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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.
Squiggit, I agree with you that these large dungeon environments that are designed to lead to encounters rolling over on to each other can provide challenges for focus spell casters, and talk specifically about the psychic in the post you replied to, as well as gave a bunch of suggestions 6 posts earlier for handling it as a GM when your party gets themselves into trouble with these kind of adventure scenarios.
The thing is, they clearly are an expected part of designed adventures because AP writers keep writing dungeons where encounters are expected to roll into one another. So it could be that building a character that always requires 10 minutes between fights without a back up plan for when that is not possible is a less optimal character.
Luckily every full caster, including psychics can easily be prepared with a pool of additional resources for encounters that grow beyond what you expect them to. Having different kinds of spells to cast, for different kinds of encounters, and access to scrolls staves and other spell casting options should be considered a default expectation of the game that optimal characters build around. Players can ignore that expectation, the same way they can ignore their AC, their primary attack attribute or their saves and still make fun and exciting characters…but their characters will also some times struggle, probably as often as in 20 to 30 percent of encounters.
Over optimization towards specific and limited combat expectations of the game can lead players to trouble in PF2. I have been saying this, and seeing this at the table since the start of the edition. My initial skepticism about psychic Multi-classing shifting the balance of the game stems from seeing 2 strong, but limited scope options being presented as obviously superior choices to options that might provide breadth or stamina to their character’s ability to handle the diversity of encounter types that PF2 adventures are built around, with the caveat that even within APs, but also between the different kinds of play available (PFS, home tables, play-by-post, online vs face to face, etc) the game supports many different kinds of play experience, and some options are suited more towards specific play experiences than others.
Psychic multi-classing for optimal focus point exploitation is often focused on single use abilities that take time to regenerate. There are styles of play where that will be incredible! There are styles of play where that will feel limiting and frustrating if you don’t have longer durational options for your character’s party specialization. PFS in particular is designed to have shorter encounters often with breaks between them. APs include some of that, but much less, and situations where the GM is not expected to facilitate lots of short breaks in every dungeon. Homebrew games will likely also include many different encounter types and dungeon designs. These are good conversations for session 0s in longer games where redesigning a character that is optimized to different game expectations might be difficult.
For the magus having 5-7 heavy hitting spells in an extreme or composite encounter is better than 4 and having a strictly better at will spell to spell strike well is strictly better.
But I always thought the magus should have its own poweful focus spells to keep them going with their limited spells slot so it makes sense that given the class doesn't provide it people would go fishing.
They... do. Conflux spells are great for action efficiency. It's just that they're not particularly something you want to pour into your spellstrike.
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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 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.
The fact that there are entire classes and 'subclasses' designed around using focus points regularly suggests otherwise.
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The thing is, they clearly are an expected part of designed adventures because AP writers keep writing dungeons where encounters are expected to roll into one another.What do you mean here though? Encounters where there are written mentions and conditions for enemies to go and attack PCs themselves or just relatively close groups of enemies which could be logically assumed by a GM to be very aware and active? Because if it's the latter, I wouldn't agree with your statement. GMs making dungeons more reactive because they like it and AP writers expecting that are two different things.
Going along with this, from those I've read, I've seen more APs and Adventures where they provide explicit, sometimes quite contrived, reasons why the rooms wouldn't collapse on each other rather than providing instructions on how they alert/collapse/etc. A lot of times when an alert does happen it's just 'they're ready and waiting for you' instead of '-2 initiative because they were arguing over a card game' or 'have to spend a round/action arming themselves.'
The thing is, they clearly are an expected part of designed adventures because AP writers keep writing dungeons where encounters are expected to roll into one another.What do you mean here though? Encounters where there are written mentions and conditions for enemies to go and attack PCs themselves or just relatively close groups of enemies which could be logically assumed by a GM to be very aware and active? Because if it's the latter, I wouldn't agree with your statement. GMs making dungeons more reactive because they like it and AP writers expecting that are two different things.
This is really a both and situation. There are plenty of open air dungeons where different enemy groups can see each other and are expected to react to disturbances. Sometimes these are explicitly spelled out in the module themselves, sometimes the reaction is not so spelled out and it is left to GM prerogative. The GM's job is to balance the pacing so the adventure feels fun and believable to everyone at the table, which is going to mean different things to different tables. PFS have much more carefully contrived encounter situations that APs and homebrew adventures. The expectations between them will change.
