gesalt's page

Putting meaningfulness aside, I'm more concerned with whether or not the combat is interesting, both as a player and as a gm, regardless of system.

I've long since found that, without a lot going against the party, moderates and below are simply unengaging from a combat execution perspective. They can be handled entirely on autopilot without a single daily resource being spent. That isn't to say that they can't be interesting or meaningful on a narrative level, but in that case there's no need to bother with the combat engine either.

Speaking purely as a player, the advice I see some people give about throwing in lows and such to make the players feel good is positively insulting. The ttrpg equivalent of "this meeting could have been an email."

I get your gm not doing much of anything weaker than severe. I've long since found moderate and weaker fights to be a waste of time as they rarely require any thought or resource expenditure. Unfortunate that they don't lean into mass mooks more often, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

My advice changes based on the level range you expect to play in.

1-4? Just don't play a caster. Sad to say, but the early game caster experience in pf2 is the worst I've had in any system I've played that's newer than AD&D.

5+? Well, since you don't want to be a one turn debuff bot, and since AoE nuker isn't particularly valuable for your group, there's not much left for you. AoE buffs with bless or bard. A few good single target damage spells that others have mentioned above. Illusions which have good use both in and out of combat. Maybe pester your gm for access to the good uncommon utility spells.

It is about as classical a fantasy trope as there can be that you bring a rogue to a dungeon to find traps and secret treasures. Without proficiency gating it takes a while for a rogue’s perception to be better than a wisdom caster. Clerics don’t need to be the trap finders.

And rogues don't need to be better than clerics or animists at detecting haunts, but that ship has sailed. Perception scaling should never have been class based in the first place.

Are there any haunts that are perception-gated? That feels real weird just, conceptually.

Not sure if rhetorical or not, but yes, many are gated.

I guess the ability to use it after a spell strike and ignore MAP is an advantage I had not thought of.

I guess in that particular niche, it is better than the other conflux spells.

I thought about Force Bolt, which is comparable damage-wise, but it is also ranged, which, in most cases, Force Fang is not.

I realize that the recharging spell strike is an advantage, but that is not really fair to use that as a comparison to other focus spells, because that is such a unique thing to the magus.

It just seems weak compared to other conflux spells. Perhaps I am just not weighing the disregarding of MAP as much as I should.

It really just is the guarenteed MAPless damage on top of your regular spellstrike. This does assume you are hitting the ideal of spellstriking nearly every round though. If you're in a bad situation like getting slowed while needing to move and recharge, then force fang isn't much good compared to one that lets you strike as well.

#4 always felt like niche protection for legendary perception classes given the proficiency gate on detecting hazards in the first place. Rogues with +1 wis at base have something like a 50/50 chance to detect on-level hazards before the +1/+2 from trap finder. This tracks pretty well with a +3 wis character having the baseline 60% success rate you see across most of pf2e.

#5 just means you should ignore those guides and instead make sure the party has minimum 15 different skills progressing to legendary. Sure, it can suck in the early levels before you get at least two expert skills on everyone, but that's the low level life. Granted, I've never found those guides' build recommendations worthwhile in the first place so I'm not surprised they weren't good for this.

#6 is indeed very tedious, especially tied back to #1-#3. Can't say I've ever seen that wide a gap between DC and modifier though.

I'm struggling to think of that many circumstance bonuses to damage besides the forceful or twin traits, though this is likely more my own ignorance than anything else, as those feats and buffs likely do exist.

They aren't too common. A Nethys search lists 23 feats and I know horse's support bonus adds a circ bonus in addition to those weapon traits.

I'm curious now. What runes are you taking if not astral? Or is it just something lile prioritizing flaming and decaying for the persistent crit damage? Or maybe frost for the extra weakness coverage?

For me, even aside from ghost touch coverage, I like the nearly unresisted damage and the option to combo with shining symbol to inflict a spirit weakness the whole party can exploit.

Based on what I've seen, a slashing/bludgeoning combo is your best bet, since slashing can take advantage of the most weaknesses and almost nothing is actually immune to bludgeoning. There's also no overlap in terms of immunities for those two, unlike Piercing/Slashing.

