The-Magic-Sword's page

Woooh! I went ahead and dropped the first review for the player core (it might not be, actually, considering there still isn't one on the page, other people might have also left ones that haven't shown up yet).

I'm kind of excited for this gold thing, I wasn't getting paizo advantage since I didn't have a use for a fourth sub, but now I'll get some discounts out of it.

It also looks like my subs are there... but that they say January First for the sub order, I dropped lost omens sub into my cart and ordered it 'again' to try and reset it before I saw it was a known issue, not sure if that'll work, but I guess it doesn't matter at that point.

This sounds an awful lot like Subscribers now all get our subscriptions exactly two weeks before street date on the same day, if so I applaud this move "Subscriber Day" is going to be so exciting.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

With respect to what you said Tridus, I can understand preferring to play other classes due to the spellbook mechanic, but to me it's on par with tracking a repertoire and signatures-- it's just a list of spells you know, and you just write out what spells you prepped for the day-- you don't have to track what levels you know any given spell at because of how heightening works.

Well the key difference is a repertoire and signatures is one list: it's the list of what I have right now. It's really just a list with an asterisk on some spells.

Wizard has two lists:
1. The list of spells I have prepared right now, which is basically the same as the repertoire.
2. The spellbook list, which is a totally seperate list that at high level gets to be very long.

It's definitely more complex, especially in high level play where it can have 100+ entries, and I'm just not seeing value out of that when we have other classes in the system that work the same way but don't have to do it because the system goes "oh you have all of them, pick what you want for the day."

Quote:

I also don't think the current schools are especially bad-- I listed off a bunch of good focus spells from them, and in the context of the overall build game, there are options to flex focus spells if a school has subclass slotted spells you like. They're pretty similar to your Sorcerer options, with the likes of Elemental Toss and Hand of the Apprentice being pretty comparable, Force Bolt being comparable to either. You can def pick out individual school spells which aren't as good, but that goes for all of the game's subclass selection.

Ars Grammatica, Battle Magic, Gates, Kalistrade, Magical Technologies, Protean Form, and Rooted Wisdom all have decent focus spells from the jump, with Mentalism, Civic Wizardry, and Boundary having phenomenal advanced spell.

I think we just don't agree on how good the schools are, and thats fine. :) There are some good ones for sure, but I also found a lot...

It's genuinely easier for me to parse prepared casting for whatever reason, probably because when I do spontaneous I do have some non-signature spells learned at multiple levels (say, if they only heighten very sporadically) as if they were different spells. For me, it's very intuitive to just go down the list and write a couple of spells for the slots at each level.

As for uncommon, I don't really worry about it, I don't think there's actually all that many tables that are especially restrictive about it and there's always more builds and options in this game to find something for that individual campaign where something you might like to play is restricted. If a player is pushing for something to be available, I think most GMs would want to err on the side of it being available.

I think you're overrelying on vague notions of the possible variety of the slots to try and make your point and managed to read text that said the damage is higher as being lower-- I used fireball as a flush case and pointed out higher damage spells and their relationship to the status bonus as a ratio.

Even if you blend away a bunch of spell slots, you still have lower level spells to cast throughout the day and all of your other build resources. It's not practical to consider it that kind of tradeoff. We're not talking about a scenario where you can't cast See the Unseen, we're discussing a scenario where you have fewer castings of it-- we're not discussing the value of the first casting of it, but rather the latter castings.

I think that's part of where your argument is derailing-- you're severely overestimating the cost in overall versatility to a wizard from both blended slots and using prep in the first place.

I think a big part of it, looking at your discussion of first edition wizards upthread, is that lock and key thinking, where there are problems and spells match to the problems, so spontaneous slots become skeleton keys that take on a gandful of configurations to fit specific problems.

I would say that the dynamic is different, the name of the game is consistent throughput and you have way more ways across your party to solve lock and key problems, and a greater incentive to shift resources to core activities because fights don't need gimmicks and attrition to be hard.

We've both written relevant guides ; )

You might be able to eke out higher performance as a Sorcerer via Explosion of Power optimization (if you're standing right in front of them, you know I was so excited about that feat until I noticed that when I was creating the sorcerer version of my blaster Wizard, it still takes it because there will be times it works out, but damn) or another bleeding edge trick, like I'm certainly not here to tell you Sorcerers are bad.

I'd also note that a lot of people would argue you can still get ahold of multiclass Dangerous Sorcery for the same reason you can largely still pick spells that weren't reprinted, and there are other means of getting status bonus to spell damage (like Runelord's Personal Runewell, although that specific example really badly wants to be supporting other characters as well to be worth the action economy; and Coven Spell which comes from another character.)

But first to understand why it works, we have to talk about spell scaling, if you take a simple example like fireball, which is worth 2d6 per rank of heightening. Take for granted that I'm using the numbers I'm using because the accuracy is identical:

A rank 5 Fireball is 35 damage, in other words, and the same fireball coming from a Sorcerer is 40 damage, if the sorcerer cast fireball in all four 5th rank slots, you gain 20 damage out of that, we'll call this 160 damage over 4 spell slots.

