Absolutely. Here's a link. This is not quite completely polished, and definitely will be going through some revisions, but the idea is functional.
Beautiful, original build idea. If Aspect of the Beast is not a workable option for claws, 2 Levels of Urban Barbarian grows you claws while raging and further boosts dex. You'll probably need to take an extra rage or two to have enough rounds for the day. Alternatively, outside of PFS, a few levels of primal hunter with a dead companion will allow you to grow a metric ton of natural attacks.
Wow, it's great that we got to use Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, Mystic Theurge and all the rest for a full a year and a half before tossing them right back in the garbage without so much as an explanation. This is starting to feel like some MMO where things are nerfed/buffed every few months. At the very least, we could have seen some serious community discussion on the possibility of reversing this ruling first, if those Mystic Theurges were tearing it up in the dungeons. First it works, then it doesn't. I'm not a fan of the back and forth when the SLA qualification had finally been generally accepted. I'm loathe to do it, but I guess ignoring this change this will be joining crane wing in my list of home game houserules.
Ho boy. Here we go. First of all, the tier list is an excellent tool for theoretical analysis. However, the argument that if tier 1 casters are stronger than the summoner, the summoner is perfectly fine is itself tenuous at best. Here are some of the main reasons why the summoner is perceived as 'overpowered.' 1. The base Summoner's action economy is simply unmatched. No other class has the raw melee power of the eidolon and the casting support of the summoner with such a minimal amount of optimization. Sure, summon spells and calling spells exist for wizards- but the summoner has all of those too. 2. The eidolon is far, far superior to any animal companion. Higher AC, far higher stats, access to huge size, seven natural attacks, pounce, powerful grapple evolutions... the list goes on. (As a side note, an aasimar lunar oracle buffing a tiger companion is a pretty insane companion that does come pretty close if not better than the eidolon on many levels. However, that's far more specific and requires far more system mastery- one of the many reasons why the summoner is considered so strong, because it compares with very little system mastery.) 3. The summoner's spell list is flat out superior to every other list in the game except the wizard's. The cleric's comes close, but the summoner has waaay more of that excellent narrative breaking power that making the wizard the quintessential tier 1 class. 4. The summoner has an excellent early game continuing into a strong late game. I won't even argue that the wizard and the sorcerer aren't better than the summoner at high levels. They are. I'd peg the point of definite superiority at around when 7th level spells come online. However, the summoner's powerful eidolon, while matching haste, slow, glitterdust and other awesome early game sorcerer/wizard spells make it far superior to them certainly until wizard/sorc 4th level spells come online, probably 5th. In between, there's a bit of uncertainty. See what this means? There are as many levels where the summoner is clearly better than the wizard as the wizard being clearly better than the summoner. But wait! Pathfinder society only goes to 12th level. Many games don't ever reach 14th, let alone 20th, and lower level games are very popular because the system hasn't quite broken down yet. All this leads to the summoner performing very well in many, many types of games, and the perception that the summoner is so strong. 5. The summoner has the highest optimization floor of any T1-T2 class. Having an automatic allocation of summon monster spells with fast casting and increased duration, along with being able to rebuild your evolution points each level makes it nigh impossible to truly screw up a summoner. As a note, I don't actually want to see a nerfed summoner in the ACG. I want to see an entirely new take on the class, not paid errata. But these are the reasons why the summoner is so strong, so easily gamebreaking and so commonly banned, even compared to 'true' full casters.
The Animal Companion is a weaker combatant then the Eidolon. However, a Druid is a much stronger combatant then a Summoner. Undoubtedly true. However, a summoner casting spells is far superior to a druid attacking, because of the same reason a wizard is superior to a fighter. Casting summoner to casting druid is more interesting, but even then the summoner has a lot of aces the druid can't easily match: haste, slow, invisibility and greater, dimension door... and that's just the first few levels.
For the love of all that is good, I hope the new barbarian isn't a watered down nerf. Rage powers are literally the best thing to happen to martial characters in Pathfinder. As for the summoner, I hope something billed as "Pathfinder Unleashed" will not be just watered down nerfs of old classes. What I see the summoner being is completely eidolon-less. No synthesist, no pouncing nightmare of doom, no ridiculous AC. Instead, the class will focus on the summon monster ability. You know, the actual summoning spells that are generally neglected in favor of the eidolon. What I'd like to see: scaling summoner monster similar to what we have now, with options to expand and customize the class such as adding creatures to your summon list, buffing summons in various ways, and access perhaps to things like summon nature's ally. No eidolon, and I suspect the spell list will take a nerf bat to the face as well. Given the Paizo design team's stance on new spell lists as of the ACG, I think the sorcerer/wizard list (up to six levels) is a more likely choice than hacking and adapting the summoner list. That would still be a powerful class and not just a terrible version of the present summoner, given the focus on summon monster over the eidolon.
