I guess I like Ryan Dancey now? He made a lot of bad decisions in regards to Living City, but the OGL was briliant, and he deserves a great deal of respect for doing it. Much respect to Paizo for doing this. I plan on dropping D&D entirely and going Pathfinder only from now on. I say this as someone who has published modules with them for 24 years.
Just finished my second Spiritualist playtest. 3rd level. Thoughts: 1) We were in a dungeon with no slashing damage. At low levels, this meant my phantom was basically immune to everything the dungeon could throw at it. DR 5/slashing is really too good for 1st level, but pointless at 20th level. Suggestion: The DR should be set to half the phantom's HD. 2) I did no "Spiritualizing". In other words, the class didn't play like an "occult" class should play. I just swung my polearm, and had my phantom pip down enemies a little bit at a time while tanking through their 1d6 piercing damage attacks. Spells cast: CLW x2, Shield x2. This play experience was no different from that of a hunter or druid. The only special class ability I used was an edge case both where my phantom was not out on the battlefield *and* I failed a will save. So I used my daily ability to avoid being confused for one round. /shrug. Suggestion: More flavorful abilities! I think it would be pretty neat if spiritualists, at 1st level, could speak with recently deceased enemies. You know all those times you mean to question a bad guy but accidentally kill them all? Having a spiritualist would let you question them anyway. Maybe have it only work within a minute of death, and require a diplomacy check to get them to talk. Being able to innately talk to ghosts and haunts would be pretty cool, too. 3) Scouting. Ectoplasmic phantom form is my favorite thing about the class. Makes scouting fun, and opens up lots of options in combat for flanking, or getting around bottlenecks. Please don't remove phase lurch! It's the best thing the class has going for it. As with last time, clarification of if it can bypass ghost touch or force effects would be nice. Suggestion: Honestly? Phantoms don't need an incorporeal option. It complicates the class, and doesn't really do anything (except maybe a too-powerful scout, according to some people). Either remove it, or make it a higher level option (8th?), at which point in time monsters will have all sorts of magical attacks that can harm incorporeal anyway. 4) Damage output: Still abysmal. 5) Armor class: Identical to eidolons, which is really too high when combined with mage armor and the shield spells. 25 AC is really high for 3rd level. Suggestion: It's not fun for a DM to miss a phantom with every attack, and it's not fun for a player to do 4.55 DPR with a pet in a pet class at 3rd level. Drop a bit of defense, and boost a little bit of offense.
I think it would be kind of neat if kineticists got "dominate element" for the element of their choice for free. It would give a pyro something to do when a fire elemental pops up, and it actually makes a lot of logical sense. If they can control fire, why can't they control a fire elemental?
I'm sorry to say but I am really truly not a fan of the spiritualist getting an incorporeal spirit at level 1. The ability is really over powered. It's only an issue because most monsters aren't going to be able to damage them at that level. At higher levels, the spirit on his own could easily get spotted and destroyed by magic-using enemies, and then you're a pet class without a pet for 24 hours. There's no real point to it at first level, anyway. They can't even deliver touch spells until 3rd level, and so literally have no role in combat as an incorporeal entity. Were you remembering the tether limitations? The phantom shouldn't be able to get much more than a room or two ahead of you in a dungeon. When I was using it to scout, I just kept it in ectoplasmic form, and had it stick its head through each door and report what is on the other side. While powerful, this is an ability that can be done by any class willing to invest in some cheap gloves (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/glov es-of-reconnaissance)
