pauljathome's page

you are also gatekeeping styles of play rather then looking for balanced solutions.

I think that you are misunderstanding my point.

1) I absolutely think there is room for a shifting based class in the game and I think it could be done well and I'd LOVE to see it.

2) I don't think that the current druid is the correct starting point for that class. The druid is already a good and strong class if it is played as a spellcaster first and a melee combatant second or as essentially a pure spellcaster. There just isn't enough room in its power budget to make it a decent martial at the same time.

3) I think that the main problem with the current druid is that wild shaping is only a decent option at some levels and in some circumstances. I'd like to see changes to extend the levels where it is a decent option and to allow some way for it to be at least moderately decent at high levels when one can NOT grow to huge size.

Tridus's change above goes a long way to expanding the range of levels where wild shape is decent.

Some rule where you can take smaller forms with higher level spells with some modest reduction in damage (modest, not the 2 spell ranks it currently takes) would extend the circumstances in which wild shaping is good.

But pretty much any rule that would improve the wild shaping at the levels where it is already good (eg, L10 and L12 with Plant Shape) would be too much. It would make the druid too powerful. My L10 and L12 druid is already on the border (quite possibly past it) of being too powerful. Being a slightly subpar martial (and I'll only grant it being subpar at those levels when comparing it to one of the good martials built fairly well) when convenient, being able to throw Chain Lightning when convenient, and having a whole host of out of combat utility spells all on one character is just too much.

.

And this morning, I recalled that my wife bought me a (very) early birthday present, Tim Pratt's Starfinder 2E novel, Era of the Eclipse. I was going to save it for my birthday, but decided that it sounds like pretty much exactly the kind of thing that I want to read now, before diving back into more Sanderson.

I found it a very fun novel. Also a good introduction to the Starfinder universe

I think I agree that at higher levels the Animist pulls ahead for shapeshifting.

Although at L10 and L12 Plant Shape rocks for druids. And dragon form (I don't think the Animist gets this unless I'm missing something) is a really nice thing to have in ones bag of tricks.

But I think both Animist and Druid wild shape less and less at the higher levels. Spells are just so much better.

Compare Untamed Form Druid to polymorphing Animists for example. On turn 1 they can set up a sustainable 1-action spell and then set up their polymorph, all for 2 actions. Sure it costs two focus points not one, but if you're planning on spending the whole battle polymorphed, you weren't going to cast another focus spell anyway in all likelihood. This feels great in practice, because even if your Strikes are less accurate, you have a way to just not bother Striking with MAP pretty much ever.

The action economy difference between the Druid and Animist isn't as bad as you're portraying.

The Animist also has to take an action to circle their spirit.

And then they have to sustain both these spells, taking 2 actions to do so.

At level 9 they either don't have to take that extra action on the first round to circle their spirit or they at least get some movement when they sustain. But that is L9.

Now, I absolutely love the animist. But (and yes, this is from play experience) I think their respective wild shaping about balanced with the druids. The druid gets access to some more forms, the action cost can often work out in the druids favour, the druid sometimes gets that +2 status bonus to strike. The animist gets way more flexibility as they get to shift their form every round and are far more likely to act in the first round.

If, as some believe, animists get the temporary hit points every round then they're clearly superior to the druid. If (as I believe) they do NOT then they're about on par

Gang up is often though as an offensive feat.

But imo it really isn't, it's either a defensive feat or an action economy feat:

In the majority of occasions, people can stride and gain flanking, so the thing that Gang up offers is either defensive:

"Get flanking while staying near the people who can guard and heal you and not 20ft away"

Or action economy: "get flanking without spending the action to move".

In general you’re right. But it becomes offensive when normal flanking isn’t available ( choke point, opponent flying, opponent with back to wall, etc). These happen a reasonable amount of the time IME

The easiest fix to make Untamed druid more viable would just be to make three simple changes.

While all of these would be nice I’m not sure they’d help all that much.

Wild shape can be dismissed so if you really need to cast spells you can. You’re pretty much going to just cast spells from then on but that tends to be the right choice if you were willing to spend an action to do so as opposed to eating face.

