WWHsmackdown's page

Seeing magus brushed up with the swashbuckler treatment of getting incentives to do things other than their big boom would be nice. It be awesome to get more feats that recharge your spellstrike but are beefy two action abilities so you can't spellstrike that turn; 3 actions rolled into two or two actions with one or both getting a bonus would conditionally have me forgoing spellstrike if it could also act as a recharge. It's not super vital, but would definitely be appreciated for magus to get that kind of QoL

4 slots originally seemed like a power signpost that signaled fewer class mechanics outside the slots themselves and fewer avenues of all day repeatable power. Also, worse health, armor, and save progression. Essentially, that fourth slot is powerful enough to justify sacrificing A LOT. Now with Oracle and playtest animist, idk. Ultimately though, no, I wouldn't want to see bard get a fourth slot. It's plenty strong

WWHsmackdown wrote:

if I had to worry about PCs bypassing a mystery I had set up

well, this part hasn't really changed much. That's just kinda the Investigators wheelhouse. Before the interrogation was just happening after the fight

The difference here being that it I want to lie and keep the mystery as something to be engaged with, I have to skip the NPCs turn in combat. With a feat like that engaging mystery and balanced combat might become a zero sum game.

Hmmm. Not a fan of that as a GM. I'd end up having all goons clueless as to goings on if I had to worry about PCs bypassing a mystery I had set up

Excited to by a toxicologist that can't get hard blocked by a lot of monster types. He can even open up with projectile vomit if I drink a mutagen between fights. Cool stuff!

Melee inclusions for operative and soldier were the only major request I had so hearing about that stuff has me very excited for the release. A mid range operative all about knives and pistols is liable to get gunned down on the approach, but gods help me, it's the kind of assassin I'm going to build, lol.

The blood magic feats are a good direction to take the class. I like it

Oof yea seeing that blood magic from imperial made me do a double take. Spell attacks and affecting spell DCs in the system is so tightly regulated that seeing an in subclass chassis boost of up to +3/-3 seems completely cracked. No skill checks, no teamwork, just cast bloodline spells then you get an insane boost (compared to any other spell slot caster). Players rolling up with imperial sorc are going to get that eyebrow raise from me that previously only players bringing a fighter got.

*shrug* We'll see how it shakes out in the playtest

WWHsmackdown wrote:

That's the heart of the disagreement then, I think spray and pray should be a martial thing. Casters will have much more powerful AOEs by way of spells. More of a preference thing really, so the end result will be a matter of designer preference.

While there is room for disagreement here, I don't think it comes down purely to personal preference in a system known for its niche protection. AoE damage is very much not a martial specialty, it is something casters excel at. Martial classes are single-target specialists by default, and it takes special class features to make them good at AoE if that is indeed their intended niche. This is why weapon AoEs don't use some preestablished model like Whirlwind Strike and make Strikes against AC, for instance, because that would make the Fighter and Gunslinger among the best users of AoE weapons when that is very much not an intended strength of theirs. The problem with the Commander is the exact same problem the developers wanted to avoid with those legendary proficiency classes in the first place, hence why I do think that risk needs to be taken seriously.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

The idea of Jesse Ventura spraying the jungle with a minigun trying to clip the predator (obviously a soldier) and doing so as effectively as....a scrawny nerd seems fundamentally wrong to me. Now that scrawny nerd snapping his fingers and fireballing the jungle bc he studied all things arcane checks out to me. I don't think the area fire is going to be a caster feature. Reach spell and aoe cantrips are going to be their version of at will aoe.

I don't see that as particularly unrealistic, tbh. Sgt. Cooper is obviously a Soldier, so he's going to be automatically better with that minigun than the scrawny nerd even if they're using the same DC value, but that scrawny nerd has spent their entire career practicing the use of spells and other magical effects that often cover large areas. They've almost certainly studied how to make use of angles,...

Spraying WILL be decent for martials, but due to the dreaded *RELOAD ACTIVITY* (spooky campfire ghost story voice) it's only going to happen once, maybe twice a fight. Two sprays and you reload, and given most fights only last 3-4 turns, you won't see it spammed when weighed against vagaries of the turn and other specific class actions that are desired.

