exequiel759's page

I mean, it would be earned because I was assuming you'll still need adrenaline to benefit from the +0 MAP press action.

I also think the class needs to be more durable regardless. It feels too squishy right now.

But besides that, I think the problem is that the press actions in the class feel balanced taking into account that these are going to be used for a class that reduces MAP on press actions (much like fire impulses which are weirdly weaker than impulses from other elements of its level, all likely because fire kineticists have access to fire impulse junction). Flying Hurdle Stunt and Forceful Kickoff Stunt have really meh effects on a failure, when press actions are supposed to be actions that tend to be stronger than the norm because they require you to be on MAP to use them, but that even on a failure have a decent effect.

Another example; Pressing Pummel is a Power Attack-adjacent feat that has the press trait for no apparent reason. Like, it still costs 2 actions, has no failure and critical failure effects, and on top of everything is a flourish. Rebounding Fall Stunt has both the press and risky traits which seems extra weird when the prefered action rotation for this class seems to be risky action immediately followed by a press action. This happens with a ton of other feats in the class.

+1

I honestly like a MAP +0 for the first press action each round. Its certainly more unique than flurry ranger's benefits but only for press actions.

The day of the stream I was kinda worried for the new classes because neither the mechanics nor the flavor behind either of them seemed to be "strong" enough to justify full blown classes. Now, after having the somewhat full context of the playtest (because its entirely possible some features were designed with Paizo knowing people aren't going to like them. It happened before), I think both could become full classes, but certainly not in the state they exists right now.

The mechanical niche of the daredevil is Athletics maneuvers. Yes, everyone trained in Athletics can use them already, but its usually trade-off in which the player trades damage for support. This is true even for archetypes that specialize into Athletics maneuvers like wrestler. The problem is that the daredevil is totally lenient on props which is already a huge red flag (see AP map design). The daredevil is also supposed to be the "risky" class, but it doesn't feel like that all. Yes, the class relies heavily on press, and while the class makes press actions more desirable, I think most of them are really bad because it seemed like the devs designed them taking into account they are going to be used by a class that reduces the MAP on press actions. Its similar to how fire impulses on the kineticist were seemingly designed taking into account that fire kineticists increase the damage die size of fire impulses, making them weirdly weak unless you have the fire impulse junction.

A thing I noticed immediately is that the class it repeats multiple time in the flavor of many of its features that the daredevil is, paraphrasing a bit, in the heat of battle putting itself at risk and taking damage, yet the class has 8 + Con HP per level, no acccess to medium armor, but Diehard at 1st level and heals more from Medicine? This feels totally out of touch on what the class is supposed to represent. I feel like 10 + Con HP and access to medium armor should be the bare minimum for such a class.

Everything else is okay-ish. There's too many flourish feats as well but I'm sure that's going to be fixed on release.

In regards to the slayer, in my first read I thought it was in a much better state than it really is. Not like its in a bad state exactly (I'll go in detail why next), but right now I honestly don't see a reason why I would ever want to play a slayer over a reflavored thaumaturge any time soon. Mark Quarry is atrocious, trophies are weirdly...bland? to the point where the feature barely justifies its existence, and chymist's vials and consecrated panoply feeling like trap options. Even bloodseeking blade which I think its by far the best tool, if you look at it, its just a buffed precision ranger with pseudo-fighter accuracy boost put together into a subclass.

The specializations of each tool are almost universally bad though.

Most slayer feats also have a tool requirement, which likely is going to result in most slayers that choose the same tool to feel same-y.

I believe in Paizo because all the recent classes have been huge hits, so I'm sure they are going to be much better at release. Thats why I think its important for us to provide feedback now because, regardless of if you think these should be classes or not, the boat has sailed and these are going to be classes like it or not, so let's hope for Paizo to have the best feedback avaiable to design the best version of these classes possible.

Tbh I would totally dig the first press action of each turn being at +0 MAP. However, it would totally remove the "risk" factor of the class (though its not like I think they truly managed to represent "risk" with the class honestly).

Ectar wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

You don't really. These are variations on a theme. Certain characters will work better as a Daredevil than they would have as a Swashbuckler or Monk or whatever, but there's no profound paradigm shift here.

In Paizo's defense, does there need to be though?

... The Slayer does really just feel like Paizo's own Revised Ranger thing though, yeah.

There doesn't need to be, but I lament other character concepts which are not currently well supported mechanically, languishing while the Daredevil is being printed.

Being honest, while I do give Paizo credit for a lot of things and tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm inclined to agree that we didn't quite need Daredevil.

