IIRC it was 3 years between the last one and this one, so I would not expect another one this year unless someone else organizes it. They're quite a lot of work.
But if you want a newer AP, check out Spore War. It's great.
Search Posts
But they do allow for narrative context to lower DCs. I can usually find a couple excuses to do that for any given situation. They do, yeah. I also just eliminated the secondary checks entirely and made them auto-success so that -4 if anyone fails never happens. That made a big difference on its own since with 3 secondary casters the odds of one of them failing are extremely high.
Another thought is that Kineticist Impulses are their primary contribution to combat. So having those excluded from Mythic compatibility has more mechanical impact than excluding Oracle Cursebound abilities from it. Oracles can still use Mythic Spellcasting benefits, and their spellcasting is more of a primary contribution, while Cursebound abilities are more of a secondary thing. This is the answer. Oracle has full spellcasting and focus spells, both of which are core system things and thus mythic handles them the same as it does any other class. Cursebound abilities are quite handy, but the fact that "mythic Whispers of Weakness" doesn't exist doesn't really impact the class at all. Kineticist, OTOH, feels like it fundamentally doesn't work in a mythic game because it's core stuff doesn't interact with mythic at all. That makes the class just feel bad in a mythic game because you get so much stuff that doesn't function. Kineticist isn't alone in that, since animal companions, Spellstrike, and maybe Eidolons (not sure about that one) also have problems in terms of working with mythic. But they are the worst about it and the problem is so glaringly obvious that mythic completely ignoring it feels like a massive design flaw. I worry about Runesmith having the same problem, since it tends to happen anytime a class has these bespoke, class specific things that don't work like anything else: other content tends to ignore that it exists.
Something to replace the Ancestry Guide seems somewhat likely since people love ancestries and there's tons of them that could use moving to the remaster (and also having some stuff added). Beyond that I doubt we'll get a "Player Core 3" since the biggest candidates for that are going to be in Impossible Magic. "Lost Omens" books are Golarian books, yes, so this one is one of those. That means some of the info in it is Golarian specific, like the lore and such about each ancestry. But it also had a bunch of new ancestries and their mechanics, and a lot of that stuff is easy to use in any setting. Though I guess a lot of that has appeared in other books now (like Player Core 2) so it may not get an update after all. I've lost track of some of what has been reprinted where over time. Old age comes for us all. ;) "Lost Omens" books are generally lore/setting, but some of them have more mechanical stuff than others. Draconic Codex for example has tons of dragons and you could use a lot of them in any setting without any issue, while others may take a bit of work (but not much). Something like the Mwangi Expanse book has very little mechanics and a TON of lore about that specific area of Golarian, so its not of much interest if you're in your own setting but is a great companion to running an adventure like Strength of Thousands. Tien Xia had two books, and the World Guide one is pretty much all world/setting information, while the Character Guide is more classes/ancestries/etc. Although that stuff is flavored and themed for Tien Xia in Golarian, you could adapt it for any setting. This one has some really fun stuff like Starlit Sentinel (aka: anime magical girl, the archetype), and Butterfly Bender (a ritual where you get information by getting super drunk and all it costs is your dignity).
I mean, if it really only works on "line of effect", Teleportation can't actually teleport you more than a few km because beyond that the curvature of the world kicks in. This is a classic case of overthinking something and that creating a problem. It doesn't need to override anything to work. Teleport says you can go there, so you can. Full stop. The longer the distance, the more likely either side or some part of the way will be blocked by a closed door. Which causes ludicrous results. I mean, this the answer: if applying this kind of logic to the situation causes nonsensical results, then it's probably not intended that you do that. This isn't an errata situation: it's a players need to use common sense situation.
Something to replace the Ancestry Guide seems somewhat likely since people love ancestries and there's tons of them that could use moving to the remaster (and also having some stuff added). Beyond that I doubt we'll get a "Player Core 3" since the biggest candidates for that are going to be in Impossible Magic.
