Sustained area spells like this usually have language that lets you move it around when you sustain it. Using the enemy-facing zones would be very difficult if you can't move the area.
There’s a feat at level 8? or so to move it. Otherwise it doesn’t move if you sustain it, you have to let it drop and restart it in a new place, which precludes anchoring actions.
Sustained area spells like this usually have language that lets you move it around when you sustain it.
I've seen it both ways. Animated Assault, Ice Storm, Sanguine Mist, and Wildfire for example.
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Quantum Transposition is the feat to move it. I think it only makes sense (verse just letting it expire and creating it anew) if you have a zone effect up you want to keep after the move. If you're just using your anomaly debuff (if any) and not a zone effect the feat doesn't seem to do anything for you.
Wondering how the feat at the same level as Quantum Aura would interact with it, or the high level ability that makes your quantum field 100 feet. Would be nice if you can spend the actions to make your aura up to 60 feet, or at a high enough level have your aura go out to 100 feet and use the other feet to increase it up to 150 feet eventually.
Though we also need to know a bit more about how well you can choose who is and is not effected by your field.
I think it only makes sense (verse just letting it expire and creating it anew) if you have a zone effect up you want to keep after the move.
Remember that you can't create it anew unless you have wasted an entire turn not sustaining it. So there's another reason to use Quantum Transposition: keeping your Anchoring reactions at disposal.
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Quantum Transposition feels like it should be baseline to the class. Waiting an entire turn for your quantum field, which may be doing nothing on that turn, to run out, only to then move it afterwards feels incredibly clunky and a major waste of what is meant to be the Witchwarper's defining class feature.
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Generally Witchwarper doesn't feel designed around their Quantum Field enough. It feels more like an additional gimmick than a real selling point for the class.
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Generally Witchwarper doesn't feel designed around their Quantum Field enough. It feels more like an additional gimmick than a real selling point for the class.
I agree fully with this, actually, I think it's arguably the biggest problem with the class right now. Whereas the Mystic integrates their vitality network seamlessly into their spellcasting and feels like a standout class for it, the Witchwarper's quantum field instead feels like a separate minigame that conflicts with their slot spells. I think the priority with the Witchwarper really needs to be to make their quantum field more functional and more powerful in general, while letting it properly synergize with the rest of their spellcasting and not just their warp spells.
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Generally Witchwarper doesn't feel designed around their Quantum Field enough. It feels more like an additional gimmick than a real selling point for the class.I agree fully with this, actually, I think it's arguably the biggest problem with the class right now. Whereas the Mystic integrates their vitality network seamlessly into their spellcasting and feels like a standout class for it, the Witchwarper's quantum field instead feels like a separate minigame that conflicts with their slot spells. I think the priority with the Witchwarper really needs to be to make their quantum field more functional and more powerful in general, while letting it properly synergize with the rest of their spellcasting and not just their warp spells.
I mean it's not unique among 2e casters to have a separate minigame that doesn't have much to do with their spells. Witch is (in the remaster) all about familiar management, Oracle is all about Cursebound management, Summoner is all about Eidolon management, and for the most part their spellcasting (especially non-focus spellcasting) is incidental to the process. Still, they do make the interplay more interesting than the Witchwarper, so I agree the class needs work in that department. Really I just want the Quantum Field to be the star instead of the spells, because you can play literally any caster in PF or SF if you want to cast spells.
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Really I just want the Quantum Field to be the star instead of the spells, because you can play literally any caster in PF or SF if you want to cast spells.
Exactly! I think Pathfinder has got basic spellcasting covered, so that if you want a class that's the archetypal spellcaster of a certain tradition (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard), or just a spellcaster that's just generically really good at using spells (Sorcerer), you'll be covered. Starfinder I think needs to approach spellcasters from a different angle from Pathfinder where it's all about making magic fit this world of space and space-age tech. The Mystic definitely works; the Witchwarper doesn't, at least not yet.
I'll also say that in the case of Pathfinder spellcasters with their own thing going on, it is important to note that their "thing" still syncs well with spells in the action economy: the Oracle's cursebound actions are usually single actions or free actions, so they can cast spells and use cursebound actions, the Summoner basically gets four actions to play with so that they can cast spells and have their eidolon do their own thing, and the Witch's hex cantrips and Command actions are single actions that are meant to pair up alongside spellcasting, with focus spells like cackle giving them even more action economy when needed. This is why the Mystic works, because Transfer Vitality is a single action that can be easily done alongside spellcasting. By contrast, the Witchwarper's quantum field doesn't do too much as a single action, and generally has to be supplemented with its own range of focus spells to start feeling all that useful. It has the potential to be so much more than it currently is, in my opinion, and I think it's a prime opportunity to have it add lots of cool riders and boosts to spells. You could even go much more extreme with this and have the Witchwarper's spells work only within their quantum field, in exchange for doing absolutely incredible things that no other caster can do.
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But the Witchwarper is in the base rulebook and I expect such classes to be basic.
Also, increasing the impact of the Quantum Field won't satisfy everyone as there'll then be endless discussions about what the Quantum Field should be. So I'm not sure it's really a solution.
I'm personally quite satisfied with the class, outside some minor ruling issues.
By contrast, the Witchwarper's quantum field doesn't do too much as a single action, and generally has to be supplemented with its own range of focus spells to start feeling all that useful.
The Anchoring ability is the single action you pay to maintain the Quantum Field. So it does quite a lot.
