I am a big fan of Dreamscarred Press and the two products I currently own: Ultimate Psionics and Path of War. At first glance, the races, classes, and abilities look and feel balanced against the core races, classes, and abilities. My question is for those who have played with these classes in Adventure Paths and adventure modules; is there a noticeable difference with Dreamscarred Press's material compared to Paizo only material?
While I am interested in the power level difference/lack of difference, I am also interested in the feel of the game, and how the characters interacted with the setting. Was the game as fun, less fun, or more fun trying out the new classes and races? Did you make changes to the adventure because of the included classes, or play it straight? There is always a power creep when you add new books (from Paizo, Dreamscarred Press, or anyone else); was there a difference in the power boost from Piazo books and the Dreamscarred Press books?
Thank you to all who help out!
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(Let me open with the disclosure that I currently am writing for DSP but played with their materials way before I ever signed on with them.)
For me, the psionic classes were really well balanced. Honestly, I felt like I would much rather have them in the game than a traditional wizard/sorcerer or, heaven forfend, a summoner.
In Wrath of the Righteous, I'm currently running a Soulknife 5/ Dread 1 with the intent of picking up Dark Tempest at my next level. While my performance has been really solid I've certainly never shown up any of the "traditional" party members like our Paladin or Sorcerer. There's been a couple times where I was almost a little sad about the fact that I would have to give up some or all of my main class feature to take advantage of some of the cool loot that's dropped.
I played a Psychic Warrior in Kingmaker that was really fun, but honestly it felt like he was the weak link in the group until about book 3 or 4. Part of that may have been that the other damage dealer in the party was a highly optimized archer Ranger who could consistently put out a lot of hurt. He was never bad, but just never quite hit the "highlight reels" the way the other characters did.
During our 3rd attempt at running Jade Regent (I think that campaign might be cursed) we had a Psion (Nomad) in the group taking the place of the party wizard. She was a lot of fun but sometimes she felt so highly specialized that she had to scramble a bit to find the right power to meaningfully contribute. When she did pull something off it was usually amazing, but she just didn't have the breadth we normally expect from caster types, like when our caster for Rise of the Runelords was a wizard who got to collect spellbooks for like the first 2 books of the adventure and always had a spell that seemed like it was tailor made for whatever encounter we ran into.
Speaking of Rise of the Runelords... Our last attempt at that included two psionic characters, an Aegis and a Cryptic. "Competent" is the word there. There were no "Holy crap that was amazing!" moments, but there was a lot of "Nicely done, sir". Basically, they did exactly what everyone needed to do with a solid rate of success, which is actually pretty high praise.
In Skulls and Shackles, we had a Vitalist. He seemed really good at healing, but consistently sucked at the array of ship-related challenges the first book is filled with. Ultimately, he fell off the boat in the first ship to ship battle and drowned. So that was fairly disappointing.
I haven't noticed any issues.
So far (in games that really got off the ground) I've had a Soulknife (Soulbolt) make it to level 6 in Skulls and Shackles. He's competent, but hardly overshadows anyone.
As well, I have played in a few games with Psioncs. They are all around more specialized than their Wizard/Sorcerer counterpart, and have less of the "There'ss a spell for that!" syndrome constantly happening.
I kinda figured the classes would be balanced- there was extensive testing- I am much more interested in changes in the feel and material of the adventure path.
I will admit really liking comments akin to "honestly felt like the weak link" and "competent, but hardly overshadows anyone". There's a spell for that" aspect from wizards also helps.
I recently read a thread about the vitalist being some what overpowered (as far as healing goes) so the comment of the poor fella falling off the ship also helps the balance complaints.
Has anyone played with the Path of War classes in any adventure paths?
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I kinda figured the classes would be balanced- there was extensive testing- I am much more interested in changes in the feel and material of the adventure path.
I will admit really liking comments akin to "honestly felt like the weak link" and "competent, but hardly overshadows anyone". There's a spell for that" aspect from wizards also helps.
I recently read a thread about the vitalist being some what overpowered (as far as healing goes) so the comment of the poor fella falling off the ship also helps the balance complaints.
Has anyone played with the Path of War classes in any adventure paths?
