When it was previewed, Superstition Totem was one of the options I was excited about the most; a massive, flavorful restriction in exchange for an exceptional benefit is what was promised.
Well, the massive restriction is there but the payoff certainly is not. Superstition Resistance is outright worse than PF1's Superstition, and the divide is only greater if you factor in the Human FCB. The totem's Raging Resistance doesn't even do anything against half the casters in the game. Oh, and just to rub salt in the wound, Spell Sunder has been pushed back six levels later than you get it in PF1. So the Barbarian who has given up everything to be the ultimate anti-magic warrior can dispel magic 7 levels later than a caster can.
While I focus in on this particular option because Barbarian is one of my favorite classes, I consider this Vow of Poverty level trade off to be indicative of a larger problem that every martial class deals with: martial options almost universally are inferior and come later than caster options. A class feat is a greater investment of character options than a spell choice, and yet martial class feats are both later and weaker options than what casters do by simply casting a spell. After reading this book I have to question if Paizo's intention was ever to even the martial/caster disparity, but if the developers genuinely intended to make martial classes better then I can say with confidence they have failed utterly.
Yeah, Superstition barbarians should leave the party really quickly as well. Refusing all magic just doesn't work in a party based game.
On the barbarian note, Animal Totem is also really awful. Just wielding a weapon triggers the anathema (not attacking), and they've got _zero_ options against fast, far or flying enemies. Animal Totem is another direct route to angry/frustrated barbarian player.
Giant and Dragon are iffy to me. Fury and Spirit seem pretty good, though I'm somewhat underwhelmed by the rage ability in general.
Not quite so convinced on the martial/caster disparity, at least not yet. Need to read more.
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Just want to drop in briefly. The amount of work that went into this must be staggering. If we put ourselves into their shoes, disparaging language comes off, well, disparagingly. It can be a real bummer, and a sad designer isn't in anyone's best interest.
I agree 100% that superstition and 3 round rage produces problems, but we should describe it in helpful terms.
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These are players who are paying or who will pay for a product, not a volunteered service. Some people feel let down, some people will express their dissatisfaction more strongly.Just want to drop in briefly. The amount of work that went into this must be staggering. If we put ourselves into their shoes, disparaging language comes off, well, disparagingly. It can be a real bummer, and a sad designer isn't in anyone's best interest.
I agree 100% that superstition and 3 round rage produces problems, but we should describe it in helpful terms.
A volunteered service is exactly what we are, since this is a Playtest. That’s how those work.
I have similar feelings about Superstitious. I also feel like at higher levels the drawback of not being able to let clerics cast healing spells on you is going to become extremely problematic.
I might ask one of my players to play a superstitious barbarian in part of the playtest (maybe the part that's specifically supposed to track how well group healing works?) and see what happens. My guess is that the party will run out of ways to heal the superstitious barbarian and they will die.
I'm actually looking forward to playing a superstition barb with an Alchemist party member to supply elixirs/potions.