atlas_hugged's page

Thanks for that feedback. Given that the population at hand thinks it’s good. Is it possible to describe why it’s good without spoilers? What makes it different than others? Writing? The story? Some internal game element?

It's the quintessential sandbox adventure path. There's a big land. There are problems in that land. Go into that land, fix the problems, and overtime make your kingdom.

One correction: in the guide you state that all mindshift actions are psyche actions. Psy Strikes is not a psyche action. It's also worth consideration for oscillating wave as a free action way to add or remove energy as necessary. For example, you can cold fireball (remove energy), free action psy strikes with fire to add energy back, and then have a cold fireball ready for your next turn.

It would probably be an annoying amount of work, but I think the Star rating system is better than colors: it's a lot easier to read. At least for me, the colors tend to make the text unreadable. Green makes it unreadable when I'm using night mode on google drive, and yellow makes it unreadable in normal mode. In contrast, attaching a star rating to every feature (example: Gnome Ancestry (*****), or Parallel Breakthrough (****)) is much clearer. You couldn't maintain the current template where you rate the individual ability scores in each ancestry, but I'm not sure that's needed anyways).

One thing I noticed recently about Dancing Blade, which potentially makes it quite good, is that it is the only psi cantrip (including modified standard cantrips) which can make more than one spell attack roll against a target without amping it. This allows it to have an interesting combo with the feat "remove presence".

Remove presence states: Choose one target of the spell or one creature in its area. If that enemy fails its save or the spell hits it, you become undetected by that creature, disappearing from its senses for 1 minute or until you use a hostile action. This is similar to being invisible, but effects like see invisibility don't reveal you—you're affecting the target's mind, not its vision. True seeing can still see through this illusion if the counteract check succeeds.

This allows for you to trigger the effect multiple times. You conjure the weapon, hit them, you go invisible (from their perspective). Next turn, you take the hostile action, briefly appear, and if you successfully hit them, disappear yet again.

Alternatively, you can give the buff to your astral tether target, although that would be less useful because they're going to take hostile actions on their turn, presumably.

I think the Spell Trickster has a lot of potential with this class, particularly as more versions of spell trickster feats are released on pathfinder infinite. In the official feats, there's "wild lights" which removes the sustained requirement of dancing lights. Combined with the amp, you could have a field that attempts to dazzle everything around it (although, unfortunately, the feat also causes dancing lights to start on top of your head, which subjects you to the field).

You can specialize in mage hand, getting the benefits of the passive bulk increases. Spell Trickster also gives you a non-amp way to shove with your mage hand, which would stack with the forced movement Amp. Obviously fireball has it's feats that are amazing for an Oscillating Mind psychic.

I think we are being overly generous with our interpretation here.

My man. At this point we've both acknowledged two things:

1. By raw, the dedication doesn't give you esoteric lore
2. People keep mistakingly thinking it does (Since you admitted people keep taking diverse lore by mistake).

An errata for clarity would be optimal, because this is apparently a common mistake.

What I am saying, is that I would prefer Paizo clearly errata the dedication feat to deny any access to Esoteric Lore, much like how they wrote the summoner dedication feat to deny access to tandem actions in the clearest manner they could.

I believe this is preferable to what you proposed, because what you proposed would not stop people from misinterpreting the dedication. Your errata does not increase clarity. To be absolutely clear: I do not think errata-ing the dedication feat to include language like "you do not gain any special proficiency in esoteric lore, a unique lore skill which can only be accessed by the Thaumaturge class" would change the current RAW at all. It would simply make the RAW clear to those who are misinterpreting it in a way that the current language clearly does not, and in a way that I suspect what you proposed would not either.

atlas_hugged wrote:

I agree, this needs errata to be more clear. I believe the intent is that you can't and don't gain esoteric lore through any means other than being a full thaumaturge.

Its a Thaumaturge class feature, it doesn't really need called out.

atlas_hugged wrote:

But this should be spelled out explicitly, in both the entry on esoteric lore, and the Thaumaturge dedication. (The summoner is a good example of a dedication explicitly calling out features which aren't gained by the dedication, RE tandem actions).

The Thaumaturge dedication doesn't grant the Esoteric Lore class feature, nor can you take it via one of the feats.

The only thing I would errata here is to grant the Diverse Lore feat the "Prerequisites Exploit Vulnerability" line, to stop people taking it by mistake.

I agree the errata isn't necessary from a strict reading of the rules, but it is optimal for clarity purposes, given that this is an extremely common misconception.

Your proposed errata would indirectly make it more clear, but people would still take it based on a belief that glimpse vulnerability can sub in for exploit vulnerability (given other feats in the archetype, which work similarly). I would much prefer the errata just directly address the issue in a clear manner, rather than try to address it in an round-about manner.

I'll just add that Cleric has a huge selection of powerful metamagic feats that modify heal and harm. So you're rewarded for preparing even more heal/harm spells, because you get a diverse amount of effects from them. Versatile Font Clerics are fun, because you can keep your top level slots for healing, and use your bottom level slots to cast the various fun evil metamagics on harm, which often don't require saving throws or have incapacitation traits.

For instance, the feat "cast down", which is essentially a no-save knock prone effect. (they have to critically succeed on the save against the damage to avoid being knocked prone, or have enough of an uncommon resistance to avoid taking the damage).

