WWHsmackdown's page

Thanks for the great material everyone, enjoy the break! Exited for all the new path and sarfinding next year.

Another paizo live come and gone, no impossible book announcement. Adventures look neat at least.

Impossible wait continues. The final hint last night said next live would talk about two remastered products and one new one, so my copium is that it'll be the next one. Curious what was meant by "two remastered products": the whole of Secrets of Magic and Book of the Dead or those classes and some of those archetypes rolling into the impossible book?

5-14 is a good range, I think. Two or three class feats to have your character style started up and the game ends before the combats and effects therein get too large and sweeping. Also, I've been itching for more pathfinder horror since Malevolence.

Pathfinder: call of the sea! Rule book for island hopping nautical campaigns (made after tactical starship rules are made for sf2e so it can crib some stuff). I guess there'll have to at least be one new class for it but I wouldn't really care either way, I just want it in the rulebook line so there's enough page space for subsystems to finally run an island-hopping-style One Piece campaign!!

The impossible wait!

With tomorrow being one year since the Impossible Playtest dropped, I'm hoping for an announcement on Paizo Live this Friday.

There's a Paizo live this Friday?

Imagine a suite of Wizard exclusive spell shape feats, themed around both thesis and school choices (but general ones as well), enabled by successfully RKing an enemy, which allowed the Wizard to do unique things and reward them for using their knowledge.

Add a knowledge mechanic on top and you’ve got a class!

Absolutely! An omni-RK ability like bard, ranger, thaum, and (hilariously) playtest necros through knowing about skeletons is essential in PF skill system; you can get three skills to legendary and only two of those RK skills scale off intelligence. Wizard just isn't built to recall knowledge

I'm fine with multiple forms of casting. The only issue that would come up would be either expansion books would only offer very *very* small additions to each of those systems bc there are so many, or you'd get a kineticist situation where the mechanic is one and done, rarely to be touched on again, while the favored system (spell slots) gets more and more content bc it applies to a wider range of characters.

Whatever system they choose, I hope most classes saddle up to the same one so more classes can be expanded upon with future content. As many bugbears as I have with spell slots, their use along with the 4 traditions of magic mean that a lot of boats get lifted when the new spell content tide rises.

Horde of Underlings on any list has me grinning ear to ear. Clerics summoning a horde of cherubs at endgame sounds tight. Or a druid unleashing a pack of wolves. Or a psychic manifesting a mob of psychic echoes. The possibilities are endless! Bypassing the to hit struggles of traditional summon spells is the cherry on top.

Very excited to snatch this book up in a couple weeks.

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

IS there any Dragon Eidolons or is Summoner just dead.

Also is there a sustained force barrage, what is it called!? What Spell Tradition is it!?

Sustained Force Barrage is... an oversimplification. Horde of Underlings is a Rare 3rd level spell for all traditions that summons two minions per spell level. That are small or medium creatures with 1 hp and are almost impossible to miss. But they each do 1d4 physical damage automatically to an adjacent enemy, and the first time you sustain the spell they can move 20 feat and potentially do the damage again.

Heck yea. That's a minionmancy spell right there! That's awesome

I heard there's a very interesting summon spell that essentially functions as a sustained force barrage so long as the minions aren't popped.

** spoiler omitted **

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** spoiler omitted **...

I'm always down for scaling DC items! And for the summoner, yea, it has a little bit of the kineticist effect where the class is so unique a lot of the overlaying system doesn't mesh with it as well as it could.

I just feel like bringing up one of these threads every blue moon until the next Gen Con releases are finally teased for pf2e and sf2e.

I'm in the camp that thinks runesmith and necromancer will debut with a remastered summoner and magus in what amounts to a replacement for Secrets of Magic. I'd love the team to take a new crack at general use magic archetypes as opposed to the wellspring, flexible casting, ley line, and true name type systems in secrets of magic. More stuff that would be drag and drop for an easy themed caster like shadow caster, time mage, and sanguimancer archetypes we have now; late stage pf2e has been a little better in giving casters archetype options but martials are still comparatively spoiled for choice.

What would you guys want from such a book? What portions of Book of the Dead and Secrets of Magic do you expect to possibly get reprinted in it?

