Refocus change appreciation thread

[Subutai1]

Hello,

With the announced change to refocus being able to get you back to up to 3 Focus points after every single fight, it opens up a huge plethora of Focus centered builds, that albeit were already there but were gatekept behind high level class feats, which allowed you to refocus more than a single Focus point after a fight.

This is of course assuming you have the Focus pool, so most likely having 3 different focus spells and the time, as the refocus of each Focus point requires a 10 minute break. But those requirements are still much much better than high level class feats that most characters rarely saw.

Also, depending on your party composition, this change might allow for much longer adventuring days before having to long rest, which is a big plus in my book.

There are so many new builds I wanna try just because of this one change, for example:

A Medic Champion that throws out 3-4 Lay on Hands each fight in addition to battle medicine, feeling like a full fledged healer.

A Monk with different Ki spells finally feeling like a low-mid level Monk build variant that was missing and/or lacking, which was an effective spell focused Monk.

A Magus recharging all his spell strikes via conflux spells.

A Cackle spamming Witch, although I will wait out the full remastered version of the Witch, since the announced overhaul seems to be quite significant.

What new builds are you interested in, that this change will open up? Or is there someone who does not welcome this change for some reason? If so, why?

[SuperBidi]

It's a significant change but not a massive one. Oracle will need a rework, definitely. And Psychic Dedication will become even more interesting.

[Squiggit]

It's neat, though a somewhat awkward change given that it sort of makes balance considerations more nebulous, since there are now four potential brackets at which a caster could be between combats depending on how much a GM lets them rest.

It's a pretty significant improvement to most low level casters though and can dramatically shift longevity concerns.

But it also really makes having a good focus spell that much more important. I hope they keep this in mind when they're updating focus spells for the Remaster, because now having a bad focus spell is going to be that much more of a downside.

Objectively an improvement for everyone, though in a comparative sense somewhat of a mixed bag for Wild druids (because their extremely good focus efficiency is less impactful).

Maybe Psychics too, they have good focus spells so more casting is obviously beneficial, but having Refocus 2 at level 1 was one of their big mechanical boons and that matters a lot less now.

Awkward for Oracles, but they're in Player Core 2 so presumably they'll get changes to mesh around the new system anyways.

[Deriven Firelion]

Psychics were playing very strange in longer combats. If the combat finished quick they were pretty good, but past that could be a real pain. I wasn't sure why they made Unleash Psyche two rounds given combat can often go longer and be in a series of combats.

[Staffan Johansson]

I never understood why Refocus was limited to 1 focus point up to ~10th level in the first place. It creates a really weird sort of limitation for characters with multiple focus points (which is really easy to get), which goes something like this:

1 focus point, Refocus max 1: "You have this ability that you can effectively use once per encounter." Easy.

2 (or 3) focus points, Refocus max 1: "You have this list of abilities. You can use one of them once per encounter, and you have one (or two) additional uses per day." That just feels weird.

To be honest, I think Focus spells would have been better off as just encounter powers (and perhaps not necessarily all being spells, as such). That would also have opened up more opportunities for martial characters to use them.

[Squiggit]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Psychics were playing very strange in longer combats. If the combat finished quick they were pretty good, but past that could be a real pain. I wasn't sure why they made Unleash Psyche two rounds given combat can often go longer and be in a series of combats.

The typical AP combat is like 2-4 rounds so the psychic gets 1 neutral round, 1-2 good rounds, and sometimes one bad round. Don't think Paizo really built it assuming much beyond that. Definitely hurts if you get in that 4-5 round range, and then 30% of the time your round 6 is meh too.

[Subutai1]

Squiggit wrote:

But it also really makes having a good focus spell that much more important. I hope they keep this in mind when they're updating focus spells for the Remaster, because now having a bad focus spell is going to be that much more of a downside.