Realized writing this how I habitually do this. Often when a PC lands a Strike due to another PC's buff/debuff, I point that out to the second player. "That's you." It really highlights a Bard's input I've found. (Heh, my arrogant SF Envoy used to claim credit out loud.) Yeah I do this in-person as well, especially on crits. It makes the buffing/debuffing player feel great. Modifiers Matter just automates it as you'll see a green "Courageous Anthem +1" in the result of the attack roll so everyone knows it changed the outcome.
... I don't think anyone is underestimating versatility here. If anything the opposite, time and time again we see "versatile" become just a polite way to call something bad.For all that I keep seeing the whole "versatility is power" thing get repeated, I've mostly found it to be very shallow. What you want isn't some mediocre spread of abilities, it's to be really good at one thing and have a toolbox of always accessible abilities to supplement it when the main thing doesn't work out so you aren't totally useless. It really depends on what you're doing. In a lot of AP situations, you have a good idea pretty quickly of what types of things will come up, and as long as someone (or maybe two people) can do them, you're good. You need enough versatility so that someone in the group can handle any given situation and so that you have a plan B if your plan A doesn't work for some reason in combat. But that gets you through most things, and then you can specialize to become really good at a few things knowing someone else has other things covered. In this case, you only need enough versatility to avoid having no way to contribute to something that someone else can't handle. While more isn't bad, past a certain point it's not worth trading power for. In PFS it's a very different ballgame. You not only don't know from session to session what you're likely to encounter, but you also have no idea what the rest of your team can do. Having a very wide set of options matters a lot here because you may very well be the only one capable of actually doing it. PFS also skews low level where the difference between a generalist and a specialist isn't that big (and where Druid is at its best, relative power wise). Unfortunately I've always found pf2e druid to be kinda mediocre. Wild shape is too weak and action inefficient to be taken seriously, prep casting is weak in this edition, the primal list is missing a lot of good spells and can't even poach back some of the good ones like divine usually can, etc, etc. Aside from the Primal list, I agree at high level. I've seen high level Wild Shape/Untamed druids in play and they just don't keep up that well, and prepared casting isn't great (Cleric at least gets a giant pile of Heal/Harm to go along with it).
This doesn't really address the desire for the iconic "I turn into a bear and smash things" Druid. That's the kind of character you basically can't make in PF2 right now unless you just make a literal awakened Bear as a martial class. But Druid itself isn't up to the task of being a frontline martial, and a weaker version of Untamed Form doesn't address that. This is what drives the desire for Shifter as it can be unshackled from having full spellcasting and the balance tradeoffs that come with that. It'd be great news for full casters who can now get forms to do things like fly/swim/etc while also still being full casters, though. Hell, as a caster I'd shift into something Huge just so that most enemies that want to swallow me can't.
Great point. Hell, one of the most often recommended modules for Foundry PF2 is "Modifiers Matter", the entire point of which is to highlight when a buff or debuff changes the outcome of a roll. That's the polar opposite of hiding it, and it's popular precisely because it points out whenever things like Inspire Courage or Fear make a difference. People like it because it feels lousy never knowing if your support abilities are doing anything (unlike damage, where it's open information since you're the one rolling it).
Except with Gang Up you can use that third action to do something else like Dirty Trick/Demoralize/Battle Medicine/etc because you don't need to work your way around the huge creature to get flank. You get it automatically because the Fighter showed up.
I mean... yeah? Gang Up Rogue is giving everyone else sneak attack all the time as long as they're attacking the same target with no effort.
ORC wasn't ready at the time it went to the printer. That's about it.
It's the same DC as whatever is giving the ability to cast the spell. Since there's no Divine spells in this staff, casting them has to be coming from Wizard and thus would use the Wizard DC. 2. Can he use his cleric slots to prepare/add additional charges to the staff? It's not explicitly stated, but I wouldn't allow it since a Cleric can't prepare or use this staff. If there was one Divine spell in it, then it'd be fine. 3. The staff entry says he must be “able to cast spells of the appropriate rank or higher”. Not an issue for this staff, but if gets the greater one early, say at level 7, he would have access to rank 4 divine spells but only rank 2 arcane spells (via basic spellcasting). Could he cast the rank 3 spells from the staff even though they are arcane/primal but not divine? In this case the caster can't cast the spells in the staff at the appropriate rank, so I wouldn't allow those to work either. The rules don't cover some of these interactions specifically.
