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You're obviously a lot more experienced with Birthright than I am so I'll very, very happily take your suggestion and thank you very kindly and sincerely for making it :-).
Are there any powerful items or anything that allows you to sustain a spell as a free action?Gnomes have Intuitive Illusions, a level 5 ancestry feat, which gives them a FREE sustain only usable with illusion spells. It does require that you take Illusion Sense at 1st level, so it's a two-feat chain. Only useable once a day which SERIOUSLY reduces its effectiveness. But I have a strong personal bias against once a day effects since 1) I tend to forget that I have them2) I tend to want to keep them until I REALLY REALLY need them. Those combine to make once a day effects nearly useless to me (they only get used on those occassions where things have gone SERIOUSLY south and I'm frantically searching my character sheet for something to save my ass :-) :-)).
If you DO decide that you want to raise your shield a lot AND if you aren't generally using your reaction then the feat Reactive Shield may be a great investment. It is a 1st level Fighter Feat but it is also available from the Bastion Dedication. Basically, it turns the action to raise your shield into a reaction so you can use all 3 actual actions to do other stuff. Also worth noting that if you actually Shield Block a lot you both need to get a much better shield (either a sturdy shield or another shield with the Reinforcing Rune) and keep it close to your level as you level up AND have a means of repairing it (either a teammate or you needs a bit of crafting and the quick repair skill feat). Sword and Board is a very viable tactic in PF2 but you have to invest some resources in it to use it well and often
Hieghtened Ability: A scion with this attribute raises one ability score by one point if it is currently 14 or higher; he raises it by 1d6 points if the ability score is less than 14. Since you've picked Basaia, the ability raised would be Intelligence. We're doing point buy, right? It would feel really, really cheesy to buy a 7 or a 13 so I'll go with a base of 10.
So, Int of 14. That is a REALLY nice benefit.
Bloodline Acquisition - Nope
Am I rolling too well? Elton, if you want to arbitrarily cut me back I'm fine with that. This is starting to seem foolishly strong. - Detect Lie (Minor)
- Animal Affinity (Minor)
Would I be better off (both in terms of effectiveness and in terms of my likely having fun) if I changed my character (mechanically) to a Sacred Fist Warpriest? Nothing about his personality or background would change, just the game mechanics (and lets face it a Sacred Fist Warpriest is pretty much a slightly different take on a Monk/Paladin/Champion of Irori anyway). Hmm. I think I WILL do that. More roleplaying opportunities (I love playing clerics, they're so much fun :-)).
A2. By the RAW, yes. However, a monk would ideally be a temple regent. And he would learn his skills from an exotic origin, like Aduria. He could come from the Anuirean colonies in Aduria.A bit of a waste IMHO! Monks aren’t spellcasters, so they’d not be able to wield the strength of their regency to cast Realm Magic in defense of the kingdom. I have no idea what that means in practice. You're saying that unless you're a spellcaster you're at a major disadvantage?
Ok, changed slightly He is an Anuirean human worshipper of Avani who has a derivation from Basaia He is the third son of a Regent and so never expected to ascend to power. Once he became old enough he was sent off to manage a minor family estate in Aduria. There he became enamored with, and trained in, the martial arts. A year or so ago his elder brother (the second son) died and he was sent for in order to make sure he would be available if necessary (the whole heir and a spare thing). He got home only to find that both his father and remaining brother were killed in what seems to have been an accident but may well have been an assassination. He has now assumed his position while still quite young (19). Mechanically, he starts as an Unchained Monk who plans a 1 level dip into Paladin and will take the Champion of Irori(Avani) prestige class I have no problem if we're all from the same domain or have different domains. If we share a domain then he could be either the Law or Temple Regent, whichever the group needs
I have dropped my other idea in favour of an Anuirean human worshipper of Haelyn who has a derivation from Anduiras. Mechanically, either a sacred fist Warpriest or, ideally, a monk/paladin hoping to become a champion of Irori. Which gives me some mechanical questions. 1) is Irori close enough to Haelyn for a Champion of Irori to be acceptable?
