Where has reading comprehension gone?
Exemplar Dedication only allows for Bands of Imprisonment or Barrow's Edge ikons.
You gain one ikon from those listed on page 43...Those are the only two icons appearing on that page.
When you take that into account, it is hardly overpowered.
;P
Oh no, everyone is going to complain that Exemplar is so underpowered now that you can only choose those two ikons. Whatever shall we do!? Lol, seriously however you made it 2 feats for the immenence effect I think that would probably make Exemplar WAY less powerful then Psychic dip for AMP'd Imaginary Weapon and a free focus point. Yeah this can all add in relative but the sheer fact that you can ignore 50% of the Ikon's effect is kinda funny to me for some reason.
I disagree and it is RARE for a reason. I mean still not as bad as Imaginary Weapon Spam Magus, sure you get an extra 8 points of damage at end game, that's not even on average 2 dice from AMP'd Imaginary weapon, heck 2D8 average is 9 damage, if you go further and do it around level 19 that be 10d8 with average of 45 damage non-amped on Magus, so like is 8/16 damage that huge? Everyone is freaking out like 2 damage before level 4 is game braking, then from level 4 to 13 where you go to 6 dsmage till level 19 where you get your damage boosted to 8.
IF a level 3 Barbarian has 36+Conx2+Ancestry HP (On average 51 HP with 3 con), using a !d12+8 Damage weapon woudl deal on average 14 Damage, which is still 4 hits at, 14 average blows to knock them out, adding 8 damage to their attack still gives them 4 blows to know out a monster at level 3 which has 50 rough HPs, so like it doesn't even win the fight sooner based on averages.
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So, comparing an archetype that is broken across many, many builds to an archetype that is broken for one specific build is kinda silly. Yes, we all know that Amped Imaginary weapon magus is overpowered, so lets add something that is overpowered for everybody is the solution?
I had the "pleasure" of being in a PFS scenario where somebody was playing a 1/2 ling rogue using Shadow Sheathe. Despite the character being 2 levels behind it did the most damage of anybody in the group (admittedly, the player was moderately lucky with their rolls). Because the character was lower than the rest of us it was no huge deal but if the rogue had been on par with us they'd have dominated the game
Now, a bit of that is Shadow Sheath is badly worded. The person was very clearly following the RAW but also pretty clearly it is NOT RAI to be useable on melee weapons. +6 damage at level 5 is pretty darn effective.
Its broken. There really is no reasonable dispute about that.
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Psychic dedication is just good, period. Compare the following:
-Taking cantrip expansion at level 2 on a caster
-Taking Psychic dedication at level 2 on a caster
The conscious mind that gives amped guidance and glimpse weakness is a really good pickup on a lot of characters, period. As long as you have an open reaction and the stats to take the archetype, I'm hard-pressed to ever call it bad. There are better choices for many builds, yeah, but it's consistently useful and quite solid.
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Psychic dedication is just good, period. Compare the following:
-Taking cantrip expansion at level 2 on a caster
-Taking Psychic dedication at level 2 on a casterThe conscious mind that gives amped guidance and glimpse weakness is a really good pickup on a lot of characters, period. As long as you have an open reaction and the stats to take the archetype, I'm hard-pressed to ever call it bad.
Totally agreed
There are better choices for many builds
That is pretty much the issue. For a huge number of martial damage oriented builds there really is NO better choice than the Exemplar Archetype and the appropriate Ikon
It's broken. There really is no reasonable dispute about that.
Are you calling me unreasonable?
;P
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I disagree and it is RARE for a reason.
It's rare because Exemplar themselves are rare in Golarian due to the backstory behind them.
It's not rare because its the single best level 2 feat for literally every martial in the game. That is not how the Rare tag is usually used and definitely not how it should be taken here, especially since Exemplar itself is also rare and doesn't have the same issues.
I mean still not as bad as Imaginary Weapon Spam Magus, sure you get an extra 8 points of damage at end game, that's not even on average 2 dice from AMP'd Imaginary weapon, heck 2D8 average is 9 damage, if you go further and do it around level 19 that be 10d8 with average of 45 damage non-amped on Magus, so like is 8/16 damage that huge? Everyone is freaking out like 2 damage before level 4 is game braking, then from level 4 to 13 where you go to 6 dsmage till level 19 where you get your damage boosted to 8.
