| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Keep in mind, all of your damage becomes positive or negative (instead of the normal damage type).
That gets around a lot of defenses and resistances. A spirit barbarian just laughs when confronted with golems.
As for flavor... can't say I agree.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It does better damage than Fury, of a rarely resisted type.
Animal Totem does a trifle more damage, but only with their specific weapons, which are not always ideal (you can't make your unarmed attacks silver, for example) and actually falls behind at high levels, Dragon Totem does elemental damage (which is much more commonly resisted), and Giant Totem requires you to accept Clumsy 1, which comes with a whole selection of drawbacks.
I'd say it looks pretty balanced comparatively. The thematics seem fine to me as well.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My biggest complaint is that the spirit instinct gets one fewer feat than animal, dragon, and giant. But that's correctable.
Also to a on to what DMW is saying, Spirit has the easiest anathema other than "none."
I imagine that Spirit Instinct Barbarians tend to be pretty good at chopping down undead, since many of them probably have a weakness to positive energy.
I think both of the spirit instinct feats are pretty strong too. Having 20% of ranged attacks miss is handy and the level 12 one lets you attack at range with str which will come in handy (though IIRC the playtest one was spammable, and this is not.)
To contextualize Spirit Instict, I'm comparing it to Dragon Instinct in it's wording and impact of that:
Dragon Instinct says:
...Where "its" is seemingly in reference to "the additional damage from Rage", so ONLY this bonus damage is changing type, not ALL the weapon damage. Of course, Vulnerability only needs 1 point to trigger, so only Rage bonus damage being Elemental is sufficient, while base weapon damage continues to be able to trigger Bludgeon/Slash/Pierce Vulnerabilities (and conversely, Resistances to both may apply). And even if target is Immune to the Element, the Greater Weapon Specialization bonus for Weapon damage continues to apply while Raging (or vice-versa, if Immune to B/S/P but not Elemental type).
Spirit Instinct says:
I'm not sure why it says "your damage from Rage" rather than "the additional damage from Rage" because AFAIK they have identical meaning.
Regardless, it then says "and [you can] deal negative or positive damage, instead of the normal damage type for your weapon..." which as pointed out by others does NOT have Dragon's "its" scope restriction to changing only the bonus Rage damage's type... So a straightforward reading is ALL damage is changed to Positive or Negative damage type.
While 2E does replace some Monster B/S/P DR with higher HPs and Vulnerability to specific type, there does remain B/S/P Resistance amongst Monsters as well as Humanoids with Armor Specialization, so ALL damage shifting from B/S/P to a much less commonly resisted type (Pos/Neg) is a broadly relevant ability. Of course, converting it all to Pos/Neg also means not benefitting from B/S/P Vulnerabilities. In contrast, Dragon Instinct dual type (base + elemental) allows trigger EITHER or BOTH vulnerabilities (and resistances). Converting all to one type (Pos/Neg) does prevent an enemy with Pos/Neg Resistance AND Armor with B/S/P Resistance from applying both, although I doubt that niche scenario is motivator for the mechanic.
As a downside, not only does the increase to Rage damage from Specialization only apply when using Spirit Rage, but the Greater Weapon Specialization damage increase also is only available when using Spirit Rage. Which means a Spirit Instict Barbarian will rarely benefit from target Vulnerabilities to B/S/P, since doing so requires forgoing their core damage bonuses (not completely, they still get base level of Rage bonus damage, just not it's increase from Specialized, nor GWS bonus damage).
So while they have an advantage fighting enemies with B/S/P Resistances and Pos/Neg is a rarely Resisted type, there is significant downsides, if only considering the mutual incompatility of Greater Weapon Spec damage bonus and using B/S/P vs Vulnerable enemies.
Of course, that only addresses damage type and bonuses, not their other unique abilities.
With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?
With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?
That's a Texas Sized 10-4, good buddy.
Undead are also like the most common enemy type behind maybe only humans. So you're almost certainly gonna get some mileage out of those powers.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Spirit Instinct is supposed to work like the others, it’s only the bonus damage that does P/N, it doesn’t convert all your damage.
To be clear, I think that either WAS the intent, or it SHOULD be Errata'd to work like that even if somebody thought it was cool idea at one point...
Simply for the reason of the horrible interaction with Greater Weapon Specialization bonus damage.I mean, many encounters will feature different enemy types, so choosing to do ALL Pos/Neg OR give up on GWS is crappy choice,
having dual damage types where target may have Immunity/Resistance to one is not a big deal IMHO and in fact is more often better.
I also don't conceptually get why weapon damage must be shifted to Pos/Neg if it already is getting Ghost Touch,
I mean it still doesn't count as Brilliant Energy (or whatever), so what is going on that is so important?
