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August Subs thread is up, but still locked. Guess we'll see if they actually start order generation today...........................................................
God the wait is killing me!
Order generation was pushed to tomorrow, and possibly moved further to Monday pending on shipments arriving.
As someone replied, it might be a slip-up. It's a stream. It happens a lot.A commenter in that reddit thread (u/lumgeon) mentioned the magus Spellstriking and then attacking again at -4 instead of -8.
Pretty nice if that's correct.
It might be, though imo it would be kinda neat if it worked that way and would make buying into other varieties of attack kind of appealing. Otherwise you're probably just better off recharging all the time.
I aggree it'd be nice to be able to try another type of strike after a spellstrike. That might be too strong, but who knows
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One thing I'm not wondering about is about keeping the spell list for elementalist up to date as more spells are released. I wonder if we'll see lists in those books for all archtypes with custom lists or if we'll see something like being able to pick spells from any list with earth, air, fire, water tags.
The traits themselves would make the most sense, keep it automatically growing, but its possible its otherwise if they're worried about not knowing whats going to be published later.
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Well, after freezing the stream, I found some information on the Summoner class. It appears that the Summoner's 2nd level class feats include (note that I could not make out the complete text and am only mentioning the bits I could make out and might be out of context):
Magical Understudy: This appears to be the final version of Magical Evolution from the playtest.
Ranged Combatant: This is an evolution feat that grants the eidolon a ranged attack with a range increment of 30ft. and your choice of damage type from a list with the Propulsion trait. I can make out, "bludgeoning, cold, electricity, fire," and negative in the list of damage types, but it cuts off half way through what I assumed to be the word, "negative".
EDIT: the word, "traits" comes after the word, "propulsive". So, there is another trait in there, too; probably the magical trait, if we go by the 8th level playtest version of this feat, "Ranged Evolution". But, the Propulsion trait was never in the playtest version. So, depending on what the damage die is - which I cannot see because of where the screen cuts off - this version appears to be both stronger than and lower level than the playtest feat.
Reinforce Eidolon: This appears to be the final version of the feat with the same name from the playtest.
Steed Form: This is an evolution feat that seems to make your eidolon into a better mount. It states, "Your eidolon changes to make it particularly effective..." "...you ride it, you get your full number of actions each..." There is a lot more text to it, but as badly cut off on one side of the paragraph as it is, I think this quote is more than enough to guess what this feat is going to help the summoner effectively accomplish with his eidolon.
There is also a 4th level evolution feat, "Bloodletting Cl...". The word, "critically", can be made out in the description, as well. I suspect this is a claw attack evolution.
Also, the Fey Eidolon appears to start with "Fey Gift Spells" as there is a multiple paragraph section on that page. There is also a section of the Fey Eidolon that describes the 7th level ability, "Fey Movement".
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Thank you Ashanderai! I didn't think anything could really be gleaned from the screenshots of logan holding up the book, but I guess I was wrong! Also, very cool art for those that haven't seen it.
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Eidolon Ranged Attack feat getting moved down to level 2 from 8 and given the propulsive trait is very nice news.
The Steed Form description seems to be (unclear parts in angle brackets):
"Your eidolon changes to make it particularly effective as your mount. <When> you ride it, you get your full number of actions each round instead of <reducing> them to 2. This applies only when you ride your eidolon, not when <allies do> (see Riding Sapient Creatures sidebar on page 71). Your eidolon <has> to be at least one size category larger than you to ride it. Since you work <as an unit>, your eidolon's move actions while you're mounted gain the tandem <trait>."
I'm not totally sure what the significance of gaining the tandem trait on the eidolon's move actions is.
I know this has been asked a few times and the only real answer is that we'll see after the book comes out, but I hope the uncommon or rare archetypes are allowed in pfs. I realized today that there are uncommon archetypes in the apg that are still not allowed in pfs (or rather not talked about at all) like the scrounger archetype. Archetypes like soulforger could be really cool and I hope they are allowed to at least the purchased with achievement points of what have you.
Current obsession: hoping there’s a lot of ray spells in this that I can slap onto a gun-wielding Magus… you see where I’m going with this, I hope!
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I am hoping for more variable action spells. I know scorching ray works that way. However one of my biggest gripes of 2E is that casters don't have many one action casts that they can tack on to the end of a turn and if there isn't a good target for a skill you have put feats into I have seen many players just end a turn with an action left over.
