Focus points considerations

[HumbleGamer]

Since the 2e remastered announcement, apart from the big farwell to alignment ( thanks Paizo ), what caught my attention the most is the rework of how focus spells are going to work.

First thought was something like

"That's excellent! I have the feel they looked how good the psychic was, and decide to give all classes refocus x2, but only if the class uses their own spells"

So, giving refocus x2 to all spellcasters ( I am not sure about combatants like champions, rangers, monks ,etc... )

But then I thought about the fact that the psychic is made in that specific way because they also have a double edge mechanic ( psyche ) and 33% less slot compared to the other spellcasters ( or 50% less slots compared to a sorcerer or wizard ).

This would probably require the psychic to have 3x spells per day ( but AFAIK, the psychic is not going to be tweaked, thought I suppose it might be addressed with an errata, in the meanwhile).

I am also not sure who would ever go for archetype spells, renouncing to a refocus x2 ( tied to class spells ) until lvl 18.

But I am probably overthinking all of this.

What do you expect in terms of focus pool/spells?
Would you like a 2x refocus like the Psychic one ( choice between using a wide range of focus spells but refocusing 1x or using just class spells and refocusing x2 )?

[gesalt]

My only expectation is that refocusing gets simplified down to be something that happens automatically after 10 minutes rather than being a nebulous activity you can do while doing other vaguely related activities.

[HumbleGamer]

gesalt wrote:

My only expectation is that refocusing gets simplified down to be something that happens automatically after 10 minutes rather than being a nebulous activity you can do while doing other vaguely related activities.

That would be excellent from a balance point of view.

But to mention it as something that's going to be revised... I don't know, I am expecting something else in addition to that.

[Mathmuse]

Inspired by Paizo's Web Fiction short story Iconic Encounter: To the Last Breath, and the literal line in Refocus saying, "These deeds can usually overlap with other tasks that relate to the source of your focus spells," I let my PCs refocus while doing other things on just about any excuse. This has led to a 10-minute rest acting as a believeable set of well-paced activities.

For example, the player of a champion of Grandmother Spider argued that since Grandmother Spider is a god of crafting, then Repairing her shield counted as "pray to your deity or do service toward their causes." I allowed it.

A weirder example is the stormborn druid Stormdancer's Refocus for Stormwind Flight. I foolishly gave some enemy rangers Large-sized fledgling roc animal companions that could fly well enough to grab a character, fly 25 feet upwards, and drop that character on the same turn. I thought it made an interesting attack. After the battle, Stormdancer adopted one of the rocs as a pet. At her next level-up, she took Order Explorer for Animal Order to gain the roc as her animal companion. Though this was unexpected, I realized that the roc could simplify travel for the seven-member party, for whom the sorcerer had been conjuring Phantom Steeds. I gave the druid a free focus spell that let the roc Roxie carry the druid for 10 minutes. And I declared that riding on Roxie for ten minutes counted as "commune with local nature spirits or otherwise tend to the wilderness in a way befitting your order." Thus, the druid had an all-day mount that could keep up with the Phantom Steeds, because by the time the focus spell wore off, Stormdancer had another focus point to renew it. Stormdancer riding around on Roxie became iconic for that character.

Thus, I suspect that the change to Refocus is to let it better integrate with other exploration activities.

[Castilliano]

I suspect/hope the (usually) 12th & 18th level feats become built into the class chassis. If anything fix the 18th ones, since there's diminishing returns when there should be increasing returns 6 levels higher (as in recharging 2 instead of one is more significant than recharging 3 instead of 2.) Really not sure about the underlying balance though, as it seems there's an intentional tension between three routes for casters: developing one's focus feats, expanding breadth via an MCD/casting Archetype, and staying w/ their class's boosts to casting (whose value varies a lot by class). One could add other Archetypes to the mix too, but that's leaving their main shtick, casting.

[YuriP]

Personally I didn't dislike the idea of start and recovery more focus points since the begging once that helps classes like spellcasters to be more sustainable in earliest levels (levels 1-4) due the lack of a good number of spellslots. But I don't think that's is a main problem and I don't think that this is a thing to be addressed to this mechanic.

