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The APG announcement has caught both hype, surprise and intrigue from the players around the forums. Lemme open with Paizo, we really don't deserve you. Please, here's the keys to my house; take everything you like.
Anyway, rather than setting up a tonne of threads about what each class will be like or clogging the APG announcement thread, let's discuss what each class might be like, going off context clues and how the old class works!
INVESTIGATOR
Could use a lot of stuff from 1e, but I doubt they'll get to keep sneak attacks or alchemy (as core class things, at least. Maybe as feats?). What might the class paths be? Presumably, inspiration and skill feats will play a big hand. How might they change?
ORACLE
Oh baby. Ohhh baby. Going off what they've hinted... I believe that they way that Oracles might differ from, say, Divine sorcerers, is that they get to use both the Divine and Occult spell-lists AT THE SAME TIME. Perhaps they'll have a limited amount of slots, but this would go immensely well with both the blessing and curse flavour while making it an incredibly unique and standout caster. I'm hoping to god that's the case! C'mon, Desna, just this once...
SWASHBUCKLER
The surprise of the announcements! How will this play out? I'm not sure what they'll do to differ them from Rogues, since Rogues have a tonne of mobility powers, and that's not even mentioning the finesse stuff. Is panache enough to set them apart? How will it work? This one needs a lot of speculating!
WITCH
Ah... the one we all knew was coming. I doubt it needs much change from 1e; a debuff, occult caster with maybe some extra special familiar feats. I don't buy into the spell-list/patron thing, but I won't be mad if it shows up either.
Discuss! What are your ideas? What proof have you?
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I'd be shocked if Investigator lost Alchemy, and they never had Sneak Attack (well, okay, they did in their playtest). Alchemy is basically a spell list in many ways, having only one Class to utilize it is wasteful in the extreme, and it'd be a jarring change from PF1 that would really upset people who liked the PF1 Class.
And I certainly hope Investigators get some Class features and/or Feats making Int more useful in direct combat as well as excellent Skill stuff. Those are the Class's mechanical and thematic heart.
Start with the simple points. What do people think for key scores.
It seems like two charisma and two intelligence
Possible caveats:
- perhaps a change for witch but I wouldn’t have thought so (having said that why were they Int anyway? Was it mostly as that has always been true of prepared arcanists and could that now change)
- Swashbuckler getting a Dex or Charisma choice
I like the idea of two non caster iconics with mental stats as a key stat
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My wild guess for Investigator is that they only get advanced alchemy (at least at level 1) as quick alchemy feels like it is the alchemist niche. And if so, they would probably have other uses of their reagents, which would also allow you to do things with the investigator alchemy that you couldn't with the alchemist. I want to be able to CSI: Golaran.
This seems very possible. Being able to burn them for Skill bonuses in a more direct way than making Mutagens seems a very real possibility, just as one example.
ORACLE
Oh baby. Ohhh baby. Going off what they've hinted... I believe that they way that Oracles might differ from, say, Divine sorcerers, is that they get to use both the Divine and Occult spell-lists AT THE SAME TIME. Perhaps they'll have a limited amount of slots, but this would go immensely well with both the blessing and curse flavour while making it an incredibly unique and standout caster. I'm hoping to god that's the case! C'mon, Desna, just this once...
One of the things they said during the announcement makes me curious if Oracles will be able to inflict their curse on another creature momentarily. It would amuse me if that turned out to be the Oracle version of "Bespell Weapon", but having it be a focus power would also work, depending on how powerful curses turn out to be.
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Investigator: I could see the investigator having a few paths to choose from at the start. One for Alchemy, one for Occult spell casting, and then a more martial focused one.
Oracle: That I'm not to sure on. I'm hopeful on what Jason teased at the panel Saturday though. Having more ties to pantheons and the occult would be interesting. Perhaps an occult caster that gains blessings from a god? I did like the idea of taking the Oracle curse and inflicting it upon others that was mentioned in this thread.
Swashbuckler: I've wondered if and when the designers would bring in the panache/luck/Grit mechanics of pf1 into pf2, I just wasn't expecting Swashbuckler to be the class to do it. Only tease they provided was that Swashbucklers would be the most mobile martial class, which doesn't sound that interesting..
Witch: hexes might have the "saves issue" resolved by the degrees of success in pf2. Perhaps the witch is an occult caster but gains bonus spells based on their Patron? A demon lord giving some divine spells, a powerful nature spirit giving primal spells, and a patron for Arcane?
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Semi-transcribed the part about the Advanced Player's Guide from the announcement panel:
Planetouched are heritages and should be applicable to all/most other ancestries.
Archetypes will be available to almost all classes, only a few that are special.
Archetypes: pirate, acrobat, duelist, beast master, gladiator, poisoner, assassin, bounty hunter, scout.
APG will also have backgrounds (Jason).
The investigator might have gotten "bumped" a bit as it fits so well with the Absalom AP coming out at the same time.
All the classes will not only fill a conceptual niche, but a mechanical one too.
The sorcerer touches on some of the mechanical stuff of the PF1 Oracle, so they're looking at how to make the PF2 Oracle unique.
Oracle will still have curses, but might go more back to its pan-theistic roots. Will have lots of Divine and probably some Occult elements to it.
