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An amazingly talented person made a post on Reddit that I think is well worth discussing here, and that I recommend reading. In summary, they propose a "Warper" class that's based on aberrations and fleshwarping and is all about transformation, whether it be the body or the mind. My personal take is that this is one of many aspects the Shifter class could take in 2nd Edition: there's high demand to bring the Shifter into 2e, particularly as many players would like stronger battle forms, and while I think that much is good, I also believe the class could be so much more than just a Druid subclass turned into a full class.
Transformation I think isn't just the domain of primal magic, and I think a shapeshifter class that weren't shackled to just one tradition of magic could tell a great deal many more stories -- you could still have your primal warden who'd morph into an animal every time they fight (or perhaps an elemental?), but you could also have your freaky occult-flavored character who could turn into an ooze or some kind of aberration, a divine character who could turn into an angel or demon, or even an Iron Man- or Transformers-esque character who'd turn into a construct. Making one such Shifter a full martial class with access to focus spells I think would let them have really strong battle forms alongside some access to magic, and with the right feats they could do things no other class could in the same way, like disguise themselves really effectively as that poster illustrates, but also perhaps take on a chimeric form that combines two other transformations, or work as a mount to carry multiple allies into battle. There's tons of untapped potential to a transformation-based class, I think, and I think the Shifter could be expanded to deliver that full potential in 2e.
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I recognize that I'm feeling Irrationally defensive, so I'm going to limit further discussion on this topic for myself.
I just want to clarify. My comment "Did people ask for..." was not meant as criticism of those classes or anyone who wrote them. I just want to be clear, since I do recognize I have been unclear in this previously.
I'll be back when I think of another class that I long for so I can be told "That's a monk".
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I'm genuinely interested in how some of the Starfinder 2nd Edition classes will play in PF2. Like the Soldier might not be a great match since it sort of relies on auto-fire and AoE stuff that might be hard to get in a fantasy world, I think there's certainly potential in like an Envoy or a Witchwarper in fantasy-land, just like how a Gunslinger or a Kineticist might be a hoot in your SF2 campaign.
Not much I can say after that. I guess my idea is terrible.
I don't think "your idea is terrible", I feel its cool actually, but not as a full blown class. A thaumaturge and investigator play and feel vastly different than a ranger, and its not like the ranger is the only class about RK (literally just outwit rangers are good at RK, and that's the least popular subclass of that class, and then investigators only real RK ability is keen recollection, which is far from great although is a nice little feature). Your suggestion is similar to those features, small but flavorful abilities that contribute to the class, but are far from being what defines it. Most of the examples of stuff you could do with this "balancer" class could be achieved either with feats or focus spells, which could work as a subset of feats for monks or even as a monk class archetype if you add a weird mechanic to it (let's say you trade FoB to instead get a Naruto's byakugan-like ability that functions similar to the organsight spell) but the concept itself isn't deep enough to have 30 or so feats or even subclasses because its a very narrow concept. As someone that likes to homebrew, I think the first thing you have to do when thinking on how to represent a certain concept is "how would it work mechanically?" and if you can't think of much stuff likely that idea wouldn't be fitting for a class.
@Zoken44 I'll note... the person who writes up this class for Pathfinder Infinite could be you. I mean, it's the sort of thing that takes a nontrivial amount of work, and a fair bit of developing of skill, but I legit do think that your idea has some possibilities to it. It's a cool image, especially if you can refine the theoretical underpinnings a bit and maybe give it a cool mechanic or two. Like, if you have a certain "essence capacity" or something (rising slowly with level) and there were easy, straightforward ways to spend essences, but there were also powers that would cause you to gain essences by either tearing them out of yoru foes or relieving overpressure on your allies. If one of your allies has dazzled 3, you could draw that excess of Light essence off of them and then have light essence to work with... but until you spend it, it's filling up your capacity.
