Well, I don't think the Mesmerist becoming less martial and more casty than the 1e version is weirder than the Bard becoming less martial and more casting than the 1e version.
The Mesmerist and the Bard in 1e IMO were the two most thematically and mechanically similar pair of classes.
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I mean, a totally new class, called the Empath, that shared emotions and amplified their effects until the point that they became distracting could do much of the occult debuffing without nearly as much of the narrative baggage. Controlling other people’s emotions has some potential creep factor, but if it was about sharing emotions and amplifying/calming existing ones, I think the mechanics that people are looking for are still possible.
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The Mesmerist as a playable class with “cool, fun mechanics to play with” has a lot of potential to invite behavior that PF2 really doesn’t need or want if it is not handled carefully.
Storm in a tea cup. It is no more problematic than using an axe to control peoples actions, or even just the normal intimidation skill to coerce.
Yes a lot of the things that happen in this game are not appropriate for certain types of people. What and who that is varies a lot. Know your group. Put appropriate ratings on campaigns for public open games.
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Are people just... somehow overlooking the fact that the presence of this as a Class would necessitate that the extra layer of protection against mind control, compulsion, and loss of personal autonomy that is baked into every one of these spells/effects would 110% HAVE to be completely stripped away by some new and EXTRODINARILLY powerful ability in order to make this Class/concept actually playable in an actual game?
Couple that with the introduction of such characters as canon to the universe and that means you suddenly have NPCs who, on even a single failed Will save will be able to effectively take control of other characters, including Player Characters, for whatever aims that they please and in the VAST majority of such cases where these NPCs will be encountered it will absolutely be as opponents to the party.
I also struggle to even find anything close to common ground with the argument that the ability for a PC/NPC to use an axe on someone else against their will is anywhere even CLOSE to as problematic as someone using a effect with the same effective DC to succeed (which would 100% have to be the case if the Class were to exist in the balanced PF2 mechanical framework) to turn another Character into their personal puppet/plaything/[Redacted]. It isn't close, not in the same ballpark, and probably not even on the same continent as it strips away the very essence of what makes people want to play RPGs in the first place. There already exist mechanics like this, as others have said that DO make people feel deeply uncomfortable with even the watered-down options that chip away at or essentially completely demolish personal choice, free will, autonomy, and the ability to ROLEPLAY your own Character how you see fit, you take away their ability not only to fight back but also to even THINK/BELIEVE independently and that is far FAR FAR worse than harming/injuring/killing them with a Weapon and it opens up a practically unlimited number of completely repulsive consequences for what happens at the table and what is implied to exist within the setting. Anyone who thinks otherwise either is NOT thinking hard enough about the implications of this kind of unilateral destruction of the self that this type of Character would inject or perhaps are individuals who, IRL believes in and entrusts themselves to determinism as a core belief that... I will refrain to speak on as it touches on the no-religion and no-politics community guidelines.
If the lore and crunch books can't feature themes of slavery I do not see ANY situation where they would EVER feel comfortable enough where they'd create lore, canon, and mechanics that feature these kinds of themes as they represent something even more repulsive, regardless of if it is a merely magnified and fictionalized version of manipulation, gas-lighting, and exploitation on the most fundamental level.
Final note: Again, I do not personally have any qualms with this being published but given the direction, stance, and intentional desire of Paizo to ensure they don't create works that portray or encourage such repulsive kind of acts and/or systems of injustice I do not think that it fits the theme, and furthermore, I doubt they would even let such a thing fly for non-canon Pathfinder Infinite products either.
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You are missing the point I am trying to make... Do you also want to make a list of r*****s and slavers in the existing canon that represent content that explicitly isn't being touched with a 10 ft pole too? An empowered mesmerist/mind-control specialist leads the setting not only down the same tracks but in fact, converts that system into an infinitely efficient pipeline that has only one end destination, the unwilling, unethical, and outright illegal (in nearly every one of the non-lawful-evil nations) subjugation of unwilling subjects to do literally whatever the mesmer/controller wishes.
Taking free will away from someone, anyone, in fact, is in my view a more heinous act than pretty much anything else short of forcing someone into undeath and unending servitude.
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I personally find the idea behind the Barbarian extremely disturbing. Losing it and ignoring your own self preservation so you can kill people more efficiently is definitely problematic to me.
I also find the idea behind the Paladin (and Lawful Good Clerics) disturbing. Killing lots of things in the name of a self proclaimed greater good is a very slippery slope. This logic can support the worst atrocities.
But overall, more than a class, the problematic behaviors I've seen around the table were the fact of problematic players. And whatever the class they were playing they were creating problems. So I'm not sure the Mesmerist is worst than the 2 previous classes.
Also, I think there's a bit of exageration about the Mesmerist. Taking control of people is obviously a very high level ability with Incapacitation tag. This is by no way a need to play a Mesmerist as mesmerism can support way more abilities. And this is already available in the game and I've never seen anyone screaming about Domination.
