| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So this Prep Guide differs from the Martial Lowdown one. That one aimed to clarify what we knew (so people could prep what kind of martial they might wish to build), while this one looks at what we don't yet know (so people can determine what fringe PCs they might wish to build). Which is to say, the martial post was for the widest audience aiming to participate in the playtest while this post is to pique the interests of those wanting to explore the breadth of the system, even break it so as to fix it. Hopefully by seeding our odder ideas, we can get more people trying them out in the playtests. Two examples we know of are the Barbarian primary healer (a success, investing heavily in Medicine skill) and the intentionally low-Dex melee Monk (a success, both when mobile & toe-to-toe). There also have been several examples of non-martial classes boosting their strength and faring well in melee and a Fighter who inflicts multiple debuffs every round.
Note: None of these are among my oddest ideas! These are just ones I think are important enough to be balanced in PF2 Core via the playtest and which may not have seen enough playtest time.
Here's the list, please add your own:
ABJURER: Never saw one in PF1, so just wondering if even attractive in PF2.
ARCHER (in an unsupported class): So Clerics, Barbarians, Paladins, et al. Classes that did well as archers in PF1, but likely have no class feats to support archery in PF2, and are in classes that don't encourage Dex builds. Do they contend with the natural archers or lag too far?
DIVINER: Saw several in PF1, all single level dips and/or gateways to Prestige Classes.
HARM CLERIC: Sure, Resonance makes a Heal Cleric more attractive, but maybe the Harm Cleric packs enough oomph to lessen the need. Maybe?
IMPROVISED WEAPON USER: Whether melee or thrown, it'd be cool to see a build for a PC that makes do with what's around, or with some offbeat beatstick.
NECROMANCER: So iconic. Can a Cleric, Wizard, or even Sorcerer make a competitive army of undead? Will it endure, overwhelm, or just overtax other players' patience? Undead Lord archetype?!?
POISONER: With poisons being upgraded to being both immediate and significant, we may see more, especially with Alchemists' daily free allotments (which include poisons, right?). It'd be overdue.
POLYMORPH COMBATANT: In PF2, the Druid appears to reference spells for Wild Shape, so does that mean Druids are weaker or other classes can now contend w/ some good polymorph builds? Will short durations make this resource-intensive? Will 3-action rounds (and more rounds per fight) make it easy to transform and participate?
THROWER: I love throwers, from shurikens to hatchets. With longbows being penalized in close combat, throwing options move up a notch. But can they vie with melee builds? With shortbows? Or at all? Are they going to be as slow to come online as in PF1?
TOUCH CASTER: Other than the Magus "touching" with a weapon, touch casters struggled in PF1. With the higher attack bonuses w/ the extra crit chances, can a full caster pull off focusing on touch spells?
WONKY WEAPONS: Whether daggers, spears, staves, or whips, there are several iconic weapons that took years to become competitive in PF1 (at least in any straightforward way). How will these perform in PF2? Will there be anything akin to a Warpriest or Brawler weapon progression for small-die weapons?
WONKY PARTY BUILDS:
Can an 8 Cha party of Dwarves get by on their Resonance? (and no Alchemists, duh)
Does a party of 16+ Cha PCs exploit the system too much?
Does an all-pets party w/ group buffs break the system?
How about all Clerics? Unstoppable?
So what other builds do you wish to test or see tested that you aren't certain the playtesters have already vetted?
And of course, any playtesters who've seen these in action are welcome to share how it went.
Cheers
Wonky parties:
No caster parties (No spells, spell points, or alchemists). Do they work?
All caster parties (Only 9-10 level casters need apply). Do they work?
No Rules Party: Everyone takes a class with anathema, and violates them without ever atoning. How debilitated are they?
No Rules Party II: Everyone takes a class with anathema, but anathema and codes of conduct are neither enforced nor encouraged. Are the classes still balanced?
Wonky build ideas:
Can a character be a weapons generalist who uses a golfbag of different weapons to adapt to different circumstances, or are there to many abilities that key off of one weapon or weapon group to make someone equally competitive whether they use hammers, spears, bows, or swords?
Can a character be a combat maneuver generalist who can reasonably expect success with a wide variety of maneuvers, or is specialization such that in order to stay relevant you have to pick only one or two?
