Not sure if you want flavour type suggestions but I would like to see a phantom with a less aggressive emotion. Sorrow/Grief/Loss something along those lines would really round out the options.I am very open to suggestions on what kind of emotional foci folks want to see. I can't guarantee it will get in the final, but suggestions are hugely helpful. Thank you.
Those are great suggestions for emotional foci as well....I can just see a phantom who treats their spiritualist like their lost child :P
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am very open to suggestions on what kind of emotional foci folks want to see.
Despair seems like a fairly obvious one.
How about Shame or Regret? Grief? Rejection?
Might be too much at odds with the theme, but I think some positive emotions would be cool, too- Hope is a possibility. Perhaps Amusement, or even Joy (that the Phantom still has an opportunity to affect the world around it).
Speaking of which, I wonder if there will be some information forthcoming in OA about how others might feel in regards to Spiritualists "preventing" the spirits of the dead from progressing to their just afterlives.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
The document says that, like other incorporeal creatures, its deflection bonus while incorporeal is equal to its Cha bonus...
But it also says that it scales with the level, according to the chart.
Which interpretation is correct?
Yeah I'd really like to know this one too. Currently it seems as if the Phantom can actually gain three different, non-stacking Deflection bonuses to AC when in incorporeal form:
-As part of its base statistics block, it gains a +2 Deflection bonus to AC-As part of the table, it gains an increasing Deflection bonus to AC
-As part of the description of its incorporeal form, it gains a Deflection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma modifier.
If these are all meant to stack, they should be untyped or Dodge bonuses, maybe?
for the phantom, with the ability "Shared Consciousness (Su):" it states that once per day the spirtualist can shunt a mind effecting effect to the phantom instead. This lasts for the duration of that effect. If you decide to shunt a permanent effect, do you lose this class feature forever with no way to return it?
What mind-affecting effects are permanent?
Anyway, permanent effects can be dispelled.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Klaus & Inga were a young couple in love living a simple life as farming folk in Ustalav. The night before their wedding, Klaus was killed by a werewolf when he was out hunting. He now manifests as a hybrid werewolf phantom within his one true love.
Inga
Human female Spiritualist 1
Initiative +2, Perception +4
AC 15, touch 12, ff 13 (+3 armor, +2 Dex)
Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +3
Spd 30'
Melee: morningstar +0 (1d8/x2)
Ranged: Lt. crossbow +2
Skills: Know(local) +6, Know(nobility) +6, Know(planes) +6,
Linguistics +6
Feats: Combat Casting, Point Blank Shot
Str 10, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 14 Wis 16 (+2 human), Chr 10
That's what I have so far. Suggestions & comments would be greatly appreciated.
Am I missing it, or is the Phantom's creature type not mentioned anywhere?
Klaus & Inga were a young couple in love living a simple life as farming folk in Ustalav. The night before their wedding, Klaus was killed by a werewolf when he was out hunting. He now manifests as a hybrid werewolf phantom within his one true love.
Inga
Human female Spiritualist 1
Initiative +2, Perception +4
AC 15, touch 12, ff 13 (+3 armor, +2 Dex)
Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +3
Spd 30'
Melee: morningstar +0 (1d8/x2)
Ranged: Lt. crossbow +2
Skills: Know(local) +6, Know(nobility) +6, Know(planes) +6,
Linguistics +6
Feats: Combat Casting, Point Blank ShotStr 10, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 14 Wis 16 (+2 human), Chr 10
That's what I have so far. Suggestions & comments would be greatly appreciated.
You'll probably get more feedback starting a new thread for builds.
Anyway, what does the Phantom look like, statwise?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Some other avenues to pursue for negative emotions:
Madness (insanity): add some sort of confusion effect, maybe a bonus that constantly changes. Get a bit of wild magic going.
Isolation (monomania, loneliness): Bonus when working with friends, maybe get some bonus teamwork feats. Penalties or lose bonuses when alone.
Flagellant (self loathing, suicidal): potential for some reverse life link, paying the spirits hit points to heal the occultist, like the eidelon power. Maybe a bonus teamwork feat along the lines of “in harms way” or “broken wing gambit”. Potential also for reflecting damage taken onto attackers, or causing weapons to strike back at their attackers.