My entire argument this entire time has not been "Focus powers are terrible, don't think about them in your character build." My argument is that especially MC focus spell options that commit characters to certain attribute distributions and archetype paths will have a limited impact on the overall game balance and player expectation because PF2 is not a game where characters do the same thing over and over again. Not enough to make a strategy that works well 20-30% of the time enough to make that option feel "obvious" or required.
Any GM that is pre-emptively planning on limiting certain options at character building because they are convinced they are going to ruin the fun of their entire party (as has been brought up in this thread) has numerous other resources available to them to help other characters have time to shine as well, and letting characters have opportunities to shine is a good thing for your gaming table experience.
As a GM if a character has 2-3 Focus points with appropriate refocus, I want there to be times when they consider not spending all of them in every fight because they won't have time to recharge before the next fight. Obviously this is not every fight, but any time there's a metacurrency you want there to be an argument to both spend it or not.
Obviously the structure of a campaign is going to have a lot to say about this. You have an easier time justifying "time pressure" in with a party of a Fighter, a Ranger, a Summoner, and a Bard than you do with a Oracle, a Psychic, a Monk, and a Magus.
But like if you're doing a campaign where the party are pirates who engage in piracy, you're going to have time to refocus between attacks on other ships, but if the attack on the ship is broken down into several encounters then you're not likely to have time to refocus during *MAXIMUM CHAOS* in which people are constantly fighting all around you. You might even do some of this with victory points.
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My experience is that I refocus after a fight 90% of the time (I play both PFS, APs and adventures). Of course, it's not a given, but it's very close to it.
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I'm not going to spend a lot of time arguing this. I've been DMing PF2 for a few years now. Never had any problems with chained encounters with my players. Sure, some would prefer always having maxed out focus points, but I don't play that way and it hasn't hurt their ability to succeed.
Focus point powers are not required. You can chain encounters just fine without letting people recover focus points or even do 10 minute heals. Experienced players know how to ration abilities for big fights. They know I run games this way. I like the way the game pacing feels with a pacing like small fight, moderate fight, moderate fight, severe fight or something like that for chained or wave encounters.
I like to incorporate battles where the players are spent and feel like they barely survived against a powerful enemy. Out of focus points, out of heal fonts, out of spells, and generally taken to the line of death.
I know that all players don't enjoy that. No one style is better than another. It's how I like to tell stories and DM.
Not all the time. There are plenty of times when players get time to rest so they can use all their abilities as often as they like. But there are times when they will be pushed and run low and have to think about when to use their powers. I usually cue them when that is going to happen as a DM so they know a tough series of fights is coming and to be ready for it.
It's good to have a mix of encounters to make the players feel different levels of challenge and even sometimes feel like they might die. At least I've always been able to make games feel fun playing that way and better emulate "everything is on the line including your life" style of fantasy storytelling.
Very well said Deriven. I can't say I'd enjoy that kind of game, but the important thing is that YOUR table enjoys what you all sit down to play, and from the various stories you've relayed that is clearly the case.
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I think "different sort of games have different assumptions" is the basic reason you can't say "x class/x build is the strongest option available." and part of why white room stuff isn't really that useful.
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I'm not going to spend a lot of time arguing this. I've been DMing PF2 for a few years now. Never had any problems with chained encounters with my players. Sure, some would prefer always having maxed out focus points, but I don't play that way and it hasn't hurt their ability to succeed.
Who is arguing. That is the point. People do it very differently.
It makes a difference to balance. It makes a difference when we are talking about the value of focus point abilities.
In my Abomination Vaults game the players rested almost every time. I did the first section of Kingmaker this week (different group). The players felt they had time pressure so they did the east wing, took one ten minute break then did the west wing. 3 encounters each side I think. Actually as a GM I made them take a break as they were hurt and had some NPCs to talk to.
If they have been really hurt in a prior encounter they would have been forced to stop earlier, and as a GM I would have come up with some complication as a result...
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It's weird to me that players would object to 3 fights without a 10 minute rest in between when they wouldn't object to one long fight with two waves of reinforcements that consist of the same opponents.