...and yeah. The requirement for a 1pp class is that a fair number of people know that they want it already. The requirement for a 3pp class is that a decent number of people who look at the idea think "Oh, hey. That could be cool." Even if your idea can't clear that first hurdle, I do think it could clear the second.
Also, for the record... kudos on being gracious. The ability to outright admit that you were wrong on the internet is... not universal. You managed it with some grace while largely maintaining your cool, and then recognized that you were going a bit irrational and consciously took a step back. That speaks well of you.
I'm genuinely interested in how some of the Starfinder 2nd Edition classes will play in PF2. Like the Soldier might not be a great match since it sort of relies on auto-fire and AoE stuff that might be hard to get in a fantasy world, I think there's certainly potential in like an Envoy or a Witchwarper in fantasy-land, just like how a Gunslinger or a Kineticist might be a hoot in your SF2 campaign.
Mystic has significant potential as a healing-focused caster... though we're really going to have to wait and see until they come out in a more final form. The field test mystic looked somewhat overtuned to me.
I expect that Solarion is going to be fairly appealing too. It scratches that "magical noncaster" itch in a new way, and one that i suspect a decent number of people will find pretty satisfying - more directly and loudly magical than the Thaumaturge, more melee and weapon-based than the Kineticist, and without the exemplar's spark-dancing schtick. Just a bunch of flashy solar-powered combat moves.
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An amazingly talented person made a post on Reddit that I think is well worth discussing here, and that I recommend reading. In summary, they propose a "Warper" class that's based on aberrations and fleshwarping and is all about transformation, whether it be the body or the mind. My personal take is that this is one of many aspects the Shifter class could take in 2nd Edition: there's high demand to bring the Shifter into 2e, particularly as many players would like stronger battle forms, and while I think that much is good, I also believe the class could be so much more than just a Druid subclass turned into a full class.
Transformation I think isn't just the domain of primal magic, and I think a shapeshifter class that weren't shackled to just one tradition of magic could tell a great deal many more stories -- you could still have your primal warden who'd morph into an animal every time they fight (or perhaps an elemental?), but you could also have your freaky occult-flavored character who could turn into an ooze or some kind of aberration, a divine character who could turn into an angel or demon, or even an Iron Man- or Transformers-esque character who'd turn into a construct. Making one such Shifter a full martial class with access to focus spells I think would let them have really strong battle forms alongside some access to magic, and with the right feats they could do things no other class could in the same way, like disguise themselves really effectively as that poster illustrates, but also perhaps take on a chimeric form that combines two other transformations, or work as a mount to carry multiple allies into battle. There's tons of untapped potential to a transformation-based class, I think, and I think the Shifter could be expanded to deliver that full potential in 2e.
Truly, I'm eternally grateful that I'm not the only one really wanting to see a Shifter class. Sure it was a subpar class in 1e, but the concept has a lot of potential (as demonstrated by its archetypes) and I feel it could easily stand on its own in 2e.
For what it's worth, Zoken, I've wished for (I think?) a similar thing to what you're proposing. Something similar to a monk in style, but instead of punching things they hurl ki blasts and such. Monk having a bunch of (really cool) focus spells based off of qi is great, but I would love to have a class that is closer to a caster with Qi as it's focus, though maybe not with actual spells (a la kineticist/thaum as you say). That concept doesn't really work with a monk, Qi spells supplement the rest of what the class can do but even if your sole focus of your build is Qi stuff, you're still going to need to do other monk stuff.
That being said I can see where others are coming from in that it's a pretty niche desire, even if I agree with you that there are too many people here that tend to shoot down ideas too quickly.
"Monk but less punchy and more magical" starts sounding like a Cultivator as much as anything, and xianxia isn't as deeply niche as it used to be.
It's still somewhat niche, though, and I'm not sure how much overlap there is between "xianxia enthusiasts" and "PF2 target audience". Like, I literally have no idea. There's certainly some cultural dissonance there.