Everyone knows that Psychic dedication is really strong on Magus. It's considered a problem. And that's a focus spell rather than simply being always on, and isn't always the best thing for a caster to take.
IF a level 3 Barbarian has 36+Conx2+Ancestry HP (On average 51 HP with 3 con), using a !d12+8 Damage weapon woudl deal on average 14 Damage, which is still 4 hits at, 14 average blows to knock them out, adding 8 damage to their attack still gives them 4 blows to know out a monster at level 3 which has 50 rough HPs, so like it doesn't even win the fight sooner based on averages.
I mean, nothing else in the game goes "take this feat to gain 8 base damage, passively, all the time." Nothing does that. It adds up real fast. It adds up fast, especially on classes with lots of attacks, classes that crit a lot, or classes that can also take advantage of some of the transcendence effects (like Gleaming Blade's "hey have double slice on a d12 weapon").
And that's before even talking about Victor's Wreath, which is a super powerful passive (equivalent to a level 16 Cleric feat) and a super powerful activate with no limitations on use. Nothing comes close to this for a single feat investment.
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I disagree and it is RARE for a reason.It's rare because Exemplar themselves are rare in Golarian due to the backstory behind them.
This is one of the biggest problems I have with this trait. Many people misunderstand the rarity traits. Some think it is a subcomponent of power, that a rare/unique trait means that the item/creature/spell is slightly stronger than its counterparts of the same level. Others use the trait in a completely ignorant way, as if because something is not common, it should not be accessible to players.
The rarity traits were a good idea, but very poorly executed. Many things are unknown because of their rarity, others are just to justify an access point, and others simply exist to warn about abilities that can provide information and shortcuts to players that can hinder the progress of the story (as is the case with most mental spells for obtaining information or teleporting long distances).
When the class was being playtested, he was one of the people who pointed out that the rare tag would confuse a lot of people, and that there was almost no justification for its existence other than the designer's mere desire to say that the class was rare, in a fantasy world that basically doesn't care about that.
Now people are saying that the archetype's imbalance is justified because the class/archetype is rare. Precisely because there is no explanation for the imbalance, so someone sees that blue trait there and thinks "oh, that must be why!"
I got cantrip expansion with a magus to expand its available cantrip options. It's not too bad but I only taked it because I already taked an dedication (so I was locked by Special restriction) and ancestries extra cantrips. In this case it was useful but I agree its weak and basically only worth when the other options was already taken or are locked.
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Cantrip Expansion might be the better option if a Dedication feat would result in lower spell DCs or spell attcks, or lack specific tradition cantrips that you want.
With the Remaster changes, this occurs less frequently than before, but it's still a valid use case.
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I disagree and it is RARE for a reason.It's rare because Exemplar themselves are rare in Golarian due to the backstory behind them.This is one of the biggest problems I have with this trait. Many people misunderstand the rarity traits. Some think it is a subcomponent of power, that a rare/unique trait means that the item/creature/spell is slightly stronger than its counterparts of the same level. Others use the trait in a completely ignorant way, as if because something is not common, it should not be accessible to players.
The rarity traits were a good idea, but very poorly executed. Many things are unknown because of their rarity, others are just to justify an access point, and others simply exist to warn about abilities that can provide information and shortcuts to players that can hinder the progress of the story (as is the case with most mental spells for obtaining information or teleporting long distances).
When the class was being playtested, he was one of the people who pointed out that the rare tag would confuse a lot of people, and that there was almost no justification for its existence other than the designer's mere desire to say that the class was rare, in a fantasy world that basically doesn't care about that.
Now people are saying that the archetype's imbalance is justified because the class/archetype is rare. Precisely because there is no explanation for the imbalance, so someone sees that blue trait there and thinks "oh, that must be why!"
100%. Rarity is great when its solving the problem of "back in PF1 nothing RAW stopped me from taking this super obscure Thassilon era Runelord spell at level up because I can pick every spell and its a spell." That put GMs into the position of having to say "No" a lot, which we're empowered to do but isn't really a fun thing to have to constantly do.