The big one for Maleficium is the Channel Hellfire ability of the Diabolist PRC, usable Cha mod times/day, which is absolutely amazing with this feat. I can see some crazy blaster builds coming out of this. Consider this feat with spell perfection... Soulless Gaze's 2nd version is obscenely good. Just gross. Cornugon Smash + Enforcer = instant frightened condition. And with all the fear boosting feats for dazzling display and the like, it's crazy. The forth version is good, but not nearly as exciting, in my opinion. The only real drawback of these feats is that Fiendskin and Mask of Virtue are pretty underwhelming. And the whole not able to be revived bit. But other than that... crazy good.
Yes, Unending Performance works with Touch of Rage gained via Eldritch Heritage. Touch of Rage is a bloodline power, which is a class feature of the sorcerer. The feat gives you access to the class feature. On a side note, Optimistic Gambler may have some trouble being approved, but Community Minded should not. And as addressed by the FAQ, Touch of Rage is considered a first level spell-like ability, making it a legal choice for Quickened Spell-Like Ability at 10th level.
Some of them are. Eventually. But hitting against touch AC for a round is incredibly strong, even if it lasts half the duration of the bloodlines. Really, I only see Arcane and Destined as ever being close to worth it. Fey is pretty poor when Hasted Assault (which only costs one arcane point) lasts longer and comes earlier than Quickling Bloodrage. I'll admit that at very high levels this archetype redeems itself a bit once things like Unstoppable come online, but that's well beyond PFS levels and the early level nerfs really hurt until then. Not really. If you grab the Enduring Blade magus arcana, then you drastically improve the duration of your arcane pool enhancements. It goes up to something like 1 minute/level. Meaning you can use an enhancement once and be good for an entire combat, sometimes two. 50% of your swift actions is still 50% of your swift actions. Enduring Blade helps, but it's only a part of the swift action bottleneck. It also costs you an arcana to learn and an extra arcane point every time you use it, so you're paying for this archetype in a lot of places. You don't "lose" spell recall. Note that this archetype does not trade improved spell recall. That means that you don't receive spell recall until 11th level, when you'd normally receive improved spell recall. So it is delayed, but not gone forever. You do, in fact, lose spell recall, because you have no prepared spells to regain. Even if we chalk this up to another ACG editing mishap and say that it gives you back spell slots instead, you're at the mercy of the GM because it would require rewriting the ability. And even then, the trade is a significant drawback.
Level 50 is for pansies. NPCs aren't even worth their salt until they hit 70 or so. But seriously, why on earth would you ever need that many levels?
I have to ask people who bring up the martial-caster discrepancy this: do you really believe that if there was a new edition of Pathfinder that these problems would be fixed? We just came off the heels of a book that introduced the Arcanist, with the strongest spellcasting mechanic in the game and the ability to pilfer entire core class features from other powerful classes, and the Swashbuckler, with a swift action bottleneck worthy of legend, no simple access to pounce, and a class feature to shore up the worst base saves in the game that is laughably worse than Divine Protection, a feat that will be taken by every oracle from now until doomsday. This is Pathfinder. This is the philosophy the design team has been using for years. And honestly, for all its perceived flaws, it's an incredibly fun system. I don't want to see all this interesting material wiped out for change that may or may not happen.
Look, it's really simple. You can use arcane points as the panache required for the deed. Do you have at least 1 arcane point? Then you're considered to have 1 panache for the purpose of precise strike. Nothing says you have to spend panache as part of the deed. And if arcane deed doesn't give you a swashbuckler level for the purpose of the deed, guess what? Every single deed is entirely useless, because they all reference 'the swashbuckler.' The intent is obvious.
It is pretty much all upside and superior in most every respect to the vanilla stalker. You trade 2 situational and iffy abilities for a massive initiative bonus and the ability to never be surprised, and 2 talents for a teamwork feat and 2 excellent team support abilities. I'm not a fan of archetypes that are basically brainless upgrades to the base class, but it's hard to argue against this if you have even one other attacking PC in the party.
I'm not sure where the room for misinterpretation is here. It's simple mathematical phrasing. "if the bonded creature’s hit points are reduced to –5 or fewer" There is no relationship to maximum HP. The text references a specific hit point value, -5. Is the creature at -4 hit points or greater? (0, 20, max?) No healing occurs. Is the creature at -5, -6, -7 hit points or fewer? You lose 5 HP and they gain 5 HP. Yes, this will never heal a creature above 0 HP. Yes, it's incredibly niche and much weaker than the life oracle ability. But the wording is very clear. This is a very specific change to the ability in the playtest, which used the same wording as the oracle revelation.
