Potential Changes to Core 1 Classes

[Helmic]

Martialmasters wrote:

scrolling through this i just see a severe desire for massive power creep

I don't think that's a helpful response, it just amounts to accusing people of some moral fault for having a take on the game's mechanics you dislike. I think it would be better to talk about what you view as excessive power creep rather than insinuating people have some ulterior motive, as though nobody here is a GM that would obviously be running monsters against these PC options.

[Martialmasters]

Helmic wrote:

Martialmasters wrote:

scrolling through this i just see a severe desire for massive power creep

I don't think that's a helpful response, it just amounts to accusing people of some moral fault for having a take on the game's mechanics you dislike. I think it would be better to talk about what you view as excessive power creep rather than insinuating people have some ulterior motive, as though nobody here is a GM that would obviously be running monsters against these PC options.

bards dont need buffs, if anything minor nerfs but they are mostly fine

warpriests didnt need master in deity weapon, thankfully its relegated to 19/20

the refocus changes unless further changes are made will result in power creep, my war priest getting 3 weapon surges a day pretty quickly, and being able to use 3 in nearly every fight...is big

druids getting metal armor is just early level power creep, its minor but its notable.

baseline substitution for wizards?

i cringe at rogues doing sneak attacks with a d12 maul

some of these are coming, some of these were suggestions

just from this alone, severe encounters outside of single bosses are going to start feeling like moderates.

overall happy with the remaster in theory, time will tell if it doesnt unbalance the game. im suspecting it will somewhat on its own.

[Golurkcanfly]

Jedi Maester wrote:

I doubt this change will happen, but the recent additions of minotaurs and centaurs made me want to bring it up. How do people feel about giving bards more options for spells outside of the occult list? There are many musicians that can control animals and weather, which sounds pretty primal, in ancient Greek stories. Orpheus of course being a prime example. Then there are stories of people selling their souls for musically abilities, which could be a divine source. On top of this, the Thaumaturge, which is some ways a martial bard, easily goes between all four lists.

Not saying the bard should be a pick a list caster, not that I would mind it, but maybe some form of "occult access" to pick up some of these spells? Thoughts?

Tbh I'd be okay with this idea, but only if the lists got overhauled so either the Witch or the Psychic became the premiere Occult caster and the Bard was reworked to a "Universal" Bounded/Focus Caster.

But that's outside the scope of Pathfinder Remastered.

[Unicore]

I think an archetype that did some specific “pied piper” type stuff would be a great way to handle adding some musical animal empathy/courtroom to any character.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

If there's one thing I would love for the Bard, especially with them getting martial weapons on default, it would be for some kind of Warrior-Poet archetype to give them bounded casting and some cool combat buffs. Something not exactly like Magus. I like the music magic bard but I also love the daring lyrical warrior bard.

[egindar]

Martialmasters wrote:

baseline substitution for wizards?

i cringe at rogues doing sneak attacks with a d12 maul

When was it said that either of these things was happening?

ETA: Ah, I think you meant that baseline sub was a request, not a change. Strike that, then, although I don't think anyone was asking for sneak attack with mauls so much as rogue proficiency with martial weapons (irrespective of changes to sneak attack). And I doubt Paizo is planning on making sneak attack weapon-agnostic, either.

[Gortle]

Martialmasters wrote:

scrolling through this i just see a severe desire for massive power creep

If you take everyone together yes. Clearly you can't. Some of us were reasonable. But some are people arguing against core design decisions.

Paizo is giving out small improvements to the good classes, and large improvements to those things that didn't work so well.IT is going well so far.

[Shisumo]

I have extremely fond memories of the half-orc greataxe rogue I made up for PF1 back in the day...

[The Raven Black]

Helmic wrote:

Martialmasters wrote:

scrolling through this i just see a severe desire for massive power creep

I don't think that's a helpful response, it just amounts to accusing people of some moral fault for having a take on the game's mechanics you dislike. I think it would be better to talk about what you view as excessive power creep rather than insinuating people have some ulterior motive, as though nobody here is a GM that would obviously be running monsters against these PC options.