Yeah. That along with reach, trip and the bleed crit spec is what makes kusarigama such a good weapon.

I can't say I have had much issue with immunities in any system I've played. Just need to avoid the situation where the vast majority of things in the system or campaign are immune to something. Otherwise, you end up in the same situation poison is in, where nobody uses it that doesn't have explicit bypass to the immunity.

On the topic of oozes, I do think it's a little silly that their mere existence rewards players for just always picking a bludgeoning or versatile B weapon. These weapons aren't any worse than slashing or piercing weapons but also have fewer resistances/immunities even outside of oozes, so there's no reason not to pick one if you can. It's really only archers that lose out unless they're so fed up with it that they spend two feats on inventor for a modular innovation.

If you're set on a caster, I'd pick bard, but you really shouldn't need a 3rd spellcaster at all.

Do you know if you're playing with free archetype? I suspect not, but it would be good to know before giving any actual build advice.

If you use any action (including free actions and reactions) other than casting a spell directly after, you waste the benefits of the spellshape action.

Pretty clear that you can do any action after the spellshape if you don't mind losing the benefit. Which this technique doesn't.

Since activating this is just 3 free actions and a stride to position yourself, you can cast whatever you want on top of it.

May as well add a bloodline robe and a familiar for a pair of 1/day free focus point effects.

Extend Blood Magic is indeed categorized as both a Spellshape and a Focus Spell of its own. Which seems like a bug to begin with. It would be better as a Focus ability rather than a Focus Spell. It would still cost a Focus point to use, it just doesn't need to be classified as a spell. Neither do Monk stances like Clinging Shadows Stance.

There are actually a couple of other spellshape focus spells, so it's hard to call it a bug in that sense since it seems an intentional design decision.

Well, the trigger is the blood magic spell and you free cast it 3 separate times so that shouldn't be an issue. I don't recall blood magic being a 1/turn effect.

You seem to think I'm describing a single character and not a party's worth of synergies. Not sure how this wasn't obvious, but I'll try to spell it out for you.

The easiest sample party for this explanation is probably fighter, rogue, magus, bard. Bard one for all's the magus who fake out's for the fighter whose hit triggers the rogue. If the enemy moves, casts, stands from prone, attacks the rogue or if you use a shield, blah, blah, blah the fighter's reaction goes off.

And sure, let's add your beloved amp guidance to the bunch. The ranged characters are basically never using it, opting instead to add a larger circumstance bonus that stacks with a status bonus like lingering inspire and can boost not just failure to success, but success to crit success. The rogue could use it, since they might have prep up and/or fighter might miss. Fighter might use it if none of their other reactions come up. Would I consider not using a different reaction to hold for guidance? Not likely.

And with that, I hope I have clearly laid out this very simple piece of reaction management. You obviously don't need this specific party. Lots of classes have their own unique reactions, champ reaction is easily poached, most martials have reaction attack available in-class, I've even seen a late game character poach opportune backstab for fun. If you aren't getting your reactions off often, maybe invest in one that does.

And come on, I only described the fighter feats from level 2 onwards when the archetype comes up. Sudden charge goes in the level 1 slot of course. As a bonus, if you're having movement issues on charge-less classes like the monk, consider a mutagen collar. Free action a drakeheart mutagen on initiative and expend it for two strides.

gesalt wrote:

Fake out and one for all aid do go off just about every round.

So your Fighter, who is also a Gunslinger and a Swashbuckler on top of being a Psychic, is also finding the reactions to Aid allies while also Reactive Striking each round? How fascinating; I'd be very interested in seeing what your character's feats and turns look like.

gesalt wrote:

Champ reaction goes off any time somebody other than the user gets attacked in melee. Always if multiple characters take it.

That's very nice, except those reactions are not coming from the same character, are they? It appears we're blending the entire party now into this omni-reactive super-character. Are they all archetyping into the Psychic in addition to the Champion, Gunslinger, and Swashbuckler as well?

Don't be obtuse. I'm pointing out that every member of a party has better things to do than hold their reaction passively waiting for the moment a +1 will change something.

