| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
1ST LEVEL FEATS
Ancestral Mind - This seems fine if innate spells are important to your build and you're an Int caster and want to apply your occult spell proficiency. If you're Cha and/or they're already Occult this is less useful.
Counter Thought - This is a cool spin on Counter Spell. You've very limited in that you can only counter mental spells, but you're very unlimited in that you can counter, without penalty, with any mental spell. For mental spells high level Wizards with two feats invested in Counter Spell and Clever Counterspell will envy you.
Mental Buffer - Mental damage isn't super common, but resistance to it can be useful in an occult or psychic themed campaign where it might show up more. I like the buff when in unleashed psyche.
Psychic Rapport - Good for Cha builds that use Heroism on themselves, get an additional +1 circumstance bonus on your social skills.
Unleash Self-Defense (PSYCHE) - If you're a buffer or debuffer this is strictly better in every way than the default Psyche option. The defense benefit is helpful, and the drawback doesn't matter if you're not trying to do damage.
Verdict: These are great! I don't hate any of them, very strange for a collection of 1st level feats.
2ND LEVEL FEATS
Cantrip Expansion - You know it, you don't love it, you'd take an archetype feat if you wanted it.
Mental Balm (AMP) - +1 (untyped?!) bonus to emotion affects will sometimes be useful, even if it only lasts for 1 round, and occasionally a counteract on fear or (rarely) stupefy will be something you wish you could do, but often enough to invest a feat and forego the regular amp effect that is probably why you're casting a buffing cantrip in the first place? Probably not. But it works better than the current Guidance amp, I guess. And self Guidancing yourself to try to remove Stupefy so you can cast a real spell might not be the worst in the world. Hmmm. I award it 3.6 roentgens.
Warp Space (AMP) - Do you want to cast one of the damaging cantrips that is too weak when amped, and not amp it to instead avoid cover? Pass.
Verdict: I'd probably take a 1st level feat or an archetype dedication.
4TH LEVEL FEATS
Psychic Beacon (AMP) - If you tag an enemy with a spell despite its invisibililty/concealment, you can downgrade it to concealment/unconcealed for 1 full minute. This can be helpful to allies, more so than a damage boost. Maybe. But shouldn't it work against hidden rather than specifically invisible foes?
Spontaneous Ignition (AMP) - Instead of the regular amp on your damaging cantrip that increases the damage, this increases the damage with bonus fire damage and converts half the regular damage to fire. Helpful if fighting things weak to fire, pointless otherwise. Pass.
Strain Mind - Once per hour amp a cantrip without spending focus, but take double the spell level in damage. Good early, but retrain out of it later.
Verdict: Straing Mind is ok at early levels but the damage isn't worth it later. Continue your archetype or even take a 1st level feat again.
6TH LEVEL FEATS
Inertial Barrier (AMP) - Provide some resistance to physical damage that last one round to yourself or an allied target. Potentially useful on an ally who is threatened by multiple physical attacks in one round, consider Guidance because the normal amp is pretty bad, Message if they want to Step or Stride rather than an attack, Future Path if you enjoy casting bad spells, or Arrest Trajectory if you'd rather ensure protection rather than possibly retaliate. I like it.
Parallel Breakthrough - Grap the unique psi cantrip of another Conscious Mind. I would use this to pick up Mental Scan if I didn't have it, and one of the others if they are sufficiently buffed in the final release.
Sixth Sense - You get a free secret check to notice haunts, fiends/celestial/monitors, spirits, and Ethereal creatures without having to seek for them. Find that invisible Imp lurking around or the haunt about to manifest and shred your party's sanity. More useful in some campaigns than others, but good in the right one.
Thoughtform Summoning - Want to give some trivial damage resistance to your summons that are too weak to be very effective? This is a cool way to do it. The ability to pass through enemy spaces without tumbling is actually maybe useful if you need to reposition it to set up a flank post-summoning. A meh feat for a bad playstyle, but definitely cool.
Unleash Calculated Reasoning (PSYCHE) - If you're a logical/INT caster this lets you do slightly less than average damage but you'll know exactly what you're getting, and it has no drawbacks. If you're planning to just spam 3-5 Telekinetic Rends (post buff, one hopes) after the opening rounds of combat then maybe this is for you to ensure consistency.
