Now available!
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Huzzah!
Yay!
Assuming direct control...
Assuming direct control...
Traitor's Roar, 7th level Cursed Razor strike. Have fun with it :p
Very excited! Thanks so much to Jade and crew for a class I'm super excited to play.
I haven't read the archetypes, disciplines, or feats yet but the main change I notice to the class itself from the beta is that Accursed Will doesn't buff Reflex and Fortitude saves. I think that was a good call--INT is still amazing for the class and it's still plenty saucy without that.
What other changes have folks noticed? Or (since I see Dreamscarred folks on the list) do you have a list of changes from the beta?
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Very excited! Thanks so much to Jade and crew for a class I'm super excited to play.
I haven't read the archetypes, disciplines, or feats yet but the main change I notice to the class itself from the beta is that Accursed Will doesn't buff Reflex and Fortitude saves. I think that was a good call--INT is still amazing for the class and it's still plenty saucy without that.
What other changes have folks noticed? Or (since I see Dreamscarred folks on the list) do you have a list of changes from the beta?
Lots of little stuff, mostly. Razor saw a top-to-bottom wording-and-rebalancing edit (one of its low-level boosts became a different thing entirely), Mirror got cleaned up, and both of the book's 8th-level Stances got fixed and rebalanced 'cause they were psychotic before and I'm not sure what I was on when I wrote them.
And reviewed!
And reviewed!
Thank'ee kindly for the review, Dragoon. As always, feedback is being taken under advisement so we can see about making the work better.
I'm just amazed it came out as well as it did! The base rules for Pathfinder actively discourage skirmisher tactics, so the fact that it didn't come out like the Monk is amazing.
As I said in my review this is what I consider the first class to fully take advantage of the new action economy presented in Tome of Battle and Path of War.
Reviewed.
Reviewed.
My endless thanks, my friend. I'll note that Tenebrous Reach is under advisement; it never got a lot of feedback during playtesting, and I made the mistake of assuming no news was good news.
Harbinger character sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/15jopdt9eed1kaj/harbinger_sheet.zip?dl=0
Loved all the movement powers!
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Harbinger character sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/15jopdt9eed1kaj/harbinger_sheet.zip?dl=0
Loved all the movement powers!
Dude! Thank you so much, it's glorious. I need to print one of these out and run around showing all my friends. Which admittedly will involve a bit of driving but...could still be worth it ^_^
What about the Omen Rider Archetype is that in this book or will it be in one of the later Path of War Expanded books?
What about the Omen Rider Archetype is that in this book or will it be in one of the later Path of War Expanded books?
That's gonna show up later. We want time for it to be tested, balanced out, and matured. In point of fact it's one of the ones I'm more worried about, balance-and-clarity-wise, so if y'felt like droppin' by the thread to offer your thoughts I'd be very grateful.
May have caught a mistake. Accursed Will in the final version remains at half-INT to attack rolls forever, right? The class chart has it showing up again at Level 7.
Really excited about this!
Any thoughts on how to handle people teleporting behind enemies with Omen Walk to strike their blind side?
I also agree with Tenebrous Reach seeming a bit out of place and honestly, a bit too strong. If that was tweaked (to a short range), removed, or changed to something more fitting I could feel much more comfortable with letting people use this class without restrictions.
EDIT: And yes, I am on pretty much every comment section now as I nerdily buy up practically all DS content. lol
I kinda want to clarify a bit more after thinking about it. At higher levels the range really isn't the problem and honestly, I really do like the idea of the ability. The idea of rushing back to ranged and slinging shadow projections of your weapons for a duration is awesome.
The only issue I see is the duration. Once per encounter with INT mod duration means anyone with some decent int is going to get 100% uptime on it due to average battles not taking a huge amount of rounds. This removes strategy. If you can essentially always do it then all it does is turn the harbinger into a range class which it didn't seem like was the original intent. Essentially lower cooldown means it requires some thought and timing to get the most out of it which makes the class more interactive.