Melee characters are the only ones that remotely have an issue using their reaction(s) every turn since archers have fake out and non-int casters have one for all. Ironically, Psychic has their own unpoachable one for alls with the gathered lore subconscious mind or amp omni scan. And it's not particularly hard to set up situations for those melee characters to do something with their reaction offensively with strikes or defensively. (Side note: subconscious minds are also an entirely unpoachable feature of the class)

And yes, guidance is obviously an option. But it's a fallback option. It's what you use when you have nothing better to do, assuming it comes up in the first place.

Fake out and one for all aid do go off just about every round. Fake out doesn't even require action setup, just that a martial attacks. One for all also has the benefit of being usable on any non-combat check too, effectively taking the place of the aid exploration action. Even if the gm bumps up the DC, it just means you work in cooperative nature for a +4 to the check. If you're somehow never able to get critical aid on anything, then amp guidance becomes more valuable for the +1 over the status bonus you normally have going.

Champ reaction goes off any time somebody other than the user gets attacked in melee. Always if multiple characters take it. Opportune backstab goes off every time the not-rogue gets a hit. Reactive strike goes off any time an opponent tries to cast, stand from prone or move at all within weapon reach. That's putting aside other defensive reactions you can take too depending on your exact build(shields, nimble dodge and the like). Also reaction spells I guess. For the few good ones that exist.

If your enemies don't get hit or cast or like to stay prone after a trip/slam down/cast down/bola shot/wolf drag/[insert other tripping effect here] please let me know.

And yeah, amp guidance and amp message also exist. Amp message is pretty good since it guarentees a reaction attack.

I do miss flickmace and auto-prone crit spec though. Good times. I still use it on thaumaturge builds.

Fighters and rogues don't find use for amped Guidance because they already have common uses for their reaction. Those that don't are mentioned to consider it. They're more likely the beneficiary of guidance than the caster. It's competing with Shield, Warp Step, and Message.

Also this. I personally believe part of a good party and character build is making sure you get your reactions off as often as possible. Otherwise that's just action econ going to waste. Waiting on a maybe amp guidance instead of getting attacks off or actively buffing attacks that themselves might get upgraded off it anyway, just feels like a waste to me.

(long quote)

I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding here. My goal isn't to cap focus points. Not directly, anyway. The goal is a strong character with a good toolbox of options if possible. Adding a focus point and a focus spell with psychic progresses this goal.

Take the monk for example. Yes I want 3 focus points. I also want heaven's thunder for damage. I want stand still for a reaction attack. I might want wolf drag for auto prone. Multitalented psychic lets me get that point and also these other things I want by virtue of not taking up the feat slot. It lets me squeeze just a little bit more value out of the system.

Will I occasionally get value out of reaction guidance, or message or a psi shield or a 100ft teleport? Absolutely. I'm not saying they're useless or anything, not by a long shot. It's just a bonus on top of what I was already doing.

That sort of thing is also why I'm not remotely convinced it's overpowered. It's a common optimization choice, but it doesn't make or break any build. It's essentially free through multitalented and ancient elf and that's pretty much the price I'm willing to pay for it 90% of the time. If psychic weren't a multiclass dedication, it'd see far less use than it does.

A single focus spell, you say? Sounds like a count is in order! Here's my count of unpoachable focus spells in Pathfinder:

* 16 hex cantrips.

* 13 vessel spells.

* 12 greater revelation spells.

* 12 deeper and deepest psi cantrips, along with their amps.

* 5 qi spells.

* 4 composition spells.

* 4 devotion spells.

* 4 order spells.

* 2 additional hex spells, patron's puppet and phase familiar.

* 2 additional amps.

* 2 link spells, evolution surge and boost eidolon.

* And a partridge in a pear tree 1 conflux spell.

For a total of 77 unpoachable focus spells. Sounds pretty numerous to me!

The witch cantrips that don't give a point

Aside from that, yeah good catches. Completely forgot about some of those. Witch especially since the initial focus spell so rarely gets used. The other psi amps don't grant focus points though afaik.

Hold up: how are you still struggling to have a third Focus Point by level 9? Even with just the Champion archetype, you can take Devout Magic at level 4 for that extra Focus Point. In fact, even a Wizard, arguably the caster who has the hardest time getting that third Focus Point, can just take Blessed One and Advanced School Spell to have a full focus pool by level 8. I'm not really buying this narrative that the Psychic archetype does this necessary service to the community in providing an extra Focus Point.

