I would really like to know the answer to that one as well.
It would be nice. I'd rather not get my hopes up for classes that have potential but aren't quite there yet.
I'd understand if there wasn't. Most of the classes are almost ready for release.so far I haven't had problems except for kineticist.
I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.
I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.
I too hope for at least another for the Kineticst. Most of the others seemed mostly fine.
I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.I too hope for at least another for the Kineticst. Most of the others seemed mostly fine.
Your kidding right ?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your kidding right ?I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.I too hope for at least another for the Kineticst. Most of the others seemed mostly fine.
I didn't notice any glaring issues but I'll admit most of my time was taken up with the Kineticst. If you think others need something, speak up. "Your kidding right ?" doesn't really add anything.
I didn't notice any glaring issues but I'll admit most of my time was taken up with the Kineticst. If you think others need something, speak up. "Your kidding right ?" doesn't really add anything.Your kidding right ?I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.I too hope for at least another for the Kineticst. Most of the others seemed mostly fine.
I think he might be referring to some of the problems the spiritualist has, though some people were able to work around them. For the most part its still kinda under-powered.
I would also like to see a second play-test document and see where paizo wants to take these new classes.
|
I feel a sense that classes are underpowered in general. Occultist and Psychihc are the exception since the first works, i think, as a good generalist and the second is a fullcaster so thats it.
The other classes dont really fill a real mechanical niche, a fluff niche hell yes they are the best, but none of them are built around the big 4 roles nor are exactly generalists
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't notice any glaring issues but I'll admit most of my time was taken up with the Kineticst. If you think others need something, speak up. "Your kidding right ?" doesn't really add anything.Your kidding right ?I would hope there's one at least for the Kineticst. It needs MAJOR revisions and could use a playtest for said revisions to make sure they fix some of the issues.I too hope for at least another for the Kineticst. Most of the others seemed mostly fine.
Brief summary of issues people seem to have (having read all the Class threads):
Kineticist: Manifold and talked of extensively.
Medium: Definite issues on what non-Str or Dex Mediums are to do with their turns. Possible power level issues (though, IMO, not huge ones).
Mesmerist: Flat-out inferior to the Bard in most ways, tricks seriously aren't very good, looks like it's supposed to be decent at physical combat but really isn't.
Occultist: Several minor issues involving spell list and details of implement powers. Still, fairly few issues all told comparatively. though some are claiming it can't actually pull off melee builds effectively...that's strongly disputed, though.
Psychic: Issues with spell list and, well, all other mechanics. Mostly not very big ones, though.
Spiritualist: A lot of issues with the power level of the Phantasm and the precise nature of what said phantasm can do.
In short, Occultist and Psychic are the only two that couldn't do with at least a bit of a revamp and a second playtest of some sort (whether a second document or an update on the boards or whatever). Now, basically all the people working on them have been very responsive, and it looks like a lot of the above issues will be getting fixed, but they very much exist.
Thanks Deadmanwalking, that explains a lot. I missed a lot by not keeping a close eye on the non-Kineticist threads. I knew they all needed tweaks, but I didn't notice some of what you posted. I'm all for more classes being thrown on the 2nd playtest list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe at least these classes are in need of another round:
-Kineticist: Still lacking power and mechanics in several ways.
-Medium: Severely complicated for what he does (not much).
-Spiritualist: Needs a class structure different from the summoner, feels like an weakened summoner with a hardly useful eidolon.
Sorry about that Graystone...but everyone has pretty much hit it on the head. There are several classes in need of a lot more work than the Kineticist...and I get kind of concerned that they will get missed in the disproportionate focus on the Kineticist.
Sorry about that Graystone...but everyone has pretty much hit it on the head. There are several classes in need of a lot more work than the Kineticist...and I get kind of concerned that they will get missed in the disproportionate focus on the Kineticist.
No worries, I understand. I know I'm worried that the Kineticist is going to turn out to be the next rogue without the skills... :P
I believe at least these classes are in need of another round:
-Kineticist: Still lacking power and mechanics in several ways.
-Medium: Severely complicated for what he does (not much).
-Spiritualist: Needs a class structure different from the summoner, feels like an weakened summoner with a hardly useful eidolon.
complicated seemed pretty universal for these classes.