And quicker wild shape would be quite nice but often not matter that much. Even now, if the bad guys get into melee range before your action you can wildshape and attack once. At worst, you’re losing the first round of combat and often that goes to movement anyway.

Some feat that let you cast a spell and wildshape as 3 actions would be almost as good. Cast some buff and wildshape on your first turn. And that would be a change that could be snuck in by just adding a feat

I think the net effect would be less than Tridus’s suggested change above

I cant take seriously players who claim to care about balance but gaslight as to why it should still be bad. and yes its bad. its the same mentality that, fighter players of wow had being happy feral was awful."go back to healing" attitude

Is it your goal to just insult people who have a different opinion than you do? Because, if so, well done. You've succeeded.

Obviously I can speak only for myself but I assure you that I DO care about balance and most certainly am NOT gaslighting when I say that in my experience druids who wildshape are doing just fine and it is NOT a bad option. That experience has been gained with multiple druids across multiple campaigns at levels from 3 to 20 (wild shape doesn't really come on line until level 3).

It is only a bad option if you insist on wild shaping when you should be doing other things.

It only applies if you're using your own attack modifier rather than the forms attack modifier (as usual). ... it does help someone trying to focus in on forms.

Ah, I see. I like it quite a lot. Now all that I have to do is to convince my GM :-)

pauljathome wrote:

One thing to point out is that some people treat "greater than" as "greater than or equal". Yeah, I know that isn't what the words actually mean but lots of people get that wrong (look at roll20 for an example where 19 is > 19). That extends the level ranges where the +2 applies considerably.

It also applies if you downcast. Which is generally a really bad idea admittedly but at least you get the +2 status.

I actually tried that as a house rule and it felt better. Then I tried "if you're an Untamed Druid it always applies, full stop" and that felt a LOT better since it brings you into the vicinity of actual martial proficiency.

It's still not great, but it doesn't feel like you're missing way more than everyone else at high level.

Did that apply regardless of Str? While I quite like the idea I'd think that would mean that you're REALLY heavily incentivized to play a Str dumping ancestry in that case.

Like, if your goal is "make a caster who has forms they can use at times"? Yeah, that's perfectly viable.

Yeah, that is pretty much what I mean.

If your goal is "make a Druid that plays like an older edition or D&D druid where forms can be your primary thing"? That's not viable, and that's what the demand for Shifter is intended to address.

Absolutely agreed. I've said several times that I really want a shifter for precisely this reason

(Also STR gets you shockingly little return on investment with higher level forms because you only get anything if you can get your attack bonus higher than the form's bonus, and its actually impossible to do that at a lot of levels lot of levels. Giving Druid a +2 bonus that it almost never actually qualifies for is one of the stranger design choices here.)

Agreed.

One thing to point out is that some people treat "greater than" as "greater than or equal". Yeah, I know that isn't what the words actually mean but lots of people get that wrong (look at roll20 for an example where 19 is > 19). That extends the level ranges where the +2 applies considerably.

It also applies if you downcast. Which is generally a really bad idea admittedly but at least you get the +2 status.

For those who like Order of the Stick, Elan is way ahead of you :-) :-)

which is extremely funny.

For demoralize, it's always going to suck, but if you weren't going to use that independent action anyways may as well take your shot right?

I know, I deliberately cut out some context in my quote to make my point.

The whole concept of my cat hissing or my toad puffing up and scaring the big bad monster or seasoned warrior is absolutely hilarious :-).

For the Wild Order Druid - which should be viable being wild most of the time - you should invest in Strength or many of your feats are shut to you. You can easily spend all of your feats on this. Then you also need to pick up a couple of typically Fighter feats to get a maneuver and reactive strike. Then you still look like a...

Sure. I've done this several times. And I just do NOT find the resulting character in any way not viable.

There is room to grab your first level blasty Order spell as well as your shapeshifting feats. You get all your important class stuff as part as your class chassis. Its easy to have max Wis and Str at +3 or +4.

You just don't lose all that much going a full Gish wild shaper.

