I weakly held this opinion before, but the more I think about it and take a look at the class, the more firmly I’m convinced that occult should be eased off the Witchwarper and primal added. It started with the below comments:
wouldn't it make more sense for mythic to be occult or divine casterWhy yes it would! It would have been great if those were the limitations placed on Mystic from the start! Now tell me what alternate universe you come from where a Witchwarper makes sense as a primal caster.Honestly, and I don't mean this in a confrontational manner, primal makes perfect sense to me. I'd go as far as to say it fits better than occult, which is not a conclusion I came to lightly. The SF1 Witchwarpers spell list was instants, elemental damage, some healing, and area effects. These are all things the primal list is good at, as most of these became tied to the Material essence. In SF2, the Witchwarper's base abilities are still tied to affecting the area around them, including using terrain effects.
Some of the precog anchors that didn't make the jump, namely Drift Crisis (this one is a stretch I admit), Doomed Future, and Unmaking could very well be primal themed. Further, Time magic is specifically not tied to any particular tradition, so the heavy time themed anchors could conceivably also belong to any tradition. Might as well be primal (which like arcane and occult has both Haste and Slow on it).
Finally, the primal tradition is also the one of the 4 that is specifically tied to an alternate reality, the First World. All of the others draw on other planes of course too, but the first world is explicitly a rough draft/alternate version of our own world.
So, yeah, I don't think Primal is much of a stretch at all for witchwarpers. It requires us to see the primal tradition as more than "Druid and Druid Bros" but I see that as a plus, really.
Of course, I can very easily see how others might disagree, so I don't insist on my interpretation. In fact, the previous time I offered it someone accused me of hating the Witchwarper class. But no, this is just my own perspective.
Edit: Actually, I'm looking at the Xenodruid connection from SF1, and almost all of those connection abilities can be done with the playtest Witchwarper. Some require reflavoring of ablities, like Plant Transport and Complete Transposition, but more of the basics are there than I'd assumed. Meanwhile, the mystic is a lot further from what the Xenodruid offered.
I’m going to go a little further now and say, specifically, anomaly and precog give me primal vibes (well, precog COULD be primal at any rate), and Gap influenced would make sense as arcane given its analytical, inquisitive narrative. Grab the focus spells and themes of the elemental mystic connection, give them to the WW, and call it “world creation” or “doomed future” and that one works too.
Does any of this make sense to any9ne else? I kind of felt this way about WW for a while, even if another time I brought this up I was accused of hating the class just for suggesting this. I was prepared for the playtest version to change my mind on this point, the same way I thought PF1 kineticists would be Arcane themed if i had to assign a PF2 tradition to them, but the PF2 version is unquestionably primal. But instead I want primal options even more due to how strongly the class narrative ties into what’s linked to the material essence.
I don't feel like Precog makes a lot of sense for primal, personally, but it does give me an idea for a primal-based temporal paradox.
I posted this originally in the other thread, but I'll move it here for ease of discussion.
The only issue I have with witchwarpers being arcane/primal is a difficulty in imagining which of their current paradoxes would fit the primal option. Perhaps Anomaly, dragging your material reality into the reality you are in now, but that's the only one that really fits. Granted, that's not a massive barrier, but it is still a barrier.
My suggestion would be Gap Influenced moves to Arcane, Anomaly and Precog become Primal. Grab the elemental connection from Mystic, rename it something like "Primordial" or "Doomed Future", and make that one primal too.
Precog is the biggest stretch, but if you approach it from the perspective of the survival skill, and Precog witchwarpers are natural navigators and explorers of the time stream, it can fly. I want to suggest Gap Influenced too, since most of the spells that paradox gives are on the primal spell list, but that theme is just too arcane (note, I don't think it fits occult) to ignore.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just made a thread complaining about how the playtest Witchwarper didn't lean into the "overt reality warping" fantasy I had in mind. I completely missed the fact that it's an occult class, but it actually makes perfect sense.
Both the 1e Witchwarper and Precog were pretty occult in terms of power source and flavor, so I can see why they tried to make the 2e Warper an occult caster. But the 1e Warper's spell list and abilities were definitely more primal or arcane in nature and they basically had to throw all of that out to make it fit with the established lore.
