VictorTheII's page

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

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Reactions like this are why I'm thinking making the good parts of the curse and the mystery benefits subclass unique cursebound actions might be better. People who still just want to run a divine spontaneous caster with that specific batch of granted spells and ignore the curse can still do so.

I'd much prefer it if we tie the old benefits to exclusive focus spells that do NOT advance the curse, but simply scale off them, making it a player choice on how much risk versus reward you are willing to commit to .

exequiel759 wrote:

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Excuse me? With that? Most innovations apply ONLY to melee weapons.

Come back to me when you can slap the Double Barrel, Capacity and/or Repeating traits on any crossbow and firearm :p

The inventor actually has a couple feats that apply to ranged weapons, most notably Megaton Strike which is, to my knowledge, the one way you can do Ranged Viscious Swings. To a lesser extent it also has a decent selection of feats and features that interact with reload weapons; not enough to make it viable on their own mind you, but still worth noting.

It doesn't take away from your point that the weapon inovations has some glaring holes considering it came out in the same book as the traits you listed.

I'd like Way of the Spellshot to gain access to the new Eldritch Reload feat of the Eldritch Archer Archetype, specifically for the Activate an Item into a free reload interaction.

I'm having a bit of an unpleasant time trying to mix the Gunslinger with the Eldritch Archer archetype.
- Spellshot means I have to take the archetype at 8th (to get at least 2 feats out of the class archetype) which delays both Magic Arrow and
Munitions Machinist past level 10. Either would have paired nicely with that feat.
- The other ways either spread out your stats pretty thin, limit you to one handed crossbows or asks you to invest into skills I wouldn't want to use for an ammunition focused playstyle.
- Sniper is the notable exception but you kind of have to ignore Eldritch Shot and potentially even Vital Shot due to the action economy of activating items. Thematically I'd also rather invest in crafting to make more consumable items during downtime.

Typing this out made me realize that alternatively, I'd quite like a new crafting based Gunslinger Way that has a reload and activate an item compressor at base.

Honestly if the Alchemist isn't able to be the dedicated bomber class, we should just have one, separately. Master bombs on the martial track. Can only make bombs with quick alchemy, but one infused reagents makes two bombs (if you have hands). A level 0 bomb for perpetual use from level 1. And all the additives, of course.

Just want to point out class archetypes exist. Yeah I know they kind of have been hit or miss so far, but there is a strong case for giving a few to the alchemist that enable them to get more of a martial proficiency chasis in exchange for say...a restricted selection when using advanced/quick alchemy.

As far as adjacency is concerned, there is no mechanical difference between a wall next to a creature and the ground below a creature. A medium humanoid occupies a 5ft cube, any surface facing the creature of every cube next to it is adjacent.

I'm rereading that critical specialization effect and I'm starting to think the key part might actually be at the end: "The creature doesn't become stuck if it is incorporeal, is liquid (like a water elemental or some oozes), or could otherwise escape without effort."

Bolded for emphasis. Maybe the floor does count as adjacent, but not all floors. If combat takes places on the plains or a dirt road, the ground would not be solid enough to keep your opponent immobilized no matter how deep the arrow goes, since any little bit of force (like say a step) could easily knock it loose. It basically means the effect isn't as situational as I thought, but it's also not universal enough to compete with the flail critical specialization for best in the game.

If I am right though, I would like to see an errata that replaces "adjacent to a surface" with "within 5 feet of a solid surface". No one reasonably says "I dropped my keys adjacent to the floor" or "I slipped and fell adjacent my back" even if the sentence would make sense mechanically.

Still up to the GM to know when to say no to though. Short and Long Bows are the strongest ranged weapons in the game and they really don't need a stealth buff from a lenient GM ruling that effect triggering all the time, otherwise there was no need to give crossbows the new bleed specialization and present it as a buff. It would be a sidegrade at best and indeed, a nerf at worst.

That, more than anything else, should be telling.

The ground is an adjacent surface.

No it's not. If you are on the same plane, it is a parallel surface, not an adjacent surface.

If you are shooting from a higher elevation then it could be, but it's not an automatic thing unless your GM wants it to be, in which case it's their fault for giving more power to what should be a situational critical specialization.

