I’m sure we’ll see more than just Bard relatively soon, but it has me curious; what do folks want back from 1e, and what do you want to see changed? I never played 1e, so I’m ignorant of the existing classes other than the fondness several friends have for Kineticists.
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If we follow the basic pattern for casters:
There's prepared, spontaneous, and gish layouts for each.
Arcane has the Wizard, the Arcanist?, and the Magus.
Divine has the Cleric, the Oracle, and the Inquisitor?
Primal has the Druid, the Shaman?, and the Hunter?. Though Kineticist should probably fit into primal somewhere.
Pick-a-list has Witch, Sorcerer, and Summoner.
Following these guesses:
Occult could have the Psychic, the Bard, and the Occultist.
I want a psychic real bad. Im blanking on the mechanics outside the spellslots tho. Composition/hex focus cantrips for minor telekinetic or esp effects with stronger focus point variants?
I'd say that the Kineticist should be part of a 4th category that isn't yet part of your matrix. The Magus and Summoner gishes are more or less martials that trade 2 class features for wave casting. So it stands to reason that another method would be a "caster" that gives up the majority, or all, of its spells in order to get a surfeit of class features.
That's where I think the Kineticist will end up.
As to the OP, my answers have changed slightly since the last time this question came around so:
Of the 6 OA classes, the Psychic and Kineticist seem like sure bets to be converted largely unchanged. Some changes of course; Psychics couldn't really heal HP in PF1 and I personally want Kineticists to play up the mental aspects of their abilities at the expense of the elemental (I want to play Carrie, not Azula), but it could go either way. Spiritualists are probably adequately covered by the summoner, and if more is needed the best way to accomplish that would be by giving the summoner more feats IMO.
Mesmerists could be a class archetype, given that it was a knock-off bard in PF1, but I'm increasingly less sure that it should be. Where I draw the line on "class archetype" or not is if the new class can make use of the old class's feats, and I don't think most bard feats fit. Specifically, about 35 of the 70 bard class feats involve their Muse, so replacing that cuts down on the number of available feats considerably. Most of the rest are decidedly music themed, with only a few being general occult or spellcasting, like Soulsight and Reach Spell. So it may well be better off just starting from scratch and giving the new class access to the on-theme bard feats rather than try and shoehorn the two together. It could even become a prepared caster or a gish, or both, to further separate the two. But if they can find a way to use the Muse class feature with the mesmerist, then a CA makes perfect sense. Edit: Or if Mesmerist was just a Bard muse in and of itself, with the music being their method of hypnosis, that could work too.
The Medium and the Occultist could go several ways, and I'm not entirely certain which direction I'd like to see them take, aside from being certain I want the Occultist class renamed. I prefer Antiquarian, but I'm sure others have suggestions.
I'm actually more interested in what new classes the Occult tradition can encompass. I had an idea for a Dreamcaster that focused on AoE and terrain manipulation by pulling Dream essence into the material plane, and I want to see something that messes with fortune/misfortune effects but what other options might there be?
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Emotion/Thought components. Saying that I personally do not prefer Vocal/Somatic is a massive understatement.
And if the components map one to one like PF1, I'd rather have Vocal mapped to Emotion (instead of Thought) and vice versa for Somatic to Thought; it feels more fitting in a blunt and easily recognizable / subtle and concentration demanding kind of methods.
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Kineticist was popular in my area, and its format lends itself to the feat system IMO, w/o using any of the spell lists. I would think there'd be a Focus Spell system that they can recharge via burn. And that there'd be abilities like Wild Winds Stance that only use 1 point to last a regular battle, leaving the other Focus Points for more explosive contributions.
Wouldn't mind that "1 point" triggering all the connected abilities, like air, earth, etc. so that all the 1-minute buffs go up at once (partly since we don't want to need to burn through all the Focus Points per battle as that would make long combat or successive battles brutal).
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Paizo (James?) has said they weren't interested in filling out patterns or those overlooked niches. So whether we get "prepared occult" beyond the Witch depends on the strength of the concept's other attributes, and not on its type of casting. So we might even double up on certain types if there's a strong enough concept to drive them.