I mean, the GWS interaction could also be Errata'd to work with normal Rage (not just Spirit Rage),
but I don't see why all weapon damage should be converted to Pos/Neg in first place (as opposed to bonus 'sheathed in Pos/Neg')
while otherwise still counting as 100% physical weapon (with Ghost Touch on top, not immaterial Pos/Neg Energy weapon).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Its reads as doing two things. Rage damage from 2 to 3 AND your damage from your weapon can be either positive or negative (instead of normal).
With an 'if so, then also ghost touch.'
Intent is a nice theoretical, but not something I can tease out of the text.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?That's a Texas Sized 10-4, good buddy.
Letterkenny?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’ve mostly dealt with this with my group’s level 13 Paladin whose retributive strike can rip through demons easily just with the auto damage every turn from his persistent good damage.
That sounds like the intent of weakness though. It gives you Paladin the chance to feel awesome in the face of enemies who're actually weak against good damage. It really gives that holy warrior feel and makes the Paladin unique in that he might not crit and throw out as many attacks as a Fighter but his damage will devastating to evil creatures when he does connect.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’ve mostly dealt with this with my group’s level 13 Paladin whose retributive strike can rip through demons easily just with the auto damage every turn from his persistent good damage.That sounds like the intent of weakness though. It gives you Paladin the chance to feel awesome in the face of enemies who're actually weak against good damage. It really gives that holy warrior feel and makes the Paladin unique in that he might not crit and throw out as many attacks as a Fighter but his damage will devastating to evil creatures when he does connect.
Yeah instead of boring impervious to all mortal weapons it's "HOLY WATER HOT HOT HOT!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Letterkenny?With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?That's a Texas Sized 10-4, good buddy.
Ferda.
Ferda.Letterkenny?With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?That's a Texas Sized 10-4, good buddy.
Pitter patter.
Pitter patter.Ferda.Letterkenny?With the way weakness works it doesn't matter if I'm dealing 3 positive damage or 37, I'm still going to trigger the bonus damage from weakness right?That's a Texas Sized 10-4, good buddy.
I kind of want to build Wayne as a Farmer Mountain Stance monk.
Hey Amigos! Can someone explain to me how Mighty Rage works?
"Use an action that has the rage trait. Alternatively, you can increase the actions of the triggering Rage to 2 to instead use a 2-action activity with the rage trait."
I've had a hard work to understand the portuguese version. haha
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks guys!!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah instead of boring impervious to all mortal weapons it's "HOLY WATER HOT HOT HOT!"I’ve mostly dealt with this with my group’s level 13 Paladin whose retributive strike can rip through demons easily just with the auto damage every turn from his persistent good damage.That sounds like the intent of weakness though. It gives you Paladin the chance to feel awesome in the face of enemies who're actually weak against good damage. It really gives that holy warrior feel and makes the Paladin unique in that he might not crit and throw out as many attacks as a Fighter but his damage will devastating to evil creatures when he does connect.
To clarify what Rysky is referring to here, you need to keep in mind that PF1 demons had smaller HP pools but Damage Reduction, energy resistance, and immunity out the wazoo. Now they have a lot more health, but less resistances and immunity and get these big weakness numbers to help you burn through those health pools.
And then remember that when the PF1 Paladin Smote Evil, they not only bypassed all DR the target had but dealt double damage on their first hit against a demon, devil, dragon, or outsider.
The way Champions interact with the weakness mechanics of fiends is very much the new version of this. Nerfing weakness damage is the equivalent of taking away the PF1 Paladin's Smite Evil or the PF1 Ranger's Favored Enemy. They have a lot of similarity to the PF1 ranger in particular, thanks to their Oath feats and excelling at shredding very specific enemies.
So, silly question, but I can't quite get it out of my head. If you rage and do positive do you heal living beings instead of hurting them? I assume not but everywhere in the core positive energy 'appears' be tied with healing and visa versa (opposite for negative)
So I asked this in a different thread and nobody answered so here goes again, the actual dead tree core rulebook gives the 12th level feat "Spirit's Wrath" the traits: Attack, Barbarian, Concentrate, Instinct, Rage.
The official PRD on Archives of Nethys has those traits plus Open.
These are extremely different because the former makes the ability something you can use multiple times a round, whenever you want in a round and the latter is extremely restricted.
Is this an error by AoN or a stealth errata no one from Paizo has mentioned anywhere? Since it certainly doesn't seem like this is something you can only do as an opening move, it should be totally valid to use spirit's vengeance on a distant enemy after dropping the one in reach. So flourish I would buy, but not open.
This could be a herolab gauntlet issue but generally speaking I think you should be safe to assume that the CRB is accurate and the third party resource (even if it's officially endorsed) isn't.
You should probably try to email someone at AoN and tell them about the issue.