This is true. But regarding that point, I believe with this change, it will be more feasible to see characters that will go beyond 3 focus spells. This will not increase the maximum focus pool of 3, but will give those characters more answers for different problems that might occur either in or out of combat.

So even if you choose subpar focus spells, those might come in handy in specific situations and otherwise, you go back to using your focus pool for your staples.

[siegfriedliner]

I feel that it is eating the psychics lunch which is a shame.

[Blave]

It's definitely a good reason to pick up more focus spells, even if only for the increased pool. I wouldn't mind playing a storm druid who can cast three tempest surges per encounter.

Come to think of it, the subclasses starting with extra focus points suddenly became a whole lot more impactful (assuming they still get this, of course).

[Subutai1]

siegfriedliner wrote:

I feel that it is eating the psychics lunch which is a shame.

It is still a buff for the Psychic, albeit not as large of a buff as for any other focus caster. Sure, his level 1 class feature will not be as significant as it was before, but you still can refocus faster than anyone else and you are still happy to pick up another focus spell, so you max out your focus pool to 3 and can use the full 3 focus every single fight.

Also, I would argue that a Psychic has better use for his focus points than many other classes thanks to a large array of amp abilities, giving him more flexibility than most.

[QuidEst]

This will be really nice, yeah. Long healing break? Top back up. Running low on spells? Well, you can take a break and get enough focus points to power through a fight. I found myself taking a familiar ability for a 1/day focus point a lot because it was reassuring to be able to get back to two points in the pool.

Definitely makes a second focus point a bigger deal, so stocks are up for Psychic multiclass and Blessed One.

[YuriP]

Subutai1 wrote:

A Medic Champion that throws out 3-4 Lay on Hands each fight in addition to battle medicine, feeling like a full fledged healer.

Curiously you probably won't need to use user much refocus with such build.

In one of my table we have a Paladin and a Medic with Continual Recovery and Ward Medic. This combination allows to recovery the frontline very fast between battles usually no more than 10 minutes. If you use such combination in same char probably you will do the recessary healing in 10 minutes + 10 minutes refocusing changing nothing here.
The only real difference is that you will can use Lay on Hand during battle more frequently.

Subutai1 wrote:

A Magus recharging all his spell strikes via conflux spells.

A Cackle spamming Witch, although I will wait out the full remastered version of the Witch, since the announced overhaul seems to be quite significant.

Here we really have a very significant difference at low and medium levels.

Being able to recharge all focus points at low levels means that Magus will have much more efficiency in their stock economy, which ends up addressing one of the main complaints of the class automatically, and the same goes for Cackle, being able to refocus freely makes the Witch considerably more efficient with sustained spells and summons.

These are very welcome improvements in these classes in my opinion.

Another class that should also benefit very well from this are elemental sorcerers and draconic blasters. Because this will allow them to become sustainable much sooner.

[Unicore]

It is going to have a massive effect on perceptions of the caster/martial disparity at lower levels and be something that requires careful rebalancing of the range of focus spell powers for every class or it could create problems, but as long as it is not hard for every class that gets them to be able to grab one option close to that ceiling without having to massively jump through archetype feats to get there, it will be ok, and could be a massive improvement.

If wizards still get them at all, something that feels up in the air now, I wonder if they won’t just be spells that can actually be poached from other spell books/schools with relative ease (maybe requiring a feat). I am sure schools will be protective of their incredibly unique spells, but there would be no cosmological forces bending wizards away from each others special spells would there?

[YuriP]

As for psychics, I think that a little errata increasing the duration of the unleash can easily solve the issue.

For me, the issue of the psyche is different. During the playtest, unleash was primarily a tool that allowed the psychic to spend 4-5 focus points per encounter.

In the final version this was removed and the unleash became practically a magical rage, only much worse because it lasts much less and has a much more severe side effect. This created this weird situation for psychics where they have to do as much damage as possible in 2 rounds! Because afterwards they become practically useless magically, at most they demoralize someone.