If you have an extra slot from spell blending, that's worth 35 damage by itself, which means the Wizard has the potential to do 175 damage with the same level's worth of resources without a status bonus to spell damage of their own, note that as the damage of the spell increases, this number scales up but the status bonus doesn't-- e.g. Sudden Bolt/Lightning Bolt are both more favorable because they have an even steeper ratio of raw damage relative to 1/level when you add the extra casting.

The Wizard does require more actions to do that damage, but generally, I don't consider being able to spend more rounds flinging top level fireballs to be a flaw, because you don't want cantrip rounds if you can avoid them. The Sorcerer can even things back out by double dipping the status bonus onto their third action spell, like Elemental Toss, if they use it, assuming the Wizard doesn't have that benefit or one like it, but the Wizard has another extra slot for a rank 4 fireball.

As for the logistics of switching spells situationally, the real answer is broadly that the character has enough resources overall that I always have something I want to do, or a way to coordinate to make my plan the right answer, and then use the Falling Stars slot later-- this I think is where lower level spell slots come back in, or simply the mixed array of prepared spells that I have. On my Wizard I was prepping about half AOE and half single target across my top two spell levels, so we're talking about a situation in which I not only prepped falling stars, but don't have my upcast lightning bolt or whatever is scaling-relevant by that point ready to go in another slot for a different AOE arrangement, and also don't want to single target anything, but the creatures are also still strong enough for me to not want to use a lower level slot on them and rely on the level difference with my dc and their lower HP. We also have to assume my staff can't help me, that I'm out of Drain Bonded Item, that I didn't price this into feats.

Some people think good spell prep is about lock and key design, in reality good spell prep is about powerful splashable spells that cover a variety of fairly common situations.

It gets very frictionless vacuum very quickly.

My experience in actual play is that the Spellblender Wizard is especially powerful and that the added flexibility of the spontaneous casting isn't as important unless I focus on spells that may or may not be useful over spells that certainly will be. Giving up some lower level slots just fundamentally isn't that painful compared to the performance delivered via the extra castings on the top two spell ranks.

For me to feel like Spontaneous casting is meaningfully better as described, I would have to be ending up in situations where I'm not casting all my prepareds because they aren't filled with useful spells, or where I'm feeling the sting of needing to spend them in a different way.

Our prepared casters don't underperform the spontaneous casters, and the Wizard specifically hasn't fallen behind any of our optimized Sorcerers.

I def don't think lower level spells are like, actively bad, but spells generally get stronger as you go up in level. Using spells with scaling damage frequently enough in your higher ends slots makes you the party's highest DPR, so extra top 2 level slots are very useful for casters who use those kinds of spells. Many utility spells and debuffs also either get stronger or have an effective replacement for their effect at high level, for example, you can always cast rank 1 fear, but agonizing despair is generally better, or even something Mask of Terror, you're always trying to maximize efficacy into as few actions as possible-- and the exponential curve of gold makes spells like See the Unseen or whatever cheap as scrolls once you're more than two ranks above them, or they're decent fodder for scroll savant.

Depending on what your build is designed to do (and presumably, you're building around what you take here) it's two extra rounds of higher damage, which translates to a much higher average over a number of encounters. This is especially nice since Arcane has all of the best damage-scaling spells on one list, like Lightning Bolt, Sudden Bolt, Force Barrage.

@Trip H. I think my thought process is more that spontaneous is neutral, if you don't spend the slot when X happens because you don't have the right spell, you'll just use it in situation Y later. If you're planning on running down your resources by the end of the day either way, the only remaining question is which expenditure buys more value, which may or may not favor spontaneous.

I learned that playing my Invoker, sometimes my flexible slots would give me an opportunity to do something useful, and then later I'd be thinking "hmm, I was so excited to spend the spell slot but that could have been a soothe in this situation, shouldn't have blown the slot" and it was one of the reasons I switched to Seneschal, unless I'm trying to make a lot of use of spells that simply might not come up, it's similarly effective to just have 'good stuffz' spells prepped and go, and running completely out on these high slot castings is rare either way.

I like to put utility spells in scrolls so that I can just carry the scroll until it comes up then replace it. I've played a spellblending wizard to 18, and recently built an alt-universe version of the same character for a different setting as a sorcerer (partially because he's so bombastic charisma felt more apropo) I'm also currently playing a Seneschal that used to be an Invoker.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

3. Why? The limited number of signatures is a bigger pain in the butt, I like freely heightening the spells I learn.

What are you talking about? How is this hard to see? I'm serious. How is this problem hard to see?

Let me clarify again.

Wizard: 6th level Prepared: Chain Lightning. Slow Heightened, Chain Lightning, with one use of Arcane Bond.

You cast one heightened slow and chain lightning, then maybe use arcane bond for a 3rd.

Sorc: 6th level: Repertoire: Chain Lightning, Phantasmal Orchestra, Truesight, Wall of Force.

I use them in whatever way I wish according to what is needed.

It is this way for all 9 ranks of spells. Then I toss in sig spells with a slow and I can cast slow all day.

Gee, you have two top spell lots. What are you going to put in there? Another group slow? Do you have anything more powerful than a group slow? I can do it all day and keep it in a level 3 slot.