Pretty much my only suggestion would be to make it half int +1 or something. That way its a strategic decision during a key moment of a fight rather than a permanent thing. Half int also means that a person has the option of focusing into INT if they do want a perma upkeep. Which is certainly possible with enough focus.
I guess it just felt odd for this class based around melee combat and being able to get anywhere they wanted instantly suddenly turned into a borderline 100% ranged class over halfway through their progression.
Hope that makes a bit more sense. In short, slightly tweak to the duration and I think I found me a new favorite class to go on my list next to soulknife.
EDIT: Another idea would be to keep it as is but make it a once a day. Honestly though, this seems to go more against the class intention than just lowering the duration.
Overall, its not going to effect me liking the class. I just may house rule it myself to be half int +1 instead of what its currently listed as. Gotta love RPGS and the ability to change anything on the fly!
I'm currently toying with the idea of swapping the position of Tenebrous Reach with another feature. Rumors of War has been suggested but Rumors is a lot stronger than it looks at first blush and I'm not sure how that coming online at that time would work out. Do we have any thoughts on what it might look like if it swapped spots with Voices in the Dark?
A switch with voices would be fine considering most enemy's tend to try and avoid AooPs anyway. I'm still a firm believer in the idea that it's not the abilities placement as much as the fact it changes the way the class plays entirely with nearly 100% upkeep for any reasonable amount of INT.
And even if the DM can always adjust their campaign to have waves of enemies or longer rounded combats it always sucks as a DM to have to modify a campaign around the idea of a single character.
But yea, I feel like giving players Voices far sooner than they currently get it is a good idea so id be ok with the swap and a duration tweak.
My question would be how do you view the duration? Do you feel its intended to change the class so drastically and that thematically the class is supposed to go nearly full range at a certain point? If so, then I can't argue with it since it was a intended design goal. It just personally seemed out of place to me.
Unchanged I could see it being given at 18/19 as a near capstone equivalent ability. Atleast the sudden jump in power would be only seem among the most powerful harbingers.
A switch with voices would be fine considering most enemy's tend to try and avoid AooPs anyway. I'm still a firm believer in the idea that it's not the abilities placement as much as the fact it changes the way the class plays entirely with nearly 100% upkeep for any reasonable amount of INT.
And even if the DM can always adjust their campaign to have waves of enemies or longer rounded combats it always sucks as a DM to have to modify a campaign around the idea of a single character.
But yea, I feel like giving players Voices far sooner than they currently get it is a good idea so id be ok with the swap and a duration tweak.
My question would be how do you view the duration? Do you feel its intended to change the class so drastically and that thematically the class is supposed to go nearly full range at a certain point?
Unchanged I could see it being given at 18/19 as a near capstone equivalent ability. Atleast the sudden jump in power would be only seem among the most powerful harbingers.
Honestly, I didn't spare much of a thought for the duration; most enemies you'll try to engage at range against with it can cross Close relatively easily. It was meant more to extend the Harbinger's ability to pick out weak targets and lock them down, and then got resoundingly no feedback during testing. These things happen, sometimes, and at least it happened before the final printing so I've got lots of time to take in the feedback that's happening now and incorporate it.
Gotcha, well im always glad to help. I'm probably going to be a familiar name poking around most future DS product comments.
Hopefully the passion of my suggestions don't come off as rude. I tend to get into things I really like and come out a bit more forceful than I intend.
I just really love the Path of War classes. This coming from a person who hated the encounter powers and whatnot of 4th edition.
Not gonna lie. I did a far far closer reading of the Harbinger during my review than during the playtest. I also made more character builds.
I didn't really have time to give mechanical feedback until recently, as you've probably noticed. Though I will admit that I'm mainly giving feedback on stuff I would potentially play.
I am likely to use a Harbinger in a game, so I care very much about what I say in its feedback.
This class reminds me of Itherael from Diablo 3, The Archangel of Fate. The inevitable style of its fighting seems to fit the theme that you can't avoid your fate. The Harbinger will come for you, and it will kill you, unless you kill it first.