For the Spiritualist, I kind of like where it is. Nice weapon list, ability to up armor proficiency if you like (no ASF), healing spells so they can fill in for a healer, good saves in the important ones. I also like the Phantom's ability to switch between personal defense, incorporeal scout and flank buddy. Over all the Spiritualist gets less attack for more utility. I'm ok with that.
We tried Fear and Zeal Phantoms and both seemed to work well. In particular, the ability manifest while the character was asleep/unconscious was a true lifesaver that an Eidolon just can't emulate.
Better off than the ACG Playtest. Problems got identified and expressed early and probably have fairly simple solutions. Kineticist is in the most danger because anything that can be done at will is overvalued in the game, so it has a huge possibility of being Monk 2.0.( All kinds of cool abilities but ultimately sucking for it. )
In the ACG Playtest many messages felt garbled and drowned out by heavy arguing over whether or not the classes should exist in the first place. ACG playtest was a chore to read and a mess to comprehend. By comparison the Occult Adventures Playtest forums has been razor focused and useful.
At least from my point of view. I don't know how the devs feel about this playtest and the ACG playtest.
Mesmerist seems the weakest of all the new classes in terms of being overshadowed by other existing classes.
I really, realy, really hope there is.
I really, realy, really hope there is.
I have yet to hear anyone say they'd rather not have one.
One of the problems with the Medium being anything other than a Str or Dex-based character is that it doesn't get casting right off-the-bat, and what casting it does get isn't reliable in the least, meaning it forces players into martial roles to try and compensate (which it doesn't do very well).
The other problem is that the class is very ill-defined, even as far down as the very concept. It's nothing BUT a swiss-army-knife class and doesn't have its own identity nor basic role. This means that both the players and the designer aren't really sure what to do with it. Every other class has a basic concept - a "goal" that it tries to be. No other class TRIES to be every role all at once because it's impossible from a balance standpoint, even classes like the Cleric; they also (almost) all have characters on which they're based to some degree:
Barbarian - Berserker / Ultra-Viking (Cuchulainn)
Bard - Performer / Virtuoso / Jack-of-all-Trades (Vainamoinen)
Cleric - Holy Mage / Healer (Gandalf the White, Moses)
Druid - Nature Mage / Shapeshifter (Radaghast the Brown)
Fighter - Man-at-Arms (Achilles/Conan the Cimmerian)
Monk - Martial artist / Wuxia master (pick one)
Paladin - Holy knight (Lancelot/Galahad/Roland/etc.)
Ranger - Nature-based warrior (Legolas son of Thranduil)
Rogue - Dungeon Delver / Scoundrel (The Mouser)
Sorcerer - Wild/Innate-magic mage (Merlin)
Wizard - Studied Mage (Johann Faust, Prospero)
Alchemist - Mad Scientist (Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde / Dr. Moreau)
Cavalier - Traditional knight / field commander (Richard the Lionhearted)
Gunslinger - Shoots... guns... yeah. (like the Monk, take your pick)
Inquisitor - Vampire/Witch/Monster hunter (Solomon Kane)
Magus - Mage-knight (Elric of Melniborne / Taoist Immortals)
Oracle - Seer / Prophet / Conduit of the Gods (Oracle of Delphi)
Summoner - Summoned-monster-spammer (arguably Solomon the Wise, but, eh...)
Witch - Hex/Curse-based mage (Baba-Yaga/traditional Witches)
Arcanist - Consummate mage (kinda doesn't have one)
Bloodrager - Rage-Mage (Gawain)
Brawler - Adventure hero / Superhero (Doc Savage / Captain America, etc.)
Hunter - Nature Mage-knight (Dar from The Beastmaster)
Investigator - Chemist-detective (Sherlock Holmes)
Shaman - White witch / Shamanic Nature-Priest (Glinda, Shinto Mikos)
Skald - Rage-inducing Bard / Viking Bard (Pan, Bragi)
Slayer - Assassin (Ezio Auditore)
Swashbuckler - It's in the name (Errol Flynn roles)
Warpriest - Holy Mage-knight (arguably, Alexander Anderson)
---
Even other classes in the OA Playtest have specific goals and themes
Kineticist - Telekinetic (Jedi, the various Benders from ATLA)
Mesmerist - Telepathic Manipulator (The Shadow)
Occultist - Psychometric / Object-based mage (John Constantine, Harry Dresden)
Psychic - Consumate Psychic (Jean Grey, Professor Xavier, etc.)
