wegrata's page

Love the changes to witch. The new familiar abilities seem very fun and requires interesting tactics to take advantage of. Hopefully Champion reaction can trigger of things affecting the familiar, would make some interesting collaboration depending on the availabile choices.

A very minor thing I think is funny, is that the witch that explicitly doesn't use study to gain their abilities but a contract with a patron uses int as it's primary ability score, while the thaumaturge which does explicitly study uses charisma. Just a thing that seems mismatched to me.

I'd absolutely love this type of character, Corin Cadence from Arcane Ascension is one of my favorite protagonists. Having that type of capability would be awesome.

R3st8 wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

I think NerdOver9000's idea would be great if you do adventuring days with an absolute ton of encounters, but it's not really good if you have shorter days with a few big encounters that all need big guns. Because their solution really really reduces the amount of spells available per encounter. And in a severe or extreme encounter, you need more than that.

I think the solution is rather in bumping up the focus spells a bit in power, so they sit in between your cantrips and your highest level spells.

It would also be very simple to implement since all you need to do is add the new focus spells and get their balance right, one way to do this is just give each type of wizard the most iconic spells of his school as a focus spell:

evocation - magic missile > fireball > disintegration

conjuration - temporary tool > summon animal > teleport

transmutation - humanoid form > elemental form > dragon form

illusionist - minor image > invisibility > phantasmal killer

enchanter - charm person > heroism > suggestion

divination - detect magic > true strike > true seeing

necromancer - false life > animate dead > could kill

abjuration - mage armor > resist energy > repulsion

Note: yeah I suck at balancing things maybe someone can do better

I love the straightforwardness of this idea. Of course with the switch from schools to curriculums the actual selection of spells would have to change, but there are a couple of good ideas in this list;

- Evocation; yes, giving real big ticket spells through focus points, means you're doing a blast at full volume every encounter. That definitely hammers home the point that you went to this school for blasting.

- Enchantment: at first I was "meh, charm person". But giving incapacitation spells as focus spells actually does an interesting job of making them much more viable, since they auto-heighten. It still won't be enough to do get through...

Slightly off topic, but related to incapacitation. I was thinking about a condition like 4e bloodied, that lowered your effective level. Like at 75% health you'd get bloodied 1, and it would reduce your level by 1 for incapacitation effects. Would allow martials to do their thing and support casters in a really meaningful way.

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

If you're expecting your caster to be a damage dealer just behind martials AND can alter the game with your utility magic at the same time, you're expecting too much.

It all comes down to this.

What are the options for ditching the utility to up your damage?

I think people have it the wrong way round. True Strike isn't limiting martial caster design. It's an exception to caster accuracy rules that the designers consider to be acceptably costly.

Without true strike being in the game you likely still wouldn't have greater martial accuracy options for casters (at least without class archetypes stripping alot of casting away for it.)

True Strike is a get around the limitation (with clear trade offs), not the reason such limitations exist.

Do you have a citation from a developer for this? If there's one spell that breaks the stacks with everything rule and has to be considered for everything, it's an outlier and the mistake imo. It should have followed the other standard design goals, if it was intended to be universally available and the primary solution to this, then it should have been on all spell lists.

AlastarOG wrote:

As well, as discussed in this thread, you CAN effectively hit in melee or ranged with a caster, just... Manage your expectations.

I've seen the full plate + bastard sword wearing bard in my agents of edgewatch campaign ravage stuff with heroism+true strike + power attack when he was mopping up stuff and wanted to preserver spell slots.

Most interesting was Mark S comments on this. From which I deduce that True Strike is one of the key balance factors. Because it applies to all attacks, its just too strong to give casters better spell attack numbers, or better weapon attack numbers.

IE if you are playing a caster in melee get a ring of wizardry and spam as many true strike spells as you can.

Before you mention that its not available to war priests I'd like to point out the number of Deities that can get it: Achaekek, Cernunnos, Dammerich, Eiseth, Erastil, Falayna, General Susumu, Gorum, Iomedae, Otolmens, Ragathiel, Raumya, Sekhmet, Shizuru, Sorrow's Sword, Yaezhing.

