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Does the following question have an answer yet?
Do multiple Domain Initiate/Expanded Domain Initiate feats grant you additional focus points?
It looks like it has been discussed for a long while with no clear resolution, and I've got a player who just took Domain Initiate twice so we're really keen to know the answer as well. It seems the point of contention is what constitutes an individual "source" for the purposes of determining whether or not additional focus points are gained.
Here are some of the past discussions on the matter:
- Does Domain Initiate give another focus point if retaken?
- Does Expanded Domain Initiate grant an additional Focus Point?
- Expanded Domain Initiate
- Let's focus on... Focus Point pools!
The answer to this question may also impact a great many other areas of the game, as evidenced by the many threads asking similar questions:
- Does Deity's Domain increase my focus point pool?
- Gaining multiple focus points
- Focus Points and Refocus Questions
- Do focus spell feats / features always grant a focus point?
- Natural Ambition -How Many Focus Points-
- Deity's Domain
- Deity's Domaine: does it increase your focus pool?
- Focus Pools and Archetypes
- Focus Pools and Increasing Them
Hero Lab (which my player uses) seems to think taking Domain Initiate twice gets you two focus points, but PathBuilder 2E (which I use) indicated you only get one in that situation.
Where's that FAQ button when you need it? ;)
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I'm not in a position to find and quote at the moment, but i thought there was a general rule that anything that grants you a focus spell increased your focus pool till you hit 3.
No, there's just a rule saying that of you don't have a focus point already, getting a focus spelll via any means will give you a focus point of 1, even if the feat/ability granting the spell doesn't say so.
EDIT for clarity: There is a rule that could mean you get an additional focus point every time you get a focus spell. But that rule is vague and kind of contradicts the language used in some feats like Domain Initiative. That's why it's been discussed so much.
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Without reviewing too many threads, I think the general consensus I recall is that it probably doesn't grant additional points, but many of us think it is reasonable to just allow it.
Domain Initiate says "...you start with a focus pool of 1 Focus Point."
The sidebar on focus points from multiple sources says "If you have multiple abilities that give you a focus pool, each one adds 1 Focus Point to your pool."
Therefore there is no question at all that taking Domain Initiate twice increases your focus pool to 2.
And besides that, maybe don't interpret a resource that isn't checked for mistakes by Paizo as though it saying something different than the rules appear to is evidence that something isn't clear when the simplest explanation is whoever built whatever read it incorrectly.
Most readings of that would generally consider that to be reminder text.
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I don't understand how it keeps coming up. The topic has an entire sidebar dedicated to explaining that ANYTHING that grants you a Focus Pool will add to any existing Focus Pool you already have. Domain Initiate grants a focus Pool, you're allowed to take it more than once and each offers a unique choice and are each individually distinct abilities even if the Class Feat that grants it has the same name.
This really should be cleared up but I don't see it as an ambiguity at all... so it must be mixed wording to blame ... I think. Is it really all being caused by the fact that many of the Focus Point/Pool granting abilities are worded differently and so people are getting confused when it writes the rule out again for no real reason on some while not printing it for other abilities?
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The question centers around the Focus points from multiple sources sidebar.
It’s possible, especially through archetypes, to gain focus spells and Focus Points from more than one source. If this happens, you have just one focus pool, adding all the Focus Points together to determine the total size of your pool. (Remember that the maximum number of Focus Points a pool can have is 3.) If you have multiple abilities that give you a focus pool, each one adds 1 Focus Point to your pool. [/b]For instance, if you were a cleric with the Domain Initiate feat, you would have a pool with 1 Focus Point. Let’s say you then took the champion multiclass archetype and the Healing Touch feat.[/b] Normally, this feat would give you a focus pool. Since you already have one, it instead increases your existing pool’s capacity by 1.
Focus Points are not differentiated by source; you can spend any of your Focus Points on any of your focus spells. Likewise, when you Refocus, you get back a point as long as you follow the guidelines of any abilities that granted you focus spells. Having Focus Points from multiple sources doesn’t change the tradition of your spells; if you had both cleric domain spells and druid order spells, your domain spells would remain divine and the order spells primal. This could mean that you need to keep track of a different proficiency and ability modifier with the spell DC and spell attack roll of different focus spells.
The question is what is meant by "source". Is it (1) anything that grants a focus spell (2) a class or archetype or ancestry or whatnot that grants at least one focus spell?
* Case 1: as soon as you have two feats that grant focus spells, your pool goes to 2+
* Case 2: taking feats in the same class doesn't increase your focus pool, unless they explicitly say so.
IMO case 2 is more likely. Quite a few class feats that give a (second) focus spell explicitly mention that they increase your focus pool, which suggests that the feats that don't say this, don't do it. Also, the sidebar I quoted above only used cross-class examples, and said that that's the most likely way to get multiple sources. Which wouldn't be true if you could just do it easily by taking a couple low level class feats in your main class.
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I concur with Themetricsystem and thenobledrake, but am open to the idea that multiples of the same feat don't stack.
Either way, some better clarifying examples could be used.
