| Torbyne |
I hadnt really looked at the class before but someone started comparing them to the Magus in another thread and it started my curiosity for the last few days so now here i am. I am trying to figure out how to build one and was hoping the ever insightful forums could help me out :)
So the archetype basically strips out everything about being a Spiritualist and leaves you with four class abilities, a 6th level casting progression, ectoplasmic lashes, ectoplasmic armor and a more or less copy-paste of spellcombat and spellstrike all in one.
My first thought was that it would play as a Magus would but gain the additional benefits of free reach weapons and armor... but that almost immediately went out the window.
The lashes themselves seem like awesome toys but i cant make any convincing math with them. you could get yourself a nice two hander and pump strength but without anything else feeding your accuracy you wont be landing those hits too often. and with the limited spell slots you will have to spend a round buffing before you pretend to be a sub par Fighter; or on round two you can cast a touch spell and try to land it through your two handed lash but if you miss you lose the charge which is even worse with your limited spell budget. So Spiritual combat is looking like a poor option. To invest so much into strength to land hits would leave your wisdom too low and cost you both your save DCs and the bonus spells you will need to stay online as long as the rest of the party and that doesnt even look at the cost you'll pay in your other stats. Going for light lashes makes them fineseable which can save you a bit on your point buy spread at the cost of damage.
The armor bonus doesnt come online until level 4 when most everyone who wants an armor bonus would have at least masterwork armor if not a +1 armor already. i am not sure what the purpose of this is aside from thematics or one of those somewhat rare games when wearing light armor is a faux pas. Certainly if you are playing from level one you would have at least the equal to ectoplasmic armor before the ability actually comes online and i cant see a scenario where you wouldnt have far better armor options between levels four and 12 when the ability gets its one and only bump. So it doesnt really save anything or provide much. Worst case scenario you would still be better served to get yourself a +1 mithral chainshirt than rely on this ability, especially since you can get that bumped up to a +2 or +3 before your class ability upgrades and basically never catches up to what you would otherwise have at the same level with regular armor. I suppose it does free up a lot of your WBL to buy wonderous items to try to patch up your spells known or spells per day though.
So that's zero for three out of class abilities so far :/ At least the spell list has a few nice options on it.
The wording on Ectoplasmic Lash makes it sound like you can either use them as weapons against regular AC or manipulate items at a distance (once you hit level four which, yikes! late for a bread and butter class ability to activate.) that combined with the limits provided in Spiritual Combat makes me think you cant use the lashes to deliver regular touch attacks, does anyone know anything to counter that? It looks like the one saving grace left to the class, build for a high WIS/DEX finesse lasher who can drop ranged touches of say, Chill touch, through TWF.
So my thoughts are the class doesnt really do anything stand out from levels 1-3, you have a few spells giving you a bit of support or utility but if you built for strength your accuracy and damage starts off low and falls further behind as you go. If you build for finesse your accuracy is better as you can afford a little more into your hitting stat but your damages start off REALLY low and likewise never catch up. it is more or less a performanceless bard? Once you hit level four you can start messing around with reach spell builds but you never get anything to reliable land hits and have a special caveat that you cant hold charges on a miss... and thats about it. The lashes scale a bit with level, the armor does too but its not really anything to plan around. You get to keep a few SLAs that probably wont come up outside of specific campaigns.
If you can make regular touch attacks with your lashes though all of a sudden the BAB and MAD issues doent seem so bad, you dont need much to land a touch and TWF with charge per level spells is a viable option. though there arent many of those to choose from. Still, i cant find a way to make a convincing weapon out of the lashes or a worthwhile defense with the armor.
Which is why i made the thread i suppose, i love the idea of the Ectoplasmatist but can find an "organic" build for it that does anything convincingly.
| Torbyne |
Thats about where i stand on it though i would really love for someone to step in and show me the secret to making on work. Does anyone have any table experience with one?
So far this is what i have
The Good:
- Free, cool, magic weapon... with reach and threat at higher levels
- Free and kinda neat armor
- Not a magus but can spell combat and spell strike!
The Bad:
- You dont have any way of hitting with your cool weapon... or pumping up damage to a competive level compared to any moderately optimized character
- Your armor comes online late for what it grans and never catches up in scale.
- Your spell strike ability loses its charge on a miss!!
- You dont really have enough spells per day to use your spell combat that much.
The weird:
- It feels like there is a whole missing class ability that grants some kind of pool for swift actions to bump action economy, hit, damage, mimic spell recall, add something more to the class... you know, like the Magus it is trying to emulate.
- You cant use your unique reach ability to land touch attacks?
| plaidwandering |
Right, let's pretend it's a modified blade bound magus
If blade bound additionally granted reach, but traded out All arcana/pool, spell recall, loses the charge on miss, added -10 to cast defensively, adds a save to all spells...would anyone ever take that?
The ecto armor is probably worse than med/heavy as well
It's horribly down there on power scale, that's why the extra text added for spell loss on miss drives me nuts
| Torbyne |
As a psychic caster they can cast with hands full.
I noticed this, they can technically mimic spell strike with their two handed lashes but i am not impressed without an accuracy booster or more spells per day to make it worthwhile. and its weird that they can spell strike with a two hander but not spell strike. oh well, more weirdness with the archetype. i wonder if they ran out of space to write with or just didnt think to compare it against a full magus when they drafted it up...