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So going to report on my play experiences with my first the Exemplar in this thread partly for discussion purposes but also to keep a record of my own experiences. To start, I did a Pathbuilder build with the custom pack made by Yasesril that I found on Reddit, so I thought it'd be good to link it for reference so folks could see what I picked:
Character concept is part Disney princess (hence the singing) part demi-god and draws a good deal of inspiration from Karna from the Mahābhārata, save their brother killing them merely gave them their Body Ikon Scar.
This character joined an existing homebrew game with an ensemble cast of characters (Where PCs all have like 2-3 PCs that are part of a crew and folks rotate PCs around) and the PCs are largely level 7 but new character join at a level lower than the APL and this one was no exception. We play on Foundry so most everything was automated. Anyways the party went after a group of pirates who the crew had an existing beef with (they killed their old Monk) and the Exemplar. There were 6-ish enemies that were level 5 along with a crowd of jeering neutral-ish pirates who functioned like a Hazard (Routine seemed to be they could pushing people towards foes and either booed people when they rolled poorly or cheered them on when they rolled well as some sort of reaction). My Exemplar joined the fray and helped them fight the Pirates as soon as combat broke out, starting on the other side of the battle map than the other PCs. Not gonna describe every character in the scene but just the stuff directly related to the Exemplar.
Initiative - Put My Spark in my Weapon Ikon at the start of combat as part of initiative. Rolled a 19 and was middle of the pack in initiative. I think I may have started out with my Worn Ikon for the AC bonus since I rolled low-ish but idk for sure since positioning wise I wasn't near my allies.
Round 1- I drew my weapon, strode towards an enemy, then struck a nearby member of the pirates that I could put put off-guard/flank with our current Monk. This drew aggro from the pirate (they really didn't like persistent damage) and they attacked twice and hit me once, then stepped to make it harder for me to get flanking.
Round 2 - I stepped to get back into flanking, struck them, then used my Weapon Transcend ability to Drink of my Foes to recover some HP & switched over to my Body Ikon. The guy I hit still had his persistent damage from before and hit me again once but missed the second time & stepped to create room for his ally to flank. Another pirate saw said room and moved behind me, however this triggered my Reactive Strike and getting in a little extra damage. The flanker hit me again though.
Round 3 - I used my Transcend ability on my Body Ikon (No Scar But This) to heal up and thanks to Radiant Epithet I was able to help out the Monk with some passive healing, moved my Spark back over to my Weapon. I made a strike against the target I had been fighting already, rolled low but rerolled with my Hero Point to make it still hit. The Monk at this point stepped & flurried the guy who we had been working on for a while and downed him, triggering my Death Domain Reaction giving me some additional HP. The guy who had moved to flank me attacked (missed since we killed his flanker) but then ran off (no reaction to hit him since I already used Death's Call).
Round 4 - I delayed my turn because the Monk suggested he'd catch the guy who ran off, he chased him down and tossed him at my feet with a Whirlwind Throw after a flurry. I then attacked & crit them to finish them off, followed by another use of my Weapon Transcend ability to Drink of my Foes again after I killed them & switched things back over to my Body Ikon. Then Strode towards a remaining enemy in the encounter which ended up getting finished off at the end of the round.
All in all, I ended up with like 13-ish Temp HP and only 1 damage remaining (so nearly full HP). This was definitely an easier encounter, I think it was technically a Moderate encounter but felt like a Trivial with how the rolls worked (The Crowd Hazard affected the other PCs and not me due to rerolling my only bad roll and always fighting which made them "happy") but considering I was below the APL it probably was less so.
My first impression was the that economy was loop was very good and tactical, though a shorter encounter I felt like my choices of what I put my Spark into mattered a great deal even if the loop would have been similar (Like I missed my extra weapon Ikon damage the turn I too my Reactive Strike). My abilities felt powerful though and though I think I was hit my fair share of times (the monk got attacked about 2 times as often and was hit about half as many as well) my HP total at the end showed how powerful the mitigation was even if it was self-healing. Also having 2, good/versatile reactions was nice.
My Palisade Bangles felt sorta useless but perhaps if the positioning was better I could have started out with them. However after re-reading things I think that the Palisade Bangles Immanence doesn't work with Parry (Both Circumstance Bonuses) and the AoO/Reactive Strike would be better with Reach so I realized I would be better off with a regular Lance over a War Lance. Not sure if that's a bug, a feature, or just poor planning on my part and maybe should consider a different Ikon or give this one another chance. They don't necessarily fit into the combat loop but maybe the forced movement will be more appetizing in the next combat.
I plan on only playing another 1-2 sessions with this character since they were made for the playtest. I didn't get a chance to use Only The Worthy yet (it is sorta niche) but I'll keep an eye out for it too.
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Nice writeup. Thanks for the insights!
Palisade Bangles should absolutely work with parry just like it does with shields. That looks like a genuine oversight.
Should they work with Kineticist Earth impulse junction? I'm pretty sure that's the same kind of bonus, and it's at least somewhat serving in the same role.
I do wonder if they could have simplified it by saying it provide a "+1 circumstance bonus or increases an existing circumstance bonus by 1 up to a max of +3" or if that kind of effect would just be unreasonable in pf2e.
As it stands, I'll be trying to use that one a bit more next in the next session to try it out. Might change my weapon though though assuming they won't be fixing that interaction.