Not that I don't think it looks neat, or that I think it should be a class archetype. But it's not... necessary. I'd rather a primal gish or something with different flavor. Would I be happy changing the flavor of Daredevil? Of course. Flavor is free and I can pull off a wrestler quite nicely with it.

But I could already sorta do a wrestler with other classes. Not perfectly, but you get the idea. I'm happy with Slayer, as it fulfills one class fantasy I couldn't do before bare minimum and as I continue to think on it, I think it's shaping into my favorite class flavor in the system. But we didn't need Daredevil right now

I'm kind of the opposite here. I feel slayer right now doesn't give me anything that the thaumaturge didn't before, while daredevil is setting itself to be the perfect class to do Athletics maneuvers which I always felt was a bit weird before. I mean, yeah everyone with Athletics can grapple or trip, but given the chance I personally prefer to make an attack as damage is what makes my senses tingle more.

But if part of the design is to create something that engages more with the environment, making it work better without scenery would be kind of antithetical to the function.

Maybe it's okay to start saying that empty squares with a bunch of enemies on one side are not good map design.

The thing is that the GMs and AP designers aren't really going to change how they design maps just for the sake of a single class from splatbook that is going to come out 8 years after the release of the system. If anything that's going to cause people to ignore the class.

And the fix to avoid this is simple; make stunt damage less reliant on pushing someone against a prop and allow it to proc when throwing someone to the floor in a suplex-like maneuver (trip), bear-hugging (grapple), or move someone's hand away with a quick swing (disarm).

The specializations feel really weak in all tools honestly. Bloodseeking blade is critical specialization plus an okay-ish rune, chymists' vials reduces the cooldown of two lackluster abilities, and panoply should probably just allow you to use your weapon's runes from the get go instead of being that being the specialization. Warded mail is the only good one, and I still think its fairly mid if I'm being totally honest.

Well, I totally missed the 5 trophies limitation. That fixes one of the problems I had with the class.

With that said, what the point of this post then? We already know how many you can have at the same time.

I recall Trevor throwing a bunch of daggers in the Castlevania Netflix show so I think they probably took it from there? That also explains why its sanctified.

Did I miss something or you can actually have more than tool?

But anyways, if you have a GM that puts clues everywhere for you to mark, you'd make at least one or two trophies per combat session, which means you'll end up with multiple dozens of them by the mid to high levels. That's why I think juggling trophies is going to be tiresome.

I found Daredevil’s Endurance really weird as a class feature. Like, they could have given the class 10 + Con HP, medium armor, and/or powerful fist (since the class borrows heavily from the wrestler and the 1e brawler) but they decided to give it a general feat that you were going to take anyways and a circumstance bonus to healing from Medicine checks? I agree that even after applying the buffs I mentioned, I think adrenaline should grant temp HP.

I also think propelling strides should grant a baseline +5 ft. movement to speend that increases to +10 ft. movement if you pass next to a prop on a move action, not only if you begin the the move action next to one. I think it would be really cool if, to get in reach of someone 10 ft. away from you, as a daredevil you could move 5 ft away from the enemy to get next to wall and propel yourself from it and end up in the other side of the room next to the foe.

...and I forgot to mention the size issues in some of the daredevil's feats (luckily OP addressed that) and that the class needs auto-scaling in Athletics and/or Acrobatics as well. I hope we don't get a swashbuckler situation again where we need the Remaster to have auto-scaling on the skill we use all the time.

Yeah, I think brawler would been much appropiate as a name for daredevil. Just replace the (fairly weird) Diehard feat it gains at 1st level with the monk's powerful fist and it would be enough. There's at least one feat that interacts with handrwraps of mightly blows in the class, plus the class clearly borrows heavily from the wrestler archetype which has powerful fist as well.

With slayer I think I got used to it already, but I would have prefered hunter personally.

After a first read, these are the changes I'd make to the daredevil.

* The class should have 8 + Con hit points and/or access to medium armor. In its current state I find the class to be too much fragile for someone that is supposedly putting themselves at risk frequently. I would totally trade Daredevil’s Endurance for it.

* Propelling Strides should instead be a 5 ft. speed increase that becomes a 10 ft. speed increase if you pass adjacent to a prop during your move action. 30 ft movement speed is important for leaping and jumping around so it makes sense for this class to have easy access to it.

* Stunt Damage pretty much only works on a shove and that's kinda lame as shove is IMO the worst Athletics maneuver. Since the class has a ton of synergy with grapples and trips, I think it should apply to all Athletics maneuvers and not just shove. Plus, the floor should count as a prop as well.

