is MASSIVE, and causes Barbarians to be health piñatas at low level. I've DM'd multiple games where the Barb just blows up because of big increase in critical chances. The class shouldn't be strictly a damage dealer, it should be allowed to be the tank for the party too. The AC penalty needs to go... can be replaced by Clumsy, Stupefied, or whatever, but get rid of what makes the class so dangerous to frontline with.

3. Let Fury increase damage from 2 to 4 as an Instinct ability. No Lv1 Barb Feat can compete with the Instinct bonuses AND +2 to damage.

Hi team!

I think the Remastered is a great chance to address one of the salient aspects of PF2E that seems to be irregular across the board: proficiency scaling that's not granted by a Class.

Right now, we have:

• General feats that do not scale.
  
• Archetype feats that do not scale.
  
• Archetype feats that provide scaling that's parallel to a Class (like Butterfly Blade with butterfly swords.)
  
• Archetype feats that provide scaling that's parallel to a Class, but capped (like Sentinel with armor).
  
• Archetype feats that scale with level (like Acrobat with Acrobatics.)

Feels like, just like casting, this should be normalized somehow across the board because it creates needless complexity.

I don't like how outside proficiencies are gained, I'm sad it wasn't addressed.

Getting Advanced Weapons or other armor is clunky.

I hate partial boosts because it creates the possibility of “dead” boosts for 20th level builds, and you start building your character with higher levels in mind.

I’d rather have more rules about boosts than partial boosts.

Just a small thing I just thought up after a session: maybe get rid of vancian casting altogether

I don't think that discussing any Level 20 feat, good or bad, is relevant to the topic in the discussion.

And yes, Unicore brings up Golden Body way too often.

The focus point change is going to be a hearty perk to the monks. It is one that only favors one type of monk build though.

I still think the best boost to the monk would be a level 11 ability that is perfected form, but it only guarantees you an 8. This way, the 19th level ability doesn't come completely out of nowhere and it continues to foster using an array of abilities instead of just overloading one clear activity as the best for the monk to do over and over again. An 8 is still enough to hit with only a little bit of tactical support most of the time so it also will help encourage more tactical play.

While the focus point change is obviously a buff to all the focus point classes... I usually don't care about ki stuff and I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on the most powerful part of my class budget if I don't go for it.

As for the suggestion, "you are guaranteed to be subpar" is not very exciting, and seems like the kind of feature that is not friendly to people without system mastery.

I'd honestly have hardcoded Dancing Leaf/Water Step as a class feature just to give the movement more ways to be put to use.

I think the consensus has been "no, thanks" to Legendary Unarmed Proficiency, but "yes, please" to some sort of boost.

As I've said in other threads, a big part of the Monk's power budget goes to movement speed and metal strikes, and both are too situational (when compared to, say, Intensify Vulnerability, Raging Resistance, Debilitating Strike, etc.

I stand by my thought that if you made Stances into a subclass (free at Level 1, with a small boost at level 6 and 15), and gave them back their Level 1 and 6 feats to spend on (an expanded) array of feats, the class would be fine.

It's a bit jarring yeah. Although with my monk I've had to choose between holding a returning javelin or a shield, while keeping the other hand free. So it's not always a thing.

I think Tsubutai's "Monk's Parry" is a good direction for a solution. Monks still get to have that kind of AC (which wasn't unbalanced, for that action cost), but why bother holding a shield for it now?

I actually think that the best "Monk reaction", in terms of style, is the Acrobat's Dodge Away:

Dodge Away ⤦ (reaction)
Trigger You are the target of a melee attack.
Requirements You're aware of the attack and aren't flat-footed.
You use your acrobatic prowess to evade an attack, using momentum to keep yourself moving, if you choose. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against the triggering attack. If the attack misses you, you can Step after the Strike. If you're a master in Acrobatics, you can move 10 feet on this Step instead of 5 feet.

I love it because:
1. It's less AC than a Shield, so if you go with a Shield, you have a good reason to do so.

2. It's only against a single attack, making Parry still valuable.

3. It gives you movement, which is the core mechanic of the class.

This is a personal quest of mine, ever since the playtest.