Parallel Breakthrough: I personally couldn't rate this less than blue, because I think every build could get something very good out of it. Especially the utility spells are amazing;

- Infinite Eye Guidance as a reaction when it would help
- Glimpse Weakness (one action no MAP damage boost)
- Silent Whisper Message (one action give someone else a sudden extra action)
- Unbound Step Warp Step (one more level and you can amp to teleport twice your speed as a single action)

It's also practically mandatory if you go infinite eye and want to use any of the fun amp feats like remove presence. None of their cantrips require an attack roll or saving throw. (Omnidirectional scan might, depending on whether you qualify the aid reaction it gives as an attack roll. But the question then becomes how do those fun amp feats work with a delayed attack roll?)

So nowhere in the rules does it say that Esoteric Lore is bound only to thaumaturges. Sure, you say it is a 'special' skill, but you don't say anything about normal classes not being able to pick it up. I know I assumed that was the case, but it isn't stated specifically.

I agree, this needs errata to be more clear. I believe the intent is that you can't and don't gain esoteric lore through any means other than being a full thaumaturge. But this should be spelled out explicitly, in both the entry on esoteric lore, and the Thaumaturge dedication. (The summoner is a good example of a dedication explicitly calling out features which aren't gained by the dedication, RE tandem actions).

Additionally, Loremaster should probably be errata'd to work with Esoteric Lore (i.e., a +1 bonus to esoteric lore, just like bardic lore). While we're at it, rope "gossip lore" in there too, and any other "special lores".

I mean, there is no clear ruling, that's just the way I'd lean as a GM.

There's no clear ruling against the features stacking, and it doesn't result in a combination of features being "too good to be true". There's no reason to rule against it, and a GM would do well to err on the side of the player in this case.

The following is incorrect:

Goblin (Intelligence/Charisma) I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, Goblins have some of the best feats and heritages around. Of particular note here is the Goblin feat ‘Burn It!’ when combined with the Oscillating Wave Conscious mind can make your Produce Flame deal an extra 2.5x the spell’s level damage when your psyche is unleashed (that’s an extra 10 damage at level 8, and 15 damage at level 12!)

Both Burn It! and Unleash psyche are status bonuses, and so they do not stack.

Still, Burn It! is somewhat useful for when your psyche is not unleashed. To unleash your psyche, you need to cast a spell first anyway. Cast ranged 'Produce Flame' or other fire spell with a bonus for Burn It!. Then on the next round, unleash your psyche, and cast a ray of frost or other cold spell (as per the requirements for oscillating wave, and benefit from the unleash psyche status bonus.

Burn it is still extremely useful for the Oscillating Wave build, because it applies to Entropic Wheel, while Unleash Psyche does not (since wheel has a duration). Additionally, the fastest way to stack entropic wheel motes is to put persistent damage on enemies, and Burn It! works there as well. The more I think about the Oscillating Wave, the more I think it's more about building around Entropic Wheel, rather than the adding or removing energy.

I sort of cover this when I say that the abilities become 'useable' if amped. The issue I have with Infinite Eye are that most abilities are just bad if not amped. Guidance still has the 10 minute cooldown if not amped, I just think it is the worst of the choices. Notice how I didn't put it as red however. Worst among the choices does not mean 'Unusable.' I'll make that more clear.

I think you're still underselling it. Omnidirectional Scan, Guidance, and Glimpse Weakness are all fantastic spells unamped.

Omnidirectional Scan: Do you think the Aid action is worth taking? What if I told you that you could take it, get a free enhanced seek action on top of it, and guarantee that you can use your best proficiency to do the Aid reaction. Also, you can't critically fail the check.

That's what Omnidirectional scan is, unamped. If you amp it, it becomes bardic inspiration, plus an even better aid reaction. It goes from good (enhanced aid action) to great (super aid action.

Guidance is guidance. It's worth casting sometimes. But the fact that the amp is a reaction is itself a huge bonus to it: you have much better information on when you get to cast it, which makes the focus points you use on this far more efficient.

And like I said, glimpse weakness deals comparable damage to other single action spells, with the possibility of a crit since it runs off your ally's attack bonus.

I think you're underrating Infinite Eye.

Guidance amped is fantastic: a +1/+2 status bonus that can optionally be used as a reaction? That can turn a decent chunk of failures into successes. Glimpse weakness is lowish damage, but it's lowish damage on a single action, that enhances your ally's attack, and is multiplied on their crit. It's comparable to other single action damage class features, and IMO comes out ahead due to the likelihood of a crit. Don't bother amping it, it's fantastic all its own.

Omnidirectional scan is like some sort of weird version of inspire courage: amped, it provides a +1 circumstance bonus to everyone around you, and a +2-4 bonus to one target you choose to use your reaction on. And it also stacks with inspire courage. What's not to love?

Foresee the path is weird. The perception check issue exists, but you're also not required to succeed at the save if you amp it: the spell has the same effect on a failure as it does a success. I'm not quite sure how to evaluate it, because the effect is so different depending on how many of your team has opportunity attacks or not.

And best of all, these are all one action spellcasts. You have so many options for how to build your turn. All you really need to do is pick up a damaging cantrip from "parallel breakthrough".

The exact effect of the shield spell amp is unclear, and should be clarified.

Specifically:

When you Shield Block with this spell, one of the three layers breaks and you cease to gain the bonus to AC, but the spell doesn't end. You can keep using the spell until the final layer breaks; once it does, the spell ends and you can't cast shield or amped shield again for 10 minutes.

Notably, what happens if you block with less than 3 layers in a round, and choose not to sustain the spell on your next turn? The spell ends, but can you recast it?

As written, the "cannot cast shield or amped shield" clause only applies if the final layer breaks. This seems like an unusual enough RAW outcome that if the intent is for shield to be reuseable if not all three layers break, it should be explicitly stated.