WWHsmackdown's page

The maneuvers scaling as you level would be nice.

Teridax wrote:

benwilsher18 wrote:

"I want to Spellstrike every turn for an entire adventuring day"

and

"I never want to Spellstrike with a spell as weak as a standard cantrip".

If people really want both of these things as they seem to, then I think that their expectations for the remaster are way too high.

I think it's less this, and the fact that people don't want to have to contend with the opposite of both. If you can only Spellstrike half the time at best and are also largely relegated to cantrips when you do, what's the point?

I agree that as the Magus is now, if you Spellstrike once every two turns instead of every turn, and only ever use cantrips to do it, you won't feel like a very strong damage dealer compared to other martials that are easier to play and much more durable.

But I don't think that they will try and solve this by making it easier to Spellstrike every turn, or by making resourceless Spellstriking stronger or easier to acquire. I feel like they will buff things like conflux spells and class feats instead, and probably give Starlit Span a slap on the wrist at the same time. And I think people will likely be upset about this...

Conflux buffs, feat buffs, and additionally a cascade buff would be a great direction for the class. I'd trade every turn spellstriking and focus spell spellstriking for that in a heartbeat; others would too, though I fear you're right and the class's fanbase would be divided down the middle on whether it would be an upgrade or a downgrade.

I do have concerns that creature weaknesses and HP were mostly calibrated around an understanding of instance of damage that is no longer accurate, but that will probably be pretty minor, with most resistant all creatures a little easier now, and thus less likely to get complaints. I guess small creature errata can be dolled out as creatures pop up as too easy or too hard. This just seems like a relatively massive change to embark on at this point in the game’s life span, so it feels like there could be a lot of knock on effects that will manifest in play.

Does this also mean that “use only the highest weakness” is pretty much only going to apply to trait based weaknesses like weapon material? That whole rule might need some revising too to make sure it isn’t over applied and every instance of damage can only ever have one weakness applied to it.

If this was always intended then mid-late game pathfinder as well as early game munchkinism was always intended to melt enemies exceedingly quick provided the right set up. I'm choosing to think that wasn't the case, and if it was, I'm glad the general understanding among us plebs was decidedly NOT that.

So Daredevil is "Jackie Chan: the Class". It is use your environment as a weapon, throw anything within reach, and strike as often as you can to break your enemy, live on the edge. It is also the "opposite" of a caster, in that putting them in a confined space actually helps them. but it does rely on the GM to populate an environment well.

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I kept thinking of Drunken Master and Rush Hour while reading the daredevil class

Awesome! The encounter balance is no longer in danger. My fears as a DM are mollified; back to enjoying the system!

WWHsmackdown wrote:

*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol

Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".

It hasn't gone *quite* far enough. We still have to dispose of spell slots

Yea I guess it's *viable* at most tables, just sucks when the class falls apart the second you try and make something of it.

My inexorable iron magus went witch archetype for more spells slots and focus spells. I had no focus spells to spellstrike with but life boost gave some nice sustain. Idk where the panicked rush for focus spell spellstrikes comes from; magus has viable build paths

At this point, we'll need a 3e that rethinks martial/caster hybrids that aren't separate classes and summoning spells.

*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol

(Won't be the perfect answer after focus spellstrike get nixed in the next book)

Fingers crossed

Beyond all the balance concerns, this clarification adds a lot of bookkeeping for damage calculation, and the GM reward for all that extra work .......is the boss melting faster if the martials are properly built and buffed. From the GM perspective, this just seems bad from both ends, unless you're a GM that actively hates running combats and would sooner have your players receive their victory endorphins and pat them on the back while cheekily placing gold star stickers on their forehead. The idea of each martial getting an extra 20-40 damage early-mid game on EACH BONK......it *really* boggles the mind.

Ultimately, it's not a concern for me bc I flatly won't be running this ruling, but I really do feel for pfs GMs and GMs using automated programs.

It's a bad change. Weakness wasn't made to proc more than once per smack; I won't be using that rule for my tables.