As a GM who has done one campaign all the way to 20, and has another currently at 10 and planning to go into epic, I think the number one most important thing is to know the game well. Think like a player. Build characters. It's really hard to be flatfooted by player tactics when you know the best a high level wizard is capable of. Just to take the scry and fry scenario above into account, a GM who knows the game will know all about scry and fry, and also know that there are a multitude of spells that handle the tactic nicely: forbiddance, teleport trap, dimensional lock, mind blank, hallow/unhallow with dimensional anchor attached. It can also allow you to approximate enemy stats easily enough, saving you a lot of time on stat blocks.
I would never take weapon focus except as a prerequisite for another feat. It's just... boring. I think you can get a lot more out of Noble Scion: War, Fey Foundling, Improved Initiative, of course Power Attack... Extra Lay on Hands is easily converted into more self healing and smites if you take Oath of Vengeance. Greater and Ultimate Mercy may not be the super optimal choice, but depending on party composition the free res may save your party a lot of grief and gold. And assuming you're going for the intimidate build, cornugon smash is an absolute must as well, get ASAP. My personal suggestion for an intimidate build is a 2 level dip into Order of the Cockatrice Cavalier, with the Gendarme archetype. You get Power Attack and Dazzling Display as bonus feats, cutting out the Weapon Focus prereq entirely. That's basically 3 feats in two levels, and moreover, you can use dazzling display as a standard action. Being able to move and dazzle is a huge deal to nab as many enemies as possible with it.
After a quick search, I believe as written, the following abilities are all rendered dysfunctional by this FAQ. -Improved Eldritch Heritage: Arcane for all-non sorcerers. (Adds to spells known, but not spell list.)
-Dreamed Secrets Feat (Adds to spells known, but not spell list.)
Of course, it's obvious what the intent of these last three abilities are: to allow you to cast these spells from off of your spell list. And considering the low power of the cracked orange ioun stone, this feels like another power level errata disguised as an FAQ, this one directed primarily at Improved Eldritch Heritage: New Arcana, especially seeing that Paizo has being writing abilities in this manner as recently as Inner Sea Gods. Now this FAQ breaks a few other things along the way. There's no doubt improved eldritch heritage was amazingly powerful when combined with paragon surge, but I have to question, given the recent paragon surge nerf to a far more reasonable level if it was really necessary to get rid of a three feat chain that gave oracles, bards and inquisitors a few extra options.
Then you should perhaps take it up with the people who accused your argument of being a strawman. Calling my claim fallacious is no better than calling his a strawman. Since there are clearly a number of people falling on both sides of this argument, it's hardly fair to call it an echochamber either. In any case. The task of cataloging the wizard's spell list to such an extent as to which spells are useful and which are not is both daunting and very subjective, so I'll revise my claim as such: The amount of options and versatility that the broad study exploit offers to the arcanist is extremely powerful, and comparable if inferior to the pre-nerf paragon surge. With the recent nerf of paragon surge itself to once a day and the arcanist's innately powerful spellcasting mechanic, explots, and ability to gain both bloodline arcana and school powers, the arcanist is worryingly powerful compared to the currently existing sorcerer and wizard. Obviously, we'll have to see what the class looks like when it arrives, but I can only judge from what we've seen, and from what we've seen, the Arcanist looks extremely strong.
Why? Because that's where AP's start? Because that is where almost every game I've ever played in (over 15 years) began? Starting at 1st level is remarkably damaging to your argument, which is why you don't want to start there, but we can go ahead and bump it up a few levels. Lets see... No, because 6th level is when paragon surge exists and the comparison becomes relevant. "Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item." Spending only 1/4th of your wealth on an item is clearly stated as a optional approach rather than the norm. However, it's clear from your post that you are entrenched in your position and we are devolving into table variance on the accessibility of crafting feats and what level we are starting at. At this point, I don't have any further interest in discussing this with you.
Honestly, I had no interest in replying to this, mainly due to the fact that you replied with the cost of every single spell of each level, which is not what I said and entirely excessive. It's no secret that there are dozens of trash spells at most spell levels. However, since you're calling me out by name... First off, it's disigenuous to start at first level. My comparison, at least, was to the paragon surge spell, which is first avilable to the sorcerer at 6th level. At sixth level, with the craft wondrous item feat, (one of the best feats in the game by any measure) a single blessed book is 6250 GP. This is well within your wealth by level, and although it's a more significant chunk if you decline to take the feat, you can still afford one. This gives you 1000 pages of spells to work with. If you fill this book with 40 level 1, 40 level 2, and 40 level 3 spells, it only takes 240 pages. This will easily last you for 40 level 5 spells and 40 level six spells as well, with pages left over if you need more of a specific level. You cited a large number of spells, but many of those are redundant or unneeded, and since your wealth by level vastly increases, this cost will remain relatively low. This isn't even taking into account the free spells you get just from leveling. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to say that. access to that many spells as a standard action is comparable to paragon surge.