That's the heart of the disagreement then, I think spray and pray should be a martial thing. Casters will have much more powerful AOEs by way of spells. More of a preference thing really, so the end result will be a matter of designer preference. The idea of Jesse Ventura spraying the jungle with a minigun trying to clip the predator (obviously a soldier) and doing so as effectively as....a scrawny nerd seems fundamentally wrong to me. Now that scrawny nerd snapping his fingers and fireballing the jungle bc he studied all things arcane checks out to me. I don't think the area fire is going to be a caster feature. Reach spell and aoe cantrips are going to be their version of at will aoe. Mechanical (nuts and bolts) aoe seems firmly the realm of the martially inclined and in a ranged meta where everyone has ranged and casters will have BETTER AOE...I think thats fine. Also spraying taking half a clip means martials won't have their teeny AOE power with anywhere near the frequency of caster cantrips aoe power. Proficiency (outside of soldier) also means that martial weapon aoe won't scale as well as caster cantrips aoe

Also circling back to that end paragraph, in a ranged meta commander spraying bullets well is bad, but wizard spraying bullets well is good? AOE damage (that is comparatively piss poor when stacked against focus or lvled spells) staying the sole preview of casters, at the expense of ludo narrative dissonance of the gattling wizard, is not the solution I'd opt for.

Alright, in the effort of actually engaging the topic, which I didnt bother with before (bc I like the current implementation and don't honestly think it's going to change), what are the alternatives?

An area weapon action proficiency? Now absolutely no PF2e classes can pick up the gattling gun and spray with it (which is fine bc again "compatible does not equal balanced"). However, now every SF2e class would track weapon proficiency as well as proficiency for certain actions with those weapons. Ultimately a new proficiency track for a small subset of actions that will join the tab keeping of weapon, armor, spell DC, skill, and class DC proficiency tracking. Idk if the addition pays for itself considering the size of the niche it would be protecting; that gets a no from me.

Alternatively, as mentioned above you could go the PF2e gun/gunslinger route of making area attacking with weapons generally cumbersome and not worth it, while juicing the soldiers ability with them to "hopefully" bring them up to par in combat contribution. I see a lot of criticism (admittedly from online communities, so in no way representative) about guns and don't like them personally outside of gunslinger and inventor, so I would be bummed if a whole swathe of itemization was intentionally bad for a majority of the martials in the game.

Another option is to take away area fire from weapons and put it all in the soldier. Obviously a lot of people would miss the idea of spraying down a hallway of mechs or space zombies with a machine gun and having soldier be the only method of getting it, so I can't imagine that going over well.

A spicy one would be making it a skill action with a new "suppression" skill and stipulate that classes can only ever get to master in suppression unless otherwise noted. Then, give soldier automatic advancement in suppression. This is fairly clean compared to other alternatives but arbitrarily locking other people from getting legendary in one particular skill bc of niche protection reasons would a first and I think it chafes mechanically.

Ultimately grenades, bazookas, and gun spray tying off class DC is simple and clean to me; it keeps most martials competent in it and means casters have to make do with shooting a laser pistol or rifle as their third action (which is good bc I personally think spraying down the hallway with suppressing fire is a martial niche and not something the mystic or witchwarper should be doing). Additionally, area fire being a two action activity means most other legendary DC classes are going to have a bevy of two action activities that they would be loathe to forego just to do something as mundane as spray with a machine gun. It works for soldiers bc they have mechanics that encourage it; it's MADE for it. If the nanocyte ends up being legendary DC, I don't care about them being good with rotolasers, soldiers is going to be better with them bc it's whole sctick is going to be using area damage to hem enemies all within a beefy frontline chassis.

P.S. the bazooka thing was me misremembering mechanics. Stellar connon is just a martial weapon attack roll with burst. I may be remembering wrong but I thought I heard grenades using class DC but I could be wrong.

I looked again at Numbing/Soothing Tonic.

20 renewing temp points at 16 level seems kinda ok.
Is fast healing 10 a signifigant amount at 17th level?

Depending on how long the fight goes and how much it heals it could essentially bump you up to being a D10 martial bc of the effective health the enemy is rechewing through. I love fast healing!