I played an archery focused Warlord (who later retrained to a Hawkguard Warder) in our first Rise of the Runelords attempt. Most of the time he was really solid and was our second highest damage dealer after the half-orc Fighter (Viking), but he had a couple really unfortunate moments. I think the worst was when he used a counter to negate an attack that would have knocked our Rogue unconcious, so the BBEG attacked the Rogue again, critting and killing him... Which was a bit of a "My bad" moment for me. How was I supposed to know that stopping him from getting hit was going to result in him getting hit harder? My favorite thing about him was that the maneuver system meant I could do a lot of moving around and still firing off meaningful shots, which became really important when I respec'd to Warder and wanted to be positioned to defend the party wizard better.
We also ran the Ruby Phoenix Tournament module with a party consisting of (if I recall correctly, it's been a bit) a Warlord, a Stalker, a Cleric (Crusader), a Ninja, and a Bard (Arcane Duelist). I think my favorite thing about that was that the party had enough damage and versatility to deal with pretty much all of the encounters, but they didn't have the win button tools of a really dedicated caster. That module is a lot of fun, but gets wrecked pretty spectacularly if you have a dedicated caster in the group. The cleric was more a "buff and bash" type, so she fit right in with the group. The champion damage dealer for the night was the ninja, a STR focused oni-blood tiefling who kept using her invisibility trick to avoid getting hit and trip locking enemies with her kusarigama. She just had massive reach with that thing and most of the time the enmy didn't know where she was so she was able to knock people down, knock them down again when they got up and accidentally moved through her threatened space, and her trip feats and AoO's were giving her tons of opportunities to keep piling on sneak attacks. The Stalker would have given her a run for her money, but he kept getting brutalized and having to teleport out of combat to recover before he jumped back in, where she was consistently getting off multiple sneak attack enhanced attacks every single round.
The Warlord's biggest contributions really were in all of the boosted action economy and total party effectiveness from combining Golden Lion with good Teamwork feats. I think on an individual level he was actually a bit behind the Arcane Duelist.
A mender vitalist is going to be amazing at healing and good at buffing. He just sucks at most everything else.
One of the stated goals of Path of War was that the fighter and rogue were too weak to be played, and those classes were intentionally ignored as balance points with regard to the PoW classes. Since the Paizo APs assume otherwise, it wouldn't be a bad idea to bump up the challenge just a bit.
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DM Perspective
Actually the Warlord in my King maker game managed to fit into the setting better than a lot of Paizo classes.
The Warlord role played like a leader and all of the class features associated with his leading made him mechanically feel like a leader. When he yelled words of encouragement (Golden Lion Maneuver for Morale Bonuses) and parried blows it felt like a much more live combat.
That doesn't really make much sense, Cheapy. Classes stronger than fighter and rogue already existed (and indeed, were almost the entire roster of other available classes). It'd be a more logical argument (though one I'd disagree with) if you suggested increasing challenge by virtue of not having any fighters or rogues in the party.
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Gave a slow (bard spells speed) maneuver progresion to the brawler and swashbuckler in our recent Iron Gods game and we could not be any more glad. Characters feel more fun and can do more than just move and smack. We also have a ranged psychic warrior in the party (flavor of being infected by nanites). So far neither have given me any issues and I am glad such flavorful unique characters are being played insteda of more disruptive full on optimized barbarians or wizards.
This is all good news, as far as I am concerned. Thank you to everyone who commented. I feel a lot better running an AP with Ultimate Psionics and the Path of War included.
Now, if DSP would just shell out Akashic Mysteries in the next couple of weeks, I could have that, too.
Well, the Vizier is here, at least =)
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Well, the Vizier is here, at least =)
To be even more specific, the Vizier and subscription are right here.
:)
Got it already. I like it, but as its not complete, I'm not subjecting my players (well, me, really) until we can get all three proposed classes and all of their awesome powers on the table.
I'm running a RotRL campaign right now (midway through book 2) with 3 psionic characters (Soulthief Vitalist, crafting-focus Aegis, and blasting Wilder) and I have made a few changes to facilitate
Knowledge(psionics) counts as Knowledge(Arcana) for all intents and purposes
Wilders are considered to have access to the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list and Vitalists have access to the Cleric/Oracle spell list for the purposes of UMD.