Design Manager
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For what it's worth, Zoken, I've wished for (I think?) a similar thing to what you're proposing. Something similar to a monk in style, but instead of punching things they hurl ki blasts and such. Monk having a bunch of (really cool) focus spells based off of qi is great, but I would love to have a class that is closer to a caster with Qi as it's focus, though maybe not with actual spells (a la kineticist/thaum as you say). That concept doesn't really work with a monk, Qi spells supplement the rest of what the class can do but even if your sole focus of your build is Qi stuff, you're still going to need to do other monk stuff.
That being said I can see where others are coming from in that it's a pretty niche desire, even if I agree with you that there are too many people here that tend to shoot down ideas too quickly.
I wrote at least two 3pp classes for PF1 that were kind of "monk but more magical" for 3pp books, and they both sold quite well. The guru was "what if monk but Incarnum" and the sage was "what if monk but less punchy and more 'shonen anime'-inspired."
They 100% are the kinds of concepts that people would say "that's just a flavor of monk", but there's still an audience out there who are going to love them and prefer to have a class that targets the flavor and mechanics more specifically; they might not be the audience that justifies Paizo doing it in a class format, but there's a whole lot of ground between "Paizo would publish this as a class in a hardcover" and "this isn't worth doing at all". Both of those are kind of the slimmest slivers of what is possible in a TTRPG; Paizo because there's a fixed schedule and very high sales goals that need to be met, the "not worth doing" bucket because there's fans for all kinds of ideas and "not worth doing" is highly subjective and contextual.
I've also written a 3pp luchador class for both editions of Pathfinder (another "isn't that just a monk/archetype" class that still sold well in both editions), and a book for Rogue Genius Games that was literally just all 8 of the classic wizard specialties spun off into standalone classes.
There are a lot of ideas that are good and fun ideas that don't meet the stringent requirements of being a hardcover Paizo rulebook class but still have a passionate audience out there.
For what it's worth, Zoken, I've wished for (I think?) a similar thing to what you're proposing. Something similar to a monk in style, but instead of punching things they hurl ki blasts and such. Monk having a bunch of (really cool) focus spells based off of qi is great, but I would love to have a class that is closer to a caster with Qi as it's focus, though maybe not with actual spells (a la kineticist/thaum as you say). That concept doesn't really work with a monk, Qi spells supplement the rest of what the class can do but even if your sole focus of your build is Qi stuff, you're still going to need to do other monk stuff.
That being said I can see where others are coming from in that it's a pretty niche desire, even if I agree with you that there are too many people here that tend to shoot down ideas too quickly.
I wrote at least two 3pp classes for PF1 that were kind of "monk but more magical" for 3pp books, and they both sold quite well. The guru was "what if monk but Incarnum" and the sage was "what if monk but less punchy and more 'shonen anime'-inspired."
They 100% are the kinds of concepts that people would say "that's just a flavor of monk", but there's still an audience out there who are going to love them and prefer to have a class that targets the flavor and mechanics more specifically; they might not be the audience that justifies Paizo[/] doing it, but there's a whole lot of ground between "Paizo would publish this in a hardcover" and "this isn't worth doing at all". Both of those are kind of the slimmest slivers of what is possible in a TTRPG; Paizo because there's a fixed schedule and very high sales goals that need to be met, the "not worth doing" bucket because there's fans for all kinds of ideas and "not worth doing" is highly subjective and contextual.
I've also written a 3pp luchador class for both editions of Pathfinder (another "isn't that just a monk/archetype" class that still sold well in both editions), and a book for Rogue Genius Games...
That's awesome and thank you for sharing. Hopefully that makes you feel a bit better too, Zoken. I really think some people in this thread could do with a lot less 'mmm sounds like blank' instead of yes and-ing some more fun concepts.
