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Unlimited wands? Up to level 7 or 8? I don't know.
Yeah, I'd consider taking it on my Witch if she ever gets to level 16+ and the GM allows me to hoard Wands.
Also, if you start hoarding Wands it means you stop (or at least reduce) overcharging them. So you'll need a few days to gather enough Wands to compensate for the fact that you don't cast the spell repeatedly without care.
So we end up with a very niche scenario: Level 6 feat that starts being useful at level 16 and where the unintended use only beats the intended one if you get some downtime...
Really, I prefer to make my player happy with a very strict RAW reading.
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Even if Timber Sentinel doesn't work on yourself. Ironically it didn't need too since I only placed in in the area of the melee martials. So i basically fixed that issue but not treating yourself as your own ally is very silly to me.
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Even if Timber Sentinel doesn't work on yourself. Ironically it didn't need too since I only placed in in the area of the melee martials. So i basically fixed that issue but not treating yourself as your own ally is very silly to me.
It is one of the big small differences with PF1 though and nothing new.
Don't forget bulk limitations!
If you're a 10 Strength witch, you can only carry 59 ceremonial daggers before you risk Encumbrance penalties. ;)
If you're not naked and have other gear, it will likely be a lot less than that.
There's also the social implications of walking around with a dress made of knives. People might think you're a psychopath, or worse, a door to door knife salesman.
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In general, a lot of stuff from Firebrands push the limit quite far.
Quick spring
Flashy Disappearence
Acknowledge Fanand a few others not as egregious as the above, but quite on the "stronger side" (like the stance that makes everyone's attacks around you turn off reactions)
Yeah... I think that's in part because "must be a member of the Firebrands of Rank 2 or higher" is somehow being counted into the balance math. Like, on one side they clearly are very strong. On the other side... I'm not sure I'd ever use them.
Is Firebrand really that powerful. Maybe I missed it the first time I read it.
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I was surprised to use Inspire Courage a bit more often than Dirge of Doom with my PFS Bard. Dirge is still a very good tool to have available. Just not an always Goto ability IME.
Prior to the Remaster I mostly saw bards using Inspire Courage.
But, post remaster, I think (theory crafting, NOT experience) that the optimal strategy is now Dirge of Doom combined with the new and improved Bless Spell.
But that may be reined in by the fact that it is going to be boring as heck for the bard player. Effective but boring. So likely needs TWO characters, one bard and one other (Cleric being a good candidate).
But that combination seems like it would be quite nasty
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Oh, I'd give honourable mention to Tut-Tut from the Dandy archetype (a great archetype in general, both mechanically and for flavour). I haven't played him too much yet but it has been quite effective on my fighter (clearly this or a flurry ranger is going to be the best character to build to succeed on a press action). Its even PFS legal.
I was surprised to use Inspire Courage a bit more often than Dirge of Doom with my PFS Bard. Dirge is still a very good tool to have available. Just not an always Goto ability IME.Prior to the Remaster I mostly saw bards using Inspire Courage.
But, post remaster, I think (theory crafting, NOT experience) that the optimal strategy is now Dirge of Doom combined with the new and improved Bless Spell.
But that may be reined in by the fact that it is going to be boring as heck for the bard player. Effective but boring. So likely needs TWO characters, one bard and one other (Cleric being a good candidate).
But that combination seems like it would be quite nasty
Bards are so boring unless you enjoy that style of play.
The DM asking what you're going to do in a round while the rest of the PCs look at you waiting for you to repeat the same thing you've been doing to empower them so they can get more crits and feel like heroes that love the fact you took the support role is something I don't enjoy.
This thread is a bit backwards (sort of like a solution seeking a problem). There has to be a graded scale of what worst, worse, neutral, better, and best or the game will be truly vertically flat. For the most part the difference between neutral and best is quite vertically flat in this game so its really easy to stick close to an optimizer. I can't say the same for some of the truly niche/worst and worse options that Paizo publishes (some are bad F tier mechanically or F tier flavour wise and the worst are F in both).
But threads about 'most overpowered things' usually come from or lead to a bad place:
- GM looking to pre-ban stuff with no context.
- Player looking for options wreck their GM's game.
- Paizo scraping community meta to slam the ban hammer at.
- Gamer's with an axe to grind over some anecdotal experience where something seemed way more powerful than it normally is or as averaged across many play levels/sessions.Basically what you're getting above is a list of 'the best stuff' but I don't think what most people identified is overpowered (some of it might be A or S tier stuff) like:
- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
- A bard is not breaking my game.
- A Imaginary Weapon Magus is not breaking my game.
- A post remaster rogue is not breaking my game.The things that might be overpowered are frequently things that were published with an unforeseen exploit/mechanical interaction/AP book (where things get less review passes). For the most part many things have already been errata'd or are only good for a niche build:
Heaven's Thunder (errata'd - but really OP because fighters can use this feat and it isn't just limited to the typical dex forward monk that isn't dealing top tier damage with a 1D8 stance/lagging STR)
Starlight Armour (errata'd)
Six Pilliar Unarmed Bump (errata'd - but only good on late game wildshape druid)
Ceremonial Knife (probably a typo and will be
...
