
SuperBidi |

I mostly disagree with Sanityfaerie list. In my opinion, you can fit Amp Guidance into way more builds. Even if you have AoO to compete with, AoOs are rarely triggered (like once every 3 rounds) which leaves plenty of room for Amp Guidance. And on top of it Amp Guidance effect is bigger than AoO effect. And then you can grab Combat Reflexes as a Fighter at level 10 and Reaction competition becomes really low then.
Also, I feel people are putting aside the out of combat use of Amp Guidance: +1/+2 to all the important skill checks of your companions as long as you are in a situation where casting a spell would not be an issue (so not social situations) and if you are aware your companion makes a skill check (so no passive perception checks). Even if I agree that the combat use is more important, that's still a massive bonus.
For me, outside Barbarians, melee Rogues (because Opportune Backstab gets triggered nearly all the time) and low level Champions, it fits all classes.

Gortle |

Yes you can use it everywhere. It works almost anywhere. I just wouldn't do it everywhere.
Also, I feel people are putting aside the out of combat use of Amp Guidance: +1/+2 to all the important skill checks of your companions as long as you are in a situation where casting a spell would not be an issue (so not social situations)
There is mostly time to Aid in these circumtances for a larger bonus. You can generally Aid in social situations.

SuperBidi |

Yes you can use it everywhere. It works almost anywhere. I just wouldn't do it everywhere.
Definitely. But more for roleplay purposes or needs for another Dedication than for optimization purposes.
There is mostly time to Aid in these circumtances for a larger bonus. You can generally Aid in social situations.
Aid and Amp Guidance. It's on top of Aid (unless you're the only one who can Aid, but it's rare). Also, the bonus is bigger unless you Aid on a skill check you should be doing instead.

Sanityfaerie |
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I mostly disagree with Sanityfaerie list. In my opinion, you can fit Amp Guidance into way more builds. Even if you have AoO to compete with, AoOs are rarely triggered (like once every 3 rounds) which leaves plenty of room for Amp Guidance. And on top of it Amp Guidance effect is bigger than AoO effect. And then you can grab Combat Reflexes as a Fighter at level 10 and Reaction competition becomes really low then.
Also, I feel people are putting aside the out of combat use of Amp Guidance: +1/+2 to all the important skill checks of your companions as long as you are in a situation where casting a spell would not be an issue (so not social situations) and if you are aware your companion makes a skill check (so no passive perception checks). Even if I agree that the combat use is more important, that's still a massive bonus.
For me, outside Barbarians, melee Rogues (because Opportune Backstab gets triggered nearly all the time) and low level Champions, it fits all classes.
The point is not that these things render it utterly useless. It has costs, after all. It costs you a feat and a dedication lock. At a party optimization level it's competing with everything that can hand out status bonuses. If you're running an opportunity attack about one turn in three, then that cuts the value by almost a third... and a third is a meaningful reduction when you're talking about value comparisons with other similar options. Yes, you can grab Combat Reflexes at 10... but if you didn't have anything other than Amp Guidance and an opportunity attack to spend your reactions on at that point, you're effectively adding "and a 10th level class feat" to the cost of your amp guidance benefits, because you wouldn't have gotten it otherwise.
The point is... these things add up.
Oh, and for the out-of-combat stuff... you also need to be able to spend 10 minutes sitting in a corner meditating (or whatever) every time you use it to help someone. There are times when this is fine. There are times when it is not. Alternately, you can just use the standard cantrip form, give them a +1, and not have to sit in the corner for ten minutes.
From the sounds of things, though, I was wrong about the Oracle. Apparently there are oracles who don't like their focus spells much. It should be down in Mediocre/Varies along with everyone else who either has focus spells they love or focus spells they don't really care about depending on build. Good to know.

Unicore |

Are folks really only using attack of opportunity 1 in 3 rounds? Even on my elven maul fighter who has no archetype feats, no focus spells, an INT of 14, and probably one more class feat spent on combat actions than is really necessary (so essentially all the reasons to pick the amped guidance up) it would be for out of combat stuff way more than combat, because if I am not likely to be making two attacks of opportunity in a round(I have combat reflexes), I would still rather be using my third action to set up an aid for someone else’s attack, using the reaction I would have for the spell.
Now maybe if I had a great character idea for a fighter/psychic, I would take it anyway as just an extra thing I can do out of combat, (although having a bard in the party also makes that support a little redundant. After all, midst things that Amped guidance can do out of combat can be done with just the regular guidance cantrip once an hour. I still have a hard time seeing this as ultimate optimization. Like if some one was saying which is more necessary boosting INT or CHA to 14 at starting build just to MC into Psychic, or putting that 14 in CON or WIS or even DEX (for the ability to make competent ranged attacks and have a better reflex save by level 10), I am not sure I’d say amped guidance is the obvious optimal choice.
I think that character narrative and what your vision of your character is, and what they do in a round is still going to be the larger factor in builds that we see, which is where we all want the game to be. I don’t think any limiting of the psychic archetype is necessary to maintain that balance.
I think a psychic dedication and amped guidance will be more useful in a PFS setting where you have no idea from adventure to adventure if you will be having regular access to status bonuses, but in an extended play party, getting access to regular status bonuses to attacks, skills and saves is something every party can easily figure out with multiple ways to accomplish it. I kinda see this use of the psychic dedication in a very similar light to rogues picking up the medic dedication. Many will do it just because they are the ones seen with the skill boosts and feats to be the party healer without it consuming their identity, but there are other healer characters that can even cover the out of combat healing better, and having too many party resources sunk into healing can severely limit a party’s social prowess, stealth prowess, or information gathering that could have prevented a lot of the need for healing in the first place. Too much party focus on status bonuses can have the same kind of limiting factor on a party, especially when eating into class feats, reactions and focus spells.
This doesn’t make it bad, or even not a good tool to keep in mind. I just don’t think it will radically change the party building dynamic of most tables.

SuperBidi |

If you're running an opportunity attack about one turn in three, then that cuts the value by almost a third...
No. As a Fighter, you can only trigger Amp Guidance once per fight. If you have already triggered Amp Guidance then you can benefit from your AoOs just fine. If you can't trigger it because you already use your Reaction, you'll use it on the next trigger. Of course, there's a competition, but very far from one third. Especially at level 11+ where the competition should be negligeable (even without Combat Reflexes) due to the number of rounds when Amp Guidance will be triggered.
At a party optimization level it's competing with everything that can hand out status bonuses.
Once again, not really. Unless there is party wide status bonuses to saves, attacks and skills (well, skills are less important) you should be able to use Amp Guidance once per fight just fine. Of course, if you have a Bard who insists on using Inspire Courage their whole career it will be an issue, but the issue is a player's one not an Amp Guidance one.
And once again, at level 11 there's no more any real competition and you should be using Amp Guidance once per fight as expected.The only real competition Amp Guidance has is from another character with Amp Guidance. At low level especially when the triggers are quite scarce.
I would still rather be using my third action to set up an aid for someone else’s attack, using the reaction I would have for the spell.
You won't Aid each and every round. And during the remaining rounds, you'll have Amp Guidance. Especially after level 11 when Amp Guidance triggers quite easily.
It's also important to see that the 2 most important effects of Amp Guidance is to automatically deal martial damage (by enabling an attack) or to avoid a critical failure to a save. Both of these effects are way above what other reactions can give you (besides Champion's one): most good reactions just give you a free attack. So even if it's not triggered absolutely every fight, the impact is far too strong to be ignored.

