VitaminCee's page

I played an exemplar with gleaming blade and hurl at the horizon with a throwing dagger ikon. It was...effective. To be fair, I did put a returning rune on it. That said, being a switch hitter out to 30ft with the same action economy worked very well.

I played at level 5. My to-hit was +14 and my damage with the weapon was 2d6+10 (+2 from ss, +4 from str, +4 from gb). If I didn't have to put a returning rune on that I could easily add a damage boosting rune, which would mean that it would be even stronger, which feels a bit too strong. Too strong, not because of the raw damage output, but due to the range versatility.

Flavor-wise it was really fun. I had imagined a really cool dagger weilder that had control over the trajectory of the daggers. But, then, one of my buddies brought up the image of Yondu and his whistle weapon. That is what stuck for the rest of the game.

Level 5 as exemplar will always feel strong just because you’re over powered. Spirit striking coming in early means at lv 5. & 6, you passively have the same bonus damage as a giant barbarian, but without any draw backs regarding agile and ranged weapons (this is passive damage so not even factoring in transcendence). So if there’s a problem with hurl being too good i think its just because of that.

What hurl at the horizon did for your build is just like a worse version of the strong arm rogue feat. I appreciate you sharing your live play experience, for practical data i just don’t think hurl at the horizon is that strong when using just the range boosting effect.

No attack trait.

Did you just say that force open action doesn’t have the attack trait, while linking proof that it actually does have the attack trait? Absolute power move lol.

Thanks for your playtest feedback.

I think this is a good point, a lot of the Transcend abilities may not have any utility on a given turn. I think this class does seem to be based around the player planning well for their next turn, but there are certainly instances where even if you plan well there isn't really a Transcend that will help you for the Worn or the Body Ikons -- Worn Ikons in particular seem to have the most situational abilities.

I think the base Ikons should have broad applicability and maybe feats should provide some more niche powers, rather than the base Ikon have the niche power and feats for providing some alternative options.

Basically this. I hope we get some more options as feats like kineticist overflow feats. I think it would also be nice to get a decent universal transcendence option.

Maybe Shift Immanence could use a buff?

I had an idea that there should be some kind of "Lingering Composition" effect that allows your immanence to carry over until the end of your next turn after you transcend. What if that was attached to Shift Immanence instead? The flavor could be that by moving it yourself instead of it being forced out of your ikon, some of the previous ikon's power lingers instead of being consumed by your transcendence.

I think doing that on a shift could be an issue just because it would incentivize people to shift from another ikon into weapon and then spam weapon transcendence. If the lingering effect was on transcendence it would insure that if you wanted to get multiple passives going you can’t spam your powerful damage abilities.

I think you also think your lingering composition ideas deserves it’s own thread.

The level 12 Warped by Rage essentially does this, so there is some precedent for this type of effect already.

I think he’s referring to still getting the original transcendence effect, while also being able extend the passive in to other turns, not just replacing the transcendence effect it’self.

Actually, I just realized what is missing with worn ikons. There should be a feat or class ability that allows your worn immanence to still work until the end of your next turn after you transcend. A limited form of Lingering Composition that doesn't consume a focus point I suppose. Higher level feats could add your body and weapon immanence, and increase to 2 rounds, to allow you to have a more stable character sheet.

Someone sees the vision!

I think the ikons definitely all have their own niches even if some share dna from others. They all atleast partially fit their main mold for example barrows edge still has a damage boosting passive, and pallisade bangles gives everyone more ac, making it a support effect.

Though i think having the 3 distinct ikon niches and forcing the player to continuously swap is a bit odd fantasy wise. It feels like you’re a mecha with different modes. I think ideally there would be an incentive to keep using all your abilities and their niches, while still allowing you the ability to just focus on one thing at a time if need be.

Something like referenced by animated paper makes sense, but im not sure a class feat would be best.

I think charisma makes more sense because the ability to cast any domain spell using focus spells is incredibly odd thematically, and the main issue with having the spells use your CHA is that the exemplar is already mad to do having only light armor. I think giving them medium armor would fix this. You could make your CHA be at most only one step behind your strength anyways.