* There's just too many feats with the flourish trait. I also think a bunch of feats (like Pressing Pummel) are too weak to have the press trait and should IMO be heavily buffed. A ton would be indirectly buffed if they made stunt damage proc on stuff other than movement at least.

* I think "daredevil" is a bad name. Brawler would have been perfect (and with that said, it needs the monk's Powerful Fist).

Now I'll list the changes I'd make to the slayer.

*All the slayer's signature tools feel barebones. This wouldn't be that bad if you could have more than one (or if you could at least switch them everyday, ideally I would want to have both) but as is they feel lackluster and bit dissapointing. The specializations feel weirdly weak even in comparison with the rest of the tool's features. Critical specialization at 7th level? Really? And only if I pick bloodseeking blade? +1 striking daggers? These need to be revised.

* Mark Quarry is just wrong, like really wrong. To the point it kinda kills the whole class for me. I don't know how Paizo thinks adventure planning goes but in my experience its really rare for someone to truly know in advance what they are going to face during the day unless they search for bounties in town or stuff like that. It kinda feels they took the worst of the ranger's hunt prey and the investigator's pursue a lead and made it a fundamental feature of the class.

I feel the most elegant solution here (other than removing it or making it optional) would be to instead mark a designated area or zone, allowing the slayer to know highest level threat in that area and allowing them to take a trophy from it if they manage to defeat it. This is way easier to implement in a campaign and it would also work much better in already existing APs like Abomination Vaults where you really don't know what you are going to be against next.

In fact, I think Paizo should probably make Mark Quarry a exploration activity that you can do in tandem while doing another exploration activity (or make this a feat like Perpetual Scout). For example, a slayer scouts ahead while keeping an eye on footprints, claw marks, or other signs the quarry could leave behind.

* I think trophies are cool but they are likely going to become a chore really fast. Assuming you have a way to use it every session (I already mentioned this isn't likely in most campaigns earlier) you'll likely end up with like 20 trophies by 5th-7th level assuming you started the campaign at 1st level. I'd personally would prefer if it was like for thaumaturges in that your esoterica isn't something you have to really care about and its more abstract in nature, probably making the Field-Forged Tools feat a baseline feature at 1st level (Inventor used to get the Inventor class feat at 1st level when it was a master-tier skill feat before it was made into an expert-tier one) to keep a bit of the flavor and mechanics of taking parts of the enemies you take down in your adventures. I'm sure most are going to disagree though.

* As I said with Mark Quarry, I think it would be nice if you could Reinforce Arsenal as part of using another exploration activity, mostly to streamline the classes' between encounters sections. Probably limit it only to Mark Quarry and Reinforce Arsenal to be used at the same time if was a bit too much?

* A bit of a minor nitpick, but Tip of the Tongue should be part of Monster Lore at 1st level or be a 3rd-level feature at max.

* I kinda skimmed over the slayer's feats but so far the major problem I found is that they are too many subclass-specific feats which (paired with the problems I mentioned in the signature tools section) kinda makes me think most slayers are going to look same-y with one or two paths for each signature tool.

TLDR; I think Paizo has beaten the "these should be class archetypes" allegations I had initially on the stream, but I still think the classes need some time in the oven to be fully realized. I'm kinda eager to actually play them and see if there's something else I missed.

exequiel759 wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

...Someone mentioned Blue Mage?

I'm now imagining a Tripkee Wandering Chef Slayer who hunts monsters mostly in order to use them as ingredients for experimental dishes. The trophies are more so they can remember the flavor of certain monsters in order to figure out what seasonings and other ingredients work best.

I didn't expect a Quina reference today, though being totally fair, the only other Blue Mage is Kimahri and most people forget he exists lol.

Are we really erasing Quistis and Strago? smh lol

Funnily enough, a few days ago I started a new FF8 save just to play triple triad lmao.

Still, I probably forgot about them since I don't think I ever use either Strago or Quistis unless when mandatory (#SorryNotSorry).

We could include Gau here as well even if he technically isn't a blue mage too. Which makes me realize, Gau is kinda similar to how the slayer seemingly works, right?

...Someone mentioned Blue Mage?

I'm now imagining a Tripkee Wandering Chef Slayer who hunts monsters mostly in order to use them as ingredients for experimental dishes. The trophies are more so they can remember the flavor of certain monsters in order to figure out what seasonings and other ingredients work best.

I didn't expect a Quina reference today, though being totally fair, the only other Blue Mage is Kimahri and most people forget he exists lol.

