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I don't think that's the point. The point that Temperans complains about and I agree is when you begin to see the people deviating from the subject to disqualify the person who is arguing is a signal of lack of arguments about the questioned point.
The truth is that for you to create a good blaster with a caster you need a lot of effort, putting together a complexity of feats, items and strategies to do something that should be normal in the context of the caster which is simply throwing powerful damage spells at opponents without much concern.
I know this seems like just complaining for the sake of complaining, but that's precisely what I base my point on is that creating a pure blaster is either not feasible (especially at low levels) or requires an enormous amount of resources that other focused caster or martial builds don't come close to requiring or you are forced to "corrupt" your character's flavor using weapons or alternative means of play other than simply blowing up the opponent.
This reminds me of the melee magus situation at higher levels when the increase in the number of opponents with reactions activated by manipulate actions (aka AoO) starts to create situations where magus is forbidden to use his main ability under penalty of receiving an attack as punishment. This forces many players to have to play with some kind of meta like having to choose the Starlit Span or doing a combination that I often recommend which is playing as an Elf and putting the Elemental Wrath feat to be able to cast a cantrip that has no somatic components and that it's not even that good (but it's better than being unable to use spellstrike).
You see, this kind of complex solution is something you understand and even accept when the player is trying to make a more exotic build, but when forced against something that should be simple and common for the class it ends up creating some kind of meta.
That's why I always end my answers by saying that in the end it's better to wait for kineticist. Even knowing that his blasts probably won't be stronger than the best spellcasters spells, I know that it will at least be a simple and sustainable way to meet the demand of players who want to simply blow up their opponents.
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I don't think that's the point. The point that Temperans complains about and I agree is when you begin to see the people deviating from the subject to disqualify the person who is arguing is a signal of lack of arguments about the questioned point.
The truth is that for you to create a good blaster with a caster you need a lot of effort, putting together a complexity of feats, items and strategies to do something that should be normal in the context of the caster which is simply throwing powerful damage spells at opponents without much concern.
I know this seems like just complaining for the sake of complaining, but that's precisely what I base my point on is that creating a pure blaster is either not feasible (especially at low levels) or requires an enormous amount of resources that other focused caster or martial builds don't come close to requiring or you are forced to "corrupt" your character's flavor using weapons or alternative means of play other than simply blowing up the opponent.
This reminds me of the melee magus situation at higher levels when the increase in the number of opponents with reactions activated by manipulate actions (aka AoO) starts to create situations where magus is forbidden to use his main ability under penalty of receiving an attack as punishment. This forces many players to have to play with some kind of meta like having to choose the Starlit Span or doing a combination that I often recommend which is playing as an Elf and putting the Elemental Wrath feat to be able to cast a cantrip that has no somatic components and that it's not even that good (but it's better than being unable to use spellstrike).
You see, this kind of complex solution is something you understand and even accept when the player is trying to make a more exotic build, but when forced against something that should be simple and common for the class it ends up creating some kind of meta.
That's why I always end my answers by saying that in the end it's better to wait for kineticist. Even knowing...
What feats, items, and strategies do you need to spam Magic Missiles, Flaming Sphere, Sudden Bolt, Lightning Bolt, and Electric Arc? Because varying combinations there will deal martial ranged damage on average without feats, items, or even fishing for good saves.
Like, what are you looking for exactly? To deal barbarian with a great sword level damage, from range, every turn of every fight?
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Hi gang. I'm new here (but an old salt at TTRPGs which I've been DMing and playing since the late '80s). I'm finally getting around to updating my setting from my customized 3.5 to what it already looking like a customized Pathfinder 2.0...
My question, re: caster balance, is it true that casters don't get a class feat at level 1 while all martial classes do? And isn't that part of the balance issue here? It seems to me that even with spells out of the gate, if you have fewer feats than your martial buddies then you're already behind...
Can someone help me understand the balance issue that caused this design choice?
Thanks in advance.
I think it is a complexity choice, mostly. Casters automatically have to make more choices for spell selection. But there's also an element of casters getting to choose class features which are pseudo feats, often with far greater impact than what martials choose at first levels.
Most martials get one significant feature choice at 1st level in addition to the feat, except fighters and monks who just get a feat instead of a subclass.