Imaginary Weapon Magus does break the game insofar as it makes every other archer option look absolutely pathetic. Once you played an Imaginary Weapon Starlit Span Magus, playing any other kind of archer feels hollow and empty like you're wasting your time. I do feel like this option breaks the game by providing an archery option so much better than other archery options.
It comes down to how you prefer they handle a change.
I'd prefer they improve other archery options, but we also know the easier fix is to reduce availability of the Starlit Span archer option.
Bard and Rogue aren't gamebreaking.
Trip is too good an option and makes combat look super goofy. So it breaks my game by making it look ridiculous and unrealistic in the mind's eye. I'd be perfectly happy if they made Trip more like Disarm.
How are bards Overpowered?Full caster spellcasting plus a significant persistent low-effort nearly party-wide buff on top of that, and 8 base hp.
Admittedly, they are party-dependent. A bard does much better in a party that's already heavy on the martials. Given a party like that, though....
I note here that I'm speaking in context of PF2. If we were talking about 3.x's idea of "overpowered" then there's nothing in the game that qualifies. You asked for most overpowered, though, which puts it into a PF2 context. In that context? Bards.
I would also argue that they are good in a party with casters- at least once they get to level 6 and can grab Dirge of Doom.
No save, AoE, single action cantrip that can frighten every enemy in a fight. It is a better evil eye than the actual evil eye from witches.
Frightened is one of the general purpose debuffs you can add that helps everyone, since it lowers enemies' attacks, defense, and saves. So you could use it to help your save or suck characters better.
I agree that bards have more to offer martials (or at least people with battle minions), but a bard is never left high and dry in any party.
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- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
Well, it kind of broke mine. I was the Witch next to the Tome Thaumaturge that was so good at RK that I was left with no real skill to improve. Either I was going for Int-based skills and I was not even keeping up with the Thaumaturge. Or I was getting for skills based on my secondary attributes and it was rather uninspiring (I ended up with Thievery just because it was available, on a Witch...).
So, for me it's overpowered because it breaks part of the game. But not the whole game, I agree.
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- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
Well, it kind of broke mine. I was the Witch next to the Tome Thaumaturge that was so good at RK that I was left with no real skill to improve. Either I was going for Int-based skills and I was not even keeping up with the Thaumaturge. Or I was getting for skills based on my secondary attributes and it was rather uninspiring (I ended up with Thievery just because it was available, on a Witch...).
So, for me it's overpowered because it breaks part of the game. But not the whole game, I agree.
Exactly, Diverse Lore doesn't break the game's math, it just completely overshadows all other Recall Knowledge characters and INT as a stat. And they don't need any more kicking, they are already pretty down.
So from a comparative perspective between players, it is pretty damn op.
Trip should apply only flat-footed on success (because unbalance) and prone on critical success.
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This thread is a bit backwards (sort of like a solution seeking a problem).
Maybe but it is nice to discuss anyway. None of the powers so far are too far over the top.
Ceremonial Knife (probably a typo and will be errata'd)
Yes but as Super Bidi has been saying it is 2 and a half ranks behind your best slots. So it is worse than a focus spell and not really game breaking. Low level wands are nearly unlimited after a while anyway as the game economy just scales that way.
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...This thread is a bit backwards (sort of like a solution seeking a problem). There has to be a graded scale of what worst, worse, neutral, better, and best or the game will be truly vertically flat. For the most part the difference between neutral and best is quite vertically flat in this game so its really easy to stick close to an optimizer. I can't say the same for some of the truly niche/worst and worse options that Paizo publishes (some are bad F tier mechanically or F tier flavour wise and the worst are F in both).
But threads about 'most overpowered things' usually come from or lead to a bad place:
- GM looking to pre-ban stuff with no context.
- Player looking for options wreck their GM's game.
- Paizo scraping community meta to slam the ban hammer at.
- Gamer's with an axe to grind over some anecdotal experience where something seemed way more powerful than it normally is or as averaged across many play levels/sessions.Basically what you're getting above is a list of 'the best stuff' but I don't think what most people identified is overpowered (some of it might be A or S tier stuff) like:
- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
- A bard is not breaking my game.
- A Imaginary Weapon Magus is not breaking my game.
- A post remaster rogue is not breaking my game.The things that might be overpowered are frequently things that were published with an unforeseen exploit/mechanical interaction/AP book (where things get less review passes). For the most part many things have already been errata'd or are only good for a niche build:
Heaven's Thunder (errata'd - but really OP because fighters can use this feat and it isn't just limited to the typical dex forward monk that isn't dealing top tier damage with a 1D8 stance/lagging STR)
Starlight Armour (errata'd)
Six Pilliar Unarmed Bump (errata'd - but only good on late game wildshape druid)
Ceremonial Knife
I understand your point but I don't completely agree with it.
Imaginary Weapon is pretty potent with Magus and Eldritch Archer when used with its AMPed version (the non-amped one now competes and many times is even worse than new version of Gouging Claw IMO).But such build requires a good feat investment (2 feats to get dedication and the Imaginary Weapon and you are locked with this archetype if you aren't playing with FA you also cannot get another archetype until get another feat) and such build is pretty turret type one. Because you need all your actions (2 for spellstrike + 1 for recharge or 3 for Eldritch Shot) to it work, if you need to use an action to do any other thing like move, drink a potion, escape, or any other situation that requires an action this probably will break your action tactics while other archers usually have a way more free action economy. Also is an all or nothing Strike, some people may not like such kind of strategy.