But you could just take a arcane multiclass anyway...

This to me sounds like how true strike is problematic. If a single first level spell has to be taken into account that globally for the game, that spell needs fixed.

Ly'ualdre wrote:

Thank you keftiu for reminding me of my one true love.

High Seas or riot.
Lol

What about a "Low tides" book that focuses on coastal settings and maybe other transitional zones, that can easily feature changing environments between water and land? Or even flying fortresses and tall cliff dwelling cultures. With lots of environmental rules, hazards, skill feats and just a general expansion of the environment as encounter?

Plus Interesting ancestry and cultural development of peoples that don't nation build, but just survive and move around in hostile environments.

I can entirely get behind this. Nothing like a port city to kick off an adventure and meet interesting and weird folks.

Yeah i think it boils down to not offering unsolicited advice to randoms on the internet. Especially those with a large audience, and therefore getting a lot of unasked for feedback. Loving the game and wanting to talk about it are awesome, but forcing someone not interested in having the conversation isn't. Consent matters for everything, even conversation.

I'm hoping we get some interesting alchemical weapons in the book. We have the alchemical cross bow and bomb launcher. Maybe some interesting combination weapons involving alchemy somehow.

I hoping for more content like beastguns and beast gunner archetype. I love the fantasy of a character that specializes in making maximum use out of a class of objects.

Maybe weapons made out of some type of plane touched ore, and a group dedicated to perfecting making and wielding them.

Anyone else half expecting to see kineticist as a class archetype for psychic? Burn for brain drain, primal for occult, different amps?

I was thinking about how to have a class use runestones as a component for it's class features. Something like an arcane smith archetype that can hold a one handed weapon and a property runestone in their offhand. While doing this they apply the rune to their weapon.

One thing I'd be interested in seeing in a weapon summoning cantrip is it creating an advanced weapon unarmed weapon and rather than it automatically scaling damage, it scales proficiency and still uses runes.

Something like
summon sword cantrip 1
1 action
1d6 slashing damage (maybe d8? not sure)
Uses casting stat
Trained prof
Scaling
Lvl 3 expert prof
Lvl 7 master prof

Then you'd still have to participate in buying weapon runes and would still have some of the flexibility it presents.

fully open to damage type/die changes to be more balanced and effective.

wegrata wrote:

I'd like to see a beetle based ancestry. With heritages like the ironclad beetle and the long-horned beetle. Would be a neat concept for a insect ancestry that's not a thri-kreen

Edit: spelling

So something like PF1E's/Starfinder's Trox? I could get behind that. They even have various sub-species on their native home of Nchak.

I never played starfinder but after looking up Trox all I can say is very yes. Nearly exactly what I had in mind

I'd like to see a beetle based ancestry. With heritages like the ironclad beetle and the long-horned beetle. Would be a neat concept for a insect ancestry that's not a thri-kreen

Edit: spelling

The Raven Black wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, you could also do the thing that the monk does where you choose between primal and occult (in the monk's case divine and occult).

The pyrokineticist, hydrokineticist, aerokineticist, and geokineticist would be primal, but the telekineticist, chaokineticist, arakineticist, elysiokineticist, and pyschokineticist might make more sense as occult.

There's no reason you can't make the class accomodate both Nature and Occultism depending on other choices, since that's just a choice of tertiary stats.

That is interesting since Primal and Occult stand opposite to one another as far as Essences are concerned.

Maybe the Kineticist should tap directly into the Essences : Material for those you identified as primal and Spiritual for those seen as occult.

This would also nicely explain why they are not casters, since they would not be relying on any Tradition.

I do appreciate someone else drawing upon the fact that Primal and Occult stand opposite each other. And I very much like the idea of them directly interacting with a single element instead of the Traditions as we know them. Really carves out the "weird, not-quite-magic" space they occupy, and I do hope that's what happens when they come back.

That juxtaposed against the thaumaturge is kinda interesting to me.

Kineticist drawing from the bottom of the stack if you will by interacting with the essences directly vs thaumaturge drawing from the top by taking a bit here and there from all traditions and therefore all essences.