I disagree here. Immobilized is a pretty useful condition, so bow's critical specialization is almost always a wasted action on the enemy's part, even if they could pass the check with their eyes closed. For your melee comrades, it's an Interact to remove, so it provokes Reactive Strike, and stacks with Prone and Grabbed for extra lockdown. Meanwhile, 1d8 to 1d8+3 bleed damage is nice at low levels but doesn't scale well into later levels. It's 25% of the HP of a level 0 creature, but 2.5% of the HP of a level 16 creature...

Ok so random question but do you play using theater of the mind or actual maps? Because I can't understand what's with all this praise for the bow critical specialization. It's not supposed to be guaranted, it says so on the tin: "If the target of the critical hit is adjacent to a surface, it gets stuck to that surface by the missile."

If there is no adjacent surface, there is no pin, and no wasted action for the enemy. The only way I can see this being the best critical specialization is if the GM goes out of their way to always give it to you with sentances like "Oh yeah there was definately a chair next to that enemy" or "yeah sure pin them to the floor, I'll count that as adjacent" which is easier to do using theater of the mind.

Granted a bleed spec isn't guaranteed either, but it's hardly a downgrade, and I feel like it's more likely to go off since you have better control on what you chose to attack and with what. You have no control on where an enemy decides to move.

VictorTheII wrote:

Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

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You might have missed it, but this version of the witch has reduced spell slots, like the psychic. So the hex + chant being inline with them sounds ideal to me.

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Knowing now that the witch has the same spell slot progression as a psychic (but without 10th level spells) do you still think one of the three points needs addressing?

I just saw it now thank you. With a psychic progression that makes things a lot more reasonable.

In fact it's probably good to playtest. The extra coven spell now puts them on the same line as the bard for spell slots. No focus spell at level 1 but an enhanced familiar sounds like a fair trade. Chant only comes into play at level 3. Major hexes come into play at level 8 so you have time to get used to the playstyle before you throw new mechanics. All in all that looks pretty good.

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Spells:
Trained in Occult Spell Attacks
Trained in Arcane Spell DCs

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Did a quick skim and that's the only noticeable mistake I saw, but it is a big one since I think you intended for the witch to be occult only, and gain thematic spells based on the Patron, which are all now distinctly Witch themed.

Other notes:
- The Boon from the Crone patron might be a bit much compared to the other ones, legendary in perception is really rare in this game and I think none of the casters get it in pf2e; suggest changing that to trained in a free skill.
- The changes to the chant are a bit harder to wrap my head around since they are more involved, but making it a core part of their kit seemed fair on the base witch.
- With that said it being free alongside lessons might be a bit too strong compared to the power level of existing casters. Makes me think of the psychic minus the low number of spell slots.
- This is actually a bit exacerbated by the free slot depending on patron, which I get that it's a nice way to make the spell list still feel diverse.

I feel like one of the last 3 bullet points needs to be either toned down or moved to feats, leaning on the chant line and it's buffs. They don't feel as mandatory since the free patron spells don't all require sustain.

Ironically I feel like the barbarian is the closest to achieving the Ronin look if he got a first level feat that allowed him to use CON instead of DEX while not wearing armor. Would let you spec into a katana fully, would make it less MAD, and fury barbarian can be reflavored as a combat trance. As a bonus it would also make it easier to play a Beowulf or a Hercules.

Wouldn't do much for the strike and sheath gameplay style, but that part could be covered by an archtype. Ironically, that part I'd like to see covered by a gunslinger class archetype that let's their slinger's reload actions count for drawing or sheeting a weapon, though that would also require moving their legendary proficiency to another weapon type...You know what maybe the person that homebrewed the Drifter was on to something there.

Due to the recent gunslinger thread, I'd really like an errata or feat that makes Item Activation count as an 'Interact to Reload' action. I feel like it would really up the utility of using guns and crossbows when you can for example use Running Reload to step out of AoA before you use a Life Shot.

Agreed, it would practically be a feat tax, much like Running Reload is for a Ranger. In fact we can use that as a base for when it can be made available to the Magus without breaking much (Level 4-6 feat).