Like if you have ~1 minute between fights, that at least gives you the opportunity to cast healing spells or quaff potions.
It's weird to me that players would object to 3 fights without a 10 minute rest in between when they wouldn't object to one long fight with two waves of reinforcements that consist of the same opponents.
Like if you have ~1 minute between fights, that at least gives you the opportunity to cast healing spells or quaff potions.
These are two different scenarios. In one of them, you might make those 1 minute buffs do more heavy lifting and get more value out of AoE blasting or control as the old and new waves clump together. In the other, you can pop some potions.
But I'm starting to find neither particularly matters. A 2-3 encounter day composed of waves isn't significantly different from a 2-3 encounter day of individual severe or extreme encounters. They're a little easier without complex hazards between fights and harder with them. The shorter adventuring day is ultimately easier to deal with than an extended 4-6 encounter day no matter how the encounters are structured.
That's where I was getting myself tripped up. Combining weak encounters together in waves isn't actually much of a difficulty change from just running harder encounters to start with. You get less value out of short duration buffs, but you get that back and maybe more in better level matchups and/or action economy.
In terms of difficulty and resource expenditure, I suspect running 4-6 wave encounters will be much the same as running 4-6 typical severe or extreme encounters outside of waves taking longer to resolve. If this is the case, then the whole thing really is a wash.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time arguing this. I've been DMing PF2 for a few years now. Never had any problems with chained encounters with my players. Sure, some would prefer always having maxed out focus points, but I don't play that way and it hasn't hurt their ability to succeed.
Who is arguing. That is the point. People do it very differently.
It makes a difference to balance. It makes a difference when we are talking about the value of focus point abilities.
In my Abomination Vaults game the players rested almost every time. I did the first section of Kingmaker this week (different group). The players felt they had time pressure so they did the east wing, took one ten minute break then did the west wing. 3 encounters each side I think. Actually as a GM I made them take a break as they were hurt and had some NPCs to talk to.
If they have been really hurt in a prior encounter they would have been forced to stop earlier, and as a GM I would have come up with some complication as a result...
Some seem to be debating that focus points are necessary between encounters and that not allowing ten minute rests between nearly every encounter somehow hurts the ability of a class. That is completely foreign to my experience playing PF2.
I have never found focus points to be necessary for any class. Near as I can tell focus points are a way to do something extraordinary every few battles, not every single encounter.
In fact, I've run several battles where the difficulty was high enough that focus points weren't even desirable to use because the players needed to use other abilities to win.
An example of this is my shadow sorcerer who has these nifty focus abilities he rarely uses because he's so busy supporting the martials and group with casting support.
I've been in a group with an oracle that had to spend all their time healing and casting spell support as well. They were rarely able to use their focus spells, and yet the class was still highly effective.
Add in saves against focus point abilities making it so they do nothing or next to nothing even for oracles and psychics, I feel confident that getting them back every encounter is not necessary to balance or any other aspect of the game other than personal preference of some players.
There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.
There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.
At the tables I've been in, people don't waste 10 minutes for Refocusing. If the only thing that is lacking is a Focus Point people will generaly move on with the next fight. But they definitely spend time either healing or identifying items/interacting with the dungeon. So, on average, everyone can refocus freely during most fights. And if you don't do that you end up with TPKs because PCs start fights with not enough hit points to handle them.
So, I fail to see how you play. There must be assumptions in your games that compensate for the lack of rest otherwise your dungeons would be too deadly. Is it the difficulty of encounters that are tuned down, healing through items that is improved or whatever, but there is a difference somewhere.
One thing to keep in mind is how long Every exploration activity takes. 10 minutes. You walk into a room, win the encounter, then take ten minutes. You medicine, refocus, search, identify, etc. The game almost tells you to take ten in every room, do your most important thing unless your all set and then you help search.
Personally I think if you need to collapse fights that might not otherwise come together to make a challenge, you might need to think on why those fights are there in the first place. Fights should either be challenging in one way or another or they need to be set pieces that tie into the story. I know there's a fair amount of AP fights that are just cakewalks with the idea it makes players feel good to get a victory. That's fine once in a great while, otherwise if those fights aren't setting up story hooks or fun interesting situations then they are just wasting your players time.