Can a wizard use a melee weapon and stay a decent secondary melee combatant while still having decent magical abilities in and out of combat?
Can a bard be fully functional without ever picking up a weapon and solely relying on magic?
Pet-o-mancers: Do familiars work as combatants alongside their masters? Can someone focus entirely on their animal companion and effectively play an animal with a human there to do the speaking? Is summoning better-balanced? Can someone have a familiar, animal companion, and summoning without needing overly-long turns or broken action economy?
How many classes from PF1 that aren't in the playtest can be effectively recreated with the playtest rules?
Trapper: Can we build a workable non-casting trapmaker who sets snares during combat that actually make a difference to battlefield control.
Shifter: Can a Druid (or other - or druid multi-class) make a shapeshifting build that is viable.
Arcane Trickster: If they don't make the prestige class, can a caster/rogue multi-class be effective?
Eldritch Knight: Likewise a Gish build
All anathema party: if all members of a party had an anathema from different sources, could they still function or would they always be at each others throats or undermining each other?
I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
Well, actually...
I do know we get a limited version of this in 2e through the Paladin. At level 1 the Paladin gets an ability called Deific Weapon. This ability buffs Simple Weapons that are a Deity's Favoured Weapon, so that they are competitive with martial weapons. I asked Mark about this feature, and it turned out to be a Paladin exclusive ability. (i.e. Clerics don't have this ability) So that includes Abadar's Light Crossbow (the example Mark gave me) and Irori's Unarmed Fist(?)... As I said, its limited but it's a step in the right direction. They are thinking about these things at least...
-Unarmed non-Monk
-"As many ki abilities as possible" Monk
-Paladin w/ minimum Cha (does it have enough non-Cha options?)
I think an all full-casters party might be too powerful because it wouldn't take much for them to cover all the roles while still having all them spells. It's hard to gauge all those incremental differences that accumulate when a class & role have synergy.
And I too would like to see how well a "mundane" party could get by w/ lots of skills.
I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
Well, actually...
I do know we get a limited version of this in 2e through the Paladin. At level 1 the Paladin gets an ability called Deific Weapon. This ability buffs Simple Weapons that are a Deity's Favoured Weapon, so that they are competitive with martial weapons. I asked Mark about this feature, and it turned out to be a Paladin exclusive ability. (i.e. Clerics don't have this ability) So that includes Abadar's Light Crossbow (the example Mark gave me) and Irori's Unarmed Fist(?)... As I said, its limited but it's a step in the right direction. They are thinking about these things at least...
Well darn, the possibility of a Punchadin throws some of my other ideas out of the window.
I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
Well, actually...
I do know we get a limited version of this in 2e through the Paladin. At level 1 the Paladin gets an ability called Deific Weapon. This ability buffs Simple Weapons that are a Deity's Favoured Weapon, so that they are competitive with martial weapons. I asked Mark about this feature, and it turned out to be a Paladin exclusive ability. (i.e. Clerics don't have this ability) So that includes Abadar's Light Crossbow (the example Mark gave me) and Irori's Unarmed Fist(?)... As I said, its limited but it's a step in the right direction. They are thinking about these things at least...
Are you sure that's what he said? What I remember is that it was a Cleric class feat but something Paladins get for free.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A blastercaster
ABJURER: Never saw one in PF1, so just wondering if even attractive in PF2.
ARCHER (in an unsupported class): So Clerics, Barbarians, Paladins, et al. Classes that did well as archers in PF1, but likely have no class feats to support archery in PF2, and are in classes that don't encourage Dex builds. Do they contend with the natural archers or lag too far?
DIVINER: Saw several in PF1, all single level dips and/or gateways to Prestige Classes.
HARM CLERIC: Sure, Resonance makes a Heal Cleric more attractive, but maybe the Harm Cleric packs enough oomph to lessen the need. Maybe?
IMPROVISED WEAPON USER: Whether melee or thrown, it'd be cool to see a build for a PC that makes do with what's around, or with some offbeat beatstick.
NECROMANCER: So iconic. Can a Cleric, Wizard, or even Sorcerer make a competitive army of undead? Will it endure, overwhelm, or just overtax other players' patience? Undead Lord archetype?!?
POISONER: With poisons being upgraded to being both immediate and significant, we may see more, especially with Alchemists' daily free allotments (which include poisons, right?). It'd be overdue.
