Vali Nepjarson's page

In a recent game we weren't entirely sure how certain spell areas would manifest when the origin of that spell is in a hallway, but the area extends outside of the hallway.

As a Nymph-Blooded Sorcerer, I cast my Focus Spell, Blinding Beauty which has a 30-foot come. I was 10 feet into a hallway, aiming into a room with several enemies.

We weren't sure if the area would be entirely funnelled into only a straight line by the hallway, or if the cone would begin spreading from the point of exit of the hallway and create the equivalent of a 20-foot cone at the mouth of the hallway.

It didn't directly come up, but it also made us consider what would happen if someone cast something like Fireball in a hallway, with a portion of its area of effect extending out of the hallway. Would it just create a line of fire shooting straight out of the hallway or something like a half-circle with a radius of however much radius was left in the fireball?

Since the spell was a visual effect, we decided that anyone who could reasonably see could be effected, and that was fine for us, but I would like to know if there is an actual RAW answer.

In a recent game we weren't entirely sure how certain spell areas would manifest when the origin of that spell is in a hallway, but it extends outside of the hallway.

As a Nymph-Blooded Sorcerer, I cast my Focus Spell, Blinding Beauty which has a 30-foot come. I was 10 feet into a hallway, aiming into a room with several enemies.

We weren't sure if the area would be entirely funnelled into only a straight line by the hallway, or if the cone would begin spreading from the point of exit of the hallway and create the equivalent of a 20-foot cone at the mouth of the hallway.

It didn't directly come up, but it also made us consider what would happen if someone cast something like Fireball in a hallway, with a portion of its area of effect extending out of the hallway. Would it just create a line of fire shooting straight out of the hallway or something like a half-circle with a radius of however much radius was left in the fireball?

Since the spell was a visual effect, we decided that anyone who could reasonably see could be effected, and that was fine for us, but I would like to know if there is an actual RAW answer.

So I am honestly loving a lot of this class right now. A few balancing tweaks (Str builds shouldn't be inherently worse than Dex builds) and they'll be fantastic. My personal biggest concern with it though is one that I have not seen brought up yet, and that is that if I am creating an Exemplar, I need a lot more options for gaining a title for the type of hero they could be.

Looking at the Dominion Epithets especially, as cool as the titles are, those feel like titles that should be entirely unique to each Exemplar. Born of the Bones of the Earth is super cool, but what if my Exemplar's legend grew when he reaches into the body of a raging fire elemental to wrench it's core out? Then I'm going to want my title to be something like "Arm Forged in Fire" or something like that.

We have a lightning Epithet. No reason we couldn't allow fire or cold damage.

Personally, I think that the Root Epithets are fine as is, since they're just one-word adjectives for a single heroic trait, and even the Sovereignty Epithets are probably okay since they more describe the overall archetype of hero you were, but for the Dominion Epithet, I think we should be able to write our own in a sense.

From a mechanical sense, it would give the option of a few different Immanence and Transcendence abilities that are paired together that you can pick, and also lets you choose a damage type that you can replace spirit damage with (with maybe some small incentive to pick Bludgeoning, Slashing, or Piercing, since those would inherently be less desirable when they are choices on their own. Then you pick an Epithet that goes with that ability, while providing a list of options but also the encouragement to write your own.

My hero of the frozen north might picks something like "He Who Comes on Frozen Winds".

A lot has been said about how alignment is changing in the Remastered PF2, and most of it fits in extremely well and makes a lot of intuitive sense.

However I am very curious as to what this might mean for Dragons, which are probably the creatures that most strongly interact with alignment other than the cosmically aligned entities like Angels and Devils. For better or worse.

What I'd like to see is for each Dragon type to have their own sets of edicts and anathema that recreate the feel of those dragons, while allowing more flexibility for both GMs and the Dragons themselves on how they're interpreted.

Take the Red Dragon, for instance. As an Edict they could have something like "aquire greater wealth and power" and "subjugate weaker beings beneath you", and as Anathema they could have "allow another to take that which is yours".

These would certainly push Red Dragons towards being more evil, but these could still be interpreted in a way that allows a "good" Red Dragon. "This town and it's people belong to me. If any seek to harm them, I shall take it as damaging that which is mine and so I shall claim just recompense from you."

The follow up to this would of course be to ask if these edicts and anathema actually matter. Make them hard-coded into the dragons leans a little uncomfortably into the biological determinism that we're trying to get away from, but making them just Draconic culture for each Dragon type feels a little limp in my opinion. I'd like to see there Edicts and Anathema work like Barbarian and Druid Edicts, but in a more gradual sense.

What if Dragons didn't determine their power by age categories anymore, except in the more general sense that an ancient dragon would have much more time to accumulate power. What if Dragons slowly, over time, gained eternally greater power by acting in accordance with their Edicts and Anathema? A young Dragon who embodies the edicts perfectly might be as strong as an Elder Dragon who only follows them moderately.

What does everyone think? Are Dragons going to replace their tight alignment groupings with specific Edicts and Anathema? If so, what would those Edicts and Anathema be? Do you like how I am imagining they might interact with the Dragon's power?

I am finding myself in need of stat blocks for creatures that are beyond level 25.

The GMG has guides for giving stats to creatures up to level 24, for things like AC, saves, attack bonuses, AOE damage, and the like, but what would that table look like if it continued up to, for example, 30?

When these levels are introduced, it will lead in to the players being able to reach levels up to 25, which will include Mythic Proficiency (10+level) and +4 weapons, so with the basic math in hand I can probably eventually reason some basic numbers out, but I'd like to know if any ideas or guidelines have already been established by the community.

On top of which, I'd like to know roughly what levels I actually need. Narratively, what do different levels beyond 25 mean for the world? What are the levels of gods?

I'm working on the presumption that if someone statted up Sarenrae or Asmodeus, they would sit around 30 or so, but is that accurate or nah? Should it go higher?

So one of the players in our game is playing an Automaton who duel weilds shields, one with a boss and one with a spike, and then uses the eye lasers if a longer range weapon is needed. It's a cool concept, and he wants to utilize Agile Shield Grip feat from LO: Knights of Lastwall.