You can't hyper focus a character in to focus spell spam so it's fine if you miss a refocus once every few fights, but only getting it once in a while can make things like a wildshape or clinging shadows initiate build feel kinda terrible.
I have never found focus points to be necessary for any class. Near as I can tell focus points are a way to do something extraordinary every few battles, not every single encounter.
The main thrust of the Druid class that makes it a better class is that they have simple obvious good focus spells. That focus spell is worth a spell slot of maybe one level down on their top slots, every time they are allowed at least one ten minute break. Psychic and Oracle all get strong focus spells as a core feature of the class.
Other classes like Wizards get get spell slots, Bards and Witches get special cantrips. They need the ten minutes much less.
Likewise if your healing is medicine, battle medicine or focus point based then you have a ten minute cool down. If it is based on the extra heals of a Cleric, then not so much. Sometimes a group needs a stack of good healing potions.
Just like I consider getting a commonly useful reaction as being a big power upgrade, getting at least one useful focus spell is a power and/or endurance upgrade for a PC.
Back to your question, is it necessary? No. But it is a shift in relative value of the classes. Every party should be able to handle a few encounters in a row without rest. The healing issue can kill it though. If the party is way down on HP, then they are more or less obliged to retreat at a certain point if they can't rest.
The class that is most affected by this would be the Psychic.
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There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.At the tables I've been in, people don't waste 10 minutes for Refocusing. If the only thing that is lacking is a Focus Point people will generaly move on with the next fight. But they definitely spend time either healing or identifying items/interacting with the dungeon. So, on average, everyone can refocus freely during most fights. And if you don't do that you end up with TPKs because PCs start fights with not enough hit points to handle them.
So, I fail to see how you play. There must be assumptions in your games that compensate for the lack of rest otherwise your dungeons would be too deadly. Is it the difficulty of encounters that are tuned down, healing through items that is improved or whatever, but there is a difference somewhere.
It depends on the fight and the level. Sometimes you walk into a fight, position well, and destroy everything. Sometimes the fight is hard. There are a lot of factors involved in encounters.
The main factors I see that differ in our games than many I hear talk on here is we use Stealth and range a lot, we set up encounters positionally to our advantage using choke points, and we don't engage everything from 30 feet. We are quite happy letting ranged attackers soften targets prior to engagement. We like to let the enemy waste their round of actions moving to us while we drop their hit points with ranged attacks so they arrive already on the way to dead.
On here it seems like a lot of people start fights within 30 foot range and roll initiative. Whereas our group will usually engage from the distance of our ranged capability or around 100 feet or more.
I consider Reach Spell one of the best metamagic feats in the game because it allows you to engage from farther away. If the opponent does not have range capability, we're quite happy to hammer them from an advantageous position that takes them forever to get to us.
We like to use hallways and doors to choke off the number of combatants who can engage at one time. We like softening with AoE spells, using walls to further seal off numbers from attacking, and the like.
So when we build groups, we consider ranged strikers to be highly useful and an archer and ranged spellcaster nearly essential to group composition for force advantage. I read threads on this forum talking about archery like it's a lousy form of combat, where we consider archery an essential part of group composition and rarely create groups without at least ones specialized archer (this has been across all editions including 5E and PF1).
There are few greater force multipliers in combat even in tactical RPG games than superior ranged combat and movement capability. The players often have far superior abilities in these areas than the monsters they face. We have always used this advantage over every edition of D&D or PF. It seems like not many other groups do this, though I could be wrong.
I consider archery, stealth, dexterity, and invisibility some of the very best abilities to build up for nearly any class in PF2. PF2 has been the easiest edition of PF/D&D to make stealthy, high mobility, ranged hammer groups.
I have never found focus points to be necessary for any class. Near as I can tell focus points are a way to do something extraordinary every few battles, not every single encounter.The main thrust of the Druid class that makes it a better class is that they have simple obvious good focus spells. That focus spell is worth a spell slot of maybe one level down on their top slots, every time they are allowed at least one ten minute break. Psychic and Oracle all get strong focus spells as a core feature of the class.
Other classes like Wizards get get spell slots, Bards and Witches get special cantrips. They need the ten minutes much less.
