Chirurgeon:
1st; you trade Poison Use, a decent ability for an alchemist, for 1/2 of a discovery that you then have to purchase anyway.
2nd; You trade poison resistance +4, handy with poison being as common as it is, for one of the weakest feat/abilities ever.
3rd; you trade Poison Immunity, which I like a lot, for a single spell that doesnt even, technically, work. Since pulling a potion is a move action and force feeding one is a full round action, its impossible to save allies in almost all cases. Even if both were combined into a full round action, the chances of a ally getting killed within 5ft of you isn't very good.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since extracts aren't actually potions isn't it always a standard action to use them, even when administering them as an infusion to an unconscious or dead ally? I'm referring to this FAQ entry.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but since extracts aren't actually potions isn't it always a standard action to use them, even when administering them as an infusion to an unconscious or dead ally? I'm referring to this FAQ entry.Chirurgeon:
1st; you trade Poison Use, a decent ability for an alchemist, for 1/2 of a discovery that you then have to purchase anyway.
2nd; You trade poison resistance +4, handy with poison being as common as it is, for one of the weakest feat/abilities ever.
3rd; you trade Poison Immunity, which I like a lot, for a single spell that doesnt even, technically, work. Since pulling a potion is a move action and force feeding one is a full round action, its impossible to save allies in almost all cases. Even if both were combined into a full round action, the chances of a ally getting killed within 5ft of you isn't very good.
Nope. There's a specific FAQ about this.
Alchemist, Chirurgeon, breath of life: How can I use this extract to bring someone back from the dead?
The normal action economy hinders the chirurgeon's ability to use its power over death class ability (which adds breath of life to his formula book).
Normally, drawing and drinking an extract is a standard action.
Normally, administering a potion to an unconscious creature is a full-round action (the rules don't state what action it is to do so to a dead creature, but it is presumably the same).
Because breath of life must be used within 1 round of death to restore the subject to life, these action requirements mean the chirurgeon can never use this extract to restore someone to life.
In the interest of having power over death actually fulfill its intended purpose (giving the archetype the ability to restore the dead), that ability will be changed to allow the chirurgeon to draw and administer a breath of life infusion to another creature as a full-round action.
This will be updated in the next printing of Ultimate Magic.
So yes, it's possible to use Breath of Life if the deceased ally is reachable with a 5ft step or if you have the ability to move and still take a full-round action (such as wearing a Quick Runner's Shirt).
Which archetypes are of your design?
Blade adept arcanist was "meant" for the eldrich knight prestige class.
I read through this entire thread to make sure none of the archetypes I designed were listed here. Thankfully I see that no one hates my archetypes. YAY!
I think most of the archetypes here aren't ones people hate so much as they're ones where something went wrong in the design/editing phase.
I wrote several of the ones in Monster Summoner's Handbook and several in Heroes of the Wild. I'm particularly proud of the Wild Caller Summoner from Heroes of the Wild.
Hurm. The Plant Eidolon models seem interesting. But was the archetype intended as such a downgrade? You lose all the form-specific evolutions (Pounce, Mount, Reach-at-Large etc), the utility of SM over SNA, and the very useful Aspect for, eh, a low-level ability I wouldn't take as a feat with no prereqs.
But compared to its closest cousin, the First World Summoner, the Wild Caller is the damn Sistine Chapel.
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I wrote several of the ones in Monster Summoner's Handbook and several in Heroes of the Wild. I'm particularly proud of the Wild Caller Summoner from Heroes of the Wild.Hurm. The Plant Eidolon models seem interesting. But was the archetype intended as such a downgrade? You lose all the form-specific evolutions (Pounce, Mount, Reach-at-Large etc), the utility of SM over SNA, and the very useful Aspect for, eh, a low-level ability I wouldn't take as a feat with no prereqs.
But compared to its closest cousin, the First World Summoner, the Wild Caller is the damn Sistine Chapel.
First world summoner can be rather powerful...if a one trick pony and requires some building from the rest of the party.