As already addressed by HumbleGamer make changes to allow to recover more focus points since the beginning will hurt a main psychic differential. If something will be changed in focus spells mechanics IMO will be the high number of feats requirements to recover focus points.

Currently in are in a situation that to recover 2 or 3 focus points per refocus is required a lvl 12 and 18 feats. This makes these feats to work like taxes (because if you want to have some minimal focus in focus spells you will need these feats) and occupy some very high and disputed feat level and make the focus spell build prohibitive to many builds like monks for example that already requires a lot of feats to receive many fighting abilities but also if they want to use Ki moves they also require these focus feat taxes making many times such kind of build less viable than just make a non-spiritual builds.

In addition, we also have the strange situation of some classes such as the champion and the wizard that simply do not have feats to recover the 3rd focus point. Even though they are classes with a lot of focus spells.

So, mechanically, if there's something that could be changed and improved, it would allow the refocus to automatically recover 2 and 3 focus points at levels 11 and 17, just like it already happens with the Oracle (which is being revised) and with the psychic (only that he can regain 2 focus points 10 levels sooner). This also avoids big erratas for non CRB/APG classes once the game just need an errata to say to ignore the focus recovery feats.

Another possibility, which would require a psychic, magus and summoner errata, would be to simply keep the tax feat, but reduce the levels needed to gain the 2nd and 3rd focus point recovery feats. But I sincerely hope that's not it, as that would still lie to the fact that you need to pay a tax in order to continue to improve your use of focus spells.

About auto-refocus (retrieve focus points automatically after 10 minutes). I get the point, but I'm not sure I like the idea. Because although there are things that recover on their own after 10 minutes like the shield cantrip, there are also others like Continual Recovery and Repair that keep the character busy for 10 minutes.
I understand that a lot of people don't like the current vagueness of refocusing, where it's not clear what happens and what can and can't be done during refocusing, but I find the idea of refocusing more interesting than simply stopping characters to rest for a while. 10 minutes. I'm already more in favor of the unpopular solution here of making the refocus activity something exclusive in the same way that it happens with Treat Wounds and Repair, that is, preventing you from doing anything else while refocusing, making refocusing a de facto activity .

[QuidEst]

My expectation:
- Refocus being made more passive/overlapping with other activities more consistently. Sorcerer already refocuses while doing anything, and it's not exactly billed as some special feature of the class.
- Clarify the intention. Yes, the rules communicate that you can't refocus more than one point without a special feat. No, they don't do so clearly for new players. That's pretty much always something that needs to be explained. I imagine they'll spell it out a little more.

But I'm chill waiting and finding out. It's not a huge deal.

[breithauptclan]

gesalt wrote:

My only expectation is that refocusing gets simplified down to be something that happens automatically after 10 minutes rather than being a nebulous activity you can do while doing other vaguely related activities.

That.

I also expect clarification of how many focus points you have. Probably dropping the complicated rules about gaining focus points from the feats themselves and just having the general rule that you have as many focus points as you have different focus spells - up to the maximum of 3.

And perhaps expanding focus spells to just be focus abilities - such as spells. Because there is more that could be included in focus abilities. Monk Stance focus spells are already heading in that direction. There really isn't a good reason that those need to be spells when none of the other stances are. That also opens up other things like focus abilities for Investigator or Gunslinger.

[Castilliano]

It'd also be interesting if Paizo made Refocusing faster, much like many mechanics based on time (Medicine, Rage, Repair) where recovery is tied to time pressure. A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot. (Plus that'd avoid the blandness that Paizo likes to avoid of feats just providing a numerical bump.)

[Mathmuse]

breithauptclan wrote:

I also expect clarification of how many focus points you have. Probably dropping the complicated rules about gaining focus points from the feats themselves and just having the general rule that you have as many focus points as you have different focus spells - up to the maximum of 3.