When it's used THAT way, I get cover to say "sorry its rare", and I get to be the cool GM when I say "that's definitely in the world somewhere if you can find it." This is good.
But then it got conflated to mean a bunch of different things and got confusing as to why a given thing is rare, including "it's in the back of an AP so its uncommon" and "it's complex to run at the table so we're going to make the GM approve it first". But "it's super overpowered for a feat of its level" should not be on the list.
Like, Personal Rain Cloud is not uncommon because its overpowered. It's uncommon because it was published in Extinction Curse and for seemingly no other reason. Most of Guns & Gears is uncommon so a GM that doesn't want guns in their game can blanket ban them. Starlit Sentinel is rare because there's 12 of them in Golarin at a time. And Exemplar is rare because there just aren't many people infused with divine power like this.
Soon as we change that to allow "it's rare because its super overpowered", we're just making life harder on GMs to tell why something is rare and if its okay to allow it or not.
powerful immenence are much less of a problem with examplar class than archetype
since examplar need to transcendence almost every turn to perform best
wouldn't say eternal bless are a good standard for the power of level 16 feat
though transcendence of victor wreath are absolutely overpowered
so many examplar ability would have 10 minute 24 hour immunity or cooldown if it belong to any other class
but examplar only have 1 action reload for their transcendence
Agreed. Exemplar the Class is fine. It's fun, flavourful, has cool stuff, and fits into the game power wise. I really like it and wish I had players who wanted to play it.:)
Exemplar the Archetype is beyond absurd for what a single feat gives you.
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I'll add that beyond the Exemplar and Psychic multiclass dedications being flat-out too strong, the other major problem is that they let players access what is arguably the key selling point of those classes without actually playing them. The entire point to playing an Exemplar is that you get to play with ikons, whether it's their diverse transcendence actives or their immanence effects that form the core of their martial power, and the best part of the Psychic is their ability to amp up their already-strong cantrips to produce effects on par with spell slots for just a Focus Point. When the strongest Gleaming Blade Exemplar out there is a Barbarian or a Fighter with a single-feat dip into the MC archetype, and the strongest Psychic out there is a 6th-level Sorcerer who gets double their spell slots per rank, and doesn't even need to risk stupefying themselves to add their level to their spell's damage, then there is a problem. As upsetting as it would be to certain players, especially Magi who heavily rely on amped imaginary weapons to nuke without dipping into their limited spell slots, it would be healthier for everyone if uber-powerful focus spells or immanence effects were taken out of the MC archetypes. We certainly don't let players MC into the Fighter's expert-to-legendary proficiency track or the Wizard's arcane thesis, and I don't think these features ought to be treated differently.
Because spell proficiency isn't tied to tradition anymore, Imaginary Weapon (and any Psychic cantrip) is valuable for any Int or Cha caster. Which is all of them save for three. :b
That said, it's a very strong dedication, but I wouldn't call it clearly busting the bounds and convention of the game math the way Exemplar's does. I was kinda disappointed that PFS didn't just ban it if they didn't want to come up with a fix to make it reasonable — and a good fix for the rest of the community to take inspiration from would've been pretty helpful.
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That said, it's a very strong dedication, but I wouldn't call it clearly busting the bounds and convention of the game math the way Exemplar's does. I was kinda disappointed that PFS didn't just ban it if they didn't want to come up with a fix to make it reasonable — and a good fix for the rest of the community to take inspiration from would've been pretty helpful.
It's probably beyond what the PFS folks want to deal with in terms of a rule to limit it would need to be fairly complicated and would likely change if/when the dedication itself gets errata.
I'd have preferred they just ban it as well instead of making it a one time only boon, but I guess on a certain level it would look bad if Paizo puts out a new multiclass archetype at the same time as Paizo is saying "that's ridiculous and we're banning it."
Even the restriction they did put on it makes it pretty clear that it's out of line since Exemplar itself faces no such restriction, so it's not for "Exemplar are canonically rare" reasons.
I suppose that's a fair point!