So even before this change in refocus I thought they needed some improvement, especially in unleash, after this change it became even more evident for me.

Subutai1 wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

But it also really makes having a good focus spell that much more important. I hope they keep this in mind when they're updating focus spells for the Remaster, because now having a bad focus spell is going to be that much more of a downside.

This is true. But regarding that point, I believe with this change, it will be more feasible to see characters that will go beyond 3 focus spells. This will not increase the maximum focus pool of 3, but will give those characters more answers for different problems that might occur either in or out of combat.

So even if you choose subpar focus spells, those might come in handy in specific situations and otherwise, you go back to using your focus pool for your staples.

Not only that, as more focus spells increase the reserve, more situational focus spells can be used to increase the focus reserve soon.

In fact the build only needs 1 good all-rounder focus spell, the rest actually useful situational spells even better to give diversity.

[John R.]

I'm hoping this will work for classes that don't normally get focus spells that take dedications that can opt into focus spells (e.g. Fighter into Psychic or Ranger for warden spells). I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be imbalanced.... It'd definitely ease up on some interesting builds that are restricted by the current refocus rules. Plus, everyone would be able to easily simulate 5e Warlock spellcasting. :P

[Var Sardos]

Here's a thought..... what if Alchemists got some abilities that used Focus points? (Without cross-classing, that is.)

[Blave]

Var Sardos wrote:

Here's a thought..... what if Alchemists got some abilities that used Focus points? (Without cross-classing, that is.)

Focus based quick alchemy that doesn't use reagents?

[Gortle]

It is a good simplification. Worth doing because most people just missed it.

It really makes it important for casters to get a decent focus spell. It also makes it important to improve you focus pool size.

Along with the weapon proficiency change for rogue, wizard, bard and war priest, I'll be implementing this straight away amd not waiting for the release date.

[rainzax]

So wait. To clarify.

If you have one Focus spell, you have a 1-point pool.

And two spells = 2 points, three spells = 3 points.

And without any stipulation on "how" to Refocus, you can recover up to your whole pool in 10 minute increments per point?

I got it right?

[Blave]

rainzax wrote:

So wait. To clarify.

If you have one Focus spell, you have a 1-point pool.

And two spells = 2 points, three spells = 3 points.

And without any stipulation on "how" to Refocus, you can recover up to your whole pool in 10 minute increments per point?

I got it right?

That's how I understand it, yes.

And one feat allowing you to refocus your whole pool at once in 10 minutes, no matter if it's 2 or 3 points total.

[YuriP]

One thing I was noticing with this change that Paizo could take advantage of was basically doing away with the innate spells (not cantrips) of most ancestries and making them focus spells.

Because for me innate spells are on my list of most useless feats that most ancestries can have, they are extremely limited and do not progress or progress very badly. That is, when they no longer start bad.

But if most of these spells were replaced by focus spells, along with this new "unlimited" refocus ability, it could breathe new life into these normally useless feats that many ancestries and heirlooms possess.

[Blave]

YuriP wrote:

One thing I was noticing with this change that Paizo could take advantage of was basically doing away with the innate spells (not cantrips) of most ancestries and making them focus spells.

Because for me innate spells are on my list of most useless feats that most ancestries can have, they are extremely limited and do not progress or progress very badly. That is, when they no longer start bad.

But if most of these spells were replaced by focus spells, along with this new "unlimited" refocus ability, it could breathe new life into these normally useless feats that many ancestries and heirlooms possess.

Some of the newer ancestries have scaling innate spells and even higher level feats scaling spellcasting proficiency. I'd be fine with that, honestly.

Just stuff like the non-scaling 1st level charm of the half-elf are pointless.

[The Raven Black]

I love this change. Now, some familiars might need a new home

[Karmagator]

Blave wrote:

YuriP wrote:

One thing I was noticing with this change that Paizo could take advantage of was basically doing away with the innate spells (not cantrips) of most ancestries and making them focus spells.

