I would like to get the thoughts on dwarf ancients blood. I understand that getting +2 to saves vs magic is very good, but is the cost of -2 Resonance Points worth it. It would make a dwarf that has put nothing into charisma get the first resonance point at level 4. The other side is does that even matter, will magic items not have much effect before level 4.
I plan on playing a Dwarf Monk with 8 charisma and ancient's blood. At level 5 I will have +13 to every save vs. magic and 2 resonance. I will let you know how it goes.
But I think Ancient's Blood is really good if you are a martial character who isn't expected to use a lot of consumables. I'm not sure I see a 2nd dwarf feat that's especially impressive though.
I plan on playing a Dwarf Monk with 8 charisma and ancient's blood. At level 5 I will have +13 to every save vs. magic and 2 resonance.
How are you getting +13?
+5 (level)
+1 (proficiency: expert)
+2 (ancient's blood)
+? (attribute)
5+1+2 is only 8, meaning you'd need an additional +5 from your attributes and I don't see how you're getting to 20 in all three of Dex, Con, and Wis. I'm only seeing it possible to get to 18/18/16 (the 4th attribute boost from being level 5 cannot go into a stat you applied one of the first three boosts to), giving you a total of +12, +12, and +11 on your saves.
Of course, this would be against DCs of ~19 from an equivalent level caster (crit success on 17+).
I made a mistake, I thought expert was +2. Also, I didn't catch that limitation on the level 5 stat up to, do you have a page reference? I was planning on starting with 3 16s going to 3 18s at level 5.
A: Dwarf: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, +2 Con, -2 Cha
B: Farmer: +2 Con, +2 Wis
C: Monk: +2 Dex
Level 1: +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, + 2 Wis - 16/16/16/12/10/8
Level 5: +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, +2 Wis - 18/18/18/14/10/8
Is the last part illegal? I figure that gets me +12 to all saves vs. spells with Ancient's Blood
No that's fine. Though if you get hit with more than 1 spell per turn, some are only going to be at +10. Reaction, sadly.
I made a mistake, I thought expert was +2. Also, I didn't catch that limitation on the level 5 stat up to, do you have a page reference?
Yes. Page 98:
"At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, you boost four different ability scores."I was planning on starting with 3 16s going to 3 18s at level 5.
And I miscalc'd here. I didn't correctly account for the free boost that counters the -2 charisma (races all get a net 8 boosts...I dropped the CHA and didn't take a 9th).
There is also this on pg. 18:
When you gain multiple ability boosts at the same time, you must apply each one to a different score.
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I was wondering about how it would work with a dwarf taking that Ancestry feat. Best I can determine the minimum Reasonance is 0, so assuming an 8 Charisma and this feat it would be 4th level before you got any Resonance. That could make taking a healing potion a bit tricky.
At that point, does your character basically require that someone play a healer to keep you alive?
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I would like to get the thoughts on dwarf ancients blood. I understand that getting +2 to saves vs magic is very good, but is the cost of -2 Resonance Points worth it. It would make a dwarf that has put nothing into charisma get the first resonance point at level 4. The other side is does that even matter, will magic items not have much effect before level 4.
This isn't worth it, even in the long run.
Resonance is a very powerful driving force behind a player's ability to utilize magic items that can improve their fighting prowess as well as influence the narrative.
Getting a +2 to Saves v.s. magical effects (as commonplace as they are) isn't worth sacrificing two points of Resonance (while you're already at a Resonance Penalty from your Ancestry) that can be used to further your character's versatility, or even effective HP from healing with magic items. Unless your GM is throwing fluffy pillows instead of monsters at you, that's how you're gonna die. A +2 helps, but it's certainly not a guarantee.
Maybe if, instead of a flat bonus, you treated all results from saving throws versus magical effects as one tier better, it'd be worth it. As it stands, that +2 (which gives you only a 10% chance of success and critical success, if applicable) will not save you as much as having more uses of a certain powerful item.
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One thing I think would greatly benefit Dwarves and particularly Dwarves with Ancient's Blood is if the minimum value for resonance were set to 1. So a 8 Cha Dwarf with ancient's blood has 1 resonance for levels 1-4, then increases 1/level thereafter.
We would still see the difference between 8 and 10 charisma any time we're called upon to be social, and the 10 Cha character would hit 2 resonance a level earlier.
Since "hey, we found some magic armor, but I can't put it on for 2 more levels" is the kind of situation we shouldn't let people get themselves into.
One thing I think would greatly benefit Dwarves and particularly Dwarves with Ancient's Blood is if the minimum value for resonance were set to 1. So a 8 Cha Dwarf with ancient's blood has 1 resonance for levels 1-4, then increases 1/level thereafter.
We would still see the difference between 8 and 10 charisma any time we're called upon to be social, and the 10 Cha character would hit 2 resonance a level earlier.
Since "hey, we found some magic armor, but I can't put it on for 2 more levels" is the kind of situation we shouldn't let people get themselves into.
Thank goodness Resonance can't go negative. Can you imagine if you had such bad Resonance you actually had to drain it from another person to live? (Could be how certain brands of "vampires" come to exist. I now want to see this as an enemy in the new Beastiary!)
So a player actually came to me unsure if a Dwarf with Charisma 10 and Ancient's blood would have 1 resonance at level 2 (since resonance can't actually go negative, your blood has always been how it is, you still gain one resonance when you level up) or 0 until level 3, since you have to buy off that -2 first.
My suspicion is that with Ancient's blood your resonance becomes Min(0,Level+ChaMod-2) but I don't hate that first interpretation.