He is the second son and so never expected to ascend to power. But an accident (or was it an accident?) killed both his father and oldest brother. I have no problem if we're all from the same domain or have different domains. If we share a domain then he could be either the Law or Temple Regent, whichever the group needs
The most egregious example I can think of off hand was in PFS1 days with the module Murder's Mark. I greatly expanded on the Carnival aspect, inventing whole new attractions from whole cloth. I ran it 3 or 4 times and every time at least the entire first session was just spent interacting with the carnival and NOT advancing the plot. But I knew the players fairly well and was able (at least I thought I was able :-)) to read them reasonably well. They all seemed to be having lots of fun. And I'd warned the players ahead of time that it was likely to take 4 sessions instead of 3 and to let me know if I was overdoing things and they were getting bored. Like many GMs I've also basically cheated from time to time. I'll hasten to add that I almost always did it to help the characters and to avoid TPKs due to some over tuned monster, especially when GMing for newbies.
Agreed. But I have little problem with classes that have poor feats. It just means I can take various archetypes to make the character effective. In fact, one of my biggest issues with a class like the swashbuckler is that they have SO many good feats that one just HAS to take most of them :-) :-) :-). But I totally understand that others think a class should stand alone and not rely on general feats or archetypes.
Oh yeah. Amped Message is nice. I do use that quite a bit. Its great. But its one of the (many) things easily poached by other classes and arguably much more useful there than on a psychic. There is absolutely no doubt at all that a Psychic is an INCREDIBLY good class to multiclass INTO. I've seen a support character with Amped Message, a mobility based character with Amped Warp Step, and of course there is the nearly ubiquitous Mage with Imaginary Weapon.
Thanks for the answers everybody. Ok, so lots of play experience says the psychic works fairly well, and lots says that it doesn't work all that well. Fair enough. My vague impression that maybe the people who didn't like it were largely theory crafting was just flat out wrong. It sounds like build mastery is part of the issue. To REALLY make a Psychic pop you have to poach bunches of stuff. The psychic that I was enjoying had Live Wire, Electric Arc and Tentacular limbs. The first 2 pretty much meant that I was contributing SOMETHING even on my post unleash cool down rounds, Tentacular Limbs combines wonderfully with imaginary weapon. In my experience (NOT saying others experience was wrong, just stating what mine was) combats were usually decided (not finished, but decided except for mop up) in 3 rounds (1 prep round, 2 with psyche unleashed). In the exceptions it was often the case that things went long enough for me to Unleash, recover from unleash, and Unleash again. The group was running away, regrouping, fighting very defensively in the middle rounds anyway. I was also reasonably lucky with my stupefied rolls. As I recall I never flubbed a spell that I REALLY wanted to cast.
I would be very, very wary of giving out unlimited Free Archetype to new players. Option paralysis is a VERY real risk. If you want to dip your toes in, then use a very tight bounded set of thematically appropriate archetypes that are allowable. If you allow an open choice of Free Archetype be aware that it will affect the power of your PCs to significantly different amounts depending on base class and archetype choice. Some players/characters will just round out their characters a bit, others will take powerful in combat combinations that will raise their power quite a bit. To me, it fits some groups and some campaigns much more than others.
Ok, I'm seeing lots of posts from people who are actually PLAYING psychics who seem to like their characters and lots of posts from people who don't like psychics but who do NOT seem to say that they are actually playing one (they may well have done so and haven't said that, of course). So, my question is, for those of you who have actually played a psychic as your main class (NOT as an archetype) for, say, at least 2 levels, how many of you were satisfied with the class? I'll start. I have and I was very satisfied with the experience. It contributed bunches to the group and was fun to play.
