Incanter Class
This project by Subtle Forge is an experiment in developing a caster class that does not make use of spell slots and generates magic through creative use of action economy and skill use.
The core of the idea grew from noticing the utilization of some skills (like Acrobatics or Athletics) over others, which appear in a lot of cases to be limited to serving as different sources of information. But what if Arcana (in the case of the Incanter, for example), actually represented a character’s capacity to enact magical abilities, much like Athletics allows interesting and creative combat maneuvers? Would this approach open up greater flexibility and creativity to the player?
The goal of the project has been to build a caster freed from some of the rigidities of the action economy and the spell slot system built into the other existing casters, while remaining true to the balance and build of the Pathfinder 2e ruleset. It also led to some really great fun, roleplaying, and creative thinking for the players.
Open to thoughts, (constructive) feedback, and curiosity.
Go to Incanter Class
Contact SubtleForge@gmail.com
This actually reminds me a little of the dnd3.5 true speaker - combines with the pathfinder 1e wordmagic from the advanced magic guide
looks good at first glance
This actually reminds me a little of the dnd3.5 true speaker - combines with the pathfinder 1e wordmagic from the advanced magic guide
looks good at first glance
Thank you! We hadn't come across those, but from both names "true speaker" and "word magic" it definitely sounds like they share similar inspirations. We'll have to check those out!
in short
the truespeaker had not classical spells but instead had to roll against a difficulty to cast effects, these were chosen from a spellist and learned as usual and some were quite powerful
the downside was that with every succesful cast the difficulty would increase and with 3.5 dc scaling it was later basically impossible to succesfully cast against enemies without class tweaking
wordmagic from pf1e was that you could use each spellslot to put a combination of words in it, these words were for effect, target and meta effects, so you could puzzle together a lot of different effects
especially with spontaneous casters who could just puzzle together their known words on the fly
One thing that springs to mind about your class is that the damage (especially of 1 action spells) scales rather fast
you could theoreticly make 3 touch spells with each 8d10+int damage in a turn, which is way more then any martial could do
I know there is the risk of just making your action go poof (and I havent done the exact math yet, admittedly) but that seems to be a really enormous payoff
Those both sound really interesting, particularly the wordmagic with the spontaneous caster combo.
Yeah, one of the hardest parts of the balance has been working out the damage scaling by level. In your example, to have three actions to cast, the Incanter would need a critical success on the initial Arcana roll, but admittedly that can definitely happen. And then each attack’s success is going to be limited by the multiple attack penalty. But I do get your point that a series of great rolls could make some ridiculous damage, which is not the intention of the build.
We did a lot of calculations around damage scaling for other classes, but other than a some tidbits from a few discussions about min-maxing, we haven’t been able to find a good source of information breaking down the “typical” damage ranges per level per class that could be used as a guidepost. I’m sure there are those out there who may have put together those stats, and honing the damage section with better information is one of the known items for further refinement, if we can get better info.
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What does this line from Instigator mean?
"and your proficiency in simple and unarmed attacks increases."
If it means they get Expert in those attacks at 1st level, that's something of a system-wide no-no, especially for casters.
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Other misc thoughts:
-The "Range and Area Variation" ability should either explicitly tell you how much range you gain (ideal) or tell you to refer to the character progression table. Otherwise it can be hard to tell where to look for that information. Also, having cones and bursts progress at the same speed seems like it makes cones less useful? By the time you are choosing between a 30ft burst or a 35ft cone there is rarely going to be a reason to choose the cone.
-Is it intentional that Instigator doesn't get expert martial proficiency automatically at 11th level? Thanks to the APG archetypes it's fairly easy to pick up an archetype for proficiency, so I assume it could be intentional.
-It says you can combine as many Spell Effects as you have actions to cast that round; does that mean that an Evoker could, on a crit, combine three different elements for absolutely massive damage? Also, if you combine effects, do you make separate attack rolls or just one? Separate saves or just one? Personally, I suggest that it's going to be hard to balance 1x/2x/3x damage against each other, and you may want to limit the caster to a single damage effect per casting - or perhaps a single damage effect per target?
-Also if you can stack damage then persistent damage is really weak - it might be really weak anyway. If I am picking an 8th level spell effect and I am choosing between 8d8+INT damage or Pers 8, there is no world in which Pers 8 is the correct choice.
-Abjuration seems desperately weak. No damage option, and you can get a better version of its primary feature by any of the various means you can get the shield cantrip. Lack of duration really cripples it here. Also you need to indicate the type of bonus it gives; there are no untyped bonuses in 2e.
Don't have time to read over the feats yet, but that's my initial feedback. Really like the concept, though!
What does this line from Instigator mean?"and your proficiency in simple and unarmed attacks increases."If it means they get Expert in those attacks at 1st level, that's something of a system-wide no-no, especially for casters.