Unleash Soaring Passions (PSYCHE) - If you're a Cha caster you can simply do a pair of Demoralizes in the first two rounds to trigger this, then start casting slot spells - a success on one makes the next more likely to trigger (+2 status on attack roll, -2 status penalty on save spell), but failing imposes a penalty equal to half that on your next spell. I want to like this more than I do, but you can't actually benefit until round 4 (two rounds to activate this, then one round to cast a spell without a bonus to try to earn the bonus for next round), so press X.
Verdict: I'd take one of the first two for powergaming, but maybe one of the middle two for build flavor/customization. Thoughtform could use a boost. Maybe spell level rather than monster level resistance? It's still going to die at a sneeze, throw us a bone, Paizo. I personally don't think I'd take either Psyche feat, but I can imagine someone else doing so. At least their drawbacks are less severe than your default psyche.
8TH LEVEL FEATS
Deeper Breakthrough - You get your deeper psi cantrip, which can be good, bad, or indifferent. I like Arrest Trajectory, find Future Path to be an excellent joke, and Shatter Mind can be decent AOE damage and debuff if you need that.
Lingering Psyche - Your psyche lasts 5 rounds, if you think you either need a whole lot of amp spam or the other benefits of your psyche. I think this is a respectable pick if you have a custom psyche feat that you like or tend to longer combats. It's unfortunate that it competes with your Deeper Breakthrough.
Mental Static - No. The damage isn't that much, the number of times you can attempt it won't be that common, and you're not legendary in will saves until 17th level, so how often are you going to crit save anyway? Double the damage and I still wouldn't take it, make it trigger on a normal save and I wouldn't laugh at people who do take it, do both and I'd consider taking it in a campaign with lots of mental threats. More realistically, consider giving a +1 circumstance bonus on the save and keeping the damage and crit save requirements as they are.
Mesmerizing Gaze - No action is good, status penalty is not helpful, and only -1 status penalty means it won't be helping if the enemy has already been debuffed by almost anything or anyone else. Being fascinated with your target can be real debuff to yourself if they fail their save, because unless someone attacks you before your next round you won't be able to cast another spell except against the target who already failed against your last one. Do you still need to? I hope so. Despite all this I like it, but it's not as good most commentary seems to think. Potentially just having it get rid of the targets reaction and not having the penalty at all may be good, but you'll need a really good GM not to metagame this. I'd prefer to see a -2 penalty so that it's more generally useful and the target has a stronger incentive to use their reaction.
Verdict: Deeper Breakthrough or Lingering Psyche are the easy picks, I would consider Mesmerizing Gaze if I have Conceal Spell (as a future class feat or MC) and go around casting Charm/Suggestion in social situations plus the occasional combat application where my GM doesn't play games with me.
Taking a break before the higher level feats.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
10TH LEVEL FEATS
Autonomic Clairvoyance - Infinite Eye is generally not a great consciuos mind, but +1 to initiative and no selling flat footed from enemies your level and below is good, and strangely the only one of these conscious mind specific feats that is worthwhile.
Autonomic Telekinesis - What does this even do? It's a flavor ability that lets you avoid some very limited types of door traps, maybe?
Autonomic Telepathy - It's limited telepathy from Starfinder, except half range and not available as a 1st level race/ancestry option. Ugh. How often are you going to get the Sense Motive bonus by being that weirdo who is a telepathic close talker in social situations? It's not a spell so it can't triger Psychic Rapport, alas. At this level I'd expect quadruple the range and something more like the Psychic Rapport bonuses.
Signature Spell Expansion - Pick up two more signature spells. You need more spell flexibility, more than any other "full" casting class out there. But as I mentioned in a different post, I'd prefer they go all signature spells or spell collection like the flexible preparation archetype and dump or replace this feat.
Unleash Dark Persona (PSYCHE) - Double spell damage, which you get from your basic psyche, but only against someone who you trigger this against, which is pretty bad. On the other hand your get a smaller bonus to cantrip damage against them and you get temp HP every time you cast, plus your drawback is less "please kill me real good and easily" and more "AOEs I cast will be less effective against anyone but the guy I'm mad at." Cool, but not actually good I think. I'd like to avoid the drawback if you cast an AOE that includes your focus enemy, and/or maybe impose a -1 status penalty on his saves? Like a lot of Psyche feats, it's not clear that I'd use this frequently over the free Psyche even if I didn't have to invest a feat into it. That's not good!
