Temeryn's page

I feel that both warpriest and swashbuckler should not be given blanket access to fighter only feats because it gives away one of the fighter's few things that only it got.

This is similar to the thinking that all rogue talents should not be given away to slayer or investigator.

In general, giving away those special features and giving access to all of the features the parent class has leads to situations that weaken the viability and uniqueness of the parent class.

Also, while obviously the goal is for all classes to be well balanced, it also makes it difficult to re tune or give goodies to one class without the other. For example, because the ninja gets all rogue talents, there is no way to help better carve the rogue's niche in relation to the ninja by giving special rogue talents because the ninja can take those anyway.

It also means from now on any cool interesting abilities that would be good for a rogue must be balanced for both it and ninja.

An example from this playtest would be creating new powerful fighter only feats for high levels should not be impeded because a medium casting class is already pretty strong at that level and they can take it too (warpriest).

I know one of the designers already said that they do not want to change the names, but I disagree so much i want to make a thread anyway.

I feel like the names can be put into great, okay, and terrible.

Great

Slayer: I am a fan of this name. Assassin has already been taken and many other names that could be used have been used in archetypes. The name does not seem out of place and evokes Buffy. It also is pretty clear about what the class does.

Arcanist: I think some people will disagree with me here, but I like this name, especially because it is one of the few names for an arcane caster left to choose from. It is definitely a bland arcane caster name, but at this point this IS the bland arcane caster that gets spontaneous and prepared casting.

Okay

Bloodrager: I am a little confused by this because I remember paizo said repeatedly that they do not like combination names. This is a perfect example of mashing together to things to make a new combination word that did not exist before. However, I do think it is a good description of what the class is so I do not really have a problem with it.

Hunter: For some reason this invokes a noncaster to me but that may just be personal. I do not really see how this is more of a hunter than a ranger. In fact, I would say Hunter is worse at hunting than a Ranger. There are some other archetypes that have hunter in their name but they are usually niche specific hunters of things like bounty hunters and yokai hunter which are clearly different. At the end of the day, I would say it is worse than bloodrager but it does describe the class to some degree and has not been taken.

Terrible

The rest: In my opinion there is no worse name than one already chosen. It makes things incredibly confusing for new players and even experienced ones. It makes the game seem more complicated than it really is, and it makes the game play worse. People will get confused between the different classes and archetypes with the same name during play and outside of play. At the end of that day (an expression I am too fond of) I feel like names are just that: names. Their most important function is to label different options so people do not get confused. In the game world, classes I feel are always more nebulous. Everybody has classes but in character you do not walk up and say: "Hello I am temeryn the level 4 Barbarian." Class names are meant there for players to help distinguish the different options. If I am an urban ranger with the correct skill choices and that is my job, I could be an investigator for the city. The group, The Rangers of Awesome Forest probably has a druid or some other class that is a ranger but is not the class ranger. Class names are still important but it is mostly out of character. That being true, the rest of the names are bad because they already exist as archetypes. The savage skald has a slightly different name but it is still incredibly confusing because I would say the new skald is more savage. Swashbuckler is a great name for the new class but it already exists and so will be incredibly confusing to players. If I am picking my character and a friend says "swashbuckler" it could mean a rogue or this new class which fills a completely different role. The same problem with investigator. Brawler I feel is a little better because it at least does the same thing. While the druid archetypes do not say only shaman, but instead have an animal beforehand, it is actually as bad as the above examples because a bird shaman seems to be a legitimate archetype idea for the ACG shaman which will make it even more confusing because the player will think it is an archetype of shaman.

Does anyone else agree about the names?

I don't know if this is in the right section, but I have long thought that alternate classes are really cool because they provide an easy way to allow players to create their character concepts without creating an entirely new base class. I have heard that there will be some alternate classes in the APG, but I have not seen anything asking about it.

So I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread where we can gather together different ideas for alternate classes.

So here it goes:

I like the idea of a skuld alternative to bard that sacrifices spellcasting for more combat abilities.

I was also thinking of a herald alternative to bard that borrows a little from cavalier and has better armor proficiencies. (I don't know what to take away though)

I think there should be a new version of battle sorcerer too.

