ecgbryt's page

I don't get why, in a system where the goal is 100% interoperability between Starfinder 2e and Pathfinder 2e, the advanced high-tech weapons from Starfinder 2e are so much inferior to archaic weapons from Pf2e when used against non-modern armor. An early modern character looking at a futuristic sci-fi weapon should be amazed at how deadly they are (this is even in the pathfinder lore about Numeria!). Instead, a laser pistol has about the range of a thrown javelin, and does less damage than a stone age weapon. A laser gatling gun, which should be a massive force multiplier on an early modern battlefield when used against a charging group of enemies, instead attacks a 15' area(!) for slightly less damage than even the nerfed electric arc cantrip (which has a bigger range and is much more likely to hit 2 targets), and the gatling gun is 3 bulk and burns through 5 silver of ammo per attack.

I understand the Archaic trait will be added to pf2e weapons so that Starfinder characters won't be able to use the higher damage medieval weapons, but this does nothing when working in the other direction. Additionally, I'd worry that Starfinder characters would be almost obligated to carry a pf2e ranged weapon to use against targets without modern armor. Maybe instead of giving modern armor damage resistance against archaic weapons, modern weapons should do +10 damage to targets without modern armor? That way the humble laser pistol becomes a force to be reckoned with in Pathfinder 2e, not a disappointment best sold at the next town.

I'd also really like to see more interesting traits on the guns, and the range of all of them is universally too small. Why is a laser gatling gun or a rifled cannon outranged by a smooth-bore arquebus, or a longbow? And since the weapons aren't going to use the rune system of pathfinder 2e, but a parallel system, there's no need to restrict weapons to only doing a single dice of damage. One could easily make the laser gatling gun do 2d6 damage (doubled to 4d6 at level 4 version), or any other combination, just to make them feel more advanced.

You could already play wolves in sheeps clothing clerics before the remaster, I had great fun playing a CN warpriest of Baphomet who pretended to be a worshipper of Shelyn. I carried a holy symbol of Shelyn openly and covered up the emblazoned holy symbol of Baphomet on my glaive except during combat. Ordinary npcs (and most players) don't really care where the heals are coming from, and I was so focused on building up good relationships with the local town (to protect the start of a cult founded on profits from smuggling) nobody cared to look closely.

I'd also recommend a look at the rules for becoming a fallen champion, unlike priest where you lose all your spells you only lose your divine ally and focus pool upon drifting. And since divine ally is a minor feature, and you can easily regain a focus pool by taking a multiclass or archetype dedication, this lets you play 90% of a champion without any alignment or conduct restrictions at all.

This lets you play the evil champions in a less disruptive way, and I think opens up a lot of great role-playing hooks. Alternatively, you can play a fallen champion of a good god who pretends to still be a worshipper of their diety to cover up their real motives.

I'd come at this from a slightly different angle. The main problem is that wizard is stated in the introduction as being good at 2 things, being a utility caster who counters threats with the appropriate spells, and being good at knowledge skills. They are not the best class at either, especially with power creep. Investigator, rogue and thaumaturge are better at knowledge checks, and anyone can dip into loremaster, bard or dandy to be 90% as knowledgable. Spontaneous casters are better at using niche spells (like Faerie Fire or Earthbind) to alter encounters, and almost all classes can use scrolls as effectively as a wizard.

The class features don't help this intended role. Drain Bonded Item is usually just used to refresh a top level blasting or crowd control spell (for non-universalists), being able to specialize in a spell school narrows the overall utility, and the theses aren't particularly valuable at low level. I think these need to be altered drastically.

I have a wizard in my strength of thousands game. They wanted to play a walking library style caster, so they went with spell substitution. We're 4 books in, and they have used their class feature a grand total of once, it is just not useful when it takes 10 minutes to do. Meanwhile one of the maguses has taken the magus feat Standby Spell, and uses it around every other combat to swap a utility spell for Shocking Grasp as a free action.

I would suggest making Spell Substitution a one action focus spell to swap a prepared spell for something else in your spellbook, and granting this as a baseline focus spell to all kinds of wizards. This would make wizard excel at their stated casting role, making them feel like they always have an ace up their sleeve, without treading on the toes of martials.

I worry that the new changes to focus points and the at-will kineticist powers will really hurt support casters too at low levels, as they can finally do competitive amounts of healing to what was once the sole domain of caster's spell slots.

For example, take a champion and a cloistered cleric of Sarenrae, both of whom want to focus on party support. The champion takes Dieties Domain (fire ray), and decides to play an ancient elf with psychic dedication, giving them a focus pool of 3 points at level 1. The cloistered cleric chooses human, so they can take healing hands so their heal spells roll d10s, and chooses to start with +4 wis and +3 cha.

The cloistered cleric can cast 2 heals from spell slots and 4 from their healing font, for 6*(8+1d10) = 81 total healing on average, at the sacrifice of their survivability and doing more than casting fire ray and cantrips. And since their healing and cantrips are both 2 action, they are going to struggle to find a third action to perform.

Under the old rules, champions could only cast one lay on hands for 6 healing/combat, which wasn't really enough to keep up with incoming damage in even moderate encounters at level 1. In the remaster, this champion can do 18 points of healing/combat, in addition to the strong damage mitigation from the champion's reaction and the AC bonus from lay on hands. The champion is even competitive in burst healing, as 2 lay on hands = 12 healing compared to 13.5 average healing from the buffed 2 action spell slot. If you have more than 4 combats a day, the champion can actually output more total healing (and is way better at downtime healing) than the healbot cloistered priest. For an equivalent divine sorcerer who only casts heal, the champion will outheal them on average if you have more than 2 combats a day.

Having multiple ways to play a support is great, but the champion gets full martial damage, plate mail (eventually) and 10 hp/level, in addition to the better utility from champions reaction and a more flexible action economy.

Healbot casters are simply going to be outclassed by martials with focus pools, and a cantrip damage nerf is going to make them even less useful in comparison to taking another martial with lay on hands. The one exception that I can see is oracle, as oracle with blessed one dedication gets 3 focus points and a way to refocus without triggering their curse progression (as long as they just cast lay on hands).

When kineticist enters the equation, I think it won't be competitive at all. There are a lot of healing utility abilities they get, and they can easily be accessed via multiclass dedications. Why play a healbot cleric at level 5 at all, when you could have a fighter who can cast level 3 Protector Tree an unlimited number of times/day while attacking at +5 over the cleric once a round?

Anyone else kinda wierded out by the mentions of death farms? Not just because they are so awful, to the point i think it will make my players defect to another country, but because they just don't make sense, humans are terrible livestock.

Take Greydirge. Population 9400, 75% undead. If only half of those undead are meat eaters and eat a pound of human a day, that's 1.75 tons of meat a day. assuming 200 lbs/human, that's 6400 people/year. since humans mature slowly, that means there are at least 6400*18, 115,000 people in these death farms in the countryside, just to feed Greydirge alone.

I think i'm just going to have them farm pigs instead. Ghouls can eat pig right? It just makes more sense than adding in millions of people as chattal to Geb, which kinda flies in the face of the Dead Laws as presented.