Due to feedback on the beta of the Ectopic Artisan, a Beta 2 has been posted.
Also, the Beta of the Trailblazer archetype.
And the Kinetic Legerdemain power.
Slowly but surely, we're getting it all posted up for playtesting. :)
And even though the Cryptic is still in Beta testing, here's an archetype for it - the Pattern Breaker
Enlightened Monk
Would a psionic version of the Qinggong Monk be useful for determining what powers a psionic monk has?
Perhaps as a different psionic archetype. :)
This archetype is more intended to mirror the Enlightened Monk that was put out and very popular from The Mind Unveiled in 3.5.
In other news, Hidden Intentions is now 45 pages, with over 14 pages of just archetypes... Despite cutting material that hasn't been developed, it won't stop growing!
A lot of the Beta threads have received positive feedback, with only minor changes needed, so if everything else falls in place, Hidden Intentions should be out in May. Just waiting for a few more pieces of art and to polish up / get feedback on a few more parts of the book.
I'm happy to see the enlightened monk. I am a bit confused about the ki psionics. you say "Gains power points at same rate as ki points, and can use Ki points for effects powered by power points, and vice versa?" I can't think of anything a monk would be able to use power points for aside from racial abilities. This makes a bit more sense if what you intended is for the ki powers to remain the same but just be powered by PP's now.
On the other hand letting PP's power ki abilities is crazy good. If I dip into any Psionic casting class I will end up with much more PP than an average monk could get ki. 2PP to dimension door(almost a 1st level power), or 1PP for an extra attack stand out as being super amazing. The balance of the ki powers, in my opinion, was always the limited amount of ki available. This class would obviously benefit from going straight into Psionic Fist which would be a good way to up PP to unbalanced levels without hurting monk abilities.
I honestly don't know if Ki psionics needs to be so complex. Just let the monk keep his ki pool but let him spend ki as if it were PP. letting PP be spent as ki gets way to good in more ways than I can imagine. This will give the monk a nice PP boost which will make up for the lack of PP's(compared to other casters) he may get from taking Psionic Fist(which this archetype just begs for.)
The obvious choice to switch for this extra PP(in the form of ki) would be slow fall, but there is also the option of doing it like the Ki Mystic and switching it for still mind. If this path was chosen perhaps the ki pool could evolve much like the mystics. Instead of the extra 2 ki and the extra function for ki(+4 on skill/ability check) the mystic receives, perhaps you could give them a normal sized pool(1/2 level+wis) but allow them to spend it as PP. Then at 4th they get the 3 special functions every monk gets that can only be fueled by ki, and the ki can still be turned into PP. If you really want maybe you could give the Enlightened Monk some psionic themed ability to mimic the ki mystics +4 on skill/ability checks.
Finally I a pretty sure the 6th level ability is too dang good. At level 6 my monk has a (assuming 16 wis) dc 16 stunning fist. If I really wanted to I could blow my whole ki pool (or 5 ki and 1 pp from wild talent) to make that dc 22. You know I guess that's not that bad since I did just blow my whole supply of defensive and offensive juice just to make a slightly scary dc. However if I was focused on stunning fist I know that ability could get some serious DM hate. Perhaps make it 1PP per damage but the dc only increases by 1 for every 2 PP you spend, or limit the max spendable to 1/2 monk level?
Sorry for the run-on sentences and poor structure. I am not a writer. I hope I didn't go too overboard. I'm very excited to play this archetype, and between the confusion of ki psionics and the percieved power of the 6th level ability I just had to type it out. Hopefully it made some sense.
Thanks for the feedback! We'll likely be evaluating the Enlightened Monk and have a second Beta to work out all the kinks.
The feedback in particular about 2 pp for +1 DC is a great point.
Here's the Revised Enlightened Monk based upon feedback on the way Ki was handled.
Sweet. I dig it. The Ki makes sense now and I am digging the thing as a whole. I did notice that the archetype gives up practically nothing for all of these features.
Gives Up: The choice of a feat at 1st level, One increase to slow fall.
Gets: 2 pre-chosen feats at 1st, Autohypnosis as class skill, 2 new Stunning fist buffs, more PP in the form of ki.
The only reason every monk shouldn't take this is if Psionics is not allowed, or they want a different archetype that modifies the 1st bonus feat. Honestly even taking away the entire slow fall progression might not balance out completely, but I think it's the easiest solution. Slow fall is most useful, in my experience, as being the first thing you can switch for barkskin if you take quiggong. Also I have never seen something replace just one part of slow fall.
In closing. Thanks for being AWESOME, and taking on the responsibilities of bringing the greatness that is Psionics into the Pathfinder ruleset!