As is, maxing charisma at early levels is suicide.

Just by feel, broadly speaking the Exemplar is a single step or two away from a really well-flowing combat performance. Just a few little additions to round things out and a little WD40 and we are golden. You can always adjust numbers to be better, but this part is really impressive already!

I largely agree. I think their should just be more incentive to use the other transcendences. I think if there was a way that you could get the weapons passive without needing to be currently using the weapon ikon, it’d be possible. Because then you’d be doing atleast decent damage (similar to a passive swashy i think), and using the other transcendences for utility or defense will make up for the damage loss.

There could just be buffs to non weapon ikons instead, but i’m not sure if how it could be balanced in a way that feels satisfying, since you’d be paying i heavy damage tax to do it. And that still leaves the “people don’t use other ikons problem”

isn't every transcend just need 1 action reload after use

if player have 2 transcend they want to switch between than they don't need to pay reload action tax

feel like every other class that require reload

I understand what you’re saying. I think the problem is that the only one that feels like its worth using every turn is the attack one, so you’d have to waste an action each turn to use it.

And the other classes like magus for example can recharge their big attack while doing more useful stuff (Like using focus their focus spells) instead of literally wasting an action.

And even if wasting the action to spam power attacks is still viable it’s boring and uninteresting.

I think that the problem is the both in core design and underwhelming of some Ikon.

In core design I think that only able to benefit from just one Ikon per round limits the utility and versatility of non-weapon Ikons too much. If you was able to keep some effect of Ikon that don't are with your Spark (like making Immanence fully passive) or give some ability that allows you the keep one of them working for some extra time (like a "Lingering Composition" to keep them working for 3-4 rounds without the Spark) this would increase their utility a lot.

I mostly agree with you here. I’m not sure if having all ikons be fully passive or passive for 3-4 rounds would be balanced though atleast as is. It could give you boosts similar to a swashbuckler almost permanently.

I had been thinking what if transcending out of an ikon let the passive to linger until the end of your next turn. I think it’d be likely optimal to atleast use all of your ikons in combat even if one is your least favorite. For this to work the additional ikon feat would have to be reworked though.

I typically play in games at lower levels, so those are the abilities I’ve been focusing on, and a lot of them feel too plain to me. Not weak, just not fantastical and demigod like.

I hope we get more ikons like fated shot and pallisade bangles, that have effects that other normal people couldn’t possibly do. And maybe the other ones in the current playtest could get some minor fantastical ability added like fracture mountain creating difficult terrain, or maybe the mirrored strike weapon damage doing force damage or slashing (similar to concussive) because your cutting so fast you cut through space. And feats should give more impossible abilities (for instance i think that the leap the falls should do something more akin to inventors explosive leap as a transcendence.)

On that same note i find the 5th level weapon spec equivalent is a strange addition at level 5 since other classes get that at 7 (unless that’s changed in the remaster) And the feature that gives you cool thematic stuff and crit spec (which other classes get at level 5) is achieved at level 7. So other than it being non congruent with other classes i just think it should be swapped just so we get the more god like powers earlier.

I'm pretty sure mountain breaker is 5d10+18, as it increases the damage from the immanence, which is per dice.

RAW it says that your damage increases to “4 + an extra die of damage” from what ever it was, so that would replace what ever the initial damage was ( 2 damage per weapon damage die). In order for what you said to be true it should say the damage increases to “4 per weapon damage die plus an extra die of damage”.

Otherwise if the damage replacement was supposed to be per damage die, then fm would actually deal an extra 4 + an extra die of damage for every weapon damage die which can’t be right.

I think it possible, that how are you interpreting it is how the authors intended it, but i dont believe that’s supported raw.

VitaminCee wrote:

I think we’re interpretting the text of these abilities completely differently. Noble branch says that it deals damage equal to your weapons damage dice (plural) which is the same wording on feats like brutal critical. So at level 4 breath, strike, tend is doing 2d10 not 1d10.

That is what I presented this as the best-case scenario, as that is what it currently says. But this is a highly unusual way of doing things, hence it might get clarified. Not that the other possibilities are likely, given that they are just completely useless.

