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+1 for Summoner. I want to give the Paizo designers a challenge, and I would love to play one if (when) they meet that challenge.
Summoner. Minions are my jam. Give me tools to control and buff my minion, options for different themes and styles. Rather no spell slots, just have all the feats be spell like abilities. Stances that effect your pets attacks, focus spells for buffs or powerful Final Fantasy style atacks. Maybe weak one action attack cantrips that make things easier for your pet to hit, give interaction between pet and summoner other then having The pet be a fighter or class X you control. The pet should be able to scale or be built to be similar to a MC caster or feat light non-fighter martial.
Second would be magus, good gish is hard to come by.
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I really enjoyed my Summoner, I'd like to see the class again.
The Summoner would still need some spell to keep the character from getting boring, but maybe focused on buffs and keeping themselves safe while the Eidolon does the heavy lifting.
I misunderstood the class before I made my character:; I thought you could remake your Eidolon each time you summoned it. I wonder if a scaled down version of that could be worked into the class? With two weeks downtime change X number of evolutions or X number of points can be kept fluid to be reassigned to other evolutions with less downtime. This would allow a more utilitarian Imaginary Friend:; sea adventure? Ok you get Gills and fins. Long trek? You're now a mount.
Balance could be a nightmare, but it would be fun.
In PF1, the Evolution Surge and Transmogrify spells did let you remake your eidolon to some extent, but you would need to have some patience as these options are not available from the start. In PF2, I could see something like this being done with expensive downtime rituals.
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I think a 2E summoner shouldn't really resemble the other spellcasters. The whole focus of the class should be on some kind of brilliant way to balance the action economy.
The big problem with summoners has always been: the eidolon needs to be strong enough to do what it's there for, but you don't want to turn the actual PC into just an appendix, and also other players shouldn't feel outclassed because one player has two full strength characters.
IMO I still think the best way to handle the summoner is to downplay the main character a bit. Give them support actions, unique activities that aid their allies and the summon, but don't make them a full blown caster with a full blown spell list, that was always the problem with the 1e summoner.
I also hope that if we get a version it won't be too conceptually nailed down. I know balance is a concern but I really liked how imaginative you could get with the original 1e summoner. I saw a lot of players bring me really cool and flavorful monstrosities and that diminished a lot with Unchained nudging you toward specific types of outsider.
I think a 2E summoner shouldn't really resemble the other spellcasters. The whole focus of the class should be on some kind of brilliant way to balance the action economy.
The big problem with summoners has always been: the eidolon needs to be strong enough to do what it's there for, but you don't want to turn the actual PC into just an appendix, and also other players shouldn't feel outclassed because one player has two full strength characters.
YMMV, I'm okay with the PC being only as strong as an animal companion, and the eidolon as strong as a PC. It lets you play with tropes of people who are not superheroes making a pact for power, etc, which neatly lines up with that you want to do as a summoner narratively anyway.
100% Magus. The Magus and the Witch/Warlock are my absolute favorite classes of all time. Since I already have one of these, give me my Magus and I'll be happy forever.
Definitely like the idea of the 2-slot caster. Probably without access to 10th level spells entirely (or if so, only through a 20th level feat). The Arcane Pool should be replicated through focus spells.
I could actually see them having the Black Blade be a core part of the class now as well. I think that would be a cool thing that could give the Magus an identity outside of just being a spellsword. It could even double as the Magus' spellbook in the same way that the Familiar is the Witch's spellbook.
I'm hoping to see Gunslinger and Magus soon. I think they would work fine as archetypes, but if Paizo thinks they can swing whole classes for them, that works for me as well.
I think Gunslinger should have some flexibility with crossbows as well as firearms for those wanting some Bolt Ace action.
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Psionics.
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Based on some research from Pathfinder 1E the Summoner is the “World of Warcraft Demonology Warlock” ive been looking for. In other words a magic using class with a permanent pet useful for combat in a directly attacking animal companion sort of way over the utility way a familiar is. So I just want to cast spells and have a big ass demon bodyguard pet. +1 for Summoner if that’s how it played in 1E.