Spiritualist - Psychic Summoner (not sure, but it does a nice job of being a Not-Summoner)
The Medium, however, doesn't have a goal or theme besides "it is what it needs to be", which, really, it isn't - whatever "I can fill any role" idea it has the Bard basically already does better, and the Cleric does even better than that.
Ostensibly, it should be a class that speaks with the departed, but there is nothing in the class beyond the Spirits to actually play on this: no "Commune with Dead" abilities, no Turn/Command Undead Bonus Feats, nothing.
The class has no tricks other than what the Spirits give it, which is a model no other class takes, and for good reason: it ends up being a very big mish-mosh collage of abilities branching out everywhere that have no real unifying goal that it can help build towards.
I'm probably the only one that wishes the medium stays like that or at least is allowed to be like that.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of the problems with the Medium being anything other than a Str or Dex-based character is that it doesn't get casting right off-the-bat, and what casting it does get isn't reliable in the least, meaning it forces players into martial roles to try and compensate (which it doesn't do very well).
This is true...the creator of the Class has acknowledged this as an issue, however, and said he's working on a fix for this problem. So...this is probably not gonna be a problem with the final class.
The other problem is that the class is very ill-defined, even as far down as the very concept. It's nothing BUT a swiss-army-knife class and doesn't have its own identity nor basic role. This means that both the players and the designer aren't really sure what to do with it. Every other class has a basic concept - a "goal" that it tries to be. No other class TRIES to be every role all at once because it's impossible from a balance standpoint, even classes like the Cleric; they also (almost) all have characters on which they're based to some degree:
Here I disagree. The idea of a person who calls on spirits to possess them, giving them capabilities they otherwise lack is absolutely true to a variety of mythologies (voodoo in general leaps immediately to mind, for example)...and I can think of several fictional characters who do it as well.
So...yeah, this archetype has some juice thematically. Some 'speaking with the dead' stuff, as well as the ability to speak with other, more nebulous, beings (Contact Other Plane, Augury, Divination, etc.) might be nice, but if there's a spirit for it, you can manage with a spell or three pretty readily.
I'm probably the only one that wishes the medium stays like that or at least is allowed to be like that.
Nah, I'm with you on that. As are most of the people in the Medium thread, I think.
I've mentioned it else where but I too hope for an updated PTD.
I wouldn't say that the Medium seems so much without a thematic basis or definition, as just plain dangerous to the practitioner.
And I wish that the ACG had a third playtest BEFORE production release.
I'm probably the only one that wishes the medium stays like that or at least is allowed to be like that.
My sometimes-player-sometimes-GM that is planning on bringing a Medium to my Kineticist playtest really likes this about the class, too. He enjoys being able to basically have an entirely different character every time he shows up.
I like that aspect but I'm also tired of the same paradigm of how combat and roles work and appreciate classes that have an uncertain role or nontraditional role. These work well in campaigns with weird situations where you need a weird kind of flexibility to overcome.
(Copied and pasted from a related thread that died, and slightly edited.)
Actually wonder whether Occult Adventures would be better for a d20 (Semi) Modern successor (based upon Pathfinder), set on Earth with a shadow world (think of a crossover with White Wolf's Mage/Old World of Darkness) in a time range anywhere from the late Nineteenth Century up to the present. If you set it shortly after World War I, it is even contemporaneous with Golarion "present time", thus more easily enabling Earth-Golarion crossovers (with one of the hooks being unanticipated consequences of PC actions in Reign of Winter).
I really hope for an updated PDF.
Indeed, I hope for an updated Playtest Document too.
|
Mark said he'd be posting some changes for the Medium today. They sounded pretty big (they're supposed to give non-Str/Dex focused Mediums more options at low levels) so I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a second playtest document. I imagine that there is a lot of tweaking going on behind the scenes.
Jason has said HERE:
I am not 100% sure as of yet, but right now it does not seem necessary. It does not appear that any of the classes needs such significant work to warrant a second round.
Note it was not really the thread for that discussion, and further discussion is best left here. :)
Most of the playtesters seem to disagree with him.
Lead Designer
|
Just to clarify,
We are only going to do a second round if any of the classes need significant redesign. As of this moment, I am not sure that they do. There will be plenty of tweaking, but most of this will probably occur within the existing framework or one very similar to it.
It is always a balancing act for us. A second round would undoubtedly bring a number of classes close to their final iteration, which has led to some disappointment later down the road by folks who wanted even more. On the flip side, classes that need large changes should get them and receive additional testing, but as I said above, I am not sure that any of the classes have met that threshold at the current time.