Thanks for the feedback. :) I'll be reevaluating the Enlightened Monk this week to see if it needs to give up more.
Some additional playtesting material has been posted:
Oh man! Life leech is sweet! I liked unwilling participant the moment I saw it, and now you give me support for it! I will be playing this asap. Perhaps I'll throw an life leech/Barbarian team at my friends and see how they like it. Life leach lets the barb rage cycle. Hmm now i need to find easy ways to give my own characters status ailments mundanely. I'm hoping drugs or poison will turn up something. Thank you!
Couple things I noticed though. Staggered is listed twice. Once in 1st level, once in 7th. Also how does one get the unconscious condition. Drow poison is one I can think of. Negative hit-points will give it to you too, though it seems confusing. Do I regain consciousness or do the rules just knock me back out for having negatives, but now the unwilling participant is also unconscious? Same question for staggered at 0 hit points.
Finally it seems none of the abilities have saves. I get that Unwilling Participant offers a save, and the participant still gets a save if targeted over the collective with a harmful power/spell, though at a -2. However, are the new abilities meant to be automatic once the enemy fails his unwilling participant save. I think it's just fine with no save, as it makes it less confusing when you start using these abilities on your allies. I just wanted to make sure you were cool with no save too.
Edit: so i started to build my life leech and I have a question about unwilling participant. I'm assuming it's a standard action as part of a normal vitalist joining her collective. My question is how many people can it target. If my collective can hold 6 lets say. Can i as a standard action, join myself,my 3 allies, and 2 enemies who each get a will save? If so Life Leech is even better than I thought. If not perhaps Unwilling Participant needs a bit of rewording. Sorry if this has already been changed in errata and i just missed it.
Glad you like it!
As for your questions:
Staggered was likely a hold-over from tweaking which statuses go where. It should be 1st.
That's a great question on unconscious and negative hit points...
Staggered isn't a 0 hit point situation - I think you're thinking of disabled.
Those both need to be better clarified. It should not transfer hit points, so it should likely have specific text that if an unconscious character is not stable, the status cannot be transferred.
The new abilities still give a save to Unwilling Participant, just with a penalty to the save. Willing allies wouldn't get a save - they're willing.
I might need to issue an errata on Unwilling Participant - I'm of the opinion each Unwilling target should be a separate action... because getting 10 enemies in the collective all at once would be a bit much.
So I will hopefully get to run my team against my friends soon. I have an enlightened monk at level 6 so I can test all his stunning fist goodness. A Life leech at level 9 so I can use all of his fun abilities, and then a raging invulnerable drunk barbarian with roused anger at level 8 to give me easy access to fatigued, exhausted, and nauseated conditions.
I had a question about all of the life leeches abilities however. When he uses them on an unwilling participant(UP) I assume the UP makes a save vs the original UP save with a -2. Lets say I'm using transfer attack trying to move damage from my monk to the UP. If the UP fails he takes all of the attack damage and my monk is unharmed, this I get. However, if he succeeds on his save is my monk still unharmed? I would assume the monk still takes the damage, but I'm not sure the ability is clear enough on this. The same question holds for transfer ailment. If the UP fails the save the ailment is transferred obviously. However if the UP succeeds at his save does my, lets say exhausted, barbarian stay exhausted.
Either way I am liking it so far. Though I feel these abilities could get cheesy when my Life leech starts carries around a sack of small animals all forced into the collective through UP just waiting with their abysmally low will saves to act as fodder when I need to use Transfer Attack or Ailment. He he that will be fun!
If the effect fails due to a successful save, then no, the damage / status would not disappear - they would still be on the original creature. Good question and that should be spelled out.
And it sounds like all of these abilities need the same caveat as the soulthief's abilities to avoid the bag o'rats phenomenon.
I'm assuming you are talking about the caveat that is also already in the Life Leech's "Drain Health" ability. The one about the target having more than half the Life Leech's level in HD. I wish there were a better way to stop the Bag o' Rats abuse. Perhaps call out that a Life Leech can't use this ability on *Unwilling Participants* with Hit dice less than half his class level. This way he can still benefit from NPC's willing to give their health and condition status for the good of the group.
I feel that caveat might still not help eliminate the bag o' dudes trick either. Most things with HD just over half class level can be easily tied up by the monk I created(or the party fighter ect.) I haven't been able to find anything small or smaller with decent HD to CR ratio but I'm sure if I was focused on making my Bag o' Tricks something easily captured and transported would pop up.