Sanityfaerie |
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Saves only matter in fights where the enemies are throwing attacks you can save against, and they only really matter in fights where that's happening enough that there's a decent chance of triggering, and it matters. That's not every fight.
Bard gives status bonus to hit. Marshal gives status bonus to hit (and saves against mental effects). Heroism gives a status bonus to hit. I don't happen to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the spells, feats, and magical/alchemical items out there, but I strongly suspect that there are other things that do the same.
Now, if your party is throwing around a significant number of powerful attacks vs AC, such that you can be pretty much guaranteed of getting it off at some point during the fight? That's pretty solid. "Deal automatic damage equal to a meaningful strike as a reaction" is a strong effect, even for a focus spell. Better still if they're throwing around enough of them that it'll hit early enough in that fight that it really matters, rather than during the mop-up phase. A fair bit of the stuff about reactions and all of the stuff about competing status bonuses are talking about things that, effectively, thin the pool of available opportunities to use, and thus make that less likely. It's always possible to overwhelm pool-thinners with enough mass.
So... if you play in a party six strong, including four melee and a Starlit Span magus then sure! It's a great pick. You might even want two or three in the party, if you can fit them in, even if someone is playing a Marshal (...and with that kind of party composition, someone probably should be). If it's a three-person party, though, and you're the only front-liner in a party with two casters, then suddenly it's not nearly as good. If it's somewhere in between... well, maybe my little list is a reasonable place to start.
Also, just to be clear, no one is saying to ignore it. That's not what's being said. What we're saying is that it's not necessarily the best thing ever for absolutely everyone always. There's a difference.

SuperBidi |

Also, just to be clear, no one is saying to ignore it. That's not what's being said. What we're saying is that it's not necessarily the best thing ever for absolutely everyone always. There's a difference.
Obviously, we will both avoid ending up with strawmans here. I also don't say that it's the best thing ever. Still, I disagree with you when you say it's "mediocre" on a Fighter. I personally consider that it's nearly on par with a blanket +1 to attack, which is very far from mediocre to me (but we may disagree on that).
Here's my comparison between a blanket +1 to attacks and Amp Guidance (I'll focus on attacks as they are both the most common trigger to Amp Guidance and the ones with the simplest payback to calculate):
A +1 to attack gives between 10 and 20% extra average damage. For simplicity, I'll consider the value of 14% which is the average gain when facing an at level high AC enemy with a basic martial.
If I take a d10 weapon Strength-based martial with no class bonus to damage as a basic martial (I think it's quite close to an average martial damage per hit) using a normal Strike (so no added value from feats like Power Attack or whatever).
If you trigger Amp Guidance at level 2, this martial will deal 9.5 average damage. To get the same damage bonus with a +1 to hit you need to deal 77 points of damage, which is nearly an entire encounter hit point pool. So at that level a trigger of Amp Guidance is way better than a blanket +1 to hit for an entire fight.
At level 11, the same martial will deal 25 damage and as such needs to deal 203 points of damage for a +1 to be equivalent to Amp Guidance. It's an at level monster and as such the expected contribution of your character in an Extreme encounter. So a trigger of Amp Guidance is once again better unless the damage distribution in your party is really skewed.
At level 20, you deal 45.5 damage and as such needs to deal 370 points of damage for both bonuses to break even. It's a level 20 creature hit point pool and once again a trigger of Amp Guidance is better than a blanket +1 to hit for the entire fight.
Obviously, you won't trigger Amp Guidance every fight. I consider a martial with just a single Focus Point available for Amp Guidance (the case of the Fighter who just takes Amp Guidance) and I'll focus on level 11+ as the bonus from Amp Guidance becomes really interesting but also because at that level you should have enough room in your build to squeeze Amp Guidance (or use Multitalented to grab it).
You need 12 triggers to trigger Amp Guidance 72% of the time. If you have 24 triggers you trigger it 92% of the time. 12 triggers seems high, but a single martial should nearly attack that often in an entire fight. And saves can be as critical as landing an attack, even skills sometimes (but rarely). So if there is only one martial but you in the party it should be quite common (70%) to trigger Amp Guidance and with 2 other martials you should be close to 90% chance to trigger it. As the payback of Amp Guidance is superior to a +1 to attack, 70-90% of Amp Guidance is roughly equivalent to a +1 to attack. A Dedication that gives +1 to attack is not strong, it's a no-brainer (in my opinion).
Of course, I've considered zero competition on both your reactions and other status bonuses.
Let's consider a reaction that gets triggered once every 3 rounds, like the AoO mentioned above. It drops the chances to trigger Amp Guidance to 57% and 81% respectively for a comparative drop of efficiency of 21% and 12% respectively. So it's very far from the 33% drop that you mentioned earlier. It puts Amp Guidance on par with a +0.8 to attack, do you really consider that "mediocre"? Because I don't.
Let's consider another case, where half of the party is under Heroism and as such you divide the number of triggers by 2. In that case you reduce Amp Guidance efficiency by 35 and 22% respectively. We are still speaking of a bonus comparable to a +0.7 to attack. Mediocre?
The impact of trigger competition is really low on Amp Guidance because of the need to trigger it only once. The only real competition are abilities that you trigger more than 50% of the time, so even Champion's Reaction is not a strong competition. I see mostly Rage and Opportune Backstab as a valid competition (and also a Bard who only uses Inspired Heroics Inspire Courage but I think that's more of a player problem if you can't convince them to switch to Dirge of Doom). And obviously Amp Guidance itself.
TL;DR: If no one in your party has Amp Guidance, you should think about it on nearly every build.
I let you tell me where you disagree (if you still do).

Unicore |

I think one flaw in you assumptions here is that having triggered and used amped guidance in an encounter will always feel like a win for the ability. It will a lot of the time, but always choosing to trigger it as soon as possible has a decent probability of it being used ineffectually. When fighting a solo monster that no one has identified and no one knows if it has any powerful saving throw targeting abilities, do you trigger it in the first round on the champion’s attack roll? Will it be an amount of damage more valuable then later in the combat once a weakness has been identified or the party realizes this creature has a nasty saving throw targeting debuff/character removal ability that the party needs all the help they can get to overcome? Is the party sure they get to rest for 10 minutes before the next encounter triggers where the party will face a more difficult target to hit?
The “only triggers one time” aspect of this ability makes it a resource to manage while inspire courage (even as a back up option to dirge of doom) can always be brought back out when it would be more useful…like if the enemy is sickened).
I think this aspect of the ability makes it interesting, but again not something that is must have to have an optimally effective character. Could it be used to have a massive impact on the campaign? Absolutely, but it can pretty easily be an ability that never feels like it triggers at a needed moment (especially as those needed moments often involve hero point usage.)
What I am saying is that treating amped guidance as just a thing that you will always use as soon as it triggers may be provable as the statistically most effective way to get the most out of it, but that will not necessarily translate into players feeling like it’s contribution is as valuable as inspire courage (which also gives damage bonuses to every character on every attack that hits). In fact, I think most of the time I would rather No there is someone in the party that will be inspiring courage, rather than knowing there is a character with amped guidance, over the course of a full campaign.