I'm down for bazooka commanders, sounds cool! And aang can totally whip out the gattling laser if he so chooses in the scifi setting....it would be for flavor reasons though, not because it would be better than his preloaded AOE available in feats. Also from the beginning the developers elaborated that compatible did not equate to balanced...the strix hoofing it next to the ysoki in the jetpack or the naturally flying jellyfish is just going to have to make do. Similarly, the dueling pistol wielding pistolero is going to feel a little dated next to laser pistol wielding operative. Similarly, yea, the kineticist is great with the bazooka bc the GM *chose* to add a "compatible" class that was made for a different game. Class DC as a method of giving soldier decent aoe offense (but still rightfully well below casters) in 2handed weapons and grenades seems a simple enough solution for the con based debuff menace they're going for. It also opens up switch hitting on a frontline bruiser which is pretty unique and something I totally want them to keep. The only concern I see is the being judicious with class DC for future starfinder 2e classes...then again it was 4 years before we got out first legendary DC class in p2E so SF2e could go for a while before they have to tackle that hurdle (unless aoe weapons are thematic for the class in which case its a non issue). Also, who said the bazooka was supposed to be a meaningful option for the casters? Also, Teri, my reading comprehension is fine. The above points that you did preempt were done so with counters I don't agree with. Have a wonderful day!

Old poisoner archetype looked like it gave a few neat side grades to toxicologist (up to lvl 10) so I hope the remastered one can still mesh alright with the remastered toxicologist

Hobgoblin toxicologist is something Im excited to make after seeing these alchemist changes. Bomber looks easier to play but toxi looks more than sevicable now (and I can still pick up calculated splash when I need to be ranged).

Oh alchemist gets master martial all of tier 4, nice! V vials looks like it solves tier 1 supply issues.

One of the things I like about the witch, a class I may never play, is that it allows for the “wizard with more class features” pretty well, leaving the wizard to be the “spell slots” class, for those of us who just want to cast a lot of different spells with our characters.

Witch is awesome! Arcane witch, unfortunately, got the short end of stick on familiar abilities so arcane casters continue to not really have full class features

Between this, the animist, and the witchwarper preview we got, I'm really liking the look of newer casters. Fun mixes of class mechanics, spell slots, and spell slots tying into class mechanics

I'm so stoked to see the final release, and sink my teeth into the new witchwarper and precog!!

I really don't like calling their "alternate [reality / timeline / spatiality / whatever]" schtick a Quantum Field. I have said it before, but, the word "quantum" is so overused and diluted in sci fi, it's lost all meaning. Especially given that quantum science and quantum computing are still burgeoning fields in real life, the more that those fields develop and mature (and usage of the word "quantum" along with that), the more that using "quantum" as a stand-in for "something weird, spooky, and/or high tech" will feel quaint and outdated.

Idk, superposition in quantum mechanics can kinda be likened to the quantum field made here if you squint hard and add magic, extra dimensional properties (which sounds suitably sci fi to me).

Connecting to someone with magical defibrillation seems adequately occult. It's all about connections, this one is just a bit more literal

I fully expect it to be a Bon Mot-equivalent feat for thievery since Dirty Tricks were a combat maneuver in PF1e like grapple or trip were. I remember it being really strong though, and I don't know what it could do that other similar combat actions don't already do.

It could debuff reflex the way bon mot debuffs will. IF that's the case, then all we'd be missing is a skill action debuffing fortitude and we'd have the trifecta of targeted save debuffs that anyone could do to help set up a spell landing

Also, what monster is pestering Korakai there?

That is an awesome visual for a feat! Oracle looks like a very interesting caster now; I do like being a gambling man.

The class that appealed to me the most so far is actually the soldier, I like the idea of the suppression mechanic, the others are cool too though and the solarion wormhole ability Thurston showed off has me vibrating.