Likewise if your healing is medicine, battle medicine or focus point based then you have a ten minute cool down. If it is based on the extra heals of a Cleric, then not so much. Sometimes a group needs a stack of good healing potions.
Just like I consider getting a commonly useful reaction as being a big power upgrade, getting at least one useful focus spell is a power and/or endurance upgrade for a PC.
Back to your question, is it necessary? No. But it is a shift in relative value of the classes. Every party should be able to handle a few encounters in a row without rest. The healing issue can kill it though. If the party is way down on HP, then they are more or less obliged to retreat at a certain point if they can't rest.
The class that is most affected by this would be the Psychic.
One guy is running his first psychic. I'll see how it plays. He definitely wants to use his focus points and unleash psyche every battle.
I've read both abilities. I don't think he should be using them each battle myself. In fact, doing so might be highly detrimental as he will become too focused on singular use of certain powers over using other abilities that may be more appropriate.
Unleash psyche stupefies you at its end which would require him to make a DC 7 flat check for every spellcasting after that for two rounds. Very dangerous. Amping his abilities is a nice boost damage, but he does pretty good with just the cantrips themselves without amping. He would be fine waiting to amp against bosses or in hard fights. Amping a Forbidden Thought on Guard Number 3 seems like a waste of an ability. Amping a Forbidden Thought against Boss Giant Monster is a good use of the ability.
So far he feel I get for the psychic is the base improved cantrips are nice for regular combat. Amped cantrips are for tough fights and boss killing along with unleashed psyche. They should be used accordingly as they are limited resources with unleashed psyche having a pretty big downside after a few rounds of use.
I'll get more of a feel for the class as I DM it more.
I think the thing about builds that need to have a focus point to do their schtick (e.g. wild shape druids, clinging shadows monks) is that since it's very easy to get a pool of 3 focus points but you only need one focus point to wild shape or enter the stance then it's fair to give people a stretch in the adventuring day with three straight combats without a rest but you should probably stop at three. Doing two fights then a break can be fairly sustainable.
I'd consider making it four in case we people have taken those familiar options or ancestry feats that give you an extra focus once per day (since otherwise those aren't very useful.)
I assuming based on what he said about his oracle that they are playing a heal bot and dedicating the majority of their spell casting resources to hp.There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.At the tables I've been in, people don't waste 10 minutes for Refocusing. If the only thing that is lacking is a Focus Point people will generaly move on with the next fight. But they definitely spend time either healing or identifying items/interacting with the dungeon. So, on average, everyone can refocus freely during most fights. And if you don't do that you end up with TPKs because PCs start fights with not enough hit points to handle them.
So, I fail to see how you play. There must be assumptions in your games that compensate for the lack of rest otherwise your dungeons would be too deadly. Is it the difficulty of encounters that are tuned down, healing through items that is improved or whatever, but there is a difference somewhere.
The oracle was an ancestor oracle with a monk archetype that liked to melee. The particular encounter was one where the damage done by the enemy was so high that the main healer and the back up healer oracle had to focus on healing or we were going to get taken out.
I've found in PF2 the encounter dictates what you will do, so best not to get too attached to a particular mode of play. You might run into encounters where doing something else other than a standard attack sequence is a better option.
PF2 is built to be really versatile with even casters able to build for some martial capability. So our group has tended to start building more well rounded, versatile characters who can do a bit of everything while still focusing on core abilities.
There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.At the tables I've been in, people don't waste 10 minutes for Refocusing. If the only thing that is lacking is a Focus Point people will generaly move on with the next fight. But they definitely spend time either healing or identifying items/interacting with the dungeon. So, on average, everyone can refocus freely during most fights. And if you don't do that you end up with TPKs because PCs start fights with not enough hit points to handle them.
So, I fail to see how you play. There must be assumptions in your games that compensate for the lack of rest otherwise your dungeons would be too deadly. Is it the difficulty of encounters that are tuned down, healing through items that is improved or whatever, but there is a difference somewhere.
It depends on the fight and the level. Sometimes you walk into a fight, position well, and destroy everything. Sometimes the fight is hard. There are a lot of factors involved in encounters.
