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Hi everyone! I ran a short adventure with my usual playgroup to test both of the new classes: Animist and Exemplar. I thought it would be cool to share how that went and how the players felt about those two in actual play, so here it is!
This post is not an in-depth analysis of the classes. I intend to do that at a later time. Having the "field experience" to inform it first is very important, and that's what this one is about.
The Adventure
I decided to run this playtest for 8th-level characters, as I think the mid levels better represent how a class is supposed to feel like. It has also been stated by Paizo that this is a level they usually get little feedback about.
The PCs were a group of 5, between famed heroes and people who just happened to be oddly powerful for their circumstances. One night, they all had a shared dream of an angelic being clamoring for their help. The hammer of a demigod, Ur, which fell onto the earth ages ago on top of a mountain, was being corrupted by some sort of evil cult. That, in turn, corrupted the land around it and its inhabitants. She needed their help to cleanse and recover the hammer. As they accepted the mission, they were teleported together to the base of said mountain — the Mountain of Myths.
Convenient, perhaps, but this is a playtest after all. I only needed as much story as it took to justify their quest.
The adventure was more combat-focused, consisting of three encounters varying between Moderate and Severe. There were also a couple of places where the characters could get advantages with preparation and use of skills and utility magic. In some cases they did, in others not so much, but we'll get to that in a bit.
The Party
For some additional context, I'll give a short description of each character, and do the same for the players who piloted them and their backgrounds and likes.
Filomena is a Sprite Animist, who wanted to protect nature and the land from the corruption that was spreading. She's a Channeler, and built for a more classic caster-y feel, also taking some Leap-based feats (Powerful Leap) and items (Boots of Bounding) to take more advantage of Sustaining Dance. Her player has been playing PF2 for about three years, but has no TTRPG experience prior to that. She's a caster main for flavor reasons, and although blasting is her favorite part of casting, she has played all sorts of them by this point.
Han is a Human Exemplar, who accepted the quest mostly as a challenge to herself. She went the Str/Dex route with a Noble Branch Longspear, Palisade Bangles and Scar of the Survivor. She also took Hurl at the Horizon and Fighter MC for Rebounding Toss. Her epithets were Mournful and Peerless Under Heaven. Han's player is somewhat new to PF2, but has played D&D and especially Vampire the Masquerade before. He also has a background in tactical videogames, and tends to enjoy making more well-rounded characters who can adapt to situations.
Kyavan is our other Human Exemplar, who found this adventure a convenient way to run away from a loan shark he got in trouble with. Not all heroes have noble goals, after all. He opted into medium armor with a general feat, so he could leave Dex a bit lower and put more points into Con and Wis. Kyavan had a Longsword Gleaming Blade, Victor's Wreath and Gaze as Sharp as Steel, with Radiant and Whose Cry is Thunder as his epithets. He specced into Duelist for things such as Duelist's Challenge and Dueling Parry. His player has been playing 2e for a while, and comes from 5e before that. He tends to play "strikers" or "DPS" in pretty much every game, TTRPG or otherwise.
Krod is an Orc Fighter, who just thought climbing up a mountain and beating cultists sounded fun. He wielded a Greataxe for unga bunga big damage, though also had feats like Swipe and Lunge for a little more versatility in his bunga, and specced into Charisma/Intimidation for debuffing. He served as an interesting foil to see how Exemplar compares in terms of damage and utility to the "top dog" as many would say. Krod's player is the most experienced with PF2 in the group, though he is a funny guy. He always play very simple characters who beat things up, but does so in a more tactical manner.
Aeris is a Human Air Sorceress, and the last member of the group. Like Han, she saw this as mostly a way to challenge herself, but worried a bit more about the whole corruption issue in a personal way. As an Elemental Sorceress, her main thing was blasting, though she did take a variety of spells anyway and that became very relevant across the adventure. She also took Rogue MC for You're Next and Dread Striker. Her player is the newest one to PF2, though he is someone we jokingly call "game genius", because he tends to learn these things very fast. I don't play with him long enough to know his exact preferences.