Another thing that has me excited about soldier is the con main stat, incentivising me to get a +2 in str AND dex for switch hitting with big weapons. A little behind in to hit but I'd catch up quick enough. Spraying down a charging front line with a rotolaser before whipping out a dhoshko is pretty metal. Equally proficient in bonks and pews with Con DC AOEs for both. I've never been this excited for a tank/bruiser

Ah yes, the OGL situation. Much like a nuclear waste spill, it's just a gift that keeps on giving. We probably did not have that much longer of SF1e's lifespan but I do have to wonder how much longer SF1e would have lasted without WotC pulling the single most anti-consumer move I think any TTRPG publisher has ever managed.

Maybe like 3 more years? Long enough to playtest and start to run a system that would soft playtest pf3e ideas? Things as they are now, pf3e will playtest early sf3 concepts (provided it's not a 4-5 year edition from them having the two change in the same step)

SuperBidi wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?

Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?

I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.

Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.

If stealth was a necessary requirement for every PC it wouldn't be a skill. It would be a mandatory proficiency like perception. As it stands it's one optional skill of many optional skills you can take

WWHsmackdown wrote:

I'm curious what percentage of the player base is actually here to dungeon CRAWL and manage resources. How many fights does the average table want to do before the casters get antsy? I dont have answers but it would be a cool poll to set up on Reddit or something (not that forum communities are wholly representative or anything). I haven't had a table yet that had that grindset where they locked in for 10+ combats before hunkering down for a night. If 3-5 fights is the average (maybe) and people rest so casters have their top end firepower again (both damage and incapacitation effects).....why do we have slots? Why not balance spells with desired impacts at desired levels and let the classes just do their thing? Who knows, I could be a minority. Regardless, the current iteration gives plenty of classes with plenty of reusable power (casters included). It'll just stay a matter of avoiding classes like wizard and sorc

Its been done, 3-4 encounters is dominant, with 1-2 encounters outnumbering anything higher than 3-4 by itself.

I do agree that reddit isn't per se representative, but if we're talking about a more casual playerbase (which is the assumption, since the skew is most likely from greater-than-average-investment) that would favor fewer encounters per day even more.

I think slots are a mix of texture and bounding, dealing with a spell management subsystem makes you feel like a Wizard or whatever as well as affording design options for class differentiation based on how they interact with it (in other words, it communicates fictional distinction) and differences in spell slots can mean something in a relative sense because while you'll rest when your slots are low, different casters can afford to play differently in that context. A Spell Blender Wizard can be looser with their slots than a druid, even if they're largely going to rest by the time the...

Interesting, yea slots and their idiosyncrasies definitely seem like an easy way to differentiate classes. Much easier than introducing more bespoke systems to every class (though those things are the most interesting parts of classes to me). The hardest part for me will always be the mental difference between a wizard having enemies crit succeed rolls in a top end fireball or hallucination versus a kineticist having enemies crit succeed on their blazing wave or wiles on the winds. The emotional impact is completely different for the two scenarios. The wizard, sorc, and cloth clerics have so much tied up into something finite and wastable that they can dictate story pacing if they push the group hard enough. When that "finite" resource becomes a casualty of the way people want to play, I'd sooner design the classes around the way people are playing

I'm curious what percentage of the player base is actually here to dungeon CRAWL and manage resources. How many fights does the average table want to do before the casters get antsy? I dont have answers but it would be a cool poll to set up on Reddit or something (not that forum communities are wholly representative or anything). I haven't had a table yet that had that grindset where they locked in for 10+ combats before hunkering down for a night. If 3-5 fights is the average (maybe) and people rest so casters have their top end firepower again (both damage and incapacitation effects).....why do we have slots? Why not balance spells with desired impacts at desired levels and let the classes just do their thing? Who knows, I could be a minority. Regardless, the current iteration gives plenty of classes with plenty of reusable power (casters included). It'll just stay a matter of avoiding classes like wizard and sorc

My homebrew campaign (once SF2E is complete and I can have my timeline hopping, endgame converging narrative I want to run) is going to have Sword Saints of Gorum, basically mythic mercenaries that are either allies or enemies depending on which side of a conflict they are hired. I think I can keep the Gorum death development in my home pact worlds, I just need to tweak the story as them picking up hunks of God Iron as opposed to being specially chosen by Gorum as living avatars. Or maybe it can be both: across the millennia the reforged god flesh (swords) has constantly sought out those who love a good scrap! Is there any significant numerology to Gorum? Trying to figure out how many saints there should be