But there is some uncertainty about exactly how this feat can be used.

Can our PC walk around with one of his shields already in the agile grip, or does he have to have his shield in a normal grip until combat starts and then use the action to assume the grip? And if you were to, say, drop the shield, can you pick it up on the agile grip?

My assumptions are, yes to the first question, and no to the second, but that is based on game mechanics, while logically it makes more sense for the answer to be yes to the second.

The feat basically makes shields act like weapons that can be wielded in either one or two hands, where you can shift between the two states at any time and if you are holding it, it can be held either way, even outside of combat. However the feat doesn't say you can draw a shield in the agile grip, just that you are holding the shield you can use an action to transition into the grip.

I am not actually GMing this game, but the person who is is a first time GM so I'm acting as a sort of consultant and they wanted my opinion on this, but I am honestly not sure.

This is a term that one of my long time TTRPG companions who has been playing since the original first edition D&D uses a lot to describe how most developers and people in general seem to treat creatures of Chaos, whether that be Slaadi or Proteans or trickster gods like Loki, like Chaos is a synonym for dangerous, destructive, or even just a different flavor of evil.

I'm kind of inclined to agree, and it's one of my pet peeves about the industry as a whole.

Proteans are described as things to be afraid of, seeking confusion and bedlam, and the end of things via entropy. If they end up being helpful, it's more because of their unpredictable whims and they could easily turn on you for no reason.

But this isn't chaos. Heck, some of that seems almost lawful. Sure, confusion can create chaos, but so can giving mortals dreams where they can reshape their world, giving them the inspiration to change long-standing laws and social norms.

And I have never understood the association with chaos and entropy. Like, the state of entropy is when the universe reaches a state of energy equilibrium, where no more reactions to create a change in the energy state of the universe can happen. That's like...the furthest thing from chaos I can imagine and beings dedicated to chaos SHOULD be fighting tooth and nail against it!?

Meanwhile, Inevitables might be unyeilding and unchangeable, and Aons care only about the universe as a whole and are dispassionate about your problems, but they can theoretically be reasoned with and as long as you aren't doing anything to break the laws of reality, they probably have no interest in harming you directly.

They're dangerous, but really only if you're stupid or your desires conflict with them directly. Proteans are dangerous no matter what.

And they're a HUGE improvement on Slaadi for the record.

And this sort of idea encourages bad stereotypes that to this day leads to bad roleplaying. The players who think "Chaotic Neutral" means doing any random thing because it's funny regardless of consequences or how much it hurts the party. When an actual Chaotic Neutral is someone who seeks to change the status quo of the world in some way, and doesn't want to hurt anyone but also isn't going to lose sleep if it happens on the way.

All to say, I am really hoping to a lot more nuanced ideas about the entities of Chaos in the future.

If the goals of the Aons is to uphold the order of the universe, the goals of the Proteans should be to bring about change in the universe and maybe even create new order before going on to something else.

I can find no specific rulings on this, which makes me think the answer is no but I wanted to confirm.

If you are under the effect of a disease or poison, and you are subjected to the same disease or poison again, will that immediately cause another save to go to the next stage of the disease or poison?

We were fighting Ghasts and our Monk contracted Ghast Fever. The next time the Monk got bit, out GM had the player roll another save, she failed again, and our GM said she progressed to stage two, took the damage and all healing was cut in half.

I told him that rules don't say that, and that she won't be further effected by the fever until the next day.

The GM said "that's how poisons work, and I thought they worked the same way?", and I don't think he's right about that either.

Can I get some clarification?

So there is a player in a game that I am also playing in, playing an Arcane Trickster Rogue with the Witch Multiclass Archetype. He wants to learn some new Cantrips for his familiar.

I felt like this was something the game would be unlikely to let you do easily because it straight up takes a feat to get more cantrips usually (albeit a low level one). However on page 238 of the CRB it does list Cantrips as learnable just like normal spells.

So my teammate went to a store and bought himself a Scroll of a Cantrip and went about learning it.

And again I feel like this is really not allowed by the rules. I don't think that Cantrip level scrolls exist and feel like even if you CAN learn Cantrips this way, it could only be from another spellcaster.

I don't really want to be an insufferable rules lawyer, especially about something that improves the overall power of our party, but also our GM is really new to PF2 and I don't want to let him get steamrolled over by a player who assumes they can do something that they cannot.

What exactly are the rulings here? Can you just learn a Cantrip and add it to your spell list, from what sources is this possible, and if you can do it what are the repercussions therein?

Level 10, the best of the best. The most powerful spells available to any spellcaster in Golarian and the top of power for really any player character short of Artifacts. I love level 10 spells. They just feel like they give a PC a great deal of unique and potent narrative and combat potency.

But I also kinda feel like right now we don't have a whole lot of options for them right now. Most level 19-20 spellcasters are going to more or less have the same of several very few options for these ultimate powers. And of the ones that we do have, a lot of them are, for lack of a better term, very obvious. Wish and it's various variants, a super big explosion of every element, a couple crazy battle forms, "Can't touch this", "I can go ANYWHERE", "Everybody back up!", ect. There's a few more interesting ideas, like Fabricate Truth and Time Stop (even if Time Stop is super traditional), but I'm itching for more.

I'm sure we'll have some more new options in Secrets of Magic, and I'm super hyped for that, but in the meantime, here are a few ideas of mine. One that is a recreation of a PF1 spell (and utilizes two currently PF2 spells in it's design), and two that are my own but both heavily inspired by other things (one is based off of one of my favorite Anime powers and another off of one of my favorite 5e homebrews).

Sovereign Soul
Level 10
Rare, Enchantment
Traditions Divine, Occult
Cast 2-actions (verbal, somatic)
Area 100-foot emanation
Saving Throw Will Duration Varies

Your soul carries with it the quality of the true conqueror and the ambition to stand above all others. This power emanates from your body and clashes with the souls of all those around you, forcing their spirit to either align, follow, or rebel. This spell doesn't effect creatures that have no spirit, such as constructs.

Only creatures that were already friendly towards the caster may chose to align with the sovereignty of the caster. Those who pick this option gain 15 temporary hit points, a +1 status bonus to all saves for the next minute, and cannot be inflicted with the frightened condition for one hour from any source except for Artifacts, Deities, and similarly powerful effects.