Had a thought: What if we're the reason we're not seeing more class archetypes? Like, the vast majority released so far were met with pretty firm negativity for not being strong or cool enough, or being pale imitations of their PF1 versions. Maybe the devs just gave up and decided to go back to building hybrids with full class power budgets because we told them that class archetypes weren't enough?

And by "we," I mostly mean some loudmouths on Reddit. Paizo has got to stop going on Reddit. (I am on Reddit lmao.)

I think all the second wave class archetypes for the system have been pretty great! You're not wrong though, a lot of people online were puzzlingly grumpy over content that seemed perfectly serviceable. I think class archetypes would fare better if they didn't have an opportunity cost of feat investment at 2 as well as being locked in until you get 3 feats. Just a hunch though. Then, I think they'd be judged less on whether or not they're an "upgrade"

Daredevil makes me finally wanna roll a Vanara, probably Son Wukong coded, whose just a hyped-up chaos-gremlin-brawler. Slayer with alchemist archetype sounds like a better approximation for witcher.

Ravingdork wrote:

Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.

It's especially frustrating because these aren't even new thematic/mechanical niches. iPhone behavior.

Like, if they're better than Swash and Ranger, then that's two obsolete classes. But if they're not better, then what's the point? Very lose-lose for Paizo.

Not to bring up that other elfgame or anything, but they might've had the right idea with their pretty robust and modular subclass system.

Oh God no, I can never go back to waiting 5 years for an additional class, and then it falling flat. This is a million times better, foibles and all (though, honestly, I don't have issues with these two classes and think the larger community has been primed for histrionics ever since the psychic remaster, barring the damage instance clarification)

Swashbuckler is a lot better in PC2

I'm intrigued by the class choices. I'm sure the book will bring it all together, but the announcement was out of left field.

YuriP wrote:

This creates a situation where, for traditional spellcasters, the fewer attack spells the designers add is better, while magus go in the opposite direction, where the fewer saving spells is better.

Therefore, the idea of ​​giving some benefit to the magus to use saving spells in SpellStrike, ideally occurring in parallel with standard spellcasters receiving some item bonus for attack spells, wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it less bad, or at least more similar to the kineticist when using attack spells derived from items like scrolls, wands, and staves having a superior bonus due to the Attenuator. At the same time, this will reduce the situation of dispute between classes where one prefers one type of defense while the other prefers another, and therefore they end up competing for space so that new spells ideal for each can be cast.

This is the crux of my issue with the Magus as they currently exist: right now, they desperately want more of a kind of spell everyone else hates. I genuinely believe you could turn every current attack spell in the game into save spells, and it would only benefit casters, yet this would deprive the Magus of what few spells that synergize with their defining ability. This is why I believe that given appropriate tradeoffs and adjustments to outlier spells, a Magus that could make use of any spell with a roll, not just attack spells, would be in a much more secure position. They don't strictly need that change, but it could certainly make them less dependent on a dying breed of spell.

The other issue I take in this context is that despite being the poster child for gish classes in Pathfinder, the Magus is actually pretty terrible at casting spells: the only spells they make great use of is attack spells, which they basically use like Strikes, and their spell DC is generally terrible, which makes them poor users of save spells. This limits them to only a subset of the spells available to them, to the extent that you have people...

I do consider Summoner a martial as well. I'll admit my definitions are limited: master or above strikes being a martial and legendary casting being a caster. I think of of magus and summoner as being martials with some casting without needing a caster multi class archetype. Animist getting to be both (by way of sustaining a focus stance that switches it to martial proficiencies) is a design line that I didn't enjoy being crossed.

I like accurate attack damage spells with magus, that seems fine to me bc magus is a martial in its chassis for all intents and purposes. I share the others' concerns with magus winning the accuracy game with control bc I think that's stepping in the other lane too far. I think casters should have the most accurate control spells

So yea, if you're GM makes sure a feat stays irrelevant instead of using statblocks as written, then yea, that feat will be irrelevant. Doesn't seem like worthy discussion of game balance, though.