Because for me innate spells are on my list of most useless feats that most ancestries can have, they are extremely limited and do not progress or progress very badly. That is, when they no longer start bad.

But if most of these spells were replaced by focus spells, along with this new "unlimited" refocus ability, it could breathe new life into these normally useless feats that many ancestries and heirlooms possess.

Some of the newer ancestries have scaling innate spells and even higher level feats scaling spellcasting proficiency. I'd be fine with that, honestly.

Just stuff like the non-scaling 1st level charm of the half-elf are pointless.

Yeah, the only real issues come from innate spells that force a save or an attack roll. If they don't scale, they are inherently pointless. Everything else is fine.

[Dubious Scholar]

I'm really hoping this comes with a rebalance pass on focus spells (Domain spells especially). This could be really interesting for some classes.

Ki Monks become a LOT better with this I think. Even just getting extra FoB per fight is nice, but they have a lot of focus spells they can learn early, they can easily hit 3 points by level 4 if they want, and the spells are great. (Also nice for the Student of Perfection archetype with even more ki spells). Ki Blast shoots up in utility a lot this way.

[Deriven Firelion]

Squiggit wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Psychics were playing very strange in longer combats. If the combat finished quick they were pretty good, but past that could be a real pain. I wasn't sure why they made Unleash Psyche two rounds given combat can often go longer and be in a series of combats.

The typical AP combat is like 2-4 rounds so the psychic gets 1 neutral round, 1-2 good rounds, and sometimes one bad round. Don't think Paizo really built it assuming much beyond that. Definitely hurts if you get in that 4-5 round range, and then 30% of the time your round 6 is meh too.

I tend to run long series of combats with no rest as I have entire areas descend on the party. So it was more problematic for my DM style. I can't run one room at a time with creatures ignoring what's going on in other nearby areas and sit their like some paid actor to wait until the party is done, refocuses, and then shows up any more than I start every combat at 30 feet like the enemy is sitting their waiting for them to get within 30 feet or the PCs should be expected to do everything in 30 feet.

[YuriP]

Karmagator wrote:

Blave wrote:

YuriP wrote:

One thing I was noticing with this change that Paizo could take advantage of was basically doing away with the innate spells (not cantrips) of most ancestries and making them focus spells.

Because for me innate spells are on my list of most useless feats that most ancestries can have, they are extremely limited and do not progress or progress very badly. That is, when they no longer start bad.

But if most of these spells were replaced by focus spells, along with this new "unlimited" refocus ability, it could breathe new life into these normally useless feats that many ancestries and heirlooms possess.

Some of the newer ancestries have scaling innate spells and even higher level feats scaling spellcasting proficiency. I'd be fine with that, honestly.

Just stuff like the non-scaling 1st level charm of the half-elf are pointless.

Yeah, the only real issues come from innate spells that force a save or an attack roll. If they don't scale, they are inherently pointless. Everything else is fine.

But that's precisely the question, with the exception of cantrips, do you use or have you seen anyone use any innate magic that comes from ancestry?

The most I can think of is spellcasters picking them up as an additional spell. But even that is very rare and questionable, because it's a feat, often high level for 1 spell 1x per day.

If it was focus magic, at least it would have better scalability and number of uses.

[PossibleCabbage]

I like that this sets up if someone is down 2 or more focus points from their max, that a player would weigh "whether using a focus point is needed here" because you can now refocus without having spent a focus point since the last time you refocused.

So you can go all out and spend all your focus points in the first hard combat, then if you can get through three combats without spending focus you will be full up for the next difficult fight.

[Evilgm]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I tend to run long series of combats with no rest as I have entire areas descend on the party. So it was more problematic for my DM style. I can't run one room at a time with creatures ignoring what's going on in other nearby areas and sit their like some paid actor to wait until the party is done, refocuses, and then shows up any more than I start every combat at 30 feet like the enemy is sitting their waiting for them to get within 30 feet or the PCs should be expected to do everything in 30 feet.