Character Creation
I'll skip Aeris and Krod for this part, since everyone knows how creating a Sorcerer and a Fighter is like.
The process of building the two Exemplars was great overall. Both players were going crazy about just how many cool options the class has. They also both came up with at least two or three different builds in little time and had trouble choosing between them. Han's player also commented that it was really interesting how the ikons and epithets lend themselves to building a story.
In terms of negatives on character building, both players pointed out to the same thing as the main issue: the ikons don't seem very well balanced with each other right now. Han originally wanted to take Eye-Catching Spot, as it fit her flavor better, but it seemed so bad compared to the other options (and simply a worse version of Palisade Bangles on a different slot) that she ended up switching it out.
The lack of an unarmed option, and the incredibly disproportionate amount of weapon feats compared to the other two types were also mentioned as issues. I know some of these have already been addressed by the devs. As one last thing, Kyavan's player felt like the lack of medium armor proficiency forced him to pick that proficiency up elsewhere, and that it was weird as a whole that the class doesn't have it. I definitely sympathize with that feeling.
As for Filomena, the process was considerably clunkier. Animist is also very cool, and she loved the Vessel Spells and how good the feats were compared to moster casters', but oh boy, is this class dense. Between the hybrid casting method and muddy subclasses without a clear direction, it took almost an hour of reading, re-reading and explaining just to stick in her mind how the base mechanics of the class work and how she should build to get what she wanted out of the character. And then she also had to choose multiple apparitions. After all that, she ended up going with Imposter in Hidden Places, Steward of Stone and Fire and Guardian of Groves and Gardens as her three default ones, with Steward as her main.
First Encounter
As our heroes woke up from their dream, brought together to the base of that odd mountain, they took a couple of minutes to talk to each other and figure things out. Of course, being a newly-formed RPG party, that ended in goofy bantering, with a highlight to Krod's extremely swaggy Clockwork Heels. Who doesn't love an Orc in wheeled shoes? But they did have a mission after all, and so the group moved on to the trail up the mountain.
It didn't take long before signs of the corruption started showing. Right on the entrance of the trail, two giants awaited — their eyes completely darkened and dripping with a black ooze. That wasn't a good sign. The party didn't have much time to think before they attacked, and so our first encounter began. A Frost Giant, and a corrputed, weakened version of a Cloud Giant, whose stats and abilities I brought down to level 8 using the monster creation guidelines. This totaled 100 XP - a Moderate encounter for a 5-person 8th level party.
Our heroes did not have a good start. The Frost Giant won initiative, and proceeded to critically hit Krod and Kyavan with his swipe attack, rolling an 18. I also rolled high on damage, and that took more than half their HP. Aeris lined up both giants for a 4th level Bolt, which did some damage to the Frost Giant, but the Cloud one, fittingly, rolled a nat 20 and critically succeeded. Kyavan used his Mirrored Spirit Strike, but rolled a 1 and a 2. Han tried to attack... another natural 1. And then the Cloud Giant critically hit her with a 19 on Wind Strike for almost 90% of her health. I couldn't make this s$@& up if I tried. This was probably the worst initial sequence I've ever ran to a group.
Luckily — if a little late — things started getting better. Han started the fight with Palisade Bangles up, which made the -8 unarmed attack from the giant miss her by 1. This stopped her from being knocked to zero. Krod repositioned and used Power Attack on the Frost Giant, finding out he wasn't very fond of the Flaming rune on his axe.
And then she came. An AC-130 bomber in Pixie form. Filomena activated Channeler's Stance and threw 2 Earth's Biles against the giant, which caused 2 instances of damage + persistent against his fire weakness. A round, some more brawling and a bunch of Sustaining Dances later (including one who tanked an AoO that probably would have downed Han), Krod and her had basically melted the level+1 giant while the others dealt with Cloudy. Not before he tried to reposition and successfully immobilized the Orc with his cold breath, but Lunge gave Krod just enough reach to finish him off.