I think this is an intriguing suggestion: rename the class from the Summoner to the Warlock. That's certainly different from the other Warlock.
The class really needs to be distinct from the Conjuror.
Magus
Gunthing
Inquisitor
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Ok well, in my absence I'm happy to see that this thread did take right off!
I've put together a non-scientific summary of the replies here and collected the results. For those of you who couldn't pick just one I've opted to count your replies as distinct votes for each class and tried my best to exclude any double-posts. Half votes are thrown out though, sorry guys, I realize you want to chip in +1 for one and +.5 for others but the fact that you ranked one over the other numerically tells me exactly what I was trying to survey for in that you do have a preference. There are BOUND to be errors here but the following is a summary of what I've seen so far after the thread has been moderated, but before I get to the numbers I want to just thank you all for participating.
-Magus | 16 Votes
-Gunslinger/Drifter | 13 Votes
-Summoner | 12 Votes
-Occultist/Antiquarian | 8 Votes
-Kineticist | 7 Votes
-Inquisitor | 3 Votes
-Shaman | 3 Votes
-Arcanist | 2 Votes
-Medium | 1 Vote
-Psychic/Psionic | 1 Vote
-Spiritualist | 1 Vote
-OTHER | 3 Votes (Ninja, Bloodrager, and Solarian each have 1 Vote)
-Shifter | 0 Votes (Yikes)
The thing that surprised me the most so far is how dreadfully unpopular a dedicated Shifter Class is, I don't want to get all exposition on the topic but the fact that SOLARIAN got a vote but Shifter did not speaks volumes to me about how the Class is viewed.
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Shifter might work better as a heritage
I want a shifter, but Magus comes first. Closely followed by Drifter, Kineticist, and Solarian. Shifter takes a lower priority.
For me what it comes down to is how effectively you can emulate the concept as is, which sort of lines up with the poll.
Strictly speaking you can build a battle-mage in PF2, but imo it's really rough and fails to properly live up to what the Magus represented in PF1.
There's really nothing at all that emulates what the Occultist or Summoner can do and while people have suggested Sorcerer as a Kineticist replacement, there's a very different feel there... and there just isn't enough internal support for some elements either for it to really work.
If I were ranking classes I'd probably nudge Spiritualist and Medium up kinda high too, for similar reasons.
That said, that's just me, and the classes in the APG I think indicate that's not really Paizo's mindset at all. We may very well see Arcanists, Slayers, Mesmerists and the Vampire Hunter come back as the next round of classes instead.
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I'm not sure if we'll really see inquisitors and slayers again, the current multiclassing system already does so much of what they do. You could fill in the gaps with a few class feats.
Mesmerist could be a Bard Muse, or a standalone class. Spiritualist though, is so weird that it's going to need its own chassis. Although maybe designed together with the Summoner, since both of them are "major pet" classes where the pet should be able to pack more heat than can currently be done. (Maybe with some kind of decision for the player whether the pet or the PC is the stronger one).
Occultist... I'm imagining a design that tries to be really clever with how many handfuls of things you need. Free hands are a very precious resource in this edition and the occultist has a thing for physical items.
I just don't get why people want so much to kill Inquisitor, one of the most interesting and varied classes of PF1. "Just multiclass it" seems a very low substitute. I see it similar to say that Champion can just be done with Fighter with Cleric multiclass. I see Inquisitor with at least as much personality as many CRB classes.
I'm quite surprised to see so much interest on Summoner and Gunslinger, neither looked so popular on PF1. Kineticist and Magus where expected among the most popular ones.
The big problem with summoners has always been: the eidolon needs to be strong enough to do what it's there for, but you don't want to turn the actual PC into just an appendix, and also other players shouldn't feel outclassed because one player has two full strength characters.
I disagree that this needs to be an issue. Personally, I think downplaying the player a fair bit vs the eidolon ought to be the core of the summoner, and I don't really see why that would be a bad thing.
I think this kind of class design actually opens up a lot of design space for customization too - do you spend feats on enhancing the PC as a support to the eidolon, or do you pump all your feats into powering up the eidolon itself? It basically gives the class two separate tracks for different kinds of advancement, which I think could be really satisfying.
