I've touched on it elsewhere, but snares are absolutely brutal once you hit lightning snares at 12 (ranger) or 14 (snarecrafter) when combined with any reliable allied source of forced movement. The investment can hurt, but the payoff is gigantic even without preparing anything in advance.
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Snares are utter garbage in Society play where you'd think asking one or more players (or the GM) to cooperate with you is tantamount to asking them to kill their mum.
My kobold rogue has set up over 60 snares over the course of 8 levels in Society. Of those I have only ever triggered three; two of which were against allies.
One game shop basically told me to stop and "play like a normal rogue" or they were going to kick me out.
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I feel like many of Ravingdork's questions have answers in the RAW, they just aren't the ones that he wants.
It could be interesting to see snares get changed into a consumable you activate to plant, though. Would make them a lot more usable by other characters, instead of just kind of a unique gimmick for Snarecrafters to turn gold into damage.
If snares are, like I read from the above posts, an I WIN button hidden behind deep system mastery, then they are the kind of things PF2 worked very hard to remove from the PF1 legacy.
I hope Remastered will see them deeply redesigned.
IDK "These things with weird action economy are good if you can set them up in advance and good if you can position yourself so enemies have to walk into them" isn't really what I'd call deep system mastery.
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Yeah, snares just aren't a good fit for every group, which makes them bad for PFS. If your group prefers to kick in the door and charge instead of planning, then items which depend on planning will never be a good fit. That should just be conceptually obvious to people, frankly. If you needed to plant 60 snares before realizing you were doing it wrong, you were probably never meant to use them. That isn't a deep system mastery thing, it is just basic tactics as Squiggit points out, mixed in with a little bit of psychology.
Making them something which just works with zero planning or foresight misses the whole point of what snares represent.
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I feel like many of Ravingdork's questions have answers in the RAW, they just aren't the ones that he wants.
I feel that they don't.
Certainly the difference between snare and snare kits is not always clear. Nor are the rules around disarming snares.
IME, snares force the other PCs to completely change and adapt their tactics, maybe even their builds, to cater to the snarecrafter's wishes.
See how this is a recipe for bad feelings between the players ?
Depends how you build them, but in principle I agree some tactics require party cooperation to pull off.
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I would like a kind of variant rule for it like how there's the sidebar for giving winged ancestries base fly speed but also I would understand if the effort put into making it somewhat balanced just wouldn't be worth itThis already exists, at least for undead characters.
The rules for undead PCs make some adjustments for playability. The main differences are reducing the undead immunity to disease, paralyzed, poison, and sleep to bonuses, and not having the undead destroyed when they reach 0 HP. If you want something more similar to standard undead for the PCs, you can give them the immunities fully. This means quite a few spells, enemies, and hazards could become useless. You can remove a fair number of these from your campaign and skip rewarding XP for dangers that don't actually endanger anyone. For instance, if undead PCs immune to poison battled enemies that made heavy use of poison, that might be a trivial encounter for your group.
Having the PCs be destroyed at 0 HP is a trickier change. This removes a safeguard intended to prevent total party kills (TPKs) and avoid the need to monitor the whole group's HP very carefully at all times. Implementing it works best if you're playing a high-intensity one-shot game or are playing troupe-style play, with more characters than players, so a character who dies can quickly be replaced.
I did not realise that although what I was thinking was some more in the middle option without the destroyed at 0 hp part specifically
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Depends how you build them, but in principle I agree some tactics require party cooperation to pull off.IME, snares force the other PCs to completely change and adapt their tactics, maybe even their builds, to cater to the snarecrafter's wishes.
See how this is a recipe for bad feelings between the players ?
That's true to an extent, but having people not charge ahead of prepared traps and occasionally helping to maneuver enemies into them as opportunities arise are not exactly big asks.
I think the thing that surprised me most was how people frequently charged past the traps, actively preventing the enemy from coming to us and going through the triggering spaces. Letting the enemy come to you is a commonly accepted basic tactic in this game and I strongly suspect some of the players did so out of spite simply because I suggested delaying or taking some other prepatory action.