SuperBidi |

choosing to trigger it as soon as possible has a decent probability of it being used ineffectually
What you are describing is analysis paralysis. I fully agree that it exists and that sometimes you'll be sad to realize that another trigger, happening later, will have been a better choice for your focus point and reaction. It's just that the most optimized course of action on average is not the most optimized course of action in every situation.
But we are moving from a discussion about optimization to a discussion about psychology. I'm not sure I have much to say in that case.In fact, I think most of the time I would rather No there is someone in the party that will be inspiring courage, rather than knowing there is a character with amped guidance, over the course of a full campaign.
Well, you can prefer one to the other, they are covering the same function. Still, Inspire Courage (+ Lingering Composition) is more invasive to your routine as it costs a valuable action when Amp Guidance only costs a Reaction. Also, Inspire Courage is more expensive in terms of feats, attributes and comes online later. If you choose Inspire Courage, it will be a strong identity of your build when you can squeeze Amp Guidance in nearly every build without much impact. As a consequence a lot of parties don't have access to any composition because no one wants to play a Bard or someone strongly multiclassed into Bard. On the other hand, all parties can take Amp Guidance for nearly no cost nor impact on both builds and routines. It's the cheap cost of Amp Guidance that makes it so interesting and, in my opinion, the only real competitor to Compositions.

Sanityfaerie |
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I want to turn your math back on you for a moment.
You need 12 triggers to trigger Amp Guidance 72% of the time. If you have 24 triggers you trigger it 92% of the time. 12 triggers seems high, but a single martial should nearly attack that often in an entire fight. And saves can be as critical as landing an attack, even skills sometimes (but rarely). So if there is only one martial but you in the party it should be quite common (70%) to trigger Amp Guidance and with 2 other martials you should be close to 90% chance to trigger it. As the payback of Amp Guidance is superior to a +1 to attack, 70-90% of Amp Guidance is roughly equivalent to a +1 to attack. A Dedication that gives +1 to attack is not strong, it's a no-brainer (in my opinion).
In the case of a party with a single martial, if you're managing to hit on an 11 or better, +1 to hit on 10 swings means that you're either upgrading one miss to a hit or you're upgrading one hit to a crit. 20 swings means that you're doing one of each. 12 and 24 are doing slightly better than that... and if you have multiple qualifying martials (thus cranking the numbers further), that +1 to hit is going to scale better.
Now, that's not to say that Amped Guidance is utterly useless as compared to Marshal, even at lower levels. Marshal takes two feats rather than one (important if you don't have FA), it takes an early action to start off, it consumes your stance slot, it requires charisma investment, and in general it won't have as many triggers, since its area of effect is smaller and it doesn't start working until you fire it off the first time. Even so, if you have a cluster of martials for your Marshal who like fighting close already (perhaps one of them is a champion, and another is a rogue who really likes their flanking), it's going to hit that point where you have a lot of swings to play with pretty quickly.
Bard archetype is a bit tricky because their thing doesn't even come online until level 8 (at a cost of three feats). Even so, it's running +1 to hit across a wide enough area that as the "important early part" of fights get longer and tricks for making lots of attacks get thicker on the ground, it's going to get plenty of triggers to play with. Now, as previously noted, that doesn't invalidate amped guidance, because upgrading to the +2 means that amped guidance can continue to exist even in a world that has inspirational bards in it, and the saves can also be quite helpful. Still, it means that amped guidance is basically the lower-price, lower-effect efficiency pick.
/**********/
As far as the TLDR is concerned, I'd say that if you have a decent-sized party (like, four or more, with at least two martials), you should seriously consider getting it on someone, eventually, but it's worth talking around the party to see who, and when. In addition to the bits about reactions and focus points, you can't amped guidance yourself. Taking it early with a class feat is potentially worthwhile, but somewhat situation-dependent. Taking it with Ancient Elf is solid, though, and grabbing it at 9 with Multitalented is really quite strong. Taking it early with Free Archetype is a fair bit dicier, if only because it has the most value as a one-and-done, and getting sufficient value out of level 4 and 6 feats in the archetype starts making it more build-dependent.
I'd further say that in a sufficiently large group (like, say, 6 or maybe even 5, with at least three martials) it might be worth taking on more than one person, especially if you happen to have multiple humans hanging around who don't have any particular opinions on how to spend their level 9 ancestry feat.

SuperBidi |

In the case of a party with a single martial, if you're managing to hit on an 11 or better, +1 to hit on 10 swings means that you're either upgrading one miss to a hit or you're upgrading one hit to a crit. 20 swings means that you're doing one of each. 12 and 24 are doing slightly better than that... and if you have multiple qualifying martials (thus cranking the numbers further), that +1 to hit is going to scale better.
I think there's a misunderstanding, I was not comparing a party-wide +1 to hit to Amp Guidance but a feat that would give you a blanket +1 to hit (just to you) to Amp Guidance.
Also, it's on a 10 or better, not 11 or better. And second attacks rarely hit on a 10, so you'll need more than 10 swings for a +1 to hit to give an extra bunch of damage. In general, it's closer to 15.Now, that's not to say that Amped Guidance is utterly useless as compared to Marshal, even at lower levels.
Honestly, Marshal auras are a joke. The area makes them unusable. It's a circumstantial ability, in most combat you'll do better by not wasting an action on it.
As far as the TLDR is concerned, I'd say that if you have a decent-sized party (like, four or more, with at least two martials)
I don't call that a "decent-sized party" but a small party. 4 characters with 2 martials is the minimum you can ask. Having only one martial is super tricky and parties of less than 4 are not even allowed in PFS (they give you an iconic to complete the roster). For me, a decent-sized party is a 4-6 PC party.
If it's not your experience then I quite understand our disagreement, buff is not really interesting in small parties.Taking it early with Free Archetype is a fair bit dicier, if only because it has the most value as a one-and-done, and getting sufficient value out of level 4 and 6 feats in the archetype starts making it more build-dependent.
Free archetype rules say that you can loosen the 3-feat limitation. Also, Psychic Dedication is not bad, grabbing a few extra spells per day is a decent use of your free archetype feats.

Sanityfaerie |
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Honestly, Marshal auras are a joke. The area makes them unusable. It's a circumstantial ability, in most combat you'll do better by not wasting an action on it.
You're always guaranteed to be inside your own aura. Past that, it's party-dependent. How many melee martials are there in the party, and how close do they want to stand together? Champions already give a fairly strong incentive for melee characters to cluster, and there are reactions that call for allies to be adjacent. Hobgoblins can also gain some advantages for being near each other, though that might be pushing things. In the wrong party, it's basically two feats, a stance, and an action for a skill check to give yourself a +1 to hit and vs mental saves. That's not great. In the right party, it's potentially significantly more than that.
It's also got some pretty nice reactions in later levels.

Squiggit |
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If you trigger Amp Guidance at level 2, this martial will deal 9.5 average damage. To get the same damage bonus with a +1 to hit you need to deal 77 points of damage, which is nearly an entire encounter hit point pool. So at that level a trigger of Amp Guidance is way better than a blanket +1 to hit for an entire fight.
This is nonsensical. At level 2 Amp Guidance is +1 to hit. They have the same value on any roll in which the bonus is relevant.
In order for +1 to hit to equal amp guidance, you need one roll in the fight to succeed when it otherwise wouldn't have without the benefit, exactly the same as amp guidance itself.
So at that level a trigger of Amp Guidance is way better than a blanket +1 to hit for an entire fight.
What you're saying with your last sentence here is that it's better to have +1 to hit on a single attack (at the cost of someone's reaction and a focus point) than +1 to hit on all your attacks.
That is clearly, obviously, and very blatantly not correct.
You're getting lost in the math and forgetting the actual mechanics at play here. Again, we're talking about literally the exact same mathematical bonus in both cases here.