A friend of mine told me its possible the slayer's quarry feature could be similar to the envoy's Size Up feat or the investigator's Pursue a Lead, in the sense that its either not mandatory in for the core gimmicks of the class to work or that its going to have support to make it faster than 10 minutes.

I want to think Paizo wants to see what feedback they get from this feature in its current state but probably they are already aware it isn't going to be well-received.

Unicore wrote:

The problem is that focus spell spell strike shouldn’t be “the whole hog.” That was a mistake of imaginary weapon and not enough good damage slot spells in the remaster as well. The remaster making IW 3x an encounter just buried the hatchet in spell slot spell striking

If they compensate the removal of focus spell spellstrike with something proportionate, like a well stocked spellstrike font, no complaints here. But I have this weird feeling they’re going to replace the “whole hog” with “no hog at all”. Remove focus spell spellstrikes from magus as it currently exists, without radical buffs, and it’s on life support same as inventor, maybe worse. However bad spellstrike focus spells are, that’s worse.

I doubt (or hope?) that Paizo isn't going to screw the magus since that's a really popular class and I'm sure they know people are going to raise pitchforks at them if they do it. Proof of this is that the most talked about aspect of the recent changes to the psychic were those that afected the magus because, being totally honest, most people don't care about the psychic (the same with the inventor, nobody cares about it).

I agree its entirely possible for the magus to lose the ability to spellstrike with focus spells. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised the magus became limited to spellstrike with spells from its own class to avoid any possible problems with future classes and spells, but if Paizo does that they have to buff the class somewhere else.

I also wouldn't use the G&G and DA remasters as a benchmark of what to expect of the magus in Impossible Magic, but rather PC1 and PC2 which were totally new books and out of the top of my head I think all the classes in those books were buffed except for ranger and wizard.

I really doubt a hyphotetical shifter class would use battle forms. I think the most likely feature would be something like generic animal "stances" to cover the basic types of animals kinda like how each heritage of awakened animal covers the basic animal types, plus maybe a few forms to cover non-nature stuff like aberrations, dragons, etc. The class feats then probably would either allow the shifter to poach more specific stuff like senses, special attacks like rend, or type-specific inspired stuff like taking planar energy from the elemental planes and becoming a half-element that deals elemental damage or whatever.

To be fair, the reason why the focus point recharge rule was a thing in the Remaster was because a ton of people was already playing as if that was how focus points recharged in the first place, so in most cases there isn't a difference here.

A bit off-topic, but I feel the ranger is a class that should lose its status of "core" class in the D&D-adjacent TTRPG space. Out of the 6 "core" martials (barbarian, champion/paladin, rogue, fighter, monk, and ranger) I always felt ranger was the one that didn't have a clear niche that wasn't filled by any martial class + taking Nature/Survival/whatever nature-themed skills with your character.

Its also the only class that doesn't have a defined mechanical niche since in every edition its in its always different, unlike classes like barbarian which share raging as a core concept of the class, paladins/champions being tanks, rogues being skill monkeys with sneak attack, etc.

I think slayer is, in a sense, a second pass for the ranger to possibly make it a bit more flavor-agnostic and possibly playtest how a future 3e ranger could look like, since the 1e slayer kinda feels like a blueprint for the 2e ranger too.

The problem with "daredevil" as a name is that its a pretty much a synonym of swashbuckler, so initially the class isn't beating the "this should be a class archetype" allegations when the name directly calls out a class that already exists. We still don't have the full picture until the playtest releases, but if the class is all about movement and putting yourself at risk I feel there should be a more appropiate speed-y name than swashbuckler 2.

Especially when the remaster did so little to help the Ranger.

I wouldn't be surprised this is one of the reasons. After all, a "totally distinct ranger" class is going to sell more than re-releasing a class that already exists.

The concept of class archetypes is that you trade some power (class feats) to receive a more specialized or stronger subclass. The problem is that, much like how advanced weapons which fill a similar design, nobody at Paizo seems to agree if they should actually be stronger or not, but regardless of that you are still losing power somewhere in the class anyways and more often than not that doesn't translate into power somewhere else.

That or whoever is in charge of designing them is terribly afraid of making something that could be even slightly above the power curve and end up releasing poorly designed and playtested content. I'm afraid its probably both.

I was talking with a friend about the new classes and I'm honestly way more interested in the daredevil than I was before lol. There's like a billion of interesting character concepts that can come up from a highly mobile class, so if the class delivers, it would be really fun to play one.

I like that you mention Castlevania and Bloodborne, because Castlevania and Bloodborne are more urban than natural, which is sort of what I mean. And that's what Slayer invokes to me, urban monster fighting. Going into castles, or through dingy urban sprawls.