Current obsession: hoping there’s a lot of ray spells in this that I can slap onto a gun-wielding Magus… you see where I’m going with this, I hope!
Yes, I dream of porting my spellslinger/eldritch archer from 1e over to 2e.
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I am hoping for more variable action spells. I know scorching ray works that way. However one of my biggest gripes of 2E is that casters don't have many one action casts that they can tack on to the end of a turn and if there isn't a good target for a skill you have put feats into I have seen many players just end a turn with an action left over.
A lack of spells taking advantage of the action system is definitely a weakness of the magic system right now. Casters are basically still using 1e action systems to cast.
Personally I'd like to see a couple spells where the effect isn't too different as it heightens but the action cost goes down.
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I am hoping for more variable action spells. I know scorching ray works that way. However one of my biggest gripes of 2E is that casters don't have many one action casts that they can tack on to the end of a turn and if there isn't a good target for a skill you have put feats into I have seen many players just end a turn with an action left over.
Shield is a very good cantrip.
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More variable action spells would do little to help with the leftover action, you don't see people using 1 action magic missile and will probably not see the 1 action scorching ray either, even the 1 action heal is once in a blue moon as people value slot highly and don't use those spells unless they get maximum value with it.
About reaction spells, have a new entirely new type of spells for that with the contingency spells, that you caat on yourself before and when the trigger happens you can use your reaction to activate it.
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I guess I am one of the few ones which is perfectly fine with the current caster situation, especially cause I come from a martial combatant perspective.
Being able to have a great variety of spells is way more interesting than being stuck with the same actions round after round.
My lvl 10 champion for example is tied to these actions
-strike ( the only strike attack my character has).
-step/stride ( movement)
- denoralize ( polymath bard)
- lay on hand/hymn of healing ( focus power). I also have basic and advanced passion domain spells ( no combat purposes).
- no maneuvers ( deity weapon is a glaive, so bored maneuvers for me)
- champion reaction ( reaction)
- guidance + shield ( bard cantrips).Not that other characters are different ( stride + double slice/twin takedown/twin feint/flurry of blows would be equal to stride + strikex2).
Being able to play a spell caster would mean infinite possibilities, the more the character advances ( starting from the cantrips choices in terms of attacks).
In my experience at the table martials play through a power fantasy and casters just contribute. I see wide eyes and smiles on martials critting a couple times a session and casters with blank despondent faces after the third consecutive save from a monster against a spell. That's ultimately anecdotal and not good for an argument, though. The systems math isn't gonna change but I'm excited for all the items and special components (caster charm equivalents) that'll help out lvls 1-10. The second half of the game is fine bc weaker spells dont matter when you have so much to work with, but low lvl casters need a shot in the arm.
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In my experience at the table martials play through a power fantasy and casters just contribute. I see wide eyes and smiles on martials critting a couple times a session and casters with blank despondent faces after the third consecutive save from a monster against a spell. That's ultimately anecdotal and not good for an argument, though. The systems math isn't gonna change but I'm excited for all the items and special components (caster charm equivalents) that'll help out lvls 1-10. The second half of the game is fine bc weaker spells dont matter when you have so much to work with, but low lvl casters need a shot in the arm.I guess I am one of the few ones which is perfectly fine with the current caster situation, especially cause I come from a martial combatant perspective.
Being able to have a great variety of spells is way more interesting than being stuck with the same actions round after round.
My lvl 10 champion for example is tied to these actions
-strike ( the only strike attack my character has).
-step/stride ( movement)
- denoralize ( polymath bard)
- lay on hand/hymn of healing ( focus power). I also have basic and advanced passion domain spells ( no combat purposes).
- no maneuvers ( deity weapon is a glaive, so bored maneuvers for me)
- champion reaction ( reaction)
- guidance + shield ( bard cantrips).Not that other characters are different ( stride + double slice/twin takedown/twin feint/flurry of blows would be equal to stride + strikex2).
Being able to play a spell caster would mean infinite possibilities, the more the character advances ( starting from the cantrips choices in terms of attacks).
I find this so weird. In my tables martials play the power fantasy of hitting things with stick or hitting things with extra big stick. While caster play the fantasy of poof i ran away, poof now that guy likes us we don't have to fight, poof now there's a speed debuff on the enemy now he won't be able to run after us, poof now we can fly...