Oh, despite several proofreaders this is a typo. It should read "and this proficiency increases with simple and unarmed attacks." Intention there to make sure that the benefit for the Instigator scales with their other weapon proficiencies. Thank you for the question - it's going on the "errata" list!
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Really love the detailed feedback!
- The idea behind cone versus burst was based around potentially different utilities, whether for buffs or debuffs/attacks, and so that the player isn't forced into choosing the feat in which they can select those affected by different spell effects. Since everything about the spell is constructed in the moment, there are no automatic qualifiers for "only allies" or "only enemies" (without that feat), so the thinking was the cone would allow directional area effects if needed. I do see what you're saying, that bursts may need to progress at a slower rate than cones, just to make sure that cones do offer something of a benefit in some circumstances.
- Not the intention for the Instigator! The typo you noticed in an earlier post was supposed to make it clear they get the same proficiency increase at 11th level, and at other weapon proficiency increases.
- The balance around the damage is a big area we know needs fine-tuning. Damage output needs to stay in a range so that the game doesn't break, for sure. The idea with actions here would be that all three actions could be spent for the 3-action single-type damage output (with that damage riding on a single attack roll), or, with the feat that allows breaking the actions into separate casts in that turn, three 1-action casts (which could have different damage types, and would be affected by the multiple attack penalty), or a 2-action and a 1-action (also affected by the same). The issue here for the Incanter would be having to spend actions to gain range, if not using touch attacks (there are some feats that help with this action economy, though).
- I echo the same thought about persistent damage scaling here as for the damage calculations as a whole. Finding the balance with this will be key, and while a lot of math looking at typical spell damage per level went into these numbers, we're hoping we find some good resources to correct out damage balancing issues in the future releases of the class.
- I initially felt worried about the limitations for Abjuration, but when I was playing, I found some really cool unexpected flexibility for the Incanter in being able to access support-type spell effects for the party when needed. Combining a burst with energy resistance to affect the whole party for a turn was pretty amazing when facing an enemy with elemental damage. I did have to spend an action each turn when I wanted to keep it going, but on turns with an Arcana success I had another action left over to use for other purposes (which gave a lot of fun flexibility). You're right about type of bonus! The idea for all of these is status bonus (including those that would in the spell list be an item bonus, as a way to balance out the detriment inherent in the limited duration).
Truly appreciate the feedback and thoughts. We intend to put in the work balancing and integrating fixes to problems found, now that we've released it, so thanks again!
Would love to hear your thoughts about feats too, once you get a chance.
This is somewhat like what I'd have done to make an at-will super-casting mage. Although I'd rather have done it to have scaling casting time instead of initializing DCs so martials are still welcome in higher level parties as potent bodyguards...
I'm not sure I understand. Are you referencing martial classes that choose an archetype based on the Incanter, or that you have concern about martials being made irrelevant due to the build? Our concern with casting time being a factor would be the limitations on such a class build to participate in encounters effectively.
The goal in this class was effectively trading flexibility for dependability, and worked on limiting potential overpowering by significantly limiting the duration of spell effects to what the caster can actively sustain. Does that make sense? We also intend to scale down damage effects from the initial build to stay in step with martials, rather than becoming overpowered.
I'm still not sure I'm addressing what you were communicating: sorry if I'm missing it entirely!
Oh, I meant that if high level effects (not limited to damaging effects) can be cast indefinitely at-will, they are quite likely to overshadow individuals who only have their martial proficiencies to contribute to success in a hostile environment.
So my idea was about letting the high-level casters enjoy their godlike powers, limited not by the ugly potential threat of 5 Minute Work Day but actually needing some time to produce more and more impressive effects.
And a beefy enough martial chassis will be good enough to fend off credible threats who try to prevent such big effects from being unleashed.
Of course, all of those is under the old 3.X assumption that is the world revolving around the idea that "Martial < Caster" in scope of doable things.
Thank you for the clarification! We saw that the designers of 2e were going for a rebalancing of martial and casters to be more balanced, so worked to keep that balance as much as possible (while still going through with the change to allow ongoing casting).
Many of the spell effects we could access for the class (to be functional for use in encounter mode), were broken down into measurable conditions or bonuses/penalties. So even with levelling, the effects they can create typically become higher condition or bonus/penalty numbers.
A lot of the amazing spells we see for other casters in their spell lists won't be as available to the Incanter, but with this class's flexibility they'll be able to create approximations if they want (though I would expect they'll be more likely to creatively generate ad hoc spells specific to the encounter).
In the playtests, we're seeing the flexibility as the key gain for this class, rather than overwhelming force (we're already working on downshifting the higher-level damage to be more in line with other classes).