If you choose to run the game completely contrary to the encounter design rules then your opinions on balance are completely different to design intent, so things simply aren't going to work the way you'd like unless you change them for the game you're running- you absolutely shouldn't expect the default rules to be appropriate for your game.

[shroudb]

while it is an overall positive change for a lot of classes...

...i do hope that psychics get an errata to at least get like an extra spell per level or something, cause with now everyone being able to fully refocus back from level 1, it feels like their extremely limited spell slots will be a huge malus without a big enough payoff.

since they aren't in either core 1 or core 2, i think that they are only salvagable atm with an official errata.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think the Psychic's ability to double-refocus is still pretty useful, since a party might want to spend 10 minutes after a fight (for healing, mostly) but would balk at 20-30 minute rests.

I might make it that "the Psychic refocuses to full in 10 minutes if they only used amps" though.

[Squiggit]

It's possible, but if you want to do something like lay on hands twice or have one medicine heal the full party that's already like 20-40 minutes depending. For better or for worse lots of resting is already kind of baked into PF2.

Admittedly just anecdotal, but most groups I've interacted with either don't have enough time for any rest or have plenty of time for rest. That is to say I see a lot of groups handwave rest times, and a handful play really tight timers, but 'exactly 10 minutes only' seems relatively rare.

[shroudb]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think the Psychic's ability to double-refocus is still pretty useful, since a party might want to spend 10 minutes after a fight (for healing, mostly) but would balk at 20-30 minute rests.

I might make it that "the Psychic refocuses to full in 10 minutes if they only used amps" though.

from my experience, the "short rest" is either a yes or no, rather than how long (exluding hour long stops ofc).

if a party is able to stop for 10minutes, more often than not, it can stop for 20. It's only rarely that you get the opportunity to rest but only for 10minutes and not more.

So, the benefit they get now is extremely marginal, and while it is something, it certainly isn't worth having less than half the spells of a wizard imo.

---

an alternative "boost" would be to change psychic refocus to completly passive alongside with the full refocus one, so you don't need to be doing anything, your reserves automatically recharge after 10minutes even if you are forced to continue running through a dungeon (or something along those lines).

[Unicore]

It is not uncommon for GMs to make checks every 10 minutes in a dungeon or environment where hostile creatures are in the general vicinity.

At the same time GMs should be flexible and not over do random encounters but when they happen 30 minutes should be 3x as likely to be interrupted, when interruption could happen.

[Shisumo]

There are also more than a few PFS modules where the PCs are given one (1) 10 minute break between each wave of attacks or other action scenes.

[Gortle]

I did a one short rest only in my last session. Because there was a timed event. It was nice for a change.

[The Raven Black]

I feel giving more importance, through the new Refocus, to how long PCs can actually rest between encounters might lead to more diversity in the timing of encounters in the future.

[Twiggies]

My gm already implemented this in our game, which is awesome for my character. Even though Oracles are still hard locked due to their curse, he's multiclass sorc so he can use that focus spell at least. I wonder if they'll address Oracle's awkward focus spell cap with this too?

To clarify, by awkward I mean this:
When an Oracle casts one of their focus spells which is Cursebound, their curse goes up to minor.
If they cast another, it goes up to Moderate.
HOWEVER, when resting, the curse only 'restores' back to Minor level, and won't fully heal back until a full proper rest.

This means that you really have to make sure to spend 2 focus points in the first fight of the day that you spend one, because after that, you're hard locked to always only casting one, since you cannot progress past Moderate without bunting yourself, so effectively you only have 1 focus point for every combat after the first that you spent one in. Which means it highly encourages multiclass archetyping into something else with focus spell.

I guess I feel its kinda an awkward design? So I'm super curious to know if that would be looked at thanks to this update.