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I do not foresee a Hunter class because Ranger/MCD Druid does nearly everything they did (albeit a bit later at times). Anything much stronger as a companion might fit better under a Primal Summoner route (and I doubt we'll see a stronger companion w/ full martial).
Edit: typo
Paizo (James?) has said they weren't interested in filling out patterns or those overlooked niches. So whether we get "prepared occult" beyond the Witch depends on the strength of the concept's other attributes, and not on its type of casting. So we might even double up on certain types if there's a strong enough concept to drive them.
I believe you're correct on who said this. I'd also point out that all the OA classes were spontaneous. No particular reason they'd have to stay that way, but also no particular reason they'd need to switch just to fill in the bubble.
Aside from completionism. Which, admittedly, is probably pretty strong among gamers that came up through JRPGs and video games in general. They should probably consider that drive to fill in all corners when planning out new classes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my fav pf1 character was a fiend keeper medium. I'd also love to play a wis based occult caster. Ideally those two would overlap, but I'll take either/or.
I think Kineticist as a pure focus caster class makes a lot of sense - it's a design space that hasn't really been tapped yet, and Burn or something similar as the cost to stretch focus power use beyond normal limits is probably something that can be balanced.
I like this approach. It would allow a pure blaster to have some teeth if someone was looking for that playstyle
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Kineticists are non-casters, or rather they don't have spell slots. They can blast all day, but the limiter is "if you try to blast too hard, you're constrained by the limits of your body" so it's something like the oracle curse. They should use their own unique mechanic and not focus since it's not about "how much will you can exert" it's about "how far can you push your body."
Occultists are the focus-casters nonpareil. We already have a chassis for martials with focus spells (champions, rangers, monks) so you build the Occultist as "that basic chassis, but all the extra stuff in the class budget is about being good with focus spells."
The Psychic is a straight up Occult caster distinct from the bard like how the Cleric is distinct from the Oracle.
The Spiritualist is literally a class path for the playtest summoner, so that one doesn't need to be its own class.
The Medium is the hardest class to design.
Designer
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Paizo (James?) has said they weren't interested in filling out patterns or those overlooked niches. So whether we get "prepared occult" beyond the Witch depends on the strength of the concept's other attributes, and not on its type of casting. So we might even double up on certain types if there's a strong enough concept to drive them.I believe you're correct on who said this. I'd also point out that all the OA classes were spontaneous. No particular reason they'd have to stay that way, but also no particular reason they'd need to switch just to fill in the bubble.
Aside from completionism. Which, admittedly, is probably pretty strong among gamers that came up through JRPGs and video games in general. They should probably consider that drive to fill in all corners when planning out new classes.
Personally, I disagree, at least insofar as looking at the type of casting when planning what the classes are going to be. I think "checking XYZ box" can be a fun thought experiment and a great niche to fill in with 3pp products, but I think it's foundationally the wrong way to think about designing 1pp classes for a game. "We need a prepared occult caster" is a great way to box yourself in conceptually before you've even started designing a thing.
Typically when we look at making a class, the questions we ask are "What kind of stories are popular that you can't tell with the game yet" and "What are cool character archetypes from fiction that belong in our game world but which the game won't let you replicate yet?"
The point in time at which we start talking about whether a character is e.g. a spontaneous or prepared caster is way down the list when the class has already been decided on and is being written, when the designer needs to converse with the team and say "What kind of spellcasting makes sense for this concept?" And that's typically decided by the story of the trope. Is it a character type whose story involves study and preparation? Probably prepared. Is it a character type whose power is more esoteric, channeled and shaped by instinct or an unknowable force? Probably spontaneous. It's only if you get through all of these questions and arrive at the conclusion that there are good arguments for both prepared and spontaneous casting that we're likely to look at whether or not there's a lingering checkbox for the tradition that we could check off. If we decided that we were going to do e.g. a psychic class, we wouldn't make it prepared just to balance out the bard unless we first decided that the story of the class could fall equally well into either the prepared or spontaneous buckets.
I was going to say the point that Michael Sayre made, but I was beaten. Ah well.
Anyway, I think it is safe to say that the Spiritualist (and also Hunter) have been subsumed into the Summoner, which is fine by me. I think it works.
The medium is a weird class regardless and, while I love it, I don't know if we should expect it to exist in the same for.