The good ones certainly do NOT fall off, at least when amped. At what level does imaginary weapon (2 strikes dealing 1d8 + 2d8 per rank above 1 + 2xrank) fall off? Especially if using Tentacular Limb for an absurd reach. At what level is (rank +2) d10 + 2*rank in a 60 foot cone a poor choice?
In Uni I majored in Computer Science. In 3rd year I took a Linguistics course as an elective. I had previously taken a course in Computer Languages and in that I had learned some technical vocabulary. My entire notes for a 1 1/2 hour Linguistics Course consisted of
That means something specific in Computer Linguistics theory and so that note really did encapsulate all of the 1 1/2 hour lecture. But the meaning should be pretty clear. English is inherently ambiguous. There is a reason that Lawyers get paid huge amounts to make contracts that are absolutely 100% clear. And then a different lawyer gets paid huge amounts of money to find a different 100% clear meaning to those words. And those 100% clear contracts still go to court where the court sometimes decide between 2 different meanings that are each 100% clear. ENGLISH IS AN AMBIGUOUS LANGUAGE.
Whatever changes are made it is pretty much essential that a psychic relying on Imaginary Weapon and Shatter Mind NOT be made more powerful. I'm playing a Psychic with both of those (together with Tentacular limbs from sorcerer) and it really does NOT need to be improved. Round 1 - Move, defensive magics, whatever
In general, my actual spell slots are there for utility, healing, etc. I've had adventuring days where I've used none of them :-). I agree that there are lots of other choices that could do with improving. But they have to be careful to not improve the class over all as it really doesn't need it.
I personally consider that GM to be 100% absolutely and completely wrong. Zombies are DUMB. Both mechanically and in the vast majority of fiction that form our common understanding of Zombies. That is part of the reason that they're generally only threatening in large numbers and, even then, often only against unprepared sorts. But IMAO it is part of the GMs responsibility to try hard to have the antagonists act like they would in world, to use tactics appropriate to the creature. While there are obviously lots and lots of edge cases where reasonable people can disagree Zombies stepping really shouldn't be one. That is a tactical maneuver. Zombies don't use tactics. I've seen lots and lots of (generally newbie) players have their characters stride when they should step. And I'm pretty sure that even the least experienced players are more tactically aware than Zombies.
There is a lot more flexibility in the class than any single character is likely to be able to use effectively. To take an obvious example, if you've CHOSEN to invest in Strength and buy some weapons then Witness to Ancient Battles becomes a fine Apparition. Take it and enjoy gishing. But if you've chosen to be a gnome with Str 8 then this Apparition is probably a really poor choice for you. So take some of the other 10 Apparitions instead. The point isn't to be able to effectively use all 11 Apparitions all of the time. Its to decide which 5 or 6 or 7 you want to use over the course of your career. Its VERY likely that the apparitions that you attune to will change as you level up (perhaps with some retraining and repurchasing of gear). For example, Darkened Forest Form is much more effective at some levels than at others. It drops seriously off in the end game. Similarly, a Feat like Walk the Wilds will almost certainly be retrained at mid levels. And the usefulness of some Apparitions is going to depend hugely on the campaign. If you're spending most of your time in tight little dungeons then Darkened Forest Form is going to be a LOT less useful than a campaign where you spend most of your time outdoors or in massively huge caverns.
Depending on this a Reactive Strike can be borderline guaranteed.From my experience, people vastly overvalue how often their reaction triggers. I remember having checked on a PbP I was playing the actual occurrence of the reach Fighter AoOs and it was close to 15% of rounds. A "borderline guaranteed" Reactive Strike doesn't exist in this game or is artificially made up by the GM. A character with reactive strike can substantially affect a combat even if they only use it once in a combat (so the bad guys know you have it). This is far more obvious to the GM than to players. I fairly often have bad guys act so as to NOT provoke the reactive strike and instead do something somewhat less effective. Also some GMs have their bad guys not provoke Reactive Strikes when the bad guy really would. For example, an animal intelligence opponent should NOT recognize what a Reactive Strike is from seeing its buddy hit. MAYBE it would become cautious when IT is unexpectedly hit. Maybe.
