Battle Form Stuff, When?

[Starocious]

I think your ideas would require more errata/reworking of established spells rather than feat-based modifications like i suggested in my last post and is therefore very unlikely to happen outside of an entirely new polymorphing effect like they could make for a shifter class.

I would think it much more likely for them to include additive support for the existing effects rather than rework the effects entirely or provide alternative effects. That way they're significantly less likely to upset the balance of the game or the players who liked the original system. Plus their existing system seems built with the intent of being modular and future-content ready, as evidenced by how easily the feats i suggested could be worked in without affecting top-end balance.

[pauljathome]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I'm not that interested in escalating stats or tricks to get more oomph out of wildshape as a fighter or stuff.

I'd just like to be able to pick a favorite animal and stick with it for the whole career.

Would you be happy if the GM just allowed you to reflavour your shifting? So, you use animal form to become a bear, you use aerial form to become a flying bear, you use dragon form to become a flying fire breathing bear?

Or do you want to remain a medium (maybe large) bear your entire career and just get better combat stats?

The latter MAY be problematic. One of the balancing factors for the later wild shape forms is their size. Useful outside, hellishly inconvenient in a dungeon or urban adventure.

[pauljathome]

Starocious wrote:

Boggles the mind that theres a reasonable number of people adamant that pathfinder should never add such things or build on polymorphing beyond what we have already.

I just want to see Paizo actually clarify how wild shape works first. Ie, resolve all the "But does Battle form work with X" questions.

I see this as an absolutely necessary first step BEFORE Paizo can start to add options. How can they possibly balance whatever they produce when there is such a wide range in power in Battle Shapes depending on how the GM thinks things should work.

Note - I have NO problem with a GM making adjustments/House rules for their game. But they should get to start from a clear reasonably balanced base point.

[Guntermench]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Blave wrote:

Starocious wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

I'm not that interested in escalating stats or tricks to get more oomph out of wildshape as a fighter or stuff.

I'd just like to be able to pick a favorite animal and stick with it for the whole career.

Yeah everyone here seems sensible enough to not want more power out of shifting. Those of us that want more content in future books want ways of making the earlier forms remain somewhat viable (like you do) or just cool themed forms, maybe that offer less "oomph" but more interesting utility.

Boggles the mind that theres a reasonable number of people adamant that pathfinder should never add such things or build on polymorphing beyond what we have already.

It's not that I don't want more options. It's that I don't see how they would reasonably fit into the game. Balancing such options - while most likely not impossible - might be a hard thing to do and simply not be worth the effort.

I don't think it's actually that hard. The main thing I'm asking for is:

- Instead of using a new "skin" at higher levels, use the same skin.
- Instead of getting bigger at higher levels, stay the same size.

Those are independent; say you were using a level 5 animal form, but your preferred skin was an ape. You would just rewrite the Heightened line:

Heightened (5th) Your battle form is Huge and your attacks have 15-foot reach; or Large and your attacks have 10-foot reach; or Medium and your attacks have no extra reach. You must have enough space to expand into or the spell is lost. You instead gain 20 temporary HP, AC = 18 + your level, attack modifier +18, damage bonus +7 and double the number of damage dice, and Athletics +20.

NPC monsters can be Medium and high level at the same time, and have stats matching their levels. Why not players?

This is a bit of extra versatility and therefore power; charging a class feat for it might not be crazy.

The main extra work this would require would be adding more...

The adding more Heightened entries probably played a part in it, as well as them seeming to want higher level spells to be better than lower level spells. The form spells are already pretty big.

[Starocious]

pauljathome wrote:

Starocious wrote:

Boggles the mind that theres a reasonable number of people adamant that pathfinder should never add such things or build on polymorphing beyond what we have already.

I just want to see Paizo actually clarify how wild shape works first. Ie, resolve all the "But does Battle form work with X" questions.

I see this as an absolutely necessary first step BEFORE Paizo can start to add options. How can they possibly balance whatever they produce when there is such a wide range in power in Battle Shapes depending on how the GM thinks things should work.

Note - I have NO problem with a GM making adjustments/House rules for their game. But they should get to start from a clear reasonably balanced base point.