Well if we're looking at that fighter for example: Vicious swing (if resist is ever a problem)+elf champ dedication at 2, LoH at 4, reaction at 6 and then if you go the auto-trip route slam down at 8 before tactical reflexes at 10/12 and greater slam at 10/12 or if you're looking to use berms later you take the shoving feats, etc. Psychic at 9 is just a free point.

Or rogue. Blessed one at 2, mercy at 4, gang up at 6, opportune backstab at 8, debilitations at 10, prep at 12 and you can keep going but hey, free psychic at 9 gets you that 3rd point.

Or bard. Elf Swashbuckler+reach spell at 2, one for all at 4, 6 is dirge, 8 is fortissimo and 9 gets me a 3rd point. Mostly to triple fortissimo or follow up an expired lingering with double fortissimo.

Or maybe monk. Student of perfection at 2, heavenseeker at 4 for two focus points. At 6 you have a choice between a 3rd focus spell, stand still or heaven's thunder and 8 adds wolf drag for the auto-trip. But, thanks to Psychic we also have the option of taking the point at 6 and retraining to something more useful later when we hit 9. You then have the option to pick up psi strikes and use the psi shield (non-focus vetsion) to trigger it for some extra damage to go with your 3 inner upheavals/ki strikes. Note: half-elf to ignore int/cha requirement

And most non-free archetype builds will end up doing something along these lines. Archer builds are really the only ones that might rush psychic I think. Magus and eldritch archers for IW and regular archers for reaction guidance, if they didn't opt for rogue sneak attack or ranger gravity weapon instead. Archers will generally take gunslinger eventually to access fake out. If you don't take it early, then that's what I'd put in the 9 slot.

As shown by the numerous examples of unpoachable spells you’ve just listed, they’re really not. Many focus spells cannot be poached, so why does it need to be open season for the Psychic’s amps? For that matter, what difference would it make to you if you only take the dedication for the focus point, when you could just pick Blessed One?

I wouldn't call one class's focus cantrips (which wouldn't even grant a focus point when poaching), and a single focus spell from another as "numerous" but sure.

And the reason I don't just take blessed one is simple. You can't take blessed one with level 9 multitalented or ancient elf's bonus feat. Not like I'm spending an even level class feat slot on it when there are other archetypes that tend to offer better build benefits over the whole archetype (example: champion on many melee fighter builds) or it's a good class feat level.

How do you get +3 and +4 aids with a single Dedication feat?

I would love to get it.

Not the single feat. You get them through swashbuckler's one for all and gunslinger's fake out.

It's why on magi my level 9 multitalented recommendation goes to gunslinger whenever it's available. Fake out at 10 means when your proficiency advances at level 11 you put a gauntlet bow on and fake out for +3 without any setup.

I do think it's worth pointing out as well that other classes do lock their own focus spells out of their MC archetype: the Animist archetype doesn't hand out its vessel spells, for instance, and probably for the best given how they can almost single-handedly make a build. Witches don't give out their hex cantrips either, so just because something's not as powerful as a slot spell doesn't mean it's automatically given out in an archetype. Even the Summoner archetype doesn't give out link spells, so the Psychic would by no means be the only class to gatekeep its focus spells if amps got taken out of the dedication.

Bard or bard archetype yeah. Both the inspire cantrip and lingering focus spell are both poachable after all.

Animist is really the exception when it comes to poaching. Witch offers the lesson feats to poach its focus spells, though not its cantrip. Summoner also allows poaching its focus cantrips and spells, with the sole exception of evolution surge. The other casters all make their early focus spells available as do all the martials with focus spells.

There's a difference between "good" and "the class's key asset and the reason they're a 2-slot, 6 HP/level caster," though. Poaching tempest surge from the Druid is generally not going to make you a better Druid, nor will poaching cackle make you a better Witch. A +2 status bonus that's guaranteed to bump up a check's degree of success as a reaction three times per encounter makes a major difference in my experience, more so than the aforementioned focus spells.