SuperBidi |

This is nonsensical. At level 2 Amp Guidance is +1 to hit. They have the same value on any roll in which the bonus is relevant.
I'm comparing a +1 to hit on one single character (not a party wide +1 to hit) against Amp Guidance (that can be triggered on many characters and as such can be more valuable than the +1 to hit). I haven't been clear enough when writing my post, sorry about that.
You're always guaranteed to be inside your own aura. Past that, it's party-dependent. How many melee martials are there in the party, and how close do they want to stand together? Champions already give a fairly strong incentive for melee characters to cluster, and there are reactions that call for allies to be adjacent. Hobgoblins can also gain some advantages for being near each other, though that might be pushing things. In the wrong party, it's basically two feats, a stance, and an action for a skill check to give yourself a +1 to hit and vs mental saves. That's not great. In the right party, it's potentially significantly more than that.
I've seen it in action and honestly I have been far from impressed. And I'd definitely avoid to cluster my melee characters so they can fit inside the aura as it would mean forgetting about flanking against Large or larger enemies.
Right now, between Bard Dedication (more costly but way better) and Amp Guidance (less costly and clearly competitive) I can safely say that Marshal auras are not really interesting anymore.It's also got some pretty nice reactions in later levels.
Definitely (I love the one that trips), but it's quite outside the current discussion.

Sanityfaerie |

Squiggit wrote:It's also got some pretty nice reactions in later levels.Definitely (I love the one that trips), but it's quite outside the current discussion.
Mostly. If it's worth stepping into Marshal for the reactions, then it's an effective feat cost of 1, rather than an effective feat cost of 2. That's not nothing.
At the same time, I'll admit that it's getting a bit off-topic.

Unicore |

I do think length of encounters definitely will factor into the usefulness of amped guidance, meaning it will be better at some tables than others. Short encounters with 10 minutes between them will favor amp guidance very often. Longer encounters with no certainty that you will not end up fighting the whole dungeon before you get a 10 minute break will not favor it though.
I have not played past level 3 in PFS games so I don't know if the trend is true there or not, but I find Pathfinder APs tend to give you 10 minute breaks between encounters in a dungeon more often in the early books and much less in the mid to later books. In early level play experience and what I have seen of PFS, I think it would be very effective and very popular.
In the level 8 to 13 games I am mostly in right now, It would likely only be getting used once or twice per dungeon, the same reason why magi relying on focus spells for their primary "umph" just don't seem very likely to make that big an impact on the games I run/play in.

SuperBidi |

I do think length of encounters definitely will factor into the usefulness of amped guidance
Not really. Unless the length of encounters is artificial, like your martials using non-magic weapons at level 20. If you make 3 attacks per round and end the fight at round 3 or one attack per round and end the fight at round 9 you have the same amount of triggers for Amp Guidance. That's why I've used monster hit points and not average number of round as a way to calculate the efficiency of Amp Guidance: Because monster hit points are extremely similar between encounters (there's only at very high level that you can artificially bolster an encounter hit point pool by using tons of mooks but it's mostly a level 15+ issue).
In the level 8 to 13 games I am mostly in right now, It would likely only be getting used once or twice per dungeon, the same reason why magi relying on focus spells for their primary "umph" just don't seem very likely to make that big an impact on the games I run/play in.
Is it because the GM is pushing you to have less than 10 minute breaks between fight or is it because your party doesn't need much rest and as such continues on?
Also, less than 10 minute breaks between fights at level 8 to 13 seems extremely low. You use consumables to heal yourself? Because at that level Medicine is still the main way to get your hps back.I don't see such experience as common. I feel there's something off. Going under ten minute rest between fights before level 15+ is a good way to end up with a TPK. And even at level 15+ you will give more than 1 rest per dungeon on average as there are a few abilities that would become useless if you never do so.

Sanityfaerie |

Unicore wrote:I do think length of encounters definitely will factor into the usefulness of amped guidanceNot really. Unless the length of encounters is artificial, like your martials using non-magic weapons at level 20. If you make 3 attacks per round and end the fight at round 3 or one attack per round and end the fight at round 9 you have the same amount of triggers for Amp Guidance. That's why I've used monster hit points and not average number of round as a way to calculate the efficiency of Amp Guidance: Because monster hit points are extremely similar between encounters (there's only at very high level that you can artificially bolster an encounter hit point pool by using tons of mooks but it's mostly a level 15+ issue).
I believe that what they're discussing is multi-stage encounters, where new monsters come in partway through or the boss monster takes on Yet Another Final Form or whatever, thus effectively extending the amount of fighting that you have to manage between your ten-minute rests. I don't know how common it is, but it's definitely a playstyle I've heard of before in other places.
Basically, that playstyle is going to make focus spells in general (and other sources of per-encounter resources) less useful overall just like having a bunch of different encounters in the day makes daily resources less useful, while having only one or two does the opposite. It's a caveat. If you are in a game like this, then stocking up on focus spells that don't have a decently long duration is less useful.

gesalt |
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Is it because the GM is pushing you to have less than 10 minute breaks between fight or is it because your party doesn't need much rest and as such continues on?
Also, less than 10 minute breaks between fights at level 8 to 13 seems extremely low. You use consumables to heal yourself? Because at that level Medicine is still the main way to get your hps back.
I don't see such experience as common. I feel there's something off. Going under ten minute rest between fights before level 15+ is a good way to end up with a TPK. And even at level 15+ you will give more than 1 rest per dungeon on average as there are a few abilities that would become useless if you never do so.
It's nearly unheard of everywhere I've seen. In such an environment, much of the system stops mattering as you default to popping some 10 minute buffs and pushing rooms as fast as possible with characters that have no downtime but a surfeit of daily resources (clerics and blender wizards mostly). Good for a different sort of challenge but ultimately devalues a lot of player options making optimization an actual requirement unless combats are so easy that they functionally don't matter.

WatersLethe |
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Yeah, I held back on mentioning it because lots of people do play as though ten minute rests are guaranteed, but let's not pretend that's at all universal.
In my games you are certainly not given that guarantee. Whilst storming a castle, for example, 10 minutes is an absolute eternity.

PossibleCabbage |
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The availability of a 10 minute rest ought to depend on context. If you're infiltrating someplace and you're not yet discovered, you're going to be able to stand around in the hallway for 10 minutes. If you find an out of the way place to hide, sure, but that's not the default.
Focus spells are roughly approximate to encounter powers, but are absolutely not the same thing.

Squiggit |
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It shouldn't necessarily be a gaurantee, but denying rests is something that should be used sparingly, imo. Making it a regular thing is going to make classes that rely on focus points a lot weaker and a lot less fun to play and I'm not sure that's really a gain overall.
Focus spells are roughly approximate to encounter powers, but are absolutely not the same thing.
I'm not sure what you mean by encounter powers, but they are more or less designed to be usable regularly and some classes will really suffer if you change that.

gesalt |

I'm not sure what you mean by encounter powers, but they are more or less designed to be usable regularly and some classes will really suffer if you change that.
It's a d&d 4e thing. Essentially, you had at-will powers, encounter powers and daily power. Focus Points are roughly analogous to encounter powers.