Maybe a rogue variant with no sneak attack to represent nobles or spies.

Elemental wizards instead of normal school based ones.

So, what alternate classes would you want in the APG?

I was thinking that it would be cooler and more useful as a secondary ability to allow a summoner to use his/her summoner SLA as a standard action to summon a creature for one round only.

This way, the ability could be differentiated from the summon spells a summoner can choose.

Also it reminds me of Final Fantasy which I love.

Also it allows the summoner to have its own unique flavorful way of having a standard action attack, but it has more applications than most other classes have.

Also, this reduces creature clutter unless the summoner sus one of its own spell slots, in which case thats fine, because any caster could ahve done it.

So thoughts?

I feel like multiclassing, especially with caster classes is usually extremely detrimental to te power of a character, but this is fine, and many times, there is a prestige class like mystic theurge or eldritch knight to minimize this.

However, some classes cast in the exact same ways and in the world, it would make sense for a character to switch between them. For example, a ranger that decides to focus more on the natural world and less upon hunting will start as a ranger and then take the druid class later.

I have not really created coherent feats or anything. I just wanted to see waht people thought about this idea but so far this is what I have:

All feats enhance the effective spellcasting level of the fastest spell progressing class. The spells known and spells per day are for this class and do not include special spells of the slower progressing class.

Ranger+Druid
Prerequisites: one level of Ranger and Druid
add (1/4) of the ranger's level (rounded down) for the purpose of determining the druid's effective level to cast spells. Spells are no longer obtained from the ranger class itself

Paladin+Cleric (though now paladins use charisma so maybe oracle)
Prerequisites: one level of Paladin and Cleric (Oracle?)
add (1/4) of the paladin's level (rounded down) for the purpose of determining the cleric's effective level to cast spells. Spells are no longer obtained from the paladin class itself

Bard+Sorcerer (Song Mage as a name perhaps)
Prerequisites: one level of Bard and Sorcerer
add (1/2) of the bard's level (rounded up) for the purpose of determining the sorcerer's effective level to cast spells. Spells are no longer obtained from the bard class itself

So what does everybody think?

I was thinking that some form of this idea should be included in the APG as either an alternative rule or as feats. i am not exactly sure how much each class should give as spell progression.

Alright, more fights and then my final analysis:

So we had finished the Glassworks in one fell swoop. We rescued Ameiko and then checked down the hallway. Sinspawn are the weakest CR 2 monsters I've ever seen with their lacklustre AC and to-hit, so the GM increased their numbers, but we still wiped the floor with the first pair even though I only had one bomb left and saved it. Then the vargouille kissed me and I nearly died but the Barbarian killed it in one hit (we pooled money for a Remove Disease before I turned).

We went across the wooden platform and got jumped by four Sinspawn, who managed to grapple me and beat the crap out of me before I could do anything. We rested and recovered spells and infusions and bombs.

Koruvus fight: I tossed a bomb at him despite being Sickened by his acid breath. Then the Barbarian tore him apart afetr beign knocked to 4 health. I asked for the +1 Longsword, but they later sold it for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds.

Erylium Fight: This fight, as I've heard, is nearly unwinnable. Erylium didn't hurt us too much (the Barbarian was the only one to drop), but we had to leave because we couldn't hit her...well I was the only one who could hit her, but apparently now Quasits resist both Fire and Acid and are immune to Poison, so all my thrown weapons were useless. So we left.

So not much goodness for me this time around. Perhaps it will improve at Thistletop, especially since I was then level 2 and gor mutagens. The Barbarian led us to the thistly overgrown warrens, where the Monk fell into the Bunyip hole, but I knew I couldn't contribute to this fight based on the logistics, so I did nothing. The Barbarian jumped in and killed the thing himself in two rounds.

We then encountered the Druid--Alchemist's good Ref saves and my high Dex got me out of the Entangle very easily (no failures!), and my readied actions to throw splash damage were our main damage source against the Druid, since he kept popping in and out to Produce Flame at us (the Barbarian beat the animal companion and dropped before anyone else could even leave the Entangled area, and the Sorcerer dropped from the 1 damage per round to everyone's amusement but his own). Then the Monk guessed which square the Druid was going to pop out of and grappled him. We questioned him and tied him up, but he escaped using Wildshape (which he had thanks to being leveled up for the additional characters).