Han was struggling to survive, and the 15 feet throw range on her spear helped her action economy a ton in this situation. She healed with Scar, which in turn dazzled the Cloud Giant. She managed to get one Strike in because of an earlier Demoralize from Krod, and that was pretty much the only one she hit. Better than poor Kyavan, who didn't even get that luxury, Victor's Wreath or not. I think his highest roll in the whole encounter was a 5, and even his utility like the +1 aura and the re-save against an effect, which he used on Krod to try and help him escape the ice, didn't manage to make a difference. Ouch.
Aeris missed an Elemental Toss, but switching to the Will spell Phantasmal Killer made a big difference, as the enemy failed and took a bunch of damage + increased her frightened condition to 2. With how much the Exemplars were goofing around thanks to poor rolls, the giant switched her attention to the casters. She attacked Aeris from a mile away with her Ranseur, and guess what? Natural 20. Another crit, an 18 on the dazzled check, and another party member with single digit HP. She also kicked Filomena a bunch with her agile attacks, but the sturdyness of Animist + dropping two Biles to Heal herself near the end helped her stay healthier than her peers.
From there, it was more Strikes and Earth's Bile + cantrips until the second foe eventually fell. In the end, no one went down, but the fight was a little demoralizing and way harder than it should. Of course, a combination of players rolling this poorly and the GM rolling this well is an anomaly. I think the players also struggled a bit with the size of the creatures + their huge reach, which made their usual "flank and spank" tactics a little harder to pull off. If anything, the fact that Han still managed to be useful and even clutch in some situations with such bad rolls attests to the power of Exemplar's utility.
Second Encounter
After some trouble with the giants, the group needed to recover. There's no need to go into detail here, but I will say that the out-of-combat healing ability of both Animist and Exemplar (if taking Garden/Scar) is absolutely crazy.
The journey continues. As the trail went on, the group started to noticed why the place is called Mountain of Myths. The normal laws of nature don't quite apply there. The mountain is a lot bigger than it seemed from afar, and there are many different biomes at different levels of it. They pushed through it all, though, until they heard a worrying sound. Voices. Distorted chanting...?
Still at a safe distance, they investigated, and found two humanoids: a hooded man in dark-red clothes, and a woman with snake hair and a bow. The man's face was not visible, but the Medusa also had those terrifying black eyes, and they said something about "finishing the ritual" while walking around the entrance of a cave. More bad news, but this time the party wouldn't let them be the first to attack.
Using the spells granted by her Imposter spirit, Filomena made herself and Han invisible with a 2nd and 3rd level slot, and the two put themselves in advantageous positions: Filomena took some higher ground, and Han successfully sneaked so that the mage cultist would be in her reach. The less stealthy party members stood a little further away and, with some Delay tech, Aeris started the fight with Revealing Light. Or as we like to call it, "The Flashbang".
The party also had a little surprise coming for them, though. As soon as the fight broken, two minotaurs came down from the upper level of the mountain. One of them blocked the passage of the group's non-invisible warriors, while the other tried to flank the Sorceress who stayed behind. Final setup: one Elite Medusa, two Elite Minotaurs, and a Demonologist. Technically a 100 XP Moderate encounter as well, but with three Elite creatures and disadvantageous terrain, it was realistically somewhere between Moderate and Severe.
The Demonologist passed the save against Aeris' spell, while the Medusa, despite her high Reflex, rolled very low and failed. Both dazzled, one for 2 rounds, the other for a minute. The Demonologist tried to Fireball Aeris, Kyavan and Krod, but they all rolled very well, and the mage end up taking more damage from invisible Han's Reactive Strike than he actually dealt with the spell. Now this was a much better start for our heroes.