Verdict - If, god help you, you're a Infinite Eye then Autonomic Clairvoyance is fine if you're not pursuing an archetype. But Signature Spell Expansion is the easy pick for almost everyone here. Unleash Dark Persona just needs a little tweaking to make it a contender.
12TH LEVEL FEATS
Empathic Connection - As a reaction (ok) but only every 10 minutes (what?!) if an ally comes under an emotion effect (ok) that provides either healing (so Soothe and nothing but Soothe?) or a status bonus (so Soothe or several other minor effects or major ones like Inspire Courage that already also effect you) you can either (shucks) take 1/2 the healing as temp HP for a single round (ugh) or take the status bonus for a single round (ugh). Um, why is this level 12? Sure, I'd like to take some temp HP off a casting of Soothe, but not if they only last 1 round and I can only do it once per encounter. And I'd take the status boost to save along with that, but instead of it? Nah.
Mantra of Discipline - If this was a permanent effect I'd think about it for the illusion/enchantment bonus, but the damage resistance is incredible niche and tossing this out for a single round at the cost of a single action is terrible.
Unleash Immediate Gratification (PSYCHE) - But not as terrible as this! The benefits are almost none, the reason to use this is extremely rare (a second fight before refocusing if you already used your focus but didn't unleash your psyche yet, and want to get goign in round 1) and the drawback severe (you might lose your spell entirely from Stupefied). I'm Stupefied this made it into the playtest.
Verdict: There are many fine archetypes out there, and 8th level and 1st level might still have some good feats you want.
14TH LEVEL SPELLS
Conscious Spell Specialization - Hey, bonus spell slots! Oh, they have to be used on your 1-5th level conscious mind granted spells. If there's anything a 14th level character needs, it's a bonus casting of 1st level Magic Missile. They're not all terrible, but I don't know that I'd use more than one or two in any given day.
Deep Roots: Would you like to inflict minor damage on a creature that critically failed a command spell and is likely hating life already when the spell ends? You would? But why?! Oh, you were joking.
Shatter Space (AMP): It's even less damage than Deep Roots, but it's in an emanation and it can be cast on you or an ally or an enemy, so pretty flexible in its weakness. Guidance or Message someone surrounded by enemies to sting them a bit, perhaps. It also scales slightly more damage than the amp on Telekinetic Projectile but half as much as the regular amp on Telekinetic Rend, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Verdict: You don't have many spell slots, those other caster archetypes really are looking appealing, aren't they?
16TH LEVEL FEATS
Constant Levitation - Always ignore difficult terrain and pressure plate traps, sometimes fly, always be extremely cool. I like it, but it's too high a level, probably.
Unleash Poltergeist Phenomenon (PSYCHE): It's even less damage than Shatter Space, but at least the emanation is three times as wide you'll be glad of the negligible damage because YOU TAKE IT FOR EVERY ROUND YOUR PSYCHE IS UNLEASHED.
Verdict: Witch has some really nice familiar feats, don't forget those while you're waiting for the master spellcaster feat.
18TH LEVEL FEATS
Cranial Detonation (AMP) - Hey, it does sort of reasonable bonus damage, and it has a good sized emanation. Shame it only triggers if you reduce something to 0HP with your quite weak cantrips at this level. Maybe you get lucky on a scrub succumbing to your fourth Telekinetic Rend (probably because the Sorcerer softened him up with a couple of real spells or the Fighter did most of the damage with a single strike), letting this trigger and finish off the other dudes who were also dead. Does this option still work if the triggering cantrip was already amped? Maybe? But entirely worthless if not, so I'm going to go with yes, although if you're running your amps off psyche it won't matter unless you have a focus point in reserve. Needs a rewrite, and not only stronger cantrips but a lower level. 10th needs something worth taking, I think. Or was that 12th, 14th, or 16th? Regardless, 10th feels right.