The obvious shoo-ins are the Occultist, Psychic, and Kineticist. The Occultist has a solid chassis and interesting flavor that would translate well into PF2. It might even mix up how and if it approaches regular spell casting.
The psychic is interesting. We have a kit of room to change up the psychic to be distinct. It now has a witch and bard to compare to for setting itself apart. I would probably have it cast differently and possibly use spontaneous metamagic abilities to reflect its status as a "mental mage".
I'm not sure I need to say much about the Kineticist.
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I would like Medium back if it leaned harder into lore-specific stuff, acting more like a classic D&D Binder; 1e added these very late, and I would love to see them made core.
Also for the Psychic, the thing they have that's unique is that that (in addition to having emotion and thought components instead of somatic and material) is that they are prepared casters who are lightest on their feet in terms of being able to swap up their spell slots on the fly.
So access to more spells than a bard, but less bound by their preparations than the occult witch.
Like a pseudo-Arcanist?
Or more like the current spellbook Sorcerers?
Like a pseudo-Arcanist?
Something like that. Like the Vancian notion of "your spells exist in your mind until you cast them, then you forget about them until you re-read them in your spellbook" just can't apply when the only place your spells ever exist until you cast them is "in your mind" which is a thing you have an unusual level of control over.
I'd call the action to shift your prepared spells something like "change your mind."
To me that sounds a lot like metamagic, but I'm sure there are differences
I'm not sure they want to do two full casters specialized to the same list without one of them spontaneous and one of them being prepared.
All of the occult adventures casters in 1e were spontaneous, but the bard is already spontaneous and we need a dedicated occult prepared caster (this could have been the witch, but the witch didn't turn out like this).
So I think you can split the difference by having the psychic be prepared, but being the most "light on your feet, able to change things up on the fly" prepared caster.
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All of the occult adventures casters in 1e were spontaneous, but the bard is already spontaneous and we need a dedicated occult prepared caster (this could have been the witch, but the witch didn't turn out like this).
I see a lot of people say this but I'm not really convinced that it's something we 'need' at all. Completely changing how the psychic works just to fit them into some perceived niche sounds pretty bad.
It's a fair point that a spontaneous occult psychic would overlap with the spontaneous occult bard... but that's already how casters work. Making the psychic prepared would just make them markedly similar to an occult witch rather than markedly similar to the bard, which doesn't really change any issues of potential sameiness (in the same way it was a big issue that the playtest arcane witch was nearly identical to the wizard... or the biggest difference between the druid and the primal witch is that the druid just has better proficiencies).
Now if there was some compelling concept for a prepared psychic that made sense that someone had, that might be something, but I never see that. I just always see this notion of a checklist of spellcasters we need to squash classes into.
As far as I can tell, the big draw of the psychic class in first edition was its cool, thematic spell list and phrenic amplifications. The spell list part is sort of covered in simply having the occult spell list. Phrenic amplifications could either be replaced by metamagic, they could be enhanced metamagic focus spells, or something similar. I feel like it would be a pretty easy class to design, and thematically pretty cool.
I want a psychic real bad. Im blanking on the mechanics outside the spellslots tho.
Ironically all the spontanious casters stole their mechanics.
Their two big things was undercasting and phrenic amplificications. Which more or less boils down to signature spells and focus powers.
Any new version of the Psychic would need new toys in compensation.
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I'm not sure they want to do two full casters specialized to the same list without one of them spontaneous and one of them being prepared.
All of the occult adventures casters in 1e were spontaneous, but the bard is already spontaneous and we need a dedicated occult prepared caster (this could have been the witch, but the witch didn't turn out like this).
So I think you can split the difference by having the psychic be prepared, but being the most "light on your feet, able to change things up on the fly" prepared caster.
This seems exactly contradictory to what Michael Sayre said just a couple of posts ago. Psychics wouldn’t be prepared, because they don’t learn their powers through research or outside study. It springs forth from within. The mechanic for spontaneous casting fits the narrative of the class. Maybe the class can offer INT or WIS based occult spontaneous casting with more spells per level, focus powers that blast or are tied to being a psychic, and more spells known, plus feats that focus in casting spells and it will be in a very different place than the bard in the end. Especially with D6 hp, no armor, and simple weapons at most, it will feel very different.
