TheSageOfHours's page

It works differently than other full classes, so I wonder how the archetype will work. The animist is really cool, and incorporating it as an archetype could make some really interesting characters. Anyone have any ideas?

I do hope that there are options for how a dragonblooded looks, considering it is a versatile heritage it would be kinda boring if it just totally overrides the original ancestry. Maybe a lineage feat that can do that, like it makes you look really dragon-y like the picture and you get claws and a bite or something.

Obviously aesthetics are easy to handwave but still

Very excited regardless, one of my friends loves dragonborn so this is an important step in bringing him over to PF haha

Maybe commander could have different subclasses with different KAS?

like the CHA one is more fightery, and the INT/WIS one would be more skill monkey or something

I remember now it was a post from Michael Sayre about the Rune Knight idea.

Arachnofiend you are probably right about this being pure martial considering the theme of the book, but I am placing this hail-mary bet just incase I am right haha

I also hope commander can be INT or CHA like you do.

Figured I would start a thread for guessing at what the new classes will do. I remember one of the devs mentioning in a thread awhile back wanting to make a defensive arcane gish, so I am betting that is what the guardian is, I will have to see if I can find that post.

I am so happy that epithets are becoming more important!

I will say that my excitement has been kinda gutted if thunderstrike is indeed new shocking grasp, Magus is my favorite class and that would just be a pointless kick in the teeth for no reason. Also I was excited for the thematic wizard schools but it seems like wizards are getting bizarrely nerfed unless there is something they are not showing.

Rfkannen wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

How high is the rage damage for elemental barbarian?

instinct ability raises it from two to four. Specialization turns it from 4 to six.

So tops out at 12?

Lower than dragon and giant instinct. We'll see what else it does, but that is usually not great.

It does not do much sadly. It gives impulses the rage trait for you, but you are still stuck with having to get them from the archetype, so they will be pretty weak and only worth using for utility rather than damage which limits the useful options alot. It does not just give you the dedication for free like the caster rogue does either.

Only has 2 feats, one gives you an extra damage type and the other gives you a once per rage AOE damage effect. These are level 2 and 6 respectively.

I am going to make a few builds with it to see if there is some potential in the archetype feats for Barb but it is very disappointing. It feels unfinished.

It feels weird that my posts about this book have only been complaining about elemental barb, I love everything else in the book, this is just a strange standout disappointment compared to the hype of everything else

working with kineticist archetype is super nice and makes me happy but one of the cool things about barbs for me is the BIG STUFF feats, like giant can become big and dragon gets a supercharged dragon form. Elemental doesnt get anything like that. still very much gonna play it, but I wish it got some of its own flavor.

I forget about superstition because its... you know...

elemental barbarian instinct feels sorta unfinished

the actual chassis is fine and it gives any impulses you happen to have the rage trait. But it only has 2 feats, one of which is just extra damage types and the other is a once per rage AOE thing. feels like a page is missing

I find myself in the "medium armor does not have a niche and should have one" camp.

its like this, A fighter has access to all three armor types, and there are reasons for a fighter to choose heavy (STR builds) and reasons to choose light (DEX builds) but never a reason to have medium outside of a transitional period until you have the stats for one of the other ones. Some have said that is its niche and I find that argument baffling. Medium Armor is an entire class of armor that is presented as equal to the others. It is not the simple weapons to martial weapons, nor is it some form of training wheels. It should have something that makes it actually special and worth taking on its own merits.

Hmm, I'm not sure about an entire subclass dedicated to lore is the right move, I feel like that is cutting out something from the class identity to make a subclass out of. Subclasses are weird, we dont want to cut too much out of the core class but we also dont want to end up like poor cleric

I would think Skald could have a class feature that maybe gives them the ability to let them use CHA for society or something, I am not sure exactly how to get it to work yet, but I think all Skalds should have it, since they are not just performers, the songs they know and learn are generally going to be old folktales and epic poetry, that is their specific niche in terms of performance topic, so they should know stuff, but it would come from the stories they know. They do not know that a red dragon has fire breath because they read a bestiary, they know because there is a red dragon in the old songs,

(maybe something like dubious knowledge? Where some things would be accurate and some things would not?)

