Xenocrat's page

The Analyst WW is honestly the closest to how the old Precog played with its ability to reroll saves/attacks and enemy saves off of focus points as a form of fate manipulation. Both the precog and WW in SF1 had lots of spells on their lists that let them do similar reroll things, but precog's paradoxes as a class feature were an extension that didn't require expending slots.

I think you're right just based on how these abilities are usually written and the mechanics of how they work - infusing some healing into an intact body that didn't die from a death effect. We can just chalk this one up to laziness/mistake/editing space constraints.

But the Exemplar is a divine/god-like class that might have some extra special sauce. If you want to let it do a hard no-sell to all deaths you can.

I don't have it, I only have the old one. My old one shows a mid January update, but it's still the old text. If I search "remastered" I get only the Guns and Gears and Treasure Vault results.

How will we know which one is the correct one? The links are not clearly labeled and the PDFs look near identical.

Look at the Oscillating Wave psychic's granted spells. It should have Falling Stars instead of Meteor Swarm, and that triple fire beam spell whose name I can't remember instead of Heat Metal. Also don't have Fiery Body, got Volcanic Eruption instead.

Almost nothing of the SF1 flavor and especially mechanics behind the precog made it it to the WW subclass, I'd say we have 8.05 classes from SF1e covered (once Tech Core actually releases, given the woeful state of the playtest classes in some respects).

The playtest featured all 11 but what happened..?

The SF2 playtest only featured the six classes that were published in SF2 Player Core.

Tech Core isn't annonced, but since it's not the GenCon release and Erik Mona said "it won't be 2027" when someone joked about that on a Discord or subreddit (I saw the screenshot on a Discord, but not the original post), it's probably going to be the holiday/winter 2026 release around the first week of November.

It only now clicked to me that with the instant draw from your kit you can use your normal, 2/10 minute Versatile Vials, rather than an infinite Quick Vial, non-bombers get a field vial benefit with one less action (1 vs 2). A pretty bad idea in most cases, but I guess a mutagenist might be willing to sacrifice one or two per combat on this 1a debuff remover rather than 2a Quick alchemy buffing with additional elixirs, a toxicologist using advanced alchemy or out of combat Quick Alchemy 10 minute prepoisoned weapons he's using himself might boost it a bit with a 1a application of a VV for additional damage, and a Chirurgeon with Soothing Vials can 1a give a small heal and mental saving throw reroll, and with Clotting Elixirs can also give a boosted roll to remove persistent bleed.

I think people are overcomplicating stuff.

Having a developer who's responsible for rules/balance stuff, or even for a part of them, say to Maya and in turn they inform us here that (as an example here):

"I spoke with the developer who did the remaster of the Psychic, and they told me that their metrics showed the class as ok, hence why there weren't any buffs, and that the nerf to IW was because the framework for force damage had them lower the damage"

or "I spoke to the dev who wrote the monster mythic abilities rules, the reason Mythic Resilience is different than Mythic resistance is X".

would go a terribly long way towards alleviating a ton of the issues that frequently pop up.

This would be terrible for Paizo, it would publicly confirm they’re incompetent or out of touch.

Paizo is wise to this, thus the transparent lies when they reverted the published remaster dying rules that 90% of the community hated. Of course it wasn’t an error (Mark had said so, that it was always supposed to work that way!), it was either “we made a decision that you all universally hated, and we’ll probably do it again with no recourse when there’s fewer eyes on the game” or “we have individual dev who sneak in their personal hobby horses as fait accompli and we mostly don’t or can’t do anything about except in extremis” (I think this what happened with the rogue save improvement).

They clearly designed it this way to control action/hands economy if you want both a two handed weapon and a one action grenade ready to go.

If you want a second grenade you can do it with three actions: free action release, one action draw, one action throw grenade, one action regrip weapon. Or get the tactical cyber arm and store a grenade inside to save one of these actions.

