exequiel759's page

The tricky thing with the psychic, I feel, is that all their subclasses are actually fairly good? We're not talking remaster Wizard where their focus spells and granted spell list are clearly subpar. The real issue lies with their base chassis and unleash. The only thing purely additive that would be able to raise the power level of the class without creating a blatantly OP spell or recreating Imaginary Weapon Magus would be a strong low-level psyche feat.

Yeah, funnily enough, I think the psychic is probably the only class where all its subclasses are more or less on equal footing to each other. There's obviously some better than others, but each one seems to fill at least one trope or niche.

Kalaam wrote:

the magus is a gish, a spellblade, they should have more than one way of fulfilling that fantasy.

The class does massive damage with spellstrike. This presents two design problems for your idea: first, you could give the class other options and few people would actually use them, because spellstrike is so much better than any other option you have (this is already the problem with Arcane Cascade. +2 of a new damage type to all strikes is quite good and on another class people would love it. But on magus few people use it because why bother with that if you can use that action to recharge spellstrike instead). Or, alternatively, you could give them other options that are equally good...in which case the class would be outdistancing other classes in damage more than it already is. This is not an underpowered class; giving it additional powerful tricks really shouldn't be necessary to make it fun.

If you want to play a more traditional gish where you cast a spell and lay down a strike every turn, and have the flexibility to alter that rotation to be either more magic or more martial on any given turn, there is already a class that does that: summoner.

Adding to this, most of the class budget of the magus is already spent on spellstrike, so you can't really really introduce new features to the class without it becoming too bloated. This is the reason why most of the other features of the class are so lackluster, and likely why spellstrike needs a recharge in the first place too.

I'm not against the idea of a magus that doesn't need to spellstrike, in fact, I'd would want that to exist, but I can't see a world where we have to get that without the rest of the class taking a serious hit. More so when its very likely the magus and summoner are going to get some errata-level changes like the rest of the old classes got in the remaster books. I also wouldn't be surprised if the magus got somehow nerfed in this book either, since most of the changes made to the psychic in the recent DA remaster were mostly nerfs to the magus. Either way, a non-spellstrike magus kinda falls in the rework / class archetype category so I wouldn't expect it.

You don't have to spellstrike every single turn though.

But that's what people want when playing a magus. The class is designed for the player to want to recharge spellstrike as fast as possible and then spellstrike as soon as they have 2 actions to spare. If you put a magus player in a situation where they could do any 1A action that recharges their spellstrike but that has MAP + spellstrike or recharge spellstrike as 1A + spellstrike I'm sure most would likely pick the second one.

The whole "You don't have to spellstrike every turn" is a silly design decision that Paizo went with that IMO is a bit dumb. Like, if someone wants to play a bard I think they likely want to inspire courage every turn. The same with a swashbuckler and precise finishers, an alchemist and quick alchemy, and investigator and devise a stratagem, etc. If it at least had support for a non-spellstrike playstyle I would get it, but a magus without spellstrike is a vanilla martial with 4 spell slots lol.

Startlit span is so popular because its the magus that can spellstrike every turn. That's it.

If they are really that afraid of the magus using spellstrike every turn then, rather than make a unique bespoke action to recharge spellstrike, take every subclass conflux spell and make them into subclass-specific actions. All of them (AFAIK) already include a Strike so that would solve the "problem".

paizo if you make spellstrike recharge on actions determined by subclass (raise a shield, stride, etc) and let the focus spells be spells that magus is intended to spellstrike with (1d6 + 1d6 precision if off-guard per rank for laughing shadow for example) my life will be yours

This would be perfect ngl.

I honestly envy the patience some people have here to discuss this topic when its clear there's one side that's not engaging this in good faith.

I honestly believe that just the change to unleash psyche is going to more than offset the nerf to imaginary weapon for the Tangible Dream Psychic, because Astral Rain is going to be a lot more fun to play with now, where it was a spell I would rarely ever cast because it was a waste when you had unleash psyche going or while you were stupified.

If people prefer to cast imaginary weapon over astral rain then it means that astral rain should be buffed, not that imaginary weapon should be nerfed.

Its also important to note that, balance issues aside, imaginary weapon is conceptually a really cool spell that ultimately fails to achieve its purpose. Conjuring a weapon using magic and attacking with it its really cool but the class just doesn't support this playstyle in a fun and engaging way.

A player that wants to play a tangible dream psychic wants to play a caster version of the D&D soulknife, but you are actually harming yourself by doing that. Both pre-nerf and post-nerf, imaginary weapon just doesn't fulfill its class fantasy.

60 posts since I left yesterday lol. It seems the psychic posts are going to become the new "Do really casters suck this much" of PF2e.

We are not setting the standard. Paizo is. To me it looks like they deemed gouging claw just fine and a d8 imaginary weapon not only not fine but overlaping in design space.