Its hard to find something that would not step on the toes of say, Thaumaturge, but I do strongly think Skald should have a lore thing as part of their features (or maybe a feat chain)

I personally think they should not be pick a list, I think as they are bardic, they should be occult casters (occult is supposed to be about the power of story or narrative or something, it is definitely the most nebulous list), though I think if it was pick a list it should be limited to occult or primal, as I feel primal fits. I could see them having their equivalent of studious spells maybe being from other lists based on subclass but that might not be something that should be done in this system

I super agree on STR/CHA

also the little scripted example was cool, I need to use that

So I am gonna post most of the ideas I had, they are not coherent yet, but I want to share them and also prove that there is enough in this idea to more than justify a whole class
Firstly I think skald could potentially be a dual-subclass thing, like psychic. First subclass could be about their chosen kind of mythic thing or epic poem, like other users have said, the second would be fighting style, because this is a gish class and there needs to be something to support various fighting styles lest skalds all end up fighting the same way. They should have martial weapon proficiency progression like a magus of course, but like the magus, when you have a class that is meant to attack and cast, you need something to help even out the action economy (though the focus should be on Ragesong of course)
So fighting styles I feel should be supported
Weapon and shield – I feel like this is needed because it is cool and also action economy intensive, also the fighting style used by any historical skalds who were also fighters.

Dual wielding – skald Iconic dual wields and its cool,

Two-handed weapon – not as compelling as others in terms of skaldiness, but I think it should be supported

Unarmed – this could be a sort of dance based fighting style maybe? I know some cultures have dances associated with warriors, though tapping into that might be culturally insensitive, I am not sure.

Guns – mostly joking here but like, what if you went full Tchaikovsky here though? Full on gunshots as notes

Ranged/instrument and weapon (I have some ideas here that might be too much for a subclass)
So for this last one its weird but here me out I need to explain it. I was trying to think of a skaldic equivalent of the staff magus, and I think I have something here. You could choose an instrument and it could work like a staff for you, so you can give it extra spells or something, making this a more castery subclass. The instrument would be able to be wielded in one or two hands, like a magus staff but instead of melee it does a special ranged attack of musical magic. One action version would just be a strike, but maybe a two action version could be like a cone shaped thing with cantrip damage. And holding it in two hands would increase the damage. (strike damage would stay in line with normal ranged weapons). So like you could have a Skald with a sword in one hand and a warhorn in the other, which they use to blast people. Or like the other inspiration for this idea: Lang Wu Yao from Thunderbolt Fantasy. This subclass idea could potentially be a normal bard thing, but I feel turning your weapon into a weapon itself would fit the skald better,
Maybe there could be a feat for this subclass that lets you smack people in melee with your instrument.

In terms of the magic part, there are so many cool things we could have as subclass focuses, though i am conflicted over how specific they should be, as I feel the “poet of war” flavor should be a throughline,
Epic of Heroes – I have some ideas for this one that I will talk about after finishing the list, but it revolves around giving your party members epithets like a character in the illiad or many other epic poems
Epic of beasts – pretty straightforward, ragesong gives animal themed abilities
Epic of Dragons – others mentioned this one

Ok so Epic of Heroes: there is a 3rd party campaign for D&D 5e called Odyssey of the Dragonlords, it was themed around ancient Greece, and it had a bard subclass called the Epic Poetry Bard where you could give your party members epithets that gave them powers. I want to take that core idea and give it to the skald, as I feel its focus works well as a skald thing. You could have a list of epithets (keen-eyed, swift-footed, etc.) that you could assign to your party members, either at daily preparation or maybe longer, as I feel like they should be semi-permanent. While Ragesong is active, party members (possibly incuding you? I don’t thing the skald should miss out too much on the ability to fight well) gain the benefit of their epithet in addition to whatever the normal ragesong bonuses are, and since it is something that you need to prepare and cannot change on a whim, they can have a bit more oomph.