The main factors I see that differ in our games than many I hear talk on here is we use Stealth and range a lot, we set up encounters positionally to our advantage using choke points, and we don't engage everything from 30 feet. We are quite happy letting ranged attackers soften targets prior to engagement. We like to let the enemy waste their round of actions moving to us while we drop their hit points with ranged attacks so they arrive already on the way to dead.
On here it seems like a lot of people start fights within 30 foot range and roll initiative. Whereas our group will usually engage from the distance of our ranged capability or around 100 feet or more.
I consider Reach...
I see. You have a style of play that I compare to Mathmuse one: a lot of setup for combats.
I play in environments where this is not really possible. PFS fights are often falling onto you at 30 feet. And a lot of players are not willing to spend much time preparing for combat and are more of a "kick in the door" fighting style. It must have a strong impact on rythm, as fights starting at melee range are rarely ending without a scratch and as such Medicine is a necessity to keep the party topped (and as such Refocus becomes easy as it is done while healing).| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
All optimization or class balance talk that enters the realm of "encounter design" will end up like this. There aren't two tables that are the same.
Yesterday I had a 3 hour long encounter against technically trivial threats after sleeping but not being able to do daily preparations. Encounters can and will deviate a lot from the norm and trying to compare apples with pears will amount little.
From my personal experience with the few GMs I had the pleasure to play with and also based on how I prefer to run things, if players are having back to back fights without treating wounds and refocusing it's either a) They just went ahead and chained encounters or b) The encounters were balanced to begin with under that asumption.
I think I only had a handful of challenging encounters with no rest in all the years I've been playing second edition. I've had plenty of encounters with waves of enemies or "phases", though.
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...There is little proof in the math that you are supposed to have them every encounter and get a 10 minute rest between every encounter other than perhaps level 1 to 3 games where you can lose a lot of hit points or get dropped easily. But that has little to do with focus points and everything to do with just being low level and weak.At the tables I've been in, people don't waste 10 minutes for Refocusing. If the only thing that is lacking is a Focus Point people will generaly move on with the next fight. But they definitely spend time either healing or identifying items/interacting with the dungeon. So, on average, everyone can refocus freely during most fights. And if you don't do that you end up with TPKs because PCs start fights with not enough hit points to handle them.
So, I fail to see how you play. There must be assumptions in your games that compensate for the lack of rest otherwise your dungeons would be too deadly. Is it the difficulty of encounters that are tuned down, healing through items that is improved or whatever, but there is a difference somewhere.
It depends on the fight and the level. Sometimes you walk into a fight, position well, and destroy everything. Sometimes the fight is hard. There are a lot of factors involved in encounters.
The main factors I see that differ in our games than many I hear talk on here is we use Stealth and range a lot, we set up encounters positionally to our advantage using choke points, and we don't engage everything from 30 feet. We are quite happy letting ranged attackers soften targets prior to engagement. We like to let the enemy waste their round of actions moving to us while we drop their hit points with ranged attacks so they arrive already on the way to dead.
On here it seems like a lot of people start fights within 30 foot range and roll initiative. Whereas our group will usually engage from the distance of our ranged capability or around
I have noticed this on the forum. If I were in that situation, we would have to adjust our style to fit. And being topped off would be necessary. If the enemy can always attack you and use whatever advantages they have, you are going to need to be full up more often than not. That is a tough situation to be in. I know a lot of players like to just keep it simple and like to fight within easy melee range, especially martial players.
Even in our group it's a couple of players including myself that dictated our style as myself and a few others like reading military style squad tactics, which use a point man, set up in advantageous positions, and use range and concealment to great advantage.
In my real games I've noticed a lot of players don't like taking a leadership position where they coordinate a group. I can't play that way myself. I feel that within the world a group of adventurers would coordinate their abilities using intelligent military style tactics. I also know not everyone likes to play that way and the game balance is not set up with players using such tactics in mind.
So I understand why you do what you can with what you got and that is going to produce a different style of play and expectations.
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So... I'd like to loop back to the original topic base. Class balance changes from the psychic. You know what I see?
Psi Burst.
It's an entirely viable half-cantrip, and as a level 2 feat you can grab it at level 4, one feat into the archetype. If you have a decent Occult+cha/int DC, it can just be your answer to "what do I do with my third action" for the rest of your career... and also let you do at least something useful on those unfortunate turns where you need to spend two actions on not getting smetched. Definitely something to consider for occult witches and summoners, at minimum. Probably worth considering for a cha-monk, too, as it also[ qualifies as a one-action MAPless attack.
