Wren18's page

I've always played "roll attack, roll concealment"

A player just rolled attack, used a hero point then rolled concealment.

If they roll concealment first, then they have more information when deciding whether or not to use a hero point on the attack.

The rules say "A creature that you're concealed from must succeed at a DC 5 flat check when targeting you with an attack, spell, or other effect."

So when does "targeting" happen? Before or after the attack roll?

Thaumaturge is a better bard than bard. Bard is a better psychic than psychic... Bard used to be a class you could really build out in different ways, now it's just another occult caster. I wish i could build a striker bard who would rock at buffing and RK, but that's 1e stuff apparently. Or thaumaturge. Versatility creep is a little different than power creep, but related.

When the gold standard for comparing damage output is the very vanilla fighter I'm not sure there's a good argument for power creep there.

Also:
Arcane Cascade: activates whenever a magus casts a spell or spellstrikes as a free action. Any time the magus casts another spell they can choose to change the damage type to match. The bonus damage os 1/dmg die.

Now they can target weakness like a Thaum, and get rid of a bad action tax. Edit: i guess thats really focused toward twisting tree. The one I've played.

I am looking forward to trying out the new classes. I'm hoping they fill some unique niches and have fun and flavorful mechanics beyond the same 6 numbers we usually see.

The whole premise of this discussions just reinforces how OP the Fighter is.

"I pulled every shenanigan i could and i made something that *might* out-damage a fighter."

Fighter shouldnt even be a class in a game where everyone fights. Its thing is just "I'm...uh... two better than everyone". (Holds up 3 fingers)

It would be balanced if it had an action cost like any other class. Use a focus point to gain +2 to hit for a minute. Something of that nature.

Thaum is fun and interesting and plays a little different. Does it feel crazy OP? Not really. I'm -3 to hit v. The fighter. It's flavorful as heck and that way it behaves in combat actually matches the class flavor.

Take psychic, it's just another caster with all the normal caster saves and spell slots and stuff. It has its own 'one neat trick', but plays kinda like any other caster.

Think of that missed opportunity. Why is it a caster at all? Why doesnt it have the power to influence minds, read thoughts? Be a debuffer by getting in enemy heads or mental damage dealer. Be a buffer for the whole party. In combat and out. Get rid of the spell casting and actually make interesting mechanics instead of just another caster chassis with a light coat of paint.

Is that power creep? I dont know. But it would be fun and feel unique. Most classes fit into groups with no substantiative difference. Pay your action tax, do 'your thing', roll +10 to hit, deal avg 18dpr... it's really enjoyable when the classes feel distinct.

So, interestingly, Treasure Vault will have a L6 Consumable, the Scholar's Drop, that can be used to suppress Fatigue for 10 minutes. 1 hour cooldown, and if it's used 3 times in a day the cooldown becomes "until you get a full night's rest."

Clearly they heard me and listened!

Lol

This has gone down a bit of a rabbit hole, and they point was never about *why* you get fatigued or *how* you get fatigued, but about why it needs to rob a class of its class and turn it into 'some guy' when that class should be the most resilient. Probably better to make a champion too tired to use Reactions, a fighter lose their weapon proficiency, or a caster lose their highest level slots to keep everything balanced, but I'll take the consumable. :P

While these may be valid points about a specific GM or specific failures to apply rules correctly, i think they fail to address the big point.

Barbarian is a Fortitude character. He is Tough and Strong and Rugged.

Barbarian is completely neutered if he gets le tired.

And no other class is. If anyone could push through fatigue, it should be the Barbarian.

I only play one barbarian, all the other times I've been fatigued with other classes, whether GMs are mis-applying rules or not, it's just something you roleplay through and shrug off. This is the one class where you just go, 'Aw heck, this Sucks!' And it's almost character breaking from a roleplay standpoint. "The whole party is tired, but I am the most tired. I'm so tired I will be as effective as the fighter was two sessions ago."

And singling out one class like that, in full opposition to its roleplay dynamic and flavor, is a weird design choice. It's to the point that a DM with a barbarian in a survivalist campaign that might impose fatigue often simply MUST houserule it to not be viewed as targeting one player with a condition. And that's the precise campaign scenario where the barbarian should shine.

Most of the times fatigue has been given no duration, or rather a duration until rest. Not just 10 minutes, but a full night.

And by the rules, I don't believe you get Fort saves for such things. I don't think any DMs I've had give them.