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, easily poaching a class's signature features like this is not good for the game. On the other hand, being able to accesss a versatile selection of focus spells with a dedication feat does wonders for classes/subclasses with poor focus spells. And while every caster benefits from this, the benefit is outsized for characters with weak focus spells, so I'd be sorry to see this go.

Imaginary Weapon cheese is better addressed by making spellstrike incompatible with any spell that cost you a focus point, and then making more exciting conflux spells so Maguses do other things besides spellstrike.

Right, spamable spell strike should be reserved for cantrips or magus focus spells. And the difference should be shored with changes in the magus class/ it's feats to encourage more varied turns.

Eh, come February, after DA is remastered, we'll get a fairly definitive state of power balance for psychic. They may touch imaginary weapon and they may not. I doubt psychic is a class that'll get continuous touch ups, like pre-master alchemist. For my money, I hope they make psychic feats have less friendly fire and give more one action activities that don't require psyche being unleashed.

Basically, justify the two slots or make it three slots.

An errata pass should fix outlying numbers. As far as feels go, short of the existential crisis that necessitated the remaster, anyone that doesn't like the feel of animist can only really hope for a class archetype.

For example: I never really enjoyed wizard. Especially after the remaster, it felt like a very constrained and flavorless 4 slot caster that couldn't really do a lot outside of its spell slots. Battlecry changed all that with the war mage class archetype; swapping out the thesis and arcane bond for what amounts to 4 general feats worth of proficiencies (martial weapons, light armor, medium armor, shield block) suddenly gave the wizard something of a secondary role outside of its slots. The ability to occasionally frontline coupled with spell shapes to heal allies, spell shapes to fear enemies, and a THIRD focus spell to buff the party suddenly had one of my least favorite classes feeling distinct and flavorful.

Point being, I'm confident the power will be fine after errata, but if THIS animist isn't your vibe, they could eventually make a class archetype animist that is.

Lol, vorpal dragon looks like a late game hunt from Monster Hunter, except it can lecture you after cutting your head off. I love it!

Getting angler fish vibes from despair dragons. I dig the nightmare fuel.

I have an Impossible Magics theory.

In Monster Core 2 I noticed that some of the monsters from Book of the Dead showed up in Monster Core 2. So then I took a closer look at Book of the Dead and realized there was quite a bit in there that was using OGL material, which is the same problem that Secrets of Magic has.

What if the Remaster version of Secrets of Magic and Book of the Dead are actually combined into Impossible Magic with themes around Nex/Geb.

I would be super excited if that happens. Although, I have one request for Paizo, can we please rename the Flexible Caster Archetype, maybe call it Adept.

That's the most likely theory I've been imagining, too; the only problem I see is that between the two new classes, remastering magus and summoner, bringing over SOME secrets of magic material, and bringing over SOME book of the dead material, there's not a lot room for brand new Nex/Geb stuff. If there was, it would be a hefty, expensive tome.

Cool stuff. Keeping the coral dragon in the back pocket for a future naval campaign!

Cutting the lists would be cool.....provided it didn't further damage a caster's ability to target all three saves. That's already a tall order on some lists, but further pruning can really hamper the one recourse casters have when going up against these large enemy save numbers.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Running with that Ring of the Ram example, imagine this:

You, a thief rogue, and your level 5 party are on the way to your next major plot point objective. While on route, you pick up a side quest to tackle a small time gang with an interesting twist: their leader is a telekine.

The gang leader, Arde Sholve, uses his powers to push carts off the precarious mountain roads so he and his cronies can pick the spoils in the ravine at their leisure.

An interesting encounter featuring combat and possible athletics checks to maintain grips and climb up cliff faces ensues. After the bandits have been dealt with, you pull a Ring of Ram off of Arde Sholve's cold dead finger: the source of his deadly party trick!

Fast forward to lvl 16 fighting some tier 4 boss and its minions. Some brute grapples the caster and starts wailing on them. Things are looking dire but you're up next! Pushing something a couple feet might not be all that impressive at lvl 16 but in this situation it would definitely help.

Your neurons begin to fire as your eyes snap to your finger. The ring! The jewelry you got from that small time gang leader 1.5 irl years ago (what was his name again? Some sort of pun...). You've used it a couple times and though it hasn't been often those few moments were pretty clutch.