With the Swashbuckler they're aiming for it to be the ultimate mobility warrior, you will be mobile in ways that other characters can only drool over. Mona mentions that he thinks the 3 action economy is especially interesting for martial characters and how they can marry that with the abilities we already know from the PF1 Swashbuckler.
The Investigator will be the skill heavy class that will be able to solve a lot of your problems through skill use.
The Witch will let them revisit familiars and, of course, hexes.
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Here's the summarized version of what was said during the Sunday panel:
Paizo sees Core rulebook, Gamemastery Guide, Advanced Player's Guide and the Bestiaries as "the heart, the core of the Pathfinder system". Going forward, from a design point of view, they'll assume that most tables will use these books.
New books after these are out will be more seen as optional, modular pieces you can fit into the system if you so desire.
Reasons for including these 4 classes:
Witch and Oracle were already up for strong consideration in the core rulebook (already revealed long ago). Several of the other PF1 classes you can sort of, almost create with the basic rules already. Investigator needs a suite of abilities that's just really different to make it work the way it's intended to. So they wanted to get that out fast.
The Swashbuckler will be super focused on mobility and skill-use fighting(?). It'll be purely focused on "I'm just here to stab things" with no spell casting abilities what so ever [which could also mean no "supernatural" focus abilities either].
(all this is from the Pathfinder 2e Design Philosophy panel early Sunday)
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As for some more of my thoughts.
Swashbuckler could get some special movement abilities (apologies if some of these are already possible with attainable feats, I'm still waiting for my book to show up and the PRD doesn't lend itself to methodically going through the book). Like ignoring x amount of difficult terrain. Double-moves. Higher starting training in certain skills (e.g. athletics). Maybe special maneuvers with skill-use.
Investigator will certainly have alchemy abilities (DMW lays it out nicely why above).
My thoughts and hopes with reasonable expectations.
Investigator
Key Stat - Int
Mechanics
Alchemy; with a focus on Mutagen and Alchemical items such as smoke stick or sun rod. Nothing to really affect bombs since that’s much more the Alchemist Niche.
Studied Combat; like Hunt Prey but will add Int to attack roll, or another static bonus.
Studied Strike; either a free action to expend SC for added damage, or will work like Rangers Precision Edge and only work on the first strike. It will most likely stay at d6 and probably scale with Rogue Sneak Attack to max 4d6.
Inspiration; someone mentioned ingesting daily regents? Do that. Please. That sounds amazing.
Skill Feat and Skill Training every level.
Swashbuckler
Key Stat - Dex
Mechanics - I was right about it filling a movement niche.
Mobility; marry it to acrobatics. Probably given access to accelerated movement.
Acrobatic Charge; I’m mostly remembering this from 3.5, but basically the ability to charge through difficult terrain and obstacles. Ballroom full of people and tables? CHARGE!!!
Teamwork; being focused around mobility would make them perfect for flanking and skirmishing. I see this coming across as either debuffing the enemies with conditions or receiving bonuses for helping allies with flanking and such.
Very much hoping Swashbuckler’s new identity is “the Deed class,” and has a Gunslinger path.
Swashbuckler might be the "Flyby" class to be honest, when you stride from point A to B you can spend an action to strike enemies between these points while you continue moving.
Does anyone know if the playtest in October will be just for the classes or will they also be playtesting some of the new ancestries/heritages, spells, and archetypes? I'm assuming it's going to be just the classes, but I'm holding out for the Planetouched heritage coming sooner rather than later.
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Hi everyone, somewhat new to posting on these forums.
I'm still very shocked - but still pleased - that they are bringing back non-core classes so quickly. I really thought they were going to try to build the majority into the core classes with how 2e character building is structured.
I'm most excited about the Witch. I'm hoping that, on top of Hexes, the Witch works like the Sorcerer in that their spell list is based on their patron, but with prepared casting. I hope that the Witch is also written to emphasize their patrons more like the 5e Warlock - nothing very mechanically significant but just more for role playing in order to differentiate from other casters.
I'm interested in how Hexes will work in 2E as well as what ones make it over (slumber being outlawed by a lot of DM's in 1E).
4 degrees of success, I suspect will help a good deal with this, though I suspect we could also see it take up essentially the new changes to sleep, where targets can wake up with perception checks as normal, making it less of an in-combat thing.
If I were to speculate on the Witch, I think it will be quite mechanically similar to the Bard, at least structurally, being a (likely) occult caster with some unique cantrips and likely focus spells, though obviously it would be thematically different and what those cantrips/focus spells do would be mechanically different from the bard.
As for Oracle, I don't think they'd get full Occult casting, alongside Divine, but I'd imagine, if they do something similar with mysteries, you'd see a lot of mysteries, or whatever replaces that, get some occult-list spells, along with some mysteries like flame or wood getting primal-list spells. I'm not sure how curses will work, if they significantly differ from 1e, though I wouldn't be surprised if they wind up sort of merged in with mysteries, such that for example the Blackened curse basically gets Flame Mystery-like stuff, Haunted gets Ancestor/Bones-like stuff, ect.
I really don't know what to expect from Investigator or Swashbuckler, though since Swashbuckler had Panache, and Investigator had the option to get Luck, through the Sleuth archetype, I'm wondering if we'll see them introduce a system like that, as a sort of martial counterpoint to focus spells. I'm sort of guessing that'd be the case, otherwise I don't really see the mechanic justification for having them be their own classes, as opposed to class archetypes or just general archetypes.