Casters now are supports it's the role i wished they were all along. They can be support and dps, they can be support and tank a bit, they can be support and do something else but they are now mainly supports. And i guess i just like that...|
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I am hoping for more variable action spells. I know scorching ray works that way. However one of my biggest gripes of 2E is that casters don't have many one action casts that they can tack on to the end of a turn and if there isn't a good target for a skill you have put feats into I have seen many players just end a turn with an action left over.Shield is a very good cantrip.
And now we need more 1 action spells.
More variable action spells would do little to help with the leftover action, you don't see people using 1 action magic missile and will probably not see the 1 action scorching ray either, even the 1 action heal is once in a blue moon as people value slot highly and don't use those spells unless they get maximum value with it.
About reaction spells, have a new entirely new type of spells for that with the contingency spells, that you caat on yourself before and when the trigger happens you can use your reaction to activate it.
I wasn't super clear there. Variable actions, as in not just 2 action spells. Forgot about Heal and Magic Missile. More of those, and more 1 and 3 action spells, reaction spells too.
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From the beginning of 2e it was obvious they wanted to get away from the idea that casters could do everything better than martials. As such there had to be give and take. If you want spells to do single target massive damage I think you'll be disappointed in SoM as that would make just "better" versions of existing spells.
Martials rule for single target damage and I can't see casters catching up on that. However AoE spells ultimately total more damage, just spread out and I can see more of those spells.
Additionally, damage spells with debuff affects (think Vomit Swarm) will also be prevalent in SoM I think. You just can't expect the damage to be amazing when they also debuff.
I have a few minor gripes (why can't I stand on my floating disk anymore?!), but overall they fixed the D&D and PF1e issue of casters just being better than martials at everything. And this coming from a player who plays casters primarily.
I think some if the common APG spells used to be uncommon from some early AP (like Object Reading). I'm curious to see if Sudden Bolt made it into SoM. That would be an interesting power increase in single target damage spells.
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I think some if the common APG spells used to be uncommon from some early AP (like Object Reading). I'm curious to see if Sudden Bolt made it into SoM. That would be an interesting power increase in single target damage spells.
Honestly I hope not. Sudden Bolt is major power creep on all other damaging spells. I played Extinction Curse and have Sudden Bolt on my PFS Druid and honestly feel bad casting it. I typically don't use it because of the powercreep and that it just annihilates just about anything it touches.
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A few things I hope we get in some form - some weapon summoning/empowering spells, something similar to the magus focus spells from the playtest that it sounds like were removed. I know we have the soulforger coming but it's going to be rare and a big feat and attribute investment, be nice to get some spells that have a similar feel.
I also hope we get some ways around getting spells disrupted. At least at top level play, there seems to be a lot of monsters that disrupt concentrate/manipulate/move actions on even a regular hit, and with caster ac they're going to hit almost every time. Feels pretty crappy to have one of your few high level spells gone just like that, and steady spellcasting is far from reliable. Something like a long lasting buff that prevents spells from being disrupted or lower level spell that lets casters power through being distrupted as a reaction, something like that. Casters already have a hard enough time against some of the crazy high level enemies without being able to cast anything.
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The major problem with this approach is, at least for my group, us that the really climatic battles are against 1-3 enemies, so being a blaster there is very unsatisfying. Especially when you move from a blaster in low difficulty fights to a challenging fight and having to shift your style. I'm 100% ok with martials having more reliable single target damage but mages should be ok to nova as long as they don't deal more on average throughout an adventuring day. Especially since if you're casting a blast you aren't casting anything else.From the beginning of 2e it was obvious they wanted to get away from the idea that casters could do everything better than martials. As such there had to be give and take. If you want spells to do single target massive damage I think you'll be disappointed in SoM as that would make just "better" versions of existing spells.
Martials rule for single target damage and I can't see casters catching up on that. However AoE spells ultimately total more damage, just spread out and I can see more of those spells.
Additionally, damage spells with debuff affects (think Vomit Swarm) will also be prevalent in SoM I think. You just can't expect the damage to be amazing when they also debuff.