We triggered the bridge trap, but the Barbarian had already crossed. I fell in the water and got KOed by the guards from the towers, and the currents carried me up against the rocks at the base of Thistletop. The Barbarian fought off four goblins and four goblin dogs by himself, then dropped a rope down for the Monk, who created a hiding spot outside the stockade and camped overnight. The ragged remnants of the rest of the team (with me unconscious) escaped to Sandpoint and returned the next day.

The Monk let us in and killed the sleeping pickle thief guards after climbing up the western tower, unlocking the frotn door. The Cleric used Obscuring Mist to stealth our entrance, and we immediately went downstairs to the next floor. We wound up immediately choosing the path to Lyrie, and I stuck her to the ground with an awesome roll on a Tanglefoot Bag. She basically had to surrender at this point, rather than run downstairs. We went down, and the Barbarian dodged the trap. Then we fought Tsuto, Nualia, and the dog. Everyone made the dog's save on the howl, and the Barbarian started the fight with a nearly 30 damage crit on Nualia, which was nice. The trouble was that most of us were level 2 due to skipping so much stuff (except the Barbarian). I could have dropped Tsuto and hurt Nualia quite a bit with my Alchemist's Fire, but I would have needed to splash to two party members, and as I told the GM I was doing that, the actual players threw a coup and literally threatened to beat my character to death if I did that, so I threw a sword that missed. Then Nualia's AoE Negative Energy dropped me. The GM had her use Selective Channeling to avoid hitting unconscious PCs (the better to keep them for ritual sacrifice), which gave those who dropped a sporting chance to live, but I bled to death (being a high-Int high-Dex Elf, I had little room left for a high Con). Nualia's AoE dropped the Sorcerer too, and the Monk pretty quickly. The Cleric eventually dropped, and the Barbarian beat Tsuto and Nualia essentially by himself, causing the Yeth Hound to unsummon.

Next post will be my general observations and thoughts based on all of this.

I feel like mutagens right now are underwhelming and not that interesting. Each alchemist should have their own different weird forms. I personally, would like a stronger focus on mutagens, but regardless, i feel using evolutions to create a monster form is a good idea. it creates customability and at no cost of page count because there already in the book. At this point, there is no reason not to, and it creates a better justification for the large amount of spacer that the evolution system for the eidolon takes up. Sort of like how the sorcerer was created as an attempt to justify the wizard's use of a large percentage of the PH, except i think that using a similar system would be a good choice even if there was not already one created in the book.

I was thinking about different characters I could make with the summoner class, and I felt like the summon monster SLA just gets in the way and shoehorns the class into be a summon spammer. i think the clas should keep the high level summon spells on their spell list, but at least they do not have to be like that. i think that the SLA was put in after the name was chosen to reinforce it, but if it were removed, the class could have a wider array of options. Then, to balance the loss, I would give the summoner the ability to gain some of the evolutions of their pet without taking the evolutions away and I would give it at the beginning and have it scale much faster. However,t hen summoner no longer fits perfectly as a class name and i am at a loss at what it should be. However, I think it is a good idea because the class can still be a summoner if it wants to with summon X spells obtained faster soemtimes than full casters.

I don't know, this to me seems more like what i thought the class was going to before the playtest; a little more generic.

i wasn't sure where to put this because this isn't really a playtest.

Based on my understanding of what the alchemist is supposed to be, they have forms and stuff from using their magic potions or something.

I was thinking that maybe the alchemists will also use evolution poitns to make their forms but will be able to switch between several different forms each day.

It would also explain the term "evolution", which while okay to me, seems a little weirder then something more generic like ability points or something.

Maybe i am just hallucinating.

Thoughts?

I am a little concerned about the summoning ability given to the summoner. It makes sense that they are the best at summoning, but the minute/level summoning just seems really powerful.

Part of this is probably due to playstyle, but my group never really rests in dungeons and at mid-levels, before summoning becomes weaker a 9 minute summon can be abused if the party prepares.