So it's a very good option that closes to OP but also is expensive in terms os feats and action economy. So I don't really thing that this is OP.
- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
Well, it kind of broke mine. I was the Witch next to the Tome Thaumaturge that was so good at RK that I was left with no real skill to improve. Either I was going for Int-based skills and I was not even keeping up with the Thaumaturge. Or I was getting for skills based on my secondary attributes and it was rather uninspiring (I ended up with Thievery just because it was available, on a Witch...).
So, for me it's overpowered because it breaks part of the game. But not the whole game, I agree.
Exactly, Diverse Lore doesn't break the game's math, it just completely overshadows all other Recall Knowledge characters and INT as a stat. And they don't need any more kicking, they are already pretty down.
So from a comparative perspective between players, it is pretty damn op.
IMO this is one of those cases where it is actually the default option (RK) that is pretty bad, and this ends up giving the false impression that Diverse Lore is too good.
Trip should apply only flat-footed on success (because unbalance) and prone on critical success.
No.
Trip is a good action that requires investment in athletics and produces/suffer MAP. So you are sacrificing not only one of your actions but probably your best Strike chance too. If you change trip to work in such way it will end worse than new Disarm and Grab and this risks make it worse than Feint once that Feint doesn't affect MAP, also off-guard condition is very pretty easy condition to get just Move/Stepping to flat-foot with an ally (or more easier if someone have Gang Up).Trip is in a perfect situation IMO.
Ceremonial Knife (probably a typo and will be errata'd)Yes but as Super Bidi has been saying it is 2 and a half ranks behind your best slots. So it is worse than a focus spell and not really game breaking. Low level wands are nearly unlimited after a while anyway as the game economy just scales that way.
My problem with the "unlimited" Ceremonial Knife is that other classes doesn't get some similar thing. Some classes allows to get some "extra" spellslots but all they are daily usage limited. Also no other feat/feature gives free unlimited duration itens without any cost. That's why its looks like a typo.
Imaginary Weapon Magus does break the game insofar as it makes every other archer option look absolutely pathetic. Once you played an Imaginary Weapon Starlit Span Magus, playing any other kind of archer feels hollow and empty like you're wasting your time. I do feel like this option breaks the game by providing an archery option so much better than other archery options.
Yes when you amp it it is doing 2d8 per rank which clearly beats the well established game limits of 2d6 per rank for say Fire Ray or 1d12 per rank for Withering Grasp. Amping costs a focus point. The only other thing which comes close is Debilitating Dichotomy which scales at 3d6 per level but it has side effects you can't ignore and it is a saving throw anyway.
It seems reasonable for a Psychic as that is their thing, but with a Starlight Span Magus it is very strong. I don't think anything has to be done with this but maybe Pazio will. If I was rebalancing it I would leave it in place but limit amping to 1 per minute for archetype Psychics.
Bard
is not game breaking because of the remaster changes given to Bless, Protection, Bane and Aid. Now everyone can hand out the sort of modifiers a Bard can, especially Clerics. So teamwork remains king.
Rogue
just has a fairly realiable way to make a reaction an attack in Opportune Backstab. Which is really what Reactive Strike and Trip is about anyway. Then they have two others in SideStep and Nimble Strike. So it is clearly where Paizo's expectations are at.
Trip is too good an option and makes combat look super goofy. So it breaks my game by making it look ridiculous and unrealistic in the mind's eye. I'd be perfectly happy if they made Trip more like Disarm.
I'd rather they didn't. I mean they have wound back the knocking prone on a critical, so I expect they will wait and see for a while. I don't find prone reactive strike builds to be all that problematic. As a GM I just grapple or trip back (doesn't work that well if the PC has kip up). Much of the time I accept the penalty and just attack to avoid the free attack. It only gets to be problematic if the PC has more reach and the monsters don't have ranged attacks.
I still find that the flurry martial will do more single target damage if the monster is not stupid. I like the the play value of the different fighting styles.Mostly I think it is encumbent on GMs to modify the playstyle of the monsters as appropriate.
Imaginary Weapon Magus does break the game insofar as it makes every other archer option look absolutely pathetic. Once you played an Imaginary Weapon Starlit Span Magus, playing any other kind of archer feels hollow and empty like you're wasting your time. I do feel like this option breaks the game by providing an archery option so much better than other archery options.Yes when you amp it it is doing 2d8 per rank which clearly beats the well established game limits of 2d6 per rank for say Fire Ray or 1d12 per rank for Withering Grasp. Amping costs a focus point. The only other thing which comes close is Debilitating Dichotomy which scales at 3d6 per level but it has side effects you can't ignore and it is a saving throw anyway.
It seems reasonable for a Psychic as that is their thing, but with a Starlight Span Magus it is very strong. I don't think anything has to be done with this but maybe Pazio will. If I was rebalancing it I would leave it in place but limit amping to 1 per minute for archetype Psychics.