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I will agree I would appreciated a lot more "Okay, that sounds interesting, but you would need to do this, add this, that's over tuned. Or, "Hmm, that would make for interesting 3pp, but of course Paizo won't do it"
Instead the comments of "That's just a monk", "Maybe that could be an Archetype", and other similar things felt dismissive. Especially as none of the ideas I've put here were me imagining Paizo would ever publish them, or listen. It was me saying "wouldn't it be cool".
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I will agree I would appreciated a lot more "Okay, that sounds interesting, but you would need to do this, add this, that's over tuned. Or, "Hmm, that would make for interesting 3pp, but of course Paizo won't do it"
Instead the comments of "That's just a monk", "Maybe that could be an Archetype", and other similar things felt dismissive. Especially as none of the ideas I've put here were me imagining Paizo would ever publish them, or listen. It was me saying "wouldn't it be cool".
It's fair. I think a lot of us (myself included) internally contextualize this thread and threads like it as "here's a place for us to workshop and discuss ideas that we can maybe interest others in, and then maybe interest Paizo in implementing in some fashion some day (as a class or, failing that, an archetype)", with a fallback plan of "and here is how you can sort of get what you're asking for under current rules" but we really ought to have "That won't make prime time, but it could totally work as a 3pp and here are thoughts on how" in the mix for responses too, way more than we have been. I'll try to internalize that.
I expect that Solarion is going to be fairly appealing too. It scratches that "magical noncaster" itch in a new way, and one that i suspect a decent number of people will find pretty satisfying - more directly and loudly magical than the Thaumaturge, more melee and weapon-based than the Kineticist, and without the exemplar's spark-dancing schtick. Just a bunch of flashy solar-powered combat moves.
Oh yeah, the Solarion absolutely fits in terms of play style, it's just that I need to think a lot about how it to fit thematically in the sense of "how does someone in a fantasy world know this much about celestial mechanics?"
I expect that Solarion is going to be fairly appealing too. It scratches that "magical noncaster" itch in a new way, and one that i suspect a decent number of people will find pretty satisfying - more directly and loudly magical than the Thaumaturge, more melee and weapon-based than the Kineticist, and without the exemplar's spark-dancing schtick. Just a bunch of flashy solar-powered combat moves.Oh yeah, the Solarion absolutely fits in terms of play style, it's just that I need to think a lot about how it to fit thematically in the sense of "how does someone in a fantasy world know this much about celestial mechanics?"
The glintstone sorcerers of elden ring seem like a pretty neat concept for astrologers using their love of celestial science to create magic
I expect that Solarion is going to be fairly appealing too. It scratches that "magical noncaster" itch in a new way, and one that i suspect a decent number of people will find pretty satisfying - more directly and loudly magical than the Thaumaturge, more melee and weapon-based than the Kineticist, and without the exemplar's spark-dancing schtick. Just a bunch of flashy solar-powered combat moves.Oh yeah, the Solarion absolutely fits in terms of play style, it's just that I need to think a lot about how it to fit thematically in the sense of "how does someone in a fantasy world know this much about celestial mechanics?"
My feeling was less that Solarian’s “know” anything about celestial mechanics, and more “felt” or embodied such powers and frequencies. And given Thaumaturges were mentioned, perhaps, for Solarians, it’s just a…vibe. Similar to a Sorceror or Exemplar, at least for me.
And now, after having actually done my research:
The stars guide the planets with gravity, create life with light and heat, and utterly consume worlds in supernovas and black holes. You understand that these acts of creation and destruction are not opposites, but rather two parts of a natural, dualistic cycle. You seek to be an agent of that cycle, an enlightened warrior with the ability to manipulate the forces of the stars themselves. Constantly accompanied by a mote of fundamental energy or entropy, you can shape this essence in combat to create weapons and armor of gleaming stellar light or pure, devouring darkness. Whether you apprenticed in a temple or came to your powers through personal revelation, you recognize yourself as part of an ancient tradition—a force of preservation and annihilation.