If you look beyond emotions and get into general stuff (quality technical term there):
Starving (hungry, impoverished, the hungry dead): the spirit died of famine or starvation. Maybe it bestows fatigued on others, or causes non-lethal damage with a touch. Possibly upgrading to exhaustion. Potentially also bestows sickened/nauseated. A general Debuffer.
Diseased: The spirit rose from the body of someone who was killed by plague or disease. Might bestow Disease or poison, maybe just penalizing ability scores. Release a cloud of noxious gas.
Other ideas that come to mind: Pride (dominating, egotistical, Ruling), Addicted, Forgotten, Betrayed, sadistic.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really like the idea of some positive attachments for the spirit emotions. A parent dragging themselves back across the ethereal to protect their child even in death really appeals to me as a concept. You could use lovers for the same concept.
Duty is another possibility, the bodyguard of the [noble, child, politician, etc.] returns from death to guard their charge once more. Something like the character is the heir to a long lost noble lineage, and their ancestor's devoted bodyguard has looked after the line for a long time, but this was the first scion of the line that had the gift to allow the bodyguard to manifest.
Some other ones that could work, off the top of my head:
Pride: The phantom believes they are too good to die already, and comes back looking for a host to let them prove they never should have died.
Lust: No one's going to be having sex as an undead creature in the plane of shadow, so the phantom flees back to the material.
Sloth: A spirit so lazy it couldn't even be bothered to leave the material plane. Gameplay idea: Won't actually do anything on its own, has to be forced to move with the spiritualist's actions. All its abilities are passive/auras. Deals damage by being moved into an enemy's square, maybe starts as size large.
The rest of the seven deadly sins can probably be worked into place, and would make interesting characters for any of the Varisia based APs. Greed especially.
Sorrow/Loss could be very interesting for any number of concepts.
This is definitely my favorite class of the playtest. It oozes flavor, and has interesting mechanics to go along with it.
|
I really like the idea of some positive attachments for the spirit emotions. A parent dragging themselves back across the ethereal to protect their child even in death really appeals to me as a concept. You could use lovers for the same concept.
Duty is another possibility, the bodyguard of the [noble, child, politician, etc.] returns from death to guard their charge once more. Something like the character is the heir to a long lost noble lineage, and their ancestor's devoted bodyguard has looked after the line for a long time, but this was the first scion of the line that had the gift to allow the bodyguard to manifest.
Some other ones that could work, off the top of my head:
Pride: The phantom believes they are too good to die already, and comes back looking for a host to let them prove they never should have died.
Lust: No one's going to be having sex as an undead creature in the plane of shadow, so the phantom flees back to the material.
Sloth: A spirit so lazy it couldn't even be bothered to leave the material plane. Gameplay idea: Won't actually do anything on its own, has to be forced to move with the spiritualist's actions. All its abilities are passive/auras. Deals damage by being moved into an enemy's square, maybe starts as size large.
The rest of the seven deadly sins can probably be worked into place, and would make interesting characters for any of the Varisia based APs. Greed especially.
Sorrow/Loss could be very interesting for any number of concepts.
This is definitely my favorite class of the playtest. It oozes flavor, and has interesting mechanics to go along with it.
I like these ideas and would love to see them. Also I think the following would be nice to add, both on a thematic and gameplay level.
Honor (similar to uty you mentioned above and possibly some overlap. Imagine a spiritualist who bins the spirit of a long dead paladin who fell defending some innocents and refused to move on because people were still in danger).
Corruption (Some people just want to watch the world burn and I don't think their phantoms would be any different).
Sacrificed (Mayhaps a person who was unjustly put to death by the law or a religion. If you have someone who was burned to death you may get a phantom that is based around fire (or even cold) powers giving a ranged option (see my second suggestion below). This could have overlap with vengeance, but I still think it would work).
Power (It's possible the spiritualist has bound a spirit of a Wizard or other character who died while seeking power and can't rest as a result of not achieving their goals. Also this would be thematically cool as a phantom that's power is based around absorbing spells cast by others and using those to power its own abilities.)
My second suggestion - In addition to new phantom types, I would like to see more variance in phantom's abilities. A phantom with some good ranged combat abilities or SL/SU that can be used at range would be nice to have. They all have an aura, but it's not quite the same.