This is another one of those wizard arguments I hear over and over again about Spell Blending and more top slots. You think those top slots mean much? They don't. They won't outperform the spontaneous casting and sig spells.

I blew off my top spell slots doing...I don't know...they're top slots, they must be better. That's a refrain said over and over again which isn't true at all.

Then it just gets worse when the sorc gets Greater Mental Evolution and they're picking five spells a level to use interchangeably.

The extra damage and healing from sorcerous potency has no cost.

Heard this claim a thousand times on these forums and never seen it matter ever because the idea that a higher level slot is better is not at all true. It's still far, far more powerful to use a spell like a slow or great blasting spell than pretend an extra rank 9 slot is better costing you what? All your 3rds is better.

It isn't. Spontaneous casting with sig spells beats prepared all the time with the number of spells you can learn now.

Quote:

Curricula and Bloodlines

...

I don't think you managed to clarify anything here, because there wasn't anything to clarify-- both the Sorcerer and the Wizard will cast the same number of times before spell blending because their casting resources are designed to be the same. Prepping the spells at the beginning of that day doesn't cause you to end up with more casting. I think you're trying to assert the inherit of power of being able to use different spells in the same slot when the opportunity to use them comes up, I'm telling you that while that's cool, it's not a significant advantage because the spell you would have had in the slot has to be less useful, which is priced into your spell prep and the length of your adventuring day.

You can blow a spell slot to solve a problem earlier in the day, the prepped spell will be useful in the situation it was intended to be useful in unless it was a really bad pick by me. You casting Wall of Force in encounter 2 doesn't stop me from launching the Lightning Bolt I prepped in the comparable slot in encounter 4, and you don't get that slot back for encounter 4 by spending them in encounter 2-- unless you prep spells that are unusable the adventure day is a shell game where the combination of problems and solutions are weighted both by circumstances (the importance of having a spell solution to a problem) and luck (the enemy's save where that matters.)

In addition to that, it's further priced into your choice of thesis, when you spell blend, you increase each of your top two spell levels by one slot, which, if you're using 2-3 action spells like Force Barrage, Fireball, Slow, whatever, means two additional rounds of casting in your day. You lose castings of lower level spells to do that, but it matters if we're talking damage spells in particular because of scaling. When we're talking damage spells, being more aggressive with your slots in an encounter means a higher DPR, being more aggressive with your slots means running out faster, so more slots at a higher level means more offensive in the same number of encounters, and spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt have better scaling than 1*rank.

Also, I couldn't actually parse what you were trying to say about 3rd rank spells and 9th rank spells, were you trying to assert that you might as well use low rank spells as high rank ones, or were you trying to say heightening isn't worth it compared to higher level spells in the first place?

Personally, I think the casters are in a really tight pack balance-wise to the point that I think the subclasses compete between the classes more than the classes actually do, but Druid or Psychic is probably the least inspiring to me, they're low slot caster with focus spells, some of which are cool, but eh, anyone can get comparable ones, of the two Psychic has way better flavor packed into the abilities it does have.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Quote:

The Wizard discourse on the forums are the same handful of people it's been since the switchover from first edition. I wouldn't say they've ever successfully established that there's anything wrong with the wizard, and the general trend in paizo forums wizard threads is to gloss over establishing a problem in favor of solutions that suggest there's a consensus about the problems so that the reader inferences it, and that's been going on for years. I think it was only recently that the anti-caster sentiment lost credibility overall.

It has been well-established what's wrong with the wizard, which the Remaster made worse.

I'm not sure what your criteria is for proving. A bunch of people proved the problems with the fighter and rogue in PF1, it took years to have the problems addressed in Pf1. Didn't in anyway mean Paizo wasn't aware of the problem.

I think they're well aware the wizard is not holding up to being the wizard in PF2 given all the changes. I think the biggest reason we don't and won't see much change is lack of consensus on the design team for how to fix it.

I truly believe that the design team intentionally made sure the wizard did not do what it did in PF1 where it was broken beyond belief. They do not want that again.

The wizard isn't unplayable. It's just on weak and boring side. All casters follow a template now and if you can cast a spell with up to Legendary proficiency, then you are playable. If you want an interesting class that can do what a wizard does, but with more interesting class features you pick another caster.

I think that has been pretty clearly proven. The wizard has weak class features with weak focus spells. You can't argue they are most versatile when you're handing a sorc a repertoire with 36 to 45 or more spells they can cast dynamically with 4 slots. The wizard can prepare 27, 36 if not a universalist of limited spell slots based on curriculum that are prepared and once

...

1. They shouldn't, you can get that benefit in a couple of ways if you want it, and then combine it with the other benefits of being a wizard-- and it's like 3 damage per maxed rank at level 5, it's not bad but it's not exactly incredible either, it's a minimal percentage, I wouldn't give up two rounds of spellcasting at top two spell ranks for it, so it certainly doesn't beat out spellblending.

2. Curricula and Bloodlines are really close, it's true some bloodlines can dip other spells lists, but that benefit consumes action economy you could have also just done useful arcane things with-- you have to rate that other spell list's option against the other uses for your action economy.