I think people are not so much interested in Gunslinger, but in using Firearms.
Which would explain why so many people only want an archetype instead of the full class.
This is also my own position, on fact. For example, an alchemist with guns sounds quite interesting.
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I think people are not so much interested in Gunslinger, but in using Firearms.
Which would explain why so many people only want an archetype instead of the full class.
Which isn't inherently a bad thing.
IMO, given that the community is currently split between "we want a gunslinger archetype" and "we want a gunslinger class", and doing the latter also fulfills the former via the Multiclassing Dedication, I hope we got a full class so that everyone is able to play as much as as little gunslinger as they want.
Would love to see Summoner and definitely agree that guns can be moved to archetype.
I've seen Drifter be named specifically quite a bit though, which implies they want the Class I think more than it does the Archetype.
Otherwise, why go out of your way to call it Drifter?
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I'm quite surprised to see so much interest on Summoner and Gunslinger, neither looked so popular on PF1. Kineticist and Magus where expected among the most popular ones.
I think part of it is that people really like the themes of the Summoner & Gunslinger (or just guns in general), and are hoping for better and less problematic mechanical implementation in PF2. Personally, I'm not too interested in firearms in my setting, but a variation of the Summoner that didn't cause me to pull my hair out sounds like something I might like to try.
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I'm not sure if we'll really see inquisitors and slayers again, the current multiclassing system already does so much of what they do. You could fill in the gaps with a few class feats.
Maybe, but again, you can make that argument about Swashbucklers and Investigators pretty easily and that's what we're getting in the APG. I don't think 'how replaceable it is with another class and feats' is really a useful metric for figuring out what gets in the game at this point.
To me at least, one major reason I was so happy to see Swashbucklers and Investigators is because I love their respective concepts, but thought their executions were pretty lacking in 1E. For that reason, I was very happy to see them get a second shot at greatness.
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To me at least, one major reason I was so happy to see Swashbucklers and Investigators is because I love their respective concepts, but thought their executions were pretty lacking in 1E. For that reason, I was very happy to see them get a second shot at greatness.
Investigators were mechanically great in PF1, but yeah, I'm totally with you on Swashbucklers.
To me at least, one major reason I was so happy to see Swashbucklers and Investigators is because I love their respective concepts, but thought their executions were pretty lacking in 1E. For that reason, I was very happy to see them get a second shot at greatness.Investigators were mechanically great in PF1, but yeah, I'm totally with you on Swashbucklers.
I suppose it depends on how you define "mechanically great".
They were mechanically efficient at being good fighters/formidable, but in terms of their mechanics evoking their themes, I would give them a less than astounding grade.
The new Investigator is basically a completely new role in an adventuring party, a really cool one too. Not sure how mechanically powerful they will end up being til we see the class, but the mechanics evoking the themes? Of that I have no doubt.
Yeah I agree with Midnightoker. 1E swashbucklers just kinda sucked in every conceivable way so them getting another shot at living up to an awesome concept is great in my book. 1E investigators were a powerful class, no doubt, and fun to build for. As for living up to the concept of a detective-style deduction and reasoning character, it felt short to me.
I'm not complaining about either class showing up. They look fantastic. I'm just saying that, imo, "how close can you approximate the concept with existing mechanics" is a poor metric for trying to figure out what Paizo might come up with next.
The new Investigator is basically a completely new role in an adventuring party, a really cool one too.
Completely new role seems like a bit of an overstatement. It fills similar mechanical space as the rogue. Which is fine, because the rogue having a monopoly on that space was pretty problematic (although I wish there were more general options to infringe on that territory).
Completely new role seems like a bit of an overstatement. It fills similar mechanical space as the rogue. Which is fine, because the rogue having a monopoly on that space was pretty problematic (although I wish there were more general options to infringe on that territory).
I think the way they approach the narrative is why I disagree.
A Rogue approaches the narrative Skill first, and then executes changes to the narrative.