Bardis not game breaking because of the remaster changes given to Bless, Protection, Bane and Aid. Now everyone can hand out the sort of modifiers a Bard can, especially Clerics. So teamwork remains king.
Roguejust has a fairly realiable way to make a reaction an attack in Opportune Backstab. Which is really what Reactive Strike and Trip is about anyway. Then they have two others in SideStep and Nimble Strike. So it is clearly where Paizo's expectations are at.
Trip is too good an option and makes combat look super goofy. So it breaks my game by making it look ridiculous and unrealistic in the mind's eye. I'd be perfectly happy if they made Trip more like Disarm.I'd rather they didn't. I mean they have wound back the knocking prone on a critical, so I expect they will wait and see for a while. I don't find prone reactive strike builds to be all that...
For me it's a style problem. I imagine every single fighting school starting off with, "If you can trip it, you can kill it."
Sort of a riff on, "If it bleeds, you can kill it" from Predator, except not as cool.
Then you have roving bands of trained warriors tripping people that looks like they're playing whack a mole as soon as the tripped target stands.
I've seen multiple builds where tripping is the best tactic in the game. Having a trip martial is as good as having synesthesia, maybe better. Trip almost acts as a slow and debuff combined where standing is a terrible option, but staying on the ground is equally terrible.
Aesthetically, it doesn't scream fantasy. At the same time, how can I blame a player for choosing such a superior combat option?
You never think about what it looks like in your mind's eye when you're imagining the group attacking things? Tripping a dragon or a huge giant again and again as they kill it when it tries to stand up? It looks terrible when it becomes the optimal combat tactic for group play.
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- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
Well, it kind of broke mine. I was the Witch next to the Tome Thaumaturge that was so good at RK that I was left with no real skill to improve. Either I was going for Int-based skills and I was not even keeping up with the Thaumaturge. Or I was getting for skills based on my secondary attributes and it was rather uninspiring (I ended up with Thievery just because it was available, on a Witch...).
So, for me it's overpowered because it breaks part of the game. But not the whole game, I agree.
Exactly, Diverse Lore doesn't break the game's math, it just completely overshadows all other Recall Knowledge characters and INT as a stat. And they don't need any more kicking, they are already pretty down.
So from a comparative perspective between players, it is pretty damn op.
I found that playing with a Tome Thaumaturge was just slowing the game down as he would do 2 recall knowledge checks every round.
In general I dislike the fact that there are several in game options for doing broad recall knowledge checks with Charisma. Given the lengths they have gone to to ensure ability scores are protected from each other I think it is too much. But an option to do a recall knowledge off any skill does seem to be a necessary option as the game has too many potential lore options.
...This thread is a bit backwards (sort of like a solution seeking a problem). There has to be a graded scale of what worst, worse, neutral, better, and best or the game will be truly vertically flat. For the most part the difference between neutral and best is quite vertically flat in this game so its really easy to stick close to an optimizer. I can't say the same for some of the truly niche/worst and worse options that Paizo publishes (some are bad F tier mechanically or F tier flavour wise and the worst are F in both).
But threads about 'most overpowered things' usually come from or lead to a bad place:
- GM looking to pre-ban stuff with no context.
- Player looking for options wreck their GM's game.
- Paizo scraping community meta to slam the ban hammer at.
- Gamer's with an axe to grind over some anecdotal experience where something seemed way more powerful than it normally is or as averaged across many play levels/sessions.Basically what you're getting above is a list of 'the best stuff' but I don't think what most people identified is overpowered (some of it might be A or S tier stuff) like:
- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
- A bard is not breaking my game.
- A Imaginary Weapon Magus is not breaking my game.
- A post remaster rogue is not breaking my game.The things that might be overpowered are frequently things that were published with an unforeseen exploit/mechanical interaction/AP book (where things get less review passes). For the most part many things have already been errata'd or are only good for a niche build:
Heaven's Thunder (errata'd - but really OP because fighters can use this feat and it isn't just limited to the typical dex forward monk that isn't dealing top tier damage with a 1D8 stance/lagging STR)
Starlight Armour (errata'd)
Six Pilliar Unarmed Bump (errata'd - but only good on late game
Starlit Span with gouging weapon or produce blame is bad enough. But Imaginary Weapon takes an already great option and ramps it up.
You don't have to move much to make it work. On top of having focus point options to recharge and further boost combat efficiency. If you have a haste spell, you can move no problem.
The main problem is it is vastly superior to other archer options. It's not even close. I've seen ranger and fighter archers and they are much inferior to the starlit span magus.
A couple of my players call it "power gaming cheese", but if the cheese is available someone uses it. It's a very brutal hammer. It has the action advantage of a ranged martial with none of the real downsides like reduced damage per hit or not being able to target weaknesses. You can target array of weaknesses using cantrips.
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Imaginary Weapon Magus does break the game insofar as it makes every other archer option look absolutely pathetic. Once you played an Imaginary Weapon Starlit Span Magus, playing any other kind of archer feels hollow and empty like you're wasting your time. I do feel like this option breaks the game by providing an archery option so much better than other archery options.Yes when you amp it it is doing 2d8 per rank which clearly beats the well established game limits of 2d6 per rank for say Fire Ray or 1d12 per rank for Withering Grasp. Amping costs a focus point. The only other thing which comes close is Debilitating Dichotomy which scales at 3d6 per level but it has side effects you can't ignore and it is a saving throw anyway.