3. Why? The limited number of signatures is a bigger pain in the butt, I like freely heightening the spells I learn.

4. But like, practically, both casters are going to use a far smaller number of bread and butter spells in nearly every slot, with set consistently useful exploration magic alongside it, the sorcerer isn't really benefitting from that

I wouldn't sell the Wizard the way you're suggesting I might on some kind of versatility argument, I'd sell it on the magical scholar flavor, the arcane list itself, and on the mix of free heightening and spell slot manipulation you get. I've personally never played the wizard as a bat-shark-repellant-character, I played the wizard as a no-compromise blaster and buffer/debuffer who has higher DPR than other casters because I was able to sling more top level spells over the length of our day, and back up my other utility magic with scroll savant. If I wasn't using spell blending I'd be replicating the benefits of spell blending by milling utility magic that doesn't get used into more blasting and buffs/debuffs as the day wears on using spell sub. I'd conduct more research to organize the best way to use it, but nexus is interesting, especially once runelord happened, I like the idea of setting up Personal Runewell as either pre-buff or in a caster heavy team to give multiple people the benefit of sorcerous potency though.

With respect to what you said Tridus, I can understand preferring to play other classes due to the spellbook mechanic, but to me it's on par with tracking a repertoire and signatures-- it's just a list of spells you know, and you just write out what spells you prepped for the day-- you don't have to track what levels you know any given spell at because of how heightening works.

I also don't think the current schools are especially bad-- I listed off a bunch of good focus spells from them, and in the context of the overall build game, there are options to flex focus spells if a school has subclass slotted spells you like. They're pretty similar to your Sorcerer options, with the likes of Elemental Toss and Hand of the Apprentice being pretty comparable, Force Bolt being comparable to either. You can def pick out individual school spells which aren't as good, but that goes for all of the game's subclass selection.

Ars Grammatica, Battle Magic, Gates, Kalistrade, Magical Technologies, Protean Form, and Rooted Wisdom all have decent focus spells from the jump, with Mentalism, Civic Wizardry, and Boundary having phenomenal advanced spell.

Finally, I will point out that "The Wizard is worse than the other classes" is a positive claim, but the "the Wizard isn't bad" would be proving a negative, particularly in such a radically balanced game, I'm trying to argue in good faith along the positive line "the wizard is good" but most of that seems self-evident because I'm not being given much of a reason anything is actually bad-- most of effectiveness for a caster is baked into the number of slots and the base proficiency which they all share, even some of the actual arguments being made aren't committing to that and are staying on the side of 'fine but uninspiring' as a more nebulously subjective proxy for what other people are solving as 'bad.'

_

With respect to what you said Blue Frog, I don't really see that as a problem mostly because either the adventuring day won't be long enough to push your slots to the extent that it matters (especially since you have so many), or if it is, at least one of those encounters is going to feature enemies who dive the backline, and you can always put yourself in a position to soak damage to make sure it gets used-- our wooden doubles always end up expended simply because creatures like to dive blasters and healers.

_

Exequil759, I think the Spellshape option and Familiar Option aren't quite as good (though I have seen the familiar path defended in light of Inscribed One Witch not being all that good), but Staff Nexus is generally considered pretty potent, and it now has what is essentially a major upgrade path through Runelord.

Quote:

The Wizard discourse on the forums are the same handful of people it's been since the switchover from first edition. I wouldn't say they've ever successfully established that there's anything wrong with the wizard, and the general trend in paizo forums wizard threads is to gloss over establishing a problem in favor of solutions that suggest there's a consensus about the problems so that the reader inferences it, and that's been going on for years. I think it was only recently that the anti-caster sentiment lost credibility overall.

It has been well-established what's wrong with the wizard, which the Remaster made worse.

I'm not sure what your criteria is for proving. A bunch of people proved the problems with the fighter and rogue in PF1, it took years to have the problems addressed in Pf1. Didn't in anyway mean Paizo wasn't aware of the problem.

I think they're well aware the wizard is not holding up to being the wizard in PF2 given all the changes. I think the biggest reason we don't and won't see much change is lack of consensus on the design team for how to fix it.

I truly believe that the design team intentionally made sure the wizard did not do what it did in PF1 where it was broken beyond belief. They do not want that again.

The wizard isn't unplayable. It's just on weak and boring side. All casters follow a template now and if you can cast a spell with up to Legendary proficiency, then you are playable. If you want an interesting class that can do what a wizard does, but with more interesting class features you pick another caster.

I think that has been pretty clearly proven. The wizard has weak class features with weak focus spells. You can't argue they are most versatile when you're handing a sorc a repertoire with 36 to 45 or more spells they can cast dynamically with 4 slots. The wizard can prepare 27, 36 if not a universalist of limited spell slots based on curriculum that are prepared and once used, are used up. It's pretty easy to see the problem that the...

Right but this is what I mean, 27 spells vs. 36 spells vs. 45 spells doesn't matter that much because how many spells are we expecting the player to need?

That's a really abstract difference in actual play where most players find a fairly stable rosters of spells they like and change up what they're prepping for the day around the edges based on what situations they think are likely to come up. When the Sorcerer spontaneously makes 3 of their 4 slots on fireball, and the Wizard prepares 3 of those 4 slots to be fireball, it's kind of academic.