Creatures that are not friendly towards with the caster may only make the choice to follow or rebel. If a creature follows, they will gain all the benefits of those who align with the caster, but also cannot act in such a way that goes against the will and goals of the caster as the following soul understands them. If they do, they immediately lose the benefits of aligning with the caster and are affected by the rebelling option as if they had chosen to rebel from the beginning. All non-sapient beasts of level 15 or lower will usually automatically follow, unless they are highly trained or are friendly enough with the caster to align.

Creatures that rebel must make a will save as their soul fights against the will of the sovereign. This effect has the incapacitation trait.

Critical Success The creature is frightened 2.
Success The creature is frightened 3 and cannot reduce their frightened condition below 1 until they are more than 30 feet from the caster.
Failure The creature is frightened 4 and cannot reduce their frightened condition below 2 until they are more than 30 feet from the caster. Also, for the next week, any time they are within 30 feet of the caster they become frightened 1.
Critical Failure The creature falls unconscious as their spirit is completely overwhelmed by the sovereignty of the caster. An ally may attempt to wake the creature by spending an action to embolden them, at which point they are immediately effected as if they had failed their initial save.

A creature cannot follow or rebel dishonestly. If a creature intends to act against the will and goal of the sovereign, they cannot temporarily follow in order to gain the benefits of following before they rebel. At the GM's discretion a creature who rebels may switch to following if they genuinely repent of their rebellion through either fear or if their reasons for acting against the sovereign changes.

Polar Midnight
Level 10
Cold, Darkness, Evocation
Traditions Arcane, Primal
Cast 3-actions (material, somatic, verbal)
Range 1,000 feet; Area 30-foot burst
Saving Throw Fortitude; Duration sustained up to 1 minute

You plunge the area into the unforgiving deep chill of the frozen polar night. All lights in the area are snuffed out as if under the effect of a level 2 Darkness spell. Any creature that starts it's turn in the area takes 6d10 cold damage and must attempt a Fortitude save as the deep cold seeps into their body.

Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success The target takes half damage and becomes drained 1
Failure The target takes full damage and becomes drained 2 or increases their current drained status by 1 to a maximum of drained 4.
Critical Failure The target takes double damage and becomes drained 2 or increases their current drained status by 2 to a maximum of drained 4.

A target that spends it's entire turn within the area of the spell is encased in a sheath of ice. Targets captured in this way are restrained with the Escape or Force Open DC being your spell DC. The ice has Hardness 10 and 20 HP, and it is immune to cold damage but has weakness 10 to fire damage. Breaking the ice frees the creature and ends the spell. If someone other than the target breaks the ice from outside, the target is stunned 1 and takes any damage dealt by the breaking effect in excess of the ice's Hit Points.

When you sustain this spell you may move the area of the spell up to 15 feet in any direction

Singularity
Level 10
Unique, Transmutation
Traditions Arcane, Occult
Cast 3-actions (material, somatic, verbal)
Range 1 mile; Area varies
Saving Throw varies, Duration sustained, up to 1 minute

At a point within range you compress an area of spacetime into a single absolute point. When you first cast the spell it creates a 3-foot in diameter Small black orb that occupies a 5 foot square. The orb generates a 40-foot emanation of gravitational distortion, pulling all creatures and unsecure items towards the orb, based on a Reflex saving throw. This effect works in all ways like the Gravity Well spell. The Orb also generates a 10-foot radius emanation event horizon that consumes all things that pass through it. Non-magical items and magical items of level 14 or lower that are unattended are instantly destroyed upon entering the area, and creatures that pass into the area or start their turn in the area must make a Fortitude save with the following effects.

Critical Success The target takes 1d12 force damage, 1d12 cold damage, and 1d12 bludgeoning damage.
Success The target takes half of the accumulated damage.
Failure The target takes the full accumulated damage and is stunned 1.
Critical Failure The target takes the full accumulated damage, is stunned 2, and one equipped non-magical item or magical item of level 14 or lower is consumed by the orb.

Throughout the duration of the singularity, it continues to grow in size and power. The damage of the singularity starts at 2d12 force damage, 2d12 cold damage, and 2d12 bludgeoning damage. The first time each round that the singularity consumes an item or kills a creature, the singularity grows. If a ranged attack from a weapon or a spell of lower than 7th level passes on it's trajectory through the area of the singularity it's target changes to that of the singularity and causes it to grow. It can also grow if the caster chooses when the spell is sustained. The singularity can never grow by more than 3 stages each round. When it grows the singularity increases in power in the following ways.

The damage increases by 1d12 for each damage type.

The radius of the gravity well effect increases by 10 feet.

The radius of the damaging event horizon increases by 5 feet.

When the singularity ends by most means, whether because the caster stops sustaining the spell or it is forcefully ended through other means, the singularity explodes, effecting the current radius of the gravity well, damaging all creatures with the total accumulated damage of the singularity, subject to a basic Reflex save, and pushing all creatures to the outer edge of the area of the gravity well.

The black orb creating the singularity can be attacked like any normal target. It starts with 250 HP with an AC of 45 and is immune to critical hits, precision, persistent, mental, poison, acid, positive, negative, and all aligned damage. It has weakness 50 to force damage. The singularity recovers 25 HP whenever it grows by 1 stage. A Disintegrate spell heightened to level 10 will instantly destroy the singularity. If the singularity is destroyed by these means, it immediately collapses and detonates. The singularity can also be nullified with a counteract check if targeted by a Dispel Magic spell heightened to 10th level. If dispelled in this manner, the singularity fizzles out without detonating.

The caster may attempt to sustain the singularity past the 1-minute limit to it's duration, but every round that they do so, they must make a Will save against their own spell DC or lose control of the singularity. Once lost control of in this way, the singularity will continue to grow indefinitely unless destroyed.

Over the past couple weeks, I've been mostly lurking on these boards, reading people's opinions of the Magus and formulating my ideas and opinions on how it works, what is good and what is not good, and how it could be improved. And I know we have a LOT of these threads lately and there's probably not much of a point to this, but I wanted to get my ideas out there anyways.