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I think there are a lot of interesting ways they can do Psychics. Nobody thought about "wave" casting before Magus/Summoner (that I saw on the boards, anyway), yet here we are. I'd like to see them play up how their spell components differ from "regular" casters. I also would like them to not just be a different flavor of occult caster. Occult spells are cool and it's a good list, but I think Psychic can push the envelope a bit on focus pool shenanigans or even have a sort of "martial" casting combat ability (like how Rangers get Hunt Prey, Barbarians Rage, etc.), rather than an occult Sorcerer with a different focus power. Witch Hexes (ugh) kinda do this, but "priming" a target before blasting them, or dumping emotions into a spell, or whatever could be a cool thing to differentiate them.
As others have said, I'd love for Occultist to be the focus martial. I've been tinkering with my own homebrew and so far like the idea of the Occultist simply putting focus points into items. Much like 1e, where they had "resonant" or passive powers and then use effects, except a little easier to grapple with when you're dealing with P2e's math and fewer pool systems. They could even have some sort of item upgrade pathways in a similar vein to the Inventor playtest, with a pile of build-a-relics.
I'd also be interested in Occultist (and other occult classes) having more accessible and tangible rituals. Like a healing ritual that uses Occultism instead of Medicine to Treat Wounds, or whatever. Explore that space a bit.
I'm not sure we'll see a full Arcanist, so perhaps we can unload some of that class's mechanics onto the Psychic? Not the spell prep, but rather the frequent modification and 'hacking' of spells. Abilities that modify spells even beyond what metamagic can do.
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I'd also be interested in Occultist (and other occult classes) having more accessible and tangible rituals. Like a healing ritual that uses Occultism instead of Medicine to Treat Wounds, or whatever. Explore that space a bit.
THIS would make a lot of sense as the marquee ability of a prepped occult caster, given what Michael said above. I don't think it can carry an entire class on its own, but it's a starting point at least.
And with all due respect to Mr Sayre (after all, he's the paid designer, not me), I disagree with some of his viewpoint. As a purchaser, I don't need help putting a story-concept into the game. I can find, reflavor, or break stuff until it resembles the story I want to tell, especially with more options being added all the time. What I need from Paizo are those game mechanic options. I'm a decent enough story teller, but balancing game mechanics is not something I'll ever be as good at as the people who do it for a living.
I do agree that starting with mechanics ahead of a story is limiting, but so is the other way (as he goes to some lengths in his post to describe). Either way, you're making a decision on what you want to prioritize, and for me my first instinct will always be the mechanics.
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I'm not sure we'll see a full Arcanist, so perhaps we can unload some of that class's mechanics onto the Psychic? Not the spell prep, but rather the frequent modification and 'hacking' of spells. Abilities that modify spells even beyond what metamagic can do.
We will see a full Arcanist, at least in terms of spellcasting style, as the Flexible Preparation optional rule in Secrets of Magic. Exploits and Arcane reservoir would not necessarily be tied to that spellcasting style but could easily become available via additional class feats either in this book or in some future book.
Also, I suspect that Paizo probably won't refer to the PF2 version of the classes from Occult Adventures as occult classes, as the occult spell list is not necessarily tied to those classes in any way. Many people have already argued that a future PF2 Kineticist should cast primal cantrips and/or focus spells, and the other five classes seem to be bound together by a common casting method rather than by a common spell list.
A prepared occult caster who preps their spells through a psychic connection to the Akashic Library could be an awesome character concept.
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A prepared occult caster who preps their spells through a psychic connection to the Akashic Library could be an awesome character concept.
This seems highly doable now as a witch, doesn't it? Have a familiar that is a talking book?
A prepared occult caster who preps their spells through a psychic connection to the Akashic Library could be an awesome character concept.This seems highly doable now as a witch, doesn't it? Have a familiar that is a talking book?
Sort of depends on how deep you want to explore that theme. Easy enough to add a few lessons, familiar, and class feats, as we saw with the Baba Yaga patron. If it is going to be the thing the whole class swings on, perhaps more room is needed.
What form that would take, yo no se. Honestly I sort of want this to be an investigator methodology, the same way I think the Inquisitor can be.