Barbarian
Instinct
Feat
Ranger
Hunter's Edge
Feat
Rogue
Racket
Feat
Champion
Cause
Feat
By comparison, casters get:
Wizard
Thesis
School speciality
Cleric
Diety
Doctrine, which comes with feats
Divine font
Psychic
Conscious mind
Unconscious mind
Druid
Order-- which comes packaged with a first level feat.
Bard
Muse-- which comes packaged with a first level feat.
Sorcerer
Bloodline-- only a single choice, but one that determines your focus spells, your tradition, your skills, your bloodline magic, and a quarter of your spell repertoire for your entire career.
Oracle
Just the mystery, but that's a complex decision that defines your entire play style your whole career, requiring understanding the nuances of your curse.
So casters are either getting twice as many features to choose, feats bundled with features, or high impact features with need to be very carefully considered. And that is before touching spell choices.
I think you could give casters first level feats without breaking the game, but I think that's the reasoning.
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Hi gang. I'm new here (but an old salt at TTRPGs which I've been DMing and playing since the late '80s). I'm finally getting around to updating my setting from my customized 3.5 to what it already looking like a customized Pathfinder 2.0...
My question, re: caster balance, is it true that casters don't get a class feat at level 1 while all martial classes do? And isn't that part of the balance issue here? It seems to me that even with spells out of the gate, if you have fewer feats than your martial buddies then you're already behind...
Can someone help me understand the balance issue that caused this design choice?
Thanks in advance.
It is not quite that yes or no. Many casters get a feat a level 1, but it is chosen for you based on a choice you make about Druid order, bard muse, wizard thesis, cleric doctrine, etc. the free floating level one class feat is more of a martial thing, but if you really want another level 1 class feat, you can get one as a human.
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I am complaining that its too hard and there are too few options. How does that means I have no experience because I want more support and more option?
The circular logic is just crazy.
Me: Playing a blaster feels bad, there is not enough support, and its not properly balanced with the rest of the system.
You: Its fine just do, [insert meta here].
Me: That is not solving the problem, I already know all of that and it feels bad.
You: That's the way things are if you want to be a blaster go through the meta.
Me: Why shouldn't they offer more support when its not broken?
You: Everyone know spell strike are bad and nobody but Magus use it, if you don't you don't play the game.
Me: Goes back to step 1.
Temperans, all I have been trying to say is that many people keep coming into the game, playing casters largely as blasters, and have a lot of fun doing so.
The sometime run into a little bit of trouble trying to overly over specialize in one specific trick. BUT MARTIALS DO TOO! PF2 is not a game that rewards over specialization. When you look at an item or spell in PF2, there are very few ways to get it to do more than what is included in the text beneath that item or spell. (Not none, but not many).
Then separately, there is an adventure design issue where a couple of game levels butt up hard against common boss fight encounters. It is very easy for players who get thrown into those encounters to feel like the game itself is broken and feel like the fix is over-engineering a bunch of other elements of the game when a more obvious answer might be, don’t feature those encounters so heavily where they tend to crush parties, especially not as added encounters that are not actual boss monsters, as casters have to go all in against them and pushing past a high level solo threat to finish an adventure should not be common practice in adventure design.
It is not quite that yes or no. Many casters get a feat a level 1, but it is chosen for you based on a choice you make about Druid order, bard muse, wizard thesis, cleric doctrine, etc. the free floating level one class feat is more of a martial thing, but if you really want another level 1 class feat, you can get one as a human.
A slight tangant here away from the martial/caster balance, do people generally agree that there is a big disparity in usefullness in ancestry feats? They generally seems to be around "skill feats" power wise, but a few ones are seems much more powerfull.
Humans feats in particular, when compared to most other ancestry. Uncommon weaponry give you access to pretty much any weapon, and make it automatically scale with your class weapon scalling, while all the "X weapon familiarity" necessitate 2 feats to actually scale that way, and you have to wait all the way until level 13 for it to work. It seems quite unbalanced to me, but I may be missing something.
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It is not quite that yes or no. Many casters get a feat a level 1, but it is chosen for you based on a choice you make about Druid order, bard muse, wizard thesis, cleric doctrine, etc. the free floating level one class feat is more of a martial thing, but if you really want another level 1 class feat, you can get one as a human.A slight tangant here away from the martial/caster balance, do people generally agree that there is a big disparity in usefullness in ancestry feats? They generally seems to be around "skill feats" power wise, but a few ones are seems much more powerfull.