Filomena used her higher ground to, once again, activate her stance and start blasting away with Earth's Bile. Targets were too spread out for the small AoE, so she decided to focus the Minotaur blocking the path, and it was very much worth it. A failure and a critical failure on the saves, and a good chunk of damage. Han saw this and decided to focus fire on the same foe, which resulted in him being almost dead after a Strike and the Strike, Breathe, Rend transcendence.
The Medusa shot Kyavan and hit him, but the second attack missed thanks to his wise decision to start with Gaze as Sharp as Steel as his active ikon. He failed the roll against poison, but re-rolled it into a success with a hero point. When it came to his turn, he sadly had to spend the whole thing Striding to where Han and Filomena were and Shifting Immanance, because his initial positioning was not very helpful. The Exemplar's lack of mobility proved to be a distinct downside in this situation. Krod, being the good Fighter he is, almost one-shot the other minotaur with a Power Attack crit, and only didn't kill him because the second attack missed, even with Furious Focus.
Round two, the party is doing very well and the bulldozing continues. Aeris kills one minotaur and damages the Demonologist with an Airball, and then uses You're Next to Demoralize as a reaction and finish the other minotaur with an Elemental Toss. They did do some damage to the party before dying, but it was almost negligible. Filomena continues her explosive rampage with an Earth's Bile into a 4th level Explosive Earth spell, finishing the Demonologist off. Han is very thankful for Aeris' previous "flashbang", as it turned the Medusa's critical hit with a deadly bow into a miss, with a roll of 2 on the flat check. She did, however, make Han slowed with her Petrifying Gaze. Krod Sudden Charged in to dish out some extra damage.
Kyavan arrives with a Mirrored Spirit Strike on the Medusa, and finally, thanks to all the gods, gets a nat 20 on the first attack. He did miss the second one, but that crit did about 70 damage between weapon damage, spirit damage and Whose Cry is Thunder. Han approached and missed all her attacks the previous turn, but simply positioning well proved to very important here. After some more kaboom damage from Filomena and a Phantasmal Killer from Aeris, Han left the Medusa half-dead with a Reactive Strike as she tried to reposition, and finished her off in her own turn with a basic Strike. Her original plans were more complex than that, but being slowed as an Exemplar really hurts.
This encounter was supposed to be harder than the first, but through better tactics, preparation, and dice that weren't absolutely atrocious, it ended up being much easier. I think the players also started "getting" the new classes a little better at this point.
With what seemed like the night coming — it was hard to tell in that eerie place — they went into the cave to rest, finishing the day.
Third Encounter
During their rest, Filomena thought about changing some of her apparitions, but ended up not doing so. In her words, swapping a whole list of spells for another whole list of spells mid-game felt like so much trouble, even compared to normal prepared casting, that it wasn't worth it. So that put aside, they continued onwards to finish their adventure.
As the group finally reached their destination, the view was quite bleak. A dark atmosphere, and the Hammer of Ur was spreading that black ooze through the cracks of the place it once landed. Standing next to it, a single humanoid creature with a grim mask and blood-red robes. The air around them smelled like death. The party knew what to do, but by now they had learned it wouldn't be so simple.
Filomena, with her absurdly high Perception modifier thanks to Medium's Awareness, tried to look for what else was wrong about that place. She rolled poorly and failed by one. But as the rest of the group tried to engage what seemed like their final foe, they quickly found that out anyway. Five shadowy undead creatures, consumed by or perhaps even made of that corrupted liquid, sprouted from the ground, and thus our final encounter began.
The vampire cultist boss was a custom-ish 10th level creature, built by applying the weak template to a Provincial Jiang-Shi, swapping their Reflex and Fortitude saves, then increasing their speed and HP a little but reducing their physical resistance and cutting on some immunities, spell slots and changing some spells. The shadow undead mooks were reflavored Withereds. Totaling 155 XP, this was a severe encounter for their group, within a tiny margin of error.