The thing is- they can summon pugwampis with their level 2 summon SLA. Or as they are better known: "no save, AoE misfortune hex".
They have an unluck aura that forces everyone to roll twice on d20's (attacks, saves, skills) and take the worse result. Since they are on such a low level summon sla, you can get a hand full fairly easily and get them to cover the entire area in unluck.
And while that can affect your party... it just needs a luck bonus to avoid. That is something you can get as an option fairly easily, such as with half orcs, archaeologists, or divine fortune, but enemies might not have access to (without some weird meta explaination of why there are thousands of luck stones floating about). And even if you can't avoid the unluck...it can be avoided while boosting your own effectiveness at times (your SoS wizard will love you- he has few d20's, and his enemies have a ton).
Yes, pugwampis are weak and easily killed. Good. That is an advantage. That makes them obvious targets. That means your GM will be more likely to try to kill them than give EVERY enemy a luck stone. And while enemies are chasing the ugly little things down, they are not attacking you and they are dividing themselves. Easy pickings. The pugwampis are not combatants- they are nodes in a great AoE debuff.
Overall...first world summoner only has one great trick, and it can be annoying to use. But when it works...your GM will smash his dice in anger.
Full BAB and d10 HD with 3/4 levels is awesome. 3/4 BAB and d8 HD with 3/4 levels is OK. 1/2 BAB and d6 HD with 3/4 levels is absolutely terrible. Who ever thought that fey HD were a good thing? Not all HD are equivalent- A Ranger with an animal companion with Dragon HD is going to destroy a range with an animal companion with Animal HD, and probably also one with Outsider HD.I wrote several of the ones in Monster Summoner's Handbook and several in Heroes of the Wild. I'm particularly proud of the Wild Caller Summoner from Heroes of the Wild.Hurm. The Plant Eidolon models seem interesting. But was the archetype intended as such a downgrade? You lose all the form-specific evolutions (Pounce, Mount, Reach-at-Large etc), the utility of SM over SNA, and the very useful Aspect for, eh, a low-level ability I wouldn't take as a feat with no prereqs.
But compared to its closest cousin, the First World Summoner, the Wild Caller is the damn Sistine Chapel.
I was assuming that the plant eidolons keep the (outsider) numbers from the eidolon table and merely change a tag, just like all the Magical Beast companions that still use the Animal HD progression.
Looking at it again, what's the point of the ability to change base form? It's not like any of them have specific abilities that make it relevant to Rock-Paper-Scissors your way through a challenge.
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The Spellscar Drifter It trades out much of the cavalier's charge-related abilities for firearm-related ones, including a free gun. What's missing? Challenge remains melee-only, so you can't use it with your gun.
Incidentally I talked to the author of said archetype and he said that he completely intended the challenge to work on ranged attacks.
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Full BAB and d10 HD with 3/4 levels is awesome. 3/4 BAB and d8 HD with 3/4 levels is OK. 1/2 BAB and d6 HD with 3/4 levels is absolutely terrible. Who ever thought that fey HD were a good thing? Not all HD are equivalent- A Ranger with an animal companion with Dragon HD is going to destroy a range with an animal companion with Animal HD, and probably also one with Outsider HD.I wrote several of the ones in Monster Summoner's Handbook and several in Heroes of the Wild. I'm particularly proud of the Wild Caller Summoner from Heroes of the Wild.Hurm. The Plant Eidolon models seem interesting. But was the archetype intended as such a downgrade? You lose all the form-specific evolutions (Pounce, Mount, Reach-at-Large etc), the utility of SM over SNA, and the very useful Aspect for, eh, a low-level ability I wouldn't take as a feat with no prereqs.
But compared to its closest cousin, the First World Summoner, the Wild Caller is the damn Sistine Chapel.
I was assuming that the plant eidolons keep the (outsider) numbers from the eidolon table and merely change a tag, just like all the Magical Beast companions that still use the Animal HD progression.
Looking at it again, what's the point of the ability to change base form? It's not like any of them have specific abilities that make it relevant to Rock-Paper-Scissors your way through a challenge.