Rage of Elements was always a remaster book, so both of them are already remaster.
As for other things, I would greatly appriciate a book that is JUST about going back and giving options to older things. This has to be my biggest pain point player-side. There's a lot of things, especially from earlier on in the system's life, that need more attention. Yeah, this. There's tons of cool things that got released and then nothing since. I don't think Shoony have been reprinted outside Extinction Curse, even.
And you'd want to adjust DCs. Default ritual DCs are high, and when you add secondary casters they get punishingly high. If it's a thing you want players to do, the RAW ritual rules don't work well because failure is the most common outcome.
Moonbeam is the silver-fire damage you are looking for.What is doing " silver fire" damage and how is that separate from the "fire" damage on it? Stuff doesn't do "silver damage" typically: silver is a trait on the attack. Moonbeam is doing fire damage that is also silver, not separate instances of "fire" and "silver fire" damage. So no, it's not the example that was being talked about, which was this: S'pose that i have resistance to fire 5 and I take a strike that does 2 fire and 2 silver-fire damage. do i resist all of that or just 2?
So your plan is to be hostile and antagonistic, then blame them for it, and say that if they want the abuse to stop, all they have to do is engage to you on your terms to prove something to you? I'm a parent and I've encountered this kind of behaviour before. Trust me: giving in doesn't work. The sheer gall of it all is astounding. Like this example: That is such a narrow change as to feel like a troll, and I'd be willing to bet that RAI was to allow for DaS to be rereolled with a hero point. It's too bad that we're stuck guessing at what's RAI when RAW runs into a snag. You asked what the point was, someone answered, and you responded by coming up with an assumption and then using that assumption to attack the devs. The idea you think this is what the devs will want to spend any time whatsoever engaging with is comically absurd.
What is doing " silver fire" damage and how is that separate from the "fire" damage on it? Stuff doesn't do "silver damage" typically: silver is a trait on the attack.
It says you can be hurt by both Vitality and Void damage. So for example you could be hit by Vitality Lash and would take damage. You gain weakness 2 to vitality and void damage. You can be targeted by and are hurt by both vitality and void damage even if one or the other normally has no effect on you (such as being targeted and damaged by heal even if you aren’t undead). Any immunity or resistance you have to vitality or void is suppressed.” Healing isn't impacted and effects that heal still work normally. For effects that can do both like the Heal spell, you'd probably have to let the caster declare intent because a 1/2 action Heal either does healing or damage, but not both at the same time. Given that normally the targeting on heal is obvious and this curse creates an exception case where both types of targeting are valid at the same time, I'd let the caster choose which way they're trying to target you. That's how I'd run it anyway. If both happen simultaneously or you just flat out can't be healed by Heal, then this is an absolutely awful curse. Especially since Bones doesn't get Soothe to get around that (unlike Life, which has no use for it).
Also a lot "rob the vault" scenarios are more just that: a scenario, to play out with encounters - traps and hazards and guards, rather than just a skill check. The Infiltration Subsystem is also a good option for this kind of thing, especially if the goal is to avoid being noticed. Depending on how it goes this may switch to encounter mode, or how well they do may impact the encounters, etc.