You line up your fist green lantern style and make the minion throw a save against your class DC. It rolls a 20 on the die and disregards; on the caster's next turn they magic away. What you did was pointless, but you TRIED. GODS BLESS IT, YOU TRIED AND HAD A CHANCE!!! All bc of some treasure with a story from way back in tier 1 of play.

That's much, much, MUCH more satisfying to me than a constant treadmill of soon-to-be-trash.

This is an interesting scenario and I can see the desire for something like this but I think if we look at this exact scenario closely the issues with always slightly useful magic items to horde becomes more visible as well.

The difference between the two...

Then the game doesn't need a proliferance of items. I small bundle of things you can keep is better. Adjust the gold tables accordingly

Running with that Ring of the Ram example, imagine this:

You, a thief rogue, and your level 5 party are on the way to your next major plot point objective. While on route, you pick up a side quest to tackle a small time gang with an interesting twist: their leader is a telekine.

The gang leader, Arde Sholve, uses his powers to push carts off the precarious mountain roads so he and his cronies can pick the spoils in the ravine at their leisure.

An interesting encounter featuring combat and possible athletics checks to maintain grips and climb up cliff faces ensues. After the bandits have been dealt with, you pull a Ring of Ram off of Arde Sholve's cold dead finger: the source of his deadly party trick!

Fast forward to lvl 16 fighting some tier 4 boss and its minions. Some brute grapples the caster and starts wailing on them. Things are looking dire but you're up next! Pushing something a couple feet might not be all that impressive at lvl 16 but in this situation it would definitely help.

Your neurons begin to fire as your eyes snap to your finger. The ring! The jewelry you got from that small time gang leader 1.5 irl years ago (what was his name again? Some sort of pun...). You've used it a couple times and though it hasn't been often those few moments were pretty clutch.

You line up your fist green lantern style and make the minion throw a save against your class DC. It rolls a 20 on the die and disregards; on the caster's next turn they magic away. What you did was pointless, but you TRIED. GODS BLESS IT, YOU TRIED AND HAD A CHANCE!!! All bc of some treasure with a story from way back in tier 1 of play.

That's much, much, MUCH more satisfying to me than a constant treadmill of soon-to-be-trash.

Just tapping the sign...

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Or use Relics.

I'd prefer items that can stay relevant without being plot vital, uber powerful McGuffins. I ring of ram on a lvl 20 character that uses class DC and a late game relic with all its tiers of effects are NOT the same thing

A lot of static DC items are once per day activations anyway. It makes it doubly confusing why such arbitrary control is put onto what is essentially a daily power. Once per day utility activations stay relevant from lvl 1-20, but for some reason, if it makes an enemy roll a save it HAS to come packaged with planned obsolescence. Id sooner have all activations be utility effects so that loot won in the dungeon can be something you decide to keep .....you know.... a prize! As opposed to the fantasy ttrpg equivalent of junk mail: trash that someone else is giving you to throw away (I really hate spam/junk mail).

Why is finding a level 4 demon mask (worth 85gp) at level 3 worse treasure than finding an art object worth 42 gold and 5 silver? If you wear it for 2 or 3 levels and use its activation a couple of times while the DC is worth it, then sell it, you got more value out of the mask than a lump sum of treasure. Maybe somebody in the party values intimidation enough that they hold on to the mask well past level 6 or 7 where the DC falls off into irrelevancy, because it is just a +1 at that point. If casting fear regularly was this awesome thing for the character, they’ve had 4 levels to find another source for that ability and it will have only gotten worse than a multi class casting archetype in the last couple of levels.

I think the general issue is players approaching magic items as character defining game elements and that is very much against the design philosophy of PF2. Those kind of items are a part of a class kit like the exemplar. There are mandatory magic items for keeping up with numbers, but those items enable your class abilities (like weapons, shields, armor, etc). They are not character defining by themselves.