Now, I agree that this absolutely should NOT wild shape all the time. Its viable because you're a spell caster first and a wild shaper second. And as you get into the mid teens and above you wild shape less and less. All of which is why I absolutely agree that a Shifter would be a great thing

But my maxed out Str, all but one feat on fighty wild shaping things is quite viable

Key question for the Shifter martial IMO is What do you do when you're NOT Shifted?

An Untamed Druid falls back on their casting.

A martial MC Untamed Druid falls back on their feats and class features.

I feel the Shifter would be in a situation similar to the not-Raging Barbarian.

Is there such a thing as a non raging barbarian? :-)

Slightly more seriously, I'd expect a dedicated shifter to just about always be shifting (just like a barbarian just about always rages). And, just like a barbarian, they'd be ok but not much more on those few occassions that they can't. Ie, they probably still have Str maxed out, good AC, a D10 or D12 weapon, etc

When starting at level 11 are we allowed to typically buy level 12 equipment as long as we can afford it?

Up to the GM but not typically.

In my experience most GMs use the item chart which just gives you L10 an lower items

Playing all the modules in the Invasion's Edge metaplot on the same character is unfortunately impossible, as there are 8 level 3-4 scenarios in the metaplot.

There is a workaround that I'm planning on doing. It feels kinda wrong but, in my mind, I'm doing this because Paizo is sort of forcing me to by both creating too many 3-4 metaplot scenarios and not allowing slow play in SFS.

I'm just going to create a brand new L3 character who is an exact clone of the character that was deliberately created to do only the metaplot scenarios (back before it was known that there was this issue). In my head canon the actual character did all the scenarios.

I'll hasten to add that I will NOT take any illegal advantage of this. That character will NOT have access to the boons, will say "no" if asked by the GM whether they played that scenario, etc.

But as far as I the player am concerned that character DID take place on all the metaplot scenarios.

It is a generalist option. It is OK ish. But it is never great. It does not feel good enough.

As a generalist option it is exceedingly cheap (1 second level class feat Order Explorer or even just throw money at the problem and buy some scrolls). This lets your Str -1 Gnome have the option of being a reasonably decent melee character (NOT on par with a true martial, but moderately decent) when the situation warrants it. I've got a gnome druid and he only rarely shifts but he does so way more than enough to warrant the 1 feat he has invested in it.

Or you go the other route and invest fairly heavily. Raise Str. Take something like fighter archetype to get Reactive Strike. Maybe martial or some racial weapon proficiency to get access to some better weapons.

This makes your character a decent Gish when NOT shapeshifted, relying mostly on spells but able to go into the front line and do the Strike for one action/Throw a spell for 2 actions routine. And then, when the situation warrants it you turn into a better form (maybe better just because of reach and Reactive Strike, maybe you're at one of the few levels where the +2 status bonus for using your own attacks kicks in).

I've played both types and been quite satisfied with both. But both absolutely are spell casters first and melee combatants second. Which is why I'd personally LOVE to see a Shifter class. All of my comments on how decent the druid currently is do NOT change the fact that a decent Shifter class would be a wonderful thing to have

I always struggle to find a moment to actually use battleforms spells outside of flavour reasons. It always seems like there is another spell I can cast and just be more effective. Most parties already have a frontline, it's not like it needs more. It's fairly hard to judge when to use these spells for me.

Personally, I tend to use battleform spells in a few circumstances

Really outside of storm order and stone order, druids are kind of weak compared to the other full casters so it shouldn't be game breaking to allow for untamed to be better.

If you think storm order and stone order druids are reasonably balanced with other casters then there really is NOT a lot of room to make untamed significantly better.

Since you can trivially be a storm or stone order AND an untamed order

pauljathome wrote:

Gang up with a reach weapon is very, very, very good.

So good that it's worth giving up sneak attack? There's only, like, two common weapons that rogues are proficient with and that qualify for sneak attack.

Absolutely not. I use Dancers spear unless some other option is available in a particular campaign

The fact that they buffed it in the remaster is utterly baffling (just like the fort save buff that Rogues got).