I compared it to Liam Neeson and Ragna the Bloodedge combined.
"DAMMIT! I will find you... and I will kill you."
EDIT: I do admittedly have very little experience with Pathfinder at higher levels. So I will take your word for it that the close range melee attacks doesn't make the harbinger suddenly super safe.
EDIT: I do admittedly have very little experience with Pathfinder at higher levels. So I will take your word for it that the close range melee attacks doesn't make the harbinger suddenly super safe.
The enemies that have the hardest time are fellow humanoid melee characters; they tend to have a move speed slower than the Harbi's own and thus have to be careful about how they play catch-up, especially if the Harbi can deny them a charge path. However, at the current point at which Reach comes online, a lot of monstrous enemies fly, and all have relatively high move speeds, often combined with reach. Ranged enemies ignore it when it shows up and continue to ignore it; all Harbi gets out of it at that point is the ability to engage after spending less movement, and the power to attack certain fliers (mostly the melee ones) while still on the ground.
Pathfinder games do often use humanoids with class levels as enemies, so it's a legitimate concern and part of the reason this is an explanation and not a dismissal; on my end, I come from monster-heavy and monsters-with-class-levels-heavy campaigns, which has shaped my expectations of how abilities interact with combat.
Interesting follow up. Makes me wonder how fighters survive at high levels then. Good thing I stuck with the idea that stamina points is a fighter only thing to hopefully let them have some edge.
I guess the same could be asked about other melee characters such as two weapon fighting rangers. Although they do have the dex to support other ranged backups.
Regardless, useful information.
I've been in a lot of campaigns with humanoid enemies in which area control tactics are very effective.
Our Archers and Mages are generally pretty safe because we keep them safe from melee baddies and wind wall to prevent most ranged counters. Our Wizard has only actually lost HP in 2/10 sessions so far. One of them was a 1st level session!
I can see where you're coming from with huge/gargantuan baddies and monsters with class levels. That would significantly diminish viability in some cased unless the harby was good at blocking himself away.
I think having it swap with a higher level ability would work, I'd prefer it get rewritten to something new or made an X times per combat ability.
To answer your question on 2wf Rangers, they can full attack after moving at 15th level with one of the mounted feats.
Or if they 2 hand or use prodigious 2wf they can do it at 10th.
My feelings on Tenebrous Reach are that it should be a higher level ability, for when combat becomes a little bit more insane and when monsters become so incredibly massive that the Harbinger's previous play style becomes far less playable.
Before 13th level, the Harbinger would go in, wreck some dude's day, then leave, avoiding a full attack. This was slightly risky, but very rewarding. Starting at 13th level, the player no longer has to do this since the Harbinger can achieve this goal without any danger.
I believe switching Tenebrous Reach with Rumors of War would be the idea fix. It lets the Harbinger continue to do the hit-and-run without demanding as much maneuver support.
Honestly, after thinking about it a bit I kinda feel Tenebrous Reach is in a good place. My only concern was that the class suddenly became a pseudo permanent ranged class due to the duration. However, this has been confirmed to be fine and within the intended design goals.
The key thing to think about now is how the class feels to the player since the point of a game is to be fun. Rather than give it at some really high level and go from 5/10 feet ranges to 70 feet out of no where. I feel it would be better suited to be given where it is or even earlier so the player can feel that range progression on their attacks as they level.
My end suggestion would be to give it two ranks. A earlier(or same level) lesser version with half int duration. And then a increase to full int duration at 17 or 19.
I don't know about others out there but when im playing a class I want to feel a natural progression with my characters without all these sudden changes after a drought of progression. Not that there is any drought in the normal progression of a harbinger but even from a concept standpoint it would seem more natural if this was a capability the harbinger was not able to sustain nearly as long until they master it.
We all know that the differences in attributes from 13 and 19 is not going to be completely massive in difference. At least not from natural levels.
I'd love to hear some feedback on this idea.
Wondering if anymore thoughts of changes have been made to the harbinger with recent testings or anything.