Humans feats in particular, when compared to most other ancestry. Uncommon weaponry give you access to pretty much any weapon, and make it automatically scale with your class weapon scalling, while all the "X weapon familiarity" necessitate 2 feats to actually scale that way, and you have to wait all the way until level 13 for it to work. It seems quite unbalanced to me, but I may be missing something.
Your overall thesis here holds, but your example is poor. Unconventional weaponry only offers a single weapon (as opposed to the racial weapon proficiency feats, which offer a selection). Also, many (though not all) of them have built-in scaling as well. Finally, ancestral weapon access feats usually come with a follow-on feat that offers crit specialization in the weapon in question, which unconventional weaponry does not have.
But yeah, it's true that some feats are just worse than other feats. It's not just ancestry feats, either. Some of the class feats out there are just terrible.
Unicore refers to the Natural Ambition human ancestry feat, which grants a 1st level class feat. One of the strongest options in the game and enough to keep humans a top tier choice even with their Ability boost flexibility becoming the norm.
What feats, items, and strategies do you need to spam Magic Missiles, Flaming Sphere, Sudden Bolt, Lightning Bolt, and Electric Arc? Because varying combinations there will deal martial ranged damage on average without feats, items, or even fishing for good saves.
Like, what are you looking for exactly? To deal barbarian with a great sword level damage, from range, every turn of every fight?
For now, nothing! I will just wait to see what we get with kineticist first.
But in parallel I have a table that we switch from spell slots to spell points (we basically converted all spell slots using the same rule of staff nexus into MP pools) this probably solve most complains while I see how good or bad this affects the game balance.
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Just reiterating something I'd mentioned before, because IMO it is key to playing a caster. This is rookie league stuff, but just in case:
Monsters have four defenses - AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Make sure you have an attack for every defense. Find and exploit the lowest one in every combat (or at least avoid the highest)*.
That's basically it. After that, go nuts!
* if you want to play a theme, like "Fire Blaster", then you will get completely shafted in about 1/4 of your combats due to resistances/immunities... but you should expect that right? choosing to self-nerf has consequences.
I'd like to play a "Black Mage" and have spells that deal Ice, Fire and Lightning (Icea, Fira, Thundera, etc..) damage. They also have access to some "untyped" massive damage spells like Flare, Ultima, and in the MMO Xenoglossy and Polysomething.
That being said there are Obvious Choices: Ray of Frost, Produce Flame, Electric Arc, Fire Ball, Snow Storm, Lightning bolt however I've noticed that it's basically all reflex saves.
To keep on theme of a Final Fantasy Black Mage (for instance Lulu in FFX had access to Bio, which I think is a damage over time poison ability, for instance) how would you choose to target Will Saves for damage?
Just reiterating something I'd mentioned before, because IMO it is key to playing a caster. This is rookie league stuff, but just in case:
Monsters have four defenses - AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Make sure you have an attack for every defense. Find and exploit the lowest one in every combat (or at least avoid the highest)*.
That's basically it. After that, go nuts!
* if you want to play a theme, like "Fire Blaster", then you will get completely shafted in about 1/4 of your combats due to resistances/immunities... but you should expect that right? choosing to self-nerf has consequences.
I'd like to play a "Black Mage" and have spells that deal Ice, Fire and Lightning (Icea, Fira, Thundera, etc..) damage. They also have access to some "untyped" massive damage spells like Flare, Ultima, and in the MMO Xenoglossy and Polysomething.
That being said there are Obvious Choices: Ray of Frost, Produce Flame, Electric Arc, Fire Ball, Snow Storm, Lightning bolt however I've noticed that it's basically all reflex saves.
To keep on theme of a Final Fantasy Black Mage (for instance Lulu in FFX had access to Bio, which I think is a damage over time poison ability, for instance) how would you choose to target Will Saves for damage?
Doesn't Black Mage in many of the games have Charm, Deafen, Sleep, Silence, Slow, Stun, etc.? There should be nothing stopping you from targeting will saves and staying on theme. TBH I don't think deal damage with spells is an accurate summary of the Black Mage's shtick any more than White Mage's is heal party members.
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A slight tangant here away from the martial/caster balance, do people generally agree that there is a big disparity in usefullness in ancestry feats? They generally seems to be around "skill feats" power wise, but a few ones are seems much more powerfull.