Like, why let me waste precious table time setting up the traps in the first place if it was never intended to allow them to be used?
I'd get similar behavior from GMs as well, with mindless enemies stepping around hidden trap squares, or targeting someone away from the traps even though they were a less favorable target than someonenear a trap, and the like.
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I'd get similar behavior from GMs as well, with mindless enemies stepping around hidden trap squares, or targeting someone away from the traps even though they were a less favorable target than someonenear a trap, and the like.
It can get pretty bad when even the GM refuses to do the basics.
While this isn't a remaster change, I think that a water Kineticist would be fun to pair with snare options, given how many options they can get for battlefield control and repositioning enemies.
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I don't expect the remaster to really address this issue beyond making hammers and flails not automatic on knocking creatures prone, but I think the problem that a lot of really fun, interesting play options suffer from in PF2 is that there is an optimization game meta that is hard to overcome if even one or two party members buy into it.
If someone in the party plays a fighter with AoO, then it becomes very common for the rest of the party to build around taking advantage of reaction chaining enemies into oblivion as quickly as possible. This issue really becomes apparent at higher levels. Solo monsters that could absolutely wreck a party can be nearly trivialized by taking advantage of the action economy, including reactions.
Because of this combat strategies like snares/hazardous terrain, forced movement and persistent damage are much easier for NPCs to take advantage of than PCs. If you have a fighter waiting to AoO an enemy when they stand up (provoking an opportune backstab at the same time) then moving the enemy is doing their work for them, and it is a lot more difficult for martials to end their turns where they think the enemy will be, rather than where they can make additional attacks.
Is this really a problem that needs fixing? Or is it just a tactical result of the game being designed the way that it is?
All I know is that in the games I play, Fighters are incredibly popular and once there is one in the party, then it is hard not to dictate the entire team strategy around what gets the most productivity out of their Attack of Opportunity reaction.
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So, PFS module. A snarecrafter in the party. The guy insisted on putting a snare first thing in any encounter.
While he was doing this, we were getting in the first round of combat, with him doing nothing but setting his snare. Meanwhile we moved, the opponents moved and his snare was not in such an ideal place anymore. In fact, its position was depriving us of our usual strategies (flanking, going around the thugs to get at the caster...).
It felt like we were fighting against both the enemies and him because we still wanted him to have his fun with his snares.
I swear, at one moment, I was fully prepared to move and trigger his snare (and take the appropriate damage) just so we could finally fight as we needed to quickly end the combat.
The GM moved my target opponent before that, and I ended up being able to reach them without stepping on the snare.
And, IIRC, during the whole session, his snares triggered maybe once on a near-mindless creature, at a time when we were mostly mopping up the remnants of an encounter.
And, during all combats, I was trying to find ways to shove an enemy into one of his snares, to no avail.
We had a discussion right after finishing the module when we thankfully succeeded in convincing him to forget about snares and rebuild his PC accordingly.
I consider snares a trap.
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From a thematic and narrative standpoint, setting up traps and ambushes are really cool and satisfying where you have time, or a montage, to get it set up for an approaching opponent.
Which is why it doesn't gel with Pathfinder at all, where the players are the ones exploring, advancing, and chasing, not the other way around, they deal with traps, not set them up for opponents to stumble into.
Traps/Ambushes only work in certain niche scenarios personalized for said traps/ambushes, which probably aren't even fun or rewarding enough even if you do set them up right.
From a gameplay standpoint they'd have to work like WoW's Hunters' traps where they just yeet them and they deploy. Is that realistic, depending on the trap no but realism doesn't matter as much as consistency. More importantly, they would actually get used.
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I'd enjoy getting some more interesting angels or something unique to Nirvana, since I think the agathions which I enjoyed are alongside inevitable in getting phased out for OGL reasons. Either more wings, more eyes, more need to say BE NOT AFRAID, if they're sticking with angels, or something other than winged people if they're going with something else.