Deriven Firelion |
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I expect players to not blow off all their focus powers every battle, especially if not necessary. One of the things I most like about PF2 over say a D&D 4E is that you can play the game in a way that is more naturalistic than 4E encounter powers and such. I don't want a game where the players are blowing off powers they don't need to blow off.
If they are infiltrating a base or dungeon, they should be sitting on their focus powers for tough fights, not blowing them off on every guard or encounter just because.
Resource management has been an important aspect of D&D tactical play. I like my players to know this. Blowing off their powers unnecessarily is something I want discouraged.

Castilliano |
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I expect players to not blow off all their focus powers every battle, especially if not necessary. One of the things I most like about PF2 over say a D&D 4E is that you can play the game in a way that is more naturalistic than 4E encounter powers and such. I don't want a game where the players are blowing off powers they don't need to blow off.
If they are infiltrating a base or dungeon, they should be sitting on their focus powers for tough fights, not blowing them off on every guard or encounter just because.
Resource management has been an important aspect of D&D tactical play. I like my players to know this. Blowing off their powers unnecessarily is something I want discouraged.
I've been agreeing with what you're saying (and still do), but I think it's relevant that the players know this before character creation.
"This campaign does not have the conceit of relying on 10-minute+ lulls between each battle."
Squiggit |
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Agree with Castilliano. If you don't want players playing Psychics or whatever, it's good to let them know ahead of time.
It's a d&d 4e thing. Essentially, you had at-will powers, encounter powers and daily power. Focus Points are roughly analogous to encounter powers.
Fair, but we're only talking about 5 minutes then.

Unicore |
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I mean, many of the APs have encounters that directly reference enemies going and getting reinforcements if able. Probably some GMs play that up more than others, but it happening with some frequency is a default assumption of the game.
At levels 7 to 13, yes you can use consumables to heal, daily spells, multiple characters with battle medicine, there are plenty of "OH No! Things have gotten out of hand..." resources that a party can have on hand and pushing it all back onto the GM never to necessitate their use is kind of an unfair assumption to make as a player. It can't be all the time, and good dungeon design should give players opportunities to establish safe points to rest/hide and camps that enemies won't want to follow them to, but it should also have stakes that make the choice about whether to rest or not tie into how effectively the players are managing their infiltration/assault on the base or dungeon. The AP writers for paizo are pretty good at providing this variety in their dungeon design.

Deriven Firelion |

Deriven Firelion wrote:I expect players to not blow off all their focus powers every battle, especially if not necessary. One of the things I most like about PF2 over say a D&D 4E is that you can play the game in a way that is more naturalistic than 4E encounter powers and such. I don't want a game where the players are blowing off powers they don't need to blow off.
If they are infiltrating a base or dungeon, they should be sitting on their focus powers for tough fights, not blowing them off on every guard or encounter just because.
Resource management has been an important aspect of D&D tactical play. I like my players to know this. Blowing off their powers unnecessarily is something I want discouraged.
I've been agreeing with what you're saying (and still do), but I think it's relevant that the players know this before character creation.
"This campaign does not have the conceit of relying on 10-minute+ lulls between each battle."
They know beforehand. I am not so mean as to not cue them or accustom them to how I DM. They know I will collapse an entire area on them and that will be a continuous fight requiring rationing of resources.

gesalt |

I mean, many of the APs have encounters that directly reference enemies going and getting reinforcements if able. Probably some GMs play that up more than others, but it happening with some frequency is a default assumption of the game.
I'm not all that familiar with many of the 2e APs themselves, can you give me some examples where the total encounter strength reaches extreme or tpk range? I'd like to get an idea of the kinds of threat level the published stuff goes with. If most of it isn't landing there, or there is significant delay in the reinforcements, then I can see why it wouldn't be all that large a concern. The only losers there are barbarian and inventor who might get hosed by the 60 second lockout on their damage fixer.

Gortle |
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Yeah, I held back on mentioning it because lots of people do play as though ten minute rests are guaranteed, but let's not pretend that's at all universal.
In my games you are certainly not given that guarantee. Whilst storming a castle, for example, 10 minutes is an absolute eternity.
I think this needs more discussion and maybe its own thread. These unwritten conventions in the games. Number of encounters per day varies a lot. Availability of 10 minute rests varies a lot.
In inactive dungeon crawls getting a ten minutes rest is easy. In many wilderness adventures you can take whatever time you need. But when you are in a building, it doesn't take ten minutes to get to the next room. This fundamentally alters the nature of the game. Encounters are balanced on the assumption that PCs are at full health. That is often just not true if they don't get ten minute breaks.
So do you assume the break and ignore the time frame for game balance reasons, or do you apply realism and push into the next encounter?
It should be discussed in the game master guide.....

Deriven Firelion |

Unicore wrote:I mean, many of the APs have encounters that directly reference enemies going and getting reinforcements if able. Probably some GMs play that up more than others, but it happening with some frequency is a default assumption of the game.I'm not all that familiar with many of the 2e APs themselves, can you give me some examples where the total encounter strength reaches extreme or tpk range? I'd like to get an idea of the kinds of threat level the published stuff goes with. If most of it isn't landing there, or there is significant delay in the reinforcements, then I can see why it wouldn't be all that large a concern. The only losers there are barbarian and inventor who might get hosed by the 60 second lockout on their damage fixer.
A minute lockdown is a lot easier to find than 10 minutes.
There are quite a few APs with groups of encounters that set off a series of encounters that is nearly non-stop. A house of gang members. A lich with undead servants. A xulgath ambush.
That's when you need healing and sometimes social skills can come in handy to talk to the enemy or distract them while the barbarian rests a minute. It depends on the set up.

Temperans |
WatersLethe wrote:Yeah, I held back on mentioning it because lots of people do play as though ten minute rests are guaranteed, but let's not pretend that's at all universal.
In my games you are certainly not given that guarantee. Whilst storming a castle, for example, 10 minutes is an absolute eternity.
I think this needs more discussion and maybe its own thread. These unwritten conventions in the games. Number of encounters per day varies a lot. Availability of 10 minute rests varies a lot.
In inactive dungeon crawls getting a ten minutes rest is easy. In many wilderness adventures you can take whatever time you need. But when you are in a building, it doesn't take ten minutes to get to the next room. This fundamentally alters the nature of the game. Encounters are balanced on the assumption that PCs are at full health. That is often just not true if they don't get ten minute breaks.
So do you assume the break and ignore the time frame for game balance reasons, or do you apply realism and push into the next encounter?
It should be discussed in the game master guide.....
I never liked the idea of assuming the party was at full health because it makes the whole HP thing a lot less understandable. If the system had stamina and that was always at full at the start of combat maybe, but that is not how the system works.

