Could Ikons have a passive effect that functions without the divine spark?

[PossibleCabbage]

It feels possible to get into a loop in a combat where you're just switching back and forth between your weapon ikon and either your body or worn ikon, without using your third ikon very much. I think it would feel better if each of your ikons gave you something just because you chose that ikon instead of a different one.

It doesn't have to be anything major, I thought of this in the armor thread where "you gain medium armor proficiency that scales with your light armor proficiency" would be a reasonable passive effect for an ikon, and so would Humble Strikes (which probably doesn't need to be a class feature as the Exemplar has less of a reason to use a simple weapon than a cleric/champion who got assigned one by their deity.)

[FlySkyHigh]

This is actually one of my only complaints about the class. I get that at the end of the day it's not the ikon but the Exemplar who is special, but it feels weird to me for reasons I can't fully explain that the ikons do nothing without the spark. No residual divine benefit, just back to mundane status.

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

FlySkyHigh wrote:

This is actually one of my only complaints about the class. I get that at the end of the day it's not the ikon but the Exemplar who is special, but it feels weird to me for reasons I can't fully explain that the ikons do nothing without the spark. No residual divine benefit, just back to mundane status.

One thing that strikes me as weird is the ikons being a lot of the power, and I actually *like* item classes. I feel like there is a missed opportunity to make the divine spark *not* have to reside in items.

[Dubious Scholar]

One thing I was considering is that maybe at a high level you can split the spark between two ikons - letting you keep a passive effect running while transcending others. Though yeah... some constant effects might be nice still, since it feels like the class wants to always be transcending and turning things off and on.

[ElementalofCuteness]

I both dislike and like the juggle the "Divine Spark" it feels nice but also makes you want to limi which 2 of your 3 Ikon you want to focus upon. There is no reason to try to use all 3 Ikon in a single combat unless you are certain they will give you a benefit. Bouncing your spark between Scar of the survivor and a weapon Ikon, means you get 1 action heal ever 2 turns in both incredible and powerful. The same canbe said to some of the weapon Ikons, ones that give double slice or power attack, just dealing extra dice of damage potentially every 2 turns, a fighter can power attack every turn or double slice every turn...At most you're dealing 2-8, or 4-16 bonus damage ever 2 turns compared to the fighter which can power attack or double slice ever turn for 3 extra dice, so 3d12 extra dice is 18 bonus damage times 2 which is 36 vs the potental 34 of the hammer Ikon.

[Gobhaggo]

To be fair, the spirit damage(or other element) is a pretty interesting benefit and with Titan Breaker especially you get to bypass a specific type's immunity.

But yeah I can imagine the numbers punched up a little in some ways

[Solarsyphon]

The class could still function if only the transcendence required cycling the spark. Alternatively you could add a lag so that each immanence lasts two rounds that way cycling could keep all 3 up or have alternative triggers like reactions that let you quickly switch immanence in response to something like being attacked or actions that include sifting immanence like a strike that switches to your weapon ect...

For example as part of divine premonition which gives reflex expert, you could give you the ability to change ikon at the start of your turn or as some other reaction.

Alternatively when you get each of the epithets associated with the different ikons you could gain the ability to switch to that ikon as a reaction when you need it. Body when struck, weapon when attacked, worn at the start of an allies turn (for the aura). It would make the class pretty reaction heavy but that might make the Gaze Ikon a more compelling choice over reactive strike if that Ikon also gave its own reaction for it.

[Teridax]

On one hand, I feel like permanent passive bonuses go against the mechanical point of ikons: ikons in my opinion are meant to enable your choice of passive, so that you have fewer bonuses going on, but instead have much more impactful bonuses, and can pick and choose which ones best suit your current situation.

On the other hand, I fully agree that it's easily possible for an ikon to get completely sidelined, and that to me suggests a fundamental problem with the current implementation of ikons: because you only have three, sometimes four ikons that then have lots of power stacked onto them, it becomes easily possible for one ikon to dominate over the others and thus hog the spotlight, usually the weapon ikon. Meanwhile, it's easy for one ikon to find itself starved of extra power and consequently ignored, which I feel causes the Exemplar's current gameplay to degenerate into something much less interesting, though also fairly tedious when it comes to tracking which bonuses get turned on or off. It doesn't help in my opinion that the body/weapon/worn distinction doesn't really capture the fullness of the legendary abilities of every demigod or mythical hero figure, and externalizes what really should be power that comes from within. It feels like the idea of ikons, while sound, needs a completely different implementation, ideally one more tied to legendary titles and epithets than specific items.