VitaminCee wrote:

Additionally, the mountain strike thing says (the damage increases to 4 plus an extra die if damage), not( increases to 4 per damage die, plus an extra die of damage). The feat says increase too, not increase by, so RAW this new extra damage replaces the old one (2 per damage die). Perhaps it’s not intended to work that way idk, but that’s what it says if im not mistaken.

By this interpretation the damage of mountain strike vs strike + breathe rend is comparable. Some levels mountain strike is slightly above. Some levels Breathe rend is better. (Not accounting for criticals which you can only get with mountain strike.

Yup, I phrased that poorly. What you described is how it currently works and I wouldn't expect that to change. But the math is quite a bit more lopsided than you seem to think, especially later on.

At level 1 the extra damage is effectively 1d10 vs 1d12+2, so Fracture Mountains is a bit better. From level 4-9, SBR is doing 2d10 (avg. 11) vs FM's 1d12+4 (avg. 10.5), so SBR is marginally ahead. At level 10 is the point where the balance swings decisively in FM's favor, as it jumps to 2d12+8 (avg. 21.5). Starting at level 12, it's 3d10 (avg. 16.5) vs 2d12+12 (avg. 25).
So in conclusion, the only time SBR is ahead is 4-9 and even then only marginally, including a lower minimum. That said, reach from polearms is a pretty neat thing to have.

Other than that, Fracture Mountains is the same but...

I’m glad we’re more on the same page now, but there’s two flaws with how you’re calculating this damage differential imo.

2. You’re comparing the damage of the mountain ability, compared to just breath, strike rend, by itself. Which is causing you to include the bonus damage (the +4-8) for FM, but not the +2 damage per die that the strike that proc’d bsr would have. This doesn’t make sense imo. You should be comparing the damage of fractire mountain vs. the damage of (strike + bsr). Since both would take two actions. (Strike + bsr has the benefit of increasing map only once, but i’ll ignore that for now ).

If you compare their damage that way you will see that the difference is much closer.

(Not including str)

At level 12 it’s (bsr + strike) = srike (3d10 + 6) + bsr (3d10) = 6d10 + 6 = 39
And fm = strike (3d10) + fm ( 2d10 + 6) = 5 d10 + 6 = 33.5

At level 10 (bsr + strike) = strike (2d10 + 4) + bsr (2 d10) = 4d10 + 4 = 26
And fm = strike (2d10) + fm ( 2d10 + 6) = 4d10 + 6 = 28

So actually less damage RAW . Even if you did use a d12 weapon fm is still behind at level 12. (Granted there are levels where fm is ahead because it scales quicker than bsr, but even then it’s not by much. Also the extra damage (2d10 + 6 at level 12) has a chance of critting which is not possible with bsr).

Okay, so what I am trying to say is not about Noble Branch vs some other Weapon Ikon, my thesis is this:

1) Gambling to move your spark sucks. Spending 1 action to just move your spark sucks. This is my main point.

With that said, I think Noble Branch is a trap. It might convince its user that it opens up new opportunities if you miss with your Strike. I just don't think that is true. That logic has nothing to do with other Weapon Ikons (Titan Breaker's ability is a bit ambiguous, but Gleaming Blade is clearly stronger than Noble Branch's damage, but this is not my point).

You have the Noble Branch and are planning your turn. You think you want to spend two actions on the offense, maybe you need to stride, aid, or do something else with your third action. So, you think you want to Strike -> Transcend. That's what you think would be a good use of your 2 actions.

You hit, so you use the Transcend ability. You are happy.

What happens if you miss with your first strike? This is where Noble Branch tries to convince you it has some value. Let's say for your second action you decide to demoralize instead of take the MAP 1x-5 Strike. You may not realize it, but what you have essentially decided is that:
Strike -> Transcend Noble Branch is more valuable than Strike -> Demoralize, and Strike -> Demoralize is more valuable than Strike -> Strike.

The Noble Branch Transcend ability is similar in value to the MAP 1x-5 strike. So, I posit that there are not many cases where demoralize can be better than the MAP 1x-5 Strike, but weaker than Noble Branch's Transcend.