TBT I feel this thread quickly turned into mostly "What I want to see in Remastered, no matter the consequences" posts.

[Jacob Jett]

Martialmasters wrote:

Helmic wrote:

Martialmasters wrote:

scrolling through this i just see a severe desire for massive power creep

I don't think that's a helpful response, it just amounts to accusing people of some moral fault for having a take on the game's mechanics you dislike. I think it would be better to talk about what you view as excessive power creep rather than insinuating people have some ulterior motive, as though nobody here is a GM that would obviously be running monsters against these PC options.

bards dont need buffs, if anything minor nerfs but they are mostly fine

warpriests didnt need master in deity weapon, thankfully its relegated to 19/20

the refocus changes unless further changes are made will result in power creep, my war priest getting 3 weapon surges a day pretty quickly, and being able to use 3 in nearly every fight...is big

druids getting metal armor is just early level power creep, its minor but its notable.

baseline substitution for wizards?

i cringe at rogues doing sneak attacks with a d12 maul

some of these are coming, some of these were suggestions

just from this alone, severe encounters outside of single bosses are going to start feeling like moderates.

overall happy with the remaster in theory, time will tell if it doesnt unbalance the game. im suspecting it will somewhat on its own.

I don't know that these are all power creep. That said, I wouldn't be sad if sneak attacks were limited to only agile weapons to avoid your maul scenario.

[Kobold Catgirl]

How would rogues get sneak attacks with a d12 weapon? Even Ruffian restricts you to d8 weapons. If ruffian gets to sneak attack with Martial weapons, they'll still have that restriction. The reason rogues are getting Martial weapons is not to increase their damage dice, but their traits. They already had access to a few martial weapons that were arguably objectively the "best in slot"; this is just expanding that to be more consistent.

It's not power creep, it's option creep. Those two can be the same thing, but I don't think they are in this case.

[RiverMesa]

Yeah, a lot of people seem to be confusing "rogues have martial weapon proficiency now" for "rogues can sneak attack with any martial weapon now".

The "agile or finesse" (for melee, at least) restriction is still very much gonna be there, this will just make it easier to do with something like hatchets or other weapons you previously had to scrounge weird archetypes or ancestry feats for.

[Karmagator]

I'd like to see the Ranger's Hunted Shot not being available to the fighter, so that the ranged lineup isn't utterly one-sided from levels 4-16. In return, I'd like the fighter to get something that isn't just double shot + triple shot, because those feats are terrible.

[CorvusMask]

Warpriests didn't really need master profiency in weapons, but it sure is cool and avoids things like theorycrafters saying "what warpriest has over cloistered cleric at level 20?" ;D

[YuriP]

Karmagator wrote:

I'd like to see the Ranger's Hunted Shot not being available to the fighter, so that the ranged lineup isn't utterly one-sided from levels 4-16. In return, I'd like the fighter to get something that isn't just double shot + triple shot, because those feats are terrible.

Maybe I misunderstood. But I don't think Hunted Shot will lose the power-only limit used against hunted prey in the remaster. What looks like it will happen are other feats that in other classes and archetypes do not have this limitation that will also have the requirement that they can only be used against hunted prey removed.

As for the Hunted Shot in the fighter, this one can already be used in it and in any other class if you take the ranger archetype and go against it, it would kind of be going against the idea of the archetypes.

As for the Double Shot and the Triple Shot, as with the Power Attack they kind of leave me a little in doubt as to how it should be. It's not that it's useless:

The Power Attack is good for when you need more than 1x damage, either to overcome damage resistance, or to break shields, or to guarantee the death of a target that maybe a single hit is not enough. But it is not designed to increase the warrior's DPR.