Rest assured, if we decide to do a second round, you will hear about it as soon as we know. Until such an announcement, assume that there will only be one round.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
There does seem to be some traction on it - it all depends on whether the devs think any corrections/tweaks etc can be contained and play tested in-house; how big any perceived problems really are, the development timeline left; the level of feedback quality (opinion vs hard mechanics etc). etc etc etc
I'm easy either way, I just would like to see a better approach than was evident during the ACG, which had two playtests and resulted in some poorly edited/constructed work. Though that was the editing and after class archetyping, not the play test itself.
[edit - ninja/occultist'd by Jason]
I think at the very least a list of proposed changes (rather than a full second document) for each class would be worthwhile.
As-is the Kineticist is basically non-functional in its main role without some big changes.
I haven't paid close attention to the other playtests (mostly because none of the other classes were really interesting IMO) but it seems like a few need some big changes as well.
I think at the very least a list of proposed changes (rather than a full second document) for each class would be worthwhile.
As-is the Kineticist is basically non-functional in its main role without some big changes.
I haven't paid close attention to the other playtests (mostly because none of the other classes were really interesting IMO) but it seems like a few need some big changes as well.
I wasn't able to follow the colossal kineticist thread. What are the big exclamation points?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wasn't able to follow the colossal kineticist thread. What are the big exclamation points?I think at the very least a list of proposed changes (rather than a full second document) for each class would be worthwhile.
As-is the Kineticist is basically non-functional in its main role without some big changes.
I haven't paid close attention to the other playtests (mostly because none of the other classes were really interesting IMO) but it seems like a few need some big changes as well.
Essentially imagine an Archer Fighter, but with significantly less DPR and the ability to fly.
More specifically
-Can only contribute to a group through damage
-small list of skills, few skill points
-low damage
-Spell resistance, Energy resistance, and DR make it sad
-Burn does not offer a large enough reward for its cost
-the base power before burn is too low
-to even have decent DPR a melee build is required
-a lot of wild talents are required to do basic stuff (Imagine if you had to take a feat to draw a weapon as part of a move action, or a feat to gain access to fighting defensively)
-Few wild talents to grab actual utility. Most are damage/status related.
-Going Mono-element is BAD.
I'll add that Burn is the only class ability in the game that actually negates the major advantage of your "casting stat" by reducing your max HP on use.
It's like if a Wizard had a skill point penalty equal to his Int modifier to return it to a baseline 2+Int.
6 and 16 (Talents unlock at 1/6/10/16) IIRC.
Water and such can Spray in a cone (though there's no reason you'd ever WANT to since it chops the damage in half AND allows a save...at which point it's probably dealing 1/4 of the Blast's proper damage) at lower levels. Fire has to wait until 16th for Explosion.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would say that the kineticist and some of the other classes are in dire need of a second version.
A lot of this comes down to opinions. (For example only) technically the mesmerist is a playable class. If Paizo thinks it is doing what they want it to do and how they want it to do it, then its done minus some tweaks. I would honestly like to see a huge change to stare and trick mechanics, but others might not see it that way.
Most of the Occult play test classes are fine and playable with some minor tweaks, but are they currently classes I would enjoy playing? Especially for an entire adventure path (which is how I usually game), not really. I love the themes and concepts, but the execution of mechanics are not in line with what I think works for ME at the table.
I feel that is the problem a lot of people are having. These are great concepts and the ideas presented in them are innovative, but just because a class is interesting and works doesn't make it fun to play.
But i reiterate, this is me, I know some people who were chomping at the bit to have a go at some of the APG classes that I thought were broken or redundant. People have different expectations. If Occult Adventures doesn't give me what I want I won't buy it, but I hope the final versions of these classes are exactly what some people want them to be.
|
I've mostly looked at the Occultist. As it is right now it is just too weak after about level 7 or so. Sufficiently so that I haven't played it past level 1 (PFS) as I don't want to be unable to change the character.
It also seems to me that there are almost no play testing reports at mid to high levels. And that is where the issues are (I'm not alone in thinking that many of the classes scale poorly).
The fact that Paizo thinks it is getting the play testing it needs surprises me.
On the other hand, I kinda hope that everything is underpowered when released. ACG had far too many power boosts for my taste. So maybe the fact that Paizo is happy with underpowered stuff is a good thing :-)