The new Fire Ray now burns the square too (even if fails) technically forcing the target to waste an action to move or get some extra damage.
Also Withering Grasp is not only 1d12 but 1d12 + 1d4 persistent but this 1d4 only increases +1 per rank (the persistent damage just increases +1 per rank heightened). IMO this enough to compete with Imaginary Weapon but I admit that it looses in heightening progression.Also both are energy type damage. Paizo designers usually makes physical damage spell dices 1 grade higher tham energy ones in spells (this easily noticed in cantrips).
- A Thaumaturge with Diverse lore (only for recall knowledge not for general rolls using said skill) is not breaking my game.
Well, it kind of broke mine. I was the Witch next to the Tome Thaumaturge that was so good at RK that I was left with no real skill to improve. Either I was going for Int-based skills and I was not even keeping up with the Thaumaturge. Or I was getting for skills based on my secondary attributes and it was rather uninspiring (I ended up with Thievery just because it was available, on a Witch...).
So, for me it's overpowered because it breaks part of the game. But not the whole game, I agree.
You could go for a number of skills like Lore(undead) to cover the options under the wis skills. Even a wizard could RK on every creature type with Int at level 1 this way. Lore skills can also get automatically upgraded if you spend a skill feat on each one.
...but this is a LOOOONG way to go in order to copy what a Thaumaturge does without any significant investment.
It is still fun and thematic for a wizard that usually doesn't have much use for skills related stuff.
With Trip against huge creatures or bigger it really shouldn't work. They should put some amount of realism into the effect. If you want to trip a huge giant you need to work at it with either multiple rounds of working on those legs or multiple characters or by doing some kinda clever ATAT tether thing.
Dirge of Doom is my pick for most broken ability. It is a +1/-1 turn around for the whole party. No save. Mindless is only around 4% of monsters. It is fairly reliable.
In the past I would have agreed with you but when I was playing my Bard, I realised I was making a mistake that I suspect is pretty common. Dirge of Doom has the Composition trait which states that "The spell gains all the traits of the performance you used." so act, comedy, orate, or sing are going to add the Linguistic trait which will also cut down the number of enemies you can use this against. Dance adds the Visual trait which is a bit less restrictive as creatures are more likely to be able to see you than understand you. You could play an instrument and then they only need to hear you but not understand you however all instruments require two hands so that means no weapons. There are other balancing factors such as dancing and playing an instrument provoking more reactions. I think when you factor all this in, it is pretty well balanced, but the issue might be that a lot of groups aren't applying these rules.
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I think one key thing that this thread points out is that Paizo has, in general, done a superb job of balancing PF2.
Nobody has managed to give a single clearly game breaking thing. We've managed to identify several things that are more powerful than their alternatives and some places where balance could perhaps be better. But even there people are disagreeing on how large a problem it is.
Contrast that with PF1 where there were literally dozens of game breakingly good combinations and most campaigns stopped at mid levels because it just became too hard on the GM. I don't play D&D 5th but people seem to think that game has huge balance issues with sufficiently experienced players at higher levels.
Paizo really has done a superb (albeit imperfect) job and I just think this should be explicitly called out in a thread like this.
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I genuinely would not be surprised to see imaginary weapon get errata that somehow prevents it being used at range via spellstrike and the like. The annoying thing about the starlit span magus using this is that it's better with the spell than the class it was designed for.
I genuinely would not be surprised to see imaginary weapon get errata that somehow prevents it being used at range via spellstrike and the like. The annoying thing about the starlit span magus using this is that it's better with the spell than the class it was designed for.
It wouldn't be hard either, done by adding a statement that since it's making a weapon (albeit imaginary) it doesn't function on top of other weapon attacks that carry spell effects. As in the arrow Strikes, the weapon forms as per the spell, but it's inert since there's nobody over there guiding it. Unfortunately that might suggest other spells which wouldn't work too, which is why Paizo might have to blatantly state it's because of balance. I can accept that.
If I see the combo coming, I'll likely discuss this w/ the player, as well as how the most climactic battles are often too cinematic to depend on 3-action routines w/ all the diverse actions required.
I think the only thing that's truly "broken" is Quick Spring.
Probably because the one who wrote the feat didn't realize you can simply use tumble and not tumble through an enemy.
So, per RAW, it simply allows you to double all of your Stride actions without any roll whatsoever.
Plus, it even double your Flying, Swimming, Climb, and etc actions as well.
"Why are you tumbling everywhere? You look ridiculous!"
"Because it's faster!"
"It's really not."
I've met a handful of roleplayers who were quite insistent that you could not Tumble Through without having someone nearby; or at least making the check.
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So diverse lore means you are at best -2 behind on the leading recall knowledge rolls of an INT/WIS based class.
Thanks for trying to invalidate my experience.