WWHsmackdown wrote:

For me ki points, number of rages, and hunters mark being a spell were some of the worst parts of being a martial in 5e, a system that constantly kicks martials for thinking theyre people too, like the casters. The fact that PF2e axed those limitations and let the martials just be able to always do their thing was one of the reasons I jumped ship. Everybody deserves to do their thing, not reach the Xth fight of the day and say "sorry guys we have to retreat, I don't have enough juice to be my class anymore". It's so arbitrary

To be clear, I don't think it makes much sense to give martials important expendable resources without also giving them something worthwhile in exchange for spending them, some kind of ability that does punch above their baseline by a solid margin. That's sort of why I said "meaningful" resources. For example, I think rounds of rage is a dull resource that feels meh to manage because it gates the one thing that makes your class your class, but resource-limited powers to use while raging could be great.

I can understand attrition feeling like just one more thing keeping you down in 5E, where resources take away one of the only benefits you can begin to have over a caster. But in a system with more universal and intentional power ceilings (like 2E), I don't think resource management on martials needs to feel this way. Would you remain opposed to it even in a system where power ceilings were carefully managed?

I personally think attrition is a valuable tool in the game's design. It does a lot to prevent encounters from feeling samey. Do you not enjoy this benefit in theory? I know a lot of prior martial attrition has been pretty binary—either you have your Single Important Resource and you're good, or you don't, and you suck—and I agree that doesn't feel great. If it were less binary than this, would you feel the same?

Deriven Firelion wrote:

No, my table is not. I have no evidence to support that the kineticist is performing better than

...

I like exhaustion, health (if no one specced healing), and untreated harmful conditions being the things that necessitate rest. In battle I like martials, kineticist, focus spells, amps, druids commanding animal companions/ wild shaping, bard compositions, hex cantrips/familiar actions, spell strikes. I just like classes doing their things. I don't enjoy my classes thing being finite...I basically dont enjoy attrition bc dungeon slogging is the least enjoyable part of the game for me: I'd rather a dungeon with 5 important, narratively relevant fights and 7 filler combats to just be a dungeon with 5 important, narratively relevant fights. I view attrition as something that benefits things I don't think matter (like more filler fights). Just better to have more kineticist casters (imo)

The solution I usually opt for is not telling players what others are building unless someone explicitly derives joy from "filling" (they exist..I'm one of them). If their choices create redundancies or deficiencies on the mechanical side I take care of it on my side of the screen with appropriate tweaks to the adventure. I haven't had to change much.

A core assumption of this thread is that martials remain a fairly resourceless bunch, but I think it's an assumption worth examining. It's a perfectly compelling solution to give martials greater sources of attrition instead. It's not like they've never had it; barbarians had to manage rounds of rage per day in the past, for instance, and brawlers had to manage martial flexibility uses, and paladins had to manage smites, and so on. If anything, we kind of set ourselves up for this issue by making so many martials able to plow on indefinitely with so little penalty.

I'd like to see martials manage more meaningful resources than things like rounds of rage, though, mind you. That resource could be anything—spending stamina on enhanced combat maneuvers or special abilities, very powerful n-times-per-day abilities tacked onto magic items, more feats that grant strong limited-use abilities, or who knows what else. I'd just like to see something.

I personally just think that it makes more sense to design attrition into everyone, and make an obvious soft encounter limit that's the same for most all classes, than to make the caster's attrition less severe. It's also a bit more comfortable at the table, too; it's a lot more palatable to rest when the caster has spent all their important spellslots if you've also blown all or most of your important resources. The social contract is more comfortable than it is now, where you're sometimes just dragging around the one guy who dictates when the party rests.

I don't want to see everyone lose attrition, because it removes a primary point of both tension and decisionmaking throughout the day.