Mentioning the bag of tricks made me think about the good synergy between the Life Leech and a summoner, or a life leech that can summon. Summons are a great place to find willing participants for all the Leech's fun tricks. Man I am excited to play this archetype. I'm pretty sure it's not overpowered even with all these concerns I'm talking about. I think it's just in line with the vitalist in that it just makes the game a bit different(and more fun!)
Um, I just realized I don't know if I was contributing or commenting with this post. Either way I hope it helped just to have me bouncing ideas around. Also I should probably join up on the Dreamscarred Forums already. :P
Oh, that's definitely contributing - keep that feedback coming. :)
Your point about willing targets is an interesting one... it reminds me of the magic in the Runelords series of books - you have a willing commoner who takes the exhaustion for his hero...
Just FYI, but I will be starting to put together the preorder preview release for Hidden Intentions.
This preview is only available to folks who have preordered the entire Psionics Expanded project and will be posted in the private playtesting forums at the Dreamscarred Press site.
The preview includes formatting, artwork, and all the normal stuff you get in the PDF. Every other time we've done preorder previews, all sorts of little things have been caught that were missed in playtesting, hence why I'll be starting on that this weekend. :)
Another Beta release for the Enlightened monk has been posted due to playtest feedback.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A preorder preview (actually 2) have been posted in our preorder-exclusive playtest forum!
With over two weeks left, we are sticking with our May release of this 50-page PDF!
I have not gotten to play my group of beta characters yet. My group has decided to go on a Mage: the Ascension binge the past weeks instead. Hopefully we can do some pathfinder before the end of may however.
I noticed a small confusing issue about the Life Leech that I mentioned in passing earlier. I had been confused about transferring unconsciousness from a character with negative hitpoints. I now have a confusion about transfering blindness from someone who is permanently blind through natural causes. Perhaps the Ability needs a caveat calling out only temporary or magic or something effects so that confusion like this can be avoided. I only worry that through restricting the abilities, and thus hopefully lowering confusion, that the class will become less useful.
Hope that helped. Thanks Again!
How does this work to cover the confusion?
"Transfer Ailment: A 1st level life leech can transfer the dazed, dazzled, shaken, or staggered condition from one member of his collective to another as a standard action. At 4th level, the life leech can transfer the blind, deafened, fatigued, frightened, or sickened condition. At 7th level, the life leech can transfer the exhausted, panicked, nauseated, or paralyzed condition. At 10th level, the life leech can transfer the stunned or unconscious condition (although a creature that receives the unconscious condition from this ability is not reduced to negative hit points by this effect, nor is the original creature brought automatically to positive hit points; such a creature would still have 0 or negative hit points, but would become conscious, stable, and likely given the disabled condition). If this ability is used on an unwilling target and the recipient of the effect makes a successful save (see the Unwilling Participant* feat), the creature with the condition being transferred still suffers from the condition. A life leech may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Wisdom modifier. This ability may only be used on creatures with a Constitution score and may not be used against creatures with a total number of hit dice less than half the life leech’s level. This ability can only be used to transfer temporary conditions. For example, a life leech could not transfer blindness from a creature that has somehow lost its eyes permanently. This ability replaces Transfer Wounds and the accompanying benefits from the vitalist’s selected method."
Kind of verbose, but it's a pretty loaded ability ;)
The final graphic for Hidden Intentions is in!
Getting that done and will work on putting up a preview #3.
You can see the newest graphic on Facebook.
Uhh... What exactly is this preview forum supposed to do? Do I have to create an account? I have th subscription on Paizo.com.
Uhh... What exactly is this preview forum supposed to do? Do I have to create an account? I have th subscription on Paizo.com.
The private playtest forum at the Dreamscarred site is reserved exclusively for folks who have preordered. If you've done so at another site (Paizo, RPGNow, or DriveThruRPG), you can email me proof of your purchase (usually a screenshot of it in your downloads, or something similar) and create an account at the Dreamscarred site and I'll grant you access.
Because it's reserved exclusively for preorder customers, and we don't have customer data for folks here at Paizo (only sales figures), there's no way for us to do it directly.
I've done it for a few folks before, so I don't mind doing it again. :)
With the final critiques coming in on Hidden Intentions, it should be out next week!
I've started working on the combined book... I knew it was going to be massive, but my goodness, this is just huge!
Excellent! MUAHAHAHAHAHA... <wrings hands>
It's looking like the final book will be between 180-190 pages!
Wow! Well worth 10 bucks, you gonna format it so all the classes are in one spot, all the powers are in one spot, etc?
please say yes...
Yes, and that is taking quite a bit more time than I expected...
Oh, I'm sure. You weren't kidding when you said there was a lot of content.
I'm anticipating a Monday release for Hidden Intentions, pending any subsequent feedback from playtesting.