There is definitely a disparity but I don't think its all THAT big.
You also have to take an entire ancestry as a package and look at ALL the benefits and costs over quite a range of levels. Feats are certainly a part of that but only a part of it.
If I have a particular mechanical concept in mind its rare that there is only one ancestry that works for that concept (unless the ancestry or some ancestral ability is PART of the concept, of course). While human is almost certainly on the list there are usually a few other ancestries that fit as well.
For many characters ancestry is largely a matter of flavour in that the advantages/disadvantages of a particular ancestry are pretty darn minor. And I quite like that, its liberating to pay only a tiny cost (if any at all) to play a particular ancestry for a particular character
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I must admit that most of my annoyance at the ancestry feat come from the fact that their generalist and widely usefull first level feats allow for a lot of different build to come together from the start, while other ancestries have to bide their time and take "the long way" if they want to reach the same spot.
I first noticed it when I tried to build a halfling red mantis, and since then I keep regularly having these moment when I build a character "oh, this would be easier to do if I could take humans feat".
I really wonder how much of the math around spell attacks is that they're designed around "people are going to true strike for the really big ones". Since true strike disintegrate or polar ray is very powerful, the power of the less flashy spell attacks is probably less. True strike is a classic of the game, and people probably weren't going to use it on basic strikes so they basically had to thread a needle here.
It is only really bad at levels 4 and 5 when going uphill against a monster that is 2 or more levels higher. The martials really have to pull weight here, and even then these are tough encounters. They have resulted in a lot of character deaths. Adventure writers would do well to cap out the boss of book 1 of APs, or the boss of the first 2 chapters of book 2 at a level +1 creature with tough minions to get to severe or even extreme, rather than a solo creature at that level. This would also help give casters the opportunity to get to play with their AoE toys that are just coming on line.In my experience, level 6 suffer quite a bit too, as every "on level" (or even lower level) monster assume you have a bigger "to hit" for your attack spell, and any +1 or more monster assume you have a bigger DC too. But even if it doesn't, wouldn't having that "really bad" experience for two whole level justify getting the proficiency increase early? Unless that increase would result in overshadowing martials, I feel like letting caster suffer for those level because "it get better eventually" isn't really an enviable solution.
Asymmetrical proficiency bumps in general feel almost designed to do this. If there's meant to be an X or Y gap between things it should be more consistent at different levels. Being worse or better but only at certain specific level ranges is just awkward and I'm not sure what it makes better.
I really wonder how much of the math around spell attacks is that they're designed around "people are going to true strike for the really big ones". Since true strike disintegrate or polar ray is very powerful, the power of the less flashy spell attacks is probably less. True strike is a classic of the game, and people probably weren't going to use it on basic strikes so they basically had to thread a needle here.
It seems genuinely bad design though to balance a spell around the use of another spell in an indirect way, especially when only two of the four traditions even get access to true strike in the first place.
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I must admit that most of my annoyance at the ancestry feat come from the fact that their generalist and widely usefull first level feats allow for a lot of different build to come together from the start, while other ancestries have to bide their time and take "the long way" if they want to reach the same spot.
I first noticed it when I tried to build a halfling red mantis, and since then I keep regularly having these moment when I build a character "oh, this would be easier to do if I could take humans feat".
I know how you feel. I wanted my Ranger to be a Wood Elf, but it needs so many "essential" feats I had to go Human and take Half-Elf to pick up Natural Ambition to get everything to fit within the first 5 levels, and even then I STILL can't get everything, and chose to Sacrifice Heal Pet.
Same thing happened to the Cleric I built for fun to be a maximized healer/support character. In order to "do damage" on any reasonable level apparently you "MUST" take Electric Arc because Divine dmg cantrips are trash...but I wanted to be a Dwarf. So I guess I am waiting until level 5 to get it via Adopted Ancestry and then Otherwordly Magic.
Looking across feats and rare backgrounds, I think it is supposed to be:
One ancestry feat = one general feat = one skill feat + one skill training = two skills trained (plus maybe a lore.)
Mileage may vary on how well that holds up, but that seems to be the basic idea.
Looking across feats and rare backgrounds, I think it is supposed to be:
One ancestry feat = one general feat = one skill feat + one skill training = two skills trained (plus maybe a lore.)
Mileage may vary on how well that holds up, but that seems to be the basic idea.