Similarly I would also like to see some phantoms that can wield weapons, even if they're spiritual ones. The slam attack seems effective, but imagine something like the Phantom knight I mentioned before wielding a ghostly bastard sword in combat.
My third suggestion - This may tie into types of phantoms above, but an idea for a archetype would be a spiritualist that can summon spirits of nature (slain animals and the like) as phantoms. It could have a more druidic bent and the idea of chasing goblins with a ghostly t-rex is just full of win.
|
I really like the idea of some positive attachments for the spirit emotions. A parent dragging themselves back across the ethereal to protect their child even in death really appeals to me as a concept. You could use lovers for the same concept.
I was having a lot of trouble visualizing this class until I read this post. There was an episode of Supernatural where a mother was haunting her son and attacking people who threatened him. That is a perfect representation of the class.
I may have missed it at some point, but has it been clarified on whether a Phantom can wear magical items (other than Armors, of course)?
It uses Eidolon rules for magic items.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The document says that, like other incorporeal creatures, its deflection bonus while incorporeal is equal to its Cha bonus...
But it also says that it scales with the level, according to the chart.
Which interpretation is correct?
Yeah I'd really like to know this one too. Currently it seems as if the Phantom can actually gain three different, non-stacking Deflection bonuses to AC when in incorporeal form:
-As part of its base statistics block, it gains a +2 Deflection bonus to AC
-As part of the table, it gains an increasing Deflection bonus to AC
-As part of the description of its incorporeal form, it gains a Deflection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma modifier.If these are all meant to stack, they should be untyped or Dodge bonuses, maybe?
Ayep, this all needs to change. The phantom gains an increase to either its natural armor (in ectoplasmic form) or its deflection bonus (in incorporeal form) equal to the amount on its chart.
In the starting statistics change "+2 deflection (in incorporeal form)" to "+2 dodge (in incorporeal form)." I will put this change on the OP.
for the phantom, with the ability "Shared Consciousness (Su):" it states that once per day the spirtualist can shunt a mind effecting effect to the phantom instead. This lasts for the duration of that effect. If you decide to shunt a permanent effect, do you lose this class feature forever with no way to return it?
Yes, or until the permanent effect is dispelled.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am very open to suggestions on what kind of emotional foci folks want to see.
Cowbell.
"I had a fever, and the only cure was more cowbell. Sadly, it didn't arrive in time..."
Is it intended that that Anger's Spirit's capstone, Furious Wail which basically functions as Wail of the Banshee works as written? I did not seem to find anything about the Spiritualist being immune to the effect. Simple enough I suppose to make sure the Spirit is > 40 feet away when it's used... :)
Yes. It is intended. Anger can be hard to deal with.
Am I missing it, or is the Phantom's creature type not mentioned anywhere?
It is an outsider (phantom).
What I like to know is if the spirit is not manifested, Does the magic items stay on the spirit?
Do I have to spend several rounds equipping spirit after manifesting it? Do I require ghost touch magic items just to equip the spirit when in incorporeal state?
No, the magic items do not stay on the phantom. When you manifest the phantom, you must spend time to equip it.
While the phantom is in incorporeal form it can only use magic items an incorporeal can use.
|
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
What I like to know is if the spirit is not manifested, Does the magic items stay on the spirit?
Do I have to spend several rounds equipping spirit after manifesting it? Do I require ghost touch magic items just to equip the spirit when in incorporeal state?No, the magic items do not stay on the phantom. When you manifest the phantom, you must spend time to equip it.
While the phantom is in incorporeal form it can only use magic items an incorporeal can use.
Ooh, that's interesting. I kinda like the idea.
Thanks for answering my other question about the AC bonuses, but you didn't mention anything about that Charisma bonus to AC... was that text a mistake? Should we assume the AC bonuses the spirit gets are the one from the table and the one from their base statistics (which is now a Dodge bonus)?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for answering my other question about the AC bonuses, but you didn't mention anything about that Charisma bonus to AC... was that text a mistake? Should we assume the AC bonuses the spirit gets are the one from the table and the one from their base statistics (which is now a Dodge bonus)?
That is your base defection bonus. I will explain. If the Charisma bonus is your base, and the one granted as you go up in level is an increase to that bonus rather than a flat bonus itself (that does not stack), then you have your base, and increase, and then the dodge bonus granted by the base form.