I have a few minor gripes (why can't I stand on my floating disk anymore?!), but overall they fixed the D&D and PF1e issue of casters just being better than martials at everything. And this coming from a player who plays casters primarily.
I think such a caster going nova will mark the end of the adventuring day. Either it was the final fight and they put a huge dent in the BBEG's HPs, which the martials are supposed to already be able to deal with provided they get adequate support from the casters, so scenario ends.
Or it was an intermediate fight and the caster now cannot contribute to further fights as much as expected by the system. So everyone goes back home. Or they keep on fighting harder, more dangerous, fights with the caster just standing there and the martials still hitting things, which I believe casters would hate.
This would be the new Out of Heal, let's retreat thing, but even faster.
Neither of these feel fun and interesting for everyone to me, so I do not think we will see that.
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A few things I hope we get in some form - some weapon summoning/empowering spells, something similar to the magus focus spells from the playtest that it sounds like were removed. I know we have the soulforger coming but it's going to be rare and a big feat and attribute investment, be nice to get some spells that have a similar feel.
I also hope we get some ways around getting spells disrupted. At least at top level play, there seems to be a lot of monsters that disrupt concentrate/manipulate/move actions on even a regular hit, and with caster ac they're going to hit almost every time. Feels pretty crappy to have one of your few high level spells gone just like that, and steady spellcasting is far from reliable. Something like a long lasting buff that prevents spells from being disrupted or lower level spell that lets casters power through being distrupted as a reaction, something like that. Casters already have a hard enough time against some of the crazy high level enemies without being able to cast anything.
Recall Knowledge before casting your big spell to make sure it does land is vital.
My Bard once started our first fight and wasted a top level Calm Emotion on immune to mental creatures. We sorely missed the slot later on.
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I also hope we get some ways around getting spells disrupted. At least at top level play, there seems to be a lot of monsters that disrupt concentrate/manipulate/move actions on even a regular hit, and with caster ac they're going to hit almost every time. Feels pretty crappy to have one of your few high level spells gone just like that, and steady spellcasting is far from reliable. Something like a long lasting buff that prevents spells from being disrupted or lower level spell that lets casters power through being distrupted as a reaction, something like that. Casters already have a hard enough time against some of the crazy high level enemies without being able to cast anything.
This I could certainly get behind. Casters often lack a good reaction and having a reaction to reliably prevent disruptions would be great. I also like the buff idea as well. A spell (so taking a spell slot resource) to steal yourself against disruption sounds like a great addition to SoM.
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Why would you think that? Casters already have to budget their spells I don't see how a single large damage spell would be different than a single debuff effect.
As far as longevity in a fight that's mainly what cantrips and lower level spells are for, and low level spells are still pretty effective for debuffing.
And martials dealing with bbeg hp while getting buffed or casters doing doesn't make a difference to me. I want to blast things with fire, not blast weak enemies for fire and hang out casting haste or some other spell when the chips are down. I want to blast with hotter fire.
I get that, but would it also be fun for the martials ?
That the casters would be inflicting big damage to the BBEG while the martials are inflicting less damage than expected since they are not benefitting from the caster's buffs or debuffs.
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I think some if the common APG spells used to be uncommon from some early AP (like Object Reading). I'm curious to see if Sudden Bolt made it into SoM. That would be an interesting power increase in single target damage spells.Honestly I hope not. Sudden Bolt is major power creep on all other damaging spells. I played Extinction Curse and have Sudden Bolt on my PFS Druid and honestly feel bad casting it. I typically don't use it because of the powercreep and that it just annihilates just about anything it touches.
I have no experience with Sudden Bolt in actual play. I think it might be fine if it started as a 3rd level spell dealing 5d12. At least I never felt that Lightning Bolt at 4d12 felt overpowered. 4d12 is a huge problem at character level 3, because a high damage roll on a critfail is nearly guranteed instant death.
I also hope we get some ways around getting spells disrupted. At least at top level play, there seems to be a lot of monsters that disrupt concentrate/manipulate/move actions on even a regular hit, and with caster ac they're going to hit almost every time.
I checked that some time ago. I found about a dozen creatures that interrupt a spell (Manupulate or Concentration) on a normal hit. I think only 2 of them were below level 20.
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I can say, playing on a 1e campaign, after reaching high levels the martials of our group are mostly bored.
