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I've noticed something when building my playtest Animist. It was too easy. As far as the class portion went, I felt like I didn't have to make a lot of choices in my build because my choices were going to be made during play, not during the character build process. This also isn't helped by the wandering trait feats but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PAIZO DON'T MAKE THIS AN EXCUSE TO GET RID OF THOSE! I LOVE THEM!
Anyway.... I got to thinking about ways to fix this and my idea reminded me of how Kineticist gates worked in the playtest. They had 3 which let them focus on 1, 2 or all elements. I'm really not sure if my idea works anything close to the same but it might help others understand where I'm going with this so that's why I use the comparison.
First, let's assume we are going to end up with about double the number of apparitions we currently have, so 12.
So currently we have the channeler that can swap apparitions for a single action and the sage which can swap apparitions while refocusing. What if we also had an Animist practice that also only let you swap apparitions day-to-day.
Now, for the part that would enable a lot more build variety:
What if Animists did not immediately have access to every apparition but only a number of apparitions and as they progressed in levels, they gained access to more apparitions but if their practice gave them more flexibility in apparitions throughout the day, they had access to less apparitions overall. As far as attuned apparitions go, every Animist practice should probably be limited to close to about the same as the playtest has set up now, maybe with variations within practices as well.
For example:
Channeler would start with being able to access only 3 or 4, still being able to swap primaries out for an action but would cap at 6-8 accessible apparitions by late levels. Possibly always attuned to all of their available apparitions.
Sage would start with access to about 4 to 6 and end with access to 8 or 10 by the end and would still be able to swap primaries during refocusing. Might be able to attune to about 2/3s of their accessed apparitions on a day-to-day.
The third practice would start with access to 6 or 8 but eventually could access all 12 but is limited to only 1 primary per day. However, it might be limited to attuning to maybe only about 1/3 of their accessible apparitions per day.
I might be completely off base here but I just wanted to know if anyone also found build variety limited in the class and if so, if my idea sounds like a nice way around that.
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I've noticed something when building my playtest Animist. It was too easy. As far as the class portion went, I felt like I didn't have to make a lot of choices in my build because my choices were going to be made during play, not during the character build process.
To quite an extent, I agree - but I don't really think that this is a bad thing.
But also, this is partially a problem with just the playtest. There are fewer options to choose from at this point because the rest haven't been released. That may be because they haven't been developed, or because they would be distracting.
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One thing that I noticed is that at level 5 I still don't have any Wandering feats. Those don't become available until level 6.
Also, choosing a Wandering feat is itself a tradeoff. You only get one feat at that level, so the choice is to pick between 'any and all Wandering feats' and 'any one specific feat'. So some Animists may not have any Wandering feats at all because they are picking specific non-Wandering feats at those levels.
For example, all of those Animist players going for Grudge Strike won't be getting any Wandering feats until level 8 at the earliest.
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The main choices in build are the Apparitions. I expect we will have several more in the final version.
My point is that apparitions don't really affect a character build much since every Animist will have access to every apparition from day-to-day currently. If your friend says they are building an Animist, other "channeler or sage", the class kind of says it all. It's like...they have subclasses but only 2 and there's nothing that really makes them significantly distinct from each other, other than 1 being able to swap apparitions for an action while the other can't. I mean... that's a big deal but I guess it's just not thematically distinct enough.... It's not like how an Alchemist can choose different research fields. Even Fighters can be differentiated between 1-handers, 2-handers, archers, sword and shield and possibly some other variations and those aren't even actual subclasses. I could be wrong but that's how I'm feeling about class variety with the Animist right now.
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The main choices in build are the Apparitions. I expect we will have several more in the final version.My point is that apparitions don't really affect a character build much since every Animist will have access to every apparition from day-to-day currently. If your friend says they are building an Animist, other "channeler or sage", the class kind of says it all. It's like...they have subclasses but only 2 and there's nothing that really makes them significantly distinct from each other, other than 1 being able to swap apparitions for an action while the other can't. I mean... that's a big deal but I guess it's just not thematically distinct enough.... It's not like how an Alchemist can choose different research fields. Even Fighters can be differentiated between 1-handers, 2-handers, archers, sword and shield and possibly some other variations and those aren't even actual subclasses. I could be wrong but that's how I'm feeling about class variety with the Animist right now.
I see what you mean. That's a good point really.
This makes me think that, as far as Apparitions are concerned, the Animist is prepared (like a Wizard to spells).
Maybe we should have a subclass that has access to only a few Apparitions chosen during the build but can swap them with the greatest ease. Kind of Spontaneously, like a Sorcerer to spells.
I kind of like this about it because a lot of the build variety will come from what you pair it with-- like the difference between using something Cavalier to get impressive mount to cart you around to offset action loss, Shadowdancer to potentially pair with some of the very cool martial stuff. What I've been noticing is that while you CAN change between states pretty easily, you tend to optimize more on the 'what is my routine?' level which tends to emphasize the qualities of certain configurations without removing the utility of flexing into a different one. They all kind of want different archetypes and forms of support.
I agree with the OP to a large extent. While I do think it is important for decisions to matter in play and not just be solved at character building, I feel right now the animist sits at the worst of both those worlds, in that their key build decisions I don't think feel terribly meaningful, yet they also reduce the number of decisions made in encounters, as vessel spells as currently implemented lead to very repetitive turns. I'd rather have the exact opposite.
With this in mind, I agree with the OP and would like the animist to draw even further inspiration from 1e's shaman: rather than have a whole bunch of apparitions to swap out each day, it would likely help forge a stronger identity if the animist had one permanent apparition, which could form a proper subclass (neither the channeler nor the sage really deliver thematically or mechanically in my opinion), and a wandering apparition that could then be swapped out with daily preparations. For those who want more apparitions, the animist could then have the option to pick more at a time.