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From a thematic and narrative standpoint, setting up traps and ambushes are really cool and satisfying where you have time, or a montage, to get it set up for an approaching opponent.
Which is why it doesn't gel with Pathfinder at all, where the players are the ones exploring, advancing, and chasing, not the other way around, they deal with traps, not set them up for opponents to stumble into.
Traps/Ambushes only work in certain niche scenarios personalized for said traps/ambushes, which probably aren't even fun or rewarding enough even if you do set them up right.
From a gameplay standpoint they'd have to work like WoW's Hunters' traps where they just yeet them and they deploy. Is that realistic, depending on the trap no but realism doesn't matter as much as consistency. More importantly, they would actually get used.
My Ironfang Invasion campaign in which the ranger used snares began with Trail of the Hunted. As the module's name indicates, the usual party chasing down enemies was reversed. This time the hobgoblin enemies were chasing the party. This could explain why snares fit that campaign. The hobgoblin army was trained in disciplined tactics, which made them strong but predictable. Their predictability was a weakness because the party knew how to bait them into snares.
So, PFS module. A snarecrafter in the party. The guy insisted on putting a snare first thing in any encounter.
While he was doing this, we were getting in the first round of combat, with him doing nothing but setting his snare. Meanwhile we moved, the opponents moved and his snare was not in such an ideal place anymore. In fact, its position was depriving us of our usual strategies (flanking, going around the thugs to get at the caster...).
It felt like we were fighting against both the enemies and him because we still wanted him to have his fun with his snares. ...
This example screams "Bad tactics." It would be like a ranger using bow attacks in a small room against enemies with Attack of Opportunity or a rogue trying to hide in an empty field with no concealment. The other players trying to cooperate with the misguided snarecrafter was nice, but that encounter sounds like the wrong place for a snare.
I don't expect the remaster to really address this issue beyond making hammers and flails not automatic on knocking creatures prone, but I think the problem that a lot of really fun, interesting play options suffer from in PF2 is that there is an optimization game meta that is hard to overcome if even one or two party members buy into it.
If someone in the party plays a fighter with AoO, then it becomes very common for the rest of the party to build around taking advantage of reaction chaining enemies into oblivion as quickly as possible. This issue really becomes apparent at higher levels. Solo monsters that could absolutely wreck a party can be nearly trivialized by taking advantage of the action economy, including reactions.
Because of this combat strategies like snares/hazardous terrain, forced movement and persistent damage are much easier for NPCs to take advantage of than PCs. If you have a fighter waiting to AoO an enemy when they stand up (provoking an opportune backstab at the same time) then moving the enemy is doing their work for them, and it is a lot more difficult for martials to end their turns where they think the enemy will be, rather than where they can make additional attacks.
Is this really a problem that needs fixing? Or is it just a tactical result of the game being designed the way that it is?
All I know is that in the games I play, Fighters are incredibly popular and once there is one in the party, then it is hard not to dictate the entire team strategy around what gets the most productivity out of their Attack of Opportunity reaction.
And Unicore asks the key question. Pathfinder 2nd Edition carefully balanced the strength of Strikes and spells. But other forms of damaging opponents, such as snares, forced movement off a cliff, or secondary effects of alchemical bombs (despite the bombs being used in Strikes), are not as easily balanced. Fortunately, as Rysky said about snares, they are niche. A party cannot exploit these odd tactics in most combats.
But do we want those odd tactics to be available? Do we want investing in them, such as with Lightning Snares feat, to make them more powerful in their narrow niche, so that certain encounters are much easier?
I like having the odd tactics available. They give combat more variety, and they let the players feel like they are playing smart. These tactics often require teamwork, and I accept that Pathfinder strongly rewards teamwork.