Three options spring to mind

Gang Up is over-rated.

Gang up with a normal weapon is quite good but not incredibly so.

Gang up with a reach weapon is very, very, very good. Suddenly the rogue is in a nice protected spot in the middle of the party and just about everybody has flank and there are no Conga Lines Of DOOM.

With the downside that the entire group can be easily hit by AoEs :-(

It's a GM and player decision about whether the GM will warn the players if some roll they want to make is high risk

Sure. But

1) You are actively breaking the rules which say that one ALWAYS gets to know the skill
2) The macro seems, in my experience, to increase the chances of the GM breaking these rules
3) Some of us (me, for example) really, really hate not knowing what skill to roll. To the point that we'll just about never roll without knowing. Which actually isn't a huge thing. If I was playing at your table and wasn' playing a Thaumaturge I'd just never make RK knowledge checks

pauljathome wrote:

Player : I'm thinking that maybe I should try and know something about the monster

GM : Well, if you want to then just spend an action and roll that macro. I'll then tell you what you know
Player : What skills am I using?
GM : You don't know. Just spend the action and roll the macro
Player: Spends Action. Rolls macro. Crit fails his untrained skill.
GM : Lies to the player

Now maybe that is NOT what you actually do but your posts make me think you do exactly the above.

This is not how it works. I will try one more time.

Player says they want to RK.
Player clicks the macro button which causes ONE d20 secret die roll (secret = only GM sees the result).
Macro tells the GM if that die roll result succeeds or fails using the PC's relevant skills.
The GM tells player info based on best skill use result.

That is EXACTLY the same as what I'm saying. I spend an action and get a crit fail a large part of the time (when I'm untrained in all relevant skills and roll low) even at quite low levels and it just gets worse and worse the higher level I get.

But I'm done with discussing this with you. I'm not sure if you have some mental block and are just unable to understand my point or if you're just trolling but at this point I'm done

Edit: Or maybe it is me who has the blind spot. Could somebody who is not Easl pleae chime in. Am I missing something in his argument?

pauljathome wrote:

That is not the scenario of any interest to me. The scenario of interest to me is that Arcana, Crafting and Golem Lore are ALL untrained. With my Int of -1 it isn't at all unlikely that I'll crit fail on all 3 even at low levels. At higher levels it is very, very likely that I'll crit fail on all 3.

But ignoring that issue with your example, since both Arcana and Crafting are INT skills, you are neither more or less probable to get a crit fail by rolling one vs. rolling both, since the result will be the same for both regardless of what number you roll.

Are you really misunderstanding my point? I'm starting to strongly suspect that you're just trolling at this point. But in case you're genuinely misunderstanding me.

From what you've said I think you do the following:
Player : I'm thinking that maybe I should try and know something about the monster
GM : Well, if you want to then just spend an action and roll that macro. I'll then tell you what you know
Player : What skills am I using?
GM : You don't know. Just spend the action and roll the macro
Player: Spends Action. Rolls macro. Crit fails his untrained skill.
GM : Lies to the player

Now maybe that is NOT what you actually do but your posts make me think you do exactly the above.

Claxon wrote:

But if a group pisses me off by abusing grey parts of the rules and I warn them that I don't like it and they continue to ignore it, I have 0 problem killing off all those characters. And doing so repeatedly until they get the message.

That's not a great way to handle it imo. Really, it's 100% a people problem, one of mismatched expectations. It needs people solutions (i.e. conversation followed by agreement/compromise or by parting ways), not gameplay solutions.

Conversations first, absolutely.

But if the player doesn't change their behaviour it MAY be because they think that you're bluffing, that you won't actually be willing to enforce your parameters.

In which case, proof at the table that you meant what you said may well be the right solution.

Mechanically, I want the entire focus being on the shifting, with no distractions like spellcasting. I want them to be able to focus on one or two forms like a WoW Feral Druid and take on standard martial roles, or have more flexibility to be a as-the-situation-requires shapeshifter and have more of a utility role. They should be able to change forms lighting fast (free action once per turn type of fast). They should also start with a full body transformation at level 1, so you're not mucking around with baby "I grow some mediocre generic claws to be a bad Barbarian for 2 levels" stuff.