The two classes otherwise have very similar class features, with the sorcerer giving away Thesis to get Sorcerous Potency and Blood Magic. You can certainly prefer the trade, but I wouldn't really characterize it as being better.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I still think both the arcane list and the wizard class are in a fairly strong place.

Well I agree with one of those statements. :)

Wizard is just... I mean, I don't see why I'd ever play one? What's the hook? It feels like a Cleric with more work (tracking a spellbook) but not much going on to pay that off. It also feels like there's more interesting focus spells in domains than in schools.

How do you mean? They're an arcane caster who has more castings per spell rank than the cleric does, and those spells don't have to be heal/harm. Clerics can't mill lower end slots for higher end ones with Spell Blending, or swap their preps with Spell Substitution, to name two of them ore unique options. The focus spells are fine, and are more consistently useful than many (but not all) of the domain spells. In my experience the spellbook isn't much of a problem, since gameplay doesn't tend to revolve around radically shifting spell prep day to day, and the number of spells you can easily get in your book via leveling and the occasional scribed spell is plenty.

Is that is why we get so many threads complaining about it? also why did you feel the need to add "fairly" as a caveat?

The Wizard discourse on the forums are the same handful of people it's been since the switchover from first edition. I wouldn't say they've ever successfully established that there's anything wrong with the wizard, and the general trend in paizo forums wizard threads is to gloss over establishing a problem in favor of solutions that suggest there's a consensus about the problems so that the reader inferences it, and that's been going on for years. I think it was only recently that the anti-caster sentiment lost credibility overall.

In this instance the mitigative term 'fairly' suggests that while I think the class is strong, it isn't the strongest class in the game, I'm not sure why you're latching onto an innocuous qualifier that a single class isn't the single-strongest?

I wouldn't say the wizard is in a strong place. I wouldn't say its unplayable either. It's very overshadowed by how well built every other class is now. It doesn't add much to a party when you have so many other classes taking stuff from the wizard while having all their own very goods tuff...

Overall I think that middle of the pack is a pretty good place to be, otherwise we end up in 'why do most of these classes even exist, there will only be a handful of best classes' territory. I think that in comparison to other class benefits the spell manipulation tools that the wizard gets are heavily underrated. Being able to spend 10 rounds on your top two spell levels is huge, to use spellblending as an example.

There's plenty of other build-specific unique tech, like being able to switch onto/off of utility spells when they look like they might be useful in exploration mode or you need more combat magic to make it through more encounters, moving others with the school of gates focus spell, personal runewell for the runelord giving caster heavy parties possibly-pre-buff access to status bonus to damage (something the Witch can do once per round as a reaction for one person.)

They can generate free scrolls per day with a different feat. They have several other good focus spells like Spiral of Horrors, Force Bolt, and Hand of the Apprentice. War Mage now offers an entire backline tank-and-support option that imo is better than the psychic's version of it.

I don't think a Wizard offers less than other classes actually do, especially in the context of the full build game.

I still think both the arcane list and the wizard class are in a fairly strong place.

Heh, my watch continues

To be clear, its completely normal for you to not get it, and will be for a few more days. It won't be weird until the 26th.

I think the discrepancy some people are confused about is between people who think of the gold given as being a more flexible form of the scenario benefit and people who don't.

Some people see it as losing the scenario benefit and think they should get the scenarios and the extra gold as separate promotions, other people like that they can take the promotion that was giving them scenarios and can apply it elsewhere, a few people seem to not care but have strong feelings about not having an auto-updating scenario library (I guess you could just pick up the subscription manually, it doesn't seem like there's a way to automate using the discount on that mentioned though.)

Personally, I'm of the second school, though I'm one subscription short of having had the scenario benefit, we mainly run homebrew content and being able to put the same value toward foundry modules or just defraying my overall costs is more valuable.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

It is one thing that 4e always did well with-- separating flavor text and mechanical text to make it easier to track.

See, I would count this among the worst things about 4e (an edition I liked a lot, actually)- my eyes would glaze over reading 4e spells and I'd have basically no clue about what happens when you cast the spell other than the mechanics. Like "1W + StrMod damage, Target is Pushed 1 square" is clear, but what actually happens?

the 4e spell has the flavor text in italics, so you do know what actually happens.

I am so excited since auth emails should start going out today (shipping isn't for a few more days) and while we know a fair amount about this book, a lot of it still feels mysterious, especially about like, archetypes. I recall the necromancer-ish one, and the personal siege weapon one, but we still don't how either work, or what else is there (if anything.)

I'm also interested in what support for casters the Commander got, how the Guardian actually turned out for realses. Gah, I'm just so thrilled to get my hands on this pdf.

One thing that I will say is that flavor text is inconsistent, sometimes it's pretty clear that a line is followed by a rule telling you what the text is describing. Other times that relationship is not clear. It is one thing that 4e always did well with-- separating flavor text and mechanical text to make it easier to track.

I am so excited for this subscription month, Battlecry and Starfinder is such a huge content drop and the team's been putting out fire lately.

Oh this works really well for me I think. I objectively spend a lot of money but didn't get advantage since I'm only gonna be subbed to 3 lines.

That art is such elegant brutality, I love it (and the colors are extremely nice.)