It only mentions “understanding” (and I guess, “enlightenment”) in the broadest of terms. Though a classically trained astrolonomigist carrying a personal orrery who calculates sidereal coherences, combats with retrogrades and conjunctions and conjures the full might of the entire panoply of constellations *would* be very cool.
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So Moosher12, Starfinder 1e has a class like this, which hopefully would get adapted. The Evolutionist. Subclasses determine whether you're mutating, indulging cyberteticism, Necromancy, or arcane grafts.
What kind of mechanic would you want from that in 2e?
I'd kind of like to see something a bit kineticist-style (though not so large and involved, perhaps). Basically the meat of the class is a somewhat expanded set of feats that you can pick and choose between, and there's some class mechanics that give you more of those than most folks get, except instead of the feats being "and now you can do this nifty elemental thing" they're more of a "and now your body reshapes in this way".
Possibly explicitly have multistage feats - like you'd have a "hardened carapace" feat available at level 6 that gave you some sort of defensive bonus, an then there'd be an expansion feat at level 12 and another at level 16, each of which was just another line after the first feat. Let them fit in more feats (and thus more options) without taking up but so much page space.
I don't see why an SF2 mutagenist shouldn't be able to be both cybernetic and necromantic (or whatever).
...though at this point this digression is starting to be on the wrong board.
Hmm. While this is not something I'd personally play, I think I know what people want just based on forum posts.
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I'd kind of like to see something a bit kineticist-style (though not so large and involved, perhaps). Basically the meat of the class is a somewhat expanded set of feats that you can pick and choose between, and there's some class mechanics that give you more of those than most folks get, except instead of the feats being "and now you can do this nifty elemental thing" they're more of a "and now your body reshapes in this way".Possibly explicitly have multistage feats - like you'd have a "hardened carapace" feat available at level 6 that gave you some sort of defensive bonus, an then there'd be an expansion feat at level 12 and another at level 16, each of which was just another line after the first feat. Let them fit in more feats (and thus more options) without taking up but so much page space.
I don't see why an SF2 mutagenist shouldn't be able to be both cybernetic and necromantic (or whatever).
...though at this point this digression is starting to be on the wrong board.
So I agree, that I'd like to see the Kineticist Chassis, but more int he way you can mix and match the sources of your alterations (instead of elements, it's cybernetics, Gene-splicing, necrografts, Arcane augments) and you get bonuses if you specialize.
I know that a lot of people feel feat trees are limiting (regarding your idea for evolving abilities) but I kind of like that. It's like what they did with the Surkis.
So I agree, that I'd like to see the Kineticist Chassis, but more int he way you can mix and match the sources of your alterations (instead of elements, it's cybernetics, Gene-splicing, necrografts, Arcane augments) and you get bonuses if you specialize.
I know that a lot of people feel feat trees are limiting (regarding your idea for evolving abilities) but I kind of like that. It's like what they did with the Surkis.
So... the kineticist thing is the kineticist thing. If you have a "mix-and-match or bonuses for specialization" thing, then you need to have enough feats/options/whatever down each of those trees that someone can say "I want to be a pure necrograft evolutionist" and still have at least some decision space to work with even so. You need to do that with every type. You also need to have the baseline class feats that do more normal class feat things - give you your action efficiency, your various little sidebar powers, improve this or that class feature... those sorts of things. That's a lot of feats.
The problem, then, is one of practicality. There are a lot of class concepts that would benefit from the full-on kineticist treatment, but the full-on kineticist treatment is expensive. As I understand it, Kineticist took about twice as many of the pertinent limited resources as a normal class, which means that in order for somethign on that level to be worth doing, it has to be something that a lot of people desire very strongly. Kineticist was worthwhile in this way. There was a while there where every thread that happened to mention the kineticist in any way would immediately turn into an argument about the kineticist. We have multiple threads where people discussed and debated and analyzed to try to feed thoughts and insight to the designers well before the playtest. It was a whole thing. I just don't see evolutionist having that kind of draw.