Before doing so, I wanted to lay out my reasoning behind my changes and where my mindset was in this.

1) I really wanted to make as few and as simple changes as possible. I don't want to completely rewrite the class or make it into something that it isn't. I think we saw with the APG playtest that large sweeping revamps of the class isn't really what is most likely to happen and all in all I do LIKE what is in the Magus right now. At least in concept, I think that in execution it doesn't seem to work.

2) The simpler the design changes, the easier it is to know how broadly these changes will effect the class going forward. Obviously I know that these are just my suggestions for changes, but I am still trying to show something viable here and if I go off the rails too much it will be difficult to predict the effects of what I am suggesting.

3) The Magus is not an Eldritch Knight or a Fighter/Wizard Multiclass, sometimes acting martial and sometimes acting magic. The Magus blends both arts into a single thing, and his core ability SHOULD showcase this. Right now, besides the terrible feel of Striking Spell because of it's mathematics making it feel as though you are extremely likely to lose the few spells you have every time you attempt it (which I think is played out in my own play-testing of the class as well as the playtesting of MOST others who don't figure out a way to make it work via theory-crafting and power-gaming), my other major problem is that in many ways it just feels like you're striking and then casting a spell. A one-two punch that any other Gish build could do rather than a single harmonious act. For the class to BE the Magus, this needs to be fixed.

And so, here are my overarching 'fixes' to the Magus. I shall be replicating the features of the Magus here that I am recommending changes to, and those changes will be highlighted in bold.

STRIKING SPELL [free-action]
CONCENTRATE - MAGUS - METAMAGIC
Frequency: once per round
You drastically alter a spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that can target one creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you place its magic into one melee weapon you’re wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack. When you use a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only your target, regardless of whether you hit your target or not.
If the spell normally requires an attack roll, resolve the effects of the spell with the same degree of success as your strike. If the spell normally requires a save, the target makes their save as normal, taking a -2 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Success, a -4 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Critical Success, and a +2 Circumstance bonus to their save if your strike was a Failure. A strike made with a spell imbued via Striking Spell counts as one more attack for your Multiple Attack Penalty than it normally would.
If you don’t expend the stored spell with a Strike before
the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly.
The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action
again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a
thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell can’t
be discharged by anyone but the caster.

These changes I think are somewhat intuitive. It achieves the result of making the Striking Spell feel more like it blends the martial and magic rather than just letting one happen after the other, it largely improves the odds of your Spell Attack spells hitting, so you aren't statistically likely to waste so many of your 4 spells per day. And it even ties the save spells to your martial attack more than your current version does, giving less of a bonus on a Crit, but also giving a bonus on a regular hit.

SPELLSTRIKE CIRCUIT [reaction] 3rd
CONCENTRATE - MAGUS
Trigger: You would have discharged a spell stored via a strike
You feel the magical energies of your spell begin to leave your weapon as a result of your strike and respond with twist or spin of your weapon and intense focus to recapture these energies before they are expelled. Rather than discharging the stored spell, you retain the spell in your weapon, allowing it to be discharged on a later strike.

This helps greatly with the problems of loosing your spells, and indeed arguably makes the Magus class that can get the most average bang for it's buck out of it's spell attacks, or just it's single target spells in general. But I think this is more than fair given that it only has 4 spells.

I have done a lot of damage comparing of this version of the Magus to specifically the Dragon Barbarian, which is a pretty potent damage dealer, but not at the top tier because it has other utility like flight, AOE, ect, which I felt made it a good comparison.

I tested this version of the Magus vs Barb at level 10 across 1 turn with 5th level spells and Cantrips. I did the same across 2 turns assuming a miss with your Spellstrike which you retain via Spellstrike Circuit. I then redid these tests assuming flanking, a +2 bonus to strikes, fear, and then finally again with all of that and using True Strike.

All of this was tested against only two strikes with the Barbarian, and not taking into account any feats or items which might increase power, and assuming a +2 Greater Striking weapons with two basic damaging property runes, a Longsword for the Magus and a Greatsword for the Barbarian.

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail, but basically, using a spell the Magus out-damages the Barbarian, although not by a huge amount. If he is hasted and uses True Strike with his best level 5 Attack Spell, using 4 actions, he does about 50% more damage than two strikes on a round from a Barbarian. Although of course he uses twice as many actions and can only do this rarely and with a lot of set up.

With Cantrips, he still does less damage than the Barbarian, even if he does use True Strike. But his damage does still feel meaningful, if less than standard martials.

New Magus Synthesis

Knowledge Aegis

You tether your Spellbook to yourself via the magical strands of the spells, allowing it to act as more than just a tome of your magical knowledge. These tethers keep your book primed to protect you without your needing to give a second thought to the dangers about.
You gain both the Shield Block feat as well as the Raise a Tome Magus feat, and can use your own Spellbook in place of a shield for the Shield Block feat. When doing so, treat your Spellbook as having a Hardness equal to the highest level spell you can cast, with HP equal to double that amount and a Broken Threshold equal to half its HP. If the Spellbook takes damage, or is broken or destroyed, the pieces are held together by the same magical tethers which bind the book to you and these tethers will slowly pull your Spellbook back together, completely restoring it over the course of 10 minutes if it was damaged or broken, or one hour if it was completely destroyed. After you use Striking Spell and start Casting a Spell that takes 1 action or more to cast, you can Raise a Tome using only your Spellbook as part of that Cast a Spell activity

This one is honestly easy to understand. There needed to be a Shield Magus and the Raise a Tome feat was way too cool not to lean into. Note the level 1 feat can still be taken by any other Magus, but they don't get nearly the same degree of benefits from it. This is honestly probably just straight better than Sustaining Steel, which probably needs a bit of a buff anyways, but I won't be doing that here as I don't have that much of an interest in it.

My last thing I wanted to touch on was some changes, replacements, and a couple additions to class feats, mostly either because they won't work with the new paradigm of my recommended changes, or to flesh out the new Synthesis.