Agreed. The simplest way is just to make it one or a series of level-based DC checks. Regular for run of the mill shops and first-layer defenses, Hard for 'uncommonly' wealthy shops or banks, very hard for 'rare' banks and last-layer defenses. Whether the security is mundane or magical or what type of magical is the description but isn't needed to set the mechanics; though it is useful because you'll want to hand out circumstance bonuses or penalties if PCs have the "right" skills and abilities for the job, or if they think of some cool good strategy for getting around a defense..3) How to determine different "Security Levels" for banks, magic shops, and rare materials/commodities on a scale from "A Locked Door and a Guard Dog" all the way up to "Stored in a Pocket Dimension and protected by an Immortal Guardian". I had to learn how that kind of thing worked in 1E, now I have to relearn it again for 2ER.This will be based on either DC by level or simple DC, and is determined by the settlement level and also how important the thing in question is. Also Easy/Very Easy/a simple DC for "soft" targets. If part of this requires doing something easy, lower the DC appropriately and let the PCs be awesome at it. The DC by level chart is a great tool, its just important to remember it's the level of the challenge and not the PCs. If the PCs are level 10 and trying to sneak past level 3 guards? Thats's a level 3 challenge and it should be easy for them. That's working as intended. Something it's easy to do in PF2 is make everything a relatively difficult challenge so the PCs don't feel special. It's a good idea when something easier does come up to just roll with that and let them feel powerful when they absolutely crush it. (this also goes for encounters and why multiple moderate encounters can feel better to players that constant severe/extreme ones: they get to feel powerful when a moderate encoutner has 5 enemies and all their stuff works)
Great advice!
If it was always intended that way, why do some monsters have "Hardness 10" instead of just "Resist All 10 (except adamantine)" or something? Why have two entirely different types of rules if they were meant to be the same effect? It wasn't always intended that way. This is an active change from the original rule to a new rule. When these two things were created they were more distinct. The blog post mentions that. As for how it works now? Adamantine Weapons can ignore half the hardness on an object, so it'll interact differently than resistance. Otherwise it's not a huge difference anymore.
.3) How to determine different "Security Levels" for banks, magic shops, and rare materials/commodities on a scale from "A Locked Door and a Guard Dog" all the way up to "Stored in a Pocket Dimension and protected by an Immortal Guardian". I had to learn how that kind of thing worked in 1E, now I have to relearn it again for 2ER. This will be based on either DC by level or simple DC, and is determined by the settlement level and also how important the thing in question is. You can assume the vault in a Church of Abadar is heavily secured and would be a high level challenge to break into unnoticed (and probably not that easy to break into even if you don't care about being noticed). Shrines in villages are probably not well defended, as villages themselves don't have the budget for strong defense. But if you're looking at the Mayor's House in a level 9 settlement, you can probably assume it's at least a level 9 challenge, and probably higher given the Mayor is probably guarded (so a Hard or Very Hard version). But some private citizen's home is probably significantly easier, possibly even a simple DC. Along the lines of "What would stop someone for casting "X spell" and just walking, teleporting, ghosting, or appearing inside the bank vault and robbing the place blind without leaving a trace"? You know, the kind of things creative players like to pull on the GM. Some of those spells are a lot harder to get now, being uncommon. Aside from that? This is a world where people know those abilities exist and highly secure facilities will have defenses against them including alarms, defensive magic, and possibly dimensional lock/antimagic field type effects to simply block them entirely. It's also possible that the PCs can successfully do the thing, but that prompts a response. Abadar will take a dim view of being robbed and even if the PCs manage to do it, it's quite likely the Church of Abadar is going to notice it when they do an audit and now there's an investigation targeting the PCs... aka: story opportunity! (as an example here, a failed check result can be the PCs doing the robbery but leaving evidence behind or tripping an alarm, while a success could be them doing it without leaving a trace. This is "fail forward" gameplay where even failures advance the plot rather than being a "nope you can't do the thing" situation.)
Depends on the settlement. Mizali for example is a very insular society so most of what's there is crafted locally and trade is regulated (ESPECIALLY trade for goods from outside the Mwangi Expanse). So the primary items available are made by local artisans in the local style and while a fair amount of stuff is available, you'll find details like divine items being more likely to be styled for Walkena (Mizali's Child God/Ruler) than other religions. Absalom is a global trade hub and big melting pot of a city so there's goods from everywhere made by anyone you can imagine. Cheliax relies more heavily on ridgid structures, indentured servitude, and such, while Andoran is a much more free and open place. You want to tailor it to the culture of the settlement itself in terms of these details, as they vary wildly across Golarian. Mechanically in terms of who can craft? For PCs it's someone with the Craft skill. Magic items require the Magical Crafting feat, Aclhemical items require Alchemical crafting. You don't need to be a spellcaster, though you'd need a casting of a spell for an item that lists that requirement to create it (most don't). PCs have level restrictions in that you can't craft an item above your level. For NPCs? NPCs don't follow PC rules so if you decide an NPC is "a master armorer", they can make really good armor and that's that. NPC level doesn't matter for this as the NPC's level is their "encounter level" and their "armorsmithing ability" can be WAY beyond that. (Like you could have a level 2 NPC since they're generally weak who makes armor as if they were level 12.)