Full transparency, obviously.
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I just started Rise of the Runelords and there is a Marksman in the party. I'll have to see how it goes. There was a near TPK in the third goblin fight.
Gonna think 'aloud' here; fogive me if I type things yawl already know:
(now curious about "derailing/baiting post and the responses"; which he had missed) Thanks Chris. I will happily live in mystery instead of annoyance.
Knowledge (arcana) is used to gain information on "ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, constructs, dragons, magical beasts". Knowledge (psionics) is used to gain information on "ancient mysteries, psionic traditions, psychic symbols, cryptic phrases, astral constructs, and psionic races". Wow. Yeah, I'll do that too.
Not sure how I feel about access to other other classes UMD abilities. On one hand it makes the various magic items available for use, but also implies wizards, sorcerers, magus, and so on can use power stones, dorje, and so on. At that point, there is little point for the Use Magic Device skill. Maybe.
Full transparency, obviously.
I am happy you said this, and sad you felt you had to. Yes, and hell yes. Almost pointless to do this otherwise. Only in very niche cases should transparency be not but set to full.
Gave a slow (bard spells speed) maneuver progresion to the brawler and swashbuckler in our recent Iron Gods game...
Some one please explain to me how this works? It sounds like its somewhat stronger than the feats to gain maneuvers, and less than a martial class. Do you get a maneuver every third level and stance every fourth? Or is there a page I should look for this?
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Not sure how I feel about access to other other classes UMD abilities. On one hand it makes the various magic items available for use, but also implies wizards, sorcerers, magus, and so on can use power stones, dorje, and so on. At that point, there is little point for the Use Magic Device skill. Maybe.
Yeah, that's not one I've ever done before. Sometiems I'll slip a few dorjes in in place of wands for generic loot piles but I've never felt the need to actually let psions use wizard goodies (and vice versa) without UMD.
That being said, if you want to blur the lines a little, the Arcane Mind archetype for the psion is really great for playing a character who thinks and/or is fluffed as a wizard but plays as a psion. It also has arcane spell failure, which can make GMs nervous about psionics feel a little bit better about allowing it for the first time.
Here's the archetype:
Not all psionic initiates have access to a tradition of
masters passing down uncovered secrets and techniques
to help them unlock the powers of their mind. Rather,
some are students of the wizardly arts who, through the
mental discipline of arcane magical training and ritual,
have instead discovered how to tap into and focus their
own psionic power. Some of these psions might be
from savage tribes; others might hail from lands where
psionics are simply not commonplace; some are merely
aspiring students of wizardry whose innate psionic
talents far outshine the arcane potential they had
attempted to awaken.
Arcane Trappings: The arcane mind replaces all
displays with verbal and somatic components, as his
training and studies have caused him to use ancient
words and mystic movements to manifest his powers.
In addition, he suffers from arcane spell failure when
wearing armor, but rolls the chance twice and takes the
better result.
Mysterious Magic: Since he is actually manifesting
psionic powers, but with all the arcane trappings, this
makes it difficult to correctly identify what the arcane
mind is actually doing. The DC of Spellcraft checks to
recognize the power the arcane mind is manifesting is
increased by the arcane mind’s Intelligence modifier.
Strange Synergy: The arcane mind’s study of arcane
magic coupled with his psionic abilities allows him to
easier push through innate resistances. When making a
manifester check to overcome spell or power resistance,
the arcane mind gains a +1 bonus to his rolls. This bonus
increases to +2 at 10th level.
Mystic Bond: An arcane mind gains a familiar as a
wizard, but the familiar has the share power ability
of a psicrystal instead of the share spell ability of the
familiar. The familiar counts as having Psicrystal
Affinity for the purposes of feat prerequisites, including
for Psionic Containment. This ability replaces the bonus
feat normally gained at 1st level.
It's largely a choice I've made based on my group composition. I don't have any traditional spellcasters in the party, with the arcane and divine roles being filled by a wilder and a vitalist. In practice (for me), it's given a little versatility to the wilder and covered some of the low-level weaknesses of the vitalist. It helps that I'm not introducing very many psionic items.