I'd have to assume actual Psychics still get focus points from them or are getting them some other way?

Actual Psychics get their focus points from class features, not their number of available amps. "Psi Cantrips and Amps" says you start with a pool of 2 Focus Points, Clarity of Focus (5th level class featgure) increases your pool by 1 point.

Oni Shogun wrote:

Organized play has rules btw on how many minions you can have. Might want to implement that at your table for the people worried about necromancers.

Does that apply to thralls? If it does PFS will have to issue a day one note so necromancer isn’t dead in the water. Lmao

No, it doesn't. The Thrall definition in the sidebar says "but they are not minions with the summoned trait." Nor are they any other kind of minion.

It's hard to say where in the process things have changed, from the outside, but there's a lot of design decisions now that just don't match the initial balance of the game, and abilities, spells, and class features with basic errors (be those templating, formatting, or proofing errors). Two examples from battlecry that immediately stick out to me are Helpful Reload and Shock and Awe.

Uh, Blister Bomb is standing right over there and you talk about these two first?!

Given the Dark Archive Remaster outstripped sales expectations, I wouldn't be surprised if there's another book of Occult shenanigans with more psychic options added to the slate in the near to mid-future.

I suspect this was just a result of the new store being too incompetent to not force subscriptions on people who already had the book and their warnings about this in advance not being received or heeded.

Also things like sonic weapons shouldn't work in a vacuum.

The alternative vacuum rules in GM core are more extreme.

Energy Damage in a Vacuum

In a vacuum like space, there’s no medium for energy transfer through conduction or convection. Cold, fire, and electricity spells or actions with the cold, fire, and electricity traits don’t function in a vacuum. Ignore these rules if the spell or action targets an adjacent target, even if it uses a ranged attack roll. This rule can be especially oppressive and should be avoided if the PCs are reliant on these abilities, and you should feel free to exempt specific traits. Magical effects or weapons with magical upgrades bypass this effect—magic breaks normal physics!

Of course there are a few problems with this.

(1) Weapon strikes aren't "actions with the cold, fire, and electricity traits." Monster ranged and melee attacks with elemental damage pick up the trait, but there's no rule applying that to PC weapons that do that via base damage type.

(2) Many fire actions/spells are going to be laser based, and aren't going to care about a vacuum. C'mon, guys.

(3) It's self contradictory about spells: second sentence says magical energy spells don't function, last sentence says magical effects do function.

It is limited to "basic actions," which are a defined group in Player Core (e.g. stride, seek, strike[but not for you!], etc.), and not any familiar ability actions.

Astral Rain also does physical damage with the force trait, and reportedly that didn't change. Maybe they were wrong or spreading disinformation. (At least one guy on a Discord I'm on gave an answer to a question then embarassedly admitted he'd said it as a joke after it got repeated on that Discord, another one, and Reddit as a thing really in the remaster that no one, including other people with the new book, bothered to check...)

One sin often attributed to Paizo is overvaluing flexiblility in class design and attributing too much power to it. That may be what's going on with how they view the Psychic.

Are Psychic amps generally stronger than the strongest options available to other (non-Wizard) casters? You can argue it. What you can't argue is that the Psychic gets 3-5 "focus" spell options without investing a feat, 6 "feat" options if they do invest a feat, while other casters (generally? I don't remember all the remaster changes) only get one free focus spell and have to invest one feat at a time to match the number of menu choices that a Psychic gets.

Now actual use per combat/day of effective focus spells or amps is much closer post remaster with minimal feat investment by other classes. But the versatility without investment is there, and Paizo cares about that stuff.

I am curious is etheric shards still does piercing damage with the force tag as well?

In that case it does look like imaginary weapon was singularly targeted. I guess that means that 2d8 heightening on a focus spell was decided to be too much.

Astral Rain is another example of physical damage type with force trait in the psychic toolbox. I don't think that one changed, either.

