Matthew Scheele's page

The traditions are canonically an artificial construct to begin with. They're how the people of Golarion have categorized magic. But the lines aren't really there, and especially skilled casters are perfectly capable of casting "occult" magic as a primal caster or vice versa (it's even one of the paths of study at the Magaambya, on account of Old Mage Jatembe's teachings)

Yeah, the issue here is that if the power balance is so tilted to runes for damage that striking is unappealing, then it's hard to call this a martial class.

I'd still want to see some numbers at other levels due to breakpoints on strike damage etc, but I don't expect the conclusion to change much that it's not worth using Engraving Strike.

Engraving Strike is strictly better than Strike, essentially. But if you can't ever make it worth using Engraving Strike over runes for damage (outside of high saves/low AC cases)... that does seem to be an issue. At least if this is supposed to be a martial class (and it does seem to be at least using that chassis).

Although part of the issue is probably that Runesmith doesn't really have any class feature to boost their strike damage output the way almost all other martials do (Fighter/Gunslinger being "bonus accuracy" is still a damage booster, but Champion is more optional in getting a boost in exchange for their incredible defenses). Whetstone or Impact runes are a boost, but a minor one comparatively... and go on allies just as well (or better, considering accuracy etc). The difference from Champion though... is that they're getting access to the very damaging rune invocations instead. But with the failure chance of a strike, the math isn't working out for Engraving Strike, and you definitely have little reason to Strike if the upgraded version isn't useful.

We really need a pass on abilities that try to reference property runes as a way to buff weapons. Champion's Blade Ally is the most common one people will run into there, but the most egregious is probably Kineticist's Kindle Inner Flames impulse. It heightens from +2 damage per strike to "add Flaming to each strike", which for anyone with maxed property runes on their weapons is a straight downgrade without a rules interpretation that it can over the normal cap. (There's also Conductive Sphere at the same level that tries to add Shock runes, there's the Conductive Weapon spell...)

Proficiency would be kind of eating reaper's weapon familiarity's lunch, would be odd imo having two ways to do the same thing in class like that.

Yeah, that's a fair point. Probably could use a pass over all the various martial leaning feats to make them play nice together in that case.

Inner Radiance Torrent was originally Limited, now that it's been nerfed, does it change from Limited to Standard?

Potentially, though that's a separate team making a pass now that the errata is live I think?

Drained can be a very handy condition to inflict especially at higher levels, but Life tap is very awkward for a low level necromancer's main combat trick. I like having a srained inflicting focus spell on the necromancer, but I think it needs to be higher level so it has a bit more power budget for other things, while the Spirit Monger needs a bit more immediate damage or healing for what might be their only non-cantrip attack at level 1.

Yeah, a higher level spell might pull this off, but as an initial effect it just feels like it doesn't offer enough in any direction to warrant using it - you rarely care about all three effects (debuffing and healing especially tend to be opposed, as debuffs want to go out early while heals hopefully don't). Right now, I'm looking at this as something I'll never really want to cast at early levels over a dedicated damage cantrip or heal spell... and then I'll grab Necrotic Bomb at 2 for offense instead.

I feel like Bone Spear might really benefit from being a reflex save because of the MAP interactions.

Necromancer should start with 2 focus points I believe, because the FP rules don't make a distinction for focus cantrips. It's a mistake in the playtest document to say that they start with 1.

Hmm. It occurs to me you can Ready Invoke, which could be used creatively in many situations.

Force Barrage, Runic Weapon, Soothe, etc. etc.

With 2 slots and being a prepared caster I am not going to try and be creative in my spell choices.

The Mastery of Life and Death class feature means you deal Vitality damage to your thralls with effects that do Void damage, with no option not to do so, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's seriously lacking for actual options to use in the playtest. I'm sure the final book will have more runes to work with, but this feels like an oversight.

Necromancer does seem to have a couple feats to support weapon use. The conjure bone weapon, explode thralls to add void damage to attacks, etc.