I mean we are sitting here anecdotally comparing two or three spells and they have a complete map of their spell terrain looking for where this spell is going to fit in the system.

No offense, but at this point I want to believe you are trolling lol.

I said this in the other thread but I'll say it again; If Paizo were the omniscient gods people seem to think they are when they mention stuff like "Paizo knows better" and "Paizo sets the standard" then why errata exists? Why did the classes that received changes in the remaster received them if Paizo "knows better"? Wouldn't Paizo have made those initially and not in the remaster if they truly knew better? Why do we have playtests for new classes if Paizo alredy knows what's the best for the system?

The Paizo employees are people, and like people, they make mistakes. The changes made to the psychic in this book were a mistake and that's fine. This book clearly wasn't something Paizo was taking their time to properly tune but rather something they just wanted to be done with and finally focus on new content while leaving the remaster era behind. Let's not pretend PF2e is a perfectly tuned system where everything is equally as good. Yeah, its better than PF1e and other systems, but the system isn't perfect. I love Paizo and their books but I'll speak up if I think something they made wasn't of the standards I expect from them.

exequiel759 wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

If were talking about a spell attack crit rider then we really shouldnt be considering either the bleed or the push.

What I see as the benefit of push on IW is that when it does happen you get either some safety after having taken a chance and moved in to use it. Or you get some more options for a third action now that the thing is 10ft away. Also if an team mate has reactive strike I am going to push them that way so if they do want to come back to me they are going to get hit.

That's the thing. The push from IW is situationaly useful (and actually harmful in others). The bleed from gouging claw is always useful, unless the enemy is inmune.

What situation does a 6hp caster not want extra distance at the end of their turn? It just adds to the defensive layering they need to not die.

Bleed does nothing until after the creature gets all three of its actions.

If you end up screwing the positioning of your whole party because you just happened to crit on an attack you shouldn't, on a class that's not designed to be in melee, in a situation where you yourself decided to put yourself in risk (because I doubt a psychic goes to melee expecting to crit with IW every time), is never going to be better than just dealing more damage, regardless of when it happens. Or, you know, use a ranged option that won't backfire on you.

If were talking about a spell attack crit rider then we really shouldnt be considering either the bleed or the push.

What I see as the benefit of push on IW is that when it does happen you get either some safety after having taken a chance and moved in to use it. Or you get some more options for a third action now that the thing is 10ft away. Also if an team mate has reactive strike I am going to push them that way so if they do want to come back to me they are going to get hit.

That's the thing. The push from IW is situationaly useful (and actually harmful in others). The bleed from gouging claw is always useful, unless the enemy is inmune.

Are we really going to talk about push as if it was positive? Most of the time pushing someone away is more detrimental than benefitial unless the target goes after the party and the one that pushes the target away goes last. Otherwise it ends up costing an Stride action for both the target and your allies.

The push from IW isn't even something you can actually control, so it could lead to situations where you wouldn't want to push someone but it happens anyways.

Devs, who are the people who best know their own game, reduce the die size when they change a physical damage to force.

It is not nerfing the spell.

Note to mention there are already at least 2 other threads that deal directly with this. No need to keep on polluting this one

"The devs know better" isn't as solid as an argument as you probably think it is, because if the devs were the omniscient gods this statement seems to imply they are then we wouldn't need errata, or the buffs and nerfs that happened in the remaster wouldn't be needed either because the devs would have made those initially and not after the fact. The devs aren't perfect and much less with its clear this book wasn't a priority of them and they just remastered it to have all their content under ORC.

I'm also not sure even people working within a class agree on balance. Oracle's mysteries/curses are all over the place ranging from "this curse does basically nothing" to "this curse will get you killed".

I feel this is common for caster subclasses. There's always one that's leagues above the rest, while the others are either meh or bad.

Lightning Raven wrote:

The fact is that PF2e spellcasters only have problems because they are playing with old hardware. By that I mean they are using vancian casting on a new system.

Unlikely, given that the non-Vancian Psychic is pretty clearly less well regarded than the Vancian Cleric or Druid.

I honestly would want to know why people don't consider spontaneous casters as vancian casters when they are pretty much the same thing. One has to store spells somewhere and prepare them and the other one just knows them. Both of them have a limited amount of spell uses per day, both use levels / ranks to determine a spell's power level, and most importantly, both borrow spells from the same spell lists.

Most, if not all the problems from the psychic (and arguably a ton of casters in the system as well) comes from the fact that its a vancian caster. The PF2e full caster progression eats away a ton of power budget from a class so that leaves little room for a caster to diferentiate itself from the rest. The psychic was the first of its kind in that it traded spell slots for supposedly more "unique-ness" and, much like the inventor that traded accuracy and became the first "half-martial" of the system, failed spectacularly at doing so. The necromancer truly seems like its going to be what the thaumaturge was for the inventor, but for the psychic instead.