Just, "You hustle more than 10min x CON, you're fatigued." and "You spend x hours in y climate, you are fatigued." and "You stay up past 16 hours, you are fatigued."

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=642
"Particularly hot and cold weather can make creatures fatigued more quickly during overland travel"

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=534
"If a character goes more than 16 hours without going to sleep, they become fatigued."

And the rules don't actually say you become fatigued after hustling, which is the most common source I've seen, ironically. But again, no saves have been given.

If several DMs are doing this, ones who tend to stick pretty close to RAW, then it might need a rules update? *shrug*

Or adding a barbarian class feat that gives you a Fort save any time you would become fatigued would be a nice fit all-around.

So it's not just a single game. I've been hit with fatigued in at least 3 games in the past few months, I've put it on my players twice. Normally you just grumble a bit and go on. Only recently was I playing a barbarian and realized how dreadful it is.

The situations:
-Walking an hour or two in heavy snow (DM fiat for whole party)
-swimming in an icy lake (player choice. But there was loot!)
-Hustling for an hour or two to save the kingdom (Plot reasons, party decision)
-Staying up all night for a ghost to appear (somewhat poor planning)
-Party going to do 'just one more thing' and not resting (definitely their fault)
-Deciding to hustle for plot reasons (party choice, but pressured with the deaths of innocents)
-Exploring and frigid cold cave system until the environme t caught up with them. (Party decision, but no avoiding it really)
-Attacks in the middle of the night preventing rest (DM choice, but made sense for the scenario)

Much more common in wilderness environments. Like where you'd often find barbatians. Most of these (shoot, maybe all) I don't recall getting to roll a save for.

It's easy to houserule around, but it seems like something Paizo should fix to better fit the flavor of the barbarian. Adding a class feat to avoid or save against several sources like Endurance in pf1e. Giving 1/2 bonuses for raging while fatigued. Create a level 4 consumable to ignore the condition for 1 minute.

I know conditions are supposed to be harder to get rid of in 2e, but they are supposed to be minor debuffs, not take away your class and fun. Giving that class a way to work through it or save against it would be a step forward.

Its a asymmetric impact, and every time I've been fatigued it's from a PARTY decision, not a PLAYER decision. (Or DM fiat, but that could happen to anyone.)

To roleplay a barbarian, and then be the guy who's always asking the party to aliw down, not push on, please don't make me loose all my abilities again!

Sute there are other debilitating conditions, but nothing I can think of so jarring for roleplay and often inflicted by your own party.

"Hold up guys, we don't want to barbarian to get worn out! " -an 8 CON wizard

For such a balanced system, one focused on party balance and including everyone in the game from level 1, it's a bit weird to have these outlier conditions that are just are awful for a single party member. And that could last a whole session.

And for fatigue, looking through the rules there are so few was to get rid of it. A level 13 human ancestry feat that gives a 20% chance to avoid fatigue? A level 4 focus spell from the Toil domain. A level 5 focus spell from Ruby Phoenix.

I would think the game makers would want to avoid situations like this.

Familiars getting killed, at least in my experience, has been way less frequent than the party getting fatigued. And I think the individual player had a ton of control over that. Buff you familiar, use it differently, heal it before it dies... Fatigue, well the DM tells you you're fatigued and you are fatigued. It's often a party choice or some condition/challenge that hits everyone and you as a player have little or no control over.

There's a big player imbalance with how much fatigue nerfs a Barbarian when it takes away Rage. At level 1 or 2 it doesn't do too much relative to other classes, but by level 5 or 6 you're losing 1/2 of your class abilities, by level 10 probably 3/4 of your class options are gone. Is there any other class that is wiped out/punished so harshly by a single common condition?

It would be like telling the fighter to give up 3/4 of their feats when enfeebled, or a wizard loses half their spell slots when stupefied.

The other side of the problem is there's almost no way to get rid of fatigue outside of rest. There are consumables to aid with most conditions, but nothing that let's you, for example, activate to ignore fatigue for 1 minute. (There's a ring from Plaguestone, but depends on the DM to let you have one of those.)