I just played a level 2 spiritualist in PFS today. My thoughts: 1) It's a summoner that has cure spells instead of infernal healing. Cure spells: good. Worth not being a summoner? No. You could do a point-by-point comparison between summoner and the spiritualist, and the spiritualist turns up short. Summoners get free summon spells - spiritualists get two skill focuses which may or may not even matter to you. And their spell list is completely inferior, except for the aforementioned healing. 2) The phantom sucks in combat. No two ways about it. It's useful as a scout (ectoplasm mode rocks!), but +5/+5 to hit, 1d4+1 (I have a small one, a medium one would be +4/+4 for 1d6+1) damage is just "wizard's familiar" level of damage. This is supposed to be a pet class, but the pet just feels like an afterthought. There's no real customization, like with an eidolon. Some high level special abilities look kind of neat, but they are far too back-loaded to interest me, since PFS play ends at 12th level. 3) All this is not to say I want to see another summoner class. I think the summoner is too powerful. But if you're just printing another summoner that sucks in a point-by-point comparison, then the class hasn't found a niche. 4) They are zero stat dependent, which is maybe good, maybe bad. I realized that other than a 14 wisdom to be able to cast spells, you can put your stat points wherever you want. Since there's no feats for the class, I just took EWP: Fauchard, a 16 Str, and went around beating on things like a bad fighter, while my spirit companion scouted for us. This felt all right, overall, power-wise, but not fitting the flavor of the class. It was far better to hit for 1d10+5 damage than any of my spell options. 5) Incoporeal mode on the phantom is currently broken. (Broken as in "not really functioning" rather than "too powerful.) Since they can't attack in incorporeal mode, and can't even fly until 11th level, all they are is a slightly upscale version of mage hand. While they can theoretically deliver touch spells, the spiritualist *doesn't have any touch spells worth casting*. Where is Chill Touch? Frigid Touch? All they get are inflict spells, which are pointless since they get so few spells per day, and retarded (as in slowed) access to higher level spells. 1d8+3, save for half, at 3rd level is far worse than 1d10+5 (fauchard) and +4/+4 1d6+1 (pet damage). And their spell list in general is pretty meh. 6) There's repeated mention of "appropriate appendages", but all phantoms have to be humanoid-shaped. This is probably due to just copy/pasting the summoner, which can have eidolons with hooves and whatnot. 7) There probably should be some glue rules in place that allow mechanics for eidolons to work with phantoms, so you don't need to reprint Rejuvenate Eidolon and whatnot, or existing feats. 8) DR and hardness makes phantoms sad. 9) Calm Spirits should probably be granted much earlier, since haunts make their appearances more often in low level adventures. 10) The stat array of a quadruped eidolon is: 14/14/13/7/10/11. The starting array of a phantom is 12/14/13/7/10/13. (Most eidolons will really have a 16 starting str instead of a 14, too.) So they're already starting at a deficit in combat abilities. (Since they don't actually use charisma for anything, their 13 Cha is pointless.) 11) Eidolons get 3 evolution points at first level. Phantoms get something resembling three evolution points, but they're fixed, and suboptimal. So instead of an 18 strength biped eidolon with a bite and two claws for +5/+5/+5 1d6+4/1d4+4/1d4+4 damage (10.25 DPR) at 1st level, we have an Anger phantom at +3/+3 for 1d8+2 damage (5.2 DPR). Exact same defenses. This is why they feel weak - even the best offensive phantom deals *half* the damage of a first level eidolon. And phantoms don't really get any better - they never pick up additional attacks. Eidolons end up growing tentacles, horns, and additional limbs every level, and eventually grow in size permanently, whereas only Anger gets to grow in size, and only once per day. 12) Phase lurch needs to clarify if it can pass through things like ghost touch nets, walls of force, and the like. 13) I don't think I'd ever use the bonded manifestations, ever. A standard action to gain a +4 shield bonus to AC? I'd rather pull my wand of Shield and cast it, and not losing my pet to do so. Ghost touch might be nice, but it's not worth using a standard action to recall a pet, and a standard action to activate - and it's still probably not worth it. Ectoplasmic tentacles have the same stats as your pet, so it's pointless, except in some edge situations like a really crowded corridor. Flight and incorporeality are really nice, but at level 18 you should have flight anyway, and a spectral shroud isn't expensive. 14) Spiritual interference and greater spiritual interference are awesome, and far better than the bonded manifestations. 