For all those people who screamed "Cheese!" for hours on end at Paragon Surge + Expanded Arcana, well, that option is now part of arcanist core. Yay. I pride myself on not banning anything from my games, but if there was ever something I did ban, the arcanist would be it. It now completely takes a dump on the two best classes in the game, and that's a bad sign.
Lesser Geas is unreliable and not that great. Geas has a long casting time, but has use for the creative player. Limited Wish replicating Geas as a standard action is horrifying.
-Change wasn't needed, it was balanced and acceptable. The crane style feat chain was a balanced feat chain that gave life to fighting defensively as a playstyle and made actual duelist builds possible. It also incentivized the monk, one of the weakest classes in the game, thanks to their early access to the feat, especially with master of many styles. For other classes, it was a 5 feat investment, which is enormous, and one of few feat chains to actually be worth the investment. Even without the fact that it makes Crane Riposte the worst feat in the game, Crane Wing 2.0 is gutted and garbage. We're talking about deflect arrows for melee attacks, with way more prerequisites, and that's overpowered? Crane Wing encouraged defensive playstyles, duelist builds and one-handed builds, all of which are underpowered compared to the standard of 2-handed power attacking. It's a sad day for Pathfinder.
Well, the dragonrider is a very interesting class. First of all, don't listen to the comments on the class saying that it's overpowered. It's really, really not, if anything, the class is overly constrained by the focus mechanic. You have an awesome pet, but it really gets taken out of your own class features. Race: Humans have a downright fantastic favored class bonus. (I know, a shocking surprise. -_-) +10 to the dragon's CMB over the course of the class is pretty incredible, and makes your dragon a fantastic grappler. And of course, humans are generally good at doing anything. Dragon: The big class feature. The most notable thing you want to consider when choosing the dragon is the focus feature, which is an action you have to use every round to control your pet... it's a pretty significant inhibitor. Level is also a huge factor here... if you're starting at 1 and never going past 6, gold dragon means you'll almost never get to take a standard action, while if you're starting at 16 it just jips you out of arcane strike, basically. Three types of progression are given with the focus improving at 8 and 16, swift -> free -> free for the weakest colors, move -> swift -> free for middle of the road dragons, and standard -> move -> swift for the strongest dragons. I'm not a huge fan of the swift -> free -> free dragons, bad base stats and only a +4 strength boost at level 8 makes them pretty weak. Looking at the other progressions, I'd recommend either the bronze dragon or the gold dragon for the best overall stats for their progressions. Blue and red dragons are the slightly weaker chromatic counterparts. The one big drawback of the steed is never getting a way to move and full attack... the lack of pounce, along with never getting wing or tail attacks stinks. I recommend Helm of the Mammoth Lord, if possible, to get another natural attack for your mount. And, as pointed out by JiCi, the breath weapon is rubbish. You: You have full BAB, good saves, and a solid hit dice, but where the rider himself really falls short is the class features. Aside from bonus feats, 4th level spellcasting, and eventual blindsense, (of only 15 feet...) your abilities are mediocre. I don't recommend mounted archery, because unlike successful archery classes like ranger and inquisitor, you lack in ways to add to damage besides arcane strike, and the end result will be plenty of hits, but mediocre damage. Your best option is probably to go with a mounted lance charge build, moving towards spirited change and mounted skirmisher as quickly as possible. If tempted to take arcane strike, beware the potential conflict between that and your focus. On the other hand, your bonus feat list contains leadership. If your GM allows it, take it. Spells: You have an excellent list of spells, but a low amount of spells both known and per day. Based on the level at which you get them, don't even bother with spells that allow saving throws, and focus on buffs. Recommended spells include: Mage Armor, Enlarge Person, Mirror Image, Haste, Dimension Door, Telekinetic Charge. The last two offer solid ways for your steed to get a full attack. On a side note, it's really depressing this class falls one spell level short of being able to use animal growth on their dragon steed... it would have been an amazing buff, but I digress. Finally, I feel obliged to point out that the summoner is in general a more powerful class capable of doing this concept. The eidolon is comparable to the dragon steed, capable of emulating a dragon's appearance, but is much more flexible, isn't limited to 3 natural attacks, and most of all gets pounce. The rider isn't as good of a combatant, but he's an excellent support caster instead. |