Kyavan went first, and started things off with a bang by sending an air slash imbued with lightning and thunder towards the vampire. That was the description of his Judgement From Clear Skies. The physical resistance reduced the base damage a little, but it was still a very good hit, and he then swapped to Victor's Wreath. Aeris Thunderstriked the boss, but they ended up passing the save and it was not very effective. The other three tried to start clearing some of the minions with basic Strikes and a Channeler's Stance + Fireball from Filomena, which damaged a lot of them but didn't quite finish them off yet.
On the vampire's turn, Synaptic Pulse was cast, with the whole party except for Filomena being in the area. This was the moment where Exemplar's early Master in Will made a huge difference: both Han and Kyavan rolled a success turned into a crit, and were unaffected. Aeris and Krod failed, getting stunned 2. The minions had really bad initiative and acted all together in the end, using their Surge ability and flanking to dish out some sneak attack damage. Kyavan only took one hit, but Han and Aeris each lost about a third of their health.
Kyavan striked some more and tried to use his Victor's Wreath transcendance to free Aeris from her stun, but she failed again, as the DC of 30 was very high. The sorceress had to spend her only action moving away from the enemies and out of flanking. Filomena, as expected, started her airstrike bombing by Sustaining Dance one Earth's Bile to reposition and casting two more, almost killing two of the minions. Han tried to use Rebounding Toss but failed the first attack, losing the action. She did hit a spear throw with her third action, though, almost killing another creature. Krod used his trustworthy Lunge to reach the boss and hit him for a decent chunk of damage.
This was the moment where the players regretted not focus firing. The cultist boss used a 3 action Harm, damaging all of them and healing almost every creature on the opposing team, since by this point everyone was bunched up. The withereds kept slashing, but their onslaught slowed down at this point because most of them had their Surge on cooldown.
Round 3 comes, and what was starting to look like a potential problem quickly swung again to the players' favor. Filomena chunked some of the mooks back with her Biles, and it was enough for Krog to kill two of them with a critically hit greataxe Swipe. He then moved to a better position to set up flanking for his buddies. Han killed another withered with some Strikes and Strike, Breathe, Rend, and Aeris damaged more of them and the boss with an Airball and Elemental Toss. Kyavan used Sever Four Butterfly Wings, which sounded cool on paper but wasn't super effective in practice, as with two hits followed by a miss it ended up splitting his damage and wasting actions more than helping. After everything, they managed to cut their enemies down from six to only two.
With their meat shields almost completely gone, the vampire started getting a little desperate. They went on to cast Repelling Blast, trying to damage the three melees of the group and push them away, with moderate success. Han, however, critically failed, and had already used all her hero points before. She was sent flying, knocked prone and had single digit HP left. The problem is, the remaining withered also had the exact same fate. I don't even remembered who finished that one off, but it was basically a non-threat at this point.
The nuisances were dealt with, and now it was time to focus on the main threat. Kyavan and Krod were flanking the boss, and chunked them significantly with a Power Attack and a Mirrored Spirit Strike (turning the damage into spirit was great to pierce the physical resistance here). Han had to simply get up, move and heal herself with Scar, but that by itself dazzled the boss with no saving throw, which frustrated any remaining plans I had of using melee attacks and Drain Qi. Filomena switched to single target blasts now, and if the dazzled and flanking weren't enough, Aeris threw a Reach + Slow on the vampire, who failed the save. This was the moment where I basically threw the towel.
From there, it was basically mopping up a boss that had been turned into barely a threat. They tried to use Vampiric Exsanguination and 2 action Harm in later turns to keep themselves "alive" as long as possible, but at this point it barely mattered. Kyavan went down, but Filomena put him back up with a 2 action Heal, and from there it was throwing everything they had at a meatbag until it eventually died. Funnily, the sprite got the last hit with Explosive Earth again.