I think it would be cool if they had an “Oral History” feature that lets them use CHA instead of INT for certain knowledge skills, maybe society and lore skills? A special lore skill like Thaumaturge would probably make more sense. Maybe with a ribbon feature that makes the good and remembering spoken words or something. I feel this plays well into the class thematically. They need to be good at remembering stories but not have to invest into int since they are already MAD.
I think there could be a lot of cool ragesong ablities
Other random thoughts
definitely spontaneous caster, CHA obviously
I am perplexed over the power distribution of ragesong, I feel like it should give the Skald itself a good enough buff to be a decent martial, not as big damage as magus or fighter, but enough where they do in fact feel like a fighter and not just a bard with weapon proficiencies. Not a frontrunner, but able to hold their own on the front line if they end up in a situation where they are the main martial on the field
I also do really like it as a bard/barbarian class and I hope the barbarian part would not be gutted the thing that drew me towards wanting it was the cool idea having a magical support barbarian

I also have concerns over all the bonuses that would get thrown around and making sure they don’t end up in a situation where the Skalds abilities don’t do anything because everyone already has status bonuses to everything

What do people think about primary stat? just STR? STR/DEX? STR/CHA?

I know these ideas are all over the place but here they are.

also sorry for essay post lmao, very excited about this topic

sorry for double post, I will post other ideas I had when i get the chance, life is sorta throwing everything at me all at once

Just gonna pop in here to say I am glad some other folks are interested in the Skald returning in some form in P2E, I never got to play first edition so I never got to play one, but I would love love love to see a second eidtion version.

I have created a janky as hell skald build that has not yet seen any testing, it misses out on actual spellcasting, but it has some of the flavor. Essentially build a Barbarian with the Folklorist and marshal archetypes (focusing on folklorist), the buffs you give out with folklorist can be used while raging so it will not get in the way.

really hope we get a real skald though. I think it would fit in very well as a bounded/wave caster. Have been putting some thought into what the mechanics might be but I do not have anything definitive, thinking about basing it off magus as the closest thing, but putting more emphasis on the "arcane cascade" type feature that would be their rage that they share, with the "spellstrike" equivalent being more of a simple action saver that does not allow attack roll spells. If my brain cooperates I might be able to develop something out of it.
I want a proper full class, but I could settle for class archetype,

I already want to play a samsaran, they seem so awesome

"a new magus hybrid study that lets you leap weightlessly through the air with your cultivated magic, before your sword strikes home."

AAHVOUAVHVOUDBAVIHDBVOUNEVLINEIBILA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH

TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS for the Metal Kineticist. There doesn't need to be a lot of them but I'd like to see at least 1 or two things grounded in Golarion-based tech (Firearms, Gears, Mechanics, etc) and another few for more exotic Metal from the stars and interesting ways to interface with said Sky/Star-Metal.

Bah, who am I kidding, I hope they somehow find an extra 20 pages to cram in a whole section on Numeria in general into it.

I really want a kineticist with metal and fire to be able to attack by like, spontaneously generating and firing a little cannon. I think that would be cool.

And metal users should totally have feats to use different types of metal.

TheSageOfHours wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I’m definitely crossing my fingers for the ability to be a cold or lightning Kineticist from level 1. Not having that would be really disappointing.

Acid would be the cherry on top, both those two really feel essential.

Acid would be super cool, I am thinking it might be the hybrid for metal and earth. I really hope the hybrid elements are available at level 1

Very exited to see what they all are!

Acid excites me because of the prospect of reflavoring it on something like a Nagaji or Vishkanya. Imagine a Kineticist whose "element" is their own corrosive venom... it's so cool!

Oh thats a great idea! Gonna write that down for later.

I’m definitely crossing my fingers for the ability to be a cold or lightning Kineticist from level 1. Not having that would be really disappointing.

Acid would be the cherry on top, both those two really feel essential.

Acid would be super cool, I am thinking it might be the hybrid for metal and earth. I really hope the hybrid elements are available at level 1

Very exited to see what they all are!

As a small, pointless addendum to my previous post, I hope the Elemental barbarian has some persistent AOE damage abilities, I am so close to being able to liberate a favorite character from 5e and port him over.

I have a few things, mostly though I am excited for what we KNOW we are going to get, like new geniekin ancestries, kineticist, barb and druid content etc

But here we go:

I really hope that metal elemental stuff isn't just some weird element like poison, I want metal to be metal, personally I hope its not necessarily rusty metal. Those things are cool, and I want them, but I want support for normal metal with physical damage types to be the base. (maybe poison/rust stuff could be combination of metal and water or metal and air?).