...username checks out?

Squiggit wrote:

I appreciate how hard you're committing to the bit of defending Paizo at all costs here but arguing that unamped IW on a Psychic needed the damage downgrade is basically an impossible sell. There's just no world where this was a good idea. The you probably weren't using it anyways argument as a justification for nerfs is especially wild. Like come on.

The cantrip now does similar damage to its ranged counterparts despite being melee only and that's just kind of goofy.

I don't need to come to Paizo's defense, and I do voice issues where I see them. Are any of the people here coming from experience playing a Tangible Dream Psychic? Because it really doesn't come across that way.

The fantasy of the conscious mind is: "You pull colors and shapes from the depth of your mind, projecting impossible creations into the world as tapestries of astral thread or sculptures of force and light."

It makes way more sense for Imaginary weapon to be force damage than physical damage, and that almost always comes with a bit of downgrade in total damage because nothing resists it. It is far more of a horizontal move than a pure down grade, and I am curious if cantrips like astral rain get a similar treatment in terms of changing damage type.

I am curious to see what the total changes to the Psychic are, because I think the loss of niche in "getting to use focus spells multiple times an encounter and still getting them back" was THE heavy loss of the class in the remaster. I have heard some people say there is nothing obvious replacing that, but I am waiting to see for myself if there isn't some subtle change to the chassis or class.

Compare amped imaginary weapon with flurry of claws. Both do the same average damage now (2d6 vs. 1d8 and 1d4) except the later has a 30 feet range and (kinda) has flexible damage type based on your tradition (force, spirit, mental, or fire; all damage types which aren't normally resisted except for fire).

The sorcerer has access to this focus spell while having 4 spell slots, a passive +1 to damage per rank, a flexible spell tradition, and access to a fantastic feat list. Meanwhile, the psychic has half the spell slots, its damage steroid requires 1 round of set up and lasts for 2 rounds (plus stupefied afterwards), and it has a bad feat list.

Why the class that supposedly relies the most on its focus spells has weaker focus spells than the casters that weren't nerfed to get them?

Again though, there are very few conscious minds where you go out of your way to use your unique surface cantrip. No one choses to be an Oscilating wave psychic to cast thermal stasis. Nor even the Infinite Eye to spam glimpse weakness more than once an encounter when you are far more interested in using amped guidance as often as possible. Imaginary weapon is not an outlier for being situationally useful and about as good as a spell slot spell in that situation.

So its our fault for using the cool damage cantrip that conjures swords on a subclass that seemingly assumes you want to do that?

I don't really see how someone could honestly defend this. Its an unnecesary nerf to a class that didn't need it.

That's the thing. If amps were that strong then keep the archetype version from getting them and/or buff them for full psychics.

There's no need to nerf them for a class that already struggles using them.

It isn't that the changes to the thaumaturge weren't needed or deserved, but more so why focus on the thaumaturge when the psychic is right there and it needs the buffs way more than the thaumaturge. Even if they wanted to just remaster the book and be done with it they could have done a thousand things that wouldn't have needed pretty much any reformating of the book like increasing the amount of spell slots or removing duration from unleash psyche.

I honestly want to cope and say that the PDF that "leaked" was an early PDF or something. I wasn't expecting much since the remastered book didn't change much and the inventor was also desperately in need of buffs and received the scraps, but this is even less than that. Yet again Paizo overvaluing casters for no reason.

It also seems the dedication just grants a single cantrip now. Wow.

So a dedication that was arguably the strongest caster dedication now its arguably the worst. I honestly would want to know the rationale behind these changes because I don't think either the class or archetype needed to be bashed so hard just to prevent the magus using its tools better.

It seems the psychic didn't even get minor changes, just nerfs.

And the thaumaturge was seemingly buffed for whatever reason.

I'm honestly flabbergasted. Paizo keeps buffing strong classes and either nerfing or leaving as is weak classes.

I'm seeing some post on reddit about the changes and I'm seriously disappointed. If there was a class that needed buffs it was the psychic.

I meant you can do relatively big changes to the magus without upsetting the hybrid studies that's been released. I didn't need to touch them much in my changes. At worst it can be 2 lines of errata.

And they could easily release an errata alongside the book to update the hybrid studies from other books as well. It happened before with the deity statblocks and Divine Mysteries, so it could happen here as well.

How does the damage compare between spell attacks and save spells of the same rank? I'm talking how they compare ignoring the accuracy problems that have been mentioned before in this thread. If their damage is comparable or equal, I don't really see why the magus couldn't use their attack result to determine the effects of the save as well. Ofc this would probably need to limit spellstriking to save spells that deal damage, otherwise magus becomes the synesthesia king.

So great that people want spell attacks to hit as easily as a martial's Strikes but do not consider the access to save spells, the free heightening of damage and all the other tricks a caster takes for granted that a martial lacks.