Ending
With the hard part of their journey complete, the only thing left was to cleanse the hammer and retrieve it. Except... neither was exactly possible. The weapon was the size of a small building, and the corruption was already too entrenched in it. The celestial woman from the dream sent them a final message, grievingly telling them that the Hammer of Ur, the last remnant of her late son, had to be destroyed. She asked the casters in the group to mark it with her holy brand, allowing her to do the job herself.
As the group fled the mountain with divine help, an enourmous golden arrow came from the sky and crashed against the hammer, causing what could be described as a celestial nuke. That did stop the corruption, however, and as they floated back to the base of the mountain, they could see the plants and creatures of that land going back to normal. Quite a beautiful view.
With a bittersweet ending but a feeling of victory, our playtest was over.
Thoughts and Comments
In this last section, I'll gather and share comments and considerations my players had about the classes in the post-game. These aren't organized in any particular order:
- Everyone seemed to agree that the overall power of Exemplar's abilities seemed about right, at least if you pick the good options. Neither of the two Exemplars could quite compete with the Fighter in pure damage, but they did that well enough even with below-average rolls, and they had a good amount of utility for a fully martial class.
- Discussing the power level of Animist was a bit hard. Some players expressed that Earth's Bile + Sustaining Dance spam with Leap investment resulted in too much damage and mobility for a full caster to have without even spending slots. However, that seems to be an outlier build for the class, and we're not quite sure about how the others would fare.
- Filomena's player enjoyed the Animist overall, but felt like it was too complex to read, understand and actually use all it has to offer. The table overall agreed that they would feel the same if they were the ones playing the class. Swapping your spell list in a 10 minute rest in big chunks like that and with all of them being sigs is a bit impractical without a lot of setup (like printing cards of your apparitions, making multiple Foundry sheets or something similar).
- When asked about it in more detail, she said she would prefer if the class was, or at least had an option to be, more focused. Cuting on the versatility of crazy spellcasting methods, infinite signature spells and swapping half your spell list extremely fast to be better at a certain set of things depending on what apparition she wanted to focus.
- Filomena's player felt like spamming vessel spells was very effective, but not very fun. After casting one, she felt too pressured to keep the sustain going for the entire encounter unless something really bad happened. This ended in her actual slotted spells being a little underused. Sustaining Dance was quite overcentralizing on her build, but the action economy would have been super clunky without it.
- Both Exemplar players commented that the class felt good to play and flowed well until the moment you're stuck in an ikon that has a situational transcendence. Choosing between a dead action (Shift) and a virtually-dead action (using a transcendence that does nothing in the moment) isn't the best feeling. Having one of your three base ikons have a niche special action felt like a bit of a trap, and currently a lot of them do.
- Repeating some of what was said in the Character Creation part, both Exemplars felt like internal balance between options within the class is what needs the most work right now. A lot of focus is put on weapons as well, and all the rest seems a bit undersupported.
- Both Exemplars liked the idea of having optional focus spells, but did not like that those were pulled from Cleric Domains. They'd prefer if the class had its own martial-inclined focus spells, like a Monk.
- Both Exemplars felt like the class' action econony made it very hard to use skill actions, or any other actions that aren't the class' abilities.
- Kyavan's player restated his desire for medium armor as a base thing in the class, citing how some classic Exemplars like King Arthur used medium or even heavy armor, on top of mechanical concerns.
- Kyavan's player said the whole ikon shifting thing works, but both from a thematical and a character building standpoint, he'd like to have the option of building a simpler Exemplar who has a single ikon that's iconic to them (no pun intended) and focus on that only.
- Kyavan's player said Gaze as Sharp as Steel has a glaring issue right now. It doesn't give you Reactive Strike often enough that you feel comfortable skipping the feat, but if you do have the feat, the transcendence is completely useless.
- Han's player was particularly fond of Palisade Bangles, as giving all your allies an AC bonus that stacks with shields is rare, unique and feels particularly on-theme. The transcendance, however, only being able to pull a target towards you and with a Fortitude save, ended up being too situational. She only used it once, unsuccessfully.