The spirit type having a level 12 feat to gain ghost resists when you detonate thralls is interesting for that too. Resisting most damage is very nice.

Life Tap seems a little weak. Thematically, it's cool. But for an equal level enemy... well, creatures tend to have 15-20 HP per level, so on a failure you're dealing 10-15% of their health in damage and healing an ally by about 10%. It doesn't do a lot of healing or damage, so I worry that it's not going to feel very impactful a lot of the time. I'd straight up just double the healing on it probably? (I figure as is, a level 2 target is worth 4 HP healed... if they fail the save. Lay on Hands gives back 6 for a third of the actions spent, plus a significant AC bonus. The comparison is of course worse at odd levels due to the way the two scale, but it caps at 40 HP versus 60 HP at 20.) Double healing makes it give 4-12 HP in the same situation (I suppose this might actually be a bit too much? Maybe it should heal a constant amount as long as the enemy took damage, similar to the Paradox of Opposites witch, since it's easier to adjust that way)

TheSageOfHours wrote:

Pretty sure the runesmith is an idea one of the devs mentioned awhile back in the forums, i would look to find who it was but i need to go to bed like right now.

But whoever it was, I remember!! I have been waiting for this idea to come to fruition since that forum post! So excited!!

Also i am so happy we are getting a full necromancer, my best friend loves necromancer and this seems to be exactly what he wants, so excited!!!

I don’t know about any devs mentioning that, but I know that I was theorizing about eventually getting a Necromancer class back in July, 2023 and even speculated on getting Necromancer and a Runecaster/Runethane/Rune”X” -class and/or options back when Secrets of Magic was coming out. So, I am very happy this is finally happening.

I find myself hoping that we can maybe get a Remastered Magus and Summoner in this “Impossible” book, too. I also wonder if the book will be called something like “Tome of Impossible Arts”, “Grimoire Impossible”, or “Secrets of the Impossible Kingdoms”…

Come on synthesist summoner.

SuperBidi wrote:

Easl wrote:

For a 1-10 game, 1-7 is most of the play space.

If you play a character which is good at level 1-4, okish at level 5-6 and bad at level 7-10, the only thing you'll remember is that it was a big pile of crap. Having your character getting worse and worse at what it does every level it takes is not a good feeling.

Easl wrote:

Both may be better overall choices, but nobody wanting a divine gish is going to take Magus, and nobody wanting to spam 4+ aura spells per game day is going to get that from Summoner until at least level 6.

What makes a "divine gish"? If the only difference is the tradition of your 4 slots then that's not much of a difference (especially when you see people stating that the Battle Harbinger should grab Arcane spells like True Strike or Haste). Just play a Staff Magus, grab Fervor Witch Dedication and a Staff with Bless/Bane (level 6 for a Staff of Providence, but your GM may be nice and allow you to use a variation on the Entertainer's Lute or Bagpipes of Turmoil that would be an actual Staff).

As for the Summoner, it casts lots of auras much earlier than level 6. At level 4 you already have 4 slots, and that's without buying any Wand. You should play like a Battle Harbinger much earlier.

In a level 1-10 game, a Summoner or a Magus will be more effective than a Battle Harbinger at being a Battle Harbinger. The Battle Harbinger is only a valid choice if you never make it to level 7 (the moment where it really crumbles to pieces compared to actual classes).

Wait if they wanted surestrike and haste wouldn't they pick a deity that adds it to thier spell list?

Like Ragathiel. Actually not a bad option. Surestrike and haste are added to your divine list and you get a d12 weapon as favored.

Ragathiel also allows Harm on your Font. A Warpriest of Ragathiel is going to do an excellent impression of a Magus without needing any multiclassing at all starting at level 6.

A Magus that traded Arcane for Divine and then I dunno, got the aura spell font in place of Studious Spells? Yeah, they'd be significantly better than Battle Harbinger.

