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Magus is great! Having only one spellstrike per encounter is fine if you consider that most fights are decided by turn 3 and that you most likely have stuff from your primary class to do on the other two turns. Grabbing some of the magus focus spells is also very good for many martials. Shielding Strike for a action efficient shield usage or force fangs for a guaranteed damage third action will definitely come in handy for everyone.
The spellcasting isn't great, but the archetype itself has good stuff to offer.
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Rogue archetype is very good for almost every class. Good feats, able to work skills up, lots of bang for the buck.
Champion archetype can be good for martials who want to pick up Champion's reaction without being a champion. A few good low level feats like Aura of Courage.
Bard isn't bad for charisma classes. Can grab Courageous Anthem for a group buff.
Psychic archetype to grab some quality cantrips. Psychic feats are terrible, but the cantrips can be good, especially imaginary weapon for a magus.
Investigator falls into a similar area as the rogue with weaker feats. But good for skill increases.
I took Magus on a fighter. One spellstrike per encounter isn't bad with fighter accuracy. Feats aren't much use though.
Never too many of the others. They don't seem to provide much unless you want some casting. Then cleric or bard or something that can provide heroism or other buffs is not bad for a martial.
The ones that stand out as actively bad are the fighter dedication (it's worse than the "weapon training" general feat if what you're after is martial weapons) and the Swashbuckler dedication (Panache does nothing until you have a finisher.)
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Summoner and Magus leave a lot to be desired, to the point where I struggle to see how Summoner's dedication could be useful at all. And Magus' spellcasting feats being bounded seems like overkill when you only get a single use of Spellstrike anyway.
Magus is more on the broken side, it's clearly one of the strongest Dedication for martials.
Summoner is extremely strong but super niche. You need a character who lacks means of attack, which is not exactly common. I use it on a Chirurgeon Alchemist, so I don't have to care about Dexterity or Strength as I use my Eidolon instead, I can use Choker-Arm Mutagen without caring about the penalties, the Eidolon fully benefits from Bestial Mutagen and I can easily heal myself with my Elixirs of Life. So it's a massive asset in this case. But I agree that with any character who benefits form a natural mean of attack it is completely pointless. Still, you can use it for skills as the Eidolon helps a lot with them.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Magus is great! Having only one spellstrike per encounter is fine if you consider that most fights are decided by turn 3 and that you most likely have stuff from your primary class to do on the other two turns.
Is that so? High-level fights seem to take much longer, if the VOD's I saw of the Rules Lawyers Ruby Phoenix Tournament campaign are any indication.
Magus is great! Having only one spellstrike per encounter is fine if you consider that most fights are decided by turn 3 and that you most likely have stuff from your primary class to do on the other two turns.Is that so? High-level fights seem to take much longer, if the VOD's I saw of the Rules Lawyers Ruby Phoenix Tournament campaign are any indication.
Blave used the word "decided". High level fights tend to last but are decided rather early (once you start downing opponents, it becomes more and more trivial).
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Yeah, as SuperBidi pointed out, fights can go longer than 3 rounds, but it's rare to not see one side as a clear favorite on turn 4 or later.
And to be honest, I'm level 18 in one campaign right now and I can't think of too many encounters that went much past 3 rounds at all. It is a homebrew campaign and might be due to the encounter design of my GM, of course, though he doesn't seem to be pulling his punches.
But either way, even if you happen to have 5+ round encounters frequently, having Spellstrike as a one round nova option isn't bad at all.
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Alright, I guess we'll see how it goes when we get to the high levels. Starting Abomination Vaults this Sunday, finally. :)
The length of higher level fights seems to depend on group composition:
1. Group fights: AoO power from casters end these much faster with martials focusing on softened up targets.
2. Single target: well built martials with intelligent use of buffing and debuffing speed these up.
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Ok, this is going to be a long rant, but I think this speaks to the overall lack design direction on Class Feats in general.
"We want to make Class Feats the most appealing option" is a design choice, but then you have classes with absolutely heinous options – from one-offs, like a Fighter's Bladed Break, to Investigators having pretty boring Class Feats in general.
I think the problem lies on this: Multiclass Archetypes proposition PCs to develop a character concept, but Class Feats themselves are built to be tiny mechanical knobs.
E.g.: "I want my Wizard to have the training of a master-at-arms" competes for the same slot as "my Wizard's got some extra Cantrips."
I think Paizo failed to deliver with the Class Feat/Multiclass Archetype angle