Amps have ALWAYS not worked with Metamagic/Spellshape. It’s in the sidebar amp trait in the original Dark Archive.

What has changed is the new trigger less free action activation that apparently prevents things like Spellstrike and commanders Slip and Sizzle tactic working with amps.

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I simply choose to believe Xenocrat is a malicious agent of some kind of foul God Of Lies, and that these heretical untruths will never come to pass if I stick my fingers in my ears and loudly proclaim that I can't hear them.

Confirmed on the recent dev show or stream or whatever that Xenocrat is not an agent of evil.

Well, not for that reason.

It’s pure loss.

It’s not casting, so it won’t cause you to lose 2 rounds.

You can have them all up at once. And you should.

I can’t imagine not wanting all the bombs, half a dozen mutagen options, 3/4 of the elixirs, a new poison every couple of levels, and a few foods (e.g.Owl Screech Egg). If your GM allows infused items to make bottled monstrosities without the craft requirements those are also easy picks.

Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.

I wouldn't call it niche, but at the same time it's not common for PCs to try to get chaos damage. And without a forewarning from the GM, it's kind of an impossible fight.

All death effects do this by going instantly to dead, do not pass dying conditions.

Common death effect spells good for regenerators are Death Knell at 2nd rank to kill them on a failed will save after they're at 0HP and Vision of Death or Toxic Cloud even on a success for half damage that reduces them to 0HP. But they don't help with the Marut who is immune to death effects as part of it's old "part construct" heritage.

What can still kill a Marut (and other regenerators) is suffocation - there's nothing in its stat block saying it doesn't breath or giving it suffocation immunity. But PF2e suffocation effects are very rare, usually require crit fails (or running down long rounds of breath holding on a regular fail), or require you to dunk an unconscious creature (oops) under water. Suffocate (premaster necromancy, so might get the death trait remastered) and Vaccum are the two "crit fail and immediately suffocate" spells I know of that could be used to kill regenerators immune to death effects. Both are incapacitation. There's also a wand that modifies the Mist spell to require you to hold your breath if you could somehow safely hold or trap an enemy in it long enough for it to run out of air.

Claxon wrote:

Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.

That is a good general solution. Something like two characters using a 3-action activity for two consecutive rounds to completely destroy the creature in some manner (some narrative description decided on for each battle - based on the circumstances of the creature and what the party does have available). It isn't something that you can easily do during a fight while there are other enemies to deal with, but it also doesn't leave the battle in a perpetual and unwinnable state where you are completely unable to stop the enemy from getting back up at the start of its turn every round.

This can generally be handled by spamming cheap Death Knell scrolls until they die or dunking their unconscious head in a bucket of water until they drown. Both bypass the dying condition rules. But a Marut specifically is immune to death effects and can't be knocked unconscious, so getting it drowned/suffocated is difficult.

Until level 19, actually.

MASTER SPELLCASTER 15TH

Your spells are among the most potent across all possible worlds. Your proficiency ranks for class DC, spell attack modifier, and spell DC increase to master.

Only at level 19 does Soldier get a class DC advance that Witchwarper does not.

If the holiday 2026 release (usually early November) is "soon."

Plus any tracking value if you use a grenade launcher that provides one.

Yes.

Store link

While I'm anxious for my SFS Technomancer to get support, I'm pleased Tactical Space Combat in Tech Core is getting the time to cook it needs. And maybe that rumored playtest can actually happen. (was it confirmed? I remember it, but I can't find evidence anymore)

Jenny said weeks ago on the discord she frequents there won’t be a ship public playtest.

I expect Tech Core will be the November (“Christmas”) release. That puts it a similar number of months after the class playtest as the Impossible Magic book (16-18).

Seifter’s name as a contributor may just be due to his input in the original magus/summoner. It need not indicate new freelance contributions.

I think one reason the SF2 sniper rifles got trimmed back on fatal/deadly damage, which PF2 guns don't share, is that they have the Pick category extra damage crit effect. So for anyone with crit spec the Shirren Eye actually does 1 extra damage per die on average (+2 per die crit spec, minus 1 per die lower fatal die).