Also, slavery is mostly achieved by force. Linking mesmerism to slavery is a strawman, in my opinion.
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You are missing the point I am trying to make.
Because your point is arguing a strawman that has basically nothing to do with this thread. You came into this thread to get angry about something literally nobody but you said.
Like this:
I also struggle to even find anything close to common ground with the argument that the ability for a PC/NPC to use an axe on someone else against their will is anywhere even CLOSE to as problematic as someone using a effect with the same effective DC to succeed (which would 100% have to be the case if the Class were to exist in the balanced PF2 mechanical framework) to turn another Character into their personal puppet/plaything/[Redacted].
Is just complete nonsense on every level. Nobody wants this. Nobody suggests it. Nobody brought it up, except you. It doesn't even make sense in any logical framework (morally, or from a game design perspective, or in reference to anything else in this thread).
You created this entire world for yourself just so you can get mad about the idea of it.
So no, I don't think people are missing much of anything.
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I'm angry, really? Methinks you're projecting a bit because I'm pointing out an official stance by the publisher that makes it pretty darn near certain that this can't in any way be officially condoned or supported, either that or you're one of those filthy determinists I was talking about (joking actually).
I'd actually LOVE to see a change in course by Paizo to allow more borderline edgy, darker, and more historically inspired content to be embraced as part of the rules, lore, and setting but frankly, there are just WAY too many reasons why that is absolutely never going to happen.
Feel free to continue posting in this pointless thread and talking out both sides of your mouth about how this kind of concept could "potentially, if handled super carefully and only in certain extremely confined boundaries, done with very specific and clearly described intent and wielded only by one extreme minority subsection of the character of only LG alignment and only against grossly and exaggeratedly evil character, maybe-perhaps be acceptable" with regards to the standard of the type of content Paizo is willing or able to publish.
I'm angry, really?
Given that you posted several paragraphs about how Paizo will never publish the class you just made up, yeah you seem pretty passionate.
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I'm angry, really?Given that you posted several paragraphs about how Paizo will never publish the class you just made up, yeah you seem pretty passionate.
Okay...
PFS Legal Mesmerist
Source Occult Adventures pg. 38
Experts at charm and deceit, mesmerists compel others to heed their words and bend to their will. Psychic powers, primarily those of enchantment and illusion, give mesmerists the tools they need to manipulate others—usually for their own personal gain. The very gaze of a mesmerist can hypnotize someone into following his whims. Mesmerists frequently form cults of personality around themselves, and they develop skills and contingency plans in case their ploys are discovered. They draw their magic from the Astral Plane, and many consider their minds to be conduits to enigmatic spaces others can’t comprehend.Role: Mesmerists wield power over lesser minds, suppressing foes’ wills to weaken them. Priding themselves on their trickery and inventiveness, they also support their allies—and often themselves—with magical tricks, most of which offer protection. Their limited healing ability primarily provides temporary hit points, so mesmerists aren’t the strongest primary healers, but they can easily remove conditions that typically affect the mind.
Made it up huh? Weird.... you must be new the setting, and I'm the one being accused of making up strawmen. This concept as published for PF1 is MILES off the path for the type of content that the authors, publishers, and editors are willing to put out or contribute to, particularly the whole "bend to their will" and "lesser minds" bit that couldn't be much clearer that this entire Class as a concept it about the role of a true egomaniac who thinks themselves better than nearly anyone else and who uses power to dominate, control, abuse, and deride others in ways that make the OTHER forms of banned themes seem like nothing whatsoever.
Also, if you think that the only reason one might be passionate about a subject or want to contribute to a discussion is anger, again, I hate to repeat myself but, that sounds like projection of your own motives friend... take care.
The mechanical space people want just doesn’t need to be weighted down with the baggage of the Mesmerist class. The existence of occult casters doing terrible things to people throughout the inner seas doesn’t need to exist in the form of a full character class for there to be tons of NPCs, and the great majority of them to be horrible villains. Narratively, Golarion does not need “Mesmerist” to exist as a character class for all the stories that Piazo wants to tell.
Mechanically, the space of martial leaning debuffer with some access to occult magic ( a wave caster for example works really well for an incapacitation spell leaning class), can really easily exist without bringing back the narrative mess that the 1e class was leaning way too hard into.
Maybe in the future “Barbarian” the class built around the thematic space of the “Savage Warrior” gets a look over too, but that is a ship that has currently sailed and has conversations bigger than pathfinder attached to it. The Mesmerist is unique Paizo content that bringing back means taking on full responsibility for these conversations. I would be thinking twice about it as management.
But it is not something they are unwilling to make given all of the spells that mess with the mind. People are extrapolating that Paizo doesn't want to do something, that they in fact have already made a sizeable amount of it.
A list of all enchantment mental effects.
A list of all illusion mental effects.