The changing base form was more for fluff purposes... I liked the idea of the Wild Caller animating the plants around him into his eidolon, and if you're in a dank tunnel you're going to have different plant material available than if you're in a forest. I've used it once or twice in a game I'm playing in and it's very thematic.
The changing base form was more for fluff purposes... I liked the idea of the Wild Caller animating the plants around him into his eidolon, and if you're in a dank tunnel you're going to have different plant material available than if you're in a forest. I've used it once or twice in a game I'm playing in and it's very thematic.Full BAB and d10 HD with 3/4 levels is awesome. 3/4 BAB and d8 HD with 3/4 levels is OK. 1/2 BAB and d6 HD with 3/4 levels is absolutely terrible. Who ever thought that fey HD were a good thing? Not all HD are equivalent- A Ranger with an animal companion with Dragon HD is going to destroy a range with an animal companion with Animal HD, and probably also one with Outsider HD.I wrote several of the ones in Monster Summoner's Handbook and several in Heroes of the Wild. I'm particularly proud of the Wild Caller Summoner from Heroes of the Wild.Hurm. The Plant Eidolon models seem interesting. But was the archetype intended as such a downgrade? You lose all the form-specific evolutions (Pounce, Mount, Reach-at-Large etc), the utility of SM over SNA, and the very useful Aspect for, eh, a low-level ability I wouldn't take as a feat with no prereqs.
But compared to its closest cousin, the First World Summoner, the Wild Caller is the damn Sistine Chapel.
I was assuming that the plant eidolons keep the (outsider) numbers from the eidolon table and merely change a tag, just like all the Magical Beast companions that still use the Animal HD progression.
Looking at it again, what's the point of the ability to change base form? It's not like any of them have specific abilities that make it relevant to Rock-Paper-Scissors your way through a challenge.
That's nice enough, and I figured it was something like that. Also, the archetype doesn't seem to give up anything to have that ability in particular, so that's nice.
For me, personally, it's the Cloistered Cleric. Losing spellcasting, a domain, and their deity's favored weapon isn't worth the aid-another and knowledge bonuses in my opinion.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/archetypes/paizo---cler ic-archetypes/cloistered-cleric, which turns the cleric from a mighty adventurer to an NPC.
Light armour, a handful of simple weapons, one domain, diminished spellcasting...for the other half of the knowledge skills as class skills, 2 skill points per level, bardic knowledge, and Scribe Scroll.
Isn't Ecclesitheurge even worse?
Isn't Ecclesitheurge even worse?
I have asked a question in this thread that could salvage it!
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Isn't Ecclesitheurge even worse?http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/archetypes/paizo---cler ic-archetypes/cloistered-cleric, which turns the cleric from a mighty adventurer to an NPC.
Light armour, a handful of simple weapons, one domain, diminished spellcasting...for the other half of the knowledge skills as class skills, 2 skill points per level, bardic knowledge, and Scribe Scroll.
No. Cloistered cleric loses both combat ability and casting ability, meaning it fails at the cleric's two main roles, and the improvement in skills isn't enough to give it a new role.
While Ecclesitheurge has to be more cautious in combat than even the cloistered cleric, it actually gains spellcasting ability. It thus represents a greater specialization in one of the cleric's roles rather than clumsily botching both.
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Cloistered Cleric is clearly meant for NPCs.
Both the Archer and Crossbow fighter archetypes have the same basic problem: replacing simple, effective, always-on abilities with complicated fiddly ones that only have niche usefulness.
Archer Fighter at least gets Ranged Maneuvers, which is a cool ability (and should be available to everyone, rather than any specific class) and can still deal good damage...
Crossbow Fighter is just a s@$&ty deal all around!
Both the Archer and Crossbow fighter archetypes have the same basic problem: replacing simple, effective, always-on abilities with complicated fiddly ones that only have niche usefulness.
I suppose that is the idea with the archer, since you can be as good in archery using the vanilla fighter, the archetype is designed to be way more specific.