So I partially agree with you in that making the Witchwarper a primal or arcane class would definitely make it line up better with its 1e counterpart, which is more important than whatever they're trying to do with it. But also trying to force all the anchors into arcane or primal is a major stretch. The ideal solution IMO would be to give the class the arcane or primal spell lists but have it cast them as occult spells, although that could be confusing for lots of people.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If we ignore that the primal spell list is called "primal" and look at it strictly from the lens of life+material then yeah primal fits. Occult being some kind of Jungian collective unconscious mind+spirit thing makes it pretty inappropriate for this class
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't really have a horse in this race, but I think Starfinder is a good invitation to consider what the primal tradition means beyond just druids (and xenodruids).
From an essence-based perspective, primal is the combination of material and vital essence -- including void, which isn't represented in the tradition due to it being made primarily to conform to Pathfinder's Druid class. Already, this implies primal casters can access different parts of space and some planes beyond, such as the First World or Creation's Forge.
When you think about what primal represents as well -- the magic of nature -- I think that gains a whole new meaning when you look beyond just one planet and at the entire cosmos. The movement of stars and galaxies, their gravitational pull, and the wild and weird astronomical phenomena that can occur, totally vibe with primal magic. The life-giving radiance of stars is primal even in Pathfinder, as every star has a portal to Creation's Forge, so a Witchwarper whose quantum fields are wormholes into other worlds in the Universe, Inner Sphere planes or the First World, or even microscopic worlds within our world, would work perfectly as a primal caster. Whether this is as a baseline caster along with shifting the Mystic to divine and occult, or as an expansion to the class that could perhaps allow divine Witchwarpers as well (divine magic is inherently paradoxical), is up to the collective feedback of players and Paizo's discretion, but primal Witchwarpers I think are entirely valid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Occult having its mysterious, spooky vibes does help it fit better, however.
It's why I'm not super convinced Precog and Gap Influenced really fit primal too well. Both are big mysteries, the future and an excised portion of the past, respectively, which both feel very occult.
I'll simply disagree with you on Precog, no need to make the same point if it didn't convince you the first time, but Gap Influenced I actually agree somewhat. I don't think it fits primal, but I also don't think it fits occult as strongly as you do. Arcane also covers mysteries, so it comes down to approach. If you are the living embodiment of the Gap, then I lean more occult. If you're studying or trying to understand the Gap, then I think the tone shifts to Arcane.
Can't really convince myself to see it as primal no matter how many primal spells it gives though.
Related:
So I partially agree with you in that making the Witchwarper a primal or arcane class would definitely make it line up better with its 1e counterpart, which is more important than whatever they're trying to do with it. But also trying to force all the anchors into arcane or primal is a major stretch.
oh for sure. I can convince myself (barely) about Precog and Gap Influenced fitting, but some are harder.
I think the big thing I keep in mind is that Time magic in PF2 is not tied to any single tradition, not the way "space" and "eldritch entities" are. The dimension of time, yes, but not time magic in general. So it's more a matter of figuring out "how would a caster that does primal or divine magic think about time magic?" I personally like my idea of time magic as an explorer wandering through time, mapping and guiding like a ranger in any other wilderness, but there may be other approaches that work too.
If we ignore that the primal spell list is called "primal" and look at it strictly from the lens of life+material then yeah primal fits. Occult being some kind of Jungian collective unconscious mind+spirit thing makes it pretty inappropriate for this classOccult having its mysterious, spooky vibes does help it fit better, however.
It's why I'm not super convinced Precog and Gap Influenced really fit primal too well. Both are big mysteries, the future and an excised portion of the past, respectively, which both feel very occult.
I do not think the occult spell list is all that spooky or even thematically spooky. It's like new age spiritualism and Jungian "psychology". It's goofy woo-y nonsense. Everything "spooky" this list has, arcane also has. A good portion of spooky spells are on the primal list too, like all the ones with swarms of bugs. There is a reason the Bard, the supreme goofy class, is the premier occult caster. It's all about emotions, feelings and the conscious and unconscious connections between people. It's why almost all of the spells on its list target will. Occult spellcasters are the type to watch Joe Rogan, you can quote me on that
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As someone who has very little experience with SF1, and thus has no preconceived notions clouding my brain, I like that Witchwarpers have Occult as an option. It was the only class that, after reading, nearly instantly inspired a character, whose origin has some Lovecraftian influences that just scream Occult.
Primal is the only tradition that doesn't come to mind with Paradox. But that's just me.
No I think that's fair. Its easier for me, since I thought Witchwarpers already had strong primal vibes before the playtest was announced, so I've been thinking about it for longer than most, but for everyone else coming at this cold it is on the designers to present the class in a way that convinces you, the reader, of the narrative they want to tell.