[The Raven Black]

Twiggies wrote:

My gm already implemented this in our game, which is awesome for my character. Even though Oracles are still hard locked due to their curse, he's multiclass sorc so he can use that focus spell at least. I wonder if they'll address Oracle's awkward focus spell cap with this too?

To clarify, by awkward I mean this:
When an Oracle casts one of their focus spells which is Cursebound, their curse goes up to minor.
If they cast another, it goes up to Moderate.
HOWEVER, when resting, the curse only 'restores' back to Minor level, and won't fully heal back until a full proper rest.

This means that you really have to make sure to spend 2 focus points in the first fight of the day that you spend one, because after that, you're hard locked to always only casting one, since you cannot progress past Moderate without bunting yourself, so effectively you only have 1 focus point for every combat after the first that you spent one in. Which means it highly encourages multiclass archetyping into something else with focus spell.

I guess I feel its kinda an awkward design? So I'm super curious to know if that would be looked at thanks to this update.

IIRC Oracle was specifically mentioned as one of the classes that would be Remastered.

[YuriP]

If there's one thing in the oracle that I've always found awful, it's that. From leveling up the curse by using focus spells and then reducing to minor. To the point that some players simply took MC with divine sorcerers to circumvent this limitation, starting to be able to use focus points and in-chassis recharge without the problem of increasing the curse in an unwanted way.

[Shisumo]

I really hope all the edge cases go away and the rule just becomes a straight-up "you have one Focus Point for every non-cantrip Focus Spell you know, up to a maximum of 3" because the random, awkward spaces where that's not true are deeply aggravating.

[YuriP]

It's completely based on my feeling. But I'm pretty sure this will happen. It would be strange for Paizo to simplify refocusing to the point of allowing refocusing up to the maximum focus points the character has, but keeping the complex mechanic that some spells give focus points while others don't. It will most likely simplify this as well.

[PossibleCabbage]

They have mentioned that there is a "refocus to full in 10 minutes" feat, which replaces the refocus 2 and refocus 3 feats. I wonder what level that feat will be.

Since one of the problems with those feats to begin with is that they land at levels that generally have a number of significantly more interesting feats available.

Like the level 18 monk feats include "forceful on your unarmed attacks", "reach on your unarmed attacks", "ethereal jaunt as a ki spell", "go super saiyan", and "refocus 3."

[YuriP]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

They have mentioned that there is a "refocus to full in 10 minutes" feat, which replaces the refocus 2 and refocus 3 feats. I wonder what level that feat will be.

Since one of the problems with those feats to begin with is that they land at levels that generally have a number of significantly more interesting feats available.

Like the level 18 monk feats include "forceful on your unarmed attacks", "reach on your unarmed attacks", "ethereal jaunt as a ki spell", "go super saiyan", and "refocus 3."

Yes, but also if they place themselves at these levels competing with better things, people simply won't catch on.

As mentioned, spending 30 minutes recovering is not that uncommon, especially after moderate to severe encounters where players have taken a lot of damage. With refocusing working in parallel to this, the interest in spending a feat slot to refocus faster will only occur if the feat is not competing with better feats, which will most likely lower the feat's level or it will simply be left aside by players .

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

I think this is interesting, the number of focus points is still staggered and dependent upon class options like domains, etc, correct?

[YuriP]

We really don't know, we're guessing they haven't messed with that either and believing that focus points will still be provided by the feats that provide focus spells.

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

Thank you!

[Shisumo]

Pure speculation, but given the changes to Refocus in general, 6th level feels about right.

[QuidEst]

Controversial opinion: refocus to max as a general feat?

I'm expecting it to still be a class feat, but it does feel like it could stand to not be reprinted a dozen times.

[YuriP]

I was thinking the same thing. But one that focus spells are for some classes only it's unlikely that designers put it as general feat even if they put "you have a focus pool" has pre-requisite.