For level 1, very roughly? Yeah, I'll more or less buy that. I'll also say that "one heritage" is basically equivalent to a level 1 ancestry feat plus maybe a few feat unlocks.
Higher level feats, though... I wouldn't even want to start figuring those comparables out.
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Having a bad day because of bad rolls is one thing. My complaints is about the systemic ways...I am complaining that its too hard and there are too few options. How does that means I have no experience because I want more support and more option?
The circular logic is just crazy.
Me: Playing a blaster feels bad, there is not enough support, and its not properly balanced with the rest of the system.
You: Its fine just do, [insert meta here].
Me: That is not solving the problem, I already know all of that and it feels bad.
You: That's the way things are if you want to be a blaster go through the meta.
Me: Why shouldn't they offer more support when its not broken?
You: Everyone know spell strike are bad and nobody but Magus use it, if you don't you don't play the game.
Me: Goes back to step 1.Temperans, all I have been trying to say is that many people keep coming into the game, playing casters largely as blasters, and have a lot of fun doing so.
The sometime run into a little bit of trouble trying to overly over specialize in one specific trick. BUT MARTIALS DO TOO! PF2 is not a game that rewards over specialization. When you look at an item or spell in PF2, there are very few ways to get it to do more than what is included in the text beneath that item or spell. (Not none, but not many).
Then separately, there is an adventure design issue where a couple of game levels butt up hard against common boss fight encounters. It is very easy for players who get thrown into those encounters to feel like the game itself is broken and feel like the fix is over-engineering a bunch of other elements of the game when a more obvious answer might be, don’t feature those encounters so heavily where they tend to crush parties, especially not as added encounters that are not actual boss monsters, as casters have to go all in against them and pushing past a high level solo threat to finish an adventure should not be common practice in adventure design.
For the most part, that won't really happen because the combat is difficult enough that the team as a whole really needs the power afforded by the slots (remember that Hydra we took down? That would have been unholy misery if Elyessa didn't have the Soothe slots to keep you and other people up, and it would have been much easier if the fire damage was being done by spells instead of that torch we were poking it with.)
The general cultural trend is toward shorter adventuring days rather than longer ones (since the latter is more game play without story advancement) looking over at discussions happening elsewhere in the space.
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I actually agree that PF2 might have made out of combat healing too easy/disconnected from "daily" resource limits and thus be the largest source of the problem that martials feel like they don't need overnight rest, they just need an hour here or there until they only need about 30 minutes per encounter. Not so much so that I think it ruins the game, but enough that GMs and players need to talk to each other and be aware that a party with full HP and no spell slots remaining is closer to half strength in PF2 than full strength (assuming an average of 2 casters to 2 martials) so maybe 60-70%?
I think you are right that most players don't see it that way or respond to being at reduced strength in those situations, but encounters get a lot more dangerous for everyone when something powerful is encountered. And players solely focused on their own characters who are playing martials might have an attitude that they are 100% and not really feel connected to the collective resource drain of having exhausted casters. The game that really tackled this specific problem successfully was D&D 4e. It is very hard to do and not make casters and martials feel the same as each other and for party role to be the thing that makes characters feel different, not the source of their power.
PF1 failed to do this miserably. Martials were completely powerless without casters for healing at the very least, not to mention other essential services like flying, scrying, and buffing.
In that sense, PF2 has made more self-sufficient martials than has ever existed in the D20 fantasy RPG genre. But a party of all martials is not really better off compared to a party that includes casters. Items can get you through a lot of what casters do in PF2, but it requires a lot of preplanning, and complex micro managing. It is certainly not simpler than just having a caster or 2.
Maybe (even better) scaling on cantrips and a wider variety of cantrips is in order.
What is a cantrip was scaled to do 80% of a what a martial's damage output should be at that level? IN particular let's choose the fighter which doesn't get special damage bonuses like other classes and get's accuracy bonuses instead.
If we had cantrips that did every energy type (although some might need to be reduced in damage due to lack of resistances) and did 80% damage of a martial does that allow casters to throw maybe 1 of their highest levels spells and 1 of a level or 2 below. And does that let you feel powerful enough?
Actually, looking at the math, I think we're already there or better aren't we?