For me ki points, number of rages, and hunters mark being a spell were some of the worst parts of being a martial in 5e, a system that constantly kicks martials for thinking theyre people too, like the casters. The fact that PF2e axed those limitations and let the martials just be able to always do their thing was one of the reasons I jumped ship. Everybody deserves to do their thing, not reach the Xth fight of the day and say "sorry guys we have to retreat, I don't have enough juice to be my class anymore". It's so arbitrary

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Idk, kineticist has been wildly successful as a class. I think the general population of gamers (and their average age range) is so far removed from the foundational inspirations of DND that we can do the feat based casters in a new edition and not repeat the grognard teeth knashing of old (provided a pf3e doesnt repeat the OTHER shortcomings of DnD4e). It really seems like the easiest most readily believable alternative to the spell slots system. The generalist will suffer the most in a paradigm where casters only have access to 15-20 abilities but *shrug* focused themes are cooler than toolboxes. Wizard specifically is the only character concept that is greatly hindered, a small price to pay for all casters functioning smoother

I agree that if they were to make most magical classes use a bespoke way of doing their magic rather than all looping through the spellcasting subsystem, it wouldn’t be nearly as unpopular as it was back with 4E. PF1E was at least as popular as 4E, if not more so, and we have multiple confirmations from Paizo that PF2E reaches an audience that’s leaps and bounds bigger. They don’t need to cater to the old guard nearly as much for a hypothetical PF3E.

Personally I’d really like it if toolbox strategies at least remained viable even if they’re not the default assumption like they are in PF2E. That sort of gameplay is just extremely appealing to me (not just in Pathfinder and other tabletops, it bleeds into other games I play too, like Magic the Gathering), and I’d be sad to see it gone.

I also think that while the new crowd will not mourn the loss of spell slots specifically, they will be sad if all spellcasters lose their option to be explosive within limits. An at-will magic system that doesn’t use toolboxes necessarily requires that your magic can’t punch way above your weight, but to many players (myself included) punching way above your weight a limited number of times is literally the whole point of playing a spellcaster! Now...

Definitely, I imagine classes would still have their idiosyncrasies: overflows, unleashes, new solarian stance swapping, etc. etc. That's how you avoid that saminess of 4E. It's just the specifics of finite slots that can completely bounce off of the defensive profiles of a balanced encounter that I expect will be axed. And good riddance too; I'm all for casters and martials playing on even fields with strengths and weaknesses, but not with the two kinds of characters playing in completely different games. Kineticist shows me that casters can and should exist with martials in the constant action paradigm with slight breaks to heal up. "I've run out of my little squares of available magic power that I set aside for the day" has always seemed alien and sourced from something outside the regular creative process in the DND space. At least a mana pool would stand in as some vague reservoir of magical "stamina" that could be grokked (though still not ideal). All classes just doing their things as they should all the time just makes way more sense to me. I could be wrong though, maybe the 35 and younger crowd really resonate with spell slots and couldn't live without them, I have no data. In my defense, paizo and WOTC are the only developers I see using spell slots, most everyone else uses different bespoke magic systems

I had fun with outlaws of alkenstar, the bar is sort of a home base in that ap. Malevolence was also a banger with our table.

Oh yea, the new school system lends itself to being expensive with new options. It's a shame Book of the Dead is premaster but such a school might show down the line, who knows

Idk, kineticist has been wildly successful as a class. I think the general population of gamers (and their average age range) is so far removed from the foundational inspirations of DND that we can do the feat based casters in a new edition and not repeat the grognard teeth knashing of old (provided a pf3e doesnt repeat the OTHER shortcomings of DnD4e). It really seems like the easiest most readily believable alternative to the spell slots system. The generalist will suffer the most in a paradigm where casters only have access to 15-20 abilities but *shrug* focused themes are cooler than toolboxes. Wizard specifically is the only character concept that is greatly hindered, a small price to pay for all casters functioning smoother

Martials having generally unassailable sovereignty over single target dpr is one of the things that made me jump ship from 5e to PF2e. I wouldn't want to see that change. Casters can have a spell lists worth of feat like abilities, martials can have around 10. Let the martials have damage, casters have access to so much more. Letting the martials bonk things better seems like such a tiny, pitiful concession in the grand scheme of things...

I'm 30 years old, know nothing about the Dying Earth series beyond its impact on DND mechanics, and missed the train on DND4E bc I wasn't playing ttrpgs yet. As far as I'm concerned, spell slots can burn on the pyre with other outmoded sacred cows.