15) The level 7 auras seem to be the primary reason to use a phantom, but some of them are bookkeeping nightmares, like hateful aura and jealous combatant. Imagine a bunch of monsters full attacking the spiritualist at 7th level and having to roll 20 saves to take 3 damage, save for 1. Summary: I'm not feeling the class. Its class abilities are worse than the summoner's, its best combat pet is half as effective as the summoner's, and its spell list is worse as well. While I absolutely do not want another summoner (since it's too powerful), a new class that is inferior on all fronts will not inspire people to really get into it. The phantom makes for a great scout, but there's a lot of classes that can scout really well, without losing class abilities to do so. Suggestion: Boost the phantom's base combat ability at least a little bit. Drop the DR 5/slashing (which never gets better anyway) and improve their to-hit one way or another. Give them chill touch, frigid touch, vampiric touch, and maybe other touch spells so that incorporeal mode has some point. Let incorporeal mode fly from the start - it makes no sense to be able to pass through matter at will but not be able to fly. Instead of flight at 11th, it should be able to attack in incorporeal mode for half damage, and ectoplasmic mode should gain flight. (Slimer could pass through walls, but he could also fly.) Rework the spell list a bit. Give it a limited class resource like the summoner gets with its summon SLA, based on Wisdom, so you don't have Spiritualists tanking wisdom. Wilder suggestion: Make the auras permanent, weaker, scaling, and give them out at first level instead. So it doesn't matter that they deal no damage - the party wants the anger spirit out for his +1 to hit aura. Maybe even allow it when partially manifested!
Giving it at first level isn't that problematical - unlike a fighter, dipping into Kineticist for one level really doesn't buy you anything. The infusions don't stack with class abilities from any other class, and the 1st level utility powers are all pretty weak (for example, the best option for Water is a down-powered version of grease). Fighters, by contrast, can be dipped into by any melee class that needs a fast feat or two and/or proficiencies. I only suggested the notion because at 1st level, you're literally a one-trick pony if you take an infusion as your first level Wild Talent. Which is incredibly boring to play. And you can't even take feats, like most classes can, to boost your options. Improved Trip, Rapid Shot, etc. - none of those options work with the Kineticists' abilities. I just finished reading through the whole thread after I made my post, (so I wouldn't be influenced by the thoughts of others). The best idea I saw in the whole thread would be to give elemental manipulation to all the kineticists for free. Maybe at 2nd level give all of them kinetic barrier, at 4th their respective move element (a 5' cube of material per round, or a dust cloud for Air), at 6th control water/pyrotechnics/etc, 8th elemental resistance, something like that. In other words, I think they should have more options in combat than hitting one button called "BLAST" over and over. Being able to dynamically throw up weak barriers or occlude squares of terrain would be pretty simple to implement, really neat, and lead to interesting combat options for them.
I've been spending a lot of time with the kineticist these last couple days, here's my general thoughts: 1) I think the overall writeup should be re-jiggered to make it easier to understand. I had to read through everything several times to get a grasp on what was going on. For example, the first thing you read about composite blasts is the Composite Specialization ability in the class description - at which point you have no idea what it is or what it means. So you flip to the section on Composite blasts, and see that they look like wild talents, even though they're not, but ones that require you to have multiple elements. But how do I get multiple elements? Is that a class ability? So you flip back to the front. Nope. Then you read through all the wild talents, and discover Expanded Element. Only after reading through the whole description of Expanded Element do you learn how you get Composite Blasts, and therefore what Composite Specialization is useful for. There's a bunch of things like this. 2) It's too much a one-trick pony at low levels. You only have a single simple blast until 7th level when pretty much everyone would take a second element. This means that until 7th level, if you're a pyro, you have absolutely nothing you can do if you encounter a monster with fire resistance, or something like a golem. Your whole class is disabled. Wizards and sorcerers don't have this problem - they can cast a glitterdust, or choose a different element or whatever. I think at a minimum, all kineticists should get one physical and one elemental simple blast so they can't be easily hard countered, or maybe make expanded element available at 1st level, but not able to take cross-element wild talents until 7th level. My humble suggestion would be to start with one free infusion and one free utility ability. 