An Investigator consumes the narrative and then dictates the flow of that narrative with their skills.
So while that may not be distinct enough for some (both are skill monkeys), the "narrative first" aspect of how they consume/act in the story is what I think really sets them apart from the Rogue in terms of "role".
Maybe I shouldn't have used "role" and instead called it "niche" but nonetheless.
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I suppose it depends on how you define "mechanically great".
They were mechanically efficient at being good fighters/formidable, but in terms of their mechanics evoking their themes, I would give them a less than astounding grade.
I think they did fine by the standards of PF1. They had the necessary tool kit to be really excellent at Skills in general, and particularly as an Empiricist, to be specifically good at finding and noticing things.
It didn't have specific narrative mechanics playing into that role, but basically nobody had those in PF1.
The new Investigator is basically a completely new role in an adventuring party, a really cool one too. Not sure how mechanically powerful they will end up being til we see the class, but the mechanics evoking the themes? Of that I have no doubt.
Which is not to say the PF2 version doesn't seem a lot more focused on actually investigating things and have more narrative mechanics to back that up, because it does. I just hope its combat options actually make it good enough in that sphere as well.
Yeah I agree with Midnightoker. 1E swashbucklers just kinda sucked in every conceivable way so them getting another shot at living up to an awesome concept is great in my book. 1E investigators were a powerful class, no doubt, and fun to build for. As for living up to the concept of a detective-style deduction and reasoning character, it felt short to me.
IMO, it worked fine for that by PF1 standards, and better than any other PF1 character Class for that role. PF2 is just a lot better with things like that due to, among other things, Skill Feats and how they work than PF1 ever was, so the PF2 Investigator is better at this kind of thing as well.
Yeah I agree with Midnightoker. 1E swashbucklers just kinda sucked in every conceivable way so them getting another shot at living up to an awesome concept is great in my book. 1E investigators were a powerful class, no doubt, and fun to build for. As for living up to the concept of a detective-style deduction and reasoning character, it felt short to me.
I ran a 1e swashbuckler to level 17 in a kingmaker campaign, and it was *awesome*.
I have never seen anyone run a 1e investigator in my little group (we have been playing for around 15 years, though that timeline goes back to the 3.5 days), so can't say anything about that class.
From what we know of the 2e APG, investigators may well be a total re-imagining of the class where they are actual heroic detective/sleuths that have unique combat powers, and are not just better rogues with alchemist abilities. That will be cool.
MAGUS!
Hell, I'm trying to figure out my own interpretation for Magus right now. It's hard finding a balance for what feels important to the Magus without making it overly complicated or too strong. But I very, very, very much want to see Magus come back.
In order of preference.
1 Magus
2 Gunslinger
3 Shaman
4 Ninja
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I'm not sure if we'll really see inquisitors and slayers again, the current multiclassing system already does so much of what they do. You could fill in the gaps with a few class feats.Maybe, but again, you can make that argument about Swashbucklers and Investigators pretty easily and that's what we're getting in the APG. I don't think 'how replaceable it is with another class and feats' is really a useful metric for figuring out what gets in the game at this point.
That's a fair point. "We can do this concept really well with 2E mechanical building blocks" is also a good reason to make a new class.
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+1 Kineticist.
I loved the kineticist; it felt really different than playing a normal elemental caster, and it had a strong Avatar feeling.
I'd love to see it back in pf2.
Is my favourite class, the Brawler, even in consideration?
Is my favourite class, the Brawler, even in consideration?
I'd say most are probably waiting to see the Martial Artist archetype in the APG, and also the Fighter is really close as it is.
For me it is +1 Gunslinger +1 Kineticist.
With the Architype system as it is I think allot what used to be classes may be class and architype such as Magus is Fighter and Architype. They have several fighting style architypes coming out. So Magus could be Wizard and one of those or go Fighter and Wizard architype. For Ninja Rogue with Assassin architype. I think if it has its on mechanics and theme like the Swashbuckler which is Panache and finishing moves then its own class. If not it may be an architype. So in the case of the Gunslinger if it does not have grit or another mechanic it may end up being an architype.