I can't say I've ever gotten any crazy mileage out of amp guidance. Mostly because of the +1 status bonus to attacks already on everyone and +3 and +4 aids stacking with it and being capable of bumping checks to crits. Yes, I do believe a +15-20% chance to hit/crit on a roll every turn is better than holding my reaction to bump a roll that missed by 1 or 2.

Maybe that's why I don't find it broken. I typically take psychic more for the focus point than the actual amp. Most martials? Extra LoH for an emergency heal or to heal between waves. Monk? Shield to proc psi strikes. Other casters? If not extra casts of their own focus spell, then message, actually. Force the reaction attack even if the enemy doesn't want to move or stand up.

The issue of giving out AMPs in a post remastered game is that all characters can use all their focus spells every encounter and they couldn’t when the psychic dedication was created. Characters couldn’t amped guidance 3 times every encounter. That remaster change really changes a lot about how the archetype works. Limiting amps to once an encounter outside of the base class really seems like the necessary restriction.

You can say this about literally every good poachable focus spell. And yet, they remain poachable in remaster material.

Are you sure you're not just terrified of the intense power of...a reaction for a +2 status bonus? +1 over the omnipresent inspire or bless but only to prevent a fail is nice but hardly worth worrying about. Especially when it has to compete with other reactions, like attacks or aid.

But sure, let's run with this notion regardless: already, Psychic Dedication is an extremely frequent pick on the Magus, so that already starts to satisfy that unreasonably high standard. On top of this, the dedication does get frequently picked just for amped guidance, and while that much is fine, the way focus spells work means that accessing that amp means anyone with the dedication alone can retroactively bump up degrees of success three times every encounter, which does make a significant impact.

Let's not get things mixed up. The psychic dedication itself could give literally nothing and magi would take it for the 6th level archetype feat because IW is the best in slot choice for spellstrike. Remove IW and they drop psychic entirely for cleric instead. The psychic dedication is icing on the cake, not a primary motivator by any means.

Past that, yes, it offers a good focus spell for everyone else, that's why people take it. Is it better than many level 2 feats? Yes, mostly because so few level 2 feats are ever worth taking over starting an archetype. If it's not psychic, it's blessed one, champion, spirit warrior, alchemist, oracle, etc, etc. That has more to do with level 2 feat quality being awful than psychic dedication. Again, it's a good choice, but not a broken one.

I liken it to the problem general feats have. Where everyone picks the same options, not because they're broken, but because everything else is bad.

Psy Dedication is that much better, and in a lot of ways, my SMN/Witch would have been better off if they dropped Witch and instead picked Psy and a Familiar Master or other familiar archetype. That's... a pretty damning observation of Psy's power level, imo.

It's an observation that a feat that gives a focus spell is better than a feat that gives a familiar even though both familiars and some focus spells are priced as level 1 feats.

Witch dedication would have been pretty competitive with psychic dedication in the early days of the game before the devs killed all the familiar tricks and then buffed refocusing.

It's just that psychic stands out from something like blessed one by being a multiclass archetype, and therefore being grabbed at 9 by every human or human-adopted character or at 2 by every elf that has nothing better to grab.

What continues to really confuse me about this whole thread is the idea that it's somehow broken instead of just being good. If it were broken it'd be on every character because it is powerful, and not just because it's the best value you can get for multitalented.

In a non-FA game, which is what I already said I was talking about, doing this requires spending the vast majrity of your feats in most APs just to get to 2 archetypes. Even if you're a human, and there's a lot of non-human characters out there.

No, kineticist aside you really should be on one or more archetypes depending on your class. This is even without using elf and/or human to pick up extra archetypes. Even with free archetype, you just take more archetype feats, rarely more in-class feats.

Even rogues which have some really good feats at 6+ has room to squeeze in a blessed one feat or two at 2 and 4 (and then humans take psychic at 9 to get that 3rd focus point).

find it strange that many of us seem to have collectively decided that the Psychic was always a weak class, when in practice I remember the Psychic being thought of as quite a decent and enjoyable caster premaster.

The only psychic build I ever saw get the time of day in optimization discussions was shatter mind spam. Outside of that it was only ever looked at for its archetype, much like swashbuckler or alchemist.