Deepest Wellspring - You need the extra focus so you can trigger Cranial Detonation on the rare occasions you can trigger it during a psyche spree. Fortunately, it's not going to stay at 18th level, so no competition, right, right?!? natalieportmanstarwarsmemeface.gif
Mutifaceted Psyche - Listed as a feat 18 but under the feat 20 header, I think it belongs here given the similarity to Monk style combining. Combining two psyches is potentially useful, especially as the existing ones are fine tuned and we get more in the final product.
Verdict - Psyches? I'll take two, please.
20TH LEVEL FEATS
Become Thought - Cool, but please state explicitly you don't age so all the weirdos who are obsessed with immortality don't post a dozen threads on the forums asking about the implications of the once per century revive.
Dual Amplification - Double amp goodness, to the extent that amps are good. Hopefully this will be more the case in the final product.
Mind Over Matter - A second 10th level spell.
Verdict: I'd take any of them. Become Thought for survivability, Dual Amplification for tactical, swappable use of psi cantrips, and a 10th level spell is useful, I guess.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Mostly agree with everything here. The alternative amps mostly suffer from the fact that the only way the psi cantrips do reasonable damage is if you use their specific amp (even then its pretty bad). Maybe increase damage should just be an effect of amping the cantrip in general, then they should have a baseline amp that you can swap out for feat amps.
That or just give 2 amps baseline…
On Intertial Barrier - Message Step or Stride is also an Amp, so you’d get nothing+resist instead of step/stride+resist. Still not awful but not that great.
On Mesmerising Gaze - it’s just something you use when the enemy isn’t debuffed and you don’t have the actions to debuff. In that respect it can be useful.
Mental Static and Deep Roots both have the same problem. Paizo must think rolling a crit is a lot more common than it actually is, given the specific trigger of Mental Static for its rather unimpressive damage. Deep Roots, well, if they crit failed vs an effect that imposes controlled or forces certain actions, they’re likely a non threat anyway so dealing 1d4/spell level damage is… not great.
Ancestral Mind - This seems fine if innate spells are important to your build and you're an Int caster and want to apply your occult spell proficiency. If you're Cha and/or they're already Occult this is less useful.
This is a feat I've been waiting for: I would even think about multiclassing for it with other int characters. For the Int Psychic, it allows you to gain some options for attack cantrips like long range [ray or frost], reflex saves and/or area attacks [electric arc or Scatter Scree] or maybe a Disrupt Undead if you expect to meet a lot of them.
As to it changing to occult, most times this really doesn't matter in the least: "If your proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs is expert or better, apply that proficiency to your innate spells, too." This means that even is the tradition doesn't match, you still use your occult "proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs".
So it really only does anything for things like Occult Resistance which are pretty uncommon.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Mantra of Discipline - If this was a permanent effect I'd think about it for the illusion/enchantment bonus, but the damage resistance is incredible niche and tossing this out for a single round at the cost of a single action is terrible.
The pure awfulness of this feat is pretty clear if you compare it to Bloodline Resistance Sorcerer feat. That one is only level 8 and gives a permanent +1 status to all magic. This one only gives +1 to two schools and requires an action to activate that for a single round.
(I won't dignify the resistance to pain spells by mentioning it as worthwhile balancing measure.)
No, the clause about spell attack rolls specifically applies only to that tradition. I'm tired of people reading it as any tradition at all.
"You're always trained in spell attack rolls and spell DCs for your innate spells, even if you aren't otherwise trained in spell attack rolls or spell DCs. If your proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs is expert or better, apply that proficiency to your innate spells, too. You use your Charisma modifier as your spellcasting ability modifier for innate spells unless otherwise specified."
The entire paragraph is talking with regard to the tradition of your innate spells. If you have a primal innate spell, you're trained with it even if you aren't otherwise trained in primal spellcasting. That's implicit in the first sentence. Reading the second sentence as if it's suddenly talking about any tradition at all is nonsense.
I'd say you where reading it wrong: it says "If your proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs is expert or better, apply that proficiency to your innate spells, too" NOT 'If your proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs in the same tradition is expert or better, apply that proficiency to your innate spells, too.' You're adding that bolded part to the quote to get the read you did.