I like that idea. However, to make it more rigorous about which feats increase the focus pool's size, I would add a trait to the feats, such as Pool.

Pool This feat or abilty grants a pool of one focus point to any character that lacks focus points. If the character already has a pool of focus points, then it instead increases the size of the pool by one more focus point, up to a maximum of three focus points.

[Mathmuse]

Castilliano wrote:

It'd also be interesting if Paizo made Refocusing faster, much like many mechanics based on time (Medicine, Rage, Repair) where recovery is tied to time pressure. A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot. (Plus that'd avoid the blandness that Paizo likes to avoid of feats just providing a numerical bump.)

I have belated realized one simple change to Refocus would be dropping the requirement that the character spent at least 1 Focus Point since they last regained any Focus Points. A character who empties their pool of two focus points could spend 20 minutes in two separate Refocus activities to fill the pool completely, without having to take a feat like Inspirational Focus. Thirty minutes would restore 3 focus points.

In that case, Inspirational Focus could be changed to Refocus in 5 minutes instead of 10.

[Farien]

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

[Castilliano]

Farien wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

Or the Gnome feat; but w/ more uses, perhaps on a timer or maybe taking more actions if unlimited.

[Dubious Scholar]

Castilliano wrote:

Farien wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

Or the Gnome feat; but w/ more uses, perhaps on a timer or maybe taking more actions if unlimited.

Functionally, those are abilities that basically just increase your focus point cap by 1 (especially the Gnome feat) while ignoring the normal 3 point maximum. They're very good for any class with strong focus spells I think, but...

[Eoran]

Castilliano wrote:

Farien wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

Or the Gnome feat; but w/ more uses, perhaps on a timer or maybe taking more actions if unlimited.

I have also seen Desperate Prayer used to similar effect.

None of those are level 18 feat choices.

[Castilliano]

Eoran wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Farien wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

Or the Gnome feat; but w/ more uses, perhaps on a timer or maybe taking more actions if unlimited.

I have also seen Desperate Prayer used to similar effect.

None of those are level 18 feat choices.

Those lesser feats are distracting from the gist of my suggestion that the upgraded 18th level feats would allow you to Refocus 3 Focus Points (as they do now), but faster, perhaps in combat, and definitely more often than 1/day. Unless one's main shtick is Focus Spells (an unusual build though I can imagine a few), the current 18th level feats hardly contend vs. the others.

[HumbleGamer]

I think the lvl 18 feat shouldn't be considered that much, as it's an endgame feat ( lvl 18 ), and because most of the campaigns/plays won't last past the first half of the game.

Psychic showed us that having 2x focus points per fight, as well as additional unique abilities ( aka subconscious mind ) can easily make feel the caster more comfortable than a wizard with 100% extra spell slots.

Some new progression like:

Level 1) Refocus will give 2 points if the character only used class focus spells. If the character used non class focus spells, it would give only one point ( this effect lasts until their next daily preparations ).

This would give the choice between versatility ( archetype/dedication focus spells ) or specialization ( class focus spells )

Level 12) Refocus will give 3 points if the character only used class focus spells. If the character used non class focus spells, it would give only 2 points ( this effect lasts until their next daily preparations ).

Levle 18) Refocus will give 3 points regardless the used spells.

ps: This would, obviously, require the psychic to have 3 spell slots per level, to make things even.

[QuidEst]

The change is also supposed to simplify refocusing, so I'd be surprised if adding a bunch of "were those in-class focus spells?" checks is in the works.

[YuriP]

Castilliano wrote:

Eoran wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Farien wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

A feat that lets you Refocus in combat, now that'd often be worth an 18th level slot.

Like Familiar Focus?

Or the Gnome feat; but w/ more uses, perhaps on a timer or maybe taking more actions if unlimited.

I have also seen Desperate Prayer used to similar effect.

None of those are level 18 feat choices.

Those lesser feats are distracting from the gist of my suggestion that the upgraded 18th level feats would allow you to Refocus 3 Focus Points (as they do now), but faster, perhaps in combat, and definitely more often than 1/day. Unless one's main shtick is Focus Spells (an unusual build though I can imagine a few), the current 18th level feats hardly contend vs. the others.