Of course the Arquebus's gun crit spec is plenty powerful, it's just not damage focused.

Is the Errata for Radiant Zone witch warper feat (p 172) the same as the original text or am I missing something?

Almost. There's a typo in the original text, it reads "Creature who begin their in your quantum field."

(Begin their what?) The new errata specifies it's "begin their turn in your quantum field."

Thanks, I knew there was a FAQ or guidance on that somewhere and was about to engage on what I expected to be a fruitless crusade before I read down one post.

The Starfinder spell New Game has a 1v1 combat application in a virtual environment. Maybe tone that down or adapt a dual Quandary like effect (which is another thing New Game can do).

PF1 had a psychic mindscape spell, I think, that allowed mind to mind discussion and combat. Make it harmless and time compressed.

Monster Core 2 introduced a new level 13 elemental (available via ritual or Summon Elemental 9) that can dig permanent Huge size tunnels. It introduces a new toolkit for high level casters digging mega hungover time or busting into someone else’s complex.

Just be sure you apply it consistently between resistances and weaknesses. This is just a specific example of the undefined “instance of damage.” If each square is an instance then resistance to the hazard type makes it trivial, but weakness is a death zone. If you make it per move action it’s an equally mild outcome for both. I suspect if Paizo ever was forced to rule they’d say per move action.

The blog post mentions changes to the Striker operative specialization, but I don't see any in the errata.

It and only it benefits from the general change providing crit spec for all expert weapons since its different proficiencies didn’t match the old language.

That said I think it may still not cover unarmed.

Fireball and other physical spells are probably those that subtle doesn't usefully hide you as the origin - the spell energy still shoots out of you to the target sight if you're retaining the old "a pea sized speck of fire emits from you to go out and explode" that is the historical baggage they don't explicitly print as part of the flavor text anymore.

Dropping a Confusion 8 or Phantasmagoria, which more plausibly totally invisible, is still good for some sneaky mass murder, though. At that point maybe Empyreal Lords start sending dreams about you to wandering champions, or level 20 investigator with arcane/occult caster multiclass shows up with Retrocognition to get some clues.

(and unfortunately, probably a lot of reprints of Secrets of Magic spells and other things).

Spells and items that were such a crime, they need the RPG cops to prevent them a second time.

Seems unlikely they would fit 4 (non-core) classes in one book. Especially with the kinds of fixes and extra content people expect for summoner and magus. Would leave far less page space for anything else. I do hope the two remaster classes get a great book and some TLC, however it happens.

If the impossible book is an effectively remastered Secrets of Magic they can fit in the two new classes by removing the elementalist archetype (already republished in Rage of Elements), the defunct spell schools chapter, hopefullly almost all of the truly terrible spells, most of the more than typically bad items, and one or two other archetypes if needed.

Yes, this one of a few clown show and amateur aspects to SF2 that has made it seem like a bit of a joke of a game.

Xenocrat wrote:

"Replace the text of the shadow snap spell (page 376) with the following:"

There's no heightening (at all) listed anymore. Is this intended?

Previously it heightened 1d10-10d10, which was outrageous compared to a witch and psychic spell that did a similar attack at 1d10-4d10 and didn't have the extra reactive strike/disrupt on a crit option. But a flat d10 forever is pretty anemic unless the intent is for this just to be used for the "stalk" effect to crit fish for disrupts.

Huh. Was changing the scaling intended at all? Or were they just trying to prevent you from sustainign the spell twice to get two MAP-less strikes.

My first thought was no, but I couldn't figure out what mechanical change this errata was making.

But you're right, it takes away the option to sustain for more than one attack in a round, which the comparable witch focus spell and psychic amp (which also has extra utility beyond attacks), do have. So while the heightened damage would still be quite high, it's not as crazy if you can't do 2 attacks plus a stalk every turn.