The crossbow one is really terrible tough.
What are the probs with Eldritch Scion?
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Ranged Maneuvers, which is a cool ability (and should be available to everyone, rather than any specific class)
Check out the Ranged Tactics Toolbox.
I played a monk 1/ecclesitheurge 1 for a couple sessions; the monk level was pretty much all I needed to cover the AC issue. Not sure how it would have scaled if the game had kept going, but I liked the idea.
On fighter archetypes: the sensate's got some potential too.
But for the actual topic: Warden ranger. Give up all your sweet, prereq-free combat style feats for the ability to take 10 on Survival when threatened or distracted. Tell me, how often do you make Survival rolls when threatened or distracted? And you lose all your favored enemies (which of course makes your favored-enemy-related spells, like instant enemy, useless) in exchange for a minor skill bennie on a bunch more skills you don't roll much. Being able to give your party your favored terrain bonuses is nice, but better than an animal companion? Not to mention that, if you do actually want that ability, the far superior guide archetype does the same thing.
What are the probs with Eldritch Scion?Charisma is a generally inferior casting stat. You also can't use Intensified Shocking Grasp in spell combat because it takes a full round to metamagic a spontaneous spell. Your Spell Combat gets delayed by a lot, and in the first 8 levels you need to pay pool points to use it. You lose the ability to prepare/learn any magus spell. All of this in exchange for charisma as a casting stat and ability to pay pool points to temporarily gain a single bloodline's powers.
Eldrith Scion makes me sad... It could have been a great archetype, but a few poor design choices ruined it. It ended up as yet another awful archetype that is just not worth using.
^Also, the Bloodline is of the Bloodrager variety, which works okay for a Bloodrager, but between 4 levels of bonus spells concentrated into a mid-level range and the expensive and kludgy method of activating the Bloodline powers (as noted above by others), this just doesn't work well on the Magus -- a Sorcerer Bloodline with a truncated bonus spell series would have probably been better (indeed, some Sorcerer Bloodlines would work better on a Magus than on a Sorcerer, even with the truncated bonus spell series).
How about the Eldritch Scrapper Sorcerer? How about we give a character with the worst BAB and the worst HP a bunch of combat feats instead of bloodline powers? That will work real well.
Can we go that far? The remaining class features (11 feats) are still at least on par with the 3.5 features. It's a terribly designed archetype, but it's not like it goes so far as to make you a detriment to your team, right? It gives you options to be a very slightly better crossbowman at the expense of versatility and defense. It doesn't force you to attack your teammates or save your enemies.
Shhhh.... don't let Aelryinth hear you say that.
Didn't your fighter parents warn you not to say 'feats are valid class features' three times into a mirror or Bloody Aelryinth will come out?
I will admit though- the combat bar for pathfinder is a bit higher than 3.5. Thus why all the classes got a bunch of shiny new features.
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The Totem Warrior has cool fluff, but it is TERRIBLE! Like more terrible than feeding a Flumph baked beans... in a sealed room with it.
What are the probs with Eldritch Scion?Charisma is a generally inferior casting stat. You also can't use Intensified Shocking Grasp in spell combat because it takes a full round to metamagic a spontaneous spell. Your Spell Combat gets delayed by a lot, and in the first 8 levels you need to pay pool points to use it. You lose the ability to prepare/learn any magus spell. All of this in exchange for charisma as a casting stat and ability to pay pool points to temporarily gain a single bloodline's powers.
They take such a hit to spell casting by using the bard stuff, I don't know why the other restrictions are there as well. I'll probably just come up with my own archetype then, until this one is fixed, if ever.
According to the Paizo Blog FAQ on Errata, the Myrmidarch Magus got errata, although perhaps not all that it should have. Has anyone had a chance to check that out? (I would do this myself if only I wasn't stuck using a phone for messageboard activities until I can get a new computer.)
