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In my opinion, the best fix would be to give them "Fighter proficiency" in Occult tradition. It would make them very appealing but not overpowered considering how the class is bad as is.
IMO I don't trust too much that the designer would improve the amps much as we need.
IMO is more safer to add a bard's chassis (more HP+armor proficiency+more spells) without downgrade the currently proposed amps and unleashs. But if the desinger improves the cantrips a lot I would be fine with it.
I'm also don't against wavecaster solution but I prefer keep the psychic as "full" caster in order to have a better versatility.
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Alright, you just had a thread about this, but let's take a look.
Change psychic to a wavecaster class with slight modifications
You really have to sell me on what would make wave casting more interesting for the psychic.
Cantrips are automatically amped up. This accounts for their limited spell selection so it's a built in part of the class.
I can see this, but it doesn't sound actually fun to play. Having a bunch of cantrips "but better" sort of locks me into the same patterns of play throughout my entire psychic career. It also means that I would be losing the more interesting decision point of amping versus non-amping.
They start with 3 focus points
The focus points can be used to empower any spell they have. Spend a focus point for a single target spell to effect an additional target. Spend a focus point to make a spell an AOE. Spend a focus point to increase spell attack by 2 or increase the DC by 2. If a spell has a burst radius, spend a focus point to create an additional non-overlapping burst radius.
I would argue that classes shouldn't start with 3 Focus Points, especially if they can't recharge those FP until higher levels. The playtest starting with 2 was a big surprise to me as currently we've only got... what the Runelord that can pull that off? On top of that, using FP to adjust numbers is... it's minmax playstyle from PF1 again. It's not an interesting choice, it's just "I do the thing harder."
Create a list of alterations to spells that the psychic is able to accomplish and their schtick is literally altering already existing spells to be better. The list would be similar to say Soulforger where soulforger has a list of possibilities for their enhancement. This would just allow you to, on the fly, pick an alteration that best suits that moment.
To all occult spells? Because that sounds like a tremendous amount of work for very little payoff, especially if they're being reduced to wave casting. I'm also not sure how sure anyone else feels about this, but I would be less incentivized to grab spells from other traditions (via ancestry feat or dedication) if they aren't going to benefit from my main class schtick. To all cantrips? While I agree with many here that the current cantrip amps aren't in the best spot, I'm not sure there's much payoff to giving every cantrip something extra. You end up with 8 spells with Focus Power like strength, but now we've got to futureproof every cantrip while simultaneously axing the Conscious Mind paths.
I dislike the idea that you have to wait till 3rd turn to be able to really use spellslots to cast spells to have a greater effect. So I'd remove that. Feels too MMOish.
I get this and understand this. I'm going to be starting my playtest after the weekend to see the psychic in action, but on paper it looks very game-y. I'm holding my judgement here.
Take and lean into the ideas that were from like the psion from 3rd edition D&D but make it far more balanced where they can spend points to power up their spells and abilities.
I loved the insanity of 3e psion, but PF2 is a very different game. None of these proposals even harken back to that psion and instead paint a picture of a very uninteresting character to play.
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More than anything suggested I hope cantrips aren't always amped. That would take away the most interesting part of the class for me, the resource management.
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Probably there's no resource management at all. Because:
1 - In most encounter the players probably will try to use their focus points since the beginning.
2 - Many encounters usually don't even enter in 4º round.
3 - During boss fights the players probably will use their high level spellslots
4 - With exception of some rare race cases the players always stop to refocus after battle, while others stays on guard or investigate de area.
Ex.: During my last 10 battles, only in one the players don't have time to refocus and in none they used more than 5 rounds to finish the battle. Usually the most encounters ended in 3 rounds.
So don't expect too much resource management. Usually the best option will be use all the focus points and if battle still don't ends they will unleash. And in the mostly battles that usually has more duration are boss fights where they use their best resources (usually after the use of their focus points and notice that the enemy is stronger) that's usually are day limited abilities like spells.
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Alright, you just had a thread about this, but let's take a look.
Change psychic to a wavecaster class with slight modificationsYou really have to sell me on what would make wave casting more interesting for the psychic.
Cantrips are automatically amped up. This accounts for their limited spell selection so it's a built in part of the class.I can see this, but it doesn't sound actually fun to play. Having a bunch of cantrips "but better" sort of locks me into the same patterns of play throughout my entire psychic career. It also means that I would be losing the more interesting decision point of amping versus non-amping.
They start with 3 focus points
The focus points can be used to empower any spell they have. Spend a focus point for a single target spell to effect an additional target. Spend a focus point to make a spell an AOE. Spend a focus point to increase spell attack by 2 or increase the DC by 2. If a spell has a burst radius, spend a focus point to create an additional non-overlapping burst radius.
I would argue that classes shouldn't start with 3 Focus Points, especially if they can't recharge those FP until higher levels. The playtest starting with 2 was a big surprise to me as currently we've only got... what the Runelord that can pull that off? On top of that, using FP to adjust numbers is... it's minmax playstyle from PF1 again. It's not an interesting choice, it's just "I do the thing harder."
Create a list of alterations to spells that the psychic is able to accomplish and their schtick is literally altering already existing spells to be better. The list would be similar to say Soulforger where soulforger has a list of possibilities for their enhancement. This would just allow you to, on the fly, pick an alteration that best suits that moment.To all occult spells?...
The Oracle starts with 2 as well.
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A couple classes (or specific builds) can have 2 focus at 1st level. Pretty sure the Psychic is the only which can actually recover more than 1 before 11th level.
A couple classes (or specific builds) can have 2 focus at 1st level. Pretty sure the Psychic is the only which can actually recover more than 1 before 11th level.
Close, Champions can do it at 10th for some unknown reason.