I think that, purely mechanically, the Kineticist might well be the place to start. Several different "Paths (Animal, Avian, Dragon, Plant, etc etc)" with the character having the option of specializing or going more broadly.

With huge amounts of reflavouring the Kineticist is actually sort of almost close at mid levels. Versatile blasts are just your taking on several different attacking appendages. You can grow wings (ie, air impulses), turn into a dragon and breath fire (fire impulses) etc.

Obviously you'd need to increase the damage of melee attacks, lose bunches of powers, gain bunches of powers. But I think that it is conceptually a good place to start and would make implementation both easier and likely more balanced.

D- is too low, though. Untamed Druid is definitely above that. It's C level a lot of the time and higher than that when it's good.

I'd pretty much agree with that

pauljathome wrote:

Druids DO definitely start to fall off a lot at high levels but that isn't important in many campaigns. And by high levels their spells are ruling the game. Oh no, poor me, I'm just a legendary spell caster. Whatever will I do ? :-) :-) :-)

Which is exactly why people want Shifter to exist: because Untamed falls off at high level and the thing that replaces it is "you're a spellcaster again." If you want the wild shape feel as the character concept, you really can't get it for a whole campaign right now.

Absolutely agreed. I REALLY, REALLY want a good shifter class. But

Arutema wrote:

Did you check Character Options for the Tian Xia Character Guide?

Thank you; I see it now

Quote:

The suggested rarity adjustments of ancestries for characters from Tian Xia are not used in Organized Play. Boons must still be purchased for uncommon and rare ancestries, regardless of a character’s origin.

Which seems to directly contradict the sentence in the next paragraph

But the fact that there ARE boons seems to strongly apply that the first, and not the second, sentence "wins".

From a game balance perspective its probably a bit of a problem but not a huge one. You're essentially giving everybody access to the Vicious Swing feat if they take a boost weapon. And the consensus on that feat (at least the last time I glanced at the consensus) is that it is sometimes better than swinging twice and sometimes not. Of course, the math changes somewhat for starfinder as there are generally less damage bonuses being handed out so the damage dice are a larger part of a characters damage.

From a game world/variety point of view then yeah, it becomes a larger issue. Boost weapons are absolutely significantly better than most other weapons, they relegate low level Solarion weapons into the "mostly trash" category, etc.

A lot of the time, just looking at the token/mini/listening to a description tells you that. Constructs are largely obvious from the description.

Bad faith players can abuse that to get info without rolling, but if that's happening frequently you deal with it.

You think that it is a bad faith action from a player to look at the image and decide the monster is likely a construct?

I find it hard to express how vehemently I disagree with that position.

pauljathome wrote:

Yes I have read his posts. All of them. Maybe I am misinterpreting him

You are misinterpreting me.

You spend an action. You roll a hidden roll. If it's DC 20 against Arcana and Crafting and DC 16 against Golem lore (bonus for more specificity), and yet you are untrained in Golem Lore, Trained in Arcana, and Expert in crafting, the GM will compare the roll+bonuses (different in each case) to each DC, and you get the best. If the results would be succeed, fail, crit fail, you do not crit fail AND succeed, nor do you crit fail instead of succeeding, you just succeed.

That is not the scenario of any interest to me. The scenario of interest to me is that Arcana, Crafting and Golem Lore are ALL untrained. With my Int of -1 it isn't at all unlikely that I'll crit fail on all 3 even at low levels. At higher levels it is very, very likely that I'll crit fail on all 3.

If I'm understanding you correctly, I'll both spend an action and get a crit fail as I crit fail all 3 of my untrained skills.

if warrior is rank S in melee it would be fine for druid to be B+. currently its d-. you have to account for the fact it cannot cast while morphed

It is currently very, very far from D-. At some levels it is probably A.

For example (assuming sufficient space) a Str Druid with Plant Shape at L10 has a +20 to hit, a 15 ft reach, and does 2d10+11.