POLYMORPH COMBATANT: In PF2, the Druid appears to reference spells for Wild Shape, so does that mean Druids are weaker or other classes can now contend w/ some good polymorph builds? Will short durations make this resource-intensive? Will 3-action rounds (and more rounds per fight) make it easy to transform and participate?
THROWER: I love throwers, from shurikens to hatchets. With longbows being penalized in close combat, throwing options move up a notch. But can they vie with melee builds? With shortbows? Or at all? Are they going to be as slow to come online as in PF1?
TOUCH CASTER: Other than the Magus "touching" with a weapon, touch casters struggled in PF1. With the higher attack bonuses w/ the extra crit chances, can a full caster pull off focusing on touch spells?
WONKY WEAPONS: Whether daggers, spears, staves, or whips, there are several iconic weapons that took years to become competitive in PF1 (at least in any straightforward way). How will these perform in PF2? Will there be anything akin to a Warpriest or Brawler weapon progression for small-die weapons?
WONKY PARTY BUILDS:
Can an 8 Cha party of Dwarves get by on their Resonance? (and no Alchemists, duh)
Does a party of 16+ Cha PCs exploit the system too much?
Does an all-pets party w/ group buffs break the system?
How about all Clerics? Unstoppable?
**EDIT** Large post is large. Added bandaids to cut down on wall of text-ism.
Maybe if Poisons helped to do damage (such as by applying debuffs), didn't have crap Save DCs, weren't overtly expensive for no reason, and were actually usable on a lot of NPCs you fight (seriously, every Outsider, Construct, Undead...basically anything that wasn't Humanoid, and even then, were all immune to Poisons), Poisons would be passable and viable for PCs to use. Until then, they'll remain the same waste of page space as they've always been known to be.
The biggest difference between a high Charisma and low Charisma party is their ability to utilize more magic items more often. At best, this means they have more options with their magic items, and don't have to worry too much about spending their Resonance. At worst, this means that it re-encourages the CLW wand paradigm, which gives the party more WBL to spend on other cool things (though they suffer the same as-is restriction with the low Charisma party as a result).
The all pets party will be balanced by reduced character action economy, as well as pets not being as strong as they could have been in PF1 (presumably). Not having a third action can be crippling. Throw in some Slow on top of that, and you're going to be a giant sitting duck for the enemy. So yeah, it's not really as great as you make it out to be.
The All Cleric party probably wouldn't be any more broken than the All Caster parties in PF1, or even current tier parties. They'd be very hard to kill if they all went Heal versus Harm, but they are by no means undefeatable. At best, it extends the "15 minute adventuring day" out, which is a good thing in a lot of people's eyes, so I'd certainly like to see that.
My namesake (a wizard focused on metal, preferably including appreciable armour)
and I always thought it was because you liked romancing on the side :D
Are you sure that's what he said? What I remember is that it was a Cleric class feat but something Paladins get for free.I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
Well, actually...
I do know we get a limited version of this in 2e through the Paladin. At level 1 the Paladin gets an ability called Deific Weapon. This ability buffs Simple Weapons that are a Deity's Favoured Weapon, so that they are competitive with martial weapons. I asked Mark about this feature, and it turned out to be a Paladin exclusive ability. (i.e. Clerics don't have this ability) So that includes Abadar's Light Crossbow (the example Mark gave me) and Irori's Unarmed Fist(?)... As I said, its limited but it's a step in the right direction. They are thinking about these things at least...
That's what he said as far as I remember... Though Cleric's could potentially get it via feat. We did not discuss that in depth.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's what he said as far as I remember... Though Cleric's could potentially get it via feat. We did not discuss that in depth.Are you sure that's what he said? What I remember is that it was a Cleric class feat but something Paladins get for free.I expect the answer to this is "Not in Core, but probably when the Inner Sea Gods 2e (or w/e) comes out" but:
Martial use of Deities' Favored Weapons: Will there be ways to have a martial make use of their deity's favored weapon either more effectively (in the case of, frankly, weaker weapons), or in different and interesting ways (in the case of already good weapons)? Because I've had a lot of fun with a Bladed Brush Swashbuckler, a Spear Dancer Style Two Weapon Fighter (hey, I play a lot of Shelynites), a Guided Star Fighter, and have had thoughts on a couple others. A lot seemed to be missed in PF1e, however, (as there were really no good, for example, dagger feats, and even the knife master rogue didn't feel very Pharasman) and it seemed like it was mostly a few pet-deities of certain designers who got the most love in this aspect, and I'm wondering if 2e might be the place to see that shift.