Agreed, when paizo start clarifying their rules and getting everyone on the same page it will benefit everyone.

So much of the glaring ambiguity for things like this has been in a state of "paizo will surely clear this up very soon" for the last two years. Let's hope they get around to it soon!

Meanwhile I've taken to thinking about all the things they could do and things I'd like to see added.

[Ascalaphus]

pauljathome wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

I'm not that interested in escalating stats or tricks to get more oomph out of wildshape as a fighter or stuff.

I'd just like to be able to pick a favorite animal and stick with it for the whole career.

Would you be happy if the GM just allowed you to reflavour your shifting? So, you use animal form to become a bear, you use aerial form to become a flying bear, you use dragon form to become a flying fire breathing bear?

I hadn't thought of that. It might be fun in some campaigns, especially for a more gonzo gnome druid. But I was thinking more along the lines of...

pauljathome wrote:

Or do you want to remain a medium (maybe large) bear your entire career and just get better combat stats?

The latter MAY be problematic. One of the balancing factors for the later wild shape forms is their size. Useful outside, hellishly inconvenient in a dungeon or urban adventure.

I don't believe is true. I think they designed it along the idea of "you need a more fearsome creature" and those just tend to be bigger.

Size isn't always a bad thing. In PF1 I got a lot of fun with my goliath druid/mammoth lord who rode a flying elasmotherium and wielded a horsechopper. The sheer size and reach of that character upset many an encounter because many monsters use their superior size to try to dominate the battlefield. And in general, dungeons tend to get a bigger floor-plan just to accommodate monsters ("how did the boss get into the throne room anyway?").

Always being able to choose the most advantageous size would be powerful, perhaps worth a feat or two. But I don't think "always medium" is inherently stronger than "always bigger".

[Guntermench]

As you go up in level there's, in my experience, more bigger stuff, so having reach is great. Also means in many a fight size isn't going to be an issue.

[pauljathome]

Guntermench wrote:

As you go up in level there's, in my experience, more bigger stuff, so having reach is great. Also means in many a fight size isn't going to be an issue.

As a wild shaper I find that sometimes I just want the "best" combat form (which can vary by situation), sometimes I want something big with lots of reach, and sometimes I want the best combat form that is less than or equal to some size determined by the environment.

Size matters sometimes. And sometimes you want to be medium. Not always, but sometimes

[Ascalaphus]

Yeah, so having a choice from fight to fight what size to take, that's extra added power that would be worth a feat.

But we could have a basic situation that's narrow enough: you just pick a mini class path for your shapechanging. Either you're always staying at the form's base size, or you're always going up in size as you heighten. Either one would be about as powerful as the current situation. One is the current situation; the other one is missing out on the occasional benefits of being really big and controlling lots of space.

Until you're ready to spend an extra feat to get the choice from fight to fight.

[Gortle]

pauljathome wrote:

Size matters sometimes. And sometimes you want to be medium. Not always, but sometimes

Typically its because you are in confined terrain so the party can cope with one less martial character, and you can revert back to being a ranged blaster.

[Squiggit]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Yeah, so having a choice from fight to fight what size to take, that's extra added power that would be worth a feat.

I don't think it should cost a feat. There should just be an "up to" clause baked into the spells.

Forcing someone to spend a feat just to make sure one of their features isn't nullified by a narrow hallway feels very tax-y.

Yeah, there's a power benefit sometimes, but for the most part it's just an enhancement in QoL functionality.

[Malk_Content]

On the wanting to extend the heightened levels, I used to be on board with that.

Now that I have thought about it more, what that actually does is just allow a character to spend a single spell choice on their combat for their entire career, which is probably what Paizo wanted to avoid.

I would like a higher level animal form spell to let people keep that flavour. Perhaps a Dire Form spell that takes over where Animal leaves off.

[Starocious]

I dont like the idea of errata/changing the spells retroactively or them adding new forms that may or may not fit what a player wants. I still think adding feats that allow a player to augment lower level forms to fit their wants and help the forms keep up a little with newer forms is the best option. That level of customisation is pretty much guaranteed to allow players to fill any fantasy niches they want for their "favored forms". The fact that the options would require a feat prevents power creep from the versatility being baked-in already and the level prerequisites are again a perfect balancing tool to prevent martial classes from finding cheesy ways of getting stronger.