Kinda neat conceptually for me

3. I really wish that Paizo would have taken the time to differentiate Pathfinder magic from classic Vancian magic. Focus spells are nice, and I like the changes made to existing spells generally. Like making Magic Missile and Heal variable action spells. I just wish that More spells were altered like that.

I'm hoping we get an updated words of power to demonstrate this. The new action system could work really well here.

What do folks think about it being a will save vs class DC? Especially for debuffs type effects?

I guess it depends on the fluf for what makes the most sense. If I'm using my connection to divine the weakness or if I'm using it to create the weakness.

Like does the connection tell me the creature is weak to something or will be sickened by it or is th connection creating the weakness.

It's magically enforcing a psychosomatic effect on a target. You're saying in a powerful magical sense, "this goo on my sword, well it affects you (werewolf) just like silver" and the universe and by proxy the werewolf says "okey dokey boss"

That's my take on it.

I'd really like to see Rougarous show up, and some kind of ogrekin/half-ogre. The last could be a versatile heritage I'd think.

For my group it was the fun toys being used against us in a pivotal moment that was demoralizing.

The +10/-10 is fun to be in the winning side of but not on the losing, and it's especially prevalent in trivial and sever encounters.

I said it earlier in the thread, by the proficiency without level optional rule helped out a lot with it. We don't get to use crit ad much, but neither does the enemy.

It also helps summons feel less useless as you level up.

YuriP wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

PFS adventures are made with random players/characters. They have a strong potential in going south.

I read some PFS books and they have shorter adventures less encounters and apparently more easier. Could may useful for new players and others players that fell the APs too difficult?

PFS adventures are, overall, easier. But... What makes them sometimes hard is that they are far more random. The characters don't know each other, the players don't necessarily know each other, etc...

I've played once with a single martial in a 6-player party. It went fine, but these are the games that can spiral out of control very easily.
And even outside that extreme case, you may end up with a configuration that just doesn't match, or players that don't click together, or just flat out beginners/bad players that are crippling everyone.

One important thing to take into account in PF2 is that everything is super balanced. If one character doesn't meet the expectations, the game becomes far harder. When I was playing the first 2 levels of my Alchemist (level 1-2 Alchemist is a chore) I was really feeling it as most adventures where quite hard compared to those I was playing with more efficient characters.

In PF1, overpowered characters were sometimes making the whole adventure alone, so a weak character or even a straight useless character was not causing much issues.

Wouldn't that mean the design goal of making the difference between a well built character and a poorly built one being very small wasn't really hit

What's really helped my group was the variant rule that removes level from proficiency. This helps both summons keep up and boss encounters from feeling "unfair".

The example of the chain from a slave vs a tyrant, could come from an old legend/myth and your will combined with the known myth your ability. In my head there are two parts of this activity, knowing the lore and having your will enforce it in reality, this was represented mechanically by RK skills+charisma.

At least this is how my mind interpreted it.

Yeah but all of that happened over the course of the comics. In the beginning he was kind of a mix between this thaumaturge and a rogue.

I do think a unique lore skill would fit the bill better or even having a new action that's class DC vs will save rather than another skill check, but that's pretty much a focus cantrips named something else.

In this case since it's half recollection and half force of will is why it's charisma for the ability to represent force of personality on reality and recall knowledge to represent remembering the tale.

I think this fits, since your knowledge plays a bigger role as it will generally have a higher number.

It's both though, your recalling is literally what causes the creation.

I kinda agree it could be int equally to charisma in my book, since it's a single act that is both recalling and creating.

wegrata wrote:

Golurkcanfly wrote:

wegrata wrote:

Yeah I'd almost like it changed to be a check against will DC of the target and be completely separate from the "common flaws" that anyone can exploit.

Like anyone can use fire against a troll, but a thaum can do fire and oil from some exotic plan that has a similar debilitating effect, but in this case it's the characters will making the oil have this effect rather than anything inherent to the troll.

Like it's the combination of the stories the character heard in their past and their unshakable belief in those stories that makes it, at least temporarily, a part of reality.

The oil and fire plan seems more like something an INT-based class would do, like an Investigator.