A list of all non-enchantment and non-illusion effects.To say that it doesn't need to exist seems wrong given that we don't know what type of characters Paizo will want to use in future adventure paths. Even then classes are made for the purposes of letting players do more stuff, not for Paizo themselves (they can add any character they want without needing to ask permission). Also, again people keep assuming that people with the class will do the worst when the focus of the class is not that, and any such in fraction is 100% dependent on the GM allowing it not on the class being played.
None of the people involved have told me why Enchantment spells are not banned, why evil paladins are not banned, why worshiping evil gods is not banned, why playing undead ancestry (which are 99% of the time evil by their very nature) is not banned. But a class focusing on enchantments and illusions is unspeakable horror? You all going to ban diplomacy, deception, and intimidation as skill those are instrumental to all the "baggage" that you are saying Mesmerist has?
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* P.S. Might as well ban Captivators, Bards, Pactbinders, Reanimators, Runelords of Enchantment/Illusion, all the assassination archetypes, Undead Master, Bounty Hunter, Poisoner, Drow Shootist, all undead archetypes, and all future archetype that have even the slight connotation to capturing people.
I mean, I don't know that it is in the interest of the developers to ever engage these question directly and just either make the class or not without making statements that will get argued about back and forth and create more potential drama, but I think there are some answers to some of your questions.
I don't think Paizo is afraid of having evil content, either for GM use or for players. However, Bloodlords, the first explicitly "don't be good" AP of 2nd edition (even though most others are alignment agnostic), leans into body horror/undeath evil, but avoids a lot of other common evils for common adventure motifs. Be evil...but with a purpose that is within some spectrum of normalized, socialized morality...seems like as far as second edition is going to go with the evil players campaign.
Mesmerist as evil aligned class wouldn't bother me too much, but a lot of players don't like mechanical niches being alignment locked, and if it is just the PF1 narrative of the Mesmerist overlying an "occult debuffer" framework, that would kinda be asking for players to have to play against type to play a non-creepy version of the class. I think there are good reasons to want think carefully before pulling the trigger on the class that way, which is why I am arguing for the mechanical chassis to have a different narrative, and at most "creepy mind control class" to be a likely underpowered (because of incapacitation) subclass.
There is an absolutely huge difference in player perception between something that is a base class and something that is a somewhat fringe subclass as far as people reading into how encouraging a system is for certain types of play. Anti-paladins and Tyrants can certainly be played in ways that make some players uncomfortable, as can Paladins and Liberators, but that is largely just issues with alignment existing as a knowable fixed thing in universe and that is a very clear trope of the genre and a stated assumption of the game that can be removed by individual GMs, but is essential the baseline. Just like a certain amount of violent conflict is a baseline assumption of the game, that APs try to make really bad, incredibly resistant to being redeemed villains to remove some of that ambiguity from general APs, with some exceptions that have not gone over marvelously well. Moral ambiguity reads really differently in a table top AP than in a video game because there are not usually 5 other people who's comfort levels have to be respected when you are playing a video game.
In play, enchantment spells like charm and dominate are perhaps even made more potentially problematic by PF2's incapacitation system, because they are really only useful for dominating the will of "lesser beings." You can't really use them to punch upwards against power structures because power in the game is so defined and absolute. However, because adventures tend to avoid giving players opportunities to really exploit their constantly growing power over the "regular" people around them, and because most tables would see that as gross right away, I think that increased potential for creep factor gets pushed out of the game relatively quickly. Players that want to get evil in bad ways with enchantment spells have to be pretty active in seeking out those opportunities for themselves because adventures tend to try to avoid them.*
*Agents of Edgewatch has really missed several boats in this regard, and has probably highlighted how difficult it is to have PCs be official representatives of any kind of power structure when they rise above reproach by the people they protect so quickly.
So to answer your question, I think the longstanding tradition of Enchantment magic in Fantasy Roleplaying has made banning it outright something that feels too boundary pushing to have done at this time, but incapacitation has made it far more of an NPC thing than a Player thing already, and I think AP writers are generally trying to be good about not inviting players to abuse it in games.
I agree with you about the potential for misuse of skills to manipulate NPCs and think there is hypocrisy when players call foul on enchantment magic for manipulating the will of other characters but cheer and applaud it happening with skills, but I think the abuses of skills are pretty easy to control with having NPCs with strong enough characters and motive for GMs to know what behavior fits within a framework of "this is violating their consent" and "this is something they might do anyway and is ok for dice to determine if today is one of those days." Magical manipulation does complicate that because it is something that doesn't exist in our world (even if we do have ways of manipulating others that can feel so unimaginable as to work like magic, and that rightfully creeps folks out) so how it actually works is something everyone kinda has to imagine for themselves, and will often not be imagined from a place of benevolence. Especially with class descriptions like the Mesmerist had.
Mechanically, I thought the PF1 mesmerist had some really interesting ideas, but its narrative really pushed an identity that was hard to reconcile with "Heroic Fantasy." I think PF2 can do better.