SuperBidi |

I mean, many of the APs have encounters that directly reference enemies going and getting reinforcements if able. Probably some GMs play that up more than others, but it happening with some frequency is a default assumption of the game.
At levels 7 to 13, yes you can use consumables to heal, daily spells, multiple characters with battle medicine, there are plenty of "OH No! Things have gotten out of hand..." resources that a party can have on hand and pushing it all back onto the GM never to necessitate their use is kind of an unfair assumption to make as a player. It can't be all the time, and good dungeon design should give players opportunities to establish safe points to rest/hide and camps that enemies won't want to follow them to, but it should also have stakes that make the choice about whether to rest or not tie into how effectively the players are managing their infiltration/assault on the base or dungeon. The AP writers for paizo are pretty good at providing this variety in their dungeon design.
This is very different from what you stated earlier when saying that "In the level 8 to 13 games I am mostly in right now, It would likely only be getting used once or twice per dungeon" which means at most one rest per dungeon.
Of course, I don't assume that I'll always have a 10-minute rest between fights, but before level 15 it's the basic assumption.At level 15+, between Wands of Heal and the feats to get extra focus points, you can drop the number of 10-minute rests without affecting too much the balance of the game.
But before level 12, telling the Wild Shape Druid that they'll have to mostly fight in druid form will pretty surely drive the players off the table (or off the character).
I think this needs more discussion and maybe its own thread. These unwritten conventions in the games. Number of encounters per day varies a lot. Availability of 10 minute rests varies a lot.
It can be a nice discussion. Pace varies a lot between levels. Very slow at low level unless you want to bathe your PCs in potions to extremely quick at high level as players want to capitalize on buffs as much as possible.
I've realized when playing Night of the Grey Death how Quick Identification is paramount at high level. No one in the party thought about taking it so we were not identifying items while exploring (which was a problem when an item was necessary to move forward).

Unicore |
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Collapsed fights means there are only 2 or 3 big fights (each composed of 2 to 4 encounters that trigger on top of each other in waves) in a dungeon, with encounters that can last 10 to 15 rounds. So focus spells with a duration are fine because you get your full duration out of them. It is the single burst focus spells that become more problematic and I agree that the psychic class and the tempest Druid are the ones more likely to struggle, especially as spell slot casters tend to do better in these dungeons.
I’d also point out that these kind of dungeons are not the only encounter experience in APs, the just tend to pop up once or twice a book so they tend to be 20 to 30 percent of encounters…but then 20 to 30 percent of encounters also tend to be singular set price encounters that are one encounter in the day, and then 10 to 20 percent (more in more recent APs) of encounters are social encounters that sometimes lead into the big set piece encounter for the day, so series of short PFS style encounters are often in that 30% range too. All this is to not say never, but limited enough not to project a reliable base line encounter condition that building for will result in the most optimal playing experience. The amped guidance is in a better position for this than the amped imaginary weapon magus for sure. It is just an extra thing you can do, not the basis for your character’s whole build.
I still think focus spell tricks won’t be over all game balance shifting for the same reason scroll usage didn’t make much of a shift in the way people look at caster balance. Table variance in downtime and rest breaks makes dialing in a “normalized” play experience problematic, and GMs are much better off talking to their players about the pace everyone wants to set and what that will mean mechanically. If the GM gets the sense that one player is demanding a specific pace for their own character optimization and it is interfering with the pace the rest of the table wants to set, it is not an overall game balance issue, it is a table expectation issue. GMs might not realize this and having one PC build to optimize focus spells while another builds to optimize long down time crafting/rituals and spell slots can cause table issues when one player has nothing they really want to do in downtime except get to the next fight while the other player needs 20 to 30 minutes of planning and building, only for the situation to flip in a string of combat encounters.
You collectively “optimize” to the campaign and party expectation and everyone has fun. You individually optimize to the game without considering campaign and other players at the table play expectations and you strongly risk creating an unfun experience for others.
PFS is a different thing, but is deliberately balanced around a slightly lower optimization point because tactical cohesion (the real root of PF2 optimization) is much more difficult to establish or predict.

gesalt |

20-30% is a fair bit less than what I was expecting from the way you were talking about it. It was sounding like it was your default combat type. Although, I can't say I expected single encounter days outside of hexploration either. I think I can count the times I've seen those in any system on my hands.
That said, most optimization testing I've seen or done involves 4-6 consecutive severe and extreme encounters with rests in-between for a single adventuring day. If we condense that into 2-3 encounters and split the severe encounters into two moderate waves and the extremes into three moderate waves or one moderate, one severe that should probably simulate the upper end of difficulty I think. I can't imagine low encounters, even as part of a wave, will amount to anything impactful except to weaken the barbarian and inventor if they activate their damage fixer too early or to bait parties with monsters they're unfamiliar with to waste resources.
Would any of you say that's an accurate representation of wave threat level relative to their actual xp value? And how long do you usually give before reinforcements show?

SuperBidi |

Would any of you say that's an accurate representation of wave threat level relative to their actual xp value? And how long do you usually give before reinforcements show?
If your waves are making an all-out offense, you can expect 1 round to get rid of a trivial encounter, 2 rounds to get rid of a Moderate encounter and 3 for a Severe (4 on paper for an Extreme but if you put Extreme encounters in the middle of a wave battle I think you're looking for a TPK).
I'd avoid Severe encounters as early waves as they are the ones that can spiral out of control when luck decides to be on your side. I'd also avoid them at the last wave as your PCs should be quite wear off at the end of all these waves. I personally stick to Moderate encounters when playing such sequences and the tension is definitely there.
Unicore |