This one I'm not sure about. Some of it may be defined, but at a granular level it's often "GMs can make it up."
I'd be less harsh if the devs gave us anything in terms of insight into these changes. It's not hard to write a quick blog post talking about the changes, letting us know why they made them, why other issues aren't being addressed, and teasing what's coming next. People hate them, but look at how WotC handles things with heads of departments engaging with the community all the time. That is the expectation, and Paizo is failing to meet that. Dude, you've been all over this thread asserting that the devs don't know what they're doing and don't understand the game. That's how you opened this, and you're still doing it. Why would any of them want to interact with someone this hostile? No one needs that nonsense in their life. You are literally contributing to the problem of lack of interaction with these ridiculous hyperbolic attacks and then decrying the lack of interaction. It's absurd.
I just have a sneaky suspicion that the change isn't that big a deal and will turn out to be a net benefit the vast majority of the time. You're right. It's bad news for Champions and Amulet Thaumaturges in fights where enemies do multiple damage types at once, which while not rare, also isn't the typical case (except in Spore War where it happens a LOT). It's good news when fighting incorporeal enemies without Ghost Touch weapons or any other creature that has resist at all. Overall? It's an adjustment but it'll be fine. Champions still work when enemies are only doing one type of damage (that is the most common case, after all) so while it's a nerf, it's not a crippling one. We now have a situation where resists and weaknesses never double-dip, which makes sense.
Yeah I can't imagine them actually building a UI to make people pick this when the choice is obvious the vast majority of the time. People will get it wrong by having to figure out what to pick far more often than it'll actually help. When the edge case is this rare, they tend to just tell people to deal with it when it happens. The common case is "I want to resist the biggest number" and I suspect they'll do that by default.
How so? The rules about stacking would still apply so you shouldn't actually have multiple resist all's in effect. you have the biggest one.
Alas, this is trickier for people who play at least one game with a VTT like Fantasy Grounds or Foundry. In Foundry you can just turn IWR off. You'll be handling it yourself, but the automation won't get in your way and you can do whatever you want. If you want the automation, you're going to have to deal with cases where it doesn't work the way you want it to and adjust accordingly.
If they knew, why did it take years and a remaster for them to clarify it, only to find out that the first clarification broke the game entirely when we called them out on it? The only sensible option is that they didn't know how damage worked. They may have had an idea of how they thought it worked, but they clearly hadn't ever tested whether their assumptions actually worked. For several of those years it was different people who felt it should work a certain way. We also just didn't get errata for this kind of stuff for years. The first stab at it was bad, yeah. But they listened to that and changed it, and the new version is good. That's the process working. Since we want them to listen to feedback and they did, we should be applauding that this ended up in a good place rather than complaining about the first version. Like: they did what we asked them to and the end result is a massive improvement along with one surprising change. But overall this is a great update and it really doesn't deserve the vitriol you're throwing at it especially when you're mostly complaining about the first version that isn't even a thing anymore. I don't know what prompted this change, but the new folks in charge apparently feel its too powerful with how the rest of the rules changed. That has nothing to do with not understanding it. You can see this with pre-master shields, where they aren't durable enough to work as written. The fact that the remaster specifically added runes to account for this says the opposite your assertion: they understood the problem and addressed it. You can see this with early AP design. Early AP design was literally being done in parallel with the game design, so it was made with the playtest rules and a system that wasn't done yet. Are you seriously surprised that as they've gotten more experience with the system, AP design has gotten more consistent? Because that's literally how everything works. I don't get what the point of this post even is. Are you complaining about this change, or are you complaining about stuff from 8 years ago that isn't a problem anymore and is entirely normal early in the lifecycle of a game? The release version of the alchemist, before even the day one errata, the release witch, etc. This is a company that, at best, guesses at how its game works while having no idea what is going on at real tables. This is just trolling. You sound upset, and I get it, but yeesh. It's a big, complex game, with an overly tight production schedule due to market reality. Mistakes will get made. The fact that stuff is being addressed is a good thing, not a bad thing, and the fact that everything you're using as examples is so old is really undermining whatever point you're trying to make.