Seeing the swarmkeeper archetype makes me really think nanocyte would show up as an archetype in a tech book. I think that would be fine provided it was a beefy archetype. If it played out like that my SRO mechanic could employ nanobots for further tech shenanigans

Getting as many graviton powers as possible should get me that force adept vibe I'm going for. One more month!!

A post just about spell substitution:

Spell substitution requires 10 minutes between encounters to be useful. It is better than PF1 leaving slots open because you have a useful spell in that a lot the whole time, you just can change it on the fly.

My wizard can learn a spell in 10 minutes, critically succeeds every learn a spell check he doesn’t fail, and can’t critically fail. Because of this, I spend a ton of my character wealth on scrolls. Scrolls are great! Buy a scroll, learn the spell, use the scroll. I only ever have to do this once. That means I get a lot more different scrolls than any sorcerer, and thus my spell book gets very big, with every spell in it a potentially signature spell. This varies somewhat by table, but nothing in arcane thesis says “wizard spells only”, (and some like experimental spell shaping would be really weird if they were limited only working on spell from your wizard list), so all my character’s MCd cleric spells can be switched out too, but I’ll leave that benefit out for now, cause some won’t play that way.

What level scroll do you keep illusory disguise at? What about mending? Or summon construct? Or dispel magic? Or lock? “But I never cast those spells!” Exactly! If the ability to potentially cast a spell eats up limited resources, you never think about the ways that a lock spell cast on an already locked back door, might very well prevent an enemy caster you are trying to catch from being able to leave, because they won’t be trained in athletics or thievery. Or heightening an illusory disguise to rank 3 will allow your very deceptive rogue to impersonate just about anyone, as they get a +4 status bonus, and if you really need to, you can heighten it instead to 4th level to let you disguise the whole party. The DCs for things like impersonation, get a lot more reasonable with a +4 bonus. There are a ton of utility spells that heighten at different levels. Spell substitution lets you utilize all of that much better than scrolls.

It also lets me prepare one of...

Just went back to read the wording on the thesis...and it really doesn't make any restriction on what slots you can sub. That is STRONG with some witch slots. Going into witch was always my plan with wizard but now I can't imagine anything other than the substitution thesis. Good stuff, thx for the elucidation

The psychology of it is important, I love my kineticist bc I have a small bag of spells that I can ALWAYS use. It's not as strong as a top lvl slot but it can never be "wasted" on an enemy with cracked defensive stats where failure was a forgone conclusion. I can smile safe in the knowledge that the cone of fire is coming again next turn, regardless of the enemy's crit success roll. Kineticist plays like a martial, it can keep swinging despite the spell chance paradigm of PF2e. As I've said before I'm more than excited for pf3e to go full dnd4e and destroy spell slots for more class/ feat based spell like abilities. Have a perfectly balanced game AND nuke the feels bad of wasting precious resources

Waiting until the 4 day weekend to drop a grenade thread....pretty sneaky, Sis!

Always fun to see a good skill feat in action!

I've used both roll20 and foundry. Roll20 in my buddy's age of extinction campaign and foundry for the outlaws of alkenstar campaign I ran. Foundry is a much more feature heavy product, lots to like there, but getting everything going the way I wanted and getting the right version of the adventure to be compatible, getting everyone to my house bc I didn't want to pay for a server, getting encounters running smoothly with all the ambient features, properly loading in bestiary assets, walking the newbies through all the features *I WAS STILL LEARNING*.......cheese and crackers, I really just ended up wanting something simple to accommodate maps and tokens....it's all i really want/need/desire to run. All that to say, I'm very down for more Roll20 support for 2E.

simpetar wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

It may be helpful to think of the combination of (sustain+swarm attack) as being roughly equivalent to a cantrip. You're doing something vaguely resembling cantrip damage, and you're taking two actions to do it. Obviously there are a lot of ways in which the details are different, both for and against, but it might be a useful place to start from, mentally, for figuring out the value proposition.

Thank you, that sums up really nicely where my frustration came from. I really do want to like it, the concept is cool, and want to make it work.