20-30% is about as "Default" an encounter type as I tend to see, because there are so many different kinds of encounter types.
Often times these "wave" encounters happen on larger maps with two or three rounds of movement between "encounter pods", but having everyone just rush forward into melee is not usually how they go for me. There will usually be clear objectives that some of the groups are trying to accomplish that the party does not want the enemy to accomplish: Captives being loaded on a boat; water rushing in to drown prisoners in a cage that have to be set free while enemies attack the party; A ritual going on that needs to be stopped; A boss that guards are trying to alert while they try to alert the rest of the dungeon as well; A creature that can teleport into the dungeon and see through artifacts through out the dungeon that is waiting for the party to stumble into an encounter before teleporting in to try to grab a PC and run off. Often times, these objectives become dynamic and change half-way through the encounter. Focusing exclusively on the enemies that are trying to rush forward and get into melee is usually the way that more reinforcements get summoned and encounters get more challenging. (These were all AP or official adventure situations I have encountered, not my homebrew campaign)
At the mid range levels of 8 to 13:
They are very often composed of "moderate encounters," usually not more than 4, but sometimes it will be a low encounter of level -4 or level -3 creatures in large numbers spread out in a general defense of an encounter area, a couple of level +1 or 2 creatures that are bosses (Moderate encounters of their own in their own separate rooms), and usually at least one moderate encounter of level or level -1 creatures that can easily be a 10 plus creature encounter. Very, very often, there will also be some kind of trap or hazard or serious environmental impediment that is worth having at least one group work to bring into play as much as possible, even if it means not having them focus on killing the party (Pathfinder APs are very good at giving you something to work with in their moderate/large encounter dungeons. Sometimes, going incredibly agro with these are the TPK traps that get a lot of attention in AP discussions).
Instead of trying to track what all the different creatures are doing all that time, it is usually easiest to just have a sense of how long it will take each group to prepare and what their course of action will be in facing an unknown situation in advance, and then having rough numbers in your head as a GM about when to throw them at the board and at what entry point.
A lot will depend on intelligence, purpose and just what will be fun. If you have a big map with some exploitable terrain, getting the party to have to move before even more trouble gets brought into the picture is a great way of keeping these long encounters tense and dynamic. Also, having a coward, traitor or self-motivated ambitious scoundrel in the mix somewhere is another great way to break up a long encounter situation into one that feels like several little encounters at once, which I think is the real sweet spot for the wave encounter. A combat encounter that temporarily pauses as it turns into a negotiation can allow a beat up party to reinforce, move, pick up downed characters, and give them a chance to regroup, even if combat is very likely to break out again. But if the foe thinks they might convince the party to go and fight a third enemy instead, in exchange for not forcing a total blood bath on both sides, they might find it worth trying to negotiate even if they don't think their desired outcome will be likely.
It may not always make the most militaristic sense for encounter groups to do, but even evil mean monsters have dreams and goals that they would love to have fall into their laps with as little work as possible. Having enemies de-escalate a combat, even just for a couple of rounds, when they have have a good reason to do so can let a GM get a lot more character into the NPCs and even give the PCs opportunities to gain more information and salvage a situation that starts to backfire on them if they seem like they are struggling either with solving a mystery or just a difficult combat. I have also found that doing this with the powerful enemies encourages the PCs to offer enemies the chance to surrender and make deals and has given multiple tables really memorable sessions and characters.
Focus point options really do shine brightest in the 4 to 6 spread out encounters over the course of an adventuring day, I just haven't found that to be even close to 50% of plausible AP encounter distributions, so that is why I am so cautious about putting it forward as an "obvious" best optimization plan for characters. I also think GMs who get a feeling like their players are over cheesing powerful focus spell options are the bigger threat to game balance and everyone having fun at a table, far more than one player outshining others, as that is usually pretty easy to talk about and fix as a party. "Hey, let's all make sure to pick up focus spell options and know that we will tend to retreat or avoid overcommitting to difficult fights when that resource is depleted, rather than having one or more players feel like they are ruining the fun for everyone else."

gesalt |

I recall some of those scenarios from AoA. The combats involved weren't particularly difficult as I recall so the time pressure wasn't felt too much.
Whether its enemies running into melee or circumstances forcing the party to be the one to run in doesn't particularly matter I think. So long as the party doesn't have the option of falling back to reset it should fit as a test. However, I'll be sure to frame tests as requiring the party to push hard and fast into unknown territory to maximize enemy use of traps, fortifications and prevent the party from benefitting from any battlefield control previously used like walls or retreating in general.
My general objective is, above all else, to know what works and what doesn't at the upper edge of difficulty so that any party I join or player I advise ends up better off than before. I'm primarily a player so I'm not all that concerned with fun encounter design as I am with pure effectiveness under difficult conditions. I've found that players feel worse about not being as good as the other guy than about the other guy being better than them. For example, a swashbuckler jumped through their hoops to do their thing while the fighter did it effortlessly and with a better result. They weren't mad about the fighter being stronger, they were mad about the swashbuckler being weaker.
Hence, 4 to 6 severe to extreme encounters. If waves wind up mostly analogous to severe or extreme encounters, then there might not be much practical difference. If a party can push through consecutive high difficulty encounters where they can't rely on 10 minute buffs for any more than 1 encounter, regardless of type, at a time, that should be a good indicator of being able to handle just about anything standard APs or GMs throw at them, or so the rationale goes.

SuperBidi |

Just to try being somewhat on topic, amp guidance has gotten plenty of discussion, but what about the other tools psychic dedication brings to the table. Amp warp step...
Amp Warp Step is definitely incredible. But you have to be level 7 for that, before that it's just nice. Still, even if the effect is absolutely out of bounds (a one action Dimension Door for a Focus Point...) you won't need it much often unless your GM loves complex battlefields with a lot of moving involved. It's circumstantial.
Amp Shield is really strong on casters. First because they often have third actions available and second because they also have reactions available. But I wouldn't take it on a martial, I find it impractical to use because of the need to Sustain it. And on a Champion, you can just Lay on Hands for a bigger healing output without using one of your precious reactions.

Deriven Firelion |
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20-30% is a fair bit less than what I was expecting from the way you were talking about it. It was sounding like it was your default combat type. Although, I can't say I expected single encounter days outside of hexploration either. I think I can count the times I've seen those in any system on my hands.
That said, most optimization testing I've seen or done involves 4-6 consecutive severe and extreme encounters with rests in-between for a single adventuring day. If we condense that into 2-3 encounters and split the severe encounters into two moderate waves and the extremes into three moderate waves or one moderate, one severe that should probably simulate the upper end of difficulty I think. I can't imagine low encounters, even as part of a wave, will amount to anything impactful except to weaken the barbarian and inventor if they activate their damage fixer too early or to bait parties with monsters they're unfamiliar with to waste resources.
Would any of you say that's an accurate representation of wave threat level relative to their actual xp value? And how long do you usually give before reinforcements show?
I couldn't give a percentage as it depends on module and encounter.
One example is a house for a gang of robbers. PCs had to raid the house. It was a non-stop fight until they located the leaders. They were moving room by room and floor by floor engaging. The opponent was alerted after the first fight and started to form a resistance force. They could not blow off all their focus powers quickly or they would be lacking for quite a few fights.
My expectation for players is similar to other editions: use the force necessary to win. My big problem with a game like 4E was the use of powers like encounter powers which had the expectation of being used each encounter and recharged after each encounter. That set up the DM for incredibly bad pacing and storytelling. I had players blowing off encounter powers against generic kobold warrior just because they felt they were wasted if not used during an encounter.
The way I like to run things is use minimal or near minimal necessary force to win. Then have resources you can ramp up if necessary to defeat stronger encounters. A good story has lots little fights with one or two big fights that require everything you got. Resources should be saved for those fights as blowing off your Amped Imaginary Weapon against redshirt guard number 3 makes your amped up powers seem like they are there for casual use. That is not how I would think of it within the framework of a story. If you're using your amps and unleashing psyche, that is something you would use for a big fight against something powerful. If you're popping it off all time, it doesn't look very powerful if it is overused.
I set up encounters with this idea in mind when I do a coordinated encounter like a raid on a base or fighting your way to a boss monster. You would need to preserve your stronger powers like focus powers for the boss monster than blow them on the regular guards expecting to recharge for each battle.
You can't have too many boss encounters or they seem too common as well. I try to set up encounters in a fashion that fits the narrative and expect the players to manage resources accordingly.

PossibleCabbage |
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Amp Shield is really strong on casters. First because they often have third actions available and second because they also have reactions available. But I wouldn't take it on a martial, I find it impractical to use because of the need to Sustain it.
Yeah, my martial (monk) that took the Psychic Archetype went tangible dream for shield, but I haven't bothered to amp it at all. I wanted a one action cantrip to trigger psi strikes on a flurry (this is as strong as ki strike, doesn't cost a focus spell, and comes with +1 AC), and Shield seemed like a better choice than guidance.

Squiggit |
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Resources should be saved for those fights as blowing off your Amped Imaginary Weapon against redshirt guard number 3 makes your amped up powers seem like they are there for casual use
I mean they kind of are. That's why they recharge so fast. Because they're designed to be used fairly frequently.
... NGL though I'm a little skeptical of the idea that using electric arc 20 times in a row because the GM doesn't want me using focus points too "casually" (whatever that means) somehow makes for a better story.