He is suggesting something like a "Quick Refocus" (name inspired into Quick Repair feat) instead of Wellspring feats. Something like: 3-actions: Recovery 1-focus point.

I understand he's point. He's basically saying that for a level 18 feat just allow a char to recover one more focus feels expensive and specially for casters don't relative improves the focus capacity that much (lvl 12 refocus feat doubles your refocus capacity, while at lvl 18 wellspring increases by 33% your refocus capacity when we compare to situations that you already recover 2 focus points).

I also feel that these refocus increase feats are expensive too (and works like feat tax for focus based builds), so maybe if these feats not only increases the focus points but also reduce the refocus time too they may fell more interesting as mid and high level feats.

Probably something like the lvl 12 refocus improval feat diminishing the recovery time to 1 minute and the lvl 18 refocus wellspring feats diminishing the recovery time to 3-actions.

Yet I still prefer that theses feats being removed and refocus 2 points and 3 points directly incorporated into Refocus activity for everyone. Because as I said before IMO the refocus improvement feats feels like feat taxes, just improve these feats won't change this.

[Loreguard]

It might be something as simple as allowing one to recover a focus point if you have used a focus point since your last refocus (or it as been at least one hour since you last refocused) Thereby making time relevant, but not eliminating the ability to recover the extra focus points.

This would weaken the relevance of the current focus point boosting feats, potentially either allowing them to come in at a lower level, or otherwise leaving room for them to have some other form of bonus by some relevant class specific perk relating to focus points.

Also, why not allow the three-point recovery feat 'supersede' the 2-point recovery feat, rather than require it as a prerequisite. that would allow you to when you invest into that higher level feat, allows you to in addition to boosting your ability to the next tier, would let you get a new lower level ability added into your character.

It seems like the 'level' of a feat is a relevant 'value' and so there is a very reasonable difference in resource investments such as between spending a 12th level feat, vs. an 18th level feet, vs. both an 12th & 18th level feats. (just grabbing arbitrary levels for examples)

edit:
TBH I don't have a problem with the idea of max recovered focus points becoming higher just as a baseline process for many classes, but I can see it being something that could be argued could be something people could lean into, and thus want to spend feats on.

[Secret Wizard]

breithauptclan wrote:

gesalt wrote:

My only expectation is that refocusing gets simplified down to be something that happens automatically after 10 minutes rather than being a nebulous activity you can do while doing other vaguely related activities.

That.

I also expect clarification of how many focus points you have. Probably dropping the complicated rules about gaining focus points from the feats themselves and just having the general rule that you have as many focus points as you have different focus spells - up to the maximum of 3.

Absolutely. I don't like taking Focus Feats just to have more of the one I actually do like.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Here is my simplified thought on how to do focus abilities.

You get a focus point with your first focus spell.
Classes with focus abilities auto scale focus points. For instance Sorcerer gets 2 points at 12 and 3 at 18 or whatever.
You can always regenerate all your focus points.

This has a couple benefits. First it is simple and easy to understand.
Second, it saves book space! Each focus point doesn't need complicated language about gaining points. You don't need a whole section on how you regen focus and/or gain extra points.

And each caster class that uses focus points doesn't need two extra feats (that do feel kind of taxey) in their list, which leaves space for feats that do cool stuff.

[WatersLethe]

I'd kind of like the focus pool to be simplified down to always having 3 points as soon as you acquire a focus pool. No more questions about which feats give you another point or not.

Then I'd like to be able to recover them all given enough time without having to spend feats to do so. Maybe gate it by level, if necessary. However, I'd like to keep the flavor activities required.

Currently, Focus spells are supposed to be flavorful things you can do more frequently, but in practice they run out fast and don't come back enough and aren't super reliable.

[Tactical Drongo]

The only thing I want to have considered about focus pools its that the increased regeneration of focus points, when you got a bigger pool, pretty much feels like a feat tax

'you want to get the most out of your focus spells? take those two feats that bring you absolutely nothing otherwise and are pretty bland flavor wise too!'