And of course the required comparison to Fighter's to hit when it is the whole point of the class and leaves even other martials in the dust.

I want casters to have attack spells that get an effect even on a failure (though not a crit fail).

I definitely do not want to go back to casters leaving martials far behind in the formers' shadow.

I think you aren't understaind the point here. This isn't a "I want to use spell attacks ignoring there's save spells", this is a "why bother making spell attacks worse for no reason". If spell attacks are bad then don't include them in the first place. What's the point of adding them if they are trap options?

Just to play devils advocate a bit, even though I mostly agree with spellcasting proficiency level up timing is wonky, I wonder if spell attacks are treated as such in part because of how strong they are? Like, a martial making an attack is not going to do as much damage as an attack spell. I remember towards the end of one of our campaigns I was critting with searing light for absurd amounts of damage and I think it kind of annoyed the martials in the party a little. That's an extreme example of course, but still. Trading power for consistency isn't the craziest thing.

This isn't true either. Attack spells are (almost) universally 2 actions, which means they don't compete against 1 martial weapon attack, but rather 2 martial weapon attacks or feats like Double Slice and Power Attack. Just from their higher accuracy alone, even on -5 MAP attacks, I'm pretty sure martials are still ahead.

But even then, if that's the problem we could have instead got casters scaling like martials, spell runes, and 1A spell attacks cantrips and spells that had a similar scaling to weapon damage die and 2A spell attack cantrips and spells that were roughly 1.5 times stronger.

Unknown Sage wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Unicore wrote:

....

....

The answer is actually "Do not try to equal the martials at their own game."

What would people tell a player complaining that their martial PC does not have all the varied possibilities that casters casually get ?

forgive me if I don't find that a particularly convincing answer. why is it that we specifically should not try to equal the martials at their own game at levels 5,6,13, and 14. But we are allowed to do try at all other levels?

And even then why should it be balanced through accuracy rather than damage (like it already is for cantrips, or by costing limited resources in addition to damage, as it already is for regular ranked spells? oh wait. looks like they already have built in counters to not be on the level of martials.

making spellcasters not step on martials feet by making them terrible at accuracy is a terrible idea when it could be done through lower damage values. because there is nothing more frustrating than playing a roleplaying game in which your character misses 80% of their attacks and essentially achieves nothing for turns on end.

Not only proficiency though, KAS too. Not to mention class features and feats.

Now, what about making Striking Runes free ? Or offering caster-like multitude of abilities to martials ?

A PC that only wants to attack creatures cannot be built on a caster chassis, as it offers a bevy of other ways to impact the game.

The magically attacking class is either the Magus or the Kineticist. But many people who want attacking casters do not see those as real casters.

Call me crazy, but the people that want to make attacking casters want to use magic while doing so. The magus is hitting you with a sword that holds a spell and the kineticist has like 1 build that uses elemental blast as your primary way of dealing damage, and even then it takes a while to set up.

People want to sling magic bolts at range and not feel like the system was designed for them to be bad while doing it. Casting proficiencies scaling more slowly and the lack of access to potency runes are never going to be good design choices. The current system could be designed around those restrictions (and even then, it could be argued that the design isn’t perfect, given how many people seem to struggle with it) but that doesn’t change the fact that the system could just as well have been designed to include those elements in the first place. I feel its not outrageous to want casters to not be behind martials in terms of accuracy.

I'd wager that the Remastered magus won't be much different from its predecessor, save that starlit span will be nerfed.

You can't nerf starlit span because what it makes it strong are the things it has innately from being a ranged class. Out of all the hybrid studies is the one that less relies on arcane cascade and its feats aren't that good either, so unless you remove it from the book you can't nerf it.

Ngl I'm kinda digging a system where attributes only affect skills. I agree that's not much different than a system without attributes and the character expression that attributes give could be given by skill proficiencies instead like Teridax said, but there's a part of me that thinks Paizo probably wouldn't want to let go of attributes just because of tradition, even if PF3e went even more away from D&D on its design.

After all, the only thing that has existed in all editions of D&D without changes (AFAIK) are the six attributes. I could see them changing them though.

Like Sibelius Eos Owm said, if attributes only applied to skills then Constitution is either gone (fingers crossed!) or a new Constitution skill is added (worst outcome IMO). Strength would also be in a weird spot since it only applies to a single skill, and if the point of attributes is that would be suited more around skills and thus to out of combat scenes then its very likely grapple, trip, repotision and the like likely become divorced from Athletics in such a system as well.

If you think about it, in a sense the summoner inherited a buffed up version of spell combat through act together in PF2e. With that in mind, it makes you realize that the S&M classes were seemingly designed around how to compress the actions from spells to allow a gish-type character.