I hope ya'll aren't going too far away from the jailbreak spellshapes, they were the best part!

The thing is, I wouldn't expect a huge buff for Psychic because i don't think the Remaster actually nerfed them-- the extra focus point thing wasn't really a buff, it was a lubricant to allow for the amp playstyle to function at low levels, which was just buying back the power of their missing spell slot as sustain, whereas I think the power is in the actual subclass mechanics and amps. Now granted, I don't think they'd be busted with a third spell slot per level or something, so we'll see.

I don't know about that exact phrasing of causality, BUT we're stoked to combine the games-- I've set up my setting, people are running around toting ceramic magitech laser cannons, and earthenware tablets that can tether to larger Computational Spell Matrixes to access (much more local) infospheres and while some of the ancestries will still be from beyond the planet of our home setting, we're fantasyifying space and finding homes for many of them right alongside the pathfinder ancestries.

Mechanically I've already got a Soldier running around with a Plasma Cannon and a Jetpack who is super cool, but isn't really outcompeting the likes of our rogue and we're prepared to ad lib magical powers or other ranged attacks wherever necessary to compensate for the flight... which we've already delimited for Pathfinder Ancestries using the provided sidebar.

So long as they didn't mess up the core numbers after the playtest, we're golden.

Really interested in this primarily due to a kingmaker character who was following the Draconic Druid 1e inspiration and we can adapt some of this potentially. Any odds of ensuring this stuff will be added as compendium data for roll20/foundry, even as an addon?

The Foundry PF2e system isn't maintained by Paizo but they also add everything pretty much religiously, so you should be good on that front.

Since the Wizard was already pretty good, I can see why they wouldn't want the runelord to be significantly stronger.

Tactical Drongo wrote:

I think the main problem is that the OP thinks of 'Tanks' in mmo turns and not in tabletop terms

being able to get hit by all the enemies in an encounter standing upright, mitigating damage and forcing them to 'waste' their action on the character while the healer pumps lifepoints into them

I'd disagree that there Is any fundamental difference in concept inbetween a mmo tank and a ttrpg tank.

A tank has to do Two things:
-take aggro
-being able to resist damage After taking up aggro.

How would you define a tank otherwise? Cause every glass cannon can take aggro quite easily

Active Defense, like the assorted champion reactions that give resistance to a struck ally or the amped shield for Tangible Dream Psychic, or penalties like taunt on guardian which might be used for the penalty, rather than to get them to hit you, or even intercept which can be more useful than actually getting hit.

A Tank doesn't actually have to take aggro, a tank has to reduce the incoming damage.

Paizoblog wrote:

… You’ll also be able to earn gold by writing reviews of your purchases, by referring your friends to the new store, by following Paizo on social media, by joining the new program, and on your birthday!

Can’t believe no/one else has pointed out that this seems to follow a trajectory that isn’t dissimilar to that of shonky videogames…virtual gold….inducement to social media…payment for review…payment for recruiting etc…

Also practically every restaurant in central city Philadelphia.

Yay, this schedule is actually pretty darn optimal for me, since sunday doesn't have anything and I make time-and-a-half at work that day, lol.

caribet wrote:

still shipping from USA direct to UK at ultra-high shipping rates? :-(

We want gamers worldwide playing Pathfinder and Starfinder and we understand that shipping costs are a barrier to that. To help address this, we are adding DHL International as a shipping option for the new store, but the final shipping cost is based on a lot of factors.

In some other multiverse, Paizo has conquered this with warehouses or partners in the EU and AU. I see that pocket universe, but we're not there yet. We might never get there, but the new store and backend infrastructure will let us think about how we could get there.

(I was trying to find a clever way to end this with There and Back Again, but I failed.)

-Jim

Speaking of, I'm sure current events are complicating things, weren't Paizo's printers in China?

Paizo Plus sounds much better for my 3 subscription-having wallet.

I wouldn't say the best party is 3 martials and a buff oriented caster because it struggles with high exp + high body count encounters unless the caster double duties into blasting, struggles with incorporeal at low level, and is swingier than other compositions-- it also makes the caster into a bit of a vulnerability, since they'll be the only source of in-combat healing.

Largely I think that the game teaches good play, but mainly via necessity-- you want to raise your rate of hit/crits, you want to increase damage, and you want to forestall loss conditions. All of those are more or less enforced whenever you fight a higher level creature.

- You raise your rate of hit/crit via MAP Avoidance, Additional Strikes, Flanking, Frightening, Inspiring Marshal Stance, Targeting Lower Saves, or sustain spell combos, and as you level, feats because its rather frustrating not to hit and most bosses will have the feeling of a tight race toward the end.

- You increase damage through feats, magic items, and the odd spell, you'll also notice saving throw spells and such are highly consistent.

- Forestalling Loss is obvious, but getting crit by high level creatures will make the utility of champion's reaction, healing, healing boosts, shield block, AC increases, penalties to enemy attack and action denial all intuitively obvious.

From there, it's a matter of using it-- the more often you have to deal with rougher encounters the more chances you have to try different strategies out. Usually what disrupts that process, if anything, is preconception about what constitutes optimal blocking experimentation, or another goal being over-prioritized in such a way that the players need to reconcile it with instrumental play, or the GM should make the encounters easier for the sake of that other goal.