So I was theory crafting more builds with the new weapons yesterday and kept comparing the Sukgung to the Shortbow till I realized I was reading the Sukgung wrong for like a week. It doesn't actually have a new Deadly Aim trait, it has a Fatal Aim trait like the Jezail! Man how could I have been so silly.

Like yeah crossbows are usually balanced around more damage and range in exchange for reload, and the shortbow is a d6 with deadly d10 at 60ft of range, so I just instinctively read the Sukgung as a d8 weapon with deadly d12 at 200ft and...now that we've established I nat 1'd my perception check...

Why does a bow weapon have fatal? I admit I'm mildly salty but I literally was theory crafting Deadly Aim weapons last year and this was the perfect place to put it in and...yeah...Is this a numbers issue? Would Deadly d12 have broken the math that much? What about Deadly d10?

Martial Crossbows let's GO!

The range on that Sukgung almost feels like a typo...if I may put a tinfoil hat on for a second it almost feels like they were going to release an arbalest that was a bow version of the arquebus at one stage, but they just decided to give the range to the suksong and called it a day.

So we're left with the best of both worlds, wield it in 2 hands and it trades the arquebus's extra features for 50ft of range. Wield it in one hand and it's an upgraded hand crossbow with over 3 times the range.

It does make some of the other martial crossbows harder to sell to a player though, since they seemed to have been balanced more harshly. Saving grace here is range doesn't come into play that often for most adventures so their utility might be enough if you build into them.

For example, Gauntlet bow being free hand means you can lean in hard into gunslinger reactions and never worry about having your main weapon reloaded before your turn is over. Heck this might even make instant return finally viable and actively encourage you to end the turn with your meain weapon unloaded and sudenly you can have access to every gunslinger reaction at the same time.

Basically the new martial crossbows are less likely to affect my current builds and more likely to open up new ones, which is good so long as your GM does not impose pre gunpowder tech. I almost wish there was a more generic martial crossbow that was just the harmona gun with less range for those sort of tables (for a ranger or inventor mostly), but It's not that hard to justify a homebrew when compared to the Sukgung's range so they should be fine.

I was browsing the What do you still need thread and was going to make a post about wanting an option for a divine spell list bard. Music is an important theme in various religions and Galorian is somewhat aware of this given the existence of creatures such as the Choral.

But before I said I'd be fine with either a Bard Class Archetype or a new Cleric Doctrine, I thought to experiment with building this concept myself using cleric as a base and Mard as a Multiclass and not taking any of the occult spell slots, to see if I could fulfill the fantasy I wanted.

The answer was sort of. Fantasy would not be fulfilled at level 2 since i'd have to pick utility cantrips. Even if I started with a 16 in charisma I couldn't improve my spell attack rolls without getting occult spell slots.

At level 4 the fantasy would be fulfilled so long as I picked polymath muse at level 2 in order to take Versatile Performance now, which would give me plenty of mileage out of the Performance skill. Maestro feels like it would have fit the flavor better (It outright references Choral Angels) but Lingering Composition is useless until I get a composition cantrip, which I can't do at level 2.

So that leaves level 6 as a sweet spot where my divine singer fantasy comes online. If I went Polymath I can now pick counter performance and if I picked maestro I had the time to grab Inspire Competence to pair with Lingering Composition

This felt fine for me personally, I've previously had a 5e build planned that came online at around level 9. Character died just before that point but I knew the risks.

However Paizo seems to have a design philosophy of giving you all the tools you need to fulfil a fantasy as early as level 2. Alchemist and Magus for example are feature rich classes that pile on multiple mechanics on you at level 1 (Advanced Alchemy/Quick Alchemy and Spellstrike/Spellstrike recharging focus spells/Arcane Cascade respectively), despite it making the classes harder to grasp for new players.

Which brings me to my question. What is the maximum level one should reasonably wait for a build to come online in this system?

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Have you thought of what would be a fun magical version of the Pavise?

Outside of a darkwood variant for more hp no.

I was currently hung up on combining staves with a crossbow to better simulate how the deathwand crossbow worked in 3.5, but I got stuck when I found out you're not allowed to put property runes on staves, which makes them a million times harder to balance.