3) I'm making a kineticist in PFS solely for kinetic healing. They'll make better spot healers than clerics (1d6+5 healing at first level, much better than 1d8+1 from CLW) - not saying that's a bad thing, clerics are better at mass healing, and kineticists take burn if they can't spend a move action to gather power. It should also probably say if the range on it is melee touch, since "with a touch" could mean either melee touch or ranged touch. 4) Kinetic Blade/Fist/Whip right now are traps. You'll provoke AOOs every time you use them, and since your blasts scale in power as fast as you gain bonuses to concentration checks, you'll never be able to tap the rolls to cast defensively. They also don't seem to be the basis for a build until at least 5th level (when you can reduce form infusion burn cost by 1), and really not until 8th level (when you get a second attack from BAB). This is a problem since you have to pick your stats at 1st level - if you go high STR to be a melee kineticist, you're going to suck compared to a DEX kineticist until 8th level. If you go DEX kineticist, you're going to suck compared to a STR kineticist after 8th level (since ranged kineticists get no means to full attack). And STR kineticists only get STR to hit - they still use CON to damage. Going STR/DEX/CON is too multiple attribute dependent. 5) It should be clarified if "accepting burn" can be reduced by infusion specialization or gathering energy, or if that means you voluntarily accept burn. 6) I've been eyeballing the various saves-negates infusions, and can't say I'd ever take them. Burning infusion looks super good (boosting your damage effectively from 1d6+2 to 2d6+2), but adding a reflex negates onto the whole thing means that you'll have (let's say) a 50/50 chance of dealing no damage, and a 50/50 chance of dealing 63% more damage, meaning the infusion leads to a net loss in damage per round. If the "reflex negates" is for just the bonus effect, it *really needs to say that clearly* after the section header on infusions. 7) Pressurized blast and pushing infusion shouldn't cap at just 5' of forced movement. 8) There's a few area effect abilities that deal half damage with another half damage with a reflex save (Cyclone, Spray, Torrent). That's pretty terrible. A 10th level wizard deals 10d6 (35 damage, save for half) with a 40' diameter fireball, but a hydrokineticist with cold blast will deal (5d6+2)/2 - 10 damage (save for half) in a 30' cone, while accepting 0 to 3 burn. While it is true the hydrokineticist can do this all day long (if he can negate the burn) while the wizard is spending resources, 10 damage save for half is just abysmal damage for a 10th level character. While on that note, AOE options are pretty bad overall, and shouldn't pyrokineticists get earlier access to AOE effects? Fire has to wait until 16th level to be able to "fireball", but Air gets it at 10th (along with chain lightning), Earth and Water can do line attacks starting at 6th, and Aether gets a double attack at 6th as well. 9) And yeah, Fire seems to be totally shafted. It has the worst simple blasts (and the worst composite blast - the only one with SR!), doesn't get AOE attacks until 16th level, and has to spend two wild talents and waste move actions every round to semi-replicate the ability to fly which Air gets at 6th level. Most people would intuitively think that Fire would be the best element if you wanted to blow stuff up, but they're really the worst at it. There is only one fire infusion below 16th level! 10) The composite blasts are all the same, as far as I can tell. You could replace them all with "burn 2; do both blast damages; SR No (unless you're fire)". I think there's a real opportunity there to do interesting things. Thunderstorm Blast could deafen! Mud blast could blind for a round, and so forth. Personally, I'm only interested in aether or water kineticists, since they're the only ones who get Kinetic Healing. Since all of the aether utility options seem to involve a very long chain of wild talents to be able to pick locks and move statues around with your mind (notable exception - telekinetic maneuver is awesome), and lose all the fire/air/earth/water options, I'll probably go water. Slick will provide good utility at low levels, and give my PFS character something to do other than blasting every round.
Look through the list of Cormyrian noble houses here. And pick one for your character. If you like your last name, you can be a member of a cadet branch of that family.