Wondering if anymore thoughts of changes have been made to the harbinger with recent testings or anything.
We're working on replacing Tenebrous Reach. Primal Fury has been replaced by Scarlet Throne; Riven Hourglass has been added as a fifth discipline.
Sounds interesting. I really do love this class, was going to make one but I think I'll hold off till it becomes a bit more finalized. Any teases you can give into the Tenebrous Reach replacement?
Honestly, id be rather excited to hear that the Harbinger is going to be using basic weapon ranges so their movement speed actually matters more. Would seem more iconic to me.
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It seems a lot of Endz's findings mirrored my own in the harbinger review.
He went much more in depth and was better able to explain the position though :)
Glad he was able to give it such an extensive playtest.
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Part II of my review:
The Shattered Mirror lets you do something interesting - utilize, for example, the atk of the last attack of the foe, dealing nasty damage to the target. Know another thing? The Skill/attack-material here is intriguing - using a skill IN ADDITION to attack rolls to add benefits to strikes? Now that a) makes sense to me and b) is elegant and avoids the easy stacking of bonuses on skills - kudos! A very powerful maneuver would be Equivocate - choose a target: When said target is subject to a power, psi-like ability, spell or spell-like ability, you also receive the benefits - and vice versa. While VERY powerful, this also allows for a vast array of exciting tactics. That being said, it is WIDE OPEN for abuse. You can elect to fail saves, so this one ability makes dragon-slaying pretty easy - establish this one, no save, eat harm and watch the colossus eat it as well - have I mentioned that the effects apply to single target spells and so on, even mitigating invalid ranges. OUCH. This needs some serious nerfing in my book. I'm not a fan of using a craft-check in lieu of a save, but that one will not break the game. Doubling strikes and setting the range at close is powerful - as is a strike that curses a target to receive damage equal to what it inflicts - thankfully of the same type. Still - nasty and also open for abuse, though to a lesser extent. Imho, such a maneuver should have a caveat that precludes AoE-damage from being reflected multiple times. The capstone covers a save-or-suck strike that imprisons the target's soul - yeah, ouch. Cool imagery, though. Shattered Mirror is an odd discipline in that it imposes, much like Blue Mage/Mimic-style-classes, a task on the GM - namely one that should be *very* aware of the potential of NPC/Monster abilities being hijacked. This does not need to be an issue, but it could be one since that type of foresight usually is not required - and yes, I can see a GM walk face first into a brick wall here.
I maintain, though, that integrating a scaling-mechanism into the ability-hijacks would help maintain a balance for less experienced GMs.
Much like Cursed Razor, I really like this discipline - though, once again, there are some maneuvers herein that can, even in Path of War's context need a serious whack with the nerf-bat and restrictions - still, very much more refined and versatile than what I've seen so far and, especially regarding the design-aesthetics, closer to the conventions of PFRPG. This does feel more like an offering belonging to PFRPG for me.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no significant formal glitches. Layout adheres to Dreamscarred Press' full-color two-column standard and the pdf comes with nice artworks (partially stock) and is fully bookmarked for your convenience. The pdf comes in two versions, with a second one being more printer-friendly.
So, I was not looking forward to reviewing this. Path of War was a colossal amount of work and ended up, in spite of me trying to be very clear regarding my gripes and issues with the system, a controversial review. I honestly wondered whether I should review Path of War Expanded at all since the fans seemed to, at least partially, not want any criticism of the system and since the detractors just wanted me to bash it - neither of which ultimately was my intent. In the end, when Dreamscarred Press sent me the file, I admired the company's integrity and figured "What the hell."
I pulled out my copy and scheduled playtests for the material herein. Granted, playtests whose announcement did not elicit much excitement from my players, but when I actually read and ran this one, it turned out to be a thoroughly interesting class - my favorite in the whole series, in fact. The harbinger feels distinct, very distinct - more so than the original Path of War-classes. It is also, thankfully, bereft of any infinite-healing exploits ( with the exception of the Crimson Countess, who can be kitten'd and does get fast healing in blood pool form, but only late in the game), streamlines obsolete mechanics away and instead incorporates the heritage, including mechanics, in a frame that fits more organically with the PFRPG-rules. Chris Bennett and Jade Ripley have, on a formal level, created so far the best Path of War-class out there that has the most refined design-aesthetics. No make-believe damage types, no easy +20 atk.-exploits...nice.