I'll play it as heightening normally and deleted my OP to keep this cleaner since it's (probably) a nonissue.

"The tactical and advanced akashic lens (page 283) casts akashic download as a 4th-rank spell."

Akashic Download's heighten entry is only 3rd, not 4th. Unless there's a desire to give some sort of weird counterspell advantage this should have been 3rd for both versions.

Xenocrat wrote:

I appreciated the PFS Blister Bomb explanation that used supposed aesthetic concerns to be kinder than the real “what fool thought this was in any way balanced.”

Just saw this for the first time.

My only reaction is
"What fool thought this was in any way balanced?" :-) :-)

Sickened 2 on a success??????? Wow.

If it’s good enough for a mythic rank 7 spell summoning a demon lord’s corpse, it’s good enough for every fifth level caster.

I appreciated the PFS Blister Bomb explanation that used supposed aesthetic concerns to be kinder than the real “what fool thought this was in any way balanced.”

I can’t speak for the PF2 side, who exercise fearsome social media discipline days, but Jenny J’s responses to questions about stuff like this on a SF discord where she’s active suggest her perspective is “this is just a game you shouldn’t take this seriously” (I paraphrase pretty closely) and pretty plausible but less clear that she may think customers who can’t or won’t just do a table ruling and move on with their lives are a bit dim or obsessive. (Is the latter in dispute by anyone but the supremely obsessive?)

I appreciated the honesty of the viewpoint everytime she expresses it and it certainly explains a lack of urgency for errata. They’re vibing new stuff (and playing a lot of video games) to make money, ring up that credit card and don’t sweat it, compadres.

An announced book with contents and a date. A playtest is not a commit to publish anything at all or at a given time.

There are a few void effects that work against objects/constructs/undead. The Entropic Stabilizer weapon upgrade and Awaken Entropy spell (Dark Archives) immediately come to mind, there may be one other spell out there.

Entropy Strike is sort of on point in SF2 - it's poorly written, but seems to intend that it convert to the acide version from void for any target that is an object or nonliving creature.

Singularity Seed spell (page 360) has the Void trait but no void damage or other obvious interactions with this trait. Probably a carry over from playtest where it did void instead of bludgeoning damage.

Recommend removing Void trait.

Yes, people are wrong about how early GenCon books are generally announced. And both “generally” and “announced” are also not particularly reliable descriptors. They’ve done teases in Twitch, Paizocin keynote announcements, and increasingly stealth product page postings or retail reseller leaks attributed to when/how they sell forthcoming books to wholesalers/Amazon/B&N pre-“announcement.” Last time I looked at this first word of GenCon books as a promised product runs January through late March.

Kitusser wrote:

I have a few pet peeves with Infosphere Director, like the fact it requires a decent Intelligence on an already MAD class. This isn't unusable, and I think it's actually one of the better subclasses despite this, but even the Bard gets to use Charisma for Bardic Lore.

I don't see Intelligence as a disadvantage in a skill monkey class, especially when lots of the published scenarios give lore skills a +2 or +3 advantage over other skill checks. I don't think the problem here is the class; to me, it's SF2e dropping SF1e profession skills to use PF2e style lore skills. Lores are all Int-based, whereas professions were split up into Cha, Int, or Wis, making them usable by a much wider group of characters. The Bard getting to use Charisma for Bardic Lore is basically an SF1e profession.

As Vortext noted above, Bardic Lore doesn't let you use Charisma with it, so there's actually no problem here. Bards must also invest in intelligence to use this.

Xenocrat wrote:

Real OGs are nodding their head to memories of the old FAQ button on forum posts, the highly sporadic answers, and then its silent removal without any explanation or replacement for the longest time.

50 page thread with hundreds of FAQ requests where nobody can figure out how a certain ability works that gets hit with a "no clarification needed" post after like three years.

You’re not narrowing it down!