Having the odd tactics be maximized leads into the familiar problems of min-maxing. A min-maxed character is especially good at some encounters, so the GM has to treat those encounters as trivial when planning some exciting, challenging encounters. But the min-maxed character is also especially weak against some other encounters, yet exploiting that weakness to create a challenging encounter feels like picking on the player. If a snarecrafter character would easily win when snares are useful, then setting up an encounter were snares are useless feels hard-hearted.
Thus, I think that snares are fine, but that advanced snare feats, such as Surprise Snare, are overreach. Snares should be sometimes tactic, not an always tactic.
It does sound like some of the auto knock prone effects are being reigned in beyond just the adjustment to weapon crit specialization. As a GM, I feel like I am probably going to wait until the Player Core 2 is out before I really try to make the whole shift to the remastery because I don't really want to be operating in a half-way zone, creating arbitrary adjustment rules that will later be replaced. So it will probably be another year before it is all clear how much Errata is mechanical instead of Narrative, and whether it matters what the source of the change is vs how it affects the feel of the game in play.
EDIT: About Snares, I like to run a lot of dungeons as living dungeons where enemies actually move around and have objectives. Snares can be pretty effective when enemies come out of their rooms, but not a lot of GMs run dungeons that way. I understand why though. My party just barely survived a 450xp 18 round encounter that combined 4 encounters into one. They all swear it was the most fun they have ever had, but all 4 of them dropped at least once during the encounter and 2 characters succeeded on death saves at dying 3 during the encounter.
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From a thematic and narrative standpoint, setting up traps and ambushes are really cool and satisfying where you have time, or a montage, to get it set up for an approaching opponent.
Which is why it doesn't gel with Pathfinder at all, where the players are the ones exploring, advancing, and chasing, not the other way around, they deal with traps, not set them up for opponents to stumble into.
Traps/Ambushes only work in certain niche scenarios personalized for said traps/ambushes, which probably aren't even fun or rewarding enough even if you do set them up right.
From a gameplay standpoint they'd have to work like WoW's Hunters' traps where they just yeet them and they deploy. Is that realistic, depending on the trap no but realism doesn't matter as much as consistency. More importantly, they would actually get used.
This is an excellent explanation. I think traps/snares have their place, mostly for a prepared ambush or if the party is resting in a location where ingress is restricted and can easily be trapped. As an in-combat tool tho, it's too difficult to pull off.
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I'd enjoy getting some more interesting angels or something unique to Nirvana, since I think the agathions which I enjoyed are alongside inevitable in getting phased out for OGL reasons. Either more wings, more eyes, more need to say BE NOT AFRAID, if they're sticking with angels, or something other than winged people if they're going with something else.I think agathions might be safe. The word is Greek, so I don't imagine that word alone can be copyrighted, and the agations I could find related to D&D seem pretty different. They look more like some kind of blend of agathion and azata than anything.
I suspect inevitables are going to have that name dropped and be folded into aeons entirely, though I'm not sure about the more notable ones, like the marut.
Yeah the DND equivalent is Guardianls, which are more often humanoidish with Animal traits (little t). So the category is fine, they just might have to change the names on the individual creatures.
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From a thematic and narrative standpoint, setting up traps and ambushes are really cool and satisfying where you have time, or a montage, to get it set up for an approaching opponent.
Which is why it doesn't gel with Pathfinder at all, where the players are the ones exploring, advancing, and chasing, not the other way around, they deal with traps, not set them up for opponents to stumble into.
Traps/Ambushes only work in certain niche scenarios personalized for said traps/ambushes, which probably aren't even fun or rewarding enough even if you do set them up right.
From a gameplay standpoint they'd have to work like WoW's Hunters' traps where they just yeet them and they deploy. Is that realistic, depending on the trap no but realism doesn't matter as much as consistency. More importantly, they would actually get used.
Setting up traps makes a lot more sense with a Blades in the Dark style flashback system, but that is a really powerful design space to open in a game that is primarily about combat tactics.