They SHOULD be character defining. No fantasy fiction that I consumed revolved around adventurers finding and mulching magical loot after a few uses. Harry Potter CONSTANTLY uses his cloak. Bilbo CONSTANTLY puts on the ring. Percy Jackson is CONSTANTLY using his pen sword. The idea that the magic ring you pryed from the cold dead corpse of the lich 3 levels ago is now defunct feels exceedingly hollow and unsatisfying. None of your items have a story, none of them matter, bc they aren't sticking around with those static DCs. They have the same value as a cheap souvenir.

Set DC items in a game where stats rise fairly linearly don't really feel like a narratively permanent addition to your character. Imagine Sam and Frodo getting eaten by Shelob and the whole adventure ending there bc the vial of starlight from Galandriel had a static DC all the way back from tier 2 of play and couldn't so much as stun a rank-and-file orc in Mordor.
That impermanence leads those items to feeling more like clutter than some permanent momento from your adventure.

At that point id rather have more consumables (which is funny bc I'm not big on them). Less gear that's more impactful is better than a flood of stuff that isn't meant to stick around.

Last night I ran a cinematic starship scene that was very well received; I'm very pleased with how the subsystem came out and really only wish I had more examples in GM core.

I used the Scanning a Dying Sun example for my lvl 6 party of 5 with the following adjustments: I changed the scanning DC from 27 to 23 bc my 2 computers players were only trained and neither were intelligence classes. I reflavored the dying sun to being an exploding reactor core in a derelict ship that they were trying to scan the last transmission of. I finally reflavored the fire elementals to being Swarm organisms for story reasons and bumped the health from 90 to 110.

It was a tense finale to the previous sessions investigation of the derelict when I left them with the cliffhanger that the ship had been scuttled by Swarm. All this to say I really enjoy the subsystem and look forward to trying to build some encounters of my own incorporating the homebrew upgrades my players give their ship in the campaign (until I can get official tactical rules).

How have cinematic starship encounters been for y'all? I'm interested to see how they've played out and what kind of scenarios other people plan on crafting. I'd also love to hear ship actions and homebrew improvements anyone has thought up while we wait for tactical rules.

Ectar wrote:

I was on board right up until "Ksedahl, the demon lord of ceaseless employment." It's about the eye-rolliest epithet I've heard in ages.

The description of the realm was cool.
Oh well.

Sounds like a Demon who loves Karoshi

Also, according to the time travel section, Zon-Shelyn will readily appear as Zon-Kuthon or Shelyn to any followers who can't accept their combination.

That kinda cheapens the narrative impact of those gods' sacrifice. Maybe Paizo got a lot of pushback from the Gorum fans during the Godsrain, idk.

I don't use it at my tables; between 5ish ancestry feats, 10ish skill feats, 5 general feats, and 10ish class feats, I think the standard game has plenty of decision points and I prefer the opportunity cost of working within 10 class feat choices as opposed to 20. Just personal preference of course; I just don't enjoy characters shoring up their class deficiencies with minimal pain. I'd rather they shore each other up than be islands of functionality. If they do wanna be an island, I want it to cost them most of their budget.

Agodeshalf wrote:

I'm about to start my psychic in seasons of ghosts. I have been wracking my brain for a way to make a psychic that could actually focus on using IW and not die horribly. The fact that probably the defining ability of the psychic amped cantrips can be poached via dedication seems wrong. You allow someone to be better at it than a psychic.

3 slots would be great, changing Unleashed really is to my mind a must, and having a way to better deal with mindless is very much needed - feat, something.

You should probably take generous advantage of your Amped Shield cantrip, alongside the Precise Discipline's Calculate Threat ability. Maybe also invest in a decent parry weapon. Anything that helps raise that AC.

Eh, I'm okay with the MC archetype as is. After all, it can only give access to 2 psi cantrips, where as a Psychic will have 5. Heck, you can't even get the surface cantrip without taking a feat separate from the dedication. This isn't like the ReMastered Oracle MC archetype.

And yeah, the whole 'Mindless' trait is one of my few gripes about how Paizo handles psychic magic. I mean, seriously, is there any other damage type besides mental that has a trait that says "This does absolutely nothing"

Precision damage on oozes

I don't think it's too ridiculous but scaling like a d8 spell (2d8 per rank with a focus point instead of 1d8) AND getting a second target is a bunch of small things. You get d8 spell slot spell attack damage...on two things ...for two actions. As it relates to the oh so squishy 6 health cloth caster chassis it's more suicidal than OP, but on any other chassis it's over budgeted. I'd rather see it be corrected if it meant more health or more gas in the class chassis

I know that I will get a ton of push back on this, but I think while buffing several of the psychic features, Paizo needs to nerf Imaginary Weapon. 2d8 damage (at Rank 1) is as good as most Rank 2 spells. Even being a spell attack roll, it is just too good.