I personally rule in my games that they are basically built in anyways but I'd hate to run into rules sticklers as a player

[batimpact]

I almost want to outright give the Oracle focus point auto-upgrades to every focus point class. Then to compensate for the Psychic and Oracle, they get a class feature that allows combat refocus and a few exclusive feats that upgardes that ability or simply upgrades focus point use in some way beyond that new baseline.

I don’t mind spending feats on focus point related abilities for the focus point focused classes. It already feels nice that way for Psychics, which already has a good one with Strain Mind. Although, the class getting taxed with the universal 18th level refocus feat is still an odd outlier.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

I also think focus points should be an auto recharge after 10 minutes or whatever like the sorcerer does. Honestly I have never been in a game where the specific details of focus point recharging was enforced, although I am sure they exist.

It also frees up page space for describing it for every single class!

[Ravingdork]

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

[QuidEst]

Ravingdork wrote:

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

Brief mention in the stream, yeah. They're at least simplifying it some, if I remember correctly.

[Captain Morgan]

They said focus point would be "easier to use," if I recall correctly. Was the thing Adam was most excited about.

[Ezekieru]

Ravingdork wrote:

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

In the announcement/Q&A stream, Logan Bonner mentions how his favorite change in the Remaster (aside from the removal of alignment) was the changes to Focus Points. They are making Focus Points easier to use, and making Refocusing much simpler than before.

If you wanna listen for yourself, the timecode for what I'm talking about is at 51:35 on the stream HERE.

[QuidEst]

Thanks, that's much more specific! Looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

[Karmagator]

WatersLethe wrote:

I'd kind of like the focus pool to be simplified down to always having 3 points as soon as you acquire a focus pool. No more questions about which feats give you another point or not.

Then I'd like to be able to recover them all given enough time without having to spend feats to do so. Maybe gate it by level, if necessary. However, I'd like to keep the flavor activities required.

Currently, Focus spells are supposed to be flavorful things you can do more frequently, but in practice they run out fast and don't come back enough and aren't super reliable.

While CaffeinatedNinja's proposal is certainly more balanced for the earlier levels (which is why I think that is what will happen), I really like the simplicity of your version.

The most important part for me is that the refocus feats have to go. They are frankly unnecessary from my view on balance and needlessly complicate matters to boot.

[Hida_Dragonbane]

Ezekieru wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

In the announcement/Q&A stream, Logan Bonner mentions how his favorite change in the Remaster (aside from the removal of alignment) was the changes to Focus Points. They are making Focus Points easier to use, and making Refocusing much simpler than before.

If you wanna listen for yourself, the timecode for what I'm talking about is at 51:35 on the stream HERE.

Hmm. It's "a little change that's going to make the game easier to play." If they were fixing/removing the Focus Feat Tax (I wish!) they probably wouldn't have described he change as little, so I'm not going to hold my breath on that one, much as I'd love to see those two feats either eliminated and turned into class abilities, or up-powered to like "Gain a focus point and increase your pool cap by one, and you can now refocus one more point when refocusing."

[Captain Morgan]

The thing is if they eliminate focus point feat taxes or make it so you can recover all three out the gate, they have largely eliminated the justification for psychics to have 2 slots a spell rank. Since psychics aren't getting a remaster, it seems a little unlikely to me.

Now they could just buff the pyschic with regular errata to keep it competitive, but I don't have the impression that is happening.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Captain Morgan wrote:

The thing is if they eliminate focus point feat taxes or make it so you can recover all three out the gate, they have largely eliminated the justification for psychics to have 2 slots a spell rank. Since psychics aren't getting a remaster, it seems a little unlikely to me.

Now they could just buff the pyschic with regular errata to keep it competitive, but I don't have the impression that is happening.

Well, the weird part about psychic is that while they start out with the advantage of regenerating 2 focus points at once, they lose that advantage at lvl 12, to other classes that get it too, as they get 3 focus points per regen the same time as everyone else.