This is a play-by-post forum for people who have already signed up for this campaign. Please introduce yourselves with the following:
If you can set up a small sidebar up top, like this one I randomly stole from another thread, it'll help me make rolls for you to make everything move smoothly:
Is your necromancer still a capable conjurer without being a dedicated conjurist? Sure. For a long time I had spell focus and greater spell focus conjuration on my wish list, as persistent glitterdusts (with magic lineage) were my primary offense. I'd usually carry three or four a day. What do you think about Treantmonk's statement that clerics are better necromancers? He's probably basing that on the fact that clerics get animate dead a level earlier. But they don't get Control Undead - necromancers do. (Undead Lords, which are pretty sweet, are now banned in PFS.) Necromancers also get free Spell Focus (Necromancy) in PFS, which lets them qualify for Undead Master at 1st level, which is essential. By 15th level, necromancers are *five feats* ahead of clerics. Plus, they get better spells, like magic jar and chill touch. Do you have a proposed stat build for a human necromancer? 7/14/14/18/9/14 or 7/14/14/19/7/14. Would you be upset if i shamelessly stole your character concept of an Osirian human 'mancer? Not at all. Necromancy seems right at home in the desert. I keep a portable hole full of mummies for special occasions. How did you react when the walls fell? Hehehe.
One thing to note. A strict reading of the Undead Mastery feat means that it only allows you to animate more Undead per casting. It does not increase your level for purposes of the number of Undead you can control. As such it is a bit pants. It refers to both animate dead and the Control Undead feat, so the only possible reading is that it lets you control an extra 4HD with either, even though it forgot to mention the feat the second time. Also on Traits if you wish to take advantage of your far greater intellect then consider undertaking a course in Philosophy. Given your Int will still well outstrip your Cha even with you not dumping it you will get more benefit from it. Student of philosophy is amazing for wizard faces, even though it's a bit more limited than it looks at first glance. I'll add it to the guide. You mention Dazing spell and Dazing Wall of Fire which is awesome. Might I humbly also suggest Dazing Ball Lightning to force multiple saves or affect targets who are rather more spread out. Also for those creatures with significant spell resistance then Dazing Acid Arrow or Ice Spears can have a significant impact on the course of the battle. I used dazing ball lightning as well. Same principle as dazing ball of fire. OK, Magic Jar is a really annoyingly worded spell. Rereading it you don't need LoE to move your soul into the Jar but you do need LoE to possess things while within the Jar. That means having your familiar or another party member carry around the receptacle for your soul while you hide in your bubble which seems a bit risky. Every party member is given a gem to serve as a possible phylactery. Did I say phylactery? I meant to say spell focus. One thing I have never quite been sure about with magic jar is whether or not you can discriminate between the lifeforces in range. Say you have a group of 4 level 10 PC's fighting 3 hill giant barbarians with 8HD. All of them ping at the same strength and you cannot determine relative positions meaning you have a good chance to end up possessing another PC. Where does that sit on the no pvp rule? It doesn't actually hurt them. You just back out and try another target the next round. One other way of making use of EFS is with Elemental Form I. Staying as an Earth Elemental allows you to earth glide in and out of the bubble (actually a hemisphere) to cast spells and then retreat. Arcanists with Dimensional Slide also make great use of it. I mention this in the guide, more or less.
My review: Bloodrager: A. I love barbarians, and this is a great, great alternative barbarian class. Losing rage powers (especially rage cycling rage powers) hurts, but getting things like always-on haste while raging makes up for losing always-on pounce while raging. There's a lot of synergy waiting to be explored with the Bloodrager. I'm looking to roll up a PFS character that uses Fey Rage and a keen rapier to confusion tank people. My PFS titan mauler could certainly benefit from a permanent +5' reach while raging, or a permanent enlarge person, etc., but he's probably better as he is now, which says a lot about the balance of this class. The main downside to this class is that you apparently need to be raging to cast a spell, even out of combat, which makes things kind of annoying (rage, cast fly, drop out of rage, wait two rounds for exhaustion to wear off, and then proceed). For this reason, they are more likely to run out of rage than normal barbarians. Also: rage-cycling Destined bloodragers past 16th level will be pretty sick. Roll twice. Autoconfirm if either of them threatens.