Having form augmenting druid feats like 1e's planar wild shape and energized wild shape, provided they had a 10+ level prerequisite and only affected the lower level forms would be great. (The feats specific effects would need to be toned down for 2e balancing too. But thats no trouble.) Having similar feats for "dire" modifications would work too, of course.

That said im obviously not opposed to things like "fey form", "ooze form" or "outsider form" being added, as they wouldnt be based on existing forms.

[pauljathome]

I'd like to take a step back for a moment and see if there is a vague consensus as to where a wild shaping character CURRENTLY is. Put the discussion into some context

My personal opinion is that the druid as a base charavter is just fine right now. Perhaps very, very slightly underpowered with the most restrictive rules interpretations, perhaps very slightly overpowered with the most liberal rules interpretations, but basically in the right ball park.

At all levels, although what they contribute to the party varies considerably with level and situation.

But using a combination of their spells, their wild shape, their skills they form a quite balanced character. They aren't the most powerful in any one aspect but they gain a lot of power from the sheer versatility that any well designed druid can bring to the table.

I think its harder to judge a martial who multiclasses into druid. They're affected more by the current rules ambiguities and, of course, base class choices. I think they range from underpowered to a little overpowered from about level 5 through 10 (not hugely, but somewhat. Better to hit and more damage at some levels while taking a worse armor class and losing various options).

[Guntermench]

A martial that goes for Wildshape is like a more extreme Giant Instinct Barbarian. They're going to hit like a truck, but in return their AC is garbage after like level 11. Before that they're really strong, but they won't be able to take advantage of most of their feats and features.

Casters using battleforms I think are in a good place. They get pretty close to martials when they use the form spells requiring next to no investment, and still have all their other spells so they're very versatile.

[Starocious]

Pretty much what Guntermench said, depending on what the paizo clarification of what applies during battle forms say.

I'd like to add that druids and other casters FEEL bad to play because you absolutely have to keep changing to higher level spells and taking the new wild shape feats as you get them, meaning you can expect all druid characters to go through the same progression of forms as they level with no uniqueness and minimal variation. (If you've seen one shifting druid, you've seen em all.) Plus, for druids this usually means the majority of your feats are spent on the wild shape feats as "feat taxes" just to remain viable.

Just my opinion, but from a fantasy and self-expression standpoint, that kind of sucks.

[pauljathome]

Starocious wrote:

with no uniqueness and minimal variation. (If you've seen one shifting druid, you've seen em all.)

While I see your point I think that this is a significant exaggeration.

Being a full in wild shaping druid consumes approximately half your class feats. That leaves a lot of room (class feats, ancestry feats, skill feats) to customize your character and make it feel quite different.

And that is for a druid who is an "all in" shifter. Its quite possible to "dabble" where wild shape is part of your repertoire but your whole character isn't built around it. My current druid has wild shape, soaring shape, dragon shape. That gives him lots of flexibility but also leaves LOTS of room for other stuff.

[Squiggit]

pauljathome wrote:

Being a full in wild shaping druid consumes approximately half your class feats. That leaves a lot of room (class feats, ancestry feats, skill feats) to customize your character and make it feel quite different.

Possibly a lot less if you're primarily just interested in fighting. With the way some of the forms depreciate you could retrain out of a lot of them as you progress, depending on which battle forms you want to specialize in.

[Abyssalwyrm]

Guntermench wrote:

It's not a problem that casters can't tie martials in beating things to death. Temporarily getting pretty close, sure. Tie permanently with the option to just become a full caster again at will? No.

Well the martials can become spellcaster, permanently. Ironically making their martial prowess even deadlier.

You think your legendary proficiency in weapon not enough? Well, here yours +2 status bonus from heightened Heroism!
Spellcasters at best, and very situationally will get just equibalent of master weapon proficiency. Which is... fine. As long as it's more reliable, and not only on "specific levels".

[Starocious]

Squiggit wrote:

Possibly a lot less if you're primarily just interested in fighting. With the way some of the forms depreciate you could retrain out of a lot of them as you progress, depending on which battle forms you want to specialize in.