Setting Magus aside, the problem with it is that the Dedication is way out of whack with other Dedication feats. It gives you a LOT for a single feat, including the signature ability of the class.

Is it the signature ability of the class? Ultimately they're just focus spells. Unleash would be the better comparison point as a unique feature that can't be poached. That it's lackluster is unfortunate, but that doesn't change that it is a unique action locked to the class that can't be poached.

I gotta say, the trick magic item hate/dislike/whatever-this-is is definitely one of the funnier things to come out of this thread.

It's paizo's way. Take a piece of design space and print a bunch of really bad options and two or three good ones.

Still don't think I'd take a saurian spike though. By the time it's available you've been tricking a 5th rank see invis wand since level 11. And disappearance beats non sight senses anyway. Cool ability to have, just too expensive compared to alternatives and in a level range where you have lots of things to buy/upgrade.

I guess just looking at spellhearts it'd be rated highly, but that feels misleading when I can't see ever going out of my way to buy it, unlike maybe a jolt coil or the doorknob.

Given the ways paizo's added to bypass having a weapon made of a special material, it isn't really worth having a weapon made out of the stuff. Just grab some silver salve and cold iron transmuting ingots and you're done.

Honestly I'd never waste a feat on stunning blows since it never comes up when it would be relevant.

Fighter archetype does nothing for you. Consider each of those feats a waste. Rogue for sneak attacker or the student of perfection-> heavenseeker line would have been better. I'm also guessing you didn't take gravity weapon with that ranger archetype.

You're level 13 and you don't have greater striking runes yet? Fix that asap. Honestly, I'd pick a weapon and sell the other.

Get yourself up to three focus spells so you can inner upheaval 3 times a combat. More importantly, get inner upheaval from the level 1 qi spells feat.

How much math buffing/debuffing is your team doing? I can understand feeling like your accuracy isn't that good if you're relying only on your own numbers instead of benefiting from the slew of math altering abilities that should be getting thrown around.

Is just taking a lump sum and holding the cash not an option? If not, you can always choose 2x cold iron ingots (100gp each, the highest value for a common level 2 item) and immediately sell them back.

There's also the rat mentioned above or a goz mask.

Or you can have a carriage or hot air balloon for the novelty of it.

Psychic Dedication doesn't require an off-stat investment that's costly for Magus, and it gives you your third focus point in those two feats. Same number of feats, though.

Low rank occult slots tend to be better than divine slots too. Even if it's just for true strike or illusory object.

What's that? A new common occult unique spell? That robs an enemy of an action on a success and can repeat on a fail or worse? And it stacks with other forms of action denial? Why, you shouldn't have.

If only it had better than 15ft of range, but we'll take it.

Yeah, I'll take bard, cleric or resentment witch over the animist any day. Animist is at best a distant 4th.

I hadn't referenced combat power, had I? The Treasure Vault is notorious for its leniency, some have said sloppiness. The updated version fixed some instances thankfully.

In this instance it's about the imbalance of action-item efficiency, mirroring that of the Uncommon gloves/belts I did reference (and the gloves which have long been a staple item). I don't find the Potion Patch particularly powerful, but when a new item changes the metagame so much there should be reservations which I think the Uncommon trait addresses. Hmm, or maybe it is power creep and should be nixed?

Also the narrative-RPGer in me balks at heroes suddenly spamming patches as if it's a fashion fad. If anything, this means wealthy NPCs expecting battle on a given day should also be sporting them, especially those whose tactics mention drinking a potion (like say Invisibility to escape where saving actions and avoiding Reactive Strikes is critical). Giants and others that carry manufactured magic items should want these too for raids, but what are the chances we'll ever a Potion Patch in a published adventure? Practically zero. The fad should've spread far and wide...unless explained by them being Uncommon.

It's like any new technology that sees rapid adoption, no? And why not have NPCs that can afford to equip themselves or all their mooks with them do so? Makes great loot for your players and might encourage them to get used if they see how enemies use them effectively.

Speaking of treasure vault though. Collar of the shifting spider has been pretty useful on monks to fake a sudden charge with lesser drakeheart final surge. Energy mutagen on 1h martials too.