Yeah the Software Developer in me agrees. "Resist Any" is what this does. They can't really rename it at this point without an errata to effectively every book (the remaster was the time to do that), but for anyone confused about how it works now, "Resist Any" is clearer I think. The new rule will take some getting used to. I'm mostly just surprised at the change after so long, and unhappy that my wife's Thaumaturge is eating a nerf at level 17 into Spore War, heh. But maybe they felt these abilities sometimes resisting over double their standard amount of damage was just too much.
You're not wrong. That said, this part of it was clear. Resist All was the most explicit example of how the whole thing worked initially. It's surprising that it's suddenly changing now, after so long. It's a significant nerf to the Thaumaturge in our party as Amulet is impacted. The rest of the IWR errata makes a lot of sense to me and is similar to what I proposed. It'll work pretty well. This part of is just really surprising because this wasn't the part that was confusing. We'll adapt and move on. It'll be helpful for PCs fighting Ghosts without Ghost Touch, for example. But in certain situations its a big hit to some classes defensive abilities. Maybe they felt those were too strong when that situation came up and it was suddenly blocking twice as much damage?
Silence the Profane used to be limited. It isn't anymore as the reason why it was limited was changed in errata. AoN hasn't been updated with the change. So you're good to take it in PFS now. Might want to send the AoN folks feedback to update it too.
Bomber was already in a good spot, while the clarification hurts, it doesn't change that. It makes Sticky Bomb a dead feat as it's not in the same league as Debilitating Bomb, now.
Healing bomb is still nerfed in the remaster. They should have just reverted this fully back to the legacy version. It's been improved from "unusably awful unless the GM uses a sidebar suggestion as a rule" to "actually usable at close range", but it's still not good vs the original version due to the lack of range and lack of interaction with Quick Bomber. Like, at 20' range you could just take Medic and Doctors Visitation instead. That'll get you healing in less actions and won't use up VVs to do it.
*(and brace yourselves for Bombers crying "nerf!" due to the Sticky Bomb clarification. I did what I could to explain that it used only the item's number to folks, but yeah. The sooner that bandaid got ripped off, the better, imo.)Yeah I'd definitely call that a nerf. What's the biggest splash damage on any (common) bomb? This is a level 8 feat. At the time you get it, you're throwing bombs that do 2 splash damage, so it earns you 2 persistent damage. Wow. But by level 17 or so, your bombs do... 4 splash damage? It absolutely costs a resource: you can only have one additive. On something like a major alchemist fire at level 20, this is 4 damage. Debilitating Bomb is right there and is DRASTICALLY better for the same additive slot now. Sticky Bomb is a dead feat at this point and it's not a good decision to have it just ignore all the field benefits. It's not like Alchemist is some powerhouse damage class that needed reining in.
Yeah it's nice to have clarity on this!
That's because mysteries no longer have mystery benefits, so there's no place in the class chassis to actually grant weapon proficiency without adding that back in (and then the other mysteries would need looking at again). They'd also still require an initial focus spell, so it'd need a new one if this was changed. The mistake here was made in the remaster itself and it'd be a dramatically bigger errata if they tried to walk all that back. Making weapon trance at least usable is a much simpler change that at least lets it function without having to take Weapon Proficiency. Errata can only do so much, at the end of the day.
This change suggests that Paizo had no idea how damage worked in their own game and is now just winging it after their first attempt at errata was so poorly received. Since they stated explicitly that they were changing it, they know pretty clearly how it works. It's a surprising change since Resist all has worked this way since the original CRB and was the one case that was perfectly clear. But it's got nothing to do with them not understanding it. It's them making a decision to change the balance on those abilities significantly. Of course, this also applies to enemies: Incorporeal enemies won't resist every damage type on a strike now either.