I'd just written a long post pointing out that playing an Animist using multiple apparitions per fight was quite viable and in some circumstances optimal or close to it. Then I saw this clarification :-). And deleted that long post :-) :-). Whether it was me misreading or your being less than perfectly clear I had thought that you WERE more or less claiming that it WAS wrong (at least suboptimal) to play an animist that way. But I'm in total agreement that the Animist is SUCH a flexible class that there are many, many optimal (or close enough to not matter) ways to play the class. I've always hugely valued flexibility in my characters so I always build for that. I'm quite willing to pay a (hopefully small) cost to achieve that.
that you can pick up with a day's noticeFor me, that's the misleading issue. Being able to retrain half of your build on a daily basis is pointless, either you can also retrain stats, feats and equipment or no one cares. You don't play PFS do you? :-) :-). Its useful in other context but in PFS being able to substantially change your character at the beginning of the session when you see what others bring to the table is potentially massively useful. And while you can't cover all the bases perfectly you CAN cover many bases fairly well. One general feat (heavy armor proficiency), a bit of Str and a longspear with runes maybe a little behind where they COULD be and bang, you're an acceptable front liner. Steward of Stone and Fire alone makes you a decent blaster. Just pick heal spells in your slots and take Custodian and you're a healer. Etc etc. You don't need to retrain stats to be decent. Plate Mail. Starting stats of +1 Str, +0 Dex. +1 Con, +4 Wis, +1 Int, +1 Cha +1 where you want to slightly specialize if you want to be REALLY general. Or focus a bit with one of those +3 and another 0 I think you're trying too hard to be excellent at something. Being good is usually enough.
It costs a first level class feat but Sudden Charge just about eliminates the issue unless you're doing something like playing a Dwarf or a character without the minimum Str for the armor. And if it matters significantly in your campaign then there is Fleet, boots of Striding and a Wand of L2 Tailwind (at level 5 or 6+ you can probably afford most or all of those). Unless the GM is going really out of their way to either pick fast monsters or just raising the movements on NPCs a speed of 30 or 35 is usually enough. And lots of characters in Plate mail can get that by L5 or so. Heck, if you REALLY care you can get it by level 1.
If you build an Animist to do something, you end up competitive. But you need to pay the feats and character options to make it happen, it won't happen just because you took Apparition X or Y. I agree with your basic point here. To be really good at something you have to build your character for that. But I think that you're underestimating the value of how versatile this class can be. This is ESPECIALLY true in something like PFS but even with a regular group flexibility can have lots of hidden power. As an example, you grab yourself some Plate Mail and invest at least a bit in every stat except Dexterity. At low levels the flexibility only really comes when you know ahead of time the niche you have to fill (eg, in a PFS scenario where you find there is no healer, no blaster, no front liner, etc). Once you get 3+ apparitions you can be much more dynamically flexible (switching to a blaster role when you are suddenly faced with a huge number of enemies attacking from several different directions, switching to a healer when your primary healer goes down, etc). Sure, you won't be a GREAT blaster but taking Steward of Stone and Fire and throwing down some fireballs will do the job most of the time. And you're not a GREAT front liner but turning into a Huge Earth Elemental will likely get the job done when you run into a Golem impervious to your magic. You can't build to cover ALL the bases in a semi competent manner but you can certainly build to cover 3 or 4 of them. And that is a significant part of what the Animist brings to the table. Or so my Playtest experience showed me and so my theorizing tells me (haven't played an actual Animist yet :-)).