Yes, factoring in retraining you can retroactively make up for as many of the mandatory feat taxes as you like, but the fact remains you'd need to take them in the first place and every wild shape focused druid must go through the same forms as every other wild shape druid in order to keep up, because the previous level forms are automatically inferior to the newer ones.

This homogenisation can be somewhat lessened by the introduction of more forms like ooze, fey and outsider to provide alternatives in later books, but feats or other character options that allow you to continue effectively using lower forms would also be a welcome addition.

[Squiggit]

I don't disagree, but I think that's ultimately the fate of any themed caster in pathfinder. Pathfinder is just not designed to really support casting archetypes so much as generic casters within a broad field.

Initially I thought the idea would be too hard to balance, but honestly some sort of mechanic (maybe a feat or an item or something?) that lets you scale form stats better wouldn't necessarily be too bad. Honestly it'd probably be on the weak side, since higher level forms have more than just bigger numbers.

Along with better size control it could make shapeshifters feel more fun to play without significantly impacting their power.

[Starocious]

Yeah, as you might notice from many of my previous responses I'm an advocate for them introducing feat based customisation of earlier forms. Theres so much room for creativity and customization there. Lets hope they do somrthing like that, if only so I can recreate a version of my planar wild shape 1e character at some point.

[Guntermench]

Abyssalwyrm wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

It's not a problem that casters can't tie martials in beating things to death. Temporarily getting pretty close, sure. Tie permanently with the option to just become a full caster again at will? No.

Well the martials can become spellcaster, permanently. Ironically making their martial prowess even deadlier.

You think your legendary proficiency in weapon not enough? Well, here yours +2 status bonus from heightened Heroism!
Spellcasters at best, and very situationally will get just equibalent of master weapon proficiency. Which is... fine. As long as it's more reliable, and not only on "specific levels".

Martials will have at best what? 14 spells a day? Not reaching the same proficiency while having less than half the slots, and having those slots scale pretty slowly. Yet you want casters to reliably reach the equivalent of master weapon proficiency.

[Starocious]

Guntermench wrote:

Abyssalwyrm wrote:

Well the martials can become spellcaster, permanently. Ironically making their martial prowess even deadlier.

You think your legendary proficiency in weapon not enough? Well, here yours +2 status bonus from heightened Heroism!
Spellcasters at best, and very situationally will get just equibalent of master weapon proficiency. Which is... fine. As long as it's more reliable, and not only on "specific levels".

Martials will have at best what? 14 spells a day? Not reaching the same proficiency while having less than half the slots, and having those slots scale pretty slowly. Yet you want casters to reliably reach the equivalent of master weapon proficiency.

I think they are just pointing out that martials can benefit A LOT from a few spells, whereas the inverse is not true.

For example in most situations a caster is too fragile to do much with better melee capabilities and their melee capabilities dont act as a multiplier to their spell effectiveness in the same way spells like heroism affect martials.

Battle form spells are really the only time improved martial capabilities can meaningfully affect a caster, but yes, you're 100% right that casters should never be quite as good as martials at being a martial character. Unfortunately, martials with druid mc feats are simply far better at utilizing wild shape than druids from level 4-11, which is a sizeable portion of a druid's career and that may be where people take issue.

At least I think that's what they're getting at, because a martial can get most of a caster's buffing potential and goodies with just a few feats, but a caster can't get anywhere close to the same from a few martial feats.

Let's face it, you dont often see casters taking fighter mc feats, but you've probably seen quite a few martials taking caster mc feats.

[Guntermench]

Starocious wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

Abyssalwyrm wrote:

Well the martials can become spellcaster, permanently. Ironically making their martial prowess even deadlier.

You think your legendary proficiency in weapon not enough? Well, here yours +2 status bonus from heightened Heroism!
Spellcasters at best, and very situationally will get just equibalent of master weapon proficiency. Which is... fine. As long as it's more reliable, and not only on "specific levels".

Martials will have at best what? 14 spells a day? Not reaching the same proficiency while having less than half the slots, and having those slots scale pretty slowly. Yet you want casters to reliably reach the equivalent of master weapon proficiency.

I think they are just pointing out that martials can benefit A LOT from a few spells, whereas the inverse is not true.