You might think the Noble Branch has opened up new possibilities for your turn, but I imagine in most instances your second action would either be a MAP 1x-5 Strike or you would have just originally chosen to only do a single Strike and use your 2nd and third actions to do something else. I don't think the miss will actually impact your decision making.

With all that being said, Noble Branch might have a niche where you want to spend...

I think i understand you know. You’re thinking about this as if you were only planning to use two actions on your offensive. Then you’d be better off not using noble branch. This is true. My thought process is that I am INTENDING to use 3 actions on my offensive. Which noble branch can do nicely by just striking twice and popping transcend the first chance you get. And if you miss both strikes you can pivot to something else.

And i understand that you aren’t talking about mountain strike or whatever it’s called, but for clarification I kept bringing up the mountain strike thing, is because i was trying to power scale it against another ikon to show it’s not that weak. As the noble branch eould give you similar damage with strictly more versatility. If you set out intending to use all 3 actions to deal damage, if you intend to use only 2 actions on damage, then they’re both bad and you shouldn’t be using them anyways. This is under the assumption that mountain strike isn’t dealing like 8 damage per weapon damage die.

I think we’re on the same page now? :)

This might just be me, but the transcend-cycling between ikons often leads to a sequence of a great turn followed by a distinctly less great turn.

I used a Gleaming Blade greatsword Exemplar with the Brave root epithet, Palisade Bangles and Skin Hard as Iron. There was only time for a quick 3rd level scenario with my brother, basically a GM-off. Both of us were using multiple characters, one PCs (Exemplar, Fighter, Cleric and Bard) and the other monsters (2x crocodile and 3x weak crocodile). Btw, crocs are really scary once they have you grabbed.
Anyway, I had this hypothesis in my mind already when starting, this wasn't a real party and only a single combat, so take this with more than a whole tablespoon of salt.

Now, what my Exemplar usually did was use Gleaming Blade's transcend action - which is awesome btw - and then go into the Bangles, ending their turn. The last action was usually spend on movement either before or after the transcend. That was the great turn. On the next turn, after the bangles more than once prevented a crit on the Exemplar or the Fighter, you kinda just.. transcend out of your body ikon into your weapon ikon for one action, then usually move and sit there with a regular Strike as your last action. This isn't actually terrible, but compared to the other turn, it doesn't feel like you are really... doing anything. The bangles offer the possibility of getting the enemy to you, but as expected the Fort saves on a croc said "no" most of the time. In any case, the body ikon feels a lot more humble and small than the weapon ikon.

One part of this is that regular Strike. It goes without saying that the two-action transcend activities shouldn't be able to be spammed every round without a cost, such as Shift Immanence as a dead action. But the contrast of the awesome move and then the lame, plain Strike feels bad. My fingers are instantly itching to grab something off of another class to at least have the option of using something more interesting here. I'd like more in-class...

I can see this issue, i havent tested the class yet, but I think the issue here lies with the other ikons being a little underwhelming. I do hope they tune them up a bit especially the body ones. I think that also having more feats that give alternate trascend abilities for your ikons could help. Currently building a exemplar and the temptation to pick up an archetype is strong.

I'd also argue that on top of not being able to guarantee that you can transcend-combo into one of your other ikons, the payoff from Noble Branch's Strike, Breathe, Rend is also objectively terrible. It is basically two actions that give you a regular Strike plus either 1-4 or 1d10 or 1-4d10 damage (depending on how it gets clarified). In contrast, Fracture Mountains gets you a regular Strike plus 1d12+4 to 3d12+32 damage. Gleaming Blade is a lot more complicated, but a regular Strike plus a second one at -2 (for a reasonable chance at 4d12+19 plus up to 3d6 from runes), who even get combined for resistances (and sadly weaknesses) is still very impressive.

Even in the best case scenario (1-4d10), the fact that the damage is automatic doesn't even matter, as using it is still conditional on the initial Strike hitting. Under the exact same conditions (your Strike hits), Fracture Mountains is unquestionably a pure upgrade. Gleaming Blade has a much higher pay-off potential as well, even if it is hidden behind some chance, and on top of that it makes getting any damage far more likely. I'd argue that both of those are just plain better abilities.