My Champion/Cleric has 2 Focus Points via this interpretation and I feel like I have to explain it fairly often to raised eyebrows.
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The power of extra focus points is impossible to decide objectively, because it depends on campaign style.
Until you get some level 12+ feats, you can't recharge more than 1 spent focus point since the last time you used focus points. So if you had a pool of 3 and spent 3, you can only get 1 back. So effectively, you have only 1 focus per encounter, and 2 daily extra focus.
If you're traveling and have maybe one random encounter every other day, then a pool of 3 focus is much more powerful than a pool of 1 focus.
If you're doing a big dungeon and have ten encounters in a day, then the 3 focus pool is only a little bit better than the 1 focus pool.
Some campaigns do more of the one, other campaigns do more of the other. You can't absolutely say how much more powerful getting this bigger pool would be.
Until you get some level 12+ feats, you can't recharge more than 1 spent focus point since the last time you used focus points.
Well, unless you're an oracle: at 11 without feats, they can get 2 back at once.
Until you get some level 12+ feats, you can't recharge more than 1 spent focus point since the last time you used focus points.Well, unless you're an oracle: at 11 without feats, they can get 2 back at once.
Or a Champion, who get it at 10 for some reason.
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If a human cloistered cleric used their ancestry feat for natural ambition (domain initiate) and their 2nd level class feat for domain initiate, and that gave them a focus pool of 3 at 2nd level, would that be powerful? Would that be a good use of feats?
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So IS a cleric potentially having 3 focus at level 2 game breaking, or even just good enough to over shadow the other build options?
Not at all, Clerics have stacks of healing abilities anyway. Two of the Druid order start with two focus points straight out and their focus powers are typically stronger.
The larger focus pool is effectively just a daily power rather than a per encounter power. The refocus abilities are all consistently level-gated feats. That is where the larger focus pool becomea an encounter issue.
I'm not in a position to find and quote at the moment, but i thought there was a general rule that anything that grants you a focus spell increased your focus pool till you hit 3.
True. See page 302 sidebar and page 300 focus spells.
I'm not in a position to find and quote at the moment, but i thought there was a general rule that anything that grants you a focus spell increased your focus pool till you hit 3.True. See page 302 sidebar and page 300 focus spells.
False, at least in the legacy rules! Focus Spellcasting rules have changed to make it so that any focus spell automatically adds a focus point too. A much better system. In legacy though, these were separate if often paired processes. Look at the language.
Some abilities allow you to increase the Focus Points in your pool beyond 1. Typically, these are feats that give you a new focus spell and increase the number of points in your pool by 1.
The only exceptions seem to be: A) If you get a focus spell without already having a focus pool in which case you get one no matter what;
You automatically gain a focus pool of 1 Focus Point the first time you gain an ability that gives you a focus spell.
Or B) If an effect states it's supposed to give you a focus pool but you already have one.
If you have multiple abilities that give you a focus pool, each one adds 1 Focus Point to your pool.
It can be argued whether Domain Initiate meets any criteria that gives you more Focus Spells, I would personally avoid it altogether and switch to Remaster, but there's definitely no general rule that gives a focus point per focus spell, only an explanation that they're usually 1:1.
The point of establishing a default is so that when a blank is found, you know which side of the fork to invoke.
IMO, the whole point of that sidebar is to make sure that cases like legacy Domain Initiate were ruled with the "also +1 FP" side of the fork.
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This actually speaks to a unfortunate tension that systems like pf2e have to balance.
The devs could have defined and used an arbitrary term, like "this feat provides a -focus expansion-..." and elsewhere defined "focus expansion" to mean that whole set of: grant a starting pool of 1, or +1, but only if < 3 rules.
Defining a specific term for reuse will increase the textual certainty, but at the cost of increasing the reader's pre-required dictionary they need before they can even begin to understand the text.
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For future reference, I find the book-formatting conceit of sidebars to actually be a great flag for a dev to know when the should---shouldn't tension is heavily askew, and it's time to define and use another invented term.
If one feels the need to add a sidebar to explain focus points / pools, that's a sign one should have invented a term and given it a concrete definition in the sidebar.
You loose a lot of potential value when you do spend that time/text, but fail to remove ambiguity.
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I'd like to point out this is the second time this week HawaiianBiker has necroed a 4 year old thread about focus points.
Is there any reason to not just count the number of focus spells you have and make that your total focus points(limited 3 total)?
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Is there any reason to not just count the number of focus spells you have and make that your total focus points(limited 3 total)?
Only when speaking to the echoes of the past.
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To make things perfectly clear, Player Core page 298 has the current rules for how many focus points a character has.
You automatically gain a focus pool the first time you gain an ability that gives you a focus spell. The maximum number of points in your pool is equal to the number of focus spells you know or 3, whichever is lower. This counts only spells that require Focus Points to cast.
This makes things very unambiguous and reliable to know how many focus points a character has.
If you are still using the Legacy rules in your game, it is more ambiguous and may be more complicated to determine how many focus points a particular character has. Other threads go into particular character builds that can end up with different amounts depending on how they are built.