“Somehow, the GM started metagaming”

Aren't the players metagaming when they're purposefully constructing blender combat strategies? If you take the gloves off against the GM, expect the worst; it's supposed to be a game for them too! No good ever comes of initiating an arms race. Any *game* needs to be conducted in good faith and playing combat as sport against the arbitrary arbiter of "Da Rules" smacks of hubris and most likely results in a one sided arms race and hurt feelings at the table.

The longer the edition goes on the more it feels like a well intentioned, very creative, but ultimately flawed decision to tie alchemist to actual in game items instead of some kineticist like pseudo-casting by way of class and feat abilities. The breath of options and their varying power, coupled with all the feat fixes in class for alchemist makes it seem bloated to me with too many knobs, buttons, and levers. It's the only class in the game that still feels like it's living in 3.X: nickle and diming for every ounce of efficiency it can muster......but 3.X is gone and most of the math lies in expected curves, so I guess the real benefit for alchemist is having more versatility than any class in the game.

I'm a fan of versatility only up to the point where I have to dig through options to sift the benefits. I hope a potential 3e alchemist isn't balanced around an item system.

Yea and the way it was done is one the worst things the game ever did. Depending on your GM there’s a good chance you end up playing half the game instead of the full game, and for little to no benefit - Paizo doesn’t actually make rare stuff much stronger if at all. There’s so many perfectly fine combat feats and such that hardly ever see the light of day because instead of being printed as Double Slice, they’re printed as [super special blorbo]’s Double Slice.

For example, The Harder They Fall. Why does my rouge character get to take the feat that does trip damage no questions asked, but if I’m playing a ranger with trip damage I have to beg for this “super secret technique” and win an out of game charisma check with the DM. It’s just stupid, unfun, and unfair to players who can’t b!!$$$&@ backstory well. How big a sandbox you get to play in depends substantively on how well you can b+!!*~&+ a justification as to why you should get to enjoy cool toys, and Paizo set it up that way.

And again, it’s not about power because probably the strongest build in the game, disruptive stance reach fighter, is like 95% common, certainly all the essential pieces are. Hell so was resentment witch, and if you want something actually outright broken most drowning tech well. Or sneak savant stealth b~!!~++@, I’ve seen someone almost solo treerazor with that (they lost because they f*#!ed up and forgot the holy rune).

Back in 1e the rarity system actually could have served a valuable purpose, because they printed all sorts of wack s+%+. But in 2e the writers mostly just don’t print it at all. And when they do it’s common half the time anyways!

Look, I admit there’s some plausible version of the rarity system that would be good. Something where different reasons are marked clearly, where out of combat utility game changers like teleport are tagged as such and separately from “this way of swinging your sword is often used by x faction”, or “being a robot is weird flavor”. But we don’t got it. What we have is worse...

It doesn't tell the GM to throw it out ..it tells them to look and consider before allowing anything that's not common. I think that's a perfectly reasonable expectation, be it for story or balance.

benwilsher18 wrote:

Tridus wrote:

It's significantly worse, though. The only class it's "a bit worse" than is Summoner. It's a lot worse than anyone else.

Have you never seen a Monk, Ranger or Champion targeting save DCs with focus spells or spells from dedications before? Magus is on par with all of their casting options (or at least can be if it raises Intelligence).

I said they're the worst casting class in the first comment and this is a continuation of that thought. A Ranger deciding to use an archetype spell is not a caster class.

But no, I pretty rarely see that. Those classes usually have something better to do with their actions until pretty late in the game when they could theoretically cast something like Synesthesia, but if the group has a caster they can probably do that instead and then those folks will pound the debuffed enemy into the ground.

If your Monk is casting attack spells, something has gone sideways.

Ki blast is awesome, my monk in SotG has not gone sideways from casting a spell

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Funny you say that, I don't think the Magus should spellstrike every round..... I don't think anybody should do the same thing every round. I genuinely think combat design, class design, and player desire should be more engaging than *looks down from phone* "I do the same thing as last turn"

The Fighter does the same thing over and over... yet everyone adores the class...

My main issue since "the departure from 3.5" is how combat encounters became looooooooooooooong, as in enemies got double HP while the players could no longer attack multiple times, let alone not longer dishing big amounts of damage.