For example in most situations a caster is too fragile to do much with better melee capabilities and their melee capabilities dont act as a multiplier to their spell effectiveness in the same way spells like heroism affect martials.

Battle form spells are really the only time improved martial capabilities can meaningfully affect a caster, but yes, you're 100% right that casters should never be quite as good as martials at being a martial character. Unfortunately, martials with druid mc feats are simply far better at utilizing wild shape than druids from level 4-11, which is a sizeable portion of a druid's career and that may be where people take issue.

At least I think that's what they're getting at, because a martial can get most of a caster's buffing potential and goodies with just a few feats, but a caster can't get anywhere close to the same from a few martial feats.

Let's face it, you dont often see casters taking fighter mc feats, but you've probably seen quite a few martials taking caster mc feats.

Na, I've had this discussion with Abyssalwyrm before. He wants casters to have full martial capabilities and full casting, made a thread asking for a spell that gave casters Legendary with weapons.

Bottom line is casters getting any more from martial stuff means they're just going to be strictly better again. As it is, they're both better at different things.

Martials get more from caster multiclass feats sure, but they stay significantly behind casters at the caster's focus (spellcasting) even if they put 5 feats into it. Casters in general don't need any feats to be one proficiency behind martials offensively, and they can use one feat to get their AC equivalently close.

[Starocious]

Guntermench wrote:

Na, I've had this discussion with Abyssalwyrm before. He wants casters to have full martial capabilities and full casting, made a thread asking for a spell that gave casters Legendary with weapons.

Wow. That's pretty bad.

On the subject of proficiency, I'm actually not overly against sixth pillar mastery granting master proficiency at 16th, but only because of the feat investments involved mean the character would have be pretty specialized to benefit from it and still fall behind a dedicated martial IF rage/SA etc does indeed apply in battle forms. There was some talk of various feats getting errata/reworking, anyone know if sixth pillar is confirmed to be flagged for this or if it was just some peoples opinion that it should be?

[Guntermench]

That feat is flagged for removal and the dedication itself is flagged for errata to remove it's proficiency bonus. They violate their internal guidelines on who gets what and when.

[Starocious]

Guntermench wrote:

That feat is flagged for removal and the dedication itself is flagged for errata to remove it's proficiency bonus. They violate their internal guidelines on who gets what and when.

Can you link me to where paizo said that? I'm not doubting, I'd just like to see!

[Old_Man_Robot]

Guntermench, you have a very extreme take of this.

It PF2 wasn’t a tight math system, then I agree it wouldn’t matter. However in a tight math system like we have any form of asymmetry with the numbers, especially ones can literally never be overcome, just creates a series of traps and second class options.

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous. It’s the equivalent of saying that martial abilities that target saves makes casters obsolete. Those abilities have been there since day 1 and can often be more competitive at certain levels than casters bonuses, but no ones makes that argument because it’s ridiculous.

[Guntermench]

Starocious wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

That feat is flagged for removal and the dedication itself is flagged for errata to remove it's proficiency bonus. They violate their internal guidelines on who gets what and when.

Can you link me to where paizo said that? I'm not doubting, I'd just like to see!

I'll see if I can dig it up.

Edit: looks like they're still on page 1 of Mark Seifter's posts here

[Guntermench]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Guntermench, you have a very extreme take of this.

It PF2 wasn’t a tight math system, then I agree it wouldn’t matter. However in a tight math system like we have any form of asymmetry with the numbers, especially ones can literally never be overcome, just creates a series of traps and second class options.

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous. It’s the equivalent of saying that martial abilities that target saves makes casters obsolete. Those abilities have been there since day 1 and can often be more competitive at certain levels than casters bonuses, but no ones makes that argument because it’s ridiculous.

Do martials have many damaging abilities that target saves? I can't think of any offhand.

"Limited". Focus points aren't particularly limited, in the case of Druid. Most games I've been in have 1-3 non-trivial combats a day, which means casters would have spell slots to spare. Little investment in feats outside of Druid and all the versatility of being a full spellcaster as well. Which is the bit that is consistently ignored. They still have all the benefits of their spell slots, staff, wands, scrolls. They're still a functional spellcaster.