Amped is even more broken. By Rank 3 you are dealing 6d8 Force damage to two targets.

It should probably be dropped down to 2d6 with +d6 per rank (regular and amped). Now it is more in line with Force Barrage for damage. At Rank 3, 2 action casting of Force Barrage deals 4d4+4 (Avg 14) v. 4d6 (Avg 14). Because you have to roll to hit it is weaker than FB, but it should be since it is a cantrip.

I'd be fine with that. The tangible dream psychic im playing in my buddy's season of the ghost campaign is using his feats for rogue dedication to get a naruto-style ninja type build. Honestly, the damage I can output seems a bit high and I'd rather have psychic be a 8 hit point class than be able to nuke in melee. Dropping often when I overcommit to melee seems to be the biggest issue. Imaginary weapon being 2d6 wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't melt as easily when focused.

For my little tanuki's sake, more hp or more spell slots for defensive spells would be my ask for the class. Holding out for level 5 so I can get wooden double for my substitution jutsu.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Why would you think this when the only reason to redo these books is to make substantial changes?

The remasters of existing books are being done in the place of regular reprints. That's why it's been semi-random. All the remastered non-core books are is special errata.

In addition We can look at treasure vault and guns and gears to see that anything that's going to require a lot of new or altered text is unlikely.

This happens with each book and people need to stop getting their hopes up that the reprint is going to fix whatever pain point they have, because Paizo have been pretty clear that's not what they're doing here.

Idk, the gunslinger changes weren't exactly nothing. The class got a nice bump, so wondering if the psychic would land on the gunslinger end or inventor end of the remaster spectrum doesn't seem like a baseless speculation.

What are everyone's predictions for the psychic remaster?

It could go a lot of ways, they might not even really change it all that much. However, I lean towards the refocus changes necessitating something more for psychics.

Psychic is ultimately a two slot caster with buffed cantrips, good focus spells, and two turns of psychic rage damage. Compared to how light some caster chassis are it miiiight really justify the missing 3rd spell slot. Hell, the necromancer is continuing the trend with board control and good focus spells costing that 3rd slot.

I think what the psychic offers is way more interesting than what the druid or witch have to offer, but I can't shake the feeling that something needs a bit more to justify cutting the spellcasting by one third.

Maybe psychic not being stupified after unleash. Or maybe unleash lasting a third turn. Maybe changing the cool thematic psychic feats to not be AOEs that harm allies as much as enemies.

What are y'all's thoughts?

This book was a lot of fun, jam packed with loads of goodies. Thanks for the follower rules, Linda! I've been brainstorming a sham professor thaumaturge with a medic follower as his graduate level understudy (for a Holmes and Watson vibe) but I could spend hours thinking of concepts for the rest of them!

4 slots free and clear with school spells being free learned spells would've been cool ...

Ryangwy wrote:

Tridus wrote:

I also think Spell Substitution is overrated for similar reasons. It's great when the situation aligns where there is a spell for this situation, you have it in your book but don't have it prepared, you have time to wait to get the spell, it's high enough level that its not practical to just carry a scroll, and you can't solve the problem with skills instead.

My understanding is that Spell Substitution is great for keeping the balance of your spells in place. You start with, say, two each of reflex, fortitude and will targeting spells in your top slots, maybe some general use but still not always useful things like Dispel Magic at rank-2 or an AoE incap in your 4th top rank slot. Two copies of Fly, perhaps. Then as you go through encounters and deplete them, you reshuffle to maintain the same balance, maybe to align with what appears to be the dungeon theme. Using a lot of Reflex spells against the mindless constructs? Probably time to wave goodbye to the Will spells you prepped.

You basically try to always have a generalist spell list prepped, whereas prepared casters, by design, become less generalist as they spend spell slots

That feels like a lot of effort to get what a Spontaneous caster gets out of the box. That being considered a major feature is probably a lot of why Wizard just feels so meh.