Rogue rather needs an errata to the level 9 feature "Rogue Resilience" upgrading Rogue Fortitude saving throw proficiency to Expert. It still gives the success -> critical success upgrade normally reserved for Master proficiency saves, and I'm fairly certain that is a typo. It's not a typo: it was confirmed as deliberate. I don't understand why this was done given Rogue really did not need the buff, but anyway. It's not an error.
I wouldn't use the kingdom rules for this at all, personally. I'd do this by having them need to recruit an NPC to run the fort/camp (via skill challenge) and then let them make checks to do things like get supplies to build basic defenses/food supply/etc. The person they recruit can then handle getting basic adventuring supplies back and forth so they don't have to go all the way back to Oleg's. When they do establish the kingdom, perhaps this turns into a settlement or a fort hex upgrade that offers a defensive bonus if camping there.
100%. I don't have much to add, you really nailed it. The class has a cool concept but it feels like its trying to do too many fiddly things at once instead of doing fewer things much more reliably. If you told me the Daredevil class is one where a Halfling Daredevil can leap up into the air dodging reactions to try to suplex a gargantuan demon into a huge demon? I'm all over that. But I don't like it when a bunch of my class just shuts off or doesn't function because reasons, and for this class in particular, "the enemy is too big" is a terrible reason. That's exactly when a "Daredevil" should shine brightest by being able to do this stuff when no one else can! If you have no idea when you'll be fighting on any given day, you'll never have a Quarry. If you know when you'll be fighting but have no way of ludonarratively scouting or researching that beforehand, you'll never have a Quarry. Even IF you manage to know when you're fighting AND get enough time to actually Mark your Quarry... you might not be fighting that Quarry immediately! You might fight several things before or afterwards, meaning for a majority of encounters per day, you don't have a feature. Sure, there are a couple feats that help mitigate this... but at that point, why are they missable feats instead of just being level 3 upgrades baked into the kit? Speaking of class features being turned off... Yeah. In the Spore War game I'm in we're chasing after a big bad that we found out about through some work we did in advance. This sounds like the perfect situation for Quarry, right? We discovered the enemy, we researched the enemy, we prepared for the enemy, and we're now assaulting that enemy... except that enemy is at the end of a pretty significant "dungeon" (in the generic use of the term). We don't know most of what is in there ahead of time, especially in terms of other potential Quarry targets, and we're talking several game nights for this dungeon assault. That's a long time to go without a core class mechanic being operational. It's the old Investigator situation except worse. And this is hardly some edge case scenario: "major enemy target at the end of a dungeon" is a pretty core PF2 experience and one that I think players generally enjoy. Dungeon crashing is fun! A class with a core mechanic that doesn't work in that kind of play is a really awkward fit for a game that wants to have that style of play. This should be a situation where a Slayer can absolutely shine but instead it feels frustrating because you're waiting for so long for Quarry to actually work. (Meanwhile our party of Fighter/Alchemist/Thamuaturge/Oracle is rolling along and every one of them is getting to use their cool stuff on a very frequent basis.)
To be fair, the Advanced Player's Guide classes released in a fairly poor state, though a lot of that was due to changes in staff mid-development from what I remember. I think all 4 of those classes weren't fully realized until the remaster....then again oracle is still a mess for its own unique reasons.I mean the G&G classes are divisive as well (well, the gunslinger is, the inventor is kinda agreed upon to be really weak) and while the psychic was certainly stronger pre-Remaster, it was still a weak caster overall. I'd say that post-Kineticist is when Paizo truly mastered the art of making classes and that they truly haven't disappointed since (though I hope we get an errata to make the kineticist work with the rest of the system soon, that's the only major post-RoE problem I'd say). Yeah there hasn't been a bad new class since RoE... but we also got mythic during that time period and there's all kinds of problems in that. And Remaster Wizard didn't exactly wow folks, while Remaster Rogue had some head scratching buffs (and Remaster Oracle happened for good and ill). So it's still kind of hit or miss unless you use a pretty narrow criteria that is effectively only 5 classes. Their overall class record is pretty good though, since for every Psychic there is also a Thaumaturge which is a great class.