Nowhere is there a requirement for tradition matching in "If your proficiency in spell attack rolls or spell DCs is expert or better, apply that proficiency to your innate spells, too." If it's intent is that, then the paragraph needs rewritten to reflect that. I just do not see "the clause about spell attack rolls specifically applies only to that tradition." If it's limited to the same tradition, then the entire line can be removed. Would you argue that an arcane witch that gains a wizard focus spell would use the spell roll and DC from the wizard multiclass instead of the witch ones because focus spells don't explicitly tell you to use the larger arcane proficiency?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Am I wrong to think that Autonomic Telekinesis and Telepathy are bad 1st/2nd level feats?
And that Autonomic Clairvoyance should be a 4th level at best? In fact, I think having it at 2nd level would be decent, since you're paying a class feat, not an ancestry feat, to have such a thing. Of course, unless there's some hidden OP build out there that is relying on the premium value of picking up a rogue multiclass dedication and getting Deny Advantage at level that I'm not seeing. I would even consider picking up this at 4th level if there were no more interesting feats that actually do cool stuff available.
Mantra of Discipline - If this was a permanent effect I'd think about it for the illusion/enchantment bonus, but the damage resistance is incredible niche and tossing this out for a single round at the cost of a single action is terrible.The pure awfulness of this feat is pretty clear if you compare it to Bloodline Resistance Sorcerer feat. That one is only level 8 and gives a permanent +1 status to all magic. This one only gives +1 to two schools and requires an action to activate that for a single round.
(I won't dignify the resistance to pain spells by mentioning it as worthwhile balancing measure.)
The perfect mechanic for this feat, IMO, is to have a permanent passive, but with an One-action option to enhance it in some way. Kinda like how Eye of the Arcane Lords works.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The first sentence doesn't make any sense except in the context of the tradition of your innate spell.
Yes, if you do not have a tradition then it applies. If you have one, you move on to the next sentence.
First, that you're trained for the purposes of your innate spells if you lack proficiency, and second that they use your primal proficiency if it's higher.
I don't see how you get there. the tradition is never mentioned. It tells you what your base proficiency is and then tells you what to do is you have a spellcasting proficiency higher than that. Once again, tradition never factors into it.
Read through the chapter on spells - the entire thing has implicit "of the spell's tradition" everywhere. It doesn't actual spell it out in the section on saving throws, because it's been implicit the whole damned chapter. It's the same for innate spells.
It's implicit because you normally have only one tradition: this of course DOESN'T apply when you specifically get abilities that can be different. Why on earth would they leave it implicit when you clearly can have non-matching traditions? Where you get differing traditions it spells it out: multiclass spells put the proficiency and how to advance it.
Again, if you truly think it's so implicit, why add the second line at all if it's so implicit and expected? There is a very good reason you keep seeing people read it the way I do: because it's not clearly implicit or expected in this section. *shrug* I don't see this going anywhere as I see it as being quite clear and apparently you also do so we're at an impasse. Myself, I'm staying with my read unless we see errata altering the wording of the innate spell section adding a matching tradition requirement for proficiency advancement. I'll be leaving a comment about the tradition change in my playtest survey.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm with graystone here. The "apply that proficiency to your innate spells" line doesn't even make sense otherwise.
I mean, by definition, your training in the primal tradition already applies to primal tradition spells you cast.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You're basically saying it doesn't make sense to spell things out again for clarity.
Not in that context it doesn't. For one, it doesn't really add to clarity when you have to infer its meaning based on language that isn't there (according to your interpretation). Like, I appreciate where you're coming from but you have to admit saying it's 'for clarity' while also claiming that everyone else is reading the sentence wrong is a little silly.
For another "your training in primal spells applies to primal spells" is borderline tautological more than it serves to actually remind us of any actual rule or clear up any ambiguity.
It just makes absolutely zero sense to write something that way. It's a clarifying statement that only adds ambiguity, a rules reminder that just states something fundamentally self-evident, and requires you to infer meaning that isn't actually in the text.
... Or it's telling us that your spell proficiency applies to all your innate spells like it says.
The latter just seems so much simpler and more straight forward.
I saw someone on a discord note that the 3rd level spell Mind of Menace is 24 hours and lets you keep up Psychic Rapport permanently until you trigger the spell's reaction.
Other shenanigans I can think of are a harmless Modify Memory to have a permanent mental effect, a level 4 charm from a friend, or at higher levels a harmless Hallucinate effect.