At L12 it has a +24 to hit, a 20 ft reach and does 2d10+16

Now, those 2 specific levels are absolutely chosen to be the best possible levels for a druid. But with those numbers they're pretty much comparable or superior to lots of martials (if you've chosen to go this route you've probably picked up reactive strike or champions reaction).

But a Str -1 Druid at L7 who has invested 1 entire feat into wild shape has a 10 ft reach attack at +16 for 2d8+9.

Compare this with a Precision Ranger who when hitting his hunted target has a +16 to hit with a D10 reach weapon for 2d10+d8+6. The druid is worse but I'd claim not a D- worse.

Druids DO definitely start to fall off a lot at high levels but that isn't important in many campaigns. And by high levels their spells are ruling the game. Oh no, poor me, I'm just a legendary spell caster. Whatever will I do ? :-) :-) :-)

Note that the numbers for druid make the most conservative assumptions about how wild shape works. Under some rules interpretations the numbers could be higher.

There is pretty much ZERO room to improve Wild Shape for the Druid without just making it overpowered. Its already far too competitive.

I would advise your friend to drop that mentality, because otherwise they're going to cause problems for you as a GM and you're likely to want to drop such a friend from the game.

I know nothing at all about your friend so the following may be completely off base.

But that attitude of "I can do anything not explicitly forbidden" is often (NOT always, often) the sign of a munchkin power gamer.

The best answer that I've found for munchkin power gamers (when just kicking them out of the game wasn't a great response for "reasons") has been "I have one ironclad unchangeable rule as a GM. Whatever the players can do, the NPCs can do". It instantly shuts down almost all the munchkin nonsense.

Question: why are we wringing our hands so much around focus Spellstriking compared to slot Spellstriking, but not doing the same about those same focus spells doing close to top-rank spell slot damage? If a Druid can tempest surge for close to thunderstrike damage without expending a spell slot, why is it bad for a Magus to Spellstrike with fire ray instead of a two-action blazing bolt? What actual problems come about in practice from a Magus Spellstriking with focus attack spells?

I think a huge portion of the issue is the Starlit Span Magus.

They get to spellstrike pretty much every round. While most Maguses more or less get to spellstrike every other round.

So every Magus option has to be evaluated with Starlit Span in mind and is therefore probably too weak for every non Starlit Span magus.

If the Starlit Span Magus was just removed or seriously nerfed (which, for Paizo, is essentially the same thing as if they nerf it they're all but guaranteed to over nerf it into oblivion :-() then a lot of things to improve the Magus would become possible

Druid overall falls into the same bad initial design as war priest. At least war priest was able to cast spells and got buffed via errata.

My guess is that there are enough other orders and strong druid options so no one really cares to play untamed.

I may be an outlier but I love untamed druids. And find them quite effective too. The trick is to make sure that your wild shape is ONE in your bag of tricks, only to be pulled out when the situation warrants it.

Would still love a dedicated shifter martial, mind. IF it was well done. From a very high level perspective I'd expect it to be a little less effective in straight up combat than a normal martial but with lots and lots of situational tricks from wild shape to make up for that small (and it would have to be fairly small) reduction in raw power.

I'd expect the Archetype to be absolute garbage just to make the job of balancing it much easier :-).

Kalaam wrote:

I imagine they are referring to abusing the new weakness errata or something ? Or like total damage from hits and misses from certain strike proccing weaknesses or accounting for the first attack being a hit.

Or some weird whiteroom build

"Stack all the flat damage and spam certain strike" is not the best fighter build but it's a surprisingly good one. A friend of mine originally made it as a meme but kept it around as a legit build because it kinda eats high AC bosses for breakfast.

Level 20 round two damage:
Qstrike for 4 damage (shockwave rune)
Certain strike for 4 + 7 (STR) + 8 (weapon spec) + 12 (shadow sheath) + 2 (Quietus strikes) + 4 (forceful from tiger menuki) + 10 (draconic barrage) = 47
Again for 47
Again for 47
= 145
193 if we use desperate finisher (we don't though, we wanna keep our reactions)

If we've had chance to prebuff our damage can go up 4 per CS from heightened enlarge and 10 from shining symbol, I guess 20 now with the new weakness rules. Or maybe a party member pops shining symbol, it was often worth it if you had two martials with spirit damage even before the weakness change.