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As I just now recalled that that is not a thing (again), I'd like the shifting rune not to be melee-exclusive. Instead, you should be able to switch within the category of the original weapon - melee or ranged. I get not being able to switch between melee and ranged, but everything else just seems silly.
Also on that front, ghost touch has no business being melee-only. Even Paizo sometimes doesn't remember that, given that there are at least two ranged weapons with the rune.
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Something I may have asked for before, but felt might be worth reiterating: it'd be really nice if there was a way to scale proficiency with Advanced Weapons if you're gaining them via a weapon training feat as opposed to just being a Fighter.
If I'm investing in that feat type, clearly I'm planning on making it an iconic part of my character's aesthetic so it'd be really nice to not have it stuck at Trained for the entirety of my adventuring career just because I want to play something like a Champion or Ranger and broadspears or rhoka swords are just really cool or have some sort of significance to the character (i.e. "I took this rhoka from an urdhefan I defeated and I'm rubbing that defeat in the urdhefans' faces by using one of their iconic swords against them!" or "I'm a paladin from Taldor, so I trained in the rondelero style of dueling that we're famous for!").
Not even to Legendary or anything, I just want to be competent enough to justify taking those feats and compromising the efficiency of the character for the style!
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...i do hope we get some more inclusive rules for familiars. simply giving them ability modifiers, even if restricting the abilities as they are restricted now, would go a long way to clear up isses with half of the ambiguous stuff that keep popping up for familiars and what they can and can't do.
I'm okay with all their checks being Keyed to the Master's stat at LV+0.
I'd like not only some clarification not only around what they can and can't do during Encounter Mode, but also some expansion on what that kind of contribution can be.
For example, would it be alright for Familiars to gain a Single Ability that constitutes some sort of Action Saver?
Ex. An ability that allows the Master to Command the Familiar to Draw/Stow a single weapon for them, effectively saving an action to switch weapons.
Ex. An ability that allows them to Draw/Administer an alchemical consumable, effectively saving an action to use elixirs and other tools.
Ex. An ability that allows them to Draw/Partially Activate a Scroll, effectively saving an action to use such a worn consumable.
Perhaps create a Helping Hand trait that certain Familiar Abilities have, that allows them to choose a single ability with that trait to grant their Master. And, perhaps Witch / Familiar Master can have more than one?
=)
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I think the concept of Advanced Weapons should maybe have never been a thing in PF2 to begin with. If you want to make one "iconic part of your character's aesthetic" you really need it from level 1. But Advanced Weapons are also damage upgrades, or at least are meant to be when you factor in traits. I am a little leery that we should have a separate class of weapons above the martial/simple divide. I think if we were able to get scaling proficiency for the cost of a first level feat, everyone would be wielding falcattas again. There just doesn't seem like a good solution to me, and I feel like we mostly only have the category for legacy reasons anyway.
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That's part of what annoys me, really: I get WHY things are set up like this currently, it's an incentive to play a Fighter in the first place. Not only are the weapons just better, you get more out of using them than other classes in exchange for not having fancy tricks like focus spells or whatnot.
And there doesn't seem to be a way for other classes to benefit from them that wouldn't also detract from the appeal of playing just a plain Fighter. Why play a Fighter if a Magus can be decent enough with the special weapons AND can cast spells at the same time? Why ay a Fighter if a Champion can be decent enough with the special weapons AND can lay on hands or enchant the weapon on the fly with Blade Spirit? I never played Fighter for its own sake in 1e, it was always just a dip to add proficiencies to a spellcasting class, and if I could get away with it I'd usually play a different martial class like paladin anyway, to play things like Oradins and Sorcadin Eldritch Knights. Or Warpriests.
I agree that as things stand, removing Advanced Weapons as a concept would only serve to make Fighters more boring than they already are, but I also find a lot of Martial Weapons boring too nowadays...so what do?