That's the point of what I'm saying though. The word "hunter" isn't tied to nature nowadays because people associate it with stuff that isn't tied to nature.

Why call it "slayer" then when that word conveys an "assassin", "hitman", or "manslayer" flavor when the class isn't seemingly tied to an urban setting?

exequiel759 wrote:

Its obviously a bit early to judge but from the get go I'm not really thrilled with the idea of either of the new classes. I honestly don't think we needed a 3rd monster hunter class in the system, and while a beefed up gymnast swashbcukler is welcomed as I feel the gymnast while not bad per se it plays vastly different than what people want out from a swashbuckler, for what we seen about daredevil I don't really know why it couldn't be a class archetype instead.

Also a bit of a dumb critique, but I honestly don't like the names. When I read the word daredevil I think of the Marvel superhero more than a TTRPG class and I'm not even into superheroes at all. Slayer also feels like a B rated horror movie-inspired class name for a class that supposedly hunts game and collects trophies.

Though not like I can think of better names though. I guess I would be more okay with "hunter" for slayer. People are already thinking of the 1e slayer even if they seemingly aren't related, so it wouldn't make much problem if people thought about the 1e hunter either.

I think the problem with hunter versus slayer name-wise is hunter has a more outdoorsy connotation, like the ranger. Considering one of the ranger's problems is the ranger COULD have been a slayer if only urban ranger was better supported (like, imagine if base ranger had the choice between nature or society, and urban was available as a favored terrain), but it does not. Slayer is a neutral theme between natural and urban environments. It can encompass the hunter aspect of tracking a beast through the wilderness, but it can also encompass a more urban aspect, like trying to ferret out a vampire cult in the big city. It can sort of do it, but it does not exceed in doing it as well as if it would a wild beast.

Slayer at a glance feels it works equally between urban and natural settings.

I don't really disagree with you, but "slayer" to me sounds like someone that explicitly hunts humanoids and that doesn't seem to be the case for the slayer. It doesn't even look like the slayer is urban at all, more like a monster hunter from the Monster Hunter series rather than a hitman that takes jobs in a huge metropolis.

I also feel "hunter" as a concept isn't as tied to nature as it used to be before. The three things most people think nowadays when thinking about hunters are probably The Witcher, Casltlevania, and Bloodborne, with Castlevania being more divine-themed and Bloodborne being an urban hunter that kills werewolfs, vampires, and lovecraftian-entities. I also haven't seen the movie but I think the new Kpop Demon Hunters is also heavily urban as well.

exequiel759 wrote:

Its obviously a bit early to judge but from the get go I'm not really thrilled with the idea of either of the new classes. I honestly don't think we needed a 3rd monster hunter class in the system, and while a beefed up gymnast swashbcukler is welcomed as I feel the gymnast while not bad per se it plays vastly different than what people want out from a swashbuckler, for what we seen about daredevil I don't really know why it couldn't be a class archetype instead.

Also a bit of a dumb critique, but I honestly don't like the names. When I read the word daredevil I think of the Marvel superhero more than a TTRPG class and I'm not even into superheroes at all. Slayer also feels like a B rated horror movie-inspired class name for a class that supposedly hunts game and collects trophies.

Though not like I can think of better names though. I guess I would be more okay with "hunter" for slayer. People are already thinking of the 1e slayer even if they seemingly aren't related, so it wouldn't make much problem if people thought about the 1e hunter either.

Braggart seems like a good one. If we didn't have acrobat as an archtype I would have suggested that too.

Braggart is already taken by a swashbuckler subclass.

Acrobat seems too closely related to Acrobatics for a class name IMO, more so when it sounds like the daredevil leans more towards Str than Dex.

I'm kinda on the "why aren't these class archetypes" side of the fandom right now, but its also a bit too soon to make judgment of classes we haven't really seen yet, and even then, guardian was a class I thought it was really bad on playtest but ended up being in my opinion probably one of the better designed martials in the system so I'm giving both classes the benefit of the doubt until the playtest and later on the full classes release next year.

I don't really like the names though.

exequiel759 wrote:

The thing is that much like how a +1 can feel huge so does a -1 but in the opposite direction, so when talking about the magus that its likely not going to start with an Intelligence modifier higher than +2 in most scenarios, it leads to most players feeling bad when using their spells.

My Magus is my main. He opens every combat with a spell, just not an spell attack or save spell: Greater invis rank 4, Enlarge, blink charge, sure strike, etc. I feel great using my spells. Spell striking invisibly with off guard while the mobs can barely target me and the Barb is bonked wobbly makes me deeply appreciate on level spell casting.