At, say, level 13, it'll be a good bit lower... but I'm sure the DPR numbers shoot right back up if you account for the fact that you, the fighter, are not going to be missing all three attacks that often. I'll eat my hat if they're not on par or better than a magus's.

And this doesn't account for your two reactions a round, greater crit chance (important with CC like rooting and crit specs), athletics maneuvers, better saves, better HP, less disruptable action routines, etc.

A sincere thank you for sharing that build.

Ok, that is just a hilarious combination (all legal but definitely smells of cheese to me). I said earlier that I was pretty sure that your table optimized more than I do. Obviously I was right :-).

Any table that allows Examplar Archetypes is definitely allowing far more optimization than I like :-) (and yes, I recognize that is a fairly small part of that build). If your table optimizes like this pretty obviously you're just ROTFL stomping absolutely everything that Paizo produces if it was run as written.

Note, I'm NOT trying to call BadWrongFun (hyper optimizing can be lots of fun if everybody is on board and has about the same level of system mastery) but I think you'll admit that you're optimizing far more than most tables and therefore are a significant outlier.

At MOST tables a Magus is quite viable without Imaginary Weapon or Focus spells. Not necessarily great but viable

Yeah I don't understand what the problem is here

The problem is that

"its not forbid so i could do it" type of mentality.

Never, ever, ever, ever allow that argument or your game will rapidly dissolve into an unplayable mess.

"I just want do drop this protector tree on the enemy from 60 ft up. That should do lots of damage and trap him, right? its not forbid so i could do it"

"I just stab him right through the heart so he dies. its not forbid so i could do it"

"My Tanuki turns into a tiny needle, crawls into the bad guys mouth and then grows inside him splitting him in two. its not forbid so i could do it"

Don’t tell me my gatcha gambling fire ray spellstrike is OP when the fighter just did a hundred damage from *missing* all their strikes on their turn (certain strike go brrr)

Ok, how the heck does a fighter do this much damage from missing? What am I missing?

Even at L20 I'm getting 6 from Str and 8 from Legendary greater weapon specialization. Assuming you're hasted that is 3 misses (first doesn't count since gatcha has press). So, 42. Which, while hardly nothing, is a long, long way from 100. I guess a level 20 Thaumaturge ally can bring that up to 102 if the opponent has a weakness 20 to something but that seems a bit excessive to treat that as the baseline

On most days 4 spells is enough, especially if you supplement with scrolls, wands, staves, and so on.

You are not meant to spend your slots that easily, unless your DM throws severe fights at you all the time you shouldn't need to use 2 slots every encounter !

That is VERY campaign and GM dependent. Sometimes 4 spells is enough, sometimes its slightly lacking, and sometimes its a disastrously low amount.

The Magus needs to be (and IS) reasonably effective with just its cantrips and maybe some low level utility spells from scrolls and wands.

One key problem with any shapeshifter class is that Paizo would pretty much HAVE to come up with official positions on how shapeshifting currently works (things like what is "your own attack modifier", what effects do things like rage have on damage, etc etc etc).

I have no idea why Paizo is so reluctant to answer these questions but we've been asking since the playtest and they have yet to answer.

And some of them have fairly significant impact on how well a shapeshifted character fares

Right now a shifting druid is a very good character as long as they take advantage of their versatility.

And the animist already has somewhat different shifting abilities that make it a competitor to the druid, a bit better in some circumstances and a bit worse on others.

Which means that pretty much the only way paizo will make shifting better is to come up with a shifter class. A pure martial.

I'd love to see a good implementation of that but it will be difficult to balance. And between druid, animist, druid archetype and various polymorph feats a lot ( not all, but a lot) of the player shape shifting fantasies are already covered. So I wouldn't expect this to be a high priority for them.

Were they on par with an average ranger and swashbuckler or with well built ones?