Ok so...this is really hard to word. You crammed a lot of things into one weapon trait and called it simple/easy when it isn't. There's the lack of scaling to consider, the consumption of a reaction, the way this interacts with the ready action, the action economy tax for aim, weather MAP is even a factor on a reload 2 weapon, and propulsive not being reflavored the way kickback was for guns.

So rather than try and wall of text some stuff I don't feel qualified to break down, I think I'll propose to you two ways that would work with the system better while keeping the core of your ideas: Fighter Feat or Deadly Aim.

If we are going the way of the feat, we can start with the fact that ranged weapons are intentionally given a lower power budget than melee weapons in this system. You mentioned Power Attack, now compare and contrast that with Fulminating Shot. Not an exact comparison obviously since one is a class archetype feat and the other is tied to the scariest martial in the game, but a simple retooling of Fulminating Shot as a fighter feat that does d6 precision damage would go along way to enabling a crossbow build for fighters who are otherwise locked into bows.

If we are going the way of weapon traits we need to lower the power budget even further, but there is a design space that's close enough to what you want in the form of Fatal Aim. It has the mechanic of asking for actions in order to give you more damage, and there are several crossbows that were designed to be shot from the hip one handed that you could choose to aim with both hands to line up a deadlier shot. For personal reasons I will say I'm not a fan of fatal aim which is why I didn't include it in my latest update, so I haven't figured out the theoretical worth of Deadly Aim or ran any math tests on it, but again, this would seamlessly fit in with the existing mechanics of the game a lot better than what you are proposing.

Hope this helps.

You have no idea how excited I am to finally talk about how I made the arbalest. Thanks for the awesome link (definitely archiving that for later) and sorry if this gets too rambly but I need to give some context first.

The short answer is yes. Strongarm is to Crossbows what Propulsive is to Bows and Kickback is to Firearms. A stronger version of the weapon that requires investing in Strength.

However I wanted Strongarm to be more flexible, too give players incentive to stick with a 12 or a 16 strength score as a dedicated ranged striker, so I didn't make strongarm just be kickback but with a reload penalty instead of a -2 to hit.

Thus the current iteration of Strongarm, in which depending on the score required, you are rewarded with different traits: 10 extra range, agile, or in the case of the arbalest, a deadly die that was 2 steps lower than the weapons damage die.

So, the question now becomes is a low enough deadly die equivalent to propulsive at 18 strength? I was inclined to say yes, hence the current iteration.

Now propulsive is a bit tricky to quantify, as it's power diminishes as you gain magic items, but even at it's worst it can be compared to half a damage die step increase to the weapon. That part is important because we have weapons we can compare and see that PF2e is willing to trade a damage die step for deadly (like the Naginata and the Halberd).

So from there all that was left to do is see if a low enough deadly die is comparable to propulsive/kickback at 18 strength, and most of my damage calculations showed that as long as the deadly die was low enough, firearms would still overtake it in damage once you can crit on a 19 in the early game, or an 18 in the lategame, which was about as close as I could reasonably ask.

Obviously deadly get's better on lower AC targets, which is why I only used this combination twice. My hope is that since propulsive stays useful on higher ac enemies due to consistency, the arbalest will act as an alternative to the arquebus, rather than a replacement. If feedback tels me no, I'll bite the bullet and switch it to a +1 damage with a variable requirement depending on the weapon.

Welcome to version two of my Guns and Gears supplement.

Since the release of the original version I've gotten my hands on an old DND 3.5 book called Arms and Equipment Guide which had a couple of really nifty crossbows in it that inspired me to update this document.

This supplement now contains:
- over a dozen new crossbows of various categories and types, including combination weapons and strength based crossbows.
- balance adjustments. Several of them got rebalanced to better reflect the power budget of the existing weapons in Guns and Gears, especially the strength crossbows that work off my Strongarm trait, which are now more in line with Kickback and Propulsive weapons.
- 2 new sections for equipment and special crossbows. They are a bit barebones at the moment but I can expand on them later after I figure out the balance on a crossbow with stave charges.