MULTITASKING READER - Feat 4
Arcane - Concentrate - Magus
You are able to "hold" books, scrolls, and other receptacles of the written word that cover a subject tied to a skill you are at least trained in and are of Bulk L or less by levitating them inches from your hand, turning the pages or otherwise perusing the information with a flick of your finger. Holding these items does not count as your hand being occupied and you may still hold another object or objects in both hands while doing this. If you have the Raise a Tome Magus feat, you may Raise a Tome while having both hands otherwise occupied.

This feat MIGHT need to be a higher level, but as of now, I rather like it. It allows Magi of Slide Casting and Sustaining Steel to use Raise a Tome.

WARDING KNOWLEDGE [free-action] - Feat 10
Abjuration - Arcane - Magus
Prerequisites: knowledge aegis magus synthesis
Trigger: You Raise a Tome via Casting a Spell altered by Striking Spell using a Spell Slot
Your Spellbook feeds information about the immediate world around you, abilities of allies and enemies, quantum states of matter and energy, local atmospheric phenomena, all to inform you of how to better protect yourself against all dangers. You add your +1 Circumstance bonus to AC from your Tome to your saves as well. Increase the bonus to +2 for Will Saves. If the spell was of the abjuration school, you may give these bonuses to one willing creature within 10 feet of you as well.

Kinda boring, but I needed a level 10 feat to go along with the other level 10 feats, and Abjuration seemed the most appropriate.

BOOK-BINDING SHIELD - Feat 12
Magus
Prerequisites: trained in crafting
You have learned how to simplify and condense the magical properties of certain shields and magical materials into a cover that slips seamlessly over the bindings of books. For half the price that it would cost to buy any specific magical shield, you may convert a similar shield into such a cover. This process must be done the same way that you would craft any other item, requiring the same Crafting checks as the shield would. This cover doesn't need to be sized for particular books, as the magic of the item allows it to seamlessly shift in size to fit any book of bulk L or less. Affixing this cover to a book or removing it takes one action. The AC bonus from Raising a Tome with this cover on it increases to +2
Special: If you are of the Knowledge Aegis synthesis and place this cover on your Spellbook, then you may chose either the natural Hardness and HP/(BT) of your Spellbook or that of the shield you are affixing to it.

In case it isn't obvious, I REALLY like Raise a Tome and want it to get more love.

CONTROLLED EXPLOSION - Feat 14
Magus
You can now use Striking Spell to Cast a Spell that can affect multiple targets over an area, such as fireball, into your weapon the same way you would normally. When you do so, you may chose to use the same area pattern of the spell, originating on the target of your strike, or if the spell normally has a burst area to shape the area of the spell into a cone of the same size as that of the burst, a 20-foot cone in the case of fireball. If you are caught in the area of your own spell, you must make a save against your spell like normal, with a +2 Circumstance bonus to your save.

This feat, besides being cool, is largely to set up the NEXT feat which is a replacement for Second Chance Strike which no longer does anything really.

PERFECT EXPLOSION - Feat 18
Magus
Prerequisites: Controlled Explosion
When you discharge a spell with an area of effect that was stored into your weapon via Striking Spell, you may chose a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence Modifier, including yourself, that are unaffected by the spell. The spell bends around them harmlessly, doing damage only where you wish it to.

So yes, this is my idea for the Magus and the principle ways that I would personally fix it. I think that my version of the Magus looks like what I hope the final version looks like.

I am not saying that this is EVERYTHING that it needs, or that it has to be done this way. These are just a few ways that I can see of fixing the most glaring problems with the Magus as is.

I would very much like some comments and criticisms, as I am sure that there are problems with some of the ways that I have done things.

The Magus is my all time favorite class (tied with the Witch), and I am really hoping that it lives up to all my hopes and dreams.

From a Design Space option, tagging something as "Uncommon" and thus making it difficult for the players to access unless they go out of their way to find these options and letting it be up to the GM to allow them or not, allows it to be looser in terms of pure balance.

But what exactly does that mean. Looking at different examples of "Uncommon" options, some of them seem not really to be any better but are just Uncommon because of lore reasons. A lot of the regionally locked Ancestry Feats are examples of this, or weapons like the Katana.

But looking for example at spells, it's not always clear what makes a spell Uncommon to me. Some, like Plane Shift make total sense. The ability to derail a campaign by just saying "Eh, the DM's story is cool, but I think I'mma run off to the Plane of Air for a week" is definitely an ability that shouldn't be given out willy-nilly.

But then we have spells like Magic Aura which is...I mean I can see if EXTREMELY niche circumstances it being VERY useful. I played a game recently where magic in all forms was outlawed save for the King's personal guard and I took the spell in order to hide the magic effects of our items from said guards. But in any other game you're going to have to come up with some very out of the box thinking in order to make it actually useful.

And at other times we have spells that seem like they're Uncommon because they are just more powerful than any other spells in the same class. AoN just added Sudden Bolt which is a Level 2 single target spell that does 4d12 Lightning Damage (basic Reflex Save) to a single target with a range of 60 feet. And while that isn't quite Level 3 spell material (as Lightning Bolt does exactly the same damage but can hit multiple enemies), it does seem decently more powerful than other Level 2 spells. Acid Arrow, for example, is also a single target spell but it is firstly a spell attack roll and thus is innately worse because it doesn't to half damage on a miss, and it only does 3d8 Acid Damage + 1d6 Persistent Acid Damage. The small extra persistent damage isn't anywhere near enough to make it as good as Sudden Bolt. It has a longer range at 120 feet, but that still doesn't feel like enough of a difference...

So what is the deal? When designing new ideas, what does Uncommon give you the reigns to do? Is it allowed to be just mechanically better than non-Uncommon choices or should you still try and keep it in the same ballpark?

So let me start off by saying that the Witch was one of my two favorite classes in PF1, with the flexibility of the Hexes, more engaging Familiar mechanics, and the narrative intrigues possible with the Patron all drawing me strongly towards the class. The name Vali Nepjarson is that of my Witch whom I have remade in every edition of Pathfinder/D&D that I have ever played.

And that is why I feel like the Witch as it exists in the APG playtest feels underwhelming to me and that makes me very sad. But I don't think that the changes that need to be made are major, and a lot of the reworks I've seen here are going far more than is needed.