How does the concept of a core rulebook work in the brave new world of Starfinder 2 Electric Skibididoo? Do we use the PF2e player core/etc and plug this book in as an expansion pack to make it spaaaaaaace flavour?

The Starfinder Core coming out this summer includes everything you need to play Starfinder, including all the basic rules, you do not need any Pathfinder books to play Starfinder.

But you can use the Starfinder stuff with your Pathfinder Game, and the reverse because they're compatible, and based off the playtest and some experience, I can tell you that it'll only shift the meta of an existing pathfinder game a bit, if at all.

I would love something along the lines of Secrets of Magic, but with a much bigger emphasis on spells-- specifically I'd like to see more variants on existing spells that fill more existing niches for different themed spell lists.

For example, I love it when I'm reading the Wandering Inn and they bring up "Siege Fireball" or "Blackflame Fireball"

I'd love to see a mixed fire/cold Fireball called Frostfire Ball that's like Divine Immolation, but does the same with fire/cold damage, or uses the lower of the target's reflex/fortitude for the save.

I also wouldn't mind a book that has an enchantment/illusion class that more or less uses the Thrall system but with special mind-affecting illusions instead of undead, now that Wizards don't have to hold up the Enchanter/Illusionist specialist weight-- there's some decent stuff for it in the system now, but I think there's room for a class.

I wouldn't say no to a class archetype for Wildshaping Druids who want to

1. Use an actual Animal for their whole progression, ideally with some mystical flavoring for why these animals are different.
2. Reduce their Spellcasting for better Martial stats.

I could see all this fitting in a new edition of the "Book of Unlimited Magic" if you remove some of the things that were already reprinted from SOM, revise the lore, and possibly treat it as a new print home for Magus/Summoner, kinda how they did Divine Mysteries as a Gods And Magic Remaster+.

So I'm imagining a book with:

- Rewritten lore section to ignore Schools, honestly I'd be tempted to slightly increase the size of the explanation about each tradition, but without fully replacing the page count of the section pertaining to schools, to use it in the rest of the book.
- Magus, Summoner, Mesmerist (PF1e had a class by that name for illusion stuff right?)
- Shifter Class Archetype for Druids replacing the current Elementalist in the Book of Unlimited Magic.
- Synthesist Class Archetype for Summoners replacing the current section on the Runelord Class Archetype.
- Cathartic Magic as is.
- Flexible Prep as is, maybe it needs some feats to further entice players with.
- Geomancer as is.
- Wellspring as is.
- Soulforger as is.
- Ley Lines and True Naming should be replaced with rare archetypes, to streamline their use and make them louder for interested players.
-Pervasive Magic as is? Maybe just cut it for space if it didn't end up taking off as a variant.
- Fill every remaining page with spells, some of which probably need to be from Secrets of Magic, but others could stand to be replaced wholesale.

The real question is what the page count ends up once you start cutting out things more recent than SOM, or content that wasn't super well liked, and what you can do still do with the remaining space if you include a third class in it. I guess pushing it to 320 pages like Divine Mysteries would help. I'd do the theming as a 'full edition' of the Book of Unlimited Magic from canon. I'd be willing to see cuts to the magic item section, but some of it was probably already reprinted in Treasure Vault or something, did staves still need an update? I'm in a rush and can't check.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

The way I see it, Gish Necromancers work in two ways:

1. Standard Caster "If I have a leftover third action I can strike, and feats reward me for that behavior, but the focus of my turn is on something else."

2. Grave Spells that consume Thralls to fuel Grave Spell effects flavored as Death Knight themed melee powers.

That said, I def don't think it should be a huge emphasis unless we have a lot of room to fill up with extra stuff in the book it's in, we have so many gish options in the game right now it's crazy and the animist in particular makes a really good death knight, what with it's Death Grip, Grudge Strike, Apparitions being a form of undead in every way that matters and the whole 'possession for martial skill theming.'

I think the dev is saying they won't be letting go of Legendary Spellcasting in order to beef up Martial Weapon Proficiency (unlike say Warpriest & Magus). With Thralls, their attacks, & Grave Spells being the chassis, I prefer keeping Legendary. But if Paizo's going to entice us with these gish feats, there has to be more synergy & reward. Or, as mentioned, a Necromancer-adjacent Archetype for martials, which IMO would fill the last concept niches.

I'm thinking of the final boss in Return to Castle Wolfenstein for those familiar. That warrior's undead weren't that threatening or durable, but they harassed and needed to be accounted for.

Yeah I think if they do it, it should rely on their spell infrastructure, like consuming a thrall to swing an oversized death magic scythe that only exists in the context of your grave spell and is channeled through a weapon you're holding.

Especially if there's action econ to follow up with a little hit from a thrall, I think it would also suit what you're talking about.

We're due to get a 'summon undead soldiers' archetype in Battlecry that sounded like it was intended for Martials, so that might already be taken care of.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

... we have so many gish options in the game right now it's crazy and the animist in particular makes a really good death knight, what with it's Death Grip, Grudge Strike, Apparitions being a form of undead in every way that matters and the whole 'possession for martial skill theming.'