But you forget the Tome in your calculation, so the Thaumaturge is at most at -1 behind the specialized INT/WIS class and very quickly at the same level. And then you can add the fact that the Thaumaturge progresses automatically at level 3/7/15 when the specialized class needs to invest their skill points and as such will progress slower (outside their main skill). So the Thaumaturge is actually +2 ahead the specialized class most of the time, which is quite sad for the said "specialized class".As for the other uses of the RK skills, well, they are RK skills for something: Their main use is RK, the rest happens once in a blue moon.
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So diverse lore means you are at best -2 behind on the leading recall knowledge rolls of an INT/WIS based class.Thanks for trying to invalidate my experience.
But you forget the Tome in your calculation, so the Thaumaturge is at most at -1 behind the specialized INT/WIS class and very quickly at the same level. And then you can add the fact that the Thaumaturge progresses automatically at level 3/7/15 when the specialized class needs to invest their skill points and as such will progress slower (outside their main skill). So the Thaumaturge is actually +2 ahead the specialized class most of the time, which is quite sad for the said "specialized class".As for the other uses of the RK skills, well, they are RK skills for something: Their main use is RK, the rest happens once in a blue moon.
In addition to that, Diverse Lore also has by far the strongest interaction between RK and a main class feature in the game. You always gain correct information (if any) and you know it. The Tome bonus doesn't apply to it (that part isn't actually RK), but all that means is that you "only" get a free RK at the best possible modifier you can get via skills.
It gets somewhat better if your GM doesn't run lores like AoN suggests, i.e. doesn't run Esoteric Lore as an unspecific Lore that reduces the DC by 2. But I'm pretty sure that the majority of GMs follow the AoN example.
Especially since most thaumaturges aren't bumping CHA maximally since it isn't at all required, you can easily be +0 to +4 ahead of them on any specific roll.
And if they play tome and use Diverse Lore, then they obviously would max their CHA, so that argument is very academic.
The combination of Dread Striker on multiple characters and Dirge of Doom on one (or two) is pretty busted. Even in vanilla, I would 100% get Dread Striker as a ranged martial, but with Free Archetype that combo is something to look out for. Maybe not overpowered in the strictest sense, but definitely raises the group's power level immensely.
That was the only time I intentionally nerfed my own character for the sake of balance. Lemme tell you, a two-handed Tyrant is already extremely deadly and hard to kill, but every enemy having -3 AC and -1 to attack turned that into absolute overkill.
The cantrip isn't overpowered. The class (more specifically subclass) isn't overpowered. Its only the intersection of the two that gets you on par with a melee martial (but still not massively ahead or anything). I did some recent DPR calcs that I posted to 1-2 thread here and unless you are getting a true strike + amped imaginary weapon (which may come at the cost of a spell strike turn) you aren't really pulling ahead of standard starlight span longbow + force fang with non-amped imaginary weapon (it was a bit of a non-intuitive result).
I've said many times across these boards that ranged options are not very engaging and that is a holistic game design issue. That one corner case interaction worked its way through for a compelling ranged damage option isn't 'overpowered'. Most if not all classes need their ranged options/subclasses re-worked because there is almost always a feat tax or complete lack of synergy/accessibility with class chassis features. The Starlight Span hybrid study and Arcane cascade is a perfect example of that. The subclass focus spell sucks, its L4 feat sucks, and a class chassis ability (i.e. a meager +1 to +3 damage stance, which is almost always a DPR drop) doesn't even work with the subclass. From the perspective of the starlight span magus everything in the class design incentivizes finding a MC focus spell outside the magus class that has > cantrip damage to spam because there isn't anything in class for it. A IW amp style focus spell for all magus could be added that has a scaling 2D6 or scaling 2D4 + a recharge and you'd never hear about imaginary amp ever again (carrot vs. stick). There are two easy paths though if you wanted to nerf rather than improve the base level game design. Either build into all psychic cantrips a scaling damage die size (think fire kineticist impulse junction that all psychics get at L1 or L3 that is locked to the class). Or swap the tier 1 and tier 2 cantrips for that conscious mind so you can't poach it from the L6 multiclass feature.
But Yurip makes the same point I've made elsewhere. The Magus is spending ~2-3 feats, locking into an archetype, closing their action economy down to a science, and only gets to do it starting at L6. So ultimately they are investing for nova bombs at the expense of everything else and in such combats where they get to fire 3 nova bombs (1-2 at advantage from a hero point or true strike) and never have to move, and never have cover, then and only then are they meeting the melee martial paradigm. Which many melee martials like a fighter can close the gap in DPR over rounds 4/5/6 and come out fairly equivalent. It is literally the most boring play loop I can think of and by the time you've been trying to do it from L6 to L8 for every combat I'd think most normal players would be looking for the GM to kill them so they can start a new PC.
The investment is 2 feats.
Prior to obtaining imaginary weapon, you are fine using gouging claw or telekinetic projectile as the damage numbers don't really start to spike until you obtain higher level.
You are relying on one big nova attack for the big damage.
But between the nova attacks are you a Master level archer with conflux focus spells, studious spells, and four slots of high level spells. You can take great advantage of haste, still get the advantages of a fully built weapon, and Master level AC with Master level Fort and will saves. There are no real downsides even when you don't Spellstrike.
The Ranger precision archer gets 1d8 extra damage until level 11, then it goes to 2d8 and 3d8 at level 17, possibly for more attacks starting at level 17.