But maybe we should break this off into its own thread. Which consumables to buy and how to milk them for value, or prevent the excessive milking of, seems like a good topic on its own.

Ballpark that I said earlier was maybe around 20 pieces per week.

So you did. Sorry for making you repeat yourself.

Guess I'll need to add this to my list of things to ask or advise asking of GMs to gauge how aggressively good consumables might need to be purchased.

gesalt wrote:

let me change the perspective a little. Imagine a 4500gp permanent item that said 1 action, once per 10 minutes, quicken self (strike+stride only). Price equal to 50 quickness potions. Likely enough to last your whole career, and then some. This would be a great pickup, and probably better than most real printed items. It's even better as potions since you don't have to buy them in crazy bulk. But you can, same way you might buy that 4500gp item.

With that perspective, I'm even more confident I shouldn't allow buying quantities of potions anything in the hundreds. Thanks for reaffirming my view.

Well, what world your cap on available consumables be then? 10 at a time? 20? Or mere single digits for the town to envy as you buy them?

Though I suppose there's always crafting during downtime if the campaign allows it. Makes me miss old alch archetype and its ability to mass produce cheap goods.

Let's imagine that double slicer. You happen to finish an adventure with a nice chunk of change but nothing useful to buy at that level. So instead, you decide to set yourself up until level 20 and buy a fat stack of bombs for your siphons. It's 3gp per bomb. 300gp is peanuts at higher levels. You could easily set yourself up with 100 bombs in a single purchase and store then in some sleeves of storage.

Melee martial? Well they need energy mutagens for that +d4 or +6 damage. If you often have time to drop 10 minute prebuffs you can buy hundreds of 12gp mutagens that last 10 minutes fairly early in your career. If not, you'll need to wait until late game inflation really hits to mass purchase the 300gp version. Now say you have two melee in the party. Well, that's a lot of mutagens.

Silversheen? 6gp. You can buy a 100 stack of those too just in case. Cheaper than buying a silver weapon and the hour long duration beats that new item.

Quickness potion? The rare item everyone in the party might want. And therefore, one every member of the party might want a nice stack of. Just like the mutagens and silversheens that means stacks upon stacks once you hit a high enough level that you can just buy a whole career's worth at once.

Now, is the example of 4 fights a day, every day, for a week a little extreme? Yeah, but that could easily be the number of fights you have over the next several levels. So why not see if you can budget for high quickened uptime across the party. And if it is just some fodder encounter, you hold the potion. No harm, no foul.

Edit: let me change the perspective a little. Imagine a 4500gp permanent item that said 1 action, once per 10 minutes, quicken self (strike+stride only). Price equal to 50 quickness potions. Likely enough to last your whole career, and then some. This would be a great pickup, and probably better than most real printed items. It's even better as potions since you don't have to buy them in crazy bulk. But you can, same way you might buy that 4500gp item.

Why wouldn't you allow it though? Mass purchasing of cheap consumables is pretty common with higher levels for stuff like silversheen, bombs for double slice weapon siphon builds, hour long energy mutagens, etc. Do you reject those things too or is it something specific about haste patches you don't like?

Another thing we've found mythic suffers from is the same thing PF2 suffers from: an overabundance of actions that aren't worth using.

Applies to more than just actions I think. Nothing has quite sucked away my general interest in new releases like the knowledge that only 10% of new options will be worth using.

1) What's getting them ko'd? Just crits, standing around to get hit over and over, or something else?

2) Sure, but why aren't your casters doing the same to the boss? Occult witch (please be resentment) should be taking 1 round debuffs cast by themselves and the wizard and extending them the whole fight.

3) classic speed tuning issue. A result of not having wands of tailwind on everyone, not having fleet and not being elves. Casters need to slow the enemy down with action denial and illusions until walls come online. Pity there's no str martial to properly trip them or fighter to slam down.

4) nothing for this but to get better at tracking things. Purely a player issue.

5) yeah, that's gonna happen. Is it actually happening often or do they only remember the crit successes and not the regular successes?

If you're only using +/-2 then something is wrong. A +2 enemy shouldn't be much of an issue at all and shouldn't be critically succeeding that often outside of lucky rolls or unless the casters decided they were too cool to cap their casting stat.