For example, I just included some feedback on the Life Leech archetype from playtesting. If anything else comes up for Hidden Intentions by Monday, it will also be included.
Anything else will be included in the compilation.
Combining the book has been a huge amount of work, but it's slowly but surely coming together.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
FYI, work is progressing nicely on bringing the >180 page compilation together.
I've asked Rick Hershey to draw up a bunch of additional graphics for the compilation and am filling in some of the details that help make the six distinct PDFs into a more seamless single document.
We're anticipating a July release for the final PDF and our goal is to have it available in print in time for GenCon. :)
Can I get the final PDF as a birthday present, since it's coming out in July? :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've posted up the Beta of the Commander archetype for the tactician base class!
We still need to iron out another archetype for the Cryptic and Dread to give them some archetype support, but we have some rough concepts that we're working to finish up and get into playtesting / feedback mode.
If you haven't been following the status thread, the compilation book is progressing nicely - we're over 190 pages now, have ordered additional artwork, and are still on track for a July release. :)
Awesome Jeremy!
I really, really, really recommend removing abilities that can be used to troll your party. "Oh hey Mr. Wizard, you're going to have to make a melee attack against that ogre over there. Yea, have fun making a new character. I didn't like you anyways."
You can give them rewards for completing the action. But forcing your teammates to do things they don't want? Not a good idea.
The collective powers?
Another archetype has been posted for review - this one for the Vitalist. The Sadist
And now the Distorter archetype is posted!
Ok the distorter looks neat.
I can see these guys as a cadre of magehunters.
More archetypes!
Beta - Nightmare Constructor
Alpha - Grammaton
As you can see, we're working to expand the archetype options for the Psionics Expanded classes - we want to have at least 2 per class for the book. Most are now at 3+. :)
I really, really, really recommend removing abilities that can be used to troll your party. "Oh hey Mr. Wizard, you're going to have to make a melee attack against that ogre over there. Yea, have fun making a new character. I didn't like you anyways."
You can give them rewards for completing the action. But forcing your teammates to do things they don't want? Not a good idea.
Charm Person, Dominate, Suggestion should be removed from the Core book then.
Nightmare constructor is pretty cool, and I'm glad there's support for that type of character. Making it a mindless construct is a nice touch too. The lack of feats will help quite a bit with balancing the addition of an eidolon.
Fear Surge is also an interesting idea. I love the idea of capitalizing on the fear of your enemies. It's pretty trivial to give Shaken with Intimidate, and giving Panicked or Frightened is a bit self-defeating, so this is quite versatile, especially since you can change the evolution to meet the current needs. If you're concerned about too much versatility, perhaps a round per day mechanic, or even requiring a move action to maintain the evolution, as you "lock in" on the fear of those around you.
My only concern is tacking on one of the strongest class abilities in the game.
Also, perhaps Cowering should be added to the list of conditions for Fear Surge? I'm not sure if there are times when you can be cowering and not one of the others, but it wouldn't hurt.
My only concern is tacking on one of the strongest class abilities in the game.
Which ability do you mean?
In other news, more archetypes posted:
I haven't been searching too much through the content, but I have two questions.
1. Will the full psionics expanded book be softcover like psionics unleashed? It made me a bit unhappy that it was, but I compensated by making a real nice leather cover so if need be I can do the same for expanded.
2. You guys seem to be doing archetypes for most of the base classes, will there be one for the magus? I wondered how that would work, since psychic warrior seems to fill the same role, but one of my players would be very interested to see this.
Howdy!
1. Yes, it will be softcover. With our low print volume, in order to get it out to stores, we need to do softcover in order to price it at a reasonable cost.
2. Probably not for the magus, no. As you mentioned, the psychic warrior pretty well fits the same role already. Someone had discussed doing an archetype, and it ended up almost mirroring the psychic warrior anyway.
Thank you for the quick reply!
1. Guess I'll be making another leather cover, I hope the page count is high enough to justify it.
2. Ah, alright. While it would be amusing, it's no big loss for me.
I love your guys stuff, I'm very excited for when this is released.
I'm loving everything put out so far but one question, will we see any lovecraftian based archetypes? Some sort of eldritch horror channeler or psionic cultist?
The current page count of the file I'm working on - with graphics - is around 210 pages. We've been modifying our layout settings to improve appearance / flow / readability / etc and that has actually increased the page count (by about 10 pages), but drastically reduced eye strain reading it. Just one of those things we've been doing while playtesting continues.
Freedom16 - we don't have anything in that theme right now, although some of the newer archetypes we've put out have been darker - the sadist, for example.
Man, the more I hear about this product the more I want it.