Thanks for answering my other question about the AC bonuses, but you didn't mention anything about that Charisma bonus to AC... was that text a mistake? Should we assume the AC bonuses the spirit gets are the one from the table and the one from their base statistics (which is now a Dodge bonus)?That is your base defection bonus. I will explain. If the Charisma bonus is your base, and the one granted as you go up in level is an increase to that bonus rather than a flat bonus itself (that does not stack), then you have your base, and increase, and then the dodge bonus granted by the base form.
I can tell you that juggling four different types of AC bonuses (Deflection, Dex, Nat Armor, Dodge) is going to be a bookkeeping nightmare.
Consider also that the Spirtualist's spell list includes Mage Armor and Shield, and players will want to invest in wands. That's literally about every AC bonus I can think of in this game, apart from "circumstantial".
Would it be OP to convert that "dodge" bonus to Deflection?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is a pretty interesting class, but it sort of seems like the weakest of the companion classes as it stands.
This spirit is never going to have damage output like an Eidolon or animal companion, especially when you think about the fact that an animal companion can equip magic armor. The obvious trade-off is the fact that the phantom is easy to kind of get on and off the field (you don't need to be carting your anklyosaurus around the dungeon; you have a ghost that can go through walls and stuff) and has some buff/debuff utility.
I however must note that a Hunter can get all manner of buff/debuff utility out of hunter tricks and teamwork feats while Eidolons and their all-mighty 7 attacks and maxed out strength are the golden gods of damage output. I worry that the the phantom and its two slams and middling dexterity will ever have the accuracy or damage output to meaningfully compete with the hunter or summoner.
The auras are a really nice touch, but some are better than others and you don't get them until level 7. Even then, it is only going to be a factor in a fight or two.
Of the emotions, I think fear and jealousy might come closest to being uniquely useful (though perhaps not as useful as the hunter's trick that entangles enemies). Hatred, anger, and zeal all seem to mostly focus on damage output and they just can't compete with the eidolon and T-rex even in the late game where things like sneak attack start coming into play.
All that stuff said, I am not really sure what there is to be done. Maybe I would like to see auras coming in to play earlier and having more rounds? Maybe a spell could activate the aura without using up rounds.
I also sorta think bonded manifestation's shield bonus and ghost touch are kinda lame. That standard action to activate the ability almost makes the ability worse that the level 1 shield spell at level 3, and the ghost touch upgrade at level 8 is situational and pretty weak considering that this spiritualist is not going to be building themselves to heavily focus on melee combat. Recall that level 1 wands of shield are cheap. Ectoplasmic tendrils can end up being pretty good, but it is not as good as just having your ghost on the field and it still takes you a buffing round to get it going. Even then, I will reiterate that this class is never going to do all that well in melee and will be doing worse still in later levels. I see this class's best first round as casting haste to help out his friends and phantom and then getting behind the fighter. Bottom line: why not make this a swift action? I feel like not having your phantom around to fight is enough of a drawback that you don't need to punch this class in its action economy.
Do you want this to be a class where the spiritualist is wading into battle? Kukris and scythes are pretty good melee weapons after all.
Would it be going overboard to give this class some kind of additional bonus when fighting with its spirit nearby? Would it then make sense to further empower bonded manifestation to also encompass a melee attack bonus?
If that stuff is not there, then I am gonna call building for melee a trap as you fall too far behind your buddies in accuracy and damage output as levels increase.
Those are just my thoughts.
|
Flavor is an A+ on this class, just looking through the forum you can taste the excitement.
However the issue I find is sadly mechanical in nature. This class feels rather summonerish only toned down to the point where someone only takes it for flavor.
The Phantom is rather subpar when compared to both an animal companion and the Eidolon for melee combat. Given the fact that you are boosting DEX and CHA I would like to see spirits focused more on SU or spell like abilities and ranged effects that play off its ever increasing DC's.
Trying to make this phantom more combat based will just turn it into an archetype of the summoner and that is something I think we all would like to avoid.