Double Shot is similar functions to me, it is useful for hitting multiple weak opponents, especially to avoid an overkill and split the damage.

The Triple Shot has the same function but for 3 targets. The fact that you can use the 3 attacks against the same target ends up confusing some players as if it were a power-up, but in reality it is there so you can choose how you will divide the damage (2 arrows with a stronger target, and 1 against the one on the verge of death).

And something more or less similar happens with Hunted Shot. It's actually a more limited Flurry of Blows that works well in the Flurry Ranger's hands because of the MAP benefit. But the main function of this feat is to compress actions, and in the fighter's hand this is very clear. The main benefit is that against the stuck table you get one more action to do something, like move more.

This is kind of standard 1st level feats that don't consume other resources, they open up more options but don't necessarily improve power.

The problem with these feats is that these limitations are not clear in the books. But honestly I don't think it's the work of the books to chew that up either, part of the fun of the game is discovering the efficiency and true usefulness of the options and what possible combinations you find interesting.

[Karmagator]

YuriP wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

I'd like to see the Ranger's Hunted Shot not being available to the fighter, so that the ranged lineup isn't utterly one-sided from levels 4-16. In return, I'd like the fighter to get something that isn't just double shot + triple shot, because those feats are terrible.

Maybe I misunderstood. But I don't think Hunted Shot will lose the power-only limit used against hunted prey in the remaster. What looks like it will happen are other feats that in other classes and archetypes do not have this limitation that will also have the requirement that they can only be used against hunted prey removed.

As for the Hunted Shot in the fighter, this one can already be used in it and in any other class if you take the ranger archetype and go against it, it would kind of be going against the idea of the archetypes.

I think you misunderstood. What I meant is that Hunted Shot should be ranger-only, i.e. have a requirement only someone with the ranger class can fulfill (hunter's edge). Yes, that's very unfortunate for everyone who isn't the fighter, so probably not the best idea. However, it isn't that rare for multiclass archetypes. For example, someone with the magus archetype can never select a feat that requires a hybrid study or arcane cascade.

YuriP wrote:

As for the Double Shot and the Triple Shot, as with the Power Attack they kind of leave me a little in doubt as to how it should be. It's not that it's useless: [shortened not to clog the thread]

I think the problem with Double Shot is even worse, hence why I think that unlike Power Attack it doesn't have a place. It provides a pretty marginal upgrade over just attacking twice and is basically only useful for splitting damage to avoid overkill. Which is very situational. In all other cases I can think of, splitting damage is actively detrimental to the party. And to get rid of that, you have to pay for a 6th level feat you'll basically never use otherwise. Tbf, this also gives it another use - for really making sure that something relatively low HP dies. But that isn't exactly stellar or non-situational either. Overall it really doesn't feel good or provide a strong benefit. Hence, I think it's a terrible feat, even if "useless" is hyperbole.

On the other hand, Ranger Dedication plus Hunted Shot is cheaper (2nd+4th level feats vs 4th+6th) and universally useful. The fact that you add both hits for resistances alone is a godsend, as that is your eternal bane. Compared to Double Shot, you usually also get an additional shot at least every other turn (turns without having to use Hunt Prey). This absolutely increases your power and by a fair margin at that. Which is why it is so common for ranger min/max builds.

[Gortle]

Karmagator wrote:

I think the problem with Double Shot is even worse, hence why I think that unlike Power Attack it doesn't have a place.

It is pretty marginal. If you hit on a 9 or less it is a slight negative.

It is effectively +1 to one shot. Triple shot averagse out to +1 to 3 shots. So I guess that is good if all you do is 3 attacks. Then at level 16 it really jumps up with Multishot Stance.

I really find archers a bit boring as they do one thing. At least a melee character has to think about movement and placement each round. I'm not sure how to make archery more interesting.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Archery really needs easier access to maneuvers, but they're clearly worried about archery becoming the objective best option. It's tricky.