So I would like to express the things about the class as I see it that should be reworked, and give some potential fixes for them in such a way that I feel would be reasonable reworks as a whole.

Problems:

1) Hexes feel very restrictive and awkward to use since they are both tied to Focus AND the vast majority of them can only be used once per foe per day. While their power feels about right, you really don't feel like you can use them anywhere near enough.

2) Kind of in the same vein, the class starts giving you diminishing returns for picking any more Lessons/Hexes after your third. Since you cannot gain any more Focus than 3, you are losing out on 1/3rd of the benefit that a Lesson Class Feat gives you if you continue to pick more after that. Looking over the options, for my primary Witch character, I can see at least 5, and when more options will be added probably MORE Hexes that I would want to pick, but I can't get up to 5 Focus for doing this. And while it's true that this is a relatively minor point as focus is so easily recoverable between encounters and you aren't likely to need more than 3 or so Focus points in an encounter, it still FEELS like you aren't getting everything that a feat promises you for picking more Lessons.

3) The Patrons are given little more than a mention. While you can KIND of pull together an idea of your patron through putting together different lessons, since the patrons are left so vague and undefined, they kind of come across as an unnecessary part of the class right now.

4) Familiars are mechanically interesting, but feel very homogenized and those mechanics lack any sort of flavor. There is nothing really to differentiate different types of familiars. This isn't such a big problem with Wizards or Sorcerers, since their possible familiars are really just there as an optional boon to do some cool stuff, but since the Witch is so dependent on their familiar and it is such a core part of the feel of the class, having so few options for flavorful mechanics hurts the fun of the Witch's familiar.

To me, these are the primary failings of the class right now, and while that all SOUNDS like a lot of woe-saying and negativity, I really think that possible fixes for these problems are very easy.

Solutions:

1) and 2) Hexes need to be broader in design and give more options. I feel like we need both Focus Cantrip Hexes AND Focus Spell hexes, similarly to how the Bard has these. This is of course not an uncommon suggestion, but I'd like to also suggest how this sort of thing should be implemented. As currently given, we have Basic Lessons, Greater Lessons, and Major Lessons. Basic Lessons currently give you a Lvl 1 Focus Hex and teach your familiar a Cantrip. I think that the Cantrip should be dropped altogether, and the Lvl 1 Hex should become a Cantrip Hex. Most of the current Lvl 1 Hexes would actually work just fine as Cantrips anyways. They're only moderately more powerful than regular Cantrips and with the restriction that creatures become immune to them for 24 hours, this more than makes up for them having unlimited uses.

Greater Lessons and Major Lessons would of course give you Focus Spell Hexes, and Greater Lessons could also give you a spell as they currently do, but I imagine that Greater Lessons would not (I'll get to why in a moment). This would also greatly lesson the potentiality of feeling like it's a poor idea to continue taking extra Lessons once you've hit your Focus cap because it would take one more Lesson to get to that cap of 3.

3) Patrons need to be more distinct and have more mechanical relevance. Rather than your Spell list being based on your first lesson, I feel like it should be based on your Patron itself. While this might feel a bit "Sorcerer-y", and that is a fair complaint, I feel that it wouldn't be too hard to differentiate the two. The Patron should give you access to a few spells not on whatever spell list it gives you. The Winter Patron being based off of Baba Yaga, for example, would actually be Occult rather than Primal, but would also give you access to several Cold spells, Cone of Cold and the like, but not one every level like the Sorc does. I'd say only 5 at the most, at levels 1, 3, 5, and 7, and 9.

The Patron would then also give an extra ability to your Familiar. Probably something passive, but pretty cool. For example, a Winter Witch's familiar could gain an ability that states that it treats all saves from your own spells that have the cold trait as critical successes, thus allowing it to walk into your Cone of Cold with no worries. A patron that had to do with life energy might have the ability where whenever either you or your familiar take healing, you can split the healing between yourself and your familiar however you like. Something to give a little something cool to your familiar that is unique to that patron. This partially deals with the next problem as well, but we'll continue with that a bit more...

4) Fixing the homogenization of the familiars is actually not something that COULD come from within the Witch itself, but similarly could also come from a General feat open to anyone that would meet the requirements of having a familiar. It would be a feat that would basically allow you trade out 2 of your Familiar abilities to transform the familiar into any Common, Tiny Level 0 creature, or trade 3 of your Familiar Abilities to Transform it into any Common, Tiny Level 1 creature.

This would come with all the powers of the creature in question, it's ability scores, any spells it has, and the creatures Health as though it were the ancestry HP of your familiar. Everything that scales with current familiars would still scale with the advanced familiar, but it would add it's Dex to it's AC, it's Con to it's health every level, and so on. Also any spells or abilities which have a Save DC would be replaced with your spell save DC if your DC is higher.

If the level 1 creature is a Fiend, Monitor, or Celestial, then it must be of the same alignment as you. So if you want a Lyrakien then by Caiden Cailean you better be Chaotic Good.

What does everyone think? Do people agree with my concerns about the Witch and do we feel like my solutions are reasonable?

So the relevant specific text of the spell Disintegrate from Archive of Nethys reads as follows

You fire a green ray at your target. Make a spell attack. You deal 12d10 damage, and the target must attempt a basic Fortitude save. On a critical hit, treat the save result as one degree worse. A creature reduced to 0 HP is reduced to fine powder; its gear remains.

Now since this spell involves both an attack roll AND a Fortitude save, as far as I can tell, RAW this allows you two opportunities to multiply damage from the spell.

Whenever you make an attack roll, and you crit, you double the damage done by the attack. Now, Disintegrate specifies another effect that also happens on a crit, but nothing in the rules, unless I have missed something, states that this effect replaces the normal crit effect.

Then the recipient makes a basic Fortitude save. A crit fail on this also doubles the damage from the source. And since on a crit attack roll, the degree of success is dropped by one, that is quite a bit more likely to happen.

Thus, on a crit hit, followed by a crit fail on the Fort save (which you still get on a regular fail), Disintegrate SHOULD do 12d10 x 4 damage.

Is this the correct interpretation or in this instance is there a reason that only the Fort save considered when calculating damage multipliers?