Right now it feels weirdly against the flavor of the Thaum, since it's actively encouraged to dump the stat that best represents knowledge and don't really care about actually using fire. The ability just makes you do the extra damage and doesn't actually simulate finding the right tool, just the result.

Bad phrasing on my part, the oil in this case wouldn't be flammable, it would be toxic on it's own without the fire, with the fire it would hit 2 weaknesses.

That would be interesting, but does kinda raise some questions with how it interacts with Recall Knowledge and where CHA comes into play.

I think this plays into the explanation, your belief in those old stories is what makes then true, not anything biological.

Pf has been pretty consistent with cha being the stat for that. I'd say recall knowledge up a to give it the feel of mixing force of personality to cause the effect.

Yeah I'd almost like it changed to be a check against will DC of the target and be completely separate from the "common flaws" that anyone can exploit.

Like anyone can use fire against a troll, but a thaum can do fire and oil from some exotic plan that has a similar debilitating effect, but in this case it's the characters will making the oil have this effect rather than anything inherent to the troll.

Like it's the combination of the stories the character heard in their past and their unshakable belief in those stories that makes it, at least temporarily, a part of reality.

(Worth remembering that they’re ancestries, not races, in 2e - a small but very important vocabulary change!)

You're very correct, my mistake. Hard habit to break, but still a good one too.

Michael Sayre wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Gaulin wrote:

There was also a good amount of questions answered on the paizo events discord. Mark, Mike and Leo were great and answered basically everything thrown at them. I'm especially happy with integrated weapons and the example of an unstable option with a 'safe mode'.

The most important Discord tidbit to me was Luis seemingly implying that we’ll see the Meta-Regions of Arcadia.

I can confirm that the Deadshot Lands I mentioned during the Guns & Gears stream are the first named metaregion of Arcadia (but far from the last, if Luis, Daigle, and myself have anything to say about it!)

There’s literally nothing I want more from this company than Arcadia books. Looking forward to it!

I hope we get details on rougarou. I want a canine race that's not as cuddle as shoony

Honestly I hope the niche protection in this edition goes away nearly entirely. I can't for the life of me figure out from a narrative sense why you have to be religious to be really skilled at the use of armor, or why no divine champions are of legendary skill with a sword.

You need a recharge action for spell strike? Hmm. That sounds like a pretty big limiter.

It's not too bad. Most focus spells recharge it, plus a few other feats give actions that do as well. So there probably aren't a ton of rounds when you'll be doing nothing to recharge.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

The inquisitor seems doable with the same wave-casting model as the Magus.

Basically every one of the 4 magical traditions has 4 potential modes: Prepared full caster, prepared spontaneous caster, wave caster gish, focus caster.

Feeling old right now, but please explain

wave caster?
focus caster?
bounded caster?
prepared spontaneous caster?
Thanks.

Wave/bounded casting is what the new magus and summoner have. 4 spells max, 2 at top level you can cast and 2 at lvl-1

Focus would be only having focus spells and cantrips.

I think this is spontaneous full caster

You can always take the AoO to help a champion get off their reactions. Not optimal but taking a hit to setup a companion is a trope in fantasy.

wegrata wrote:

What kinda of feats and focus spells does elementalist come with?

There are a bunch of druid order feats for the various elementals.

Elementalist Archetype has 8 focus spells (basic and advanced), 2 for each element. You can replace your initial focus spell with one of them.

Updraft - toss a foe in the air, reflex save knocked prone on fail
Powerful Inhalation - draw all the air out of an area, 5d6 bludgenoning to everyone, fort save to speak above a whisper, crit fail stops verbal spellcasting.
Stone Lance - Spear of stone, 6d6 piercing, -10 speed on a hit unless it Escapes, crit and the creature is immobilized until escapes. After escapes takes 3 persistent bleed dmg.
WildFire - make a 10ft burst of difficult terrain that does 1dmg per square moved through, sustain to grow the burst, ending turn in the terrain is reflex save or take persistent fire dmg.

They can get a feat that douses targets with water to help with persistent fire/acid saves, one that adds persistent fire to spells, reaction to getting hit with elemental spell that quickens you for a turn, can redirect failed/crit failed elemental spells enemies cast, can make difficult terrain on spell, or cover/concealment.