It's been a long time and I got a better grasp of system mastery since then, but Shield Block as a general feat has been too tempting to pass up.

I did ask about this during an AMA, and the team mentioned that they don't think it breaks the flavor of the class because you can re-skin the "shield" as "bracers".

I cannot remember for the life of me where that AMA was though, so I haven't been able to find the post...

In any case, I think giving Monks an early game defensive reaction would be fantastic.

My preference would be to allow Monks to pick a defensive reaction from a series of options: a "block" (like in fighting games) that creates a small amount of resistance to damage, a "dodge" which gives you some AC, and a "roll" which gives you some movement.

EDIT: But I'll take anything really! I do believe it won't break the class to give it an extra push in the early levels.

Secret Wizard wrote:

So, without getting prescriptive:

There's general agreement that the biggest issues with the Monk right now are power budget comes in too frontloaded, so other classes can poach it easily.

But even if it's frontloaded, the early level power from Stances/FoB only leaves it up to parity with other classes early on, and there's no late-game power spikes of note.

I can't say there's general agreement about that, because I don't know what it means. That first part... how is the monk's power budget frontloaded? what does that mean? What's a power budget anyway? And how do other classes "poach" the monk's power budget?

Reading this stuff, I feel like I felt when I attended the first day of what I thought was a first class in fluid dynamics. I sat through the lecture, then went up to the prof and told him I didn't understand a word of it. Turned out the physics department clerical types had directed me to the wrong class -- this was the *second* semester class. :-)

Good thing you got here for the first lesson: "be like water" (ง`_´)ง

I'm trying to summarize what I believe is everyone's points in this thread:

1. The great things about the Monk come early, and the class feels really good before level 10:
- Flurry of Blows: for obvious reasons
- Stances: compare them to other Level 1 feats from other classes, there's no Lv1 feat that provides this level of power (or Monastic Weaponry for that matter)

2. The things the Monk receives from later levels are situationally good, not universally good, so the class starts losing luster after level 10:
- Movement speed: battlefields don't always allow you to exploit this, ways to use this with more versatility cost Class Feats (Dancing Leaf, Water Step, etc.)
- Resistance bypass: This is by definition situational – really good in those situations, but not something that will come up constantly

3. Multiclass makes it easy for other classes to poach the great early level features of the Monk:
- Stances can be picked up at Level ~4
- FoB can be picked up at Level 10

4. This makes classes with stronger late-game features very competitive against the Monk in whats supposed to be its niche. Fighter is mentioned quite a bit in this thread, as Legendary Proficiency seems much more appealing than Mystic Strikes and Movement Speed due to how universally applicable it is

I feel you either:
a) Believe the bonus speed and resistance bypass are strong enough to warrant keeping the status quo
b) Believe they aren't, and maybe the class should get a bit more love around level 8 or 10 to keep its identity

As for power budget, each class certainly has its own and its own way to dole it out.
For example, the 'Thurge has a strong chassis and weak feats; each class gets a defensive boost at the same level; each class gets offensive proficiency boosts at the same level; etc.

The Monk, baseline at Level 1, without any feats, is much weaker than a Fighter. Once you pick a feat with both, they are about as strong as each other, because Monk feats at Level 1 are pretty strong.

Obviously there's a midpoint here -

Or you could make Ki Strike an innate class ability that requires 1 action to activate to per round.

This is exactly the same thing that I'm saying: FoB is one half of the puzzle, the other part of the puzzle is a Third Action Sink.

I think it should be a Style Dance, Deriven thinks it should be a "reward" action in case you don't use a third action.

Doesn't need to be a magical thing, it just needs to be a thing Monks do after Move + FoB regularly... and that's where you put a subclass.

I think some kind of internal synergy that helps out the strategies that don't have a lot of feat support would help a lot. Like if you want to be a Finesse Skirmisher, there's not a lot of feat support for that except "you get a d8 agile finesse attack" and "you get movement from your class."

This is my original point – and why I think it'd be good for the Remaster to give the Monk the Magus/Swashbuckler/Barbarian treatment and find more spaces to build a stronger mechanical identity for the class.

