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My GM ran a homebrew oneshot and I brought an Exemplar; Ikons were Eye-Catching Spot, Titan's Breaker*, and Victor's Wreath. My allies were a Fire Kineticist, a Ruffian Rogue, and a Construct Inventor.
Overall, the class did what I envisioned. I wanted really big bonks and Fracture Mountains delivered exactly that, doing very competitive damage with the Rogue by loading most of that damage into one of two rounds. Probably helps that I never missed a swing, but hey, if it works it works.
The only real issue I had was how cumbersome it was to have two Transcends that do not feel good to use every round. Captivating Charm is, obviously, just plain terrible, and I would have simply taken something else if I wasn't determined to play exactly the sort of character who would have this ikon and try to find a place where it would be useful (I didn't). One Moment Till Glory is much better, but situationally so and the situation never came up. Either way I was usually stuck using Shift Immanence every other round, which felt terrible.
While Captivating Charm could certainly use a buff or a rework, I think the larger issue here can just be solved with more feats that give you generically good Transcend options for body and worn. The class feats are overwhelmingly favored towards weapon transcends in the playtest, which I assume will not hold true in the final release. It doesn't really feel like you need another transcend for your weapon since the base one and the one from your Dominion Epithet are likely to already cover the majority of situations. Maybe it'd help if the Root Epithet also gave a transcend option for your body ikon in addition to its current effect?
*We played Fracture Mountains with the assumption that the bonus damage is multiplied by your striking dice, so if you're surprised that I was happy with the damage I dealt that is why
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Maybe Shift Immanence could use a buff?
I had an idea that there should be some kind of "Lingering Composition" effect that allows your immanence to carry over until the end of your next turn after you transcend. What if that was attached to Shift Immanence instead? The flavor could be that by moving it yourself instead of it being forced out of your ikon, some of the previous ikon's power lingers instead of being consumed by your transcendence.
Perhaps even make it a Religion check against your class DC, allowing the immanence effect to last up to 2 additional rounds on a critical success, end of your next turn on a success, and the end of your current turn on a failure, and finally ending immediately on a critical failure.
This might be TOO good, as I can see how you could possibly get all three immanence effects up and running if you rotate correctly*, but considering the action cost of that it might not be too bad. And it would make ikons with good immanence but situational transcends feel stronger.
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Maybe Shift Immanence could use a buff?
I had an idea that there should be some kind of "Lingering Composition" effect that allows your immanence to carry over until the end of your next turn after you transcend. What if that was attached to Shift Immanence instead? The flavor could be that by moving it yourself instead of it being forced out of your ikon, some of the previous ikon's power lingers instead of being consumed by your transcendence.
I think doing that on a shift could be an issue just because it would incentivize people to shift from another ikon into weapon and then spam weapon transcendence. If the lingering effect was on transcendence it would insure that if you wanted to get multiple passives going you can’t spam your powerful damage abilities.
I think you also think your lingering composition ideas deserves it’s own thread.
Thanks for your playtest feedback.
I think this is a good point, a lot of the Transcend abilities may not have any utility on a given turn. I think this class does seem to be based around the player planning well for their next turn, but there are certainly instances where even if you plan well there isn't really a Transcend that will help you for the Worn or the Body Ikons -- Worn Ikons in particular seem to have the most situational abilities.
I think the base Ikons should have broad applicability and maybe feats should provide some more niche powers, rather than the base Ikon have the niche power and feats for providing some alternative options.
Basically this. I hope we get some more options as feats like kineticist overflow feats. I think it would also be nice to get a decent universal transcendence option.
I think you also think your lingering composition ideas deserves it’s own thread.
I'll probably make one this evening. Since it's pretty far into homebrew territory, the priority should be on testing the class as it is and THEN suggesting/testing new things.
Though to address your other point, I fully agree this would incentivize weapon transcend spam (or certain other strong transcends, like "A Moment Unending"). I'm kind of alright with that.
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I think Shift Immanence is an action that should be actively discouraged; using that action is essentially declaring that two thirds of your class's features are equal to or worse than doing nothing, which is not a place I want the Exemplar to be.
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Yeah, Shift Immanence probably needs to have a way to be combined with something (a la sustaining dance or the kineticist's channel elements, or the gunslinger's special reloads) otherwise it's just kind of a bummer of an action.
I also support more feats that give you new transcendances for body/worn ikons. It's kind of odd that most of these are for weapons, when weapon transcendences are generally applicable (i.e. "nova to do more damage") while the body/worn ones require specific circumstances to be worth doing.