In that regard, how does spellstrike compare to act together? Which are the pros and cons of each one? I think this is something important we have to take into account if we want to make changes to either class.

exequiel759 wrote:

I might say I'm not the biggest fan of your implementation of magus maneuvers. I get that the idea is that they are all MAP actions to avoid magus maneuver + spellstrike every round (which I don't really think would be as bad people think it is, but anyways), but the fact that all of them are Athletics actions is pretty much forcing the magus to both become trained in Athletics and max out Athletics ASAP too.

Also, starlit span not having one is IMO bad. I get the rationale (its explained right there) but I feel its wrong for just one subclass to not have a magus maneuver with all the others have one. If it was a class archetype I get it since those break the rules, but starlit span isn't.

I personaly would either steal the swashbuckler's homebrew and make it so each hybrid study makes you trained in one skill and allows for one of their actions to recharge your spellstrike (like laughing shadow making you trained in Deception and allowing you to recharge with a feint).

I went back and forth on which maneuvers to choose. Some feat (or feat templates) I've added are meant to help achieving those maneuvers more efficiently or easily (as would certain archetype feats). Crosscurrent Counter for example gives you such an opportunity, etc.

I just ended up tired to write all the possible feats, as it was starting to go beyond the original scope.
This is also why certain feats let you use Spell Attack instead of athletics.

I had used a few acrobatic maneuvers as well, but then got told stuff like Tumble Through was just too good because it's a MAPless action you could do every turn (provided you have enough enemies, now that I think back on it, maybe should put it back the way it was, it is once per enemy after all)

For your example, I was tempted to put feint on laughing shadow. And decided to go with disarm since it also kind of fitted with the whole one handed thing, but maybe I should swap it to feint.

As for Starlit Span, yeah, I just drew a blank. Hiding feels a...

The thing is that not all characters take Athletics and even less characters take Athletics to use maneuvers (certainly that's my case).

In the case of laughing shadow in particular, its even more explicit since that's a subclass that's intended for Dex-based magi so there's little difference for them in just wasting an action to recharge spellstrike than doing a disarm for the same effects, and I'd argue some would likely prefer to waste the action to not gain MAP.

It totally went over my head the first time I read the doc (or it wasn't there when I read it?) but it seems each magus maneuver has a 1 minute cooldown per target. I'd probably just make it a 1 minute cooldown period (with ways to do it more times through feats) and diversify which skills and actions each hybrid study can use, not only because of the problems I mentioned above, but also to make each subclass feel a bit more unique in that regard.

The only real problem I find with this is that under a system like this I feel the magus should have auto-scaling on their hybrid study's maneuver skill, but at the same time I don't think the class has enough class budget to such feature, more so after all the other QoL improvements it received in your version.

I might say I'm not the biggest fan of your implementation of magus maneuvers. I get that the idea is that they are all MAP actions to avoid magus maneuver + spellstrike every round (which I don't really think would be as bad people think it is, but anyways), but the fact that all of them are Athletics actions is pretty much forcing the magus to both become trained in Athletics and max out Athletics ASAP too.

Also, starlit span not having one is IMO bad. I get the rationale (its explained right there) but I feel its wrong for just one subclass to not have a magus maneuver with all the others have one. If it was a class archetype I get it since those break the rules, but starlit span isn't.

I personaly would either steal the swashbuckler's homebrew and make it so each hybrid study makes you trained in one skill and allows for one of their actions to recharge your spellstrike (like laughing shadow making you trained in Deception and allowing you to recharge with a feint).

The optional rules for saves help a little, but I think a lot more work needs to be put into what stats do and represent for a character in a new addition. That might mean adding more or completely changing what they effect. There's a lot they could do, but it needs to be a corner stone of the whole system, that everything else interacts with, they take up a large portion of your character sheet to not be important. Or be replaced with something else.

I think this is the most important thing for a new edition. If we keep attributes in a future edition, they have to be meaningful and fun. An attribute that just provides a numerical bonus somewhere isn't doing anything that could be done without that attribute, while attributes that contribute to other aspects of the game like bulk (even if I hate bulk as a mechanic) provide an effect other than "high number go brrr".

Teridax wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

Like I said earlier, if you decouple accuracy from stats but leave them in for most other purposes, you've already done most of the job people seem to think removing stats achieves.

Genuine question: if attributes were to no longer affect checks, what would their purpose be? Would they just exist to satisfy feat prerequisites, increase the Bulk you can carry, give you extra trained skills, and so on?

I mean they no longer affect the accuracy of attacks and spells. They can still affect damage, skill checks, and everything else they do. A low strength fighter would lose a few points of damage rather than 20%+ of their damage.

I think people are just way too focused on the accuracy part of a class's main schtick (to an illogical degree honestly) that removing it from the equation may be enough.

The thing is that if you remove for the accuracy if weapons and spells you'll need to remove it for the accuracy of everything otherwise it would feel really weird, and by doing that some stats like Charisma pretty much become useless since they wouldn't affect anything.

