The Oscillating Wave conscious mind for the Psychic class was intriguing to me at first, but on closer inspection looks contradictory. The Conservation of Energy feature says that for the first granted spell or psi cantrip in an encounter, you must choose if you're adding or removing energy, then for all further granted spells or psi cantrips you alternate between adding and removing.
Adding Energy: The ability gains the fire trait, any damage it deals is fire damage, and any resistance it grants is to cold damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals.
Removing Energy: The ability gains the cold trait, any damage it deals is cold damage, and any resistance it grants is to fire damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals. Fiery body grants ray of frost instead of produce flame when cast this way.
All well and good, except most of the unique psi cantrips involve both fire and cold. For example:
THERMAL STASIS CANTRIP 1
Cast [one-action] verbal Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature Duration until the start of your next turn The same abilities that let you raise or lower thermal energy also let you keep it at a safe medium. The target gains resistance 2 against fire damage and resistance 2 against cold damage.
Heightened (+1) Each resistance increases by 2.
Why does the heightened entry refer to "each resistance" when it's impossible for the cantrip to provide both resistances, since the psychic needs to either be adding or removing energy, meaning it will be providing resistance 2 to either fire or cold damage (and further than that it's providing it twice, which is redundant anyway!)
Another example:
REDISTRIBUTE POTENTIAL CANTRIP 5
Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal Range 60 feet; Area 2 adjacent 5-foot squares Saving Throw basic Fortitude Energy attempts to balance out, but with your magic, you can shunt all the energy in one area to another. Creatures in either area take 4d4 damage with a basic Fortitude save. Choose one of the squares to steal heat, dealing cold damage, and the other to concentrate the stolen heat, dealing fire damage. A creature that fails its save also becomes clumsy 1 from numbness if it’s in the area of stolen heat or enfeebled 1 from heat stroke if it’s in the area of concentrated heat; these conditions last until the start of your next turn. If a creature is large enough to be in both squares, you choose only one of the areas for it to attempt its save against; it’s unaffected by the other area.
Again, why refer to a large creature being in both areas, when the cantrip can't have both fire and cold at the same time due to the requirements of conservation of energy?
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I think the easiest solution here is to just have the abilities do what they say they do. Both redistribute potential and thermal stasis specifically say they do both, so they do both (though even if we ran it with the conservation issue, redistribute would just do cold/fire damage twice so the part about large creatures is fine).
This same issue (and more!) has been raised in the Dark Archives Errata thread too. Would love some clarification.
Ah, that makes sense, thank you - I thought there was probably a better place for this than the general message board, but I'm not familiar enough with the forums.
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Elemental sorcerer: "Just do bludgeoning damage like an elemental caster is supposed to"
I still think the Air Elemental Sorcerer should be dealing slashing damage.
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The same abilities that let you raise or lower thermal energy also let you keep it at a safe medium.
Literally in Thermal Stasis's text, it says why it grants both resistance types, you're granting an insulator layer to your buddy. It seems like the class feature only cares if a spell is doing one or the other, but lets alone spells that are doing both.
That's my take away at least: If a spell has both fire and cold traits, oscillating wave's feature leaves it alone because it's already doing both. Should the text be clearer? Yes, but it seems clear enough to me to draw that conclusion.
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PFS made a fix to it by speaking about Standard Psi Cantrips. So Conservation of Energy doesn't apply to neither Thermal Stasis nor Redistribute Potential.
In my opinion, it should be considered an errata (even if the source is not exactly a proper one).
PFS made a fix to it by speaking about Standard Psi Cantrips. So Conservation of Energy doesn't apply to neither Thermal Stasis nor Redistribute Potential.
In my opinion, it should be considered an errata (even if the source is not exactly a proper one).
This is good because you get to keep both fire/cold, but very very bad because you can't use Thermal Stasis as a one action method to keep tossing fire or cold offensive spells against something immune. If they're immune you either ignore your elemental spells or half your rounds you have to rely on Entropic Wheel to trigger their weakness while you waste all the rest of the spell's effect.
This also fails to address (and makes worse!) the issue that TKP and Daze are standard psi cantrips that you would apparently make fire/cold if you picked them up with the 6th level feat.
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The clarification also removes the side benefit people had read into thermal stasis of using it as a way to swap elements though, which goes back to making Oscillating Wave struggle a lot of enemies are immune to one of your two damage types. Pre-relase thermal stasis seemed like a clever way to, with an action penalty, allow players to stay in one element so they aren't absolutely ruined by certain enemies, but now it's just kind of...
I still think the damage scaling on amped produce flame is kind of jank too.
Less of an issue because I think most people know how it's supposed to work but they didn't fix removing energy not actually looping back into adding energy either.
One thing that hit me while reading (and rereading, and rereading) this section...
Can I add energy to a spell that already has the Fire trait?