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I think the concept of Advanced Weapons should maybe have never been a thing in PF2 to begin with. If you want to make one "iconic part of your character's aesthetic" you really need it from level 1. But Advanced Weapons are also damage upgrades, or at least are meant to be when you factor in traits. I am a little leery that we should have a separate class of weapons above the martial/simple divide. I think if we were able to get scaling proficiency for the cost of a first level feat, everyone would be wielding falcattas again. There just doesn't seem like a good solution to me, and I feel like we mostly only have the category for legacy reasons anyway.
I mean that's more a quirk of the falcata breaking the normal damage cap than an issue with advanced weapons broadly. Many advanced weapons are varying degrees of mediocre and definitely not worth the feat cost.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with having a higher tier of weapon with a cost associated with it. The problem is that both the cost and the benefit can vary wildly.
Advanced Weapons serve to take the ancestry "familiarity" feats attractive to martial classes. Like you normally would not want to use a Dorn-dergar with a Barbarian, but being a Dwarf can make you proficient. It's possible (likely) even that you will consider "a barbarian swinging a giant brick on a chain thereby destroying everything around them" is a fun idea for a character.
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Advanced Weapons serve to take the ancestry "familiarity" feats attractive to martial classes. Like you normally would not want to use a Dorn-dergar with a Barbarian, but being a Dwarf can make you proficient. It's possible (likely) even that you will consider "a barbarian swinging a giant brick on a chain thereby destroying everything around them" is a fun idea for a character.
I'd go for "a paladin swinging a brick on a rope..." myself! ;)
But not all those weapons have feats like that. There's no "Taldan Weapon Familiarity" feat that grants access to falcatas and scizores, or "Minkaian Weapon Familiarity" for katana and nodachi!
Almost every time that a new ancestry and sometimes a heritage a new weapon familiarity feat is added. Probably we will get some in next Tian Xia books.
That said I wish that someday Paizo removes that strange Unconventional Weaponry restriction to Uncommon and racial weapons. It's very frustrating that you can use it take a normal martial progression with a Three Peaked Tree but is unable to do this with a Nodachi.
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The knieticist getting a feat to temporarily turn its familiar into a lvled elemental summon is some of the coolest design space I've seen for familiars. It's not super strong but it IS super fun. Makes me hopeful for the witch rework and remaster familiars in general
I'd love if there was some way of using advanced weapons that doesn't involve having to archetype into fighter (or if it's a firearm / crossbow, I guess technically gunslinger is an option too) and burning your level level 12 feat on the prof. There's too many hoops to jump through to access lots of them for far to little gain. There's also so much swing to the access on these, like there's weapons which it is literally impossible to get full scaling proficiancy in in any way apart from the above technique, even after accounting for Unconventional Weaponry (Such as the Broadspear), whilst others costs literally just a level 1 ancestry feat. Fine with taking weapons connected to your ancestry is extra easy, but it'd be nice if there was something a bit more accessable (probably something in General Feats?).
Talisman Dabbler not having the 'half your level' restriction anymore would go a long way towards making me want to play it again too.
Even if it just rounded up instead of rounded down, that would be a welcome change.
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Given the discussion around caster accuracy that cropped up in the other thread, it inspired me with an idea.
I hope in the remaster, Martials have more opportunities to apply conditions that debuff saves or just more means in general. Currently, there's a bit of a bottleneck when it comes to non-magic users, where you need to use either Athletics, Intimidation, or Diplomacy. A majority of the reliable debuffing comes from Athletics, applying the flat footed condition. Bon Mot requires an investment in charisma and diplomacy but does lower will saves. However, there's not a lot martials can do to debuff Reflex saves or Fortitude saves besides Intimidation, which wears off quickly and again, requires an investment in charisma to do.
I don't like that as much of a team based game as this is, there's not a lot of ways that martials can help casters to land their big spells. Additionally, it feels like certain skills aren't worth investing into because they don't provide a immediate, tangible benefit such as Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine, or Diplomacy.
I hope they attach more abilities to skills like Acrobatics, Theivery, Survival, or Stealth that you can utilize to apply debuffs to enemies. Ones that can lower saves so casters spells have a higher chance of actually working.