But again, my whole argument is that if we need to keep attributes I would want them to receive a few changes, and if each one happened to be reworked to contribute in something that isn't related to modifiers in your character sheet can be an interesting way to do it as well.

One of the few reasons I used to be against the removal of attributes was because I would prefer if instead of the "simple", "martial", and "advanced" weapon categories each weapon had a stat requirement instead, which wouldn't be possible in a system without attributes unless the requirements got replaced by skill proficiencies I guess? Martials would still scale better than casters with weapons, but a caster that wants to use a weapon for flavor wouldn't need to waste a general feat into it. Since AC numbers are pretty much "even" across the board I also would want the same for armor as well.

I'd argue you could probably do it for armor in current PF2e using their Strength requirement and it wouldn't change much, besides casters putting at least a +1 on Strength to wear light armor. Weapons would require a total rework for this to work in PF2e itself though.

exequiel759 wrote:

A caster isn't incentivized to use weapons even if they somehow have proficiency and a +3 Str/Dex because they'll require buffs to keep up with martials, while a martial isn't incentivized to use spells because, if they were to go their way to get access to some spells, they'll likely just stick to buffs because debuffs and damage spells will fail because of their lower casting proficiencies.

I regularly play casters who use a weapon and martials who cast spells (even damaging ones)

Without buffs? Because that's the important part here.

exequiel757 wrote:

The thing is at that point why bother having each ancestry have their own HP boost then? 4 HP is only a noticeable difference at 1st level, could probably save you at 2nd level, and pretty much not matter at all from 3rd level onwards.

Because I have an instinctive hatred of "one true builds", and I don't want the choice of Ancestry to be more impactful. I very much appreciate that you can start off as "the toughest", but that ultimately it doesn't really matter much.

Then just remove the illusion of minotaurs or dwarfs being "tougher" when they aren't.

This is why I want attributes to be removed, because they are there to make you believe you are something when in reality it doesn't matter. Everyone can be everything in PF2e and that's fine and I prefer that to "one true builds", but if we want to fully move away from one true builds then attributes have to go as well.

Everyone has more or less the same AC regardless of their Dex, everyone has more or less the same accuracy regardless of whatever stat they use, and everyone that maxes a skill at 3rd, 7th, and 15th level has more or less the same skill modifier regardless of the attribute or skill chosen. A caster isn't incentivized to use weapons even if they somehow have proficiency and a +3 Str/Dex because they'll require buffs to keep up with martials, while a martial isn't incentivized to use spells because, if they were to go their way to get access to some spells, they'll likely just stick to buffs because debuffs and damage spells will fail because of their lower casting proficiencies.

In a system without attributes the martial still is better than the caster at using weapons and the caster is still better at using spells than the martial because the underlying proficiency scaling still exist there. The caster can still use their spells to buff themselves to get near or up to the proficiency of a martial for a limited time, and there could be ways for martials to shore up against casters if they were to want to use debuffs or damage spells like if off-guard had a penalty to Reflex saves or something like that.

If you want to be good at Medicine (or whatever skill) you'll be equally as good at it in current PF2e if you take increases into it and in attribute-less PF2e because you are still taking the same increases into that skill. The end result is the same but in one you skip one (IMO) unnecesary step of the chain.

I much prefer the current system, where a Halfling Barbarian is just 4 HP lifetime removed from a Minotaur Barbarian if both invest in the same Attributes and Feats.

The thing is at that point why bother having each ancestry have their own HP boost then? 4 HP is only a noticeable difference at 1st level, could probably save you at 2nd level, and pretty much not matter at all from 3rd level onwards.

Not like I would be against Strength inheriting HP in this hypothetical new edition, but since it would probably be a bit too much of a buff I think its most likely for HP to be decoupled from a stat and either just work based on class or, since PF2e already toys with the idea of ancestries influencing HP, a mix of ancestry and class.

Let's say you were to instead get bonus equal to 1/2 the current amount of HP each ancestry grants but every level. This would mean that, for example, an elf fighter would start with 19 HP and get 13 HP every level thereafter under this system, up to 266 at 20th level. In the current system an elf fighter its likely going to start a +1 or +2 Con modifier, which they could likely increase to either +4 or +5 by 20th level. Yes, the current PF2e elf fighter can get a higher HP ceiling than in my proposal, but since in my proposal they would just need to bother with 5 attributes instead of 6 it would likely mean resources that would otherwise been spent into Constitution can be spent somewhere else, not to mention that their HP would also start bigger in early levels making it slightly more difficult to have an early character death.