As you said - there's very little reason to not just run Warpriest instead. Yes, Warpriest is behind martials on accuracy at many levels... but they outclass Harbinger by miles in how many support spells they can bring (heck, Warpriest is basically equal to Cloistered at the support role). They win out in damage output too because they have a lot more slots to prepare Harm in for Smites too (especially if they get Harm in their font). With the right god (or some Human feats) they can start loading their low level slots with Sure Strike too, and oops you've made a Magus.

I have absolutely had encounters where I just started firing off spells while prone on the player side, as long as they're not attack rolls prone doesn't impact it at all.

Titan Breaker helps against hardness, but it's only really going to apply to very low rolls or very high hardness, at most. Since only the spirit damage goes through hardness, it effectively means you deal a minimum of 2/die when hitting something with hardness.

But compare that to other ikons where you still deal bonus damage... and then probably get the same final result anyways once hardness comes off (if you deal 6 bludgeoning and 3 spirit against 5 hardness, you get 4 final damage either way)

Which isn't to say the extra damage die isn't going to help break through things, it's just that I dunno if it's significantly better than other classes.

The troublesome out of combat ikon is Victor's Wreath, with the "make new saves every round until the condition goes away". Being able to make it worse is a downside, but a lot of (most?) conditions are safe to keep crit fishing against. Compare that to Paragon Chalice... which is a level 17 ability for Thaumaturge and can only attempt one check per condition per day. (Although it can't make things worse and comes with significant HP recovery, it's still the difference between a powerful capstone ability and something you can take at level 2 on a dedication)

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

As far as out of combat healing, the gam expects you to be near full hit points when you go into your next fight so the Scar isn't actually that bad. On the other side what the Wreath doesn't tell you if depending on the initial effect if your allies crit fail or fail a disease or poison check it get's accelerated.

It's out of line with most other out of combat healing, which occurs in 10 minute chunks, costs resources, or has cooldowns. It's a heightened 1-action heal on yourself every round (transcend it and it's forced somewhere else, shift immanence to put it back, repeat again next round). Healing at this speed typically costs focus points or spell slots, but just... doesn't for the exemplar.

There are situations in APs where you only have a single 10 minute increment (if that) between waves of enemies, and an exemplar would be able to get themselves back to full without spending any resources from any HP value. I can't think of anyone else that can do that.

It feels like too many of these abilities were created without thinking about someone using them out of combat, really. Like, think about how barrow's edge transcendence interacts with someone striking the floor, by RAW, or with the dreaded bag of rats. It's bad.

There's so many trivial ways to heal up out of combat as is. Forensic Investigators, Kineticists, basically no resource cost ways to turbo-heal the party in 10m. Unless the next fight is happening sooner than 10m, a well-prepared party is going into it at full HP. (And a fight that's happening almost immediately favors the burst healing of Kineticist or focus spells anyways)

shroudb wrote:

Huh?

Since when?

I didn't want to enter long description on that...

Roughly, blasting asks for a 2-action spell. Then you have one action left for... either Earth's Bile or Channeler's Stance. You won't be able to use them simultaneously. So it's no "combo", it's just not working.

Stances only need the action once though, not every turn?

He's not wrong in regards to grapple being only a chance to make spells fail. In 2e, I feel like a lot of the value is in the Off-Guard and Immobilized conditions it inflicts. Once someone grabs the caster, they can't get out of melee range and have their (probably lower) AC reduced, making it easy for the party to gang up on them and clobber them.

Having a spell whiff is gravy, the value's in having the important target rendered vulnerable. And yeah, hitting a critical success (which, I should note, can end up being much better than 5% when you invest in Athletics maneuvers on targets with poor fortitude saves. And casters are usually bad at those!)