I'd have no problem with something making battle forms consistently on par with martials, even persistently, if the caster had to use wave casting or lost casting entirely.

[Squiggit]

If you're running 1 combat a day it'd definitely explain why you're so worried about caster power, tbh.

[Guntermench]

My players are very willing to fail the adventure to get their spell slots back.

But even without that, Paizo clearly has design guidelines on how effective different types of characters are going to be at different things. If you want to be someone particularly effective at fighting in melee with form spells, play a martial and grab a dedication.

[fanatic66]

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

[pauljathome]

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

Keeps Aerial form relevant longer :-).

[fanatic66]

pauljathome wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

Keeps Aerial form relevant longer :-).

Sure, but I want to be a dragon, not a giant wasp. I would be curious what the decision was by Paizo not to let all the form spells heighten normally. The form spells are very thematic, which I love. Part of the reason I like Pathfinder over say 5E, is that I can get mechanics to implement my thematic concepts. If I play a demonic sorcerer, I want a demon form spell that lets me role play as “unleashing my bloodline power” to temporarily hulk out. Same thing with a draconian sorcerer with Dragon Form.

[Lycar]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous.

3.x, PF1 and the 15-minute-adventuring day prove you wrong.

Spells were supposed to be a limited resource, but in reality, that was simply not the case outside the lowest of levels.

Divine Metamagic and Nightsticks anyone?

[Guntermench]

fanatic66 wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

Keeps Aerial form relevant longer :-).

I would be curious what the decision was by Paizo not to let all the form spells heighten normally.

Likely a combination of things. Higher level spells seem to be meant to be stronger in general, and adding more to each of the form spells themselves probably costs page space. Only they know for sure.

[Lucas Yew]

Trying to balance classes with different resource recharging schedule is a massive pain for any game designer, TBH...

(means: 5 Minute Work Day SUCKS, hard)

[Gortle]

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

It sucks but I guess it forces variety....

[Starocious]

Gortle wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

It sucks but I guess it forces variety....

It forces every druid to go through the same progression of forms and be near indistinguishable from every other shaping druid. Variety would be if each druid wasn't locked to the same progression or had ways of customizing their forms.

For the druid it's too late to rework the spells to heighten at all levels and i dont think they need to either. (Adding feat support options would go a long way to improving my issues with lack of customisation/animal form drop-off.) Luckily if all you want from your character is to turn into a dragon consistently, a dragon synthesist summoner build using the upcoming Secrets of Magic book has you covered. It remains to be seen if that will be an effective/viable play style though. In my opinion dragon shifting doesn't feel as druidic as animal shifting, so im ok with the summoner having that level 1-20 capability instead of the druid.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Lycar wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous.

3.x, PF1 and the 15-minute-adventuring day prove you wrong.

Spells were supposed to be a limited resource, but in reality, that was simply not the case outside the lowest of levels

Editions stand independent of each other. PF2 doesn’t operate anything like 3.5/1e. These sort of comparisons always reek of “revenge” logic. They aren’t equivalent examples.

Also, I hate to tell people they’re playing the game wrong, but the whole 15 minute adventuring day idea is definitely playing the game wrong. If you set up your gameplay to only have 1 combat a day, then of course your perspective of resource costs is shot. It’s frankly an absurd concept to balance around.

Funny enough, if you abuse the underlying premise of the system, it doesn’t work as intended.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Guntermench wrote:

I'd have no problem with something making battle forms consistently on par with martials, even persistently, if the caster had to use wave casting or lost casting entirely.

A Druid class archetype that gives them wave casting could be fine with some other changes. Losing spell casting altogether, given the rest of the chassis, is an incredibly ill-thought out suggestion. You honestly aren’t thinking of class balance in anything like an holistic way.

(Further, I personally hate the idea that better martial ability needs to be tied to wave casting for the sole reason that wave casting was thought of too late. It makes maritals with caster archetypes too powerful by the wave casting standard, but they will never be errataed or brought in line because of the design work needed.)

[Lycar]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Lycar wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous.

3.x, PF1 and the 15-minute-adventuring day prove you wrong.