The document can be found here.

While I was doing my extra crossbows homebrew there were a lot of odd decisions I had to wrap my head around in regards to Firearm design. Thankfully this was not one of those situations.

Double Barrel costs precisely a category increase and 10 less range. Its how you can turn a Flintlock Pistol into a Double Barrel Pistol, and a Flintlock Musket into a Double Barrel Musket.

During the discussion regarding Medium armor, Sentinel and the Bulwark trait, I've seen some users express concern when it came to applying ability boosts.

Specifically that they always spend 3 on the main defensive stats (DEX, CON and WIS) out of fear of critically failing saving throws, unless they can gain access to the bulwark trait to negate the dumped DEX score in favor of STR.

Rather than discuss weather these fears are mathematically warranted or not, I wish to instead bring up D&D 4e, specifically how they allow for variable ability modifiers to be used on saves (so for example you could use the highest score between WIS and CHA to determine your Will).

Would PF2e benefit from introducing this mechanic in any way, as an extra means to encourage weird stat distributions? If yes, to what extent?

1) Class specific abilities that can't be accessed by other classes even through Dedication feats?

2) Class specific feats you can gain before your level 5 ability boosts?

3) One use general Feat like Canny Acumen?

4) Separate general feat per Saving Throw?

Seem pretty good to me. The assassin's crossbow may be a little too powerful. I'd say make it a d6 with deadly d8 instead.

Wasn't expecting that one to be the broken one but I'm ok with the trade. I'll even make it deadly d6 just to match the lowered die.

Since the release of Guns and Gears, I have had two small niggles with it...there weren't enough new crossbows, and none of the ones we got had deadly.

Those niggles are the main reason I created this "and Crossbows" supplement which contains:
- all the missing crossbows from PF1;
- a couple martial crossbows with deadly, for Gunslingers that want the big crits but play in a low tech setting.
- composite crossbows that benefit from a high Strength score by letting you lower the reload if it's high enough.

They should all be balanced, even the composite crossbows which went through more iterations than I care to admit, but I am open to nerf recommendations. So without further ado...

Here you go

I've been theory crafting a Crossbow Sniper Gunslinger and I keep going back and forth on this feat.

You do a worse Leap and a "Nimble Doge" in one reaction, but then you have to spend an action to get back up, which sets you back to a minor net loss in terms of action economy. You can mitigate this at level 7 if you get "Kip Up", or 15 if you delay your Legendary in Stealth for a Legendary in Acrobatics and "Nimble Crawl", neither of which are ideal.

This is without taking into account that it triggers half as often as "Nimble Dodge" since it has to be a ranged attack, and the fact that I have to be mindful of any other creature that may act before me, because I'm not just going to give them a free flatfooted. In practice I'll be using this reaction about a quarter of the time as Nimble Dodge even when i can leap behind total cover.

There is also the elephant in the room of shooting while prone. I'm willing to admit I may be blind here, but I don't think they brought back the rule that let's Crossbows/Guns shoot while prone without the -2 penalty. So even if you start the turn prone with an unloaded weapon, reload+take cover is useless since you have stand up to fire.

None of the stabilizers seem to negate that penalty either. The Shielded Tripod let's you take cover in that square, something you could already do while prone. If I'm reading this right, that means all existing stabilizers are designed to be used while standing up.

Even without the prone shooting issue, since I play at tables that frequently homebrew that exception in without me even having to prompt them, it just feels to me like this feat isn't good even on the subclass that seems like it would get the most use out of it.

Am I missing something? Guns are sounding weak, reload is still a major hindrance, and Unstable sounds like it got worse.

The gun addons if I had to guess. Depending on what traits you can add to them it can make up for the power/utility gap.

On that note what's the limit on gun and crossbow modifications? Does it increase their weapon category when you use them?

I think it's a given at this point that the Inquisitor will follow this chassis if they do make it in, as a middle ground between a cleric and champion with bane being a signature spell once they reach level...gonna guess 3.

But I'd sooner expect the Hunter to make it back in before they retroactively apply this casting system to the Ranger. That ship has sailed with the release of secrets of magic as far as I'm concerned.