There's a big roleplay issue I see with playing a barbarian. You try to be bold, brash, rash even. You want to rush to the next battle. Suddenly you're the one holding the party up. 'hold on guys, don't run so fast. Let's take our time and not get tired!' Maybe they can hustle longer than others, but there are a lot of times that won't matter, and also other ways to get fatigued. Fatigued seems to be something I've seen a couple DMs just drop by fiat, not by party choice/bad decisions. The whole party decides to chase someone (A very Barbarian thing to do) and then when you catch up the DM says you're fatigued and you're stuck basically playing a level behind or more. I don't think I've ever been in a game as dry as saying, "and then we hustled for 39 minutes, then rested". Usually they're a bit more fluid than that, but maybe DMs should be warned to not punish one player with a condition by accident. As a DM I've dropped it on my party and never really realized how onerous it must have been for the barbarian. I feel bad about that, and will try to avoid the condition in the future (unless they reaaaally ask for it).

Nobody else gets all their toys taken away so easily, and with nothing the player can do to get them back. I've seen house rules that allow rage, but halve every bonus, or ones that give you additional conditions when rage ends. But I think a simple consumable, a talisman to ignore it for a minute for instance, would be a really easy solution and basically become required kit for the Barbarian.

So over 500 simulated rounds using a some pareto frontier weapons with standard attack roll (for crit, hit, or miss) and a confirm roll (>10 with weapon enhancement) and strength +4 melee attack, dex +4 ranged attack (and strength to dam +2), damage/round would look like:

Keen +1 Falcata: 10.6
+2 Falcata: 7.7
Keen +1 Estoc: 7.2
+2 Estoc: 7.4
+2 Composite longbow (+2 str): 5.4
+1 Composite longbow (+2str) + keen arrows: 4.9
+2 Dwarven pelletbow (1d8 as sacred weapon, but no strength): 4.6
'keen' +1 pelletbow: 4.2
+2 Sling (1d8, +2 str): 5.4
'keen' +1 sling: 4.5

(I will say the Estocs vary widely because of the 2 damage die adding some entropy. I saw as low as 6.8 and as high as 8.4 as the average over 500 rounds with no significant trend between the two cases)

So this conclusively proves I have too much time on my hands.

Also, the answer to, 'is +1 better than keen?' is, 'it depends', but a high strength mod (or any Ability to damage) and multiplier makes it definitely better. You are right for most ranged attacks though, the added +1 Weapon enhancement is superior. other bonuses to damage that are multiplied like 'bloodthirsty' or weapon specialization would shift this toward keen being more beneficial.

I guess the moral of the story is, if the GM wants to say, 'sure, you can shoot keen sling bullets' it's not going to break anything and we can thank our deity for the boon.

I EXPECT EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW
/s :P

I say limited compared to picking a greatsword or falchion or falcata as my sacred weapon. Same class, just more options, also for free.

if in a different context I randomly asked 'can't I just swap my 1d4 for a 1d8 damage die?' there would be so much righteous outrage, but it's written into the sacred weapon rule that the damage die magically changes. What I'm asking is if the sacred weapon boon, since it already magically enhances damage (breaking the RAW through magic!), also magically lets you apply the enhancement it says you can apply, regardless of base weapon properties... just like the damage aspect.

This limitation is basically saying a melee warpriest > ranged warpriest. A lucerne hammer could apply every enhancement on the list, but there isn't a single enhancement that can only be applied to a ranged weapon only. Offering equivalent enhancement alternatives for ranged weapons would be balanced. Swords can get keen, slings can get seeking, etc.

I mean, at the end of the day I'll just talk to the GM, but my internet search did not turn up any other results of people asking this question, which is why I asked it here.

A warpriest can enhance his sacred weapon with various effects for a number of rounds per day. The weapon damage also is modified as such:

"Whenever the warpriest hits with his sacred weapon, the weapon damage is based on his level and not the weapon type."

If the sacred weapon is a ranged, bludgeoning weapon does that limit what enhancements you can apply, or does the divine blessing supercede that typical enhancement restriction?

Here are the enhancements:
Brilliant Energy (+4, can't use until very late game)
Defending (melee only)
Disrupting (melee only)
Flaming (this one is fine)
Frost (also fine)
Keen (Piercing/Slashing only)
Shock (also fine)

My warpriest has good alignment, so he can also add:
Ghost touch (melee only)
Holy (can't use until level 8)

So from level 4-7, my warpriest would be able to use: flaming, frost, or shock. That seems very... limited. Is this intended?

Would love to apply. Not sure I'll have time to pull it together tonight. Had a paladin/seducer concept i thought would be fun to rp...