Spells were supposed to be a limited resource, but in reality, that was simply not the case outside the lowest of levels

Editions stand independent of each other. PF2 doesn’t operate anything like 3.5/1e. These sort of comparisons always reek of “revenge” logic. They aren’t equivalent examples.

Also, I hate to tell people they’re playing the game wrong, but the whole 15 minute adventuring day idea is definitely playing the game wrong. If you set up your gameplay to only have 1 combat a day, then of course your perspective of resource costs is shot. It’s frankly an absurd concept to balance around.

Funny enough, if you abuse the underlying premise of the system, it doesn’t work as intended.

This has nothing to do with 'revenge'. PF2 is the evolution from PF1, and they learned from past mistakes.

3.x was supposed to be balanced around attrition. In practice, this didn't work. PF1 inherited the problem and could not solve it without slaughtering the holy cow of backwards compatibility.

You simply can't force people to play the game 'right'. What you can do is trying for a system that is not as easily broken. If you can't control how often a day a caster gets to upstage a martial, you set that count to zero.

[Ravingdork]

As long as everyone is having fun, there is no "playing the game wrong." At worst, there is only "not playing the game as intended."

[Gortle]

Starocious wrote:

Fair points but I still am waiting to see whats in the new books....

[Guntermench]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

I'd have no problem with something making battle forms consistently on par with martials, even persistently, if the caster had to use wave casting or lost casting entirely.

A Druid class archetype that gives them wave casting could be fine with some other changes. Losing spell casting altogether, given the rest of the chassis, is an incredibly ill-thought out suggestion. You honestly aren’t thinking of class balance in anything like an holistic way.

(Further, I personally hate the idea that better martial ability needs to be tied to wave casting for the sole reason that wave casting was thought of too late. It makes maritals with caster archetypes too powerful by the wave casting standard, but they will never be errataed or brought in line because of the design work needed.)

I'm thinking of class balance the way it has been set up. You get full casting, or you get to be better at hitting things with a stick. You don't get both.

You get the versatility of upwards of 150 spells to choose from, or you get to hit things with a stick.

If you decide to not use that flexibility with spells, that's your problem.

[Guntermench]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Lycar wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The idea that marital classes become obsolete because a casters could potentially, temporarily, and with a resource cost, equal them is plainly ridiculous.

3.x, PF1 and the 15-minute-adventuring day prove you wrong.

Spells were supposed to be a limited resource, but in reality, that was simply not the case outside the lowest of levels

Editions stand independent of each other. PF2 doesn’t operate anything like 3.5/1e. These sort of comparisons always reek of “revenge” logic. They aren’t equivalent examples.

Also, I hate to tell people they’re playing the game wrong, but the whole 15 minute adventuring day idea is definitely playing the game wrong. If you set up your gameplay to only have 1 combat a day, then of course your perspective of resource costs is shot. It’s frankly an absurd concept to balance around.

Funny enough, if you abuse the underlying premise of the system, it doesn’t work as intended.

I don't set up the game to be run that way, it just happens. They will literally leave a time sensitive quest and allow it to fail in exchange for their spells back after anything from 1-3 low to severe encounters.

[fanatic66]

Gortle wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

It sucks but I guess it forces variety....

For sure but not everyone wants variety, you know? If I want to play. Dragon themed caster, which isn’t hard given there are two sorcerer bloodlines for it and an archetype, I just want to transform into a dragon. It seems odd the spell doesn’t auto heighten. If someone wants a variety of battle forms, then they can pick up a number of different form spells.

[Guntermench]

fanatic66 wrote:

Gortle wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

I just wish the form spells heightened every level. I love Dragon Form but it bums me out that I can’t reliably use it at all levels at a consistent power level.

It sucks but I guess it forces variety....

For sure but not everyone wants variety, you know? If I want to play. Dragon themed caster, which isn’t hard given there are two sorcerer bloodlines for it and an archetype, I just want to transform into a dragon. It seems odd the spell doesn’t auto heighten. If someone wants a variety of battle forms, then they can pick up a number of different form spells.

I kinda agree with Dragon Form here, but mostly because it scales poorly as is. It doesn't have a 7th level heightened effect, so you're stuck using the 6th level one for 4 levels instead of 2 and that's just weird to me. It's the only one I think that doesn't have a consistent increase as you level.