Sure, my Magus is less effective a blaster than a wizard, psyche or sorc but his DPS comes from cantrip spellstrikes and the spells are for utility and buffs. Yes, theory crafting is all about the maximum on paper DPS but for a class that get 1 big hit every round or two at the table, getting to your target, upping your defenses, and maximizing your chance to hit/crit is a much better use of your spells.

I meant it feels bad to use damage spells as a magus. Of course a magus likely wants to self buff with their spell slots.

Its obviously a bit early to judge but from the get go I'm not really thrilled with the idea of either of the new classes. I honestly don't think we needed a 3rd monster hunter class in the system, and while a beefed up gymnast swashbcukler is welcomed as I feel the gymnast while not bad per se it plays vastly different than what people want out from a swashbuckler, for what we seen about daredevil I don't really know why it couldn't be a class archetype instead.

Also a bit of a dumb critique, but I honestly don't like the names. When I read the word daredevil I think of the Marvel superhero more than a TTRPG class and I'm not even into superheroes at all. Slayer also feels like a B rated horror movie-inspired class name for a class that supposedly hunts game and collects trophies.

Though not like I can think of better names though. I guess I would be more okay with "hunter" for slayer. People are already thinking of the 1e slayer even if they seemingly aren't related, so it wouldn't make much problem if people thought about the 1e hunter either.

The thing is that much like how a +1 can feel huge so does a -1 but in the opposite direction, so when talking about the magus that its likely not going to start with an Intelligence modifier higher than +2 in most scenarios, it leads to most players feeling bad when using their spells.

The only real exception are classes like thaumaturge that can't start with a +4 in Strength or Dexterity but that have a ton of features that compensate that loss of accuracy with either damage and utility (in the case of the thaumaturge its both actually). This is also why the inventor is commonly criticized, since that lack of accuracy isn't translated into a buff somewhere else. The magus isn't encouraged to use spells outside of spellstrike, so people feel bad using them.

If imaginary weapon was so strong it needed multiple nerfs to prevent the magus from using it, I don't know what Paizo would do to a slow magus build.

This is why I think if they ever were to buff save spells for the magus, I doubt it is going to be something like allowing them to use any save spells for spellstrike. The nerf to resentment witch also shows Paizo doesn't want classes messing with conditions.

ScooterScoots wrote:

graystone wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

Claxon wrote:

as a GM I like the secret rolls and the misinformation on critical failures.

As a player I hate this with a fiery passion, as a GM I "only" intensely hate it.

It is very un fun and very bad game design

I'm with you, hate it so, so much. For instance, I refuse to use a Thaumaturge unless the DM allows me to NOT take the Dubious Knowledge feat. I have no interest in increasing the amount of incorrect info i get. :P

skill issue shrimply ignore the information

Sure I can ignore it, but I find the whole rigmarole pointless and annoying and since the character is based around rolling Recall Knowledge all the time, I'd rather not buy into it. It's simply anti-fun for me and would suck all the enjoyment out of the experience for me. I'd rather get no right answer than get 2 even is I can figure out which one is true: often i already know the right answer before the roll but I'd rather not play along wrong answers. When a 'smart/knowledgeable' keeps coming up with wrong answers, they don't seem very smart/knowledgeable anymore IMO. I know some people love it but I'd rather not.

I seen a ton of thaumaturges and I GM'ed for a bunch as well and I feel most people forget the thaumaturge has Dubious Knowledge lol. It could also be that most of the tables I play aren't really a fan of secret checks in general so Dubious Knowledge can't really work in such an enviroment.

At worst you can ask your GM to ignore Dubious Knowledge exists. I don't think most GMs would be angry if you tell them to reduce their workload by having to spontaneously come up with some bullshit fact that isn't true every time you roll RK in case you fail.

What could a Shifter archetype or a Shifter class archetype bring that the Druid MC Dedication (Untamed Form) cannot ?

This might be the biggest point against the return of the Shifter.

Archetypes (and specially class archetypes) tend to be heavily restricted by the their lower power budget when compared to a class. The most basic concept of a shifter can be achieved with the druid multiclass, but so is the concept of tank with a ton of classes and archetypes and yet we still got guardian, a leader-type character with bard and marshal yet we got commander, a martial/caster gish with any martial + any caster dedication but we got magus, etc.