And because focus spells are locked in a way normal spells aren't you can't just swap to a different blasting spell for the off levels the way you can for something like Force Barrage. Uh, you're an Animist. If you don't like your focus spells for a level or 2 then swap for something that you prefer. Although (probably with the exception of level 3-4) being down 2d4 isn't THAT huge a deal for your one action sustainable spell :-)
I am starting to think DEX is really the trap attribute option for the animist. Like you’ll want to boost it as you level for saves, but going STR early interacts well with almost half the apparitions, and having a 0 str really hurts your ability to exploit the class’ extreme versatility, while having medium armor and athletics empowers many power combinations. And plate mail proficiency is only a feat away (general or dedication as fits your build).
There's a reason why the archetype is locked behind a boon you have to buy in PFS. I'm honestly surprised they didn't just ban it. At the risk of being cynical, having this be a boon that can only ever be used once by a player means 1) People will buy War of Immortals for the power up
Personally I'm going with full plate and bumping BOTH Int and Cha. Who needs Dex? :-) (yeah, I know Bulwark doesn't solve all problems but it does solve a heck of a lot of them)
I think it would be helpful to rank the strength of each vessel's given spell list. There are some STINKERS on some lists (sigil, mending, safe passage) which I think impacts their overall enjoyability as your spontaneous casting is limited. Given the fact that ALL of your vessels spells are signature spells a few stinkers (or, generally, much more likely very situational spells) is fine. As an example, assuming you are level 5+, does it really matter all that much what the spells fpr the Steward of Fire are? Fireball is going to be your choice against non fire resistant enemies anyway :-). The key is to get at least 1 spell of every level that you're going to want to cast a LOT, and the rest covering some edge cases. Any combination of spell lists that does that is going to be just fine.
They totaly did Battelform dirty, i understand they wanted to tone down Wildshape and the like from Pf1, but how they did it is a travesty, everything that gives a Battelform might aswell not exist just because of how bad and unscalable they are. That is an absolutely absurdly incorrect statement. Wild shaping is very definitely an important part of what many of my druids bring to the table. It is NOT their only trick but it is a VERY effective trick some of the time. Even using the most conservative rules interpretation Battle Forms can be insanely useful from time to time. Sometimes you really need the movement or the vision or something special. Sometimes it just lets you conserve spells in some encounters so you have more in other encounters. Sometimes, with the appropriate spell and at some precise levels it actually brings a caster up to something very close to a martial damage (above low to mid tier martials)
unless mythic enemies tend to be creatures who get myths built up around them in world and the party can learn about and plan to fight well in advance, in which case, there could be a lot of fun to be had with this game mechanic. As long as you're a caster who can change their spells based on advance knowledge this MAY work. But not all casters get that luxury.
Pragmatically, what a GM does is probably going to depend a lot on how tough the combat looks without darkness and fatigue. If its a moderate then GMs are going to be a LOT more likely to apply the darkness and fatigue factors. And on how much time remains in the session at that point. Not sure that is a good answer or the desired answer but I'd bet a considerable amount of money its the actual answer.
Sorry for the delay. Here is Sagira, my druidic follower of Bast (Sharess). And her good friend Makt (Lion) One thing to note - I took Calistrian Courtesan as a trait. This seems pretty close to what a follower of Bast would have but I thought I should explicitly point it out. Summary : Human Lion Shaman Druid follower of Bast with a Lion animal companion. Native to Mulhorand Sagira:
Sagira Female human (Kellid) druid (lion shaman) 1 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 103) N Medium humanoid (human) Init +1; Senses Perception +8 -------------------- Defense -------------------- AC 17, touch 11, flat-footed 16 (+4 armor, +1 Dex, +2 shield) hp 10 (1d8+2) Fort +3, Ref +1, Will +6 -------------------- Offense -------------------- Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor) Melee scimitar +2 (1d6+2/18-20) Ranged sling +1 (1d4+2) Druid (Lion Shaman) Spells Prepared (CL 1st; concentration +5) . . 1st—cure light wounds, entangle (DC 15) . . 0 (at will)—create water, guidance, stabilize -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Str 15, Dex 13, Con 13, Int 11, Wis 19, Cha 13 Base Atk +0; CMB +2; CMD 13 Feats - Pacify Animal- Traits - Animalistic Affliction -, calistrian courtesan, ease of faith, - Hedonistic - Skills Acrobatics -4 (-8 to jump), Diplomacy +6 (+7 to gather information), Handle Animal +6, Heal +8, Knowledge (geography) +4, Perception +8, Sense Motive +11, Survival +10; Racial Modifiers +2 Sense Motive Languages Common, Druidic, Hallit SQ nature bond (lion named Makt), nature sense, wild empathy +2 Other Gear hide armor, heavy wooden shield, scimitar, sling, sling bullets (20), 42 gp, 8 sp -------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Animal Companion Link (Ex) Handle or push Animal Companion faster, +4 to checks vs. them. Nature Sense (Ex) A druid gains a +2 bonus on Knowledge (nature) and Survival checks. Share Spells with Companion (Ex) Can cast spells with a target of "you" on animal companion, as touch spells. Wild Empathy +2 (Ex) Improve the attitude of an animal, as if using Diplomacy. -------------------- Sagira is a Mulhorand woman who grew up in a small town moderately close to the River of the Dawn. She is the daughter of a middle class family, the father a land owner and her mother a priestess of Bast (Sharess). From an early age Sagira has had an intense interest in Cats of all kinds and has been always drawn to Bast in her Mother of Cats and Feline of Felicity identites. She decided that the path of the Druid (specifically, a Lion Shaman) was the best path to show her faith and worship in Bast. She has raised a lioness cub from birth to near maturity and is now ready to start a life of adventure. She is generally a pleasant person who definitely shows cat like personality traits. Loves warmth, pleasure. Hates being criticized. Startled by loud noises. Faithful to friends and allies but willing to play a joke on them. Can be fiercely territorial (figuratively, not literally). She is adventuring primarily as a way of seeing the world, of helping to improve it a little bit. As a long term goal she wants to become a protector of the local feline population and that will require money, power, and friends.
Makt: Makt CR – Lion N Medium animal Init +3; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +6 -------------------- Defense -------------------- AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+3 armor, +3 Dex, +1 natural) hp 15 (2d8+2) Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2 -------------------- Offense -------------------- Speed 40 ft. Melee bite +3 (1d6+2), 2 claws +3 (1d4+2) Special Attacks rake (2 claws +3, 1d4+2) -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Str 15, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10 Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 16 (20 vs. trip) Feats Light Armor Proficiency Tricks Attack, Attack, Attack Any Target, Down, Flank, Heel, Hunt, Watch Skills Acrobatics +2 (+6 to jump), Climb +5, Perception +6 SQ attack, attack any target, down, flank, heel, hunt, watch Other Gear hide shirt -------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Attack [Trick] The animal will attack on command. Attack Any Target [Trick] The animal will attack any creature on command. Down [Trick] The animal will break off combat on command. Flank [Trick] Attempts to attack and flank indicated enemy. Heel [Trick] The animal will follow you. Hunt [Trick] Hunts or forages for food to bring to handler. Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail. Scent (Ex) Detect opponents within 15+ ft. by sense of smell. Watch [Trick] Stands watch over designated area.
Sekhmet ;_; Yup. One of my favourite PFS characters is an awakened leopard ClawDancer who used to be a temple guardian for Sekhmet. Great character (mechanically and for flavour). At least mechanically she gets no powers from Sekhmet so won't be affected by any changes PFS makes wrt dead Gods. But she'll be quite peeved if her beloved patron is no more.
No, this arguably puts it past a bow build. With a trident you're doing d8 base damage, full strength. In most campaigns (lots of dungeons, little outdoors combat with large ranges) that is better than either a short bow or longbow. Plus it lets you build a switch hitter more easily.
That seems quite reasonable. Which is pretty much proof as to how overpowered the archetype is in the first place :-)
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Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 5,432 posts (9,458 including aliases). 62 reviews. 1 list. No wishlists. 86 Organized Play characters. 36 aliases. 