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Given the discussion around caster accuracy that cropped up in the other thread, it inspired me with an idea.
I hope in the remaster, Martials have more opportunities to apply conditions that debuff saves or just more means in general. Currently, there's a bit of a bottleneck when it comes to non-magic users, where you need to use either Athletics, Intimidation, or Diplomacy. A majority of the reliable debuffing comes from Athletics, applying the flat footed condition. Bon Mot requires an investment in charisma and diplomacy but does lower will saves. However, there's not a lot martials can do to debuff Reflex saves or Fortitude saves besides Intimidation, which wears off quickly and again, requires an investment in charisma to do.
I don't like that as much of a team based game as this is, there's not a lot of ways that martials can help casters to land their big spells. Additionally, it feels like certain skills aren't worth investing into because they don't provide a immediate, tangible benefit such as Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine, or Diplomacy.
I hope they attach more abilities to skills like Acrobatics, Theivery, Survival, or Stealth that you can utilize to apply debuffs to enemies. Ones that can lower saves so casters spells have a higher chance of actually working.
Also, casters can debuff the defense they target. Whereas Bon Mot debuffs Will, that martial attacks do not target. Those target Reflex and Fortitude, but, AFAIK, martials do not get ways to debuff them.
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That's part of what annoys me, really: I get WHY things are set up like this currently, it's an incentive to play a Fighter in the first place. Not only are the weapons just better, you get more out of using them than other classes in exchange for not having fancy tricks like focus spells or whatnot.
And there doesn't seem to be a way for other classes to benefit from them that wouldn't also detract from the appeal of playing just a plain Fighter. Why play a Fighter if a Magus can be decent enough with the special weapons AND can cast spells at the same time? Why ay a Fighter if a Champion can be decent enough with the special weapons AND can lay on hands or enchant the weapon on the fly with Blade Spirit? I never played Fighter for its own sake in 1e, it was always just a dip to add proficiencies to a spellcasting class, and if I could get away with it I'd usually play a different martial class like paladin anyway, to play things like Oradins and Sorcadin Eldritch Knights. Or Warpriests.
I agree that as things stand, removing Advanced Weapons as a concept would only serve to make Fighters more boring than they already are, but I also find a lot of Martial Weapons boring too nowadays...so what do?
People would still play Fighter because of the +2 to hit.
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That's part of what annoys me, really: I get WHY things are set up like this currently, it's an incentive to play a Fighter in the first place.
Is it though? Advanced Weapon Training is not a feat I see fighters take very often, if ever.
It's just... not really very good. I think calling advanced weapons a fighter incentive is a mistake.
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That's part of what annoys me, really: I get WHY things are set up like this currently, it's an incentive to play a Fighter in the first place.Is it though? Advanced Weapon Training is not a feat I see fighters take very often, if ever.
It's just... not really very good. I think calling advanced weapons a fighter incentive is a mistake.
I think mostly this is because almost all of the very good advanced weapons have a way to knock them down to martial weapons with an ancestry feat.
If you look at the advanced weapons without an ancestry trait you don't see a lot of stuff that you can predicate an entire character around.
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I mean that's probably part of it, but even beyond that, the advanced weapon category is usually like +1 trait or die size (sometimes a little more, sometimes less) over martial counterparts.
I don't think getting rid of ancestry feats would make AWT that much more popular outside maybe a couple specific builds, because most advanced weapons don't really give you a 6th level feats worth of stuff anyways.
I can think of one or two exceptions, but that speaks more to the way those individual weapons interact with the norms of the system than the value of advanced weapons in general.
I wonder how much of a glow up caster feats are going to get (if they do at all). Psychic and kineticist aren't the fairest comparisons bc of chassis limitations (especially kineticist who purchases their spells with feats) but these later classes really show some fun novelty in their feat design. For example, thoughtform summoning on my Monday night game psychic makes my charlatan background "spiritualist" a load of fun with the animate dead spell.