That you don't have to spend your transcend when the initial Strike fails is more often than not a punishment, as you have already laid out.

I think we’re interpretting the text of these abilities completely differently. Noble branch says that it deals damage equal to your weapons damage dice (plural) which is the same wording on feats like brutal critical. So at level 4 breath, strike, tend is doing 2d10 not 1d10.

Additionally, the mountain strike thing says (the damage increases to 4 plus an extra die if damage), not( increases to 4 per damage die, plus an extra die of damage). The feat says increase too, not increase by, so RAW this new extra damage replaces the old one (2 per damage die). Perhaps it’s not intended to work that way idk, but that’s what it says if im not mistaken.

By this interpretation the damage of mountain strike vs strike + breathe rend is comparable. Some levels mountain strike is slightly above. Some levels Breathe rend is better. (Not accounting for criticals which you can only get with mountain strike.

If your interpretation of mountain strike is correct. Then yes mountain strike would just be way better.

VitaminCee wrote:

Your saying if you washed to hit and do something else, you could have picked a different ikon, but thats not the argument here. We’re talking about when you MISS. When you hit power attack is better when you miss noble branch is situationally better.

I think you are missing my point here, and I'm not trying to be argumentative.

Let's say one wants to Strike and then Transcend their Noble Branch, this is their top choice of what you want to happen during their turn. However, one misses. Now, instead of Striking again, one chooses to stride. You are basically saying there are situations where one might think:

Strike -> Transcend is better than Strike -> Stride (action X)

AND

Strike -> Stride (action X) is better than Strike -> Strike

Substitute Stride (action X) with anything, and I find it hard to believe you will encounter many situations unless Transcend is wayyy stronger than a second Strike. It's not, or else it would imbalanced. Noble Branch is probably similar to Power Attacking since it adds more dice, but can't crit - and Power Attacking is similar in damage (though in many cases worse) than Striking twice.

If Strike -> Transcend is not their top choice for action, then any other Weapon Ikon could do that just as effectively.

So, my point is that while Noble Branch let's you decide what to do after a miss, I find it hard to believe it will actually realistically change your decisions.

I will give you that there is the scenario where you want to maximize damage with 3 actions, or use Grapple/Trip etc, where Noble Branch might have a niche.

To start off, sorry if i’m missing your point, and it might seem like i’m ignoring you because i keep typing while you’re typing.

Second. I don’t think i understand your argument at all. Your talking about whether transcending is better than a strike, but i think that’s irrelevant.

My argument is assuming that you’re replacing the 2 action activity of power attacking with the 2 actions of striking, and then following that up with transcending your noble branch. There’s no reason why noble branch should ever stop from attacking twice. Please elaborate further because i’m confused.

So, the benefit arises if I miss with the Noble Branch. If I decide to attack again, then I would have been better off (on average) of using one of the stronger damage Ikons. I have no new information here, so I should have just spent 2 actions to do a better thing. The key assumption that Transcending is more damage than passive Immanence means that there is not really value in keeping the spark in your weapon longer than just spending it as soon as you can. Damage later is worse than damage now.

Edit: i should clarify that when i say “noble branch” an attack i mean. Wait to see if it hits, then spend an action using your transcend ability. Perhaps my wording is confusing.

This is doesn’t make sense to me. If you planned to noble branch your second attack of the turn, and you miss you’re second attack, you are better off because (assuming your okay with not shifting your divine spark) you wasted one less action. You can then do something else, since you never used your noble branches transcendence. -10 strike, or a demoralize or something.

If you planned to noble branch your second attack and you hit, the effect will be similar to if you just used the power attack ikon, yes the power attack one can do more damage on a crit, but you are unlikely to crit the second attack of the turn, unless the enemy is a couple levels lower than you. So your approximatley net nuetral.