Because wizard+cleric just do everything. Boss ? Save or die spell. Group of mooks ? Mass Suggestion to go take a walk. Exploring ? Divination to see in every room around us.
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I think some if the common APG spells used to be uncommon from some early AP (like Object Reading). I'm curious to see if Sudden Bolt made it into SoM. That would be an interesting power increase in single target damage spells.Honestly I hope not. Sudden Bolt is major power creep on all other damaging spells. I played Extinction Curse and have Sudden Bolt on my PFS Druid and honestly feel bad casting it. I typically don't use it because of the powercreep and that it just annihilates just about anything it touches.
Weird, I played a Wizard with Sudden Bolt and it feels pretty bad to use, like its ok but the AOE on Lightning Bolt the following level is so much more useful, I guess Sudden Bolt stays a damage die ahead when heightening, but for Single Target Scenarios (where the enemies have higher leveled saves and AC, so partial or no damage is likely), I feel like Magic Missile's reliable DPR and 3 action scaling is way stronger in the long run.
Like, I wouldn't say its a bad spell, and it certainly beats naked spell attacks, but I didn't get the vibe it was that powerful, maybe I should lean on it more next time I play a caster at that level.
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I think some if the common APG spells used to be uncommon from some early AP (like Object Reading). I'm curious to see if Sudden Bolt made it into SoM. That would be an interesting power increase in single target damage spells.Honestly I hope not. Sudden Bolt is major power creep on all other damaging spells. I played Extinction Curse and have Sudden Bolt on my PFS Druid and honestly feel bad casting it. I typically don't use it because of the powercreep and that it just annihilates just about anything it touches.Weird, I played a Wizard with Sudden Bolt and it feels pretty bad to use, like its ok but the AOE on Lightning Bolt the following level is so much more useful, I guess Sudden Bolt stays a damage die ahead when heightening, but for Single Target Scenarios (where the enemies have higher leveled saves and AC, so partial or no damage is likely), I feel like Magic Missile's reliable DPR and 3 action scaling is way stronger in the long run.
Like, I wouldn't say its a bad spell, and it certainly beats naked spell attacks, but I didn't get the vibe it was that powerful, maybe I should lean on it more next time I play a caster at that level.
As a GM with two different players in two different groups who heavily use Sudden Bolt, I agree that it feels kinda mediocre on my side of the screen. It does fine damage, but one of the characters has Tempest Surge which does just a bit less damage but regens between fights and the other character has magic missile as a signature spell that does less damage but is much more reliable, so when they burn through spell slots on Sudden Bolt I assume it's just for the flavor of calling down lightning. Better than Acid Arrow most of the time, but not as good as 3rd level or 4th level spells they are giving up for heightened Sudden Bolts.
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Why would you think that? Casters already have to budget their spells I don't see how a single large damage spell would be different than a single debuff effect.
As far as longevity in a fight that's mainly what cantrips and lower level spells are for, and low level spells are still pretty effective for debuffing.
And martials dealing with bbeg hp while getting buffed or casters doing doesn't make a difference to me. I want to blast things with fire, not blast weak enemies for fire and hang out casting haste or some other spell when the chips are down. I want to blast with hotter fire.
I get that, but would it also be fun for the martials ?
That the casters would be inflicting big damage to the BBEG while the martials are inflicting less damage than expected since they are not benefitting from the caster's buffs or debuffs.
Honestly I'm not willing to sacrifice my fun for someone else's. If the martials can't keep up without me being support they should build for that, take a multi-class dedication and buff them selves.
I just strongly disagree with saying "you can't play the character you want because I need you to play like this". That reeks of poor system design.
While team work is the skill curve for this game (in a party based fantasy adventure game? Shocker) you can always flip the script and have the martials set you up, its just as effective overall, since they usually have options to do that while still doing their own damage.
A Martial Demoralizing, Tripping, passing out buffs, might be a little less effective than a big spell doing it, but the martial usually can still make attacks as well.
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A Martial Demoralizing, Tripping, passing out buffs, might be a little less effective than a big spell doing it, but the martial usually can still make attacks as well.
And he can keep trying at each turn too, a martial usually won't spend ressources for that.
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I wonder why nobody asks for martials to get AoE attacks that would do damage or even better inflict conditions, even with a failure.
I've seen people specifically ask for both of those things reasonably frequently though.