This, cathartic magic and the signet for attack spells are everything I was hoping for in this book.

Blave wrote:

YuriP wrote:

gesalt wrote:

wegrata wrote:

Blave wrote:

Oh, according to discord, there's apparantly a ring (item level 10) that allows you to target Fortitude DC or Reflex DC instead of AC with ALL your spell attack rolls.

This is amazing if true

Shadow signet. Costs 1k, free action metamagic, unlimited uses.

Doesn't alter degrees of success or anything, just lets you change what you target. Important to note that you can stack it with true strike.

How can you stack a DC check with true strike?

It's not a DC check. It's an regular spell attack roll. Tou only roll it against reflex or fortitude DC instead of AC.

Oh god! It's so good that I hardly believe how this was allowed in PF2. Has someone said this is basically the alternative for runes when we talk about attack spells.

I actually like this better than runes, even though that's what I initially wanted.

This keeps the role of knowledge checks and targeting the correct defense, while applying it to any attack spell. Brilliant way to handle the problems with attack spells.

Oh, according to discord, there's apparantly a ring (item level 10) that allows you to target Fortitude DC or Reflex DC instead of AC with ALL your spell attack rolls.

This is amazing if true

wegrata wrote:

Maybe my level of system mastery isn't good enough to see that structural changes your referring to, could you describe where spells that target a single opponent's save and provide moderate damage with a debuff doesn't work? I can't see it from a balance perspective, it would be more spells like sudden bolt, that deal less damage and have a rider.

They work like I said you can make that character but it's an archetype that probably won't get much more damage. I doubt it will get much better than the sorcerer 2 extra per spell level depending on your bloodline. So I really doubt they will give much support to blasting since it already works and there's not much more that can be done to it I think.

The whole structural changes is because casters always hit at -1 to -3 due to how proficiency works(they don't benefit from item bonuses) this is the biggest problem with blasters they are quite dependent on the opponent weakest save to remain competent. While a martial casts sword all day without problem.

I don't want bigger blast spells like I've said a bunch of times, I want more varied blast spells that do less damage and debuffs targets. The attack roll problem, and it is a problem, is why I asked for additional single target blast spells that target various saves.

I don't want casters to be better than martials, what I want is blasting to be as useful as support in all fights.

I'd agree with your last point, if it was every enemy of a certain difficulty rather than select enemies. So if every difficult encounter reduced their damage.

I'm not expecting the game adapt, buy I am asking that it give more options so players can make thematically appropriate choices regardless of the difficulty of the encounter.

I also don't tend to take a casters vs martials view of things. Both should be able to contribute in multiple ways and select the ones that fit the theme of their character. I'd love to have more archtypes like the marshall ok the game.

Right which is why the proposed things allow casters to do both so someone doesn't have to chose between being a e team player and playing the character they want to play. That seems to be one of the disconnects. Just because a caster technically has access to spells that maybe more optimal, they're far enough outside the vision the player had they aren't going to be taken.

The other is pigeonholing casters into a support position. That shouldn't be the expected way to play them in challenging climatic battles.

Then what we need to make a stronger blasting caster is feats, not spells.

I think I brought up better metamagic for this type of thing. Something like a one action metamagic to make an AoE spell single target like sudden bolt, but increase the die size of damage to be in the expected range.

Or to add riders based on the traits, like persistent damage for acid and burn (separate feats), slow or vulnerable to bludgeoning for cold, etc...

wegrata wrote:

Why would you think that? Casters already have to budget their spells I don't see how a single large damage spell would be different than a single debuff effect.

As far as longevity in a fight that's mainly what cantrips and lower level spells are for, and low level spells are still pretty effective for debuffing.

And martials dealing with bbeg hp while getting buffed or casters doing doesn't make a difference to me. I want to blast things with fire, not blast weak enemies for fire and hang out casting haste or some other spell when the chips are down. I want to blast with hotter fire.

I get that, but would it also be fun for the martials ?

That the casters would be inflicting big damage to the BBEG while the martials are inflicting less damage than expected since they are not benefitting from the caster's buffs or debuffs.