Regarding the manifestations I think the shield should scale up by +2 each time you get a new ability otherwise it is almost useless since you can use light armor without issues anyway since I didn't notice that psychic magic has arcane spell chance failure. Also I feel like these should be minute per day not round per day. EDIT: Also I wouldn't mind seeing a higher level ability of this if it switches to minutes per level that allows use of phantom powers. IE useable for 1/rd a level each round using a minute of the regular bond time you could use Fear's aura effect. This activation uses the phantoms DC's and any payment effects must also be paid for by the phantom ie aura rounds. If the phantom cannot use the ability while incorporeal or doesn't have any uses left of the ability the action is wasted
What happens to equipment that the phantom is wearing if it is recalled or sent to the ethereal plane does it just fall to the floor as the phantom fades away?
What happens to equipment that the phantom is wearing if it is recalled or sent to the ethereal plane does it just fall to the floor as the phantom fades away?
Yes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can definitely see some GM's diabolically rubbing their hands together at that response
I do like supporting the diabolical. ;)
I probably overlooked this in the discussion, and if so please accept my apologies for the redundancy. My question is do phantoms get iterative attacks? The table would indicate they don't.
EDIT: Never mind, a re-read of the class and the phantom answered my question.
|
|
I feel that both more strong positive foci (hope, love, and the like) and some other negative ones (rejection and shame could be good ones, especially in a Jade Empire character where honor is a be-all end-all) would make great additions to the list of foci. Not adding anything much in this post, just tossing my thoughts on the foci out there :-P Also, I feel this is more how I imagined the Shaman spirits being and I really like that idea a lot.
EDIT: Oh! Oh! A fun concept may be "Forgotten." Not an emotion, I know, but it'd be an interesting concept to have a phantom that died forgotten (an explorer in the wild, a hermit beyond the edge of civilization, a soldier that was never identified) and be searching for a way for it to be remembered, and its abilities are a little bard-y (fascinate and the like). Just a thought :-)
|
|
For Emotional Foci - up votes for Shame and Duty.
Shame - the Phantom failed at something, was not worthy. Powers can be some kind of debuff, possibly to Will.
Duty - the Phantom has unfinished business. Powers can be resistance to being sent to the Ethereal Plane, some AC bonus, that sort of thing.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Unfortunately, I think the problem with the Summoner comparison is that the Eidolon is far too strong, not that the Phantom is too weak... It's strong like a primary class feature, not strong like a replacement for what your friend brought to the table. I'd really rather not buff the Spiritualist up to be equal to the Summoner.
|
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unfortunately, I think the problem with the Summoner comparison is that the Eidolon is far too strong, not that the Phantom is too weak... It's strong like a primary class feature, not strong like a replacement for what your friend brought to the table. I'd really rather not buff the Spiritualist up to be equal to the Summoner.
I agree, and with full BAB and the option to stay incorporeal, I think the phantom could be extremely good at touch spell delivers, so it can fill a completely different niche... like a familiar that can actually join the battle. I'll be testing out a Spiritualist in PbP starting tomorrow, so hopefully I can give feedback pretty fast.
I have a strong feeling that there will be more base forms for the Phantom included in the final document, and these could drastically change the way you play the Phantom. For example, a quadruped-style Phantom with faster movement and more Strength focus would make sense (perhaps a druid's companion that died and became a spirit wandering Golarion looking for his master?), and I can definitely imagine an archetype for this class which would make the Phantom an actual undead creature, using its Charisma for hit points and focusing on level drain and similar abilities.
I noticed the whole emotional foci thing mentionned earlier, and I would like to propose a few:
-Love: this one might seem silly, but it's based on a summoner who's eidolon was shaped as his dead wife; to actually have the ghost of a love one "transcending death" to stay with their beloved could be cool. The actual powers could have more do with "protecting" the spiritualist. Could also work well for parent/child, student/mentor and other combos.
That's all for now.
Yeah, I was surprised by the lack of positive emotions myself williamoak. I would like to see other positive emotions such as joy, bravery, compassion, kindness, etc.
Yeah, I was surprised by the lack of positive emotions myself williamoak. I would like to see other positive emotions such as joy, bravery, compassion, kindness, etc.
Well, there are certian positive emotions I wouldnt expect to see, since I perceive the notion of the emotion being the reason why the ghost is still attached to the mortal plane; and I highly doubt someone would become a ghost out of kindness. However, I could easily see other more "positive" reasons, such as:
-Duty: a lot of ancestor-worshiping mythologies have the dead watching the living, so it could be appropriate.
Hmm, I'll need to think of this later.
I do find it weird that the phantom is an outsider not an undead but I can see why they did that.