Imagine that the party knows it is about to enter a dangerous room. The summoner can cast summon monster X the max # of times and at lower levels when they're powerful, they will last for all if not most of the fight.

Having said that, the class is a summoner, so I was thinking that the summoner should be toned down at lower levels to compensate for the more powerful summoning abilities (normally balanced by extremely low durations) that weaken at higher levels.

I was about to go to sleep when i thought of a really cool idea to save time with iterative attacks.

Instead of attacking multiple times, a player will role a d20 once. If the player hits than that is one hit; it it hits by 5 or more, than the player gets a second attack; if it hits by 10 or more, than the player gets another attack, etc. After calculating how many hits the player gets, he/she just roles all of the attacks at the same time and then subtracts Damage Reduction. For example if a fighter with a rapier and 14 strength hits by 5 or more, the player would role 2d6 and then add 4.

If a player roles a critical, the player gets to role a second d20 to add to the first. Then, the player can obtain large quantities of attacks that makes up for the fact that there are no critical hits. For example if I role an 20 with a long sword, I then role another d20 and get 10. i then add up my attack bonus which is 6. My total role is36. if the enemies AC is 20, i get 3 attacks.

I don't know if this makes abny sense, but i thought it was an interesting idea.

Thoughts?

I am one of those people that believes the spells should be consumed by bardic music. But I imagine this occurring in different ways. One would be to eliminate spells and expand bardic music into awesome and varying abilities. I like this option the best, because it could lead to the bard becoming the master of buffs, giving him a real focus where he/she will shine. Another would be two adapt bard spells and bardic music into a special spell system like in the Book of Eldritch Might by Monte Cook. This is interesting but I think could lead to a great class but it needs to be done well or it will be just like the bard being a full caster.

For the actual implementation of Bardic Music, whether it is changed like I have outlined above or not, I would strongly recommend some sort of change. All bardic music should require skill in a type of perform, but a bard should automatically gain ranks in two perform skills at each level. if the player wishes to be able to use more than two different types of perform, the player can do so. A bard should be able to activate a song as a move action and it should last for two rounds after the bard stops performing. This could be interesting, because if bardic music is focused upon and spells removed, then bards will almost always be singing and fighting at the same time, thereby making it more fun for players. To allow players to spend more time buffing, the player can perform can continue performing two songs at once if he/she is using 2 different perform types that can be used simultaneously. A bard also can only have 2 songs affecting each person. Therefore, if the bard only has songs and no spells, the bard ahs to ecide if he/she wants to spends ome bardic music uses to sing again but only for the casters to give them a bonus to overcome SR, but the bard cannot just sing as much as possible and sing each song with no strategy involved, because only 2 songs can affect each person at once.

I just made this up on the spot and wrote this quickly, so does anyone have nay thoughts on this complicated and probably not well thought out idea?

There are many threads discussing whether casters overpower fighting characters past a certain level. I believe that they do, but casters are weaker at lower levels and some of the abilities given to them in Pathfinder help account for this.

I am going to suggest my thoughts on how to do this and people can discuss whether my idea is good or how to change it. People can slso post their thoughts about how to do this here as well. That way, we can get all of the ideas in one place and hopefully agree on something that could be implemented in the final version of pathfinder.

If you do not believe casters are too powerful at high levels, please do not post your arguments here.

Alright, well my idea is to increase the spells per day or memorized by 1 for all spells, accept for at level 7, where the level 4 spells will not gain this bonus. However, casters will not be able to gain extra spells through their high casting stats. This way, at lower levels, where stats are lower, the caster will not be hit as hard by this weakening, but at higher levels, when spells are plentiful anyway, casters do not gain as many spells that they can use each day.

I was thinking that maybe spells should be changed so that spellcasting classes do not get bonus spells from their respective mental stats. This will help balance spellcasters at higher levels when their primary stats reach gigantic numbers and it could hep reduce book keeping at later levels. Also, it has less of a negative impact on the classes at low levels because their stats are lower. However, due to the relative weakness of casters at low level anyway, maybe they should add an extra spell per day/memorized for first and 2nd level spells.

This change can also help make other stats more important for spellcasters, thereby encouraging a more balanced stat decision for a player with a spellcaster.

What are everybody's thoughts on this idea?