Another use case for grapple unique to Monk is that one of their higher level stances at 8 has the Reach and Grapple traits, and gives +2 to grab enemies. Grappling an enemy from 10' away can render them entirely unable to attack if they don't have reach. (Well, strictly speaking, you're allowed to attack whatever's holding you still - but limiting them to attacking the monk with their higher AC is pretty good still)

Dubious Scholar wrote:

It's not wrong, exactly...

but Earth's Bile should probably be reworked to be Heightened+1 somehow. Focus spells for damage should never be Heightened+2.

It’s +2 because of the single action sustain and moveable AOE on top of wanting two damage types/dies.

The amped Daze laughs at this assertion.

Well, no - it's pretty much just the two damage types. If it was pure fire damage it would have definitely been +1.

But it makes the spell's power fluctuate a lot based on your level - it's much better at levels 5-6 than 7-8 because it's not keeping up with enemy HP the way it would if it was +1. And because focus spells are locked in a way normal spells aren't you can't just swap to a different blasting spell for the off levels the way you can for something like Force Barrage.

I feel like Exemplar is on par with Thaumaturge in how varied you can get with your character abilities on the same class, and I love it for that.

I'm already seeing cute tricks like Starshot on a tiny PC that make me want to build more characters around them. Absolutely love this book.

Regular old monks can punch so hard it hits everyone in a 60' cone. A demigod's punches hitting hard enough the person next to the target is bruised a bit is nothing.

Prince Setehrael wrote:

So the Golarion Year of 4713 AR corresponds with the Earth Year of 1918.

Where is this correspondence established?

I'd assume with the 1e AP that takes a brief sojourn to Earth.

I have to assume the original 15m is a typo and intended to be the same 25m as later in the text, because otherwise stopping to stabilize them makes it impossible to have enough time to disrupt the ritual via skill checks. I choose to resolve the contradiction in the way that makes it not incredibly punishing to the PCs for acting to save someone.

Even then, stabilize should normally be a 2-action Administer First Aid activity, not Treat Wounds. Making it take 10m means that it increases the DCs to disrupt the ritual to Very Hard, and you'll only have time for one check per PC as well.

Of course, strictly speaking, since the fight takes a nonzero amount of time, it's impossible to get in two rounds of checks to disrupt the ritual anyways, even if the PCs rush right to it (as the victim dies at the 20m mark unless stabilized). At least, without splitting the party (or having a Summoner, I think the victim is close enough to the ritual that their double exploration activities can manage it), so even though the check to stabilize the victim adds 5m to the clock... you spent 10m to do it and didn't actually buy any extra time. Given that, I strongly thing it should just be Administer First Aid there, and I'd definitely allow the Stabilize cantrip or other healing magic to work.

As written, the best possible interpretation I can give is that it is always a bad idea for the party to try and save the collapsed victim via Medicine instead of rushing to the ritual. Succeeding makes ultimately saving them harder outside of those edge cases I mentioned above, and risks killing them immediately.

I just realized that the shield spell can now Shield Block damage from magical effects and spells, not just physical damage and force barrage. This subtle change makes it far more reliabke and valuable than its pre-remaster counterpart.

I will definitely be using it a lot more.

Oh that's significant, yeah. Glass Shield also has that text, but since it's hardness is rather lacking...

Everything I've seen of this so far has just made me want to create even more characters, so great job to all involved!

Yeah, critical specs can do some fun things for e.g. Fighter, who crits a lot.

But for Champion? If you tell me this doesn't add on top of the normal rune limits, I'm just going to take the Swiftness blessing instead and buy an Astral rune at 8 since it works on 90% of enemies without issue as is.

But as has been noted, this is a broader issue with using "gains a rune" as a shorthand to add effects to weapons. There's multiple kineticist impulses that run up against this for example, including one where it goes from flat damage that stacks with anything to "add a rune" on heightening, and obviously you shouldn't be losing damage there but...

The Total Package wrote:

Curious why you don't rate Focus Powers

like Draconic Barrage and Ephemeral Hazards that highly? Aren't they both stellar?