I do wonder if they could have simplified it by saying it provide a "+1 circumstance bonus or increases an existing circumstance bonus by 1 up to a max of +3" or if that kind of effect would just be unreasonable in pf2e.
As it stands, I'll be trying to use that one a bit more next in the next session to try it out. Might change my weapon though though assuming they won't be fixing that interaction.
I think they wanted to avoid exactly writing that. It would make a bad precedent.
I think they wanted to avoid exactly writing that. It would make a bad precedent.
I think you're right, but hey if there's anywhere where they're going to bend/break some rules it's probably on the Rare class. We already aren't getting level 1 feats on the martial character after all.
That said, probably would be too good and I don't expect them to actually fix it which is why I'm probably going to just change my weapon choice.
Warning this session wasn't especially helpful for testing but I'll post it in a spoiler for those who are interested in the play by play. Also to note, my DM let me swap off a War Lance to a regular Lance for free to let me have better synergy with effects as I detailed above in the thread. Anyways, recap:
Round 1 - Combat started and the Pirate's captain won initiative (Karun was like 4th on initiative) first and happened to be a higher level caster (Could cast up to 5th level spells) we were ambushed with a fireball. Exemplar Crit failed on Reflex save even with hero point reroll (DC was 28, rolled a 3 & 4). Took double of 21 Damage, 38 HP remaining. An alchemist Ally also got attacked and only avoided being crit thanks to Bangle’s AC (every +1 counts I guess!)
Started my turn shifting my spark from worn over to body to transcend & heal (Rolled low on my 3d8 & got only 6 HP back bring me to 44 HP). Radiant healed the Alchemist ally who was more hurt than me. Ally healed 14 HP, moved my Spark back over to my Weapon so I can maybe drain next turn. Strode closer up to the gangway to get closer to enemies.
Got hit with a Short bow for 15 (Now at 29 HP).
Got hit with a Short bow for 11 (Now At 18) .
Round 2 - Just before my turn I got Crit and downed with a hit for 24 Damage w/ Javelin just before my turn (0 HP, Dying 2 because it was a crit). Initiative moved to just before this guy who was 3rd in slot, so I essentially lost an entire turn.
Round 3 - The Ranger moved out from their position (They were riding their Animal Companion) and I got healed up to 19 HP (Wounded 1) by the Ranger with a Soothing Mists just before my new turn.
On my turn I stood up, Shifted Immanence again over to my Body to Heal again with my Transcend ability (Healed 12 HP this time, brought me to 31 HP), healed the Ranger 14 in return as they had been shot once or twice as well despite their cover. Moved my Spark to Warn Ikon to boost my AC & since I was getting up from Prone my weapon was still on the ground.
Immediately after my turn an enemy came down on the gangway up to me and missed with their first attack but then crit me back down again with 38 Damage from a long spear downing me again (Dying 3 now).
Got battle medicined by the Alchemist for 7 HP healing (He's not very good at it, went for trained DC), Now at Wounded 2 & still in the enemies reach but at least conscious again.
Round 4 - While prone, used Shift AGAIN to go to Body to Transcend Heal (healed another 12, now at 19 HP) & tried to heal the Alchemist again since they were the only one in range but I forgot they were healed in round 1 and were immune. Spark went to Bangles once again as in round 3. Now we knew the pirate who we knew had an Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike but I figured taking the AoO was better than giving them flat-footed/off-guard for their next attacks so I stood up within the reach. Thankfully, they actually crit failed on the that attack (small mercy).
On his turn however they immediately hit my AC on the dot twice with their long spear for 16 & 16 damage (Max damage rolls for extra salt in the wound) to down me again (Dying 3!)
Round 5 - Succeeded on my recovery check, went to dying 2.
At this point the fight was lost & folks were falling back and it was an all men for themselves situation. No one else could aid me at this point and we basically exited initiative aside from rolling to see if we would live or die. I failed my next recovery check (Back to dying 3) but I got stabilized by the captain with the spell as he wanted prisoners.
TL;DR the Encounter was way too hard for the party (partly thanks to our own bad decisions), let alone a PC a level lower than the APL.
So the meaningful takeaways from this dumpster fire were that I didn't find a use for the Bangles Transcend ability. I was basically always looking to use it instead of using Shift Spark which felt really taxing; even if it would have denied me using my healing ability that round but it being limited to my aura is sorta rough (there was never an enemy in range for it). The Bangles AC saved at least one PC from being crit though, which was good but I don't recall it affecting the outcome of any other attacks save for one on the Ranger (caused a hit to miss that once). So felt so-so over all, I imagine it'll be better when the Worn Epithet comes on line but I can't speak to that now due to how poorly this all went.
There was some debate whether I could have jumped up onto the ship as the Monk did though. I believe I didn't have the economy or movement since at the top of initiative I has started with Bangles to give folks AC, so to get the bonuses from Leap The Falls from Body Ikon I lost the extra move needed to reposition. And since I had a 2 handed weapon I would have had to release a hand from gripping it to only maybe have had a chance to grab the edge of the ship (and my Reflex save seemed sorta poor in general even with Acumen). All in all, I feel going to the gangway was the right call even if it ended up super poorly but it wasn't something I really thought of at the time so remembering that it's an ability is important.
However I'm not sure if I'll get to play this character again (since they're captured and all) and already the party is talking about cutting their losses and leaving the PCs behind (The Exemplar was a relative stranger & the Alchemist who also ended up being caught was a fresh addition). If I do I'll give another update though!