Yeah, I think it's a pool modifier...sorry Cabbage
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Ancient's Blood seems vastly more powerful in games where you start as like 10th level characters compared to ones where you start as 1st level characters.
I keep seeing these "you can be really awesome if you survive long enough for the build to come together" options in character building and I don't really like it.
I would suggest calculating one's resonance pool as 3+ChaMod+Level if Ancient's Blood stay's the way it does, just so resonance can be strictly increasing with level. It's weird to be able to make choices at character generation (which are extremely flavorful) which make it so you don't have resonance until level 4.
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At the very least it should be on all the time and not a reaction.
I'm sort of inclined to agree with the consensus in this thread. That said, we may have a Superstitious Barbarian with Ancient Blood, and I'm curious how it will go.
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Ancient Blood is probably overpowered as it stands... once per round +2 to any saving throw as a reaction is *really* good.
re: any saving throw
Not sure if you may just be exaggerating but technically it only applies to "magical effects".And has "magical effects" been expanded in PF2 to also include those supernatural based monster saves from PF1 now?
Just compare it to the halfling feat. That one, sure, it lets you reroll, but it's only once per day...
Hmm, imo I think the ability to reroll a failed save is better than Ancient Blood with the ability to save yourself from a critical failure for ALL saves (and skill checks).
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Thank goodness Resonance can't go negative. Can you imagine if you had such bad Resonance you actually had to drain it from another person to live? (Could be how certain brands of "vampires" come to exist. I now want to see this as an enemy in the new Beastiary!)One thing I think would greatly benefit Dwarves and particularly Dwarves with Ancient's Blood is if the minimum value for resonance were set to 1. So a 8 Cha Dwarf with ancient's blood has 1 resonance for levels 1-4, then increases 1/level thereafter.
We would still see the difference between 8 and 10 charisma any time we're called upon to be social, and the 10 Cha character would hit 2 resonance a level earlier.
Since "hey, we found some magic armor, but I can't put it on for 2 more levels" is the kind of situation we shouldn't let people get themselves into.
Very good creative instinct. Resonance vampire was one of the ideas in our brainstorm of "what new great monster ideas reveal themselves with some of the 2e mechanics."
I disagree, rust monsters were "scary" because they could do destroy your weapons/armor (at low level) and you could have no money to buy more. Screwing you over pretty handily. But this was really only an issue at very low levels.
Resonance however, is restored daily. So it would be inconvenient and scary, but not detrimental in the long term. The only way it's a jerk move is if the GM throws a bunch of them in right before a boss fight just to drain all your resonance to kill you.
Of course, it's not much different that throwing a big challenging fight before a boss fight so that you're forced to use resonance to heal or use limited use items.
Seems pretty niche since the penalty is brutal for most dwarf builds. Could be interesting on a Dwarf Alchemist, since you'll be keying your Res off of your INT, possibly interesting on a Dwarf Pally or Bard.
If you're building a level 5+ character the penalty isn't so bad, but actually surviving to get there would be tough.
It's made slightly less bad if you're playing a dwarf Alchemist. But then you're stuck playing an alchemist.
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It doesn't look good and it doesn't scale. I can think of three ways to make it attractive, two are strictly good at lower levels and one is remains good in the same way some of the other 1st level feats scale (such as the cantrip ones).
1. It's a +2 to a save vs. spells as a reaction. Remove the penalty entirely.
2. It's +1 to saves vs. spells all the time, reduce the penalty to 1.
3. It's a reroll on saves vs. spells, keep the penalty as is. This way, its something you take that's always good but at a significant cost.
It's made slightly less bad if you're playing a dwarf Alchemist. But then you're stuck playing an alchemist.Because losing 2 RP on an alchemist sounds like a great idea?
They barely have enough RP even with taking the extra RP feat (which requires 12cha so no luck there eitger)
So, you're suggesting playing an alchemist with 4 less RP at level 3.
Trust me, that won't end well.
It was meant as a joke tying one permanent poor first level choice to another, sorry I wasn't clear on that. Playing an alchemist in general isn't going to go all that well. At this point the best alchemist option is to multiclass away most of your feats and use your resonance only on support materials. Then just pop back in to alchemist feats when you start getting permanent elixer/mutagen feats.
Unfortunately, there isn't much to recommend the class no matter how much RP you have. Even trying to rescue it with multiclassing, it starts out with poor proficiencies and no skills.
Was planning on adding this feat to a fighter I was brainstorming, but then picked up that it was a reaction feat. So I rolled with Hardy again.
Also, I am not a fan of the very limited "ancestry" abilities you get for free. Mechanically all that separated my dwarf from the human and even elves was darkvision, slower movement and that I resisted poison.
I suppose this is not too bad, but the ancestry felt very watered down. Id feel a lot better if you start @ lvl1 with 2 ancestry feats (obviously only one heritage; in fact, force one as a heritage feat and one other).
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I get that the +2 circumstance bonus to saves against magic is pretty good, but at the cost of permanently reducing your resonance, while the bonus only situationally impacts your saving throws, when you have a reaction free? That seems extremely poor balance. It should be a passive effect, and neither interfere with using other reactions, nor be limited to once per round. How on earth do you “react” to have your blood resist magic? Is your blood sluggish if you’re asleep, distracted, used a raise shield action or what?
Finally, the bonus only applies if you don't have another circumstance bonus, which is one of the 2 bonus types now, so it's not even that useful when you could get the bonus other ways, since they won't stack.