Like a 20th level fighter is probably doing like 4d10+14, you could argue for 1d6 fire and 1d6 cold from runes. That's 43 damage total. Whereas your cantrips should be doing like 10d4+6 for 31 damage. If you exclude runes you're over 80%, if you include runes you're at about 72%. And that's for a melee martial, you get to do that damage at range. And you get to legendary in spell attack rolls, like the fighter get's legendary in their weapon proficiency. And you get to use your casting stat to add to it, like a melee fighter will use their dex.
Mathematically, cantrips are hitting close to what a fighter can do. Unless I'm missing something. Am I missing something?
After thinking about it in this light I'm way less inclined to think casters need any sort of benefit.
Wait, I just realized you don't have an item bonus to attack rolls, so you're like 3 points behind. So what if we let spell attack rolls have a held item that grant a scaling bonus to attack rolls?
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Maybe (even better) scaling on cantrips and a wider variety of cantrips is in order.
What is a cantrip was scaled to do 80% of a what a martial's damage output should be at that level? IN particular let's choose the fighter which doesn't get special damage bonuses like other classes and get's accuracy bonuses instead.
If we had cantrips that did every energy type (although some might need to be reduced in damage due to lack of resistances) and did 80% damage of a martial does that allow casters to throw maybe 1 of their highest levels spells and 1 of a level or 2 below. And does that let you feel powerful enough?
Actually, looking at the math, I think we're already there or better aren't we?
Like a 20th level fighter is probably doing like 4d10+14, you could argue for 1d6 fire and 1d6 cold from runes. That's 43 damage total. Whereas your cantrips should be doing like 10d4+6 for 31 damage. If you exclude runes you're over 80%, if you include runes you're at about 72%. And that's for a melee martial, you get to do that damage at range. And you get to legendary in spell attack rolls, like the fighter get's legendary in their weapon proficiency. And you get to use your casting stat to add to it, like a melee fighter will use their dex.
Mathematically, cantrips are hitting close to what a fighter can do. Unless I'm missing something. Am I missing something?
After thinking about it in this light I'm way less inclined to think casters need any sort of benefit.
Wait, I just realized you don't have an item bonus to attack rolls, so you're like 3 points behind. So what if we let spell attack rolls have a held item that grant a scaling bonus to attack rolls?
Yeah perfect. Fix the accuracy issue and on normal cantrips I can just spam them, no worries. Then again, on a SPELL SLOT (gasp) attack roll, yeah I can do Signet Ring or the True Strike and basically that's advantage from D&D 5e or bypassing AC (martial can't do that) and voila hopefully more accurate too but on my "big special resource" and now me and mr. fighter are both blastin' and we feel cool.
Maybe (even better) scaling on cantrips and a wider variety of cantrips is in order.
I think this only works if we radically redefine how cantrips (and therefore how casters in general) work.
Right now cantrips tend to either do small amounts of damage or provide niche utility that's often more flavor than practicality focused.
You're not going to perform heavy in combat utility with cantrips (unless you have unique class cantrips) and your action variety when reduced to cantrips tends to be low.
A spellcaster that relies on cantrips, has a much broader scope of capabilities with cantrips (including real utility options and variety in offensive choices) and de-emphasizes daily resources could be interesting is pretty different than the traditional caster model.
It's also arguably what they tried to do with the Witch and Psychic, though the witch is played very safe and the psychic kind of safe.
Arguably the kineticist might be their third stab at it, with how much at-will ability the class appears to be having, though the kineticist suffers a bit from having a narrow theme that might turn off some players.
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They don't get an item bonus, but they do get to Legendary. Add in Shadow Signet and your spell attacks can have a better to hit at 20 than most martials. Even without the ring you're only like 1 behind.
While true, it's worth pointing out that Legendary only comes online at level 19. Spellcasters spend more time behind on the proficiency curve (5, 6, 13, 14) than they do ahead of it (19, 20).
So casters being ahead of the proficiency curve instead of having item bonuses is something that just isn't true for the vast majority of characters.
I so desperately wish that class turns out fine. The playtest didn't leave me with much hope, and the "we don't want to focus on that" answer they gave is less than reasuring.
I am literally waiting for it to see if I even keep looking at this forum.
Who gave that answer, and what was the question?
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True but it's not for long periods and after getting a Shadow Signet, if you plan on using a lot of them, the difference isn't huge on average. Unless you're really bad at telling what, if any, save is lower than AC.
At least for 5 and 6 you can now absolutely nuke group encounters.