For the purposes of certain abilities like the different Champion's reactions, do you found as "an ally"? This makes a HUGE difference for the usage and potential builds for the Champion.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the original races in PF1 was that they were obviously and intentionally asymmetrically balanced. The Core races were more or less balanced, as they should be.

But then the advanced race guides and all the other extra races can vary from underpowered (Kobolds) to much stronger (Drow Nobles). You even have a direct gauge for knowing how powerful the races are, relative to each other.

That to me is a great tool for GMs to have slightly more dynamic games as long as everyone sits down and is willing to go with it. Just as long as the difference between them is not so great as to make a huge bulk of a difference, and punish people from wanting to play a character story that they are interested in.

What are the odds that we will have any Ancestries/Heritages that are definitively balanced more or less powerful than each other? If Aasimar/Tieflings/Ganzi/Aphorites are going to be universal Heritages that can be applied to any Ancestry, I would want them to be more powerful than the regular Heritages for the Ancestries, just because those sorts of planetouched people should be powerful.

Does anyone else agree with me or am I crazy?

So one of my biggest concerns for PF2 is in my favorite class conceptually, the Sorcerer. Carrying on the blood of dragons or ancient magical cultures or whatever and channelling them into magical potency is probably the coolest concept for me out of the classes.

Unfortunately, we got the playtest and the Sorcerer was...well underwhelming. I love the concept that Sorcs have access to any of the 4 spell lists depending in their bloodline. That's cool. The problem is that no matter what spell list you pick, the Sorc is always just an inferior version of the primary spellcaster for that spell list.

Why be a Fae blooded Sorcerer when the Druid has the same spells, more health, Wild Shape (a single ability almost as flavorful and major as the spellcasting itself) and 4 potential paths which are all quite potent, while the Sorcerer only gets a couple bloodline abilities, some of which are cool but none of which even come close to making up the distance.

Plus the spellcasting itself is weaker, since the Sorc can only have so many spells and cannot heighten those spells however they see fit.

All in all the Sorc of the playtest was bland and uninteresting and I am very much hoping it gets a complete redesign from the ground up that gives the Sorc it's own niche outside of the other casters and makes you want to play them. I have not seen any evidence of anyone showing them since the info on PF2 has started coming out, and I don't know if this means people still don't care that much or if Paizo is trying to keep it under wraps because they're really excited about it.

But this is all just my estimation. I want to know what everyone else thinks. Is the general thought that the playtest Sorcerer was underwhelming and undesirable or am I in the minority? And if the former, how should the Sorcerer be fixed.

Personally, I would REALLY change the entire core of the class, taking some inspiration from the 5e Warlock, although not going quite so far down that path.

First, I'd keep the fact that the Sorc can act as the spontaneous caster for all 4 magic types depending on the bloodline. That's awesome and carries some really cool flavor. However, rather than having 3+1 of every spell slot other than their highest level, I would restrict them to only 2 or 3 spell slots of the three highest spell levels that they can cast.

So at level 20 (without the level 10 spells feat) they have 2 or 3 spell slots for levels 7, 8, and 9 only, with no level 6 or lower spell slots. To make sure that their lower level spells can still be used, they have spontaneous heightening for all their spells.

To compensate for this loss of spell slots, they get two major buffs. First (probably more controversially) they get 12 + Con health per level. Same as a Barbarian. The Sorcerer now acts as the "in the thick of things" Spellcaster. Not necessarily a Gish (although this would make them the most viable for that build) but the Spellcaster who is completely okay with running head-first into the fray and dropping the fireball at their own feet.

12 might seem like a huge jump, and it is, and maybe even slightly stepping on the Barbarian's toes, but I've always seen the Sorcerer as running very much parallel to the Barbarian, as their magic equivalent, with their natural power and super-charged bodies.

Secondly, the Sorcerer needs to lean much, MUCH more heavily into their bloodline abilities, getting both Focus Spells and passive abilities from each one. They should be THE focus spell class, almost using them over the regular spells. Dragon Breath, Claws, and Wings should be the bread and butter of the Dragon Sorcerer, not just extra things to fall back on when they're not casting spells. They should also get Dragon scales passively, which either gives them a low level Mage Armor on all the time, or gives them proficiency in unarmored defense which scales with Monks.

The rest of the Bloodlines should be similar. Abyssal should get a power (active or passive) for all of the seven deadly sins. Fae should feel like you almost are an Archfae by the time you're level 20.

I don't think this would be too much either. Considering how powerful Druid powers, Compositions, and just everything that IS the Wizard and Cleric, and limiting the Sorcerer's spell slots so drastically, I think this is a fine compromise that makes the Sorcerer exciting and fun.

So I really love a lot of things in the Playtest and I find certain elements to be a big improvement on the TTRPG genre as a whole. However there are some things which need finessing and a decent number of problems that can be improved upon.

Some of the biggest complaints about the game involve designing your character and how much more narrow your options are for designing a character. Wanna be a duel-weilding or sharp-shooter Barbarian? You can, but you'll always suck compared to a Fighter or Ranger in the same vein.

In top of this, increasing your proficiency in skills feels...well to put it bluntly, dull. Going from Master to Legendary at level 15 in any skill chagnges your bonus from 17 to 18...not very exciting. You have to wait another level to get a Legendary Skill Feat before you start feeling actually Legendary.

A lot of this has to do with the Pathfinder Playtest design mentality which puts so much weight on balance and "class niche" that it doesn't allow much design flexibility or variance outside of the scope of what the classic version of that class can do.

Here is my proposed solution that allows people to have a lot more design flexibility, while maintaining the Playtest's design goal of being more structured, and also fixing the problem with skill proficiency on the way there.

1) Every class needs different paths to take. Plenty already do, like the Sorcerer's Bloodlines or the Barbarian's Totems. But every class needs something like this so that my Paladin feels more substantially different from yours. Paladin is actually a good example because it's a very easy one. Have the different Paladin paths be tied to the different Alignments, each one adjusting how the Paladin's base powers work and only allowing some class feats to be taken by certain alignments. Other classes might be trickier, like the Fighter, but I think it would be doable.