A shifter class could potentially shift between multiple animal forms, or potentially mix benefits from them into a sort of chimeric style, or as potentially borrow features that are usually unique to monsters as well. If you get creative it could also become a sort of blue mage that learns abilities from monsters as well, kinda like a more fun and powerful version of wild mimic. Also, and probably the most important thing people want, is a shapechanger that doens't rely on spells to do it.

I would be totally fine with a shifter or divine bounded caster of some sort (since I think vindicator kinda works like the inquisitor for this edition, as much as I don't like that archetype). I think I would be fine with a bounded caster in general since I feel Starfinder 2e had the perfect opportunity to make most of its casters bounded casters but instead went for the more "traditional" caster class design.

I'm not asking for the shifter to be a bounded caster though. I think shifter should be a martial with magic-flavored abilities.

Bardic lore, Loremaster lore, esoteric lore, and warfare lore are the textbook examples of unspecific lores. A specific lore can only hit a narrow category (e.g. Fey Lore, Undead Lore).

EDIT: As a counterpoint to the idea that esoteric and warfare lores are specific lores, consider how odd it would be if taking diverse lore made your recall knowledge DCs for the same creatures higher because it lets you use RK for anything (unspecific, on your view) instead of just creatures and haunts and curses (specific, on your view).

Eh, its not like I give it much thought because, as I said, I think RK is highly overrated both from Paizo and the players.

For most martials it really doesn't matter if you know to what the foe is weak or resistant against because at best you can deal 2 types of physical damage and that's it. Even knowing the highest and lowest save doesn't matter much because for most martials that only affects if you are going to use grapple or trip, and even if you happen to target the highest save first, the result of your die alone probably is already telling you that's the target's highest save.

For casters it only really maters for prepared casters and if they somehow have a way to know exactly the enemies they are going to fight against that day.

And even then, a GM isn't going to design an encounter where the PCs are utterly useless against unless there's a narrative weakness of some kind (like a ghost being weak against the weapon that killed it which was part of the loot a few sessions ago).

And the fact that you can't make more checks if you fail? Nah, RK isn't that good.

I'm of the opinion that a thaumaturge's esoteric lore and the commander's warfare lore are specific lores for the purpose of RK since, well, they are lores that are used specifically to identify creatures. I get why people would be against that, but I also think RK is highly overrated (but that's another story).

Still, a thaumaturge probably won't be taking Automatic Knowledge anyways since the most important aspect of RK is already built on exploit weakness and most thaumaturges are taking Diverse Lore as well anyways. For a commander though? I have a player that took Automatic Knowledge with her commander and its really cool when she's shouting her tactics to her allies while also providing important information about the foe every turn.

The only other class I think could probably use it if its a specific lore is enigma bards.

Whatever changes they make to Spellstrike, the worst possible result for the game would be for the Magus to be able to apply the critical failure effect of save spells more reliably than full casters already can.

The last thing the game needs is a way to allow a Magus to essentially allow you to target the AC of a boss with crippling debuffs like Slow or Synesthesia, especially with how you can easily stack circumstance bonuses and status bonuses to your attack roll with things like Aid and Fortissimo Composition Courageous Anthem, how you can get "advantage" on attack rolls with Sure Strike and Hero Points, and how easy it is to get enemies Off-Guard compared to the equivalent for saves of Frightened 2/Sickened 2.

AC is also NEVER the highest defense on any monster. If you consider that, then even guaranteeing a regular failure when Spellstriking with save spells is potentially super strong. You could force debuffs that a full caster might have a ~20% or lower chance of applying.

I personally don't think anything outside of at most a -2 to -4 circumstance penalty on the save would be fair. Adjusting the degree of success wouldn't be balanced however they tried to make it work in my opinion.

The solution to this is easy; only allow it with save spells that deal damage or basic save spells.

I'm curious how viable a thaumaturge with exemplar multiclass that takes Energized Spark every single time from 4th level onwards in a free archetype game can be. I'm pretty sure you'll end up with all elements by level 20 exactly.

Unfortunately class archetype design peaked at the start of the game with warpriest, and has mostly declined since there. So don’t expect it.

Warpriest isn't a class archetype though, and if you mean battle harbinger, that isn't from the beggining of the edition either. Not like I would consider battle harbinger good anyways.

... As one minor example, there's no real need for the eidolon to have stunted weapon proficiency. It already shares your MAP and actions, so it could just copy your own weapon proficiency. Somehow this would even be better for casters, because Wizards hit expert before Eidolons can... which sort of drives home how needlessly bad the multiclass eidolon is here.