Which is why, ultimately, I'll cope with whatever direction they go, including not using primal. I'll still feel an error had been made, but it's their game, and they need to go in the direction that speaks to them, not me. It'll just join my personal list of tradition mismatches, along with monks and psychics.
There is a reason the Bard, the supreme goofy class, is the premier occult caster. It's all about emotions, feelings and the conscious and unconscious connections between people. It's why almost all of the spells on its list target will.
My thoughts exactly. There's damn little to this class that touches those themes at all (while the mystic practically REVELS in those themes). But the themes of exploration, cycles of life and death, endurance, hunter-prey dynamics, and of nature just being so much weirder than we can conceive of? Those all fit just fine.
Witchwarpers bend, warp, and mix realities, I feel they would do the same with magic traditions making up their own tradition, or borrowing from all of them.
So far into the future it is hard to believe that the ideological underpinning of one's understanding of magic would still be essentialist rather than constructivist. Magic in SF1E didn't differentiate between arcane and divine. Magic was magic, and it has no essential character. This should come back, frankly
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Can't because of PF compatibility
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Can't because of PF compatibility
Which is honestly a good thing as far as magic is concerned, since that means that spellcasters come with a huge number of potential spells they can learn. I encourage everybody who is playtesting occult casters in the SF2 playtest to go check out the Pathfinder side of things for the Occult spell list, since there's some bangers on that list (Synesthesia, Heroism, Roaring applause, Maze, Slow, and Calm Emotions are recommended.) A good part of a PF2 caster's power is "knowing what spells are good" after all.
Honestly, since other people are already walking around with guns that shoot fire, or cold, or electric then the biggest weakness of the occult list (the inability to deal certain damage types) is mitigated.
Can't because of PF compatibility
A lot of the design already messes with that compatibility
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Can't because of PF compatibilityWhich is honestly a good thing as far as magic is concerned, since that means that spellcasters come with a huge number of potential spells they can learn. I encourage everybody who is playtesting occult casters in the SF2 playtest to go check out the Pathfinder side of things for the Occult spell list, since there's some bangers on that list (Synesthesia, Heroism, Roaring applause, Maze, Slow, and Calm Emotions are recommended.) A good part of a PF2 caster's power is "knowing what spells are good" after all.
Honestly, since other people are already walking around with guns that shoot fire, or cold, or electric then the biggest weakness of the occult list (the inability to deal certain damage types) is mitigated.
I think as far as the playtest is concerned, it's just the PC1 spells that "available"?
I think as far as the playtest is concerned, it's just the PC1 spells that "available"?
I confess I am entirely incapable of telling you whether or not a spell is in Player Core 1 without cracking the book. My model of "the spell lists" is the CRB one, which seems "in the spirit of the playtest" if not the letter.
I think as far as the playtest is concerned, it's just the PC1 spells that "available"?I confess I am entirely incapable of telling you whether or not a spell is in Player Core 1 without cracking the book. My model of "the spell lists" is the CRB one, which seems "in the spirit of the playtest" if not the letter.
This is actually true enough, there's precious few CRB spells that Don't have a PC1 equivalent. Still, this is what Archives of Nethys is for.
I don't feel like Precog makes a lot of sense for primal, personally, but it does give me an idea for a primal-based temporal paradox.I posted this originally in the other thread, but I'll move it here for ease of discussion.
The only issue I have with witchwarpers being arcane/primal is a difficulty in imagining which of their current paradoxes would fit the primal option. Perhaps Anomaly, dragging your material reality into the reality you are in now, but that's the only one that really fits. Granted, that's not a massive barrier, but it is still a barrier.My suggestion would be Gap Influenced moves to Arcane, Anomaly and Precog become Primal. Grab the elemental connection from Mystic, rename it something like "Primordial" or "Doomed Future", and make that one primal too.
Precog is the biggest stretch, but if you approach it from the perspective of the survival skill, and Precog witchwarpers are natural navigators and explorers of the time stream, it can fly. I want to suggest Gap Influenced too, since most of the spells that paradox gives are on the primal spell list, but that theme is just too arcane (note, I don't think it fits occult) to ignore.
I'll be real, trying to make a mystic for the playtest has convinced me. For a core thematic set of options for the mystic, the elemental connection feels like a weird choice in a list of options to start with. Like, it really diverges from from the thematic of the class as a core choice, plus it takes up a slot that COULD be going to a connection that really sells the sci-fi spacey vibes of both the class and the game.