If all classes are limited with their damage-dealing abilities, it's gonna turn every fight into a chore...

Some turns our Season of the Ghost fighter strikes, some turns he vicious swings, other turns he grapples. I've also seen him take turns to pull out and use items. His combat to combat action economy is extremely open ended.....and, yes, the fighter class is well designed

Ryangwy wrote:

JiCi wrote:

*good reload feats*

That's a laugh...

Where's the reload feat that allows me to reload as a free action upon scoring a Critical Hit? or a feat that allows me to "reload" a Capacity weapon right after Striking as a free action?

Dude, the Gunslinger CANNOT strikes 3 times in a round unless it has a Repeating weapon, which for some reason are rare.

The point of a gunslinger is to make one or two big hits per turn, not 'unload' three shots off black powder weapons, though... People keep seeming to think gun technology in Golarion is more advanced than it actually is...

Says who? Jealous players who watched Gunsligners steal their thunder?

I don't see people complaining about Gunslingers using Advanced Repeating Crossbows. Why should it be an issue with firearms?

Capacity weapons feel like they should work like early revolvers, where you had to manually cock the hammer back every shot, also known as "fanning". I should be able to shoot 3 times with a Pepperbox, if I'm have a hand free.

Saying that "a gunslinger shouldn't shoot 3 times per round" is as dumb as saying that "a magus shouldn't spellstrike every round".

What's next? "A spellcaster shouldn't cast spells every round" ?

Funny you say that, I don't think the Magus should spellstrike every round..... I don't think anybody should do the same thing every round. I genuinely think combat design, class design, and player desire should be more engaging than *looks down from phone* "I do the same thing as last turn"

The kit definitely seems more light for a d6 cloth caster than necessary. It's magic raging damage is only +1 per rank over what other classes can grab while also being limited to two turns and punished once completed. All that coupled with 2 slots feels like the class has a whole lot of give for not that much get.

The unleash change to duration spells is nice, but I was really expecting some sort of bump to unleash duration, or easing of unleash penalty, or bumping of spell slots, or bumping defenses, or more feat brush ups to aid accessibility and limit the friendly fire.

One or two of those changes would've been nice. Unfortunately, psychic came out the remaster process largely unscathed, just like inventor.

Like I said in the last thread, I'm mostly shrugging my shoulders and waiting for an interesting class archetype like wizards got with war mage. Until then, the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

The system plays better for me and brings more enjoyment to me than when I first picked it up in 2019 sooooo, no, I don't think it's going downhill

Well, silver linings and all, war mage gave me a wizard I really enjoyed sooo...there could eventually be a psychic class archetype that switches stuff around to make it's budget feel more equitable. Seems done and dusted as far as the base class getting structural changes, so I'll look out for extras down the line or approach the fantasy with a different base chassis as desired.

I share a lot of the disappointment, but after GnG remastered, I knew the minimal retooling was a possibility. The books that are keeping page counts are just a dusting of man ours to not lose the hundreds of man-hours previously invested on those revenue streams. I'll only get so downtrodden over it bc, ultimately, the lights are kept on with the new hotness; and I did really love Battlecry something fierce, so I can't say that's the *wrong* decision.

A lot of words to say my feelings on the Dark Archive drama settled down into *shrug*.

I am happy with the duration spell change for unleash psyche. Gives an easy strat for the types of spells to cast on your last turn of unleash. Sustain on your stupified turns and do whatever miscellaneous strats need doing

WWHsmackdown wrote:

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

I am scared of Magus Remastered getting a Spell-Strike Nerf by limiting it's Focus Spells to be able to be used in Spell-Strike...It just seems on brand at this point. So why would I ever want to do this then, if you remove Focus Spells Magus Investigator Dedication will become the normal and now you remove Magus Psychic for Magus anything with Domains (Fire Ray is good and so are other spells....) but like if they kill Focus Spells, Magus Investigator Dedication will be the normal for Devise a Stratagem so you can make SURE your Spell-Strike hits.