That's not even getting into reloading, too.

[Karmagator]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Archery really needs easier access to maneuvers, but they're clearly worried about archery becoming the objective best option. It's tricky.

That's not even getting into reloading, too.

Yeah, ranged martials are really tricky to balance and make interesting. On the one hand, you can't really do anything but Strike and your individual damage is mediocre at best. On the other hand, you can afford to basically spend all your actions on offense, which allows you to punch above your apparent weight. That makes swinging the balance out of bounds really easy. It's a dilemma for sure.

Reload weapons just do the former and can't do the latter, hence their additional problems.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Honestly, I think a big problem with ranged weapons is the encouragement towards builds that spend all your actions shooting. I wish that were less of a thing. "You're better at three-action attacking!" Okay, I'm sure that's mechanically very strong, but is it fun? Is that a playstyle you really want to encourage that bad? I'd rather archery get more special 1A options of its own. They don't have to be as good as Feint, Grapple and Trip.

[Karmagator]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Honestly, I think a big problem with ranged weapons is the encouragement towards builds that spend all your actions shooting. I wish that were less of a thing. "You're better at three-action attacking!" Okay, I'm sure that's mechanically very strong, but is it fun? Is that a playstyle you really want to encourage that bad? I'd rather archery get more special 1A options of its own. They don't have to be as good as Feint, Grapple and Trip.

I'd absolutely love that. Flurry ranger and ranged fighter are both very good, but incredibly boring :/

[The Raven Black]

Reach spell gives similar abilities to casters. One action each turn to be far from the frontline.

The problem is that casters' usual routine is the 2-actions casting vs the martial's 1-action attack.

So, Reach spell only costs half the number of actions of the caster's attack. Whereas Reload costs the same as the Martial's attack.

Not sure how to efficiently balance this.

[Unicore]

I think it was a mistake for all reload 0 bows not to have a volley like accuracy penalty that can be overcome by spending a concentration action to aim. It just turned the bow into a machine gun for both PCs and NPCs. Bows are way too deadly in the hands of agile lower level enemies.

Then feats that give multiple shots could only require aiming once and be a lot better without needing to be any different

[Ric D.]

I hope you are all well, this is my first time writing on a Paizo forum. About the changes, due to the recent updates, they will remain as suggestions for a future version of Cleric. The Doctrines greatly restrict rather than expand the class, there have been no new Doctrines since the initial release, but there have been expanded Domains and Apocryphal additions. They should come as feats in the Core Rulebook. I think the deities themselves are enough to differentiate the clerics. The cleric should come with the Cloistered Cleric chassi, but with proficiency in light and medium armor and shield block. The warpriest, this should come as an option of a class that could include the Inquisitor. A class less concerned with rites and fervent prayers and being more an agent of the religious institution itself, defender of dogmas and hunter of heretics. Something between the Cleric and the Champion. Who knows in the future a class like this will appear along with the Shifter, which is linked to the protection of druidic circles.
The other classes are fine in my opinion and I'm waiting how the witch will be updated.
I hope I have not offended anyone with my post and my occasional spelling errors. Thanks for reading.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Honestly, I think a big problem with ranged weapons is the encouragement towards builds that spend all your actions shooting. I wish that were less of a thing. "You're better at three-action attacking!" Okay, I'm sure that's mechanically very strong, but is it fun? Is that a playstyle you really want to encourage that bad? I'd rather archery get more special 1A options of its own. They don't have to be as good as Feint, Grapple and Trip.

Oh, this is a necromance of the discussion, but a really easy solution seems like it would be to add at least one special 1A option that has the Attack trait. This would allow the Flurry Ranger's multi-attack advantage to still really shine without pigeonholing them into a single type of turn.

It doesn't have to be as good as Grapple or Trip. In fact, it probably shouldn't be.

[The Raven Black]

An idea from an older thread : If Witches could form a Coven with other party members, the Class could see renewed interest.