Hippity hoppity, your accuracy is now my property.

[aobst128]

The Animist gish is looking to be the most accurate attempt at the niche yet. With embodiment of battle, sustaining dance, and grudge strike, you can leap around the battlefield and deliver strikes as accurately as a fighter. I'm impressed.

Pick up powerful leap and fleet and you're golden.

[MEATSHED]

I think its important to remember that you are mainly going to be hitting at standard martial accuracy with grudge strike, its a level 6 feat so when you get it martials have gotten to expert. Still seems neat, I'm interested in looking into it.

[aobst128]

MEATSHED wrote:

I think its important to remember that you are mainly going to be hitting at standard martial accuracy with grudge strike, its a level 6 feat so when you get it martials have gotten to expert. Still seems neat, I'm interested in looking into it.

With the scaling bonus from embodiment of battle, It's at +2 from level 7 onwards which is why I compared it to fighter. It's weakest at level 10 but evens out again at 11th and then you're back to fighter accuracy at 13th. This takes all your actions to keep it up but it's cool that it's possible.

[MEATSHED]

I don't know how I forgot the entire point of the focus spell.

[Squiggit]

Not a huge fan of how Embodiment of Battle clashes with Inspire Courage though.

One of your core features does less (nothing at lower levels or if IH is up) if a bard happens to exist nearby, that's kind of weird.

[aobst128]

It doesn't do nothing if a bard is casting. You get reactive strike and crit specs too which are pretty good to keep up

[Arachnofiend]

Embodiment of Battle is so obviously functional and good I'm more curious about the potential of Discomfiting Whispers. How hard can you go on making enemies hit themselves? Since it's a start of turn effect you can chase enemies around and even if they move away to attack someone else they're still affected.

[ElementalofCuteness]

Honestly this seems a little insane and maybe a bit too good to be true.

[breithauptclan]

I like it. 'As accurate as a Fighter' is a bit misleading. It can have approximately the same ending bonus as a Fighter assuming that the Fighter is not getting any bonuses. But like Squiggit mentioned, if there is a Bard in the party, the bonus from Embodiment of Battle isn't going to stack. The Fighter gets their accuracy as un-buffed baseline and gets to have buffs of their own or from party members stacked on top of that.

Also Embodiment of Battle is a sustained spell. Yes, Sustaining Dance is a thing. A feat investment to be precise. It also means that one of your actions during the round needs to either still be Sustain a Spell, or Sustaining Dance which lets you move around the battlefield a bit. You couldn't do a combat routine of 'Demoralize, Strike, Strike' or 'Raise Shield, Strike, Strike' for example.

TL;DR: Not too good to be true. It is your buff - you don't get to stack similar buffs on top of it. It also costs you flexibility in your actions in payment for the improved accuracy.

[gesalt]

Squiggit wrote:

Not a huge fan of how Embodiment of Battle clashes with Inspire Courage though.

One of your core features does less (nothing at lower levels or if IH is up) if a bard happens to exist nearby, that's kind of weird.

This is just the usual issue with this kind of equalizing. It looks great compared to martials in a vacuum but if you consider the existence of a bard, marshal, one for all, fake out, etc, it loses a lot of luster. It's great if your party has low coordination and system mastery, but gets comparatively worse the better your group is at optimizing and playing the game.

I think it'll end up more effective just to cookie cutter champion archetype and instead sustain healing garden or earth bile depending on if you want more defense/ support or more offense.

I wonder if, when the archetype comes out, you'll get martials dipping in for this and sustaining dance for the reactive strike they'd normally take at 6 anyway plus the self contained status bonus. Makes me wonder how the spirits and their focus spells will be structured.

[breithauptclan]

It would not surprise me if the focus spells are what is off-limits to the archetype. The entire point of them seems to be 'sustained spell that makes you behave similarly to another class and gives you bonuses needed to be effective in that role'. Stacking that on top of the same class - like Fighter casting Embodiment of Battle - seems a bit much.

I am envisioning a 'generic' Apparition that the archetype gives. You get to flavor it as you see fit, but it provides standard bonuses probably selectable spells in repertoire to go along with the archetype spellcasting. Similar idea to the 'generic' Finisher that Swashbuckler archetype gives.

[aobst128]

All good points that put things into perspective. Embodiment of battle will scale quicker than other status bonuses, mainly inspire courage. It only really shines past 7th level, at which point, bards have dirge of doom. I'm not sure how omnipresent bards are in any given party though.

Animists who are specializing in melee are probably going to be archetyping to get more generally useful combat maneuvers too like double slice and flurry of blows to make more attacks with their status bonus. I hope grudge strike stays the way it is though. A keen player would use it when they wouldn't otherwise have a circumstance bonus from other tactics.

[aobst128]

The use of this spell does gate you into either casting or striking on any given turn (unless you're hasted) so you can't throw out a save spell and then a strike like other gishes tend to do, and when you can, your DC is penalized so you're encouraged to stick to one lane which is a further bit of balance. I think the penalty is unnecessary though if your actions are already so strict.

[John R.]

All of this makes it sound like champion spirit Medium is back....of course that's comparing to a system where Fighters were definitely NOT a top tier pick.

[aobst128]

That earth's bile sustaining dance into grudge strike is pretty tempting too if you have proficiency with a martial weapon by some other means. Especially if you've got heroism up which you also have access to.

[aobst128]

Embodiment of battle is probably pretty good with channel smite too with some multiclassing. Good way to use your slots while your casting is gimped.