Don't mean to get too off topic but what is this death grip you are referring to?

Sorry that was unclear, I was referring to Grasping Spirits which always reminds me of an iconic Death Knight Spell from World of Warcraft, where shadowy claws come out and pull an enemy to you, called Death Grip.

The way I see it, Gish Necromancers work in two ways:

1. Standard Caster "If I have a leftover third action I can strike, and feats reward me for that behavior, but the focus of my turn is on something else."

2. Grave Spells that consume Thralls to fuel Grave Spell effects flavored as Death Knight themed melee powers.

That said, I def don't think it should be a huge emphasis unless we have a lot of room to fill up with extra stuff in the book it's in, we have so many gish options in the game right now it's crazy and the animist in particular makes a really good death knight, what with it's Death Grip, Grudge Strike, Apparitions being a form of undead in every way that matters and the whole 'possession for martial skill theming.'

NPC CORE, p19 wrote:

Business Savvy When making monetary deals, the loan shark gets a +8 circumstance bonus to Deception checks, Diplomacy checks, and their Perception DC.

I've never seen a +8 bonus anywhere before. Is this a typo, or should we expect more of this in the future?

Thats probably a mechanic that makes the loan shark better-than-level at its one thing its supposed to be functionally higher level at.

Got tired of waiting. My walls remain incompletely decorated in framed paizo puzzle art.

So I had to take matters into my own hands

Very cool

My watch has ended!

Huzzah!

Has anyone's Watch ended?

Not yet, and no one on reddit either, as of time of writing.

Here's hoping!

First! This is so exciting! The playtest soldier in our group has been a lot of fun to watch.

One thing this reminds me of is how much I love the Mythic Destinies also functioning as Archetypes, even sans the full mythic powerset, it really adds a lot to the game to have level 12 archetypes themed this way and with some cool abilities.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Blave wrote:

The PDF is now available for people who have the pre-master pdf. At least it showed up in my downloads. Be aware that it's not marked as "remaster". Look for a Guns and Gears copy that was last updated on December 4th.

Hmm, I have a non-updated one dated to December 3rd 2024.

Have you downloaded it to check the contents? The name of the book didn't change for me in my downloads, but the content is different when I open and read the PDF.

I had confirmed it to be the old version at time of posting, but happily it appears to be fixed/caught up now with the correct file.

The PDF is now available for people who have the pre-master pdf. At least it showed up in my downloads. Be aware that it's not marked as "remaster". Look for a Guns and Gears copy that was last updated on December 4th.

Hmm, I have a non-updated one dated to December 3rd 2024.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I find it interesting that Pathfinder's essentially following its predecessor's path of not making giants themselves a playable ancestry (Starfinder 1e being a unique exception), but a giant-lite one with weird skin: goliaths have their lithoderms (bony lumps on the skin that when combined with their gray and black skin tones gave them a literally craggy appearance, something that was disappointingly neglected as the editions rolled on to make them more conventionally attractive <_<) and now jotunborn will have their "weavings" with silk literally embroidered into their skin.

I think its that Giants are generally designed in such a way as to emphasize natural power (like other monsters) rather than the ancestry-interchangeable class stuff. E.g. the storm giants are all storm power themed, but a player one could do virtually anything powers-wise, and ancestry feats aren't given a high enough power budget to dominate a build that way generally.

I wouldn't expect us to ever get the Huge giants as playable. Even Large to Tiny is kinda pushing playability.

But you're right, even most of the Large giants can't really fit within the power budget of an Ancestry. You really can't fill the fantasy of being a Frost Giant or a Fire Giant without an appropriate damage immunity, and that doesn't really fly for balanced play. The Construct and Undead options get away with just having better defenses against the stuff they should be immune to, but that might just not work in this case. (My old 3.5 Monster Manual, which has PC stats for a lot of monsters, only includes them Hill and Stone Giants, and even those both have a +4 level adjustments, which is some arcane crap I don't feel like trying to explain, but it means it's hard to make those work as PCs)
Up to now I figured at best we'd get some kind of Half-Giant Heritage, with Lineage Feats related to specific Giant varieties, but opening the possibility of the offspring of a Storm Giant and...

That said, we do already have versatile heritages that would match up for some of the giants-- for example a Stormsoul Sylph Jotunborn, or an Ifrit Jotunborn, a Rimesoul Undine Jotunborn, and so forth. So that's actually in pretty good shape already.

I find it interesting that Pathfinder's essentially following its predecessor's path of not making giants themselves a playable ancestry (Starfinder 1e being a unique exception), but a giant-lite one with weird skin: goliaths have their lithoderms (bony lumps on the skin that when combined with their gray and black skin tones gave them a literally craggy appearance, something that was disappointingly neglected as the editions rolled on to make them more conventionally attractive <_<) and now jotunborn will have their "weavings" with silk literally embroidered into their skin.

I think its that Giants are generally designed in such a way as to emphasize natural power (like other monsters) rather than the ancestry-interchangeable class stuff. E.g. the storm giants are all storm power themed, but a player one could do virtually anything powers-wise, and ancestry feats aren't given a high enough power budget to dominate a build that way generally.