The issue of the Quantum Field is not that it doesn't do much but that it is hard to maintain. The edges are a little rough but I don't think many changes are necessary to make it happen. In my opinion, if you allow Signature Spells to sustain it wherever you are, add a small mobility when you Sustain it (like 10ft.) and maybe include Quantum Pulse in the chassis then it should be enough.
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Not having looked at any discussion about the WW before, the quantum field being immovable (baseline) and having a lot of action costs associated with it immediately rubbed me the wrong way as well. The actual impact it has seems fine (well, except for the Precog).
I'm strictly against clogging up the action economy with anything not necessary and even more against convenience taxes.
The field fails on both fronts. My feedback so far will be:
1) That you can automatically move the field a certain distance when you sustain it.
2) Quantum Pulse and Quantum Transposition (? The 6th level feat that allows you to move the field) become baseline features.
3) Zone abilities become passive. You choose one when you create a new field and can change it with an action.
But the Witchwarper is in the base rulebook and I expect such classes to be basic.
The Wizard is in Pathfinder's CRB and Player Core 1 and is certainly not a basic class. The Mystic I think would be more what you're looking for; the Witchwarper is expressly referred to as a complex class by Paizo.
Also, increasing the impact of the Quantum Field won't satisfy everyone as there'll then be endless discussions about what the Quantum Field should be. So I'm not sure it's really a solution.
The prospect of pushback should not be held as an obstacle to progress, as there will always be some degree of pushback against literally anything, no matter how sensible. If people want to play a generic spellcaster, they have many options to choose from, so might as well give the players who choose the Witchwarper a class who can truly make the most of their unique powers.
The Anchoring ability is the single action you pay to maintain the Quantum Field. So it does quite a lot.
Sustain is not a massively strong action by itself, and again, the issue I am referring to is with Quantum Field, whose baseline effects include Seeking or RKing against an extra target, a weaker stupefied check, concealment, or a -5/+5 Speed penalty (the last is arguably the worst). None of these have any particular interaction with spells at all.
The issue of the Quantum Field is not that it doesn't do much but that it is hard to maintain. The edges are a little rough but I don't think many changes are necessary to make it happen. In my opinion, if you allow Signature Spells to sustain it wherever you are, add a small mobility when you Sustain it (like 10ft.) and maybe include Quantum Pulse in the chassis then it should be enough.
While I agree the Quantum Field should be moved around more easily, and could probably even be deployed for free on initiative, I don't think it's the job of slot spells to sustain the QF either, and I do think the class would be more coherent if their powers actually related to their spellcasting in some form. For sure, QF shouldn't focus exclusively on spells and should be disruptive by itself, but right now the Witchwarper could very well be a martial class with no spell slots at all, given how little their non-focus spellcasting interacts with QF. Obviously, that's not how they should change, and instead I think their spellcasting needs to be a proper part of how their class features work.
The Wizard is in Pathfinder's CRB and Player Core 1 and is certainly not a basic class.
The rest of what you say I generally agree with but this statement I have to contest. Wizard is the most uninteresting class in Pathfinder. It's not necessarily weak, especially not unviable, but it doesn't do anything interesting. Wizard's gimmick is doing spellcasting but better. That's it. That's the class. That's not to say there's anything wrong with that, but it's a fact.
I also personally believe they're really undertuned. I'm specifically confused why they're perhaps the only caster in the game that can't get a third focus point without archetyping (something even focus-martials can usually achieve), and it's a demonstrable fact that some of their schools have specific spell ranks (most infuriatingly rank 1) that don't have curriculum spells that stay relevant unheightened. Looking at Battle Magic and and its three separate spells that fall off (unheightened) in like 2-4 levels.
But that's neither here nor there. Witchwarper shouldn't be space wizard anyways, or if they want it to be (like Mystic is kinda space cleric and space druid), it should have better ways to achieve that feel.
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The rest of what you say I generally agree with but this statement I have to contest. Wizard is the most uninteresting class in Pathfinder. It's not necessarily weak, especially not unviable, but it doesn't do anything interesting. Wizard's gimmick is doing spellcasting but better. That's it. That's the class. That's not to say there's anything wrong with that, but it's a fact.
I also personally believe they're really undertuned. I'm specifically confused why they're perhaps the only caster in the game that can't get a third focus point without archetyping (something even focus-martials can usually achieve), and it's a demonstrable fact that some of their schools have specific spell ranks (most infuriatingly rank 1) that don't have curriculum spells that stay relevant unheightened. Looking at Battle Magic and and its three separate spells that fall off (unheightened) in like 2-4 levels.
But that's neither here nor there. Witchwarper shouldn't be space wizard anyways, or if they want it to be (like Mystic is kinda space cleric and space druid), it should have better ways to achieve that feel.
I am in fact fully with you there. I make no secret of the fact that I think Wizards were done dirty in the remaster, and even wrote a 10-page brew dedicated to making Wizards more fun, interesting, and powerful overall. Wizards could stand to be significantly improved in Pathfinder.
That is not, however, the point being made here. Irrespective of how well-designed the Wizard actually is (and I do think accessibility is one of their problems, one I try to address in the above homebrew), the fact remains that they are one of the core classes of Pathfinder both pre- and post-remaster, and are a notoriously complex class to pick up for the first time. I am not saying the Witchwarper should play more like the Wizard in any respect (quite the opposite in fact), I am just saying that if a class as complex as the Wizard can be core in Pathfinder, we can have a more complex caster class in Starfinder Player Core too, particularly as the Mystic fills in as the more accessible spellcaster. For this reason, I think it should be okay to put a lot more power into their Quantum Field, and have them modify spells, potentially in extreme ways that would be game-breaking on other casters.