...and that means, if we want it to be viable, we need to find places to trim back or make it more efficient.
I would generally prefer a transformation/mutant/etc. class to default to Str/Dex so they can use weapons and natural weapons competently and so they can work well with archetypes (and save design space by doing so). Con is good for more extreme biological effects (oozes, etc.), but Cha is the natural default magic stat, while Wis works for divine transformation and Int works for construct cyborgs.
I feel like... class DC based on Con, but you can choose con, str, or de as your starter statbumb, and there are valid strike-based, DC-based, and hybrid builds. DC attacks would generally be vs fortitude.
I dunno. That might be a bit too overcomplicated, but it's a cool idea in my head.
Yeah the heal or harm idea also made me think of xianxia Cultivators. kind of like the Kineticist, which I agree could be a good base for the idea, they tend to cultivate internal styles based off the elements or other concepts. Some have Life or Death ki. One series I am currently reading starts out with the 5 elements, and what element you cultivate has an effect on you. Water or Wood cultivators tended to heal faster, and could touch someone and pass their internal energy/ki/chakra onto another that way to help that person heal faster. Earth makes the body hardier, metal is the king of straight up damage and fire for general offense. No actual bending kind of stuff for the most part. Some other series have things like cultivating fire forges the body while cultivating ice hardens them internally and makes their skin smooth closing all their pores.
Of course cultivator stories go in all kinds of ways. But making a Cultivator class that maybe has Kineticist like options. Instead of Gates maybe Element/Concept Styles they Cultivate. Instead of Impulses maybe Techniques, active or passive things they gain from their cultivation that may let them use their internal energy/chakra/ki to heal or harm those they touch, gain fast healing, naturally harden their body like armor, learn lightness techniques that let them move faster, run on water, up walls or even from leaf to leaf.
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It is cool that your experience with Swarmkeeper was so nice, I am not sure how, but that is good for you.
I am not sure I would ever use the Swarm attack three times in one round, as that would end the swarm and there would be no way to get it back in the same encounter. Also that also means your very small area attack cannot be moved at all that round.
I definitely like the concept of the archetype but it seems to be too hard to really use, especially with how action heavy it is.
Hi! GM in question here!
(Sorry for the very late reply lmao, I was scrolling this thread bc I was bored and recognized the player) but I think there's something to be said about how people evaluate player options in general where they're often considered in a vacuum without considering the rest of the party, the type of campaign, and the type of GM. People tend to look just at the numbers and amount of actions far too often tbh!Personally while I didn't plan for Swarmkeeper to be this useful (I had the whole adventure prepped before the character acquired the archetype), I think as a GM it's very important to make sure to expose players to all kinds of different situations so that everybody has their chance to shine.
But also, personally, as a GM my motto has always been "bring it to the table and I promise it will matter eventually no matter what it is", and it's generally something I would advise to most GMs as well. throw bones at your players sometimes!
Swarmkeeper so far has been really useful in situations where climbing is required, as well as really shining against troop encounters, or encounters where the character preferred staying out of dodge. The extra survivability with the added resistances to physical damage and mental effects is also very handy if there are no enemy spellcasters or area damage dealers (which I won't lie, I've been lacking with xD).
In general, it's a tool and it's not meant to be used every fight, but it can be really effective.
(That being said I agree that I would love a swarm Eidolon. Or more occult eidolons. Paizo give us Aberration eidolons I'm begging you why are my eidolon options "angry ghost" and "sad ghost" come ON)
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I'm genuinely interested in how some of the Starfinder 2nd Edition classes will play in PF2. Like the Soldier might not be a great match since it sort of relies on auto-fire and AoE stuff that might be hard to get in a fantasy world, I think there's certainly potential in like an Envoy or a Witchwarper in fantasy-land, just like how a Gunslinger or a Kineticist might be a hoot in your SF2 campaign.
I'm really looking forward to the chance to play some kind of energy-sword magus. I will make it as OTT as possible.