Enough support for ice and lightning to build kineticists to build solely around those, same for other (likely) hybrid elements, but those two especially.

I am hoping the elemental barbarian lets you focus on a single element (same thing about cold and lightning here, will be big sad if I cannot build lightning barbarian, its cliché, but its fun).

I hope the cool stuff from the playtest makes it through, in my head I am largely thinking of the fire as jet boost flight feat for fire kineticist, It was not super amazing or anything, I just like it. I am still mourning Magus' original capture spell and thaumaturge's magic circle feat.

Kinda weirded out for my own hopes since they read mostly as concerns, but its because I am so so excited for this book, I think kineticist is really going to be great for the game, both on its own and I think its archetype will work well to make elementally themed builds (I have a ifrit samurai who needs kineticist archetype so badly)

in terms of things that have not been discussed, this is too specific to be likely, but I think it would be cool if metal kineticists had a feat tree about forming a metal shell/armor/metal skin type deal, with higher level feats giving different materials, like it would be so cool to just suddenly turn into an adamantine person (think Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist)

I am in a similar boat to others here in that I worry electricity and cold will not receive enough support. They are (as far as I can tell without any real evidence lol) incredibly popular elements/themes, so they both seem like obvious picks, but that almost makes me more worried because every time I feel like something is guaranteed to happen it never does lol.

However I am more worried about cold/electricity and other hybrid elements when it comes to the elemental barbarian instinct, as just an instinct, I worry there will not be much there. I really want to make an electricity barbarian that is not tied to dragons, and I think it would be cool to have barbs with all the other hybrid elements as well.

My pet theory for poison and acid is that they will be hybrids, so like metal on its own would deal b/p/s but hybridized with like earth or something you get acid

I would expect that that the status bonus to damage would still apply to the spell damage from Spellstrike.

As long as the spell is cast from your spell slots as is required for Anger Fervor.

Thanks! :D

Time for more weird Magus builds

Hey everyone, I was wondering if the bonus damage from the Anger emotional state is still added for a spellstrike.

Thanks :)

"DO NOT CITE THE DEEP MAGIC TO ME, WITCH. I WAS THERE WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN"

A weapon draw archetype for my Iado fantasies, to incentivize weapon switch and draw slashing.

Same here, I want a weapon draw archetype so badly

I should probably clarify that the example I gave where I had a ton of buffs on my character from pre-casting was a very specific situation, pretty much the goldilocks scenario for self buffing, where we knew the boss was there, that we would be jumping in to fight it with no pre-fight talking or shenanigans, and that stealth did not matter. I should have been more clear about that.

Most of the time you will not have something like that, and will not be able to pre-cast, but casting a self buff on your first turn is still powerful and useful, and weird combat situations can give you opportunities to cast more. I do still think self buffing is super worth it though, even if you are only considering just one or two spells in early combat, at least for magus.

There are a small number of spells that last longer, 2nd level longstrider lasts 8 hours, and that extra 10 movement can be very useful.

This has become a bit of a ramble, oops.

I have been playing a Magus and have found that in at least my experience (which is rather limited compared to most of the people on this forum to be fair) self-buffing has been immensely useful, but something you need to be very smart about.

Most buffs do not last more than a minute, so in most fights you will have time to cast like one impactful buff in the first round. The important thing is having good scouting and planning so that your party can create situations where, for example, you KNOW that the boss is in the next room and you are clear to go fight them. Then you can quickly cast a bunch of things on yourself and really go at it. I feel the Magus is especially well suited to self-buffing, as it has the martial proficiencies needed to actually fight in direct combat while being enough of a caster that they can use buff spells that specifically target themselves that a normal caster could not grant to an ally. (I actually feel self-buffing is an underappreciated and very significant aspect of how the Magus is supposed to function but I don't post very often so won't go on about it)

you can also get some buffs from non spell sources like the soulforger archetype.

But for example, self buffing can let you go into a bossfight with a huge movement speed increase (which is alot more useful than one might think), Haste, mirror-image, off-brand heroism (from soulforger), and two different sources of extra damage for my weapon from spells (flame wisp and call the lightning).

a fellow caster buffing me could have supplied most of that, but doing it for myself frees them up to either buff other party members or cast other spells, removing a wee bit of "tax" from their turns.