Again, I don't want to die on this hill since ideally I would prefer for attributes to be removed altogether, but in the case we end up sticking with attributes for at least one more edition, I think the monolith of the six D&D ability scores has to revised and at least one of them has to go and I think Constitution is the most likely one.

exequiel759 wrote:

Honestly Constitution could be entirely removed and the extra HP could be handled either by ancestry or class (I prefer ancestry personally, since the extra HP ancestries gives mostly only matters at 1st level)

This is just a medium version of going back to the really old days when race determined class

Not really? Having an ancestry like elf granting 2 HP every level (still 6 at 1st level) rather than choosing to start with a +2 Con modifier as an elf (likely using alternate boost) isn't nowhere near as elves being a class. I'm not arguing for your whole HP to be determined by ancestry, just the extra bonus that Constitution represents.

If attributes aren't removed at least I would want them to get a revision. Constitution is a boring stat because its entirely defensive, Intelligence has lost everything it made it good in PF2e and Charisma is either mandatory or a dump stat based on if you want to face or not.

Honestly Constitution could be entirely removed and the extra HP could be handled either by ancestry or class (I prefer ancestry personally, since the extra HP ancestries gives mostly only matters at 1st level) and Fortitude could become Strength-based instead.

Intelligence and Charisma are more tricky though. These could be handled in multiple ways, like making Will Charisma-based, merging Intelligence and Wisdom together, and/or buffing Intelligence in some way, like instead of having a list of languages you know (because let's be real, languages barely matter in TTRPGs since its so easy to go around them) to bring back Linguistics like a Perception-like stat that was Intelligence-based. Not like this would be great but its something.

Lets say PF3E gets announced shortly..

Get rid of stats. They just arent essential and when everyone is putting the same stats in to "min max" their character because they have to in order to survive or be the slightest bit effective? Stats become meaningless.

Get rid of any options that feel meaningless (like backgrounds) and replace it with what feels like more meaningful choices so there is less of an illusion of choice and more of an actual choice.

Have magic items scale so they are useful at all levels.

Yeah, I live and breathe hoping to see this someday (I'm over blowing it a bit, but the message comes across I guess?).

I used to be against removing stats in PF before but with each passing day I like the idea of removing them even more. I feel like most classes have like 2 max 3 ways in which they can allot their stats for "optimal play" which usually results in the difference between characters being what skills I decide to take increasees rather than the stats of my characters themselves. If stats were removed (and the math of the game tweaked accordingly) I don't really think it would make much of a difference really.

And since I'm talking about skills, I just hate skill feats. The whole subsystem feels like giving your little brother an unplugged controler for him to believe he's playing the game when he actually isn't. Most skill feats are worthless, and from master-tier skill feats and above you are lucky if the skill has more than 2 or 3 options, with likely 1 of those 2 or 3 being an auto-pick since that's the one that made you take increases into that skill to begin with it.

I feel like Paizo tried to game-fy narrative encounters but made those situations into skill feats and then took the skill feats which make you better and stuff you can already do and bundled both together.

I also agree more than half of the archetypes could be removed and it wouldn't be much of a problem since they are so bad anyways.

But likely the ones that got the worst from this are the magic items with non-scaling DCs. I pretty mucn not bother looking into new magic items in the books because I know I won't be using them. Classes already have tight action economies for someone to try to cram something else in there most of the time, but make them not scale with you? That's what makes more ignore them most of the time.

That Eldritch Trickster racket was mistakingly forgotten in remaster.

Maybe in this book?

I really hope to see this one, though likely (or rather I hope) its going to be a class archetype instead of just a regular racket like it was before. As a racket it just doesn't have enough budget to build something that's different from just taking a caster dedication, so a class archetype could give it enough space to make something more fun and unique.

Arcane Cascade would feel better if the class had more attack options capitalizing on it, as it is right now you have spellstrike, normal strikes, and the ones including in your subclass' conflux spell. Otherwise you've got to look at archetypes.

Getting more feats like Cascading Ray etc that are unique attacks making use of Arcane Cascade would be great. Say "Cascading Splash" just a 2 action (or 1 action flourish whatever) strike that deals weapon dice*cascade bonus of elemental splash damage that you're immune to.

I also hope we do get a bunch of new attack spells that have interresting effects that are more than straight damage. Threefold Limb and Sticky Fire are 2 that I really like for that reason. And focus ones like Fire Ray or Winter Bolt are exactly what i'd like to see as proper spells.

Also wonder what the whole "spells that'll leave your soul scarred from using them" deal is. I kind of hope it's actually busted spells that inflict you with a difficult to remove Doomed condition, the kind that needs a specific ritual or loads of downtime to get rid of but in exchange it IS actually quite busted. The kind of spells that normally have the incapacitation trait...but will not have it.

A spellstrike-less magus is certainly something I would like to see myself, but I wouldn't get my hopes up because PF2e usually designs classes around their gimmick and its not like they are going to give the class a second gimmick in the case someone doesn't want to spellstrike.