Honestly I'm not willing to sacrifice my fun for someone else's. If the martials can't keep up without me being support they should build for that, take a multi-class dedication and buff them selves.

I just strongly disagree with saying "you can't play the character you want because I need you to play like this". That reeks of poor system design.

Why would you think that? Casters already have to budget their spells I don't see how a single large damage spell would be different than a single debuff effect.

As far as longevity in a fight that's mainly what cantrips and lower level spells are for, and low level spells are still pretty effective for debuffing.

And martials dealing with bbeg hp while getting buffed or casters doing doesn't make a difference to me. I want to blast things with fire, not blast weak enemies for fire and hang out casting haste or some other spell when the chips are down. I want to blast with hotter fire.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

I guess I am one of the few ones which is perfectly fine with the current caster situation, especially cause I come from a martial combatant perspective.

Being able to have a great variety of spells is way more interesting than being stuck with the same actions round after round.

My lvl 10 champion for example is tied to these actions

-strike ( the only strike attack my character has).
-step/stride ( movement)
- denoralize ( polymath bard)
- lay on hand/hymn of healing ( focus power). I also have basic and advanced passion domain spells ( no combat purposes).
- no maneuvers ( deity weapon is a glaive, so bored maneuvers for me)
- champion reaction ( reaction)
- guidance + shield ( bard cantrips).

Not that other characters are different ( stride + double slice/twin takedown/twin feint/flurry of blows would be equal to stride + strikex2).

Being able to play a spell caster would mean infinite possibilities, the more the character advances ( starting from the cantrips choices in terms of attacks).

In my experience at the table martials play through a power fantasy and casters just contribute. I see wide eyes and smiles on martials critting a couple times a session and casters with blank despondent faces after the third consecutive save from a monster against a spell. That's ultimately anecdotal and not good for an argument, though. The systems math isn't gonna change but I'm excited for all the items and special components (caster charm equivalents) that'll help out lvls 1-10. The second half of the game is fine bc weaker spells dont matter when you have so much to work with, but low lvl casters need a shot in the arm.

I find this so weird. In my tables martials play the power fantasy of hitting things with stick or hitting things with extra big stick. While caster play the fantasy of poof i ran away, poof now that guy likes us we don't have to fight, poof now there's a speed debuff on the enemy now he won't...

It comes down to forcing casters into support as a primary role though, myself and a lot of other don't want to play a primary support and honestly in a lot of fights even a lot of support spells don't feel great. Mostly because in any non-trivial encounter you end up having to settle for the "success" effect, which even though that one round can be impactful it isn't fun.

If there were more spells that allowed me to do dpr plus a debuff, I'd be all about them.

The primary fantasy I want to play is rain down fire and lightning on my enemies, which for non-aoe isn't satisfying at all.

Variable action cantrips/focus spells and more metamagic would help with it feeling like we're stuck in 1e as casters, so would more sustain spells.

I'd also like to see spells that work the opposite of scorching ray. Like the more actions you spend the smaller the aoe but higher the damage. Fill the fantasy of needing more time to condense the power into a smaller area for a greater affect.

Invictus Novo wrote:

They have specifically said that the current Magus fully supports unarmed. I think it was mentioned at Paizocon and they said it is baseline now that spellstrike can be done with a melee weapon or melee unarmed strike.

(I even made a point of ensuring the ranged magus stuff specifically worked with ranged unarmed attacks, too, which have had a tendency to be under-supported since there was only like one in the entire game when the CRB came out.)

Yeah kitsune magus with monk archtype became really interesting for me. Foxfire plus rain of embers with a magus seems really fun.

Kyrone wrote:

...

You might also use a staff, even if you are not twisting tree hybrid study, you can pick the feat to fuse a staff to a normal weapon and use a mirror image from the charges there.

I don't believe that there are any staffs with mirror image.

Luckily this also contains custom staffs and tons of other items to help this kinda idea work.

Yeah I was just hoping with the extenuating circumstances of the last year it would be nice not to have to wait.

I was a subscriber in the past but cancelled it for pf2 while my group and I see if the game has a long term future for us, if that's the case I'll probably renew it.

I see the support for FLGS but that doesn't help anyone but the store owners.