It is fun sometimes to see starfinder takes on more classic fantasy archetypes, but not in the core book at the cost of getting to play with 'space magic' unique to the setting instead.(same issue I have with the playtest version of the rhythm connection mystic literally just being the core bard mechanics/composition spells on a better chassis - it's just kind of overtuned and boring even compared to the messy field test #2 version. Which is shame cause it's such a fun theme/concept)
So yeah big agree from me, a divine/occult split for mystic and arcane/ primal split for witchwarper would honestly make a lot more sense both mechanically and thematically.
This is actually true enough, there's precious few CRB spells that Don't have a PC1 equivalent. Still, this is what Archives of Nethys is for.I think as far as the playtest is concerned, it's just the PC1 spells that "available"?I confess I am entirely incapable of telling you whether or not a spell is in Player Core 1 without cracking the book. My model of "the spell lists" is the CRB one, which seems "in the spirit of the playtest" if not the letter.
Synesthesia is a noteworthy spell that is in the CRB, not in PC1, but is in PC2. So it's not strictly "playtest material" but it's still a spell that every Occult caster in a Starfinder game will likely want to learn when they get tier 5 spells, since it's a boss-killer, it's cool, and it's thematically appropriate for Science Fantasy.
Synesthesia is a noteworthy spell that is in the CRB, not in PC1, but is in PC2. So it's not strictly "playtest material" but it's still a spell that every Occult caster in a Starfinder game will likely want to learn when they get tier 5 spells, since it's a boss-killer, it's cool, and it's thematically appropriate for Science Fantasy.This is actually true enough, there's precious few CRB spells that Don't have a PC1 equivalent. Still, this is what Archives of Nethys is for.I think as far as the playtest is concerned, it's just the PC1 spells that "available"?I confess I am entirely incapable of telling you whether or not a spell is in Player Core 1 without cracking the book. My model of "the spell lists" is the CRB one, which seems "in the spirit of the playtest" if not the letter.
I thought the reason Synestesia wasn't reprinted is because it's overtuned and hard to reign in without sacrificing its identity. Regardless, I don't think a "deprecated" spell in any capacity should be considered a valid part of a playtest...
I thought the reason Synestesia wasn't reprinted is because it's overtuned and hard to reign in without sacrificing its identity. Regardless, I don't think a "deprecated" spell in any capacity should be considered a valid part of a playtest...
People assumed this when it wasn't in Player Core 1, but it was in Player Core 2 completely unchanged from its CRB version (well, except for basic remaster stuff.)
So it is going to be part of Starfinder 2nd Edition generally, whether or not it's left out of the playtest on a technicality.
I thought the reason Synestesia wasn't reprinted is because it's overtuned and hard to reign in without sacrificing its identity. Regardless, I don't think a "deprecated" spell in any capacity should be considered a valid part of a playtest...People assumed this when it wasn't in Player Core 1, but it was in Player Core 2 completely unchanged from its CRB version (well, except for basic remaster stuff.)
So it is going to be part of Starfinder 2nd Edition generally, whether or not it's left out of the playtest on a technicality.
Huh. Wasn't aware. Either way I don't think that's a good conclusion to draw. If the Starfriends are saying we should stick to PC1, to me that implies that generally speaking they don't plan to include spells from other sources, even PC2. And anything that isn't an explicit part of the rules is not going to be "generally" a part of the system; Some tables will allow it, some tables will restrict or ban it, and it's likely that organized play in specific will almost never allow it. This playtest it for things that are for sure a part of the rules, not things that some tables might add on.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm pretty sure the Playtest included Player Core 1 and not Player Core 2 because Player Core 2 came out on the same day as the Starfinder 2e playtest, and they didn't want to give playtesters extra homework (and an extra book to buy.) But when the eventual SF2 book comes out, I assume that everything in the PF2 "core" is going to be available generally in Starfinder. Like I doubt that SF2 has any intention of keeping someone from taking the Linguist or Bounty Hunter archetype, and those are in PC2 but not 1 (and "we don't have to reprint everything" is one of the goals here.)
It's likely to be every other book without "core" in the title that's going to need additional vetting. So I'm pretty sure that "PC1 but not PC2" is just a rule for the playtest. SFS can just make calls about specific ancestries, archetypes, classes and gate those behind some sort of boon.
Like it would be weird if we greenlit the Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, Witch, Bard, and Druid but not the Alchemist, Oracle, Monk, Champion, Investigator, Oracle, Sorcerer, Barbarian, and Swashbuckler. The reason that there's two player cores is basically "there was too much stuff to fit in one book, so we cleaved where it made sense to do so.