I think if the temp HP class feature was always on and came at level 1 it would help. Need to take a reaction? Well you're getting a buffer by being a Daredevil. It's not a huge buffer, but it makes a real difference. As it stands now that feature comes way too late to matter. Galvanized Mobility just being bigger would also help. If the class wants me to do this as a core thing, I should be better at it than a Warpriest with a shield.
I also wouldn't allow the targeting (and wouldn't allow the DC 11 flat check) if the enemy is Unobserved and the caster is having to guess what square they are in. At that point in the narrative, the caster can't see the enemy at all. This is what I do since I like that it's consistent with the strike rule. If a player wants to make a guess? Go for it. It's either a wasted spell or a very cool moment. It's not strict RAW, but I don't care because it's fun. :)
^ This. I was thinking about this because we just had a fight in the Spore War campaign I'm in two days ago with a nasty enemy that had a LOT of reactions, which got triggered when another enemy ran towards it before we could stop it (chain fights are annoying but it was totally valid for a smart NPC to do that). Triggering those reactions hurt a lot. A +1 or maybe +2 was still probably going to hurt a lot. It was bad enough that I had to get Roaring Applause on it ASAP to shut the reactions down. A Daredevil running around provoking from this thing and taking piles of damage in order to do something would have just eaten into HP that we really couldn't spare with how badly beaten up we were. Smarter to just do something that doesn't provoke until someone else can remove the reactions. Because frankly, what you're getting by provoking the reactions isn't really worth the heavy hit from the reaction vs just doing something that won't provoke it in the first place. And of course, once the Oracle (me) neutralized the reaction threat, this feature is now doing nothing.
You can even see this in Pathfinder more recently. The Runesmith and ESPECIALLY The Necromancers are much more "3-Dimensional" classes and ask you to think about battlefield positioning. (That high level Runesmith feat that lets you physically draw lines between your runes and hurt anyone the line touches is ADORABLE). Sorry, what? Necromancer is a very 2 dimensional class. Thralls basically don't work once a fight is actually 3d because they don't work in the air. Enemies can effortlessly just fly over them and then they're only really useful as something to sacrifice to use another ability. Daredevil has the same problem: there isn't a lot of props once a fight takes to the air.
We're not getting a second pass. People need to not get their hopes up for that. There is basically zero chance of it happening with how their schedule operates. I feel like we may be at the point of diminishing returns with new classes. The game has a LOT of classes now. Coming up with something that feels unique with how much stuff is already in the game is going to get more difficult. In this case, I understand how you're supposed to play Slayer but it doesn't interest me a lot because it feels like it could have been an archetype with the trophy mechanic and the whole quarry thing is just extraneous and won't work in a lot of very standard game situations. Daredevil... I just don't understand how its intended to be played. It has a lot of stuff that either just doesn't work in bog standard situations or requires the GM to actively alter encounters and scenes to enable the class to function. Adrenaline feels clunky, and the base defenses of the class are not good enough for how the class is seemingly intended to be played from its description. I despised the Necromancer playtest, but at least I understood what that was trying to add to the game and who it was for (and other people were enthusiastic about it). This time, though? I'm just not really sure what the point is or who these are for. It feels like classes for the sake of classes, you know?
Except at level 3 you can get Robust Health which if you have someone with Battle Medicine in the party is really strong.
This is a low level spell. At low level, invisible and hidden enemies are a major problem for the PCs trying to hit them. Changing Invisible to Concealed is a huge buff in effectiveness for everyone in the party trying to make an attack roll on the thing, and also folks trying to defend against it since they now know where it is. Causing Dazzled on some of your party is an inconvenience if you can't aim it to avoid that (which you often can if you can narrow down where the creature is), but the benefit for its primary use case is worth it at the level you get it at. As a bonus you can just use it offensively to dazzle things if you want to. It's a really handy spell to have access to. I don't think it needs a buff.
Battlecry and Draconic Codex were great. I love both of them. |