Well, actually...
I do know we get a limited version of this in 2e through the Paladin. At level 1 the Paladin gets an ability called Deific Weapon. This ability buffs Simple Weapons that are a Deity's Favoured Weapon, so that they are competitive with martial weapons. I asked Mark about this feature, and it turned out to be a Paladin exclusive ability. (i.e. Clerics don't have this ability) So that includes Abadar's Light Crossbow (the example Mark gave me) and Irori's Unarmed Fist(?)... As I said, its limited but it's a step in the right direction. They are thinking about these things at least...
Arachnofiend is correct. The reason paladins get it for free is that, once you have already chosen your deity, a paladin who did not that ability for free would be weakening herself to use her deity's simple favored weapon instead of one of the numerous martial weapons with which she is proficient. The cleric with a simple favored weapon would need to spend a feat to get martial options anyway, so buffing up her current weapon is also an option.
|
I really like to play with line positioning against class type, and I'd be interested to know whether PF2 will include options for making this viable. I've loved Melee-oriented, tanky Wizards and Rogues, magic-specialized fighters, and would really like to finally see a viable way to mix Paladin and Wizard without being too mad.
The "undead horde" character will not really be workable with how the current rules for summons (as we come to understand them) are, which is each summon takes an "Action" to direct them to do their actions (or if you don't, they do whatever they want).
I'm not sure how much a limitation this is in practice. For the most part, undead minions were little more than beatsticks in PF1 and didn't really need any special direction. If that's still the case in PF2, I'd imagine you can just leave them undirected most of the time anyways.
The "undead horde" character will not really be workable with how the current rules for summons (as we come to understand them) are, which is each summon takes an "Action" to direct them to do their actions (or if you don't, they do whatever they want).I'm not sure how much a limitation this is in practice. For the most part, undead minions were little more than beatsticks in PF1 and didn't really need any special direction. If that's still the case in PF2, I'd imagine you can just leave them undirected most of the time anyways.
There's a "minion" monster trait that such creatures would likely have. Animal companions have it, for instance, and I think familiars do too.
It limits the creature to two actions per round.Animal companions take an action to command, and I believe this is every round and I'm unsure if this is another aspect of the "minion" trait.
This is to tighten up action economy (even though the net is still to one's advantage). I've also heard summoned creatures work in a similar vein, with the caster needing to use an action each round to maintain a summons (though I don't know if the creatures gain the "minion" trait.)
That said, hordes of undead aren't the default. It's usually one strong creature, maybe a few, if not brought along, then gained using the first notable enemy's corpse. Plus whatever undead can be picked up along the way with Control Undead or whatnot. Yes, that can turn into an army, which is why it'd be good to playtest a necromancer's balance!
So now the the Multiclass blog has dropped, the number of builds that need playtesting has exploded.
Some I can imagine:
-Triple casters. Ex. Druid that takes Cleric MC, then Wizard later (perhaps after Int boost from leveling).
Given the lower number of slotted spells in PF2, this might actually be the closest to making a PF1 caster, but with so much more variety. If the spellcasting feats that boost spells can be applied across all spell lists, this might be quite powerful.
-Tank mages: A fighter dip gives the armor & with the lack of arcane failure in armor, it seems worthwhile to test out this build. Is 16 Str & 1 feat worth it for the armor (especially if bought after 5th or even 10th where the stat cost is lessened)?
-Tank Monks: As above, but far less cost for a Str Monk plus much more use out of the weapon proficiencies. Can a Monk, w/ all those awesome saves, become unstoppable? Or are their abilities too tied to being unarmored so the cost is too high?
What other combos might need playtesting to see if they'll bend the rules a little too far?
I am interested in seeing the Monk/Cleric (and more importantly vice versa come CRB). Monk Multiclass sounds highly synergistic with any primary spellcaster.
Druid/Cleric/Wizard also needs a critical look.
And Divine Sorcerer w/ MC Cleric might just have ridiculous amounts of healing. Not just is there likely a way to get more healing effects, but any Cleric feats which boost healing would be available too!