In addition, the equipment trick feat in general lets you use improvised weapons as improvised or "real" weapons, whichever benefits you more Right, so if you want to enchant your own hat rack, you can treat it a manufactured weapon while enchanting it, and an improvised weapon while you attack with it. It's not a permanent choice. I only mention this option for people like you who think only manufactured weapons can be enchanted. My point of listing those four examples were four different, RAW-valid, ways you can attack with an improvised weapon that has a magical enchantment on it. This shows that 1) it is not contradictory to have a +1 improvised weapon as you claim, and 2) it does not magically transform into another type of "real" weapon as you claim ("no longer counts as an improvised weapon" as you put it). There's nothing special about improvised weapons. Improvised weapons simply are items, not normally used as weapons, that nobody is proficient in unless they take Catch-Off Guard or Throw Anything or equivalent. That's *all* "improvised" means. By contrast, there is not a single scrap of evidence in the RAW that, say, enchanting a frying pan turns it into a club. You're making up a house rule and then trying to pass it off as core rules by shooting down people that disagree with you.
For what it's worth, at my table: to enchant a weapon, the item must first be a masterwork weapon. Not a masterwork tool, a weapon. It's posts like this that have kept me from making an improvised weapons master in PFS. Even though it is very clear that improvised weapons are, you know, weapons (they're right there on the weapons chart and everything), and the rules even allow enchanting other things into magic weapons (shields, for example) that don't appear on the weapons table, I *still* won't make such a character because I really hate table variation when playing a character. This is something that deserves a FAQ answer. Seriously. "Can you buy a +1 masterwork mithral frying pan?"
If you don't allow Catch Off-Guard to grant proficiency, then you can't allow Martial Weapon Proficiency to grant proficiency. (Since it never actually says it grants proficiency - it just removes the non-proficient penalty, just like Catch Off-Guard.) Since it is clearly absurd to not allow Martial Weapon Proficiency to grant proficiency, we must reject that theory. (As I said, it's really weird, but that's how the rules are worded. Seriously - actually read Martial/Exotic Weapon Proficiency some time. Or even the armor proficiency feats.)
3) while Catch Off Guard and Throw Anything remove the mon-proficiency penalty on improvised weapons, that's not the same as proficiency. Actually, by the way the rules work: if you are not non-proficient in a weapon, then you are proficient in it. Read the wording here:
Or here:
The benefit to these feats is *not* "You are proficient in the chosen weapon". It is that you lose the non-proficiency penalty. (Most people have never read these feats, because they think they simply grant proficiency.) The improvised weapons penalty is explicitly a non-proficiency penalty in the rules: "Because such objects are not designed for this use, any creature that uses an improvised weapon in combat is considered to be **nonproficient** with it and takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with that object." Therefore, removing this penalty means that a person with Catch Off-Guard, etc., is proficient with improvised weapons, and can take weapon focus in it.
The -4 penalty is described as a non-proficiency penalty in the rules. So removing the penalty means you're proficient in it. It might sound weird, but all "Martial Weapon Proficiency" (the worst feat in the game, perhaps) does is remove the -4 penalty to hit, too.
After reading through all the above responses, I think this is the one that is the most correct. Improvised weapons are weapons (they're on the weapons table). You can make them masterwork, enchant them, etc. You're just not proficient with them unless you take Catch Off-Guard / Throw Anything / Breaker.
You will never get complete consensus on the issue. Mike has chosen to give GMs in the campaign the authority and responsibility for adjudicating this on the fly. Not making evil descriptor spells automatically an evil act is just part of that. And it is the right call. Part of the appeal of Pathfinder is that it is not all goody-two-shoes adventuring. Almost all of the factions in PFS are led by neutral NPCs. There two good NPCs, and one evil one. Spells like infernal healing (an Asmodean spell) are part of the flavor of the campaign. If you remove them, or make it an automatic alignment violation to cast them (which amounts to the same thing), then PFS loses a lot of its flavor. Personally, I think the Undead Lord / Vivisectionist ban is silly for this reason. |