2) Get rid of Skill Feats. Instead, fold in the abilities of skill feats with the proficiency increases. Maybe not all. Some are specialized enough that you could instead make them General feats but as a whole If I am legendary in Athletics, then I should be able to either swim or climb effortlessly. If I can't do that, then what exactly makes me legendary?

3) And this is the big one. Completely redesign the Archetype system. Now that you don't have Skill feats anymore, replace skill feats with Archetype feats (less of them of course, maybe 4-5 or so total, not counting the initial Archetype dedication, which would be at level 2). Everybody gets an Archetype, and they have their own separate feats so you don't have to spend a class feat to get an archetype feat. You still can, if you want to have multiple archetypes, but you don't need to.

With this, you could do a lot of things. First, it adds a lot more creative flexibility in creating your character. Want a Barbarian that duel weilds throwing axes? The Barbarian itself has nothing for that, but he could take either the Ranger archetype or a new archetype that specializes in duel weilding. You can do this now of course, but you are disincentivized to do so because you end up a s!@!tier half-Barbarian to do so. Not very fun.

You could also Archetype into the same class as you already have if you want to be super-specialized. Play a Wizard who archetypes into Wizard and you have a Wizard who can take more than one school, has one more spell slot per level, and a few more low level wizard feats to make them ultra-wizardy. But if they want to Archetype into anything else, they don't feel like they are giving up their wizard stuff.

Want a Paladin or Ranger who is a spellcaster like in PF1? Archetype into Cleric or Druid. Want an Eldrich Knight? C-Fighter/A-Wizard or vise versa. Yes, you can do all of this now, but this way, since they are their own thing, and don't use class feats, it becomes a flavor and twist on top of your class RATHER than something that takes away from your class.

Right now, a Paladin who tries to get spellcasting by taking the Cleric dedication Archetype has to give up his Cleric feats to do so, including some of his high level feats, in order to get relatively worse Cleric feats. In this system, the only thing the Paladin is giving up is the option to take the Fighter Archetype instead and thus become a better swordsman, but he is still every bit as much of a good Paladin.

There could be a lot of other new Archetypes too for specialization in different things.

Duel weilding? Dervisher Archetype.

Ranged attack? Sharpshooter Archetype (good for casters too because it has feats for improving ranged touch attacks as well as ranged melee attacks).

Shield specialized? Protector Archetype (maybe a better name than that...)

I realize a lot of things would have to be reworked in order to make this work. Maybe some of the base class stuff would have to not progress as far. Maybe the Fighter only gets to Master in Weapons naturally, but the Fighter Archetype increases your Weapon proficiency by one stage so only a Fighter who also takes the Fighter Archetype gets Legendary (although you could probably tack on a Proficiency increase in only that weapon type to the Archetypes that specialize in a specific weapon type, like agile weapons for Dervisher, so the Fighter would still become Legendary, but only in a smaller group of weapons).

All of this, I feel, would be a much better system for players who want to have creative flexibility to design a character as they want and not feel punished for it, But also allow the devs to be able to keep to their design goals of not letting one class step on the niche of other classes and preventing extremely unbalanced combos that power-gamers take advantage of.

Thoughts?

Greatswords are one of the most well loved weapons in classic fantasy roll playing for a variety of reasons, especially when you are playing as a Barbarian or the like.

Why would they, seemingly intentionally, make the Greatsword a functionally inferior weapon to the Bastard Sword?

When you weird the BaSw two handed, it has the exact same damage as the GrSw. The GrSw has only one advantage against the BaSw, that being that it is versatile and can do slashing or piercing damage. This will usually never come up unless you happen to come across something that is specifically weak to piercing damage (I don't even know how many of those that there are in the bestiary, other than not many). You could literally go through a whole campaign and never benefit from that.

Meanwhile the Bastard Sword can also be used 1 handed, exactly like a Longsword. This is extremely useful even for a character desiring to use two-handed weapons. It allows for grappling, picking up things more easily, and a bunch of other stuff. And if you need sheer DPS, again, the the BaSw can be used exactly as a GrSw as well.

I don't mind certain weapons being straight up better than others. Nothing can ever be perfectly balanced without being boring and homoginized, but one martial weapon should never make another martial weapon completely obsolete. Especially one as iconic and popular as the Greatsword.

The Greatsword needs something. Something just a little extra to give you a reason to use it. It doesn't even have to make it as good as the Bastard Sword. It just needs something substantial that the BaSw doesn't have so that there is a reason to use it. Piercing damage is not substantial.

Personally I'd pick the forceful trait. It's a relatively minor damage buff that only works on multiple attacks, but it still makes the Greatsword potentially hit harder, and it goes along with the idea of building momentum while swinging a Greatsword around.

tl;dr version. Greatswords are awesome and need something cool to make them not just a Bastard Sword that you can't weild one-handed.

For the record, all this applies to Longsword too. It also needs something to give you a reason to use one if you want. Maybe Parry for a Longsword?

Question for all. I've been playing Pathfinder for a little under a year now and another friend is interested in trying, so my DM and I have decided to set up a quick one-mission game for her in order to let her have a taste and see if she likes it.

We're starting at lvl 2, since that's easier to work out, and she rolled up a Halfling Investigator. The way my DM does stats is by having the player roll 4d6, and drop the lowest die roll, do that 6 times and plug your scores in wherever you want.

She ended up with scores as follows

6 Str, 19 Dex, 16 Con, 17 Int, 14 Wis, 15 Cha, after racial modifiers.

Problem is that now, with a Str modifier of -2, and being a Small creature to begin with, she going to be doing negligible damage at most.

There are a few ways around this. Give her a crossbow perhaps. Only problem being that we would not have any up-close fighters in the group. Have her just not be a combat focused character is another choice, but since this is a mini-game designed to show her what the game is about, I feel like that would not be very productive.

Or, even though it might be sort of b!$$+#%~, give her an agile weapon and let her know that in a more legitimate game that would never happen at level 2 (she would then take Weapon Finesse as her feat if we did this).

We'd have a lot more options to choose from if we weren't just sticking with level 2 characters (I might have a chat with my DM and up that to 4 or 6 for her), but as it stands...yeah not a lot.

Are there any other decent ways that this Halfling Investigator could be usable in combat?