I think the problem with the archetype eidolon sharing your proficiencies is that we could potentially run towards a situation where certain classes end up having better eidolons than than the summoner itself. For example, I could totally see a commander/summoner that ends up getting better action economy than a regular summoner with Act Together due to Drilled Reactions and tactics.

exequiel759 wrote:

Then how do explain stuff like nerfing the monk archetype by removing FoB but then a few months later adding spirit warrior which pretty much gives you FoB back and at 2nd level?

I can read the mathematics hidden in game design, but I cannot read minds.

And that's what I'm trying to say here. It doesn't really matter what the math says besides having a general direction of what balance is because Paizo doesn't always follow said math. Archetypes tend to be weaker than classes, and even there's archetypes (like spirit warrior) that are clearly overtuned while there's endless archetypes that are undertuned, so I would never use an archetype to make a statement about class balance because they are simply not balanced in the same way.

If you design a game solely around "math" the end result is likely going to be a boring game. I'm pretty sure someone at Paizo said this at some point. Not all classes are balanced in the same paradigm even. I'm pretty sure Paizo has their own way to rate class features and make a somewhat consistent power budget for each class, but I'm pretty sure they are more worried about making a product the people like and thus try to move around the edges of said power budget than to make everything perfectly balanced.

If anything I'd argue the problem is that Paizo in the recent years seems to lean more towards moving down the power budget of classes for balance rather than move up the power budget of the classes that need it.

Tandem Movement its pretty much a must have for all summoners. It shouldn't be a feat.

They could also buff the dedication a little bit. Right now its a worse animal companion that uses your HP so nobody uses it. It could probably benefit from a more limited version of Act Together to be a bit better. Probably limited to just 1 action?

My calculations agree with YuriP. Paizo does not use game maker, whatever that is, but the developers do use tight math and enforce a maximum average rate of damage per turn. They will let a single turn have a greater rate, but then some slowdown such as Reload or Recharge or an empty focus pool prevents that from happening every turn.

Then how do explain stuff like nerfing the monk archetype by removing FoB but then a few months later adding spirit warrior which pretty much gives you FoB back and at 2nd level? Again, the Paizo devs are people and not a omniscient sentient machine that does the mathematically correct thing at all times.

If they see people not liking the recharge mechanic (which is pretty much everyone here) they are going to either remove it or make it easier to use. The supposed "math" you are talking about isn't a factor here. If people don't like something Paizo is more than likely going to change it .

So, contrary to what many people think, the recharge isn't there because SpellStrike wasn't designed to not be used every turn, or because SpellStrike is a powerful ability, but rather as an alternative to avoid forcing SpellStrike to be a 3-action activity and further hindering the magus's action economy.

Paizo doesn't design their game using game maker or something that forces things like "If X, then Y". What I'm trying to say is that in simpler words is that, if they wanted, they could remove the recharge from spellstrike if they wanted. The argument that "but eldritch archer's costs 3 actions" isn't really valid when archetype features are almost universally worse than a class features. It makes sense for eldritch archer's to be worse because everyone can take it, while the magus' version its exclusive to them and even the version everyone can poach from the archetype has a 1 minute cooldown. If they do remove the recharge or not I can't really say, but trying to frame the recharge mechanic as a sort of flood gate that keeps the whole class from having worse action economy its going to be hard to sell.

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Are we seriously going to talk about casting offensive spells with -4 (or higher) to spell attacks and spell DCs with 4 spell slots as a viable playstyle for magus?

Spellstrike needs a recharge because its a strong feature, not because Paizo necessarily didn't want you to spellstrike every turn (even though I think it was their intention for people to not just revolve around spellstrike, even if they failed to achieve that).

The swashbuckler has a similar case where it revolves around a single nova attack like the magus does, but in the remaster it was made easier to get that nova attack every turn (both by increasing the amount of things that grant panache and the new clause that grants panache even on failures).

I agree Paizo probably didn't want people to just spellstrike, but as I said in the Dark Archive Remastered thread, the Paizo devs aren't omnipotent gods that "always know better" because they are still humans and thus can commit mistakes, so even if their intention was for the magus to not just spellstrike and the class was designed around that, its clear it wasn't a good decision because most people clearly don't like it.

They could buff the magus to make off-turns better (I also expressed that I wouldn't be against that before) but I feel the magus is one of the few classes in PF2e that's kinda "above its class budget" in the sense that most of its class features are extremely good but all of them need caveats to make them balanced (spellstrike needs a recharge, arcane cascade as a prerequisite to a ton of effects, etc), so adding a new playstyle to the class can probably be a bit too much.

Yeah, as if the psychic was a completely different beast like kineticist.