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So... I'd like to loop back to the original topic base. Class balance changes from the psychic. You know what I see?
Psi Burst.
It's an entirely viable half-cantrip, and as a level 2 feat you can grab it at level 4, one feat into the archetype. If you have a decent Occult+cha/int DC, it can just be your answer to "what do I do with my third action" for the rest of your career... and also let you do at least something useful on those unfortunate turns where you need to spend two actions on not getting smetched. Definitely something to consider for occult witches and summoners, at minimum. Probably worth considering for a cha-monk, too, as it also[ qualifies as a one-action MAPless attack.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Psi Burst has the Psyche trait. So your psyche needs to be unleashed to use it. I don't think Psychic MC gets the Unleashed Psyche free action.
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So... I'd like to loop back to the original topic base. Class balance changes from the psychic. You know what I see?
Psi Burst.
It's an entirely viable half-cantrip, and as a level 2 feat you can grab it at level 4, one feat into the archetype. If you have a decent Occult+cha/int DC, it can just be your answer to "what do I do with my third action" for the rest of your career... and also let you do at least something useful on those unfortunate turns where you need to spend two actions on not getting smetched. Definitely something to consider for occult witches and summoners, at minimum. Probably worth considering for a cha-monk, too, as it also[ qualifies as a one-action MAPless attack.
The psyche tag makes it useless to multiclass psychics and not even that great for main class psychics except as 3rd action filler while unleashed. It got a lot of people excited back at release too before they realized what the tag meant.
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Well, frog.
So... I'd like to loop back to the original topic base. Class balance changes from the psychic. You know what I see?
Psi Burst.
It's an entirely viable half-cantrip, and as a level 2 feat you can grab it at level 4, one feat into the archetype. If you have a decent Occult+cha/int DC, it can just be your answer to "what do I do with my third action" for the rest of your career... and also let you do at least something useful on those unfortunate turns where you need to spend two actions on not getting smetched. Definitely something to consider for occult witches and summoners, at minimum. Probably worth considering for a cha-monk, too, as it also[ qualifies as a one-action MAPless attack.
If you go back to the thread where I was discussing a build for my psychic that we chatted in someone else had already pointed this out, haha. I was similarly excited because I hadn't realized it was a 1 action spell, then someone pointed that out and I was excited. And then someone else pointed out that it could only be used during Unleashed state, and I was disappointed again. And it competes with with your subconscious action which can only be done during Unleash.
And in general I feel like an optimal turn during unleash psyche is going to be involve true strike and your amped cantrip. Or at least if you amped cantrip requires an attack roll, and mine does as I'm planning to do Oscillating Wave.
Disagree a bit on true strike. As you pointed out, you have psyche actions that are at a premium, so better to do true strike shenanigans on other turns, imo.
Plus you could be using electric arc or TKR if you have it to get that status bonus against multiple targets. Pairing that with Psi Burst or your subconscious mind action is a pretty nice turn.
Squiggit, I respectfully disagree because amped cantrips cost a focus point and will benefit from unleash psyche's damage bonus. An amped cantrip is actually (from what I see) the intended thing to do when having your psyche unleashed. For example, Oscillating Wave's produce flame when amped and heightened, let's assume character level 10, would heighten to a 5th level spell, would deal 6d10 fire damage + 6 splash damage + 10 from Unleash Psyche, and on a crit would deal 5d4 persistent fire damage.
*Please note it's unclear to me whether it should be 5d10 or 6d10 for heightening to a 5th level spell.
Compare to cone of cold where you get 12d6 + 10 unleash psyche damage.
So 43 damage (not accounting for crit) vs 52 damage (average). Cone of cold is better and can hit more targets, but you can only do that twice per day. While you're amped cantrip can be done basically twice a combat (assuming you can refocus between each combat).
However, if you use true strike on your amped produce flame that persistent fire damage is really going to do a number.
All that to say, I think it's worth it to true strike with amped produce flame while under unleash psyche.
Although I guess your point is that the damage difference if only 10 damage. So doing it while not unleashed isn't a big difference.