Like AestheticDialectic said, if spellstrike was replaced with a feature similar to 1e's spell combat, allowing you to cast any spell + a Strike would be enough for a "spellstrike-less" magus that self-buffs and jumps in the fray, but I feel that's too drastic of a change and I feel Paizo doesn't want to shake up the class that much, specially when it mostly works as is and only needs polishing. I could see feats tackling that playstyle though, but likely high level ones.

Tbh the only thing I really want for the magus is to get rid of arcane cascade or at least make it a free action like rage for barbarians. It feels really bad not being capable of using subclass features as a magus until the 2nd or 3rd round of combat, and in some cases even feats, because they require arcane cascade.

If arcane cascade at least was a meaningful damage boost it wouldn't be much of a problem, but for a class that gets spellstrike 1 to 3 points of damage is literally nothing.

Also maybe even a alternative to the Vancian System.

Looking through the list of contributors on this book I saw Mark Seifter. I know he built the Essence Casting in Magic+ on Pathfinder Infinite. So maybe he was brought in for a new subsystem for casters?.... a Witch can dream.

Oh lord, please, let this happen.

I like Magic+'s essence casting but it could easily be like 60% more simple and actually much more fun to play as well.

Could we get runes for casters in this book as well? It sounded impossible before but, well, this is the impossible magic book.

exequiel759 wrote:

The fact that the magus and summoner aren't restrained by page count (or well, at least aren't restrained to Secrets of Magic page count) makes me really happy because it means its the perfect opportunity to polish these classes which, while good right now, could receive the changes it needs to remove its few pain points.

I'm keeping my expectations fairly grounded for how many changes I'm expecting to see. Not being constrained to Secrets of Magic page count doesn't mean they are necessarily getting more pages; this sounds like it's going to be a pretty jam-packed book.

I'm personally expecting something more akin to the remastering treatment gunslinger and inventor got rather than any sort of serious overhaul or major feat selection expansion.

I would rather expect oracle, investigator, swashbuckler, and witch level of treatment since those are the other classes that got remastered in a new book rather than a remastered version of the book they initially were released. Even if oracle has its problems, we can't deny these classes received substantial buffs in the remaster.

And unlike these, which IMO were (and some still are) very disfunctional classes, the magus and summoner don't really need that much. The only thing the magus really needs is removing the arcane cascade action tax and a few feats here and there to improve its overall action economy and the summoner just needs a language update to fit with the Remaster and better feats. I'm pretty sure that if we didn't get an errata last month its because the devs are taking their time looking into each of these classes, because otherwise I don't see why Paizo wouldn't be able to release an errata since 2 classes has been Paizo's standard release for years now.

The fact that the magus and summoner aren't restrained by page count (or well, at least aren't restrained to Secrets of Magic page count) makes me really happy because it means its the perfect opportunity to polish these classes which, while good right now, could receive the changes it needs to remove its few pain points.

In the case of option B, would the necromancer be paired with the summoner (minions) and the runesmith with the magus (gishes)?

Unicore been selling RK like he's playing PF1 for years now. I stopped using it a few years ago. Martials don't need RK. Casters don't gain much from it. Just hammer the enemy with your best spells. Martials aren't going to give you much time to do much else. They aren't waiting for perfect spells. Fighter just runs up and starts hammering it. That's my experience with RK. It's one wasted action that martials don't wait for or need or care about. When I play a caster, I'm far more interested in landing the highest damage, best spell I can than making a RK check and finding out it has a weak Fort save but no Fort spells are on par with my reflex save direct damage spells.

If the OP feels like using RK until they get a feel for how the spells work and what spells are best, have at it. Early on I used RK too playing like PF1. Then I figured out it's the best spell, not the weakest save that mattered. It's better to have a good knowledge of what the best spells are.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. If RK is something that you somehow get as part of doing something else (like a thaumaturge's exploit weakness if you have Diverse Lore) then its appreciated but not much else, but I certainly wouldn't be using RK on my own unless it was a situation where the GM is hinting we have to do it (most likely when an enemy has a narrative weakness, like the ghost of a king being weak to his killler's sword which we looted a couple of sessions ago, for example).

You don't really care if an enemy is weak to X or Y as a martial because you at best can deal 2 types of physical damage with your fully ugpraded weapon, so if you use a greatsword and the target resist slashing damage, you switch to piercing. Casters aren't much different really. If the foe is weak to fire but you haven't prepared or know fire spells then it doesn't matter. The GM isn't going to design an encounter where the enemies are immune to all the types of damage the party can deal to it, so the actions you spend making a RK check aren't much different than just trying something else.

Its not like PF2e characters have 5 backup plans just in case they find someone immune against their plan A, B, C, and D respectively.

I sadly agree that fundamental runes take way too much of a character's budget, which if campaigns don't go beyond 10 it means you pretty much aren't doing much shopping. This is why ABP is such a common variant rule.