Like, can I open with Burning Hands and say I'm adding?
I'm assuming yes, otherwise every single fire/cold spell in my repertoire is forever flipped, and I'll only ever cast "Freezing Hands."
Yes, you are free to choose cold/fire regardless of the base damage type. You can flip the base to start, but you don't have to.
I don’t think so. Conservation of Energy says casting spells swap your energy orientation. As far as I can tell mindshift abilities, which are not spells, can freely use cold or fire and don’t swap your orientation. But this also needs to be clarified.
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The clarification also removes the side benefit people had read into thermal stasis of using it as a way to swap elements though, which goes back to making Oscillating Wave struggle a lot of enemies are immune to one of your two damage types. Pre-relase thermal stasis seemed like a clever way to, with an action penalty, allow players to stay in one element so they aren't absolutely ruined by certain enemies, but now it's just kind of...
I still think the damage scaling on amped produce flame is kind of jank too.
Less of an issue because I think most people know how it's supposed to work but they didn't fix removing energy not actually looping back into adding energy either.
I believe enemies who are resistant/immune to cold will have weakness to fire and vice versa.
So, likely, works as intended.
There's no "absolutely ruined by certain enemies" that I see there.
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Under conservation of energy, it calls out mindshift abilities as applicable for adding or removing energy. Looks like it works just as spells do
Probably not. But this ability is so incompetently written top to bottom that it's hard to say.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transferred or changed. Whenever you use your magic to add or remove energy, you must then balance it with the opposing force. The first time in an encounter that you cast a granted spell from your conscious mind or a psi cantrip, decide whether you’re adding energy or removing it. Once you add energy, you must remove energy the next time you cast one of these spells. When you Refocus, you restore yourself to a neutral state, allowing you to once again freely choose whether you add or remove energy on your next spell.
A mindshift action isn't a spell. It has the occult trait, so it is magical, but given Paizo's annoying predilection for writing abilities with an introductory sentence or two as used car salesman boasting before the rest of the text's fine print makes that initial promise a lie, I believe the spell limitation stated twice and in more detail than the upfront "your magic" that maybe wasn't written with precision. Certainly nothing else in CoE was.
Mindshift itself says you choose whether to add/remove energy. It might mean "subject to the above restrictions on spells, which none of these abilities are" but it might not.
Under conservation of energy, it calls out mindshift abilities as applicable for adding or removing energy. Looks like it works just as spells doProbably not. But this ability is so incompetently written top to bottom that it's hard to say.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transferred or changed. Whenever you use your magic to add or remove energy, you must then balance it with the opposing force. The first time in an encounter that you cast a granted spell from your conscious mind or a psi cantrip, decide whether you’re adding energy or removing it. Once you add energy, you must remove energy the next time you cast one of these spells. When you Refocus, you restore yourself to a neutral state, allowing you to once again freely choose whether you add or remove energy on your next spell.A mindshift action isn't a spell. It has the occult trait, so it is magical, but given Paizo's annoying predilection for writing abilities with an introductory sentence or two as used car salesman boasting before the rest of the text's fine print makes that initial promise a lie, I believe the spell limitation stated twice and in more detail than the upfront "your magic" that maybe wasn't written with precision. Certainly nothing else in CoE was.
Mindshift itself says you choose whether to add/remove energy. It might mean "subject to the above restrictions on spells, which none of these abilities are" but it might not.
What the bit says:
Mindshift: When you use an action that has the mindshift trait, you can choose to add or remove energy to it instead of making it mental. Alter it as normal for adding or removing energy and change any save it requires to a Reflex save.
So it's overriding the "spell or standard psi cantrip" restriction by having the "Mindshift" section in there. Specific overrides general when it comes to rules in PF2E, even when it's establishing a new rule within a subclass.
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Or it's specifically overriding the flipping requirement (which it doesn't really need to do since it's not a spell) by saying you can choose (freely) to add or remove energy. Mindshift is the most specific rule, so it ignores the rule that already on its face doesn't apply to it.
The level 1 and 6 cantrips can be used to flip elements (and you can always hit with the right element with the level 10 one), so I don't see any issue with fire/ice immune enemies.
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The level 1 and 6 cantrips can be used to flip elements (and you can always hit with the right element with the level 10 one), so I don't see any issue with fire/ice immune enemies.
Per the errata, the special cantrips aren't supposed to interact with conservation of energy at all, so I don't think that works.
I agree however that this isn’t the end of the world. Take a 6th level cantrip that compensates, use slots, or use your 10th level cantrip. Below 6th this will rarely be a problem.
Silent Whisper has worse problems with mindless.
I agree however that this isn’t the end of the world. Take a 6th level cantrip that compensates, use slots, or use your 10th level cantrip. Below 6th this will rarely be a problem.
Silent Whisper has worse problems with mindless.
They're also free to nab a psi cantrip from another conscious mind at level 6.