I think I addressed those adequately. I rated Ephemeral Hazards "Green" which means it is a good choice for anyone.

"Draconic Barrage" is decent damage at very low levels in exchange for one action plus a MAP penalty. It doesn't scale particularly well. I could honestly see it shading into Green, but pure damage spells aren't as good as spells that do damage plus something else.

The important thing about Draconic Barrage is that while the first attack from it costs 2 actions... every attack after that is a single action, and the number of attacks scales with rank. It ends up being basically a stronger Spiritual Armament at higher ranks (because it scales much faster at 1d6 per rank instead of 1d8 per two ranks).

"Another" doesn't necessarily mean different (it can mean both the same thing or a different thing depending on context), and even if it means different, does it mean besides Illimitable, or besides the other finisher you chose as part of it? There's a lot of ambiguity there, though I agree that it probably isn't intended to chain indefinitely. It just needs to be made clear one way or the other since level 20 feats are allowed to be kind of ridiculous, but...

Flash of Grandeur does mean they have a miss chance for any attacks they take afterwards due to Dazzled, plus the upgrade inflicts Off-Guard automatically.

My main concern with champion is that it's yet another case of just trying to add runes to weapons as an enhancement without regard for the rune cap. Blessed Armament grants critical specialization... and saves you a trivial amount of gold on property runes with the remaster, instead of the old version that (arguably) added an additional effect to your chosen weapon. Once you hit level 8, even that gold savings is lost unless you spend more class feats to expand its selection (or you give up on the damage increase of the runes at that level).

Comparing it to the alternatives, it seems clear that it should have more benefit than that? Swiftness is universally useful and grants constant protection against reactions to allies, shields scales with level without further investment and applies to any shield you wield rather than a single one, and the weapon upgrade... just doesn't do much of anything at higher levels.

Honestly, I think there just needs to be a universal rule that effects that add a rune to a weapon can go over the normal cap based on potency runes, because this keeps coming up (there's numerous other examples of it - such as Conductive Sphere on Kineticist trying to add Shock runes on a level 8 impulse). Or should we just be interpreting them as overriding the normal rune limit if they don't say otherwise? (That is, since it says it adds the rune, it gets to do so, even though that's normally not allowed)

Will Dual-Form Weapon finally be made something other than a trap feat that doesn't work?

Half damage on a simple miss of an attack spell is something I have been expecting for quite some time. Great to finally have it.

Strictly speaking, Horizon Thunder Sphere already had it. 3-action HTS was a useful spell pre-remaster. (I think Thunderstrike beats it now for most use cases, but)

Also, the remaster added the Astral Rune, which is a Ghost Touch rune except upgraded to also deal 1d6 spirit damage. And since spirit damage works on basically anything that isn't a construct and the rune is also cheaper than the other damage runes...

Of course, you're looking for alternatives to runes - I just though it worth mentioning as it basically entirely removes the main drawback of a ghost touch rune.

One thing I wish Quick Draw would allow for is just changing grip. Or that we had an equivalent feat for that.

Fort reaper 225 wrote:

Logan Banner wrote:

Heightened (+2) The damage increases by 1d4.

Is anyone else thinking that this scales quite poorly? 1d4 every 2 spell levels bounds up to practically nothing at most stages of the game...

For people to more reliably pick this i feel like changing the spirit damage to 1d6 base dice would be in order seeing as it is generally difficult to even keep the party within those 15 feet that the focus spell requires.

Cantrip damage thorns on one ally that is reactionary and unavoidable that is folded up into the ally gaining an AC PLUS you raising a shield ALL FOR ONE ACTION is some crazy value. It's essentially three actions of focus spell smooshed into one.

If I'm reading that right, it's all allies in the aura. That's incredible value.

Precision ranger is one of the better ways to try and build a switch hitter too I think. Get Gravity Weapon on them to double down on that first big hit, get an animal companion to double up on your precision damage... Lots of options for where to go with them.