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"mystical connection to some vast source of knowledge through which you learn spells" really is the witch's whole thing though.
You could certainly flesh it out into a different class, because you can do that with anything, but that still just sounds like a witch with a couple altered class features.
"mystical connection to some vast source of knowledge through which you learn spells" really is the witch's whole thing though.
You could certainly flesh it out into a different class, because you can do that with anything, but that still just sounds like a witch with a couple altered class features.
If you reduce it that much, that is also describing a Cleric, Druid, Oracle, and Arcane sorcerer. Some Bards too, actually.
Devil is in the details though. Casters only have a couple class features besides their spell list, so changing a couple class features can be a significant shift in feel.
Consider perhaps instead of taking lessons from the library, it instead adopts the flexible multiclass feat idea I keep pushing for mediums. An Akashic doesn’t just access memories, they gain access to echoes of their actual abilities.
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A prepared occult caster who preps their spells through a psychic connection to the Akashic Library could be an awesome character concept.This seems highly doable now as a witch, doesn't it? Have a familiar that is a talking book?
Isn't the current default familiar an animal at Witch 1? I really want some inanimate tattoo or floating runestone thingy to work for a hypothetical Arcane Witch, but so far it's not doable at 1st level by RAW...
Anyway, the prepared "psychic casting" occult caster with Akashic connections sounds cool. Or maybe the "antiquarian(PF1 Occultist?)" will fill that "concept slot" instead.
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P.S. Not that related, but once the E/T components roll out I'll reference the rules and gladly have my house rules declare that all sorcerers no longer work with those nonsensical V/S and deal with some other kind of component (maybe E/T, or something more physical yet less anatomically picky ones). Gosh.
Isn't the current default familiar an animal at Witch 1? I really want some inanimate tattoo or floating runestone thingy to work for a hypothetical Arcane Witch, but so far it's not doable at 1st level by RAW...
Well if you didn't mind Occult instead, you can manage a floating runestone at 1st. If you want arcane, there is the Aeon Wyrd specific familiar that costs 3 abilities so a witch can get it at 1st.
Isn't the current default familiar an animal at Witch 1? I really want some inanimate tattoo or floating runestone thingy to work for a hypothetical Arcane Witch, but so far it's not doable at 1st level by RAW...A prepared occult caster who preps their spells through a psychic connection to the Akashic Library could be an awesome character concept.This seems highly doable now as a witch, doesn't it? Have a familiar that is a talking book?
What about a Kitsune Star Orb?
Ancestry locked, but I'd allow it if I was your DM.
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P.S. Not that related, but once the E/T components roll out I'll reference the rules and gladly have my house rules declare that all sorcerers no longer work with those nonsensical V/S and deal with some other kind of component (maybe E/T, or something more physical yet less anatomically picky ones). Gosh.
One of the few house rules that I have is that the magical essences are connected to component types, so that each tradition now has a different combination of components. Occult is emotion and thought, arcane is thought and verbal, primal is verbal and somatic, and divine is somatic and emotion.
One of the few house rules that I have is that the magical essences are connected to component types, so that each tradition now has a different combination of components. Occult is emotion and thought, arcane is thought and verbal, primal is verbal and somatic, and divine is somatic and emotion.
Huh, interesting. It's quite similar to my house rules' earlier draft(s), except as it was done around during PF1 OA's publishing I had each class separately decide which component set you used...
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P.S. Not that related, but once the E/T components roll out I'll reference the rules and gladly have my house rules declare that all sorcerers no longer work with those nonsensical V/S and deal with some other kind of component (maybe E/T, or something more physical yet less anatomically picky ones). Gosh.One of the few house rules that I have is that the magical essences are connected to component types, so that each tradition now has a different combination of components. Occult is emotion and thought, arcane is thought and verbal, primal is verbal and somatic, and divine is somatic and emotion.
I like this, and the interesting implications it has for whether or not a spell has manipulate or concentrate components.
For instance, Bards can replace somatic and most verbal components with a perform check, but with this "somatic" is replaced by "thought", which I presume is concentrate instead of manipulate. Which would mean that occult casters by default use concentrate actions, but bards can substitute both for manipulate components.