The fighter is sort of always a Legendary proficiency archer. They're best option is to take Eldritch Archer and do the poor man Starlit Span magus. Which I've also seen in action and is better than the standard archer.
The precision ranger's precision damage is useless against anything with immunity to precision. Whereas imaginary weapon has the force tag and is useful even against incorporeal creatures who are immune to precision. You can mix it up with other cantrips like ignition/produce flame or any other attack roll damage cantrip mixing up your damage as needed.
You also have Striker's Scroll which can allow an Expansive Spellstrike starlit span magus to use AoE spells with Spellstrike.
You get all this in one package topped up with a 2 feat investment into an amazing cantrip that has in essence the ghost touch property built into the spell, which can't even be put on ranged weapons as a rune.
It is such a vastly superior option to any other archer option that you're playing any other archer concept as other than a Starlit Span magus "for fun" knowing full well you are accepting second tier archer going in.
Is it game breaking? Borderline. As I listed in my example with a lucky shot at level 14 I was able to obliterate a CR 16 Lesser Death with a single crit shot while not having to deal with its misfortune aura due to range. But Lesser Death is an upper echelon creature and I obliterated it in one shot. Weaker creatures die even easier. The Starlit Span magus is a nightmare archer and martial on the clear S tier of power, S+ really, maybe even top in the game damage hammer.
Only clearly more powerful overall options are high level casters. Not necessarily in single target damage, though they can do some brutal damage with a crit fail on saves as well. But overall effect and ability to turn battles trivial.
The Starlit Span magus is definitely one of the best classes I've played in the game. And at level 15 it definitely feels in the S to S+ tier on the power scale and even provides a surprising amount of versatility with the 4 slots and ability to change out spells for different missions. Their feats are really well done. Scroll Strike really let's them extend their spellstriking power throughout the day, especially if you build up crafting and obtain Quick Attachment.
Real eye opener playing a Starlit Span magus. Definitely the most powerful archer by a large margin and one of the most powerful martials in the game with an incredibly well built class chassis.
I'll be surprised if it survives in its current form without a little bit of a reduction in Player Core 2.
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So diverse lore means you are at best -2 behind on the leading recall knowledge rolls of an INT/WIS based class.Thanks for trying to invalidate my experience.
But you forget the Tome in your calculation, so the Thaumaturge is at most at -1 behind the specialized INT/WIS class and very quickly at the same level. And then you can add the fact that the Thaumaturge progresses automatically at level 3/7/15 when the specialized class needs to invest their skill points and as such will progress slower (outside their main skill). So the Thaumaturge is actually +2 ahead the specialized class most of the time, which is quite sad for the said "specialized class".As for the other uses of the RK skills, well, they are RK skills for something: Their main use is RK, the rest happens once in a blue moon.
If you were supposed to be the party's main knowledge person, why was the magus playing a Tome thaum?
It feels a bit like two people who accidentally actually picked the same niche to be the best at. One of them is going to be unhappy.
Kinda like if one person made a life oracle and the other a cleric with lots of healing feats. They're also gonna feel like they're in each others' spotlight.
Someone playing a Tome thaum is also kinda laying claim to the niche of being the RK guy.
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Long Strider/Tail Wind. The rules lawyer's personal bugbear.
Because after not so long everyone has it. Which annoys those people who take monks. Party movement speeds get up to around 40ft base. Monsters become in general much slower than the PCs, which gives them a significant advantage.
Is it game breaking? Borderline
As long as you keep forcing the players to spend actions to move the GM can handle it. Of course an optimiser will get a mature mount for the free move at some point.
Is it game breaking? BorderlineAs long as you keep forcing the players to spend actions to move the GM can handle it. Of course an optimiser will get a mature mount for the free move at some point.
How exactly would you do this in an organized party battle after battle after battle, level after level after level without allowing a coordinated group to take advantage of the GM forcing the Starlit Span magus to move?
I know you as a player are also focused on fairly optimal play. If you were in a group where the GM was going out of their way to force the Eldritch Archer to move, would you not punish that GM's tactics?
Our GM has gone after the Starlit Archer more than a few times and the rest of the group punishes that enemy for moving in a tactically poor manner, often provoking reaction attacks or bad positioning.
Starlit Span operates at up to a 100 foot range. They are still a Master level archer with a fully built weapon even when not spellstriking, which can still do archer level damage. The imaginary weapon spellstrike just allows nova damage as often as possible.
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I genuinely would not be surprised to see imaginary weapon get errata that somehow prevents it being used at range via spellstrike and the like. The annoying thing about the starlit span magus using this is that it's better with the spell than the class it was designed for.
Honestly I don't expect this.
IMO the problem of Imaginary Weapon is more in the ranged Spellstrike than in the focus spell. The point is more about how easily an archers can spam many focus spell damage with martial hit rate + item bonus + normal Strike dmg than about the +2/+1 (depending from what focus spell you want to use) to dmg per rank when you use AMPed imaginary weapon instead of any other attack focus spell.Want to nerf Starlit Span. Just restrict SpellStrike to use the same range of spell.