I imagine something like:

- Pick 2 stances at Lv1
- Pick a 3rd one at Lv7, get "advanced" benefits of each stance
- Pick a 4th one at Lv15, get "master" benefits of each stance

I'd probably take away the Lv1 Feat, reduce the power budget of the Stances, and move some of the class benefits to the stances (like resistance-bypass from Adamantine Strikes and the speed boost).

You could reasonably fit a 5th stance some where too.

Flurry of Blows: Very good action economy booster at low level.

Ki Strike: Poorly scaling ability and focus point cost for damage.
Stand Still: Reaction based attack keys off movement.
Ki Form: Better Ki strike type ability progression. Not a bad ability for damage boosting.

What do you mean bad at scaling? +1 is massive, it's the foundation for my Monks dealing crazy damage.

A monk with fighter archetype wastes a feat tax on the dedication and likely get nothing major out of the fighter feats.

A fighter with monk archetype loses the penalty to attacking with lethal unarmed strikes, gets a better weapon dice with said attacks, can get flurry of blows which is the best action compressor, and can get the stances.

People say "oh legendary proficiency is the equivalent of weapon training". But then fighter also has 2 flexible feats on top of everything else. What are the other classes getting for that? Not much. What are the other classes getting in exchange for their archetypes being so easily exploited by fighter? Not much.

I think the issue here is that multiclass archetypes are pretty haphazardly designed. Their power budget is all over the place.

I’ll only speak for the ones I know a fair amount about

Sorcs: pretty close to perfect to be honest, I would maybe suggest some of the blood magic effects need tweaking, since some are just generally whilst others are so bad you may as well forget they exist.

Oracle: Divine access should come with their curse/mystery at level 1 I feel. Also some of the curses are so much harsher than others. Like bones for example. They need to either tone them down or up the benefits.

Investigator: When I built an investigator I felt like I was constantly asking myself, “and then what?” Like it felt as though the class had a fairly narrow use case, and all the tools it needed to do that one thing very early on. Then never really got anything else after that, like every combat was gonna be extremely similar from level 1-20 regardless of what you’re facing.

100% agreed, these were my experiences too. I didn't go too deep into my Sorc/Investigator, but the little I did felt like this.

2. Mountain Stance Monks starting combat with "their pants down". The way stances work, you cannot start combat in a stance, which means that a Mountain Stance Monk who usually has very low Dex has a very high chance of getting critically hit into oblivion before he had the chance to act. You can work around this by hiding behind party members, but this is very anticlimactic for the flavor of a Mountain Stance Monk, which is being a hard to move and tanky frontliner. And no, a level 12 class feat is not a fix to this problem.

Suggested fix: Add following text to Mountain Stance:
Special While in Exploration Mode, if you chose the Defend Activity, instead of Raising a Shield you can enter this stance once combat breaks out.

I think we are just skirting the issue with this kind of patch and it is pretty inelegant.

Change proficiency feats to have some sort of scaling going on with them.

No reason why we should have feat traps in 2023.

Paizo needs to make new proprietary creatures there to be big bads.

Serpentfolk aren't it to me... they are a bit silly, especially because to anyone who has seen a snake they are... little cute fat guys. Sure, scary, but goofy scary.

So I'm hoping they create something novel... what about Mindflayers?
In all seriousness, I think they are in a very fun position to create a dark, gloomy, hopeless world and the creatures that inhabit it.

I don't care what they do, just as long as:

(1) They realize that "selfish" reactions don't play well with Shield Block as a free feat, and should likely offer more alternatives to getting Shield Block,

(2) Yes please rename Antipaladin to anything else by the love of jove

gesalt wrote:

My only expectation is that refocusing gets simplified down to be something that happens automatically after 10 minutes rather than being a nebulous activity you can do while doing other vaguely related activities.

That.

I also expect clarification of how many focus points you have. Probably dropping the complicated rules about gaining focus points from the feats themselves and just having the general rule that you have as many focus points as you have different focus spells - up to the maximum of 3.

Absolutely. I don't like taking Focus Feats just to have more of the one I actually do like.

My only big ask is removing the whole "slow Advanced Weapon proficiency" thing from Fighters. It does very very little.