[YuriP]

Yes currently the advantage os psychic when compared to oracles for example is that they gain their focus point 11 levels before and this is far from be ignorable. After this they become in par for the rest of the game except for Strain Mind that allows to recover a focus pois using HP once per hour.

[Loreguard]

Yes, I imagine Psychics also pay for their having extra focus to start with, by potentially having a bit weaker focus spells, given their being able to use them more frequently. If they make that baseline, it would overall weaken Psychics in comparison.

[Karmagator]

Another interview just dropped.

Unsurprisingly, Sayre explicitly mentioned that the answer around the question of "how do I get focus points" is going to be simplified.

What is surprising, though, is that refocus feats were also talked about - they feel like feat taxes rather than cool new stuff you can do. To me it sounds more like refocus feats are going to have cool additions or something, rather than getting folded into your class features.

Let's see how it turns out ^^

[HumbleGamer]

Excellent!

[Ravingdork]

Ezekieru wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

In the announcement/Q&A stream, Logan Bonner mentions how his favorite change in the Remaster (aside from the removal of alignment) was the changes to Focus Points. They are making Focus Points easier to use, and making Refocusing much simpler than before.

If you wanna listen for yourself, the timecode for what I'm talking about is at 51:35 on the stream HERE.

Thanks!

[Gaulin]

I was skeptical but that Sayre interview does indeed make it seem like refocus feats might be built into the core chassis of classes. Exciting if true!

[Gisher]

It would be nice if they simplified, or at least clarified, the rules for which feats increase the focus point pool.

I think at first they were a little worried that focus spells might prove too powerful, so they had feats that didn't increase the focus pool. That, of course, led to all sorts of odd situations that have been the subject of many threads here.

Now that we've seen that having a maximized focus pool isn't a game-breaker, it would be nice if they just said that any feat that gives you a focus spell will increase your focus pool by one.

[Gisher]

Ezekieru wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Was there an actual announcement somewhere regarding changes to focus points and abilities, or is this all conjecture and wishful thinking?

In the announcement/Q&A stream, Logan Bonner mentions how his favorite change in the Remaster (aside from the removal of alignment) was the changes to Focus Points. They are making Focus Points easier to use, and making Refocusing much simpler than before.

If you wanna listen for yourself, the timecode for what I'm talking about is at 51:35 on the stream HERE.

Thank you for the link! I had no idea what the source of this information was.

[Themetricsystem]

What I want from Focus Points:

Complete elimination of any and all increases to Focus Points, full stop. If you get Focus Spells you get a Focus Pool of 3, no starting at 1, no increasing it sometimes but not other times, none of that. Level 1, 4, 19, you get a Focus Spell? Cool, have a Focus Pool of 3.

You can eliminate a ton of wording and hand-wringing about when do I increase my pool, when you don't, trim a bunch of text off all abilities that provide a Focus Pool or increase it because the overarching rule will be if you gain a Focus Spell you have a Focus Pool of 3, much like how if you have an Innate Spell you can cast it, flat out, no fuss.

Sure, it WILL mean that at lower levels it means Characters with Focus Powers get the ability to use their Focus Spell(s) more times but honestly, these are SUPPOSED to be iconic to your PC, their role, and how they play at the table and as it stands now they frequently end up being a once per encounter (or even less frequent depending on how long they have between encounters) thing which does not strike me as being very "iconic" to what your PC is able to do. It might encourage a BIT more Focus Spell "SPAM" early on but frankly, I don't see why that would be much of an issue, especially since a fair number of these abilities have a duration and effect that would make recasting it a moot point.

[The Raven Black]

Themetricsystem wrote:

What I want from Focus Points:

Complete elimination of any and all increases to Focus Points, full stop. If you get Focus Spells you get a Focus Pool of 3, no starting at 1, no increasing it sometimes but not other times, none of that. Level 1, 4, 19, you get a Focus Spell? Cool, have a Focus Pool of 3.