IMO Wizard would really feel better with 5e style prepared casting. PF2 missed the boat on that the first time and they probably didn't feel bold enough to try it in the remaster, but it just feels better in play. Especially on a class that doesn't have a lot else going on (compared to say Cleric who have Divine Font and IMO a better selection of focus spells).

5e system just makes prepared the best option, though. We'd just replace one generally easier choice (pf2e style spontaneous) for one demonstrably superior choice (5e style prepared). I'd rather wizard be a second class citizen than all prepared casters having the lunch of spontaneous AND having more versatility

I would rather if instead of going into the bestiary it was a simple template and like illusory creature where it uses the caster stats on the summon. The rank of the spell could define the amount of HP, damage a abilities that it have.

Exactly this. If creature stat blocks are two variable and broken to be given within relevant level ranges id rather have a template 10/10 times.

Guardian at least makes str companions more appealing. Not perfect, but I've beat that drum for 6 years so I guess I can wait for pf3e for a rebalancing of companions

Why wouldn't you? It's a strike.

your right, just the wording of if your strike hits the target it turns success into failures on the area attack save. I didn't know if that was the only benefit of that strike hit or if it functioned normally. Specific over general would probably specify that though, so yea,....I guess it's a normal ranged strike

Do you roll weapon damage on targets hit by the primary target ranged strike roll? I'm still confused on that part; idk if primary target is about focus firing or REALLY making sure that one enemy fails it's area attack save...

Well done, Gene. Communication and understanding are some of my favorite themes in sci-fi (Arrival is my favorite sci-fi movie). The piece feeling like it came straight from the tabletop is a cherry on top. Kudos!

But Unchained came 4 years before PF2e's release. It wasn't even close to be sendoff for that edition. It wasn't even the last book with classes on it.

Didn't realize. Fair enough. Well that and the SF1e equivalent being made before the OGL crisis advanced the time table makes a strong case I guess. It could work, and maybe even sell; I wouldn't be opposed to a book of class archetypes.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Only tangentially related, but I thought this was a better place for this question than a dedicated thread: how exactly does the weapon proficiency and armor proficiency work for followers from the captain archetype? I have the book in front of me but I'm struggling to find it within the relevant pages; I know the pertinent feats give the listed benefits on the follower statblock, but I cant find the words for their base proficiencies and advancements

Page 77, under Novice Followers:

"Proficiencies: Your follower is trained in their listed attacks, the armor from their kit, Perception, all saving throws, and the skills listed in their stat block."

They don't have weapon or armor proficiencies per se, just proficiencies in the thing in their statblock. So for example the Berserker is trained in their falchion strike and their armor kit. If you gave them a greatsword and full plate, they'd be Untrained in both.

Yup, there it is. Also upon closer inspections I see some advancements bumping proficiencies in strikes and such. Shame on me for skimming, lol. Guardian and berserker sounds like a fun combo!

...

Such a book sounds like it would be a pf2e sendoff, like unchained for pf1e

Only tangentially related, but I thought this was a better place for this question than a dedicated thread: how exactly does the weapon proficiency and armor proficiency work for followers from the captain archetype? I have the book in front of me but I'm struggling to find it within the relevant pages; I know the pertinent feats give the listed benefits on the follower statblock, but I cant find the words for their base proficiencies and advancements

Id sooner have the arcane classes and subclasses buffed instead of the list itself. Wizard, magus, and and the rune witch seem to be charged heavily for arcane access (at least I think it's part of their power budget). Conversely, imperial sorcerer has one of the strongest spellcasting features in the game, so it might not be a firm rule, who knows.

had an idea for a class that could be interesting

Spacemaster
where some break reality by tearing holes to new worlds, or hacking it's magical underpinnings, or finding connection to all living things, you are a living impossiblity, because you are able to violate the most basic laws of phsyics. Distance and volume are your playthings as you alter the distance between objects, enhance or reduce their capacity, and otherwise violate fundamental laws of physics.

I imagine this as a two to three slot caster who can enhance their speed by making certain spans of space just not count. can alter how much a container can hold, even batteries.

Narratively sounds similar to witchwarper