When you have to resort to spamming cantrips, you are usually desperately out of resources and scraping the bottom of the barrel. But even then you can choose to take a pause and do something else. Not so much with swarm, you cannot take a "round off", else the swarm will dissipate: 3 action abilities are completely off limits, and if you use a 2 action ability, the remaining action is wasted more often than not. You will be left with 1 action abilities. While those can be strong and impactful (some focus spells, battle medicine, heck even the most basic strike), are rarely as interesting as the other options.

In simpler words: 2 action cantrip (that you can cast whenever you feel like it) is different from 1 action useful swarm attack + 1 mandatory action you cannot forego, lest you loose it.

This is fair... but you're also not seeing the upsides. Like...

- The damage is a little low (usually on a cantrip you'd get another d4), but party-friendly 2x2 is pretty nice as a targeting area for a cantrip goes.
- For a lot of martials (the target audience for this thing) one-action abilities are their bread and butter. Sure, they may have two-action abilities (if they buy them with feats), but their primary limitation of that variety is MAP, rather than the hard limit of only one two-action ability per turn.
- It scales without further investment, off of a stat you already care about. Class...

I like this take the best. I'm looking at making a mosquito witch and this honestly slots in perfectly well.

ottdmk wrote:

Fair... but I don't see how you can compare Swashbuckler with a Str based Fighter

The same way you compared them otherwise? A fighter with a greatsword is no less of a martial than a fighter with a rapier.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Dex melee is one of the weakest ways to play a fighter so being almost as good as one of those is not a great look.

Ehhh, having the option of shield feats, dueling feats, open hand feats, and bow feats all bc you picked the switch hitting stat is far from weak imo

Oh sure, in the totality the options are good. But in terms of just numbers comparisons (which is what I was replying to) fighter with rapier is not really a standout.

Sure, sure. I'm just saying that the reason you should be a dex fighter is bc you wanted the flavor OR specifically bc you wanted to switch hit. Dex martials that aren't keeping a runed out ranged weapon in the back pocket are leaving half of their power budget on the table IMO. In that sense swash and dex fighter stack up pretty well to each other. Str is damage, dex is options. Swash as a dex class has a surprising amount of damage considering it uses the options stat

The tendency of people to take a conversation and then move it three steps from its original location and context to construct long arguments by picking out single nuggets to respond to while completely missing the point of the original conversation is one of those reasons I often think about just forswearing the internet entirely. The flipside is that I've met so many wonderful people who have become colleagues and had so many freelancers and 3pp friends who've been improved by these conversations that I feel a bit of a responsibility to keep going even when threads like this make me lose all faith in humanity.

So let's talk about the context of my original post and what I was actually saying.

At the time I made that post, one of the hottest conversations in the community was about wizards not being able to be mono-themed effectively (e.g. blasters suck / why can't I just play a wizard who shoots fire all day / etc.) An incredibly common response to this request from other community members at the time was "You can, just play a kineticist." And, of course, this thread was in the context of designing for the game.

Now, let's go back to what I actually said (note that this was only a portion of the conversation and that the link towards the top of this thread was itself an out of context repost) -

Me wrote:

So bringing it back to balance and customization: if a character has the potential to do anything and a goal of your game is balance, it must be assumed that the character will do all those things they're capable of. Since a wizard very much can have a spell for every situation that targets every possible defense, the game has to assume they do, otherwise you cannot meet the goal of balance. Customization, on the other side, demands that the player be allowed to make other choices and not prepare to the degree that the game assumes they must, which creates striations in the player base where classes are interpreted based on a given person's preferences and ability/desire to engage

...

Ooooooo that last paragraph is VERY interesting to me; I used to beat on that spell school archetype drum a bunch, but ultimately I came to understand that maybe what I really wanted was stacking benefits on a singular playstyle (which as noted, is at odds with having something as diverse and utilitarian as a spell list). Still, caster archetypes like shadow caster, time mage, captivator, and reanimator are some of my favorite choices for the spell slot classes bc of the slightly more focused theming they can provide.

Dex melee is one of the weakest ways to play a fighter so being almost as good as one of those is not a great look.

Ehhh, having the option of shield feats, dueling feats, open hand feats, and bow feats all bc you picked the switch hitting stat is far from weak imo