Dirge of Doom is my pick for most broken ability. It is a +1/-1 turn around for the whole party. No save. Mindless is only around 4% of monsters. It is fairly reliable.In the past I would have agreed with you but when I was playing my Bard, I realised I was making a mistake that I suspect is pretty common. Dirge of Doom has the Composition trait which states that "The spell gains all the traits of the performance you used." so act, comedy, orate, or sing are going to add the Linguistic trait which will also cut down the number of enemies you can use this against. Dance adds the Visual trait which is a bit less restrictive as creatures are more likely to be able to see you than understand you. You could play an instrument and then they only need to hear you but not understand you however all instruments require two hands so that means no weapons. There are other balancing factors such as dancing and playing an instrument provoking more reactions. I think when you factor all this in, it is pretty well balanced, but the issue might be that a lot of groups aren't applying these rules.
I don't see that as a big problem. The bard doesn't really need their hands for anything anyway so using an instrument is not that difficult.
You can avoid taking on the linguistic trait if you want. There are one handed instruments in the game (Composer Staff)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
- Diverse lore is at -2 top tier proficiency bump
Which is more often than not nullified by the way lores are usually run, i.e. as an unspecific lore the DC is reduced by 2. Only Additional Lores enjoy this particular advantage in many, if not most games.
- Circumstance bonuses can be obtained through aiding, which puts the thaumaturge behind because a inspire competence, aid, etc. can give you a +1 to +4 circumstance bonus that stacks.
That depends on certain other characters being in the party (inspire competence) and costs resources. An action and a reaction in both cases. And the Bard's composition cantrip for that round. The other part also realistically needs to be trained in a skill to (regular) Aid with any kind of reliability, much less crit succeed.
It's also not like you can't Aid the Thaum, it's just pointless until crit successes become common. This is in no way a one-sided advantage.
- Both INT classes like wizard and witch could easily take a familiar with skilled + second opinion in one knowledge skill or both with an enhanced familiar (or go for a pipe fox with they have 5 familiar abilities) and get the same +1/+2 circumstance bonus available to the thaumaturge.
An automatic universal +1/+2 is far, far better than one that costs feats, an action (you still need to command your familiar, as they explicitly need to prepare to help) and only applies to up to two skills. The only advantage this combo has is that it gets to the +2 bonus far faster.
- Tome can provide proficiency bumps, but they won't interact with diverse lore at all so if you're stating that they would get proficiency bumps to the specific skills from the 2 floating tome skills that would be a big waste and not key of CHA. I'm assuming you're talking specifically about the +1/+2 circumstance bonuses.
The tome bonuses still apply to the regular RK checks made with Diverse Lore. The only part they don't work on is the "bonus" RK you get when using Exploit Vulnerability.
- There is a good chance that CHA caps out at 18 for many thaumaturges, which means at L1-L10 they are probably another -1 behind for 5 levels and from L10 onwards at that same -1 that goes to -2 at L17 with apex items and -3 at L20.
From everything I've seen, the chance is far from good. Or practically zero for Tome Thaums with Diverse Lore, as they have every reason to stack CHA.
- Casters can easily devote lower level spell slots to spells like pocket library to get multiple +1 to +4 status bonuses to recall knowledge checks.
Which costs 3 actions, meaning it is bad for combat. Where RK checks are most critical. And depends on you being at least level 5 to have the resources to even get the +1. It also doesn't change what skill you have to roll, so unless that is one of your better skills, it doesn't really help you at all.
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And during all of this you are discounting the fact that this is comparing the Thaum, who needs zero investment in terms of skills to do this, to characters who need to to spend all their skill increases and several skill feats (for Additional Lore) to have the same impact in even a handful of areas. And even then there are plenty of levels where the proficiency for their secondary and/or tertiary skill needs to catch up.
Most of this wouldn't help the Investigator in any case either, who is intended to be the RK class. Their bonuses are circumstance bonuses as well.
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Lots of hand wringing over the ability to uh- be pretty good at getting selective information about the setting from the GM.
It says some nice things about the game when an ability that by definition can't break anything is what we're fixating on as 'overpowered.'
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If you were supposed to be the party's main knowledge person, why was the magus playing a Tome thaum?
I was not supposed to be the main RK guy, I was supposed to have 3 skills to Legendary. There's no other class that get such a wide bonus to skills where the rest of the party is supposed to just take the remaining bits. A Tome Thaumaturge can roughly maximize 9 skills (proficiency + stat), that's more than half of them. For someone like me who likes skills, it's a big impact. I know others don't care about skills but I do and as such I'm very much impacted.
And I'd ask you (in general, not in particular) to not put the mistake on "me". I chose nothing but to play a caster in a party with none of them, my choice made a lot of sense, I just did not expect to be pushed aside the skill game.
@Red Gryffin: No, I won't invest feats and spells to compete with another player. If another PC is at the top of a bunch of skills, I'll just choose other ones.
Lots of hand wringing over the ability to uh- be pretty good at getting selective information about the setting from the GM.
It says some nice things about the game when an ability that by definition can't break anything is what we're fixating on as 'overpowered.'
Diverse Lore on its own is awesome, both from a narrative and mechanical perspective. Without the context of other classes, it doesn't break anything, quite the contrary. It's purely what it does to the niche of other character and INT that's the problem.