- Han's player thought Peerless Under Heaven had an extremely cool flavor but was a little underpowered. Simply getting crit spec as a 7th level feature felt weak compared to Whose Cry is Thunder, and the active was too much of a risk for too little a reward.
- Han's player felt like Scar of the Survivor was considerably stronger than other body ikons.
- As a last note, to address narrative concerns I've seen some having: no one in our group felt like Exemplar was particularly inclined to causing "main character syndrome". Some players expressed the class doesn't even feel like it needs to be Rare.
Swapping your spell list in a 10 minute rest is a bit impractical without a lot of setup (like printing cards of your apparitions, making multiple Foundry sheets or something similar).
How were you swapping your spell list on a 10 minute rest?
As far as I can tell refocusing only lets you switch which primary you have, not changing out your spirits entirely. Is there a feat I missed?
Swapping your spell list in a 10 minute rest is a bit impractical without a lot of setup (like printing cards of your apparitions, making multiple Foundry sheets or something similar).How were you swapping your spell list on a 10 minute rest?
As far as I can tell refocusing only lets you switch which primary you have, not changing out your spirits entirely. Is there a feat I missed?
Nope, you're right. It seems like even after all the reading, the player got confused about that part when making her final regards, and I missed it. She didn't try to do that in the actual game, though.
Still, I can sympathize with switching such a big chunk of your spell list at once being overwhelming.
Thanks for the heads up, I striked through it and changed it to what I believe she meant.
- Both Exemplar players commented that the class felt good to play and flowed well until the moment you're stuck in an ikon that has a situational transcendence. Choosing between a dead action (Shift) and a virtually-dead action (using a transcendence that does nothing in the moment) isn't the best feeling. Having one of your three base ikons have a niche special action felt like a bit of a trap, and currently a lot of them do.
That's the same feeling that I got too. Many times you don't want to switch your Ikon but the class forces you to do or to use Shift like a reload action and that is not fun.
That's the same feeling that I got too. Many times you don't want to switch your Ikon but the class forces you to do or to use Shift like a reload action and that is not fun.
I think the idea, currently, is to reward you for correctly planning your turns. And I really like that idea. But when one of the base ikons is super situational, it really breaks the flow a lot. It's like if a Magus subclass had a super strong, but super situational Conflux Spell: it's not bad, but it might not do what you want in the kit and gameplay loop of the class.
Perhaps these situational transcendences would work better as feats, with the base ikons always being more general-use in their effects.
I like the example of the Conflux Spell it shows how the idea is based.
But different from Magus where is clear that SpellStrike in fact costs you 3-actions (2+1) but you can compress it inside a Strike+some extra benefit at cost of 1 focus point. The exemplar put the concept in another view point that's when you use your Transcendence you must use another Transcendence in your next round or pay an extra-action and if you choose to not pay an extra-action you cannot use this same Trancendece in your next round.
This basically forces the player to choose a secondary Ikon the combines with you main weapon Ikon (like Barrow’s Edge + Scar of the Survivor) or you have to pay an action because you don't choose well or because you wanted to take a more situational Ikon. I honestly don't like how this dictate how do you have to do your build to get the best benefits of the class and how this enforces the player to choose the most all-rounder Ikons or get penalized in empty action costs.
This reminds me how swashbuckler is in its action costs and how it penalizes the player that don't want to get the most all efficient combination of options.
IMO the entire mechanic of sparks could be throw away.
And don't get me wrong. I like complex and interesting mechanics too but I don't like when these mechanics strongly force limitations of how do you have to play or what options you have to get in a character or you will be subpar.
Love the write-up! Thanks for sharing!
In the two encounters I got to play in, the pull bangles were actually used to good effect--to get a spider in sticky webbing within reach of the party, and to break up an enemy's flank. But we were level 1 with few alternative options.
Our Animist also struggled with the pressure to sustain their focus spells. It seemed like they could benefit from an occasional Cackle.