Or the class is remastered in a way to make off turns more appealing and dissuade the manic rush to spell strike each and every turn (which focus spell spellstrikes is a consequence of). I won't shed a tear if focus spell spellstrikes are nixed in support of more varied class design.

Like, for real, people are waaayyy too fixated on that.

Even if focus spellstrike is nixed, spellstrike is still a very powerful ability, by itself it's fine, it's the rest of the kit that needs buff to feel better and especially to feel like you're playing a magus and not a ranger with a wizard archetype when you don't have spellstrike ready. Unique actions, feats etc that support the magical fighter fantasy are what's needed

Yup id enjoy special in class actions (through subclass AND feat) that recharge spellstrike as a ride-on action compression but have the flourish trait. Then you give spellstrike the flourish trait so they can't be done on the same turn. Just a whole bunch of magical warrior thematic actions that have the benefit of setting you up for next turns spellstrike. That would be cool

I am scared of Magus Remastered getting a Spell-Strike Nerf by limiting it's Focus Spells to be able to be used in Spell-Strike...It just seems on brand at this point. So why would I ever want to do this then, if you remove Focus Spells Magus Investigator Dedication will become the normal and now you remove Magus Psychic for Magus anything with Domains (Fire Ray is good and so are other spells....) but like if they kill Focus Spells, Magus Investigator Dedication will be the normal for Devise a Stratagem so you can make SURE your Spell-Strike hits.

Or the class is remastered in a way to make off turns more appealing and dissuade the manic rush to spell strike each and every turn (which focus spell spellstrikes is a consequence of). I won't shed a tear if focus spell spellstrikes are nixed in support of more varied class design.

QuidEst wrote:

Mine also says updated 1/16/2026, and it is the pre-remaster (based on "flat-footed" and references to the Advanced Player's Guide). So sadly, no early leak. (Although I'm sure Paizo's IT is happy to have not accidentally released it early.)

mine references player core and divine mysteries.

I did not find a lot of changes, but can say that Imaginary Weapon was nerfed to d6

Was the touch up to imaginary weapon the only real psychic change?

Necromancer was my favorite mechanical caster since the release of pre-master psychic. Animist is stronger than both but it's a *really* busy class (which isn't usually my jam) and I wouldn't be so reductive as to call the kineticist a caster (I think it's its own thing). I'm stoked to see the final draft

Might be time to find a system that better serves your needs

I wonder what the archetypes are gonna be. Looks like the alternate magic systems from SoM aren't mentioned in the book description. I'm not too torn up on loosing stuff like geomancy and true name subsystems, I just hope whatever magic archetypes they give are easy drag and drop options for themed casters like shadowmage and the chronomage. More stuff like that is always welcome.

Ah dang I'll have to wait for the writeup. Very hyped about high seas though, I am in the market for water-based rules and items at the moment.

Me too! Island hopping campaign incoming.

Nice! Is this off PaizoLive or is there somewhere I can have a read? Very interested about how page count is going to work out here.

PaizoLive

It's happening! Pathfinder: Impossible Magic will have Necromancer, Runesmith, Magus, and Summoner. That and the Lost Omens high seas book has me pretty hyped.

I went and did a deep dive into Secrets of Magic and the math looks pretty tight. Assuming you double the page length for classes and still tried to keep the book around 255 pages you'd be removing the Schools of Magic Treatise, Elementalism, Elemental Spell List, Geomancy, Ley Lines, Pervasive Magic, Thassalonian Rune Magic, and True Names chapters.....and I'm still coming up 10 pages short. That's taking out most of the magical subsystems (which is fine, I preferred the general use archetypes like shadow magic and soulforger more anyway) and a lot of your archetype space.

Obviously, only parts of SoM would be transfered over but im curious how much non-class PC content and lore bits could fit into a 4 class rulebook that wasn't APG sized. A fully stacked $90-$100 beefy rulebook that's adjacent to APG sized would have me pretty ecstatic but IDK if Paizo is gonna tempt that. I guess we'll see.

Couple days until we (probably) will get some info at Friday night's Paizo live. The impossible wait is almost over!!! (probably)

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