- A Swashbuckler Style that focuses on Ranged Weapons. There are a lot of iconic fictional Swashbuckler-style characters that you can't play because there is no ranged support, like The Green Arrow.

- A Summoner Class Archetype that doesn't have a set Eidolon, but actually actively switches between weaker Eidolons depending on current circumstances.

- A Nature-based Investigator Methodology that leverages the senses of an an animal companion or familiar along with a connection to animals and plants to solve cases.

- A Hybrid Study for Magus that focuses on conjuring weapons.

A magus hybrid study focusing on conjuring weapons would be so great!

What an awesome thread idea!

Everyone has put forth such cool ideas I feel I could easily fill all my wishes twice over and more with just them, but here we go.

I want to just say something like APG2 with options for both core and later classes and also all the classes I want, but I will try to make a couple in the SoM and G&G style.

I couldn't fit bloodrager in here but please paizo.

SAGA OF LEGENDS
Classes: Skald and Medium
This book is about stories and the truth behind stories, about the power of legends to inspire, as well as magic based on stories (I really like the folklorist archetype). There is some DM content with some advice on different kinds of legends and stories adventurers might encounter and how to craft them to enhance the background of your world. Also more DM content about how to show the effects of how their growing fame turns to stories that inspire people and how their fame can spread. How the telephone effect may cause tall tales to grow about the party, with some optional rules about gaining power from the legendary deeds you have accomplished. (A friend of mine got me to read the novel Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and there are alot of interesting ideas in there about gaining actual power from stories, though this would obviously not be on that scale). Think something like manipulating a situation so it in some way resembles a deed from earlier, so if you can convince reality a la the thaumaturge, you get buffs or something.
Skald is an obvious choice for this book (this whole idea is mostly me wanting Skald) and I think medium is relevant because you are literally channeling the heroes and villains of the past,

THE ARTIFACT VAULT
Classes: Runeknight and (INSERT APPROPRIATE CLASS IDEA HERE)
This book is all about magic items, as well as archetypes, spells, systems, and optional rules related to them.
I feel like Runeknight is a good pick because (I want it really bad) it essentially involves temporarily enchanting equipment. There would be a focus in this book on the aspects of the Enchantment school related to actually enchanting things rather than the charm person side of the school.

(INSERT COOL NAME FOR A BOOK ABOUT PLAYER RUN ORGANIZATIONS)
Classes: Warlord and Inquisitor
This one is all about player run organizations, as well as player owned buildings and land. So here you would have rules for running adventuring guilds, mercenary companies, magic schools, churches, as well as some stuff on player run settlements, either home bases (castles, wizard towers, taverns, etc) or stuff like villages and towns. Additional rules would include stuff like the demesne effects from Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers 5e book, which are basically effects that your characters presence has on the land, and possible abilities related to that. An idea for this kind of thing being that land ruled by a sorcerer is effected by the magic of their bloodline, causing a higher than normal percentage of sorcerers (or bloodragers haha) born in the area, all of the ruler's bloodline. lots of fisher king type things, where the ruler has an effect on the place, even for nonmagical classes.
Warlord and Inquisitor are great picks for this because they both are deeply entwined with organizations as an idea.

Also people have been talking about possible Inquisitor renames, and I was thinking "Harbinger" might be a good one. It is not perfectly on point definitionally, but in terms of feel "I AM AN INQUISITOR OF PHARASMA" has a similar energy to "I AM PHARASMA"S HARBINGER" very menacing, goes with the "serves higher purpose" thing. not exactly on point, but I figured I would throw it out there.

One final bonus book idea: TOME OF THE FORBIDDEN.
no classes
This book is something that they would never print because it would probably cause conflict and is too niche to sell well, BUT here it is
A book filled entirely with Rare (super rare?) optional rules, spells, feats, etc, specifically all the sorts of stuff that Paizo has decided to reduce or get rid of to make P2E so wonderfully balanced, or just other stuff they think of, I haven't played 1e or 3.5 so I don't really know. A place for the designers to go crazy without as many limits. SO here we would get stuff like summoning a ton of creatures at once, permanent spells, 11th level spells, things that break the economy like weapon summoning (please give more non rare weapon summoning options). etc etc
I know one of my friends would love this one, he is a crazy DM who tells us to make characters using any option regardless or rarity or lore.

wow this post was way longer than I intended, sorry friends

Gaulin wrote:

Opsylum wrote:

Rude_ wrote:

Hoping necrografts show up in Book of the Dead but maybe we'll see some sort of alchemy or crafting book that has them. I think last time they were introduced in the Black Market 1e book

The Evolutionist seems like an interesting interpretation of the Shifter, hoping something similar winds up in PF2, seems really cool.