On par with what you'd probably consider average builds. I get the impression that you play in higher optimization level games than I do.

The one was PFS where decent out of combat ability and good flexibility are key. The other was good enough to go through all of The Ruby Phoenix Tournament while contributing what seemed to me to be at least his fair share.

If they kill focus spell spellstrikes and don’t seriously buff magus on the level on an entire spellstrike font or higher, the class is pretty much dead. Probably worse than inventor which is already in a terrible state.

I think you're exaggerating a lot.

I've played two maguses. Neither used a psychic dedication nor a focus spell. Both did quite well with cantrips, utility spells and the occassional blasty spell to take down the hordes of mooks.

Oh, and neither were Starlit Span either (While it is clearly quite powerful I just hate the playstyle of "Pew Pew" almost EVERY round).

While certainly not overpowered they were definitely at least on par with a ranger or swashbuckler and more powerful than an Inventor (a very low bar, I admit).

But If you have, let's say Nature, and still not Occult, and you roll, I'm going to use that "good" result from the Nature check to say something like "you know that this is not a natural beast or animal". If you also have Occult, I'm instead going to use the Occult result and say "you know that this is an aberration called X, what do you want to know about it?", and etc.

Ah, that is more reasonable than what I thought you were doing. That makes sense. All I am risking by rolling is the action.

I’d still use RK much less often than if I knew what skill I had to use ahead of time. I’d pretty much use it only when I had a “free, extra” action that turn. But I would use it.

But to be clear you are still making RK significantly worse than written in one respect in that I am still wasting an action when I don’t have the skill

Then they realized I hadn't attempted it at all and when I explained that I was bad at this, they realized they could use that. So they had me do it, and then just did the opposite of what I came up with... which worked.

That is a hilarious story.

In fact, it is even realistic. In real life I had a friend who had a TERRIBLE sense of direction. We once got totally lost and made our way out by a series of
“Which way do you think we should go?”
“Left”
“Ok, turn right.”

He was wrong something like 5 times in a row ;-)

What makes sense is simply "I try to remember what I know about this thing I'm looking at".

I agree that is what makes sense in the real world. But we're playing a game where real world logic is sometimes very, very, very far from the game mechanics.

To take the example of Recall Knowledge, it makes absolutely no sense at all in the real world that if you're given a very difficult question about something that you know virtually nothing about you're going to get the wrong answer almost all the time.

For example, I know nothing about the Indian sport of Mallakhamb (never even heard of it until I did a google search for "obscure indian sport"). If you asked me a very simple or very difficult question my answer would be the same "I don't know". I would essentially NEVER get the wrong answer (nor the right answer, for that matter)

From a gaming perspective, for most of my characters I'm NOT going to waste an action to get the wrong answer a significant portion of the time, especially if the GM is being actively malicious and giving me harmful misinformation.

As mostly an aside one thing that makes me even more angry are GMs who will maliciously lie to me and then get upset at my "metagaming" when I ignore the false information because it is obvious to me the player that the GM is lying to me.

From my point of view, if the GM is going to break this particular rule by using this macro in the way that you've described then I'll either
1) Play a character who actually DOES know a lot about everything. Thaumaturge being most likely but a high Int/Wis skill monkey is also a possibility
2) Never ever ever under any circumstances (only a very slight exaggeration) make a knowledge check in combat and always assume my information is very likely wrong.
3) If I'm feeling particularly snarky continually make knowledge checks with my untrained skills so as to know some incorrect fact. Only a good idea if I'm playing a self aware buffoon.

You are missing something. It is a general rule that if you would become Trained in a skill and are already Trained or better in that skill, you choose a new skill to become Trained in. If the skill was a lore, the new skill must be a lore.

Right. Thanks

pauljathome wrote:

Wearing plate mail doesn't quite compensate for not raising dex but its pretty close. So, Str, Con, Wis, Int. Quite achievable

I agree. Previously, I'd have argued that this is difficult for a Magus to obtain when they're prioritizing a Psychic MC archetype

My magus just burned a general feat. As you say, the Cha is too rich a cost for Champion.