If you planned on noble branching your first attack. And you hit, you still have a benefit over power attackers because both of you spent two actions, but you only increased your map once not twice, allowing you to get a second strike at -5 with your third action vs a minus 10 if you power attacked. This is balanced by the chance to crit with power attack. So here it’s unclear who’s on top.

If you planned on noble branching your first attack and you miss. You are better off then if you tried to power attack your first attack. Because then, you can instead just try to noble branch the second attack.

Edit: added further context.

However, my point is that I find it hard to come up with scenarios where it would actually change my decision making in a good way, rather than having to salvage a bad turn.

I think that’s the point. The point is too salvage a bad turn or be able to pivot in a worse case scenario. A player who takes the power attack action will be rewarded when they land that big crit, and the noble branch player will be rewarded when they miss and their put in a less bad situation. (Note there’s also a scenario where hitting with noble branch is better)

Your saying if you washed to hit and do something else, you could have picked a different ikon, but thats not the argument here. We’re talking about when you MISS. When you hit power attack is better when you miss noble branch is situationally better.

Also since you waited to know if you hit, you get the option of using your bigboy damage transcendence next turn. Which is convenient if damage output is your main concern. Also it pairs well with reactive strike since you can hinge tire bets and if doesn’t turn out well you can hold off transcendence get a stronger reaction attack.

Also note that even on a hit it can have benefits over power attack because it doesn’t have the attack trait, so you can still build around attending to hit with your attack pop noble branch, then attack again with say victors wreath or something for a plus 1 to hit.

Remember that the main benefit of the power attack option is the crit damage, but if you want a decent chance of critting, you would need to power attack on your first turn, so even still there’s a benefit for noble branch not having the attack trait.

Maybe it’s just cause i’m a grinch, but i’m glad there’s an option that makes me less pissy on a miss lol.

I sympathize with you that missing still sucks though. I think it’d be cool if the final playtest had some slight benefit for manually swapping your ikon, or maybe feats that give alternate transcendence options for weapons on a miss. That would make noble branch even better fit me. I think the base design of noble branch is sound though.

Reposting my thoughts on Noble Branch here for discussions sake after having ran through the Slithering module and roughly ~11 difficult encounters with it:...

Edit: well i wish i would have seen your edit first because now what i said is totally irrelevant lol. But I can see why it feels bad even though missing with noble branch is objectively better. I prepose that they give a slight innate benefit to doing a regular swap either as a base class feature or low level feat, so you never feel that your wasting actions. It would also help with actions with really expensive transcendences like the beautiful spot.

If i may ask why were you so fixed on switching your icon every turn? You’ve shown in your analysis that the effects are similar in terms of the damage,. And if you think about whenever you would have missed using the strike before you wanted to transcend noble branch, if you would have power attacked, you would have missed anyways. But now you don’t have to swap if you don’t want to, and if you don’t swap you can do something meaningful with the third action, like stride/assurance trip/ demoralize etc. In your initial post it seems as though your main complaint is that you don’t transcend on a miss, but if you miss your strike and want to switch the action economy is the exact same.

I just can’t wrap head around how noble branch makes missing worse when you get similar effect on a hit, for LESS initial action investment.

From what i understand the real downside of noble branxh is that the damage will never crit, but that only matters if the attack hit anyways.

Thesis: Abilities that do not guarantee you will be able to use your transcend are problematic.

Examples: Barrow's Edge's "Drink of my Foes", Noble Branch's "Strike, Breathe, Rend", "Reap the Field". These are conditional on if something else occurs during your turn. In each of these cases, that trigger is a successful strike, though you could imagine the designers' could add other abilities with other triggers, such as you successfully demoralize, etc.

I think you miss judge noble branch. It seems like a solid option to me. If you compare noble branch to the power attack option, you’re getting a similar effect (extra damage on an attack by spending an extra action), but you get to decide AFTER the attack already hit if you want to spend the action. The damage succeds the power attack transcendence at some levels falls behind at others, and the noble branch damage cant crit, the possibility to use that action on a trip or demoralize if the attack misses anyways is clutch. Did i mention it also doesn’t have the attack trait. Barrows edge has similar viability but it heals instead of damages. And if you really wanted the ikon to shift you could also just one action shift.