That being said, purists may want to be aware of the very much annoying need to still specify what is "cursed" - which, ultimately, alas, could devolve in the final book into yet another inorganic make-believe term that requires massive revision on part of the GM like the loathsome '*&%§$ that is holy/unholy damage. Let's hope the definition does not go this route. EDIT, since two people have made this observation: Yes, I am aware of Cursed Razor specifying what "cursed" is in the intro-text of the discipline. Alas, there are a couple of issues with that: The cursed condition has no direct effects, which is a violation of how conditions work. Secondly, the term "cursed" is already heavily used in Pathfinder in a context where it does NOT pertain to effects of Cursed Razor, rendering the referring to the "condition" somewhat problematic. In order to future-proof this beast and render it less ambiguous, I'd strongly suggest a fixed definition of the condition set apart from the discipline as well as a new name for the condition that is not already assigned to a plethora of contexts. Or at least very specific referrals towards the condition as specified, as opposed to the other meanings of the word.When e.g. a boost refers to "when you initiate this boost you gain a +1 luck bonus to AC for each cursed opponent within medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per level), up to a maximum bonus of +5." there is no mention of the cursed condition, which creates a gaping loophole.
And yes, much like previous Path of War classes, the optimization threshold for the classes is pretty much non-existent - you *will* get a *very* efficient character out of this without needs to optimize; If you do, you'll get a beast, which also remains one of the reasons I am pretty much convinced that, as much as I like this class, the harbinger will not fit into low-powered games.
The harbinger is a fun glass cannon/controller/skirmisher-hybrid that plays very much like a magus on steroids that specializes in actually effective skirmishing tactics over move-into-melee and kill, something the PFRPG-rules usually discourage. Now yes, the class does have some balance-streamlining issues - the escalated save DCs are NASTY and blow the saves against the maneuvers to a point that is beyond what I'm comfortable with, even in a Path of War context. So yes, I do believe that there is some streamlining to be done here. At the same, I have to applaud that the archetypes actually radically change the playing experience. This pdf, essentially, constitutes very much what I hoped to see from the get-go from the series. Would I allow the class in a regular power-level game? No! The harbinger is a debuff monster that can be very nasty and its overall optimization-requirements are very, very low. But I actually *will* do the work to nerf it for use in my game. Why?
Because I genuinely like the concept of the class and because the new disciplines have some pretty unique tricks I will use for monster special abilities etc. and to make some REALLY nasty adversaries. Plus, I am actually going to use this class in more high-powered games for adversaries, since none of the design-decisions create a frame I can't fix or modify to suit my needs. So yes, this can be considered a good class, one that borders, in the context of Path of War, on the edge of greatness. And as a reviewer, I absolutely applaud what this pdf represents!
At the same time, I still am very much conscious of this class being not for every group - if what you observed in Path of War galled you to no end in components that pertained to balance as opposed to those related to design-aesthetics, then this will still not be made for you.
Now if the minor hiccups are cleaned up and with minor filing off of rough patches to streamline some unbalanced components, this has the potential to be glorious. My final verdict, after much deliberation, clocks in at 4 stars, mainly due to the balance-concerns I still have, even in a Path of War context. Note that, much like the original Path of War, this amps up the power-curve of your game and if you're conservative regarding PC-balance and interaction with established concepts (or if you're playing gritty low fantasy etc.), you should detract a star, though all herein is more refined than the first book. Consider my interest for the series reignited!
Posted first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop.
Also: Thanks for the linkage, Insain! :)
Endzeitgeist out.
Glad to see Harbi scoring well! It is one of my favorites as well. I very much want to try out a Ravenlord sometime soon.