6) this is sort of the whole point of resistances and immunities. To force the players to work around our through them. However, your party is severely lacking damage which is going to make that sort of resistance painful. You are the gm though, you could tailor your enemy selection to cater to your party by avoiding the things they're bad at fighting.

My own assessment is that your party is probably a bunch of unoptimized characters that are also not playing particularly well. Nothing for it but to adjust down to their level if they're not capable of fixing their characters or playstyle.

The point is that it isn't a huge power outlier with the capacities of the class. Casting those other spells is often taking off a turn of damage and doing the Magus thing in favor of pretending to be a dedicated spellcaster and still completes for actions with IW. Any place you want to use quandary is the same place you would be very happy to use your slots for great feast

But I do think that the Magus shouldn't be designed in such a way it has access to a spell like quandary and I really wish it had divine font for damage spells and only went up to like rank 5-6 for regular slots

It very much is though. There is a huge difference between a magus who can effectively spellstrike twice a day and one that can do so up to 3 times an encounter. And having access to those high power spells is part of the draw of being a gish. The ability to both be the best damage dealer in the system while also having access to a small toolbox of mook sweepers, saveless control, powerful buffs, etc is what makes the magus so appealing.

It's also why some people (not me) consider it broken. That they can have a useful toolbox of spells while getting their damage from a more numerous and renewable pool of resources elsewhere. The difference in damage damage an IW magus is putting out in, say, 4 discrete encounters over 8 - 12 focus points is immense compared to just trying to get by with a pair of top slots and something like gouging claw + that force missile focus spell. That's where the outlier is. Not 95 vs 90 but 95x2 vs 90x8.

But to bring it back to the main topic. This is a good showcase for arcane being a solid list. Plenty of decent or better options to round out a damage class that doesn't rely on the list itself to do its thing.

R.E. IW, some damage calcs

Assume a 19-20th level magus hitting a spellstrike:

10th rank amped IW: 90 average damage

9th polar ray: 54 average damage + 40 (drained 2 on level 20 enemy) = 94 damage

9th rank blood feast: 94.5 average damage, get half that in temphp

8th rank polar ray: 45 damage + 40 drained = 85 damage

8th rank blood feast: 87.5

Ah yes, the stunningly game breaking power of doing exactly what magus can already do, just a bit more often and without the good rider effects. Truly this shatters the game's balance over it's knee, the most powerful combo in the game.

And just like that you've wasted perfectly good 8th and 9th rank slots on something your focus points could be doing. You're also committing yourself to being useful 4 times per day instead of 3 times per refocus. You're also foregoing actually useful arcane spells to do...4-5 damage over your focus points with 9s and less damage period with the rank 8s.

You know what's better than any of those spells? Maze/quandry. True target. Disappearance. A dozen other spells I can't be bothered to list. If you have 1 real fight a day, sure. Come back and tell me how this strategy works out for you when you need to do 4-6.

stuff

Just the obvious stuff then. Oh well.

And tragically, you only lose your breath if you speak. Laughing or creative question answering methods won't trigger suffocation. It might seem stupid for these things to function this way, but this is pf2e and it does far more egregiously logic breaking things than this.

Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules....

Eh. Disruptive stance doesn't really do anything you couldn't already do with silence 4th + trip and minefield is just another thing to throw into the berms-shove shredder. That said, I am glad that strat keeps getting more tools to use.

Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.

I think the only other wands I've seen people go out of the way to buy were 5th rank see the unseen and ant haul.

Putting whether it's ivory tower design or not aside, I don't think it's unfair to say that pf2e is littered with bad options and outright traps. I don't think it's unfair to say that the designers probably knew that at least some of these options were horrible but included them anyway for flavor or whatever other reason. And I don't think it's unfair to say people fall into the traps or form bad preconceptions and misconceptions about how the game works because these things exist.

Staff of illusory object pays for itself many times over across a whole campaign. Never needs to be upgraded either. Same with longstrider/tailwind wands.

I do like my permanent items though.

1-3 skill items
Speed items
Perception/darkvision item
Flight item (scrolls too but eventually the infinite use flight tattoo)
Doorknob
A couple of the focused items
The aforementioned staff