Squiggit, I respectfully disagree because amped cantrips cost a focus point and will benefit from unleash psyche's damage bonus.
Any psychic spell will allow you to benefit from the damage bonus.
In terms of two round routines:
Cantrip > Unleash + True Strike + Amped Produce Flame
and
True Strike + Amped Produce Flame > Unleash + Cantrip
both do the exact same damage and costs the exact same resources, except the latter gives you an extra action you can spend on a psyche action, which is why I prefer that kind of routine. Using True Strike during Unleash effectively 'wastes' a potential psyche action. If you don't have a psyche action worth using, it's no big deal, but generally as long as you're using your resources and casting any damage dealing spell under unleash, you're fine.
To reiterate, it's not 10 less damage, it's 0 less damage (and in fact, more damage if you have psi burst and/or an aoe ability to use under unleash).
True striking is inherently more likely to make the thing land. By extension, it's more likely to give you the benefit of that unleash status bonus to damage... but it's not *that* much more likely.
On the flip side, the real thing to cast while unleashed is area effect stuff - your highest spell slot or your cantrips, or your amped cantrips, whichever one is going to hit the most people. Spread that damage bonus around, you know? True Strike, on the other hand, really wants to pour everything it has into a single-target attack vs AC... which, in turn, *isn't* the best use of your unleash.
so, yeah. Blow those True Strikes on powerful single-target attacks vs AC, then unleash and start spreading the love with multitarget magic..
I was looking at The Infinite Eye specialization. I can see that being a real powerful buffer, especially if you picked up the Bard MC Archetype and Inspire Courage.
That ability to use your Aid with your spellcasting ability modifier and proficiency is a potent boost to an attack along with Glimpse Weakness.
So in one round:
1. Inspire Courage
2. Glimpse Weakness
3. Omnidirectional Scan and with your reaction boost the attack more.
A real boss killer combination. Throw in an occasional Amped Guidance and the Psychic becomes a major boss killer debuffer. Ruthlessly hammer any single target enemy.
I don't think there's really a rule for Unleash Psyche turns besides "Deal the maximum amount of damage". Going for a True Striked cantrip is strong against a single enemy, going for area of effects spells is strong against multiple enemies. It's better to have the choice.
Yeah, I suppose it's going to depend on how many enemies are near you and what spells you have in your repertoire.
Don't waste a cone of cold on a single enemy but also don't waste time with produce flame if you have 3 enemies in range.
That's something good to point out and I can't disagree.
I guess what I did disagree with is that psi burst is better than true strike without question. Psi burst while unleashed (at level 10) would give 5d4 (10) damage + 10 for unleashed.
If you critically hit you will get persistent damage of around 15 on average, not to mention doubling base damage. However, I'm not sure how much it will improve your odds of critically hitting. Very dependent on the enemy you're targeting.
I guess what I did disagree with is that psi burst is better than true strike without question. Psi burst while unleashed (at level 10) would give 5d4 (10) damage + 10 for unleashed.
That's not exactly what I said.
In my example, you still true strike your amp, you just do it in such a way that you don't lock yourself out of your psyche actions.
If you don't have a psyche action worth using, or the combat is too short, fair enough, but abilities like restore the mind, recall the teachings, and psi burst can be pretty neat, and using them is better than not using them.
I don't think there's really a rule for Unleash Psyche turns besides "Deal the maximum amount of damage". Going for a True Striked cantrip is strong against a single enemy, going for area of effects spells is strong against multiple enemies. It's better to have the choice.
You're always trying to do the maximum amount of damage.
By extension, the rule for unleash turns is to get the maximum amount of benefit. On the spellcasting side, you get that by having as many high-level (preferably max level) damage events as you can with non-duration psychic spells. In general this is going to mean multitarget and area effect. The other benefit is that you get to use your psyche effects, so you want to put yourself in a position to take advantage of those (whatever it is that that entails for you)
Like, yeah, you could go single-target, and there will surely be fights where that's the right answer (like, if you're unleahsed, and there is only one target) but if you can do your instant multitarget stuff while unleashed and your single-target and duration stuff at other times, you wind up dealing out more damage overall than if you reverse those two. Basically, being unleashed should leave you with a multitarget bias.