Unicore |

Deriven Firelion wrote:Resources should be saved for those fights as blowing off your Amped Imaginary Weapon against redshirt guard number 3 makes your amped up powers seem like they are there for casual useI mean they kind of are. That's why they recharge so fast. Because they're designed to be used fairly frequently.
... NGL though I'm a little skeptical of the idea that using electric arc 20 times in a row because the GM doesn't want me using focus points too "casually" (whatever that means) somehow makes for a better story.
I think this is an interesting point. Why are you thinking you should use electric arc 20 times in wave encounters? The premise of this thread was largely about martials dipping psychic for focus powers, right? Martial characters generally should have better options than cantrips poached off Archetypes in these situations.
Casters on the other hand should be casting spells from their spell slots, staves and scrolls in wave based encounters for sure. Durational spells that control the battlefield, debuff for a while or buff Allies really shine in these situations, as do AoE. You want to be judicious and not burn through all your spells in the first 3 rounds, but that shouldn’t be hard by level 5 or 6. If your focus spells are durational, then using them when it is clear you’ve really stirred up the hornets nest will feel great, and you’ll get a ton of use out of them.
It is the single target/single effect focus spells that you might not want to burn your focus points for until you are sure you can identify the boss creature for this immediate group of encounters area. Saving your spell slots too judiciously when you have 3 or more per spell level is likely going to mean you end up with a ton of unused spells at the end of the day, or worse, you had spells that could have saved someone’s life if you had been casting spells in the lulls while the enemy forces were regrouping/moving.
It is the psychic alone that is in a bit of a bind in these encounter cluster situations, but with staves, scrolls and other items, they can get into a rythym with their psyche, that isn’t terrible. They just won’t shine as much as they will in the short burst 3 round encounters that also occasionally happen.

Squiggit |

I think this is an interesting point. Why are you thinking you should use electric arc 20 times in wave encounters? The premise of this thread was largely about martials dipping psychic for focus powers, right? Martial characters generally should have better options than cantrips poached off Archetypes in these situations.
A martial would, but the part of the premise I was replying to was denying characters access to 10 minute rests because they shouldn't be wasting resources (including focus points) on trivial encounters. If you're running a campaign that way, it isn't going to be just the martials affected by it, casters are going to suffer a lot more.
For a psychic especially, who only has a couple of spell slots and the focus spells they should be recharging frequently but don't get to, avoiding spending resources means using something like electric arc. Over and over.

SuperBidi |
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I set up encounters with this idea in mind when I do a coordinated encounter like a raid on a base or fighting your way to a boss monster. You would need to preserve your stronger powers like focus powers for the boss monster than blow them on the regular guards expecting to recharge for each battle.
Same with Rage? The Barbarian should keep it for the boss and never rage in between?
Focus Powers are not "strong powers", quite the opposite, they are meant to be used on a per encounter basis, like Rage or Overdrive.
As a GM, you can change this expectation, but it comes with effects on balance (Psychic, Oracle and Wild Druids becoming second class classes). I don't feel it's for the best of the game.
If I was designing dungeons in a way that puts aside a whole category of builds, I'd certainly think of a way to give them their power back, like reducing Refocus to a 1-minute activity.

Deriven Firelion |
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Deriven Firelion wrote:I set up encounters with this idea in mind when I do a coordinated encounter like a raid on a base or fighting your way to a boss monster. You would need to preserve your stronger powers like focus powers for the boss monster than blow them on the regular guards expecting to recharge for each battle.Same with Rage? The Barbarian should keep it for the boss and never rage in between?
Focus Powers are not "strong powers", quite the opposite, they are meant to be used on a per encounter basis, like Rage or Overdrive.
As a GM, you can change this expectation, but it comes with effects on balance (Psychic, Oracle and Wild Druids becoming second class classes). I don't feel it's for the best of the game.If I was designing dungeons in a way that puts aside a whole category of builds, I'd certainly think of a way to give them their power back, like reducing Refocus to a 1-minute activity.
Depends on the focus power. Some are quite potent, while others are weak which has more to do with bad balance on focus powers.
Powers that recharge in a minute can be used quite a bit more often. Barbarian rage is fairly easy to get back and they have feats to get them back should you say get knocked unconscious. It's pretty easy to find 60 seconds or 10 rounds of downtime.
If they wanted focus powers to be used on a per encounter basis, they should have made the recharge time less than 10 minutes or timed how long it takes to move from one encounter to another. Thus it might be considered bad design picking such an arbitrary time.
But I don't see it as that. They put feats to allow PCs to use their powers for more encounters or for emergencies. Those feats are in the game because you aren't always going to have access to your focus powers. You may need to call on emergency reserves or a character may want to fight in multiple successive battles in a battle form.
Powers I see as being used per encounter are either at use powers or have a 1 minute duration with multiple uses per day to be managed like spells.
Focus powers are little abilities you use to provide a boost in key circumstances to win. You don't need a focus power to beat standard guards. Focus powers are that extra boost here and there.
I have had no problem having them used in that fashion.

Deriven Firelion |

Deriven Firelion wrote:Resources should be saved for those fights as blowing off your Amped Imaginary Weapon against redshirt guard number 3 makes your amped up powers seem like they are there for casual useI mean they kind of are. That's why they recharge so fast. Because they're designed to be used fairly frequently.
... NGL though I'm a little skeptical of the idea that using electric arc 20 times in a row because the GM doesn't want me using focus points too "casually" (whatever that means) somehow makes for a better story.
10 minutes isn't fast. Standard encounter fights take about 3 to 4 rounds. You can move between rooms in about the same. You could chain quite a few encounters without a 10 minute rest.
Now I can either look at this as incredibly bad design or I can look at it as designed appropriate so that a player could call on a little extra power with a focus power during a series of fights during a day.
I see the design as the latter. It's extra power throughout the day, but not necessary to make a class work or play well.
You want to use them often, you don't need to use them. Powers that should be used often have far faster recharge times like rage with a 1 minute or unleash psyche with a couple of rounds.
10 minute recharge times are far more like on demand powers to provide an extra boost when needed maybe every 3 to 4 encounters.

SuperBidi |
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10 minute recharge times are far more like on demand powers to provide an extra boost when needed maybe every 3 to 4 encounters.
You invalidate a lot of builds/classes with such a limitation. Psychic and Oracle are based on their Focus Powers.
You could chain quite a few encounters without a 10 minute rest.
Not really. At level 15+, you do. But before that, you don't chain anything as everyone needs healing. You can give a few potions to the party to chain 2 encounters when needed but if you want them to chain all their encounters then you need to drop more potions than what they're supposed to earn as loot.
So there's no real solution to regularly chain encounters before high levels. As such 10-minute rests are nearly always a given.Powers that recharge in a minute can be used quite a bit more often.
Obviously. But Exploration is cut in 10-minute periods so 10 minute is the smallest time period outside combat if you want to do anything (Treat Wounds, Identify a Magic Item, etc...). You can decide that the party can't do anything between combats, but it doesn't seem intended.
There are no guidance in the book about how much time there should be between encounters. But going under 10 minute rests between encounters will generate issues that should quickly lead to TPKs (or you'll have to use weird shenanigans to make it work).