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Can we go that far? The remaining class features (11 feats) are still at least on par with the 3.5 features. It's a terribly designed archetype, but it's not like it goes so far as to make you a detriment to your team, right? It gives you options to be a very slightly better crossbowman at the expense of versatility and defense. It doesn't force you to attack your teammates or save your enemies.Shhhh.... don't let Aelryinth hear you say that.
Didn't your fighter parents warn you not to say 'feats are valid class features' three times into a mirror or Bloody Aelryinth will come out?
I will admit though- the combat bar for pathfinder is a bit higher than 3.5. Thus why all the classes got a bunch of shiny new features.
Rargh! Someone spreading apostasy again?!?
But seriously:
Feats are 1/2 of a class feature. They become better if:
1) you ignore pre-reqs (like, all classes but fighters do)
2) get them early (which all classes but fighters tend to do)
3) Scale (which, those tied to OTHER CLASSES tend to do...like, oh, Extra Rage Power)
4) Cover a good range of offense, defense and utility (which, generally, combat feats do NOT.)
5) Have some exclusivity built into them which allows for extra favoritism/power (again, like Extra Rage Power being basically a barb thing. Where's my fighter Thang?)
For being the seeming Lord, Master, and Sage of feats, the fighter REALLY gets shafted by them.
==Aelryinth
According to the Paizo Blog FAQ on Errata, the Myrmidarch Magus got errata, although perhaps not all that it should have. Has anyone had a chance to check that out? (I would do this myself if only I wasn't stuck using a phone for messageboard activities until I can get a new computer.)
Basically, they moved one bit of corn from one end of the myrmidarch to the other.
My favourite is the Archeologist. AKA "I don't need sneak attack, so why play a (chained) rogue?"
It's a 'greedy bard' who has a buff that stacks with a 'real' bard. You get rogue talents, delayed uncanny dodge and evasion, trapfinding AND bardic knowlege AND all your bard spells. Oh, and add half your level to perception and disable device. Sadly, you don't get sneak attack. trust me, you won't miss it.
Sure, you need a feat to make it work (Lingering performance) but if you have a certain trait, it gets even better. (I'll take a +1 to my luck bonus for a half a feat, Alex.)
Only one thing wrong with the Archaeologist:
The Bard is required to have verbal components to his spells. Even if the spell doesn't normally have a verbal component. And the Archaeologist archetype, the archetype that gets rid of all the Bard's performance abilities, the archetype whose whole point is to let players play a skillsy, castery type with a modicum of combat ability WITHOUT having to do any singing or musicing...
...still requires you to sing your spells. Ugh!
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...still requires you to sing your spells. Ugh!
"Every bard spell has a verbal component (singing, reciting, or music)."
I'm sure a creative player or DM can re-flavor those spells that specifically call out music or instruments. But really... I think expecting the archetype to re-write the entire spell list is reaching a little. Does the archetype really need to state "only recitation" somewhere for players to figure that out?
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...still requires you to sing your spells. Ugh!"Every bard spell has a verbal component (singing, reciting, or music)."
I'm sure a creative player or DM can re-flavor those spells that specifically call out music or instruments. But really... I think expecting the archetype to re-write the entire spell list is reaching a little. Does the archetype really need to state "only recitation" somewhere for players to figure that out?
Amusingly, I picture my bards whistling the Indiana Jones theme when casting or using luck.
The real 'problem' with the archaeologist is that you basically have to spend your first feat on lingering performance. (and if you have Ultimate Campaign, Fate's Favored trait is a must have)
...still requires you to sing your spells. Ugh!"Every bard spell has a verbal component (singing, reciting, or music)."
I'm sure a creative player or DM can re-flavor those spells that specifically call out music or instruments. But really... I think expecting the archetype to re-write the entire spell list is reaching a little. Does the archetype really need to state "only recitation" somewhere for players to figure that out?
Amusingly, I picture my bards whistling the Indiana Jones theme when casting or using luck.
The real 'problem' with the archaeologist is that you basically have to spend your first feat on lingering performance. (and if you have Ultimate Campaign, Fate's Favored trait is a must have)
I agree on the feat and trait, but then does that make the archetype overpowered, or the bolt-ons?