I'm not sure how much the ideas in this post contributed to the current Starfinder class, but a little bit before Evolutionist was announced for Starfinder, Michael Sayre posted this in a previous thread about new 2e classes people would like to see.

** spoiler omitted **...

lol I wonder if he knew about evolutionist. That third class he posted, even the examples of what it can do, is almost 100% what the class is about and things it can do.

Legitimately a coincidence and something I probably wouldn't have said publicly had I realized another department was about to drop it, lol!

One of the realities of a new edition, or an edition with very measured growth like Starfinder, is asking "What kind of concepts are actually 1pp class material? What is something that a large enough group of people want to see in the game, that you don't have a clear path to currently?"

It's not surprising that my very talented peers (some of whom I worked closely with for a couple years when I was doing PFS development) would identify the same niches I did. SRM used to say that "fantasy is a language" and it's true; there's a lot of stuff that just exists in the zeitgeist and it's inevitable that people with shared training and experiences will come to similar conclusions.

The Runeknight description sounds absolutely incredible and is at the very top of my most wanted classes now. It could probably be reduced to a magus class archetype, but it has so much more potential as a full class, there are so many cool ideas it could play with. I have not really posted anything on the forums yet but I just had to comment on this because it is so cool.

also here's hoping I didn't mess up the formatting too badly.

It was mentioned in the other thread that Thaumaturge can get a familiar, I hope they can choose objects like a Baba Yaga witch

It would just be super cool to have a skull familiar or whatever

Hey everyone, first thread here.

I was wondering what you fine folks think of how to go about building a laughing shadow magus. I am playing one in a campaign right now, and when I was building him I was originally going for a DEX build, as the subclass seems to encourage it with the extra movement speed boost and the extra damage on flat footed attacks during arcane cascade sorta making up for having less STR. But then when I thought about it I realized that STR just seems better.

A STR build has just as good accuracy, way better damage, a wider selection of weapons, and putting a little bit into DEX and using medium armor lets you keep up AC wise, and all DEX builds get is 5 more feet of movement over STR builds.

Am I missing something? What does everyone think?

(also might not be able to actually respond much in this thread, this is what happens when I decide to start a discussion while on a road trip lol)

The current item usually disappears while they are generating the subscription orders (in fact, it probably disappeared about a week ago, as that is when they were originally going to do this process). You have nothing to worry about until they finish generating the subscription orders and either you didn't get an auth e-mail or something in that e-mail is incorrect.

Thanks! I was panicking a bit haha.

Hello,

I am very excited for the upcoming release for Secrets of Magic, and I was checking my subscriptions page, but SoM is not listed under upcoming shipments or anything, so I am worried that it has somehow been skipped. I saw something in the subscriptions FAQ about a "sidecart" that I need to put things into? I thought if I was subscribed I am automatically charged and sent the books?

Thank you in advance! :D

Hello TheSageOfHours,

I'm sorry about the technical error it looks like your order experienced. The order wasn't canceled, but it did enter a state that prevented it from shipping. I have fixed it up and sent your a confirmation email. Please let us know if you are still interested in receiving it! Thank you!

Hello!

Unfortunately i no longer need the order, i got a copy of the book at a local store

Thank you so much for your help!
Have a wonderful day! :)

Sincerely,
Connor

Charge is gone so it seems the order was cancelled, ah well

Hello!

I ordered the Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide. I noticed that the book was still in my cart after I placed my order which I thought was an error so I took it out in case I ordered anything else (did not want to accidentally order the same thing twice). But now it seems my order history has changed and my order is still listed but it says complete and $0. Please help, I am afraid it got cancelled by removing it from the cart, I had no idea that would happen.

Thank you in advance :)