Agreed that they're basically middle of the pack. It's a well balanced class, it's flexible in how you build it, and a well-built fighter is always going to outshine you in raw killing things potential.

They do have some cool situational tricks. They've got some solid party support options (sharing precision edge with an ally, the monster hunter feat chain eventually gives easy buffs to everyone, etc), but they're not the best at anything in particular.

Anyone heard about PFS sanctioning timeline?

Howl is already sanctioned: https://paizo.com/pathfindersociety/characteroptions

Specific overrides general. The weapon benefits from kickback because it says it has kickback.

I still vote for summoner.

Summoner gives you a party with a lot of HP and everyone's packing respectable martial damage BUT everyone also has wave casting so you can fire off some buffs or control on harder fights, you've got burst healing in the tank, etc. Everyone's a spellcaster so you can bring scrolls/wands/staves as needed.

Druid's a solid choice too for sure. You'll need at least someone to build a dedicated frontliner, but with how many good buffs and heals the Primal list offers you probably have no issue staying alive, and the list has excellent blasting as well. A storm order druid is also mandatory of course, especially with the remaster's changes to focus points.

Kineticist would also do well I think. Possibly the absolute tankiest choice here (it's either them or Champions, I think), between heavy armor and Timber Sentinel. But they can't grab silver bullets from spell lists as easily and the class has a weakness in skill training, so outside of combat it's more of a mixed bag.

Also, when we actually get a Secrets of Magic errata, can something be done about Eidolon's Wrath? A 20' emanation is really hard to not explode your friends with.

Combination weapons save a significant amount of gold on runes.

Lots of welcome changes here.

It does feel odd to see combination weapons get all that love, and Inventor's Dual-Form Weapon feat continues to be incredibly bad by comparison. (Also, as written it arguably says you can't benefit from runes on the second form at all, since the two forms are a single item). Chiefly, two actions to change between forms is just crippling.

For what it's worth, Pathfinder is a setting in which time travel is a thing that exists, so it's not really worth worrying about the FTL violates causality consequences of relativity.

A guardian with an 18 STR, a shield, and ferocious vengeance, has a D8+6 attack to make against anyone that ignores you to attack your allies. That is not far off the bonus to damage from a fury barbarian. With your Shield raised your AC is the same as it was before you taunted and you have an effective damage mitigator with the shield block reaction. If they ignore you, you can certainly make them pay for it. There will be a couple of levels where your attack bonus slips behind (although the devs love playtesting those alternatives and then 'giving the players what they want' with proficiency scaling boost, so I don't know if that will last) but you also have level 1 feats to either do damage with an Athetics skill action or to take an attack that makes an enemy off guard to you as well, so I don't think the offensive weaknesses of the class are as bad as say a Dex-based Liberator Champion or many other martials in the game.

If you're taunting and raising a shield every round then you only have one action left, so the enemy can ignore you by just not ending their turn next to you, can't they?

How adorable is the art for awakened animals?

I find it very hard to justify taking a mount via the Commander feats as opposed to Beastmaster. You spend level 2, 4, and 8 feats instead of 1, 6, and 10 - which means you come out ahead on feats used I feel, you get the power bumps earlier... and you can get specialized for high level (I have to assume it's an oversight that they didn't copy/paste Champion's version of it like the rest, but still)

Honestly, this is still a thing even for Ranger. The existence of Beastmaster/Cavalier as an archetype means that all classes with animal companions really should be using its progression as the baseline standard imo. (Also... I have now learned while double checking Cavalier's progression that they have the ultimate kiting attack option... I kind of want to work out a horse archer build now)

Yeah - unless they have reason to believe the entirely mundane banner specifically is necessary to your party's suddenly inexplicable endurance... it makes more sense to go for the guy yelling at everyone to stand strong, etc. Clearly, he must be doing something to keep everyone standing so he's a threat to jump.