You can eliminate a ton of wording and hand-wringing about when do I increase my pool, when you don't, trim a bunch of text off all abilities that provide a Focus Pool or increase it because the overarching rule will be if you gain a Focus Spell you have a Focus Pool of 3, much like how if you have an Innate Spell you can cast it, flat out, no fuss.

Sure, it WILL mean that at lower levels it means Characters with Focus Powers get the ability to use their Focus Spell(s) more times but honestly, these are SUPPOSED to be iconic to your PC, their role, and how they play at the table and as it stands now they frequently end up being a once per encounter (or even less frequent depending on how long they have between encounters) thing which does not strike me as being very "iconic" to what your PC is able to do. It might encourage a BIT more Focus Spell "SPAM" early on but frankly, I don't see why that would be much of an issue, especially since a fair number of these abilities have a duration and effect that would make recasting it a moot point.

This would definitely unbalance the low levels unless they completely redesign the focus spells available early on.

Because some can be used only once per encounter (say by my Battle Oracle MC), some might be used twice in some encounters (by my Maestro Bard) and some can be used every round (by my Starlit Span Magus).

So, some builds would get zero benefits whereas others would benefit greatly.

I definitely do not see the vast redesign necessary to balance all early focus spells as part of Remastered.

[breithauptclan]

Themetricsystem wrote:

What I want from Focus Points:

Complete elimination of any and all increases to Focus Points, full stop.

First, it is perfectly valid to want that.

But second, that is a huge change to how focus spells are balanced for their cost. I don't expect that to happen.

I also like having focus points limited at lower levels. And having refocusing limited as well. It allows focus spells to be more powerful than they would be if they were practically cantrips.

Remember, a typical battle only lasts 4 rounds. Having 3 focus points means being able to cast a focus spell for 3 out of those 4 rounds.

[graystone]

breithauptclan wrote:

Themetricsystem wrote:

What I want from Focus Points:

Complete elimination of any and all increases to Focus Points, full stop.

First, it is perfectly valid to want that.

But second, that is a huge change to how focus spells are balanced for their cost. I don't expect that to happen.

I also like having focus points limited at lower levels. And having refocusing limited as well. It allows focus spells to be more powerful than they would be if they were practically cantrips.

Remember, a typical battle only lasts 4 rounds. Having 3 focus points means being able to cast a focus spell for 3 out of those 4 rounds.

If regaining focus spells is similar to how it is now, it's just 2 extra focus spells a day: base refocus is 1 focus back if you've spent at least 1 since your last regained focus. That means even if you blow 3 in a fight, you'll only have 1 focus for the rest of the day when you refocus. At no point would it be 3 focus spells per encounter unless you only ever have 1 encounter a day.

[Squiggit]

The main thing I expect to happen is just clarifying how you regain focus points and what the refocus activity means.

I expect them to clean up the "you can have different numbers of focus points depending on which order you take these feats in" edge cases.

I don't expect it but I'd like to see a future DA errata tied to PC changes give the psychic... something so they don't lose one of their most unique things at level 12.

breithauptclan wrote:

I also like having focus points limited at lower levels.

In some respects it feels backwards, tbh. Low level casters are the ones in the most dire need of encounter level powers to help mitigate their spellslot issues.

Refocus 2 coming halfway through the game feels like too little too late in the same way that it's kind of janky that Alchemists get perpetuals so late.

[WatersLethe]

How early can you cap out focus points? Isn't it, like level 2 for a few classes?

[Perpdepog]

Karmagator wrote:

Another interview just dropped.

Unsurprisingly, Sayre explicitly mentioned that the answer around the question of "how do I get focus points" is going to be simplified.

What is surprising, though, is that refocus feats were also talked about - they feel like feat taxes rather than cool new stuff you can do. To me it sounds more like refocus feats are going to have cool additions or something, rather than getting folded into your class features.

Let's see how it turns out ^^

That was the impression I got as well. They're going to boost up the multiple focus point-regaining feats so they are more interesting to take, like folding them into the skill item design philosophy of letting you have your math, and something else to make the item stand out.