Ah yes, the almost entirely useless Shadow Signet. It’s one of those items that one spends more time trying to figure out how to make work beneficially than actually getting the benefit. On paper it looks decent, but in practice is utter garbage.
Who gave that answer, and what was the question?I so desperately wish that class turns out fine. The playtest didn't leave me with much hope, and the "we don't want to focus on that" answer they gave is less than reasuring.
I am literally waiting for it to see if I even keep looking at this forum.
The post playtest summary. The question being "can you make kineticist more focused on blasting?"
I paraphrased on my previous post, but it is what I got from the post.
Ah. Fair enough.
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character observation
What is a character meant to observe to give them this information?
recall knowledge
Is subjective to each GM, and requires having the right skills kept at a relevant level to be effective against threats that need extra work to hit in the first place.
the character has seen similar monsters before
How does this work for PFS where its hard to confirm what any given character has or hasn't seen before? How does this work in APs that don't repeat boss monsters?
if an NPC shares the information
Just looking at APs how many times does this occur?
There's also the fact that the single most effective way to use a shadow signet is to metagame. So regardless there is always that extra bit of temptation to look ahead in the AP and see if you can make a few 'lucky guesses' on what to target in the next few sessions.
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character observationWhat is a character meant to observe to give them this information?
Probably guessing by looking at it. "That hill giant seems kind of stupid, and moves clumsily so it's probably not agile, but it's wearing a lot of armor (or not) and looks pretty tough." extrapolation -> probably low will and reflex, maybe high AC or not, probably high fortitude.
Because he's a big giant dude picking his nose and staring into space. IDK.
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Probably guessing by looking at it. "That hill giant seems kind of stupid, and moves clumsily so it's probably not agile, but it's wearing a lot of armor (or not) and looks pretty tough." extrapolation -> probably low will and reflex, maybe high AC or not, probably high fortitude.
Because he's a big giant dude picking his nose and staring into space. IDK.
That only works if you're in stealth or else you risk starting the encounter before you may wish to. It also could still require a perception check or another appropriate check at the GM's discretion to see what your character gleans from the interaction.
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That only works if you're in stealth or else you risk starting the encounter before you may wish to. It also could still require a perception check or another appropriate check at the GM's discretion to see what your character gleans from the interaction.Probably guessing by looking at it. "That hill giant seems kind of stupid, and moves clumsily so it's probably not agile, but it's wearing a lot of armor (or not) and looks pretty tough." extrapolation -> probably low will and reflex, maybe high AC or not, probably high fortitude.
Because he's a big giant dude picking his nose and staring into space. IDK.
Typically people can describe other people they've seen face to face, and sometimes even from a photo, I don't know why literal just observation with the eyes wouldn't just be obvious.
"She was probably about 5'2'' to 5'3'' with short, red hair, brown eyes, caucasian, dressed in a red short with blue jeans. She was very skinny maybe 90 to 100 lbs"
Like guesses of a person, but you can see them and make "measurements" or "size up" the person. So why not a giant, or a gnoll, or whatever?
Typically people can describe other people they've seen face to face, and sometimes even from a photo, I don't know why literal just observation with the eyes wouldn't just be obvious.
That sounds like asking the GM to make a skill check to find a secondhand source of knowledge that might allow you to make a guess about a monster's stats. Why not just roll recall knowledge at that stage?
Typically people can describe other people they've seen face to face, and sometimes even from a photo, I don't know why literal just observation with the eyes wouldn't just be obvious.
"She was probably about 5'2'' to 5'3'' with short, red hair, brown eyes, caucasian, dressed in a red short with blue jeans. She was very skinny maybe 90 to 100 lbs"
Like guesses of a person, but you can see them and make "measurements" or "size up" the person. So why not a giant, or a gnoll, or whatever?
Those traits you mentioned tell me nothing of what her AC, Fortitude save, Reflex save, and Will save are. I also cannot determine her Perception.
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Typically people can describe other people they've seen face to face, and sometimes even from a photo, I don't know why literal just observation with the eyes wouldn't just be obvious.That sounds like asking the GM to make a skill check to find a secondhand source of knowledge that might allow you to make a guess about a monster's stats. Why not just roll recall knowledge at that stage?
So when you play, do GMs provide no information at all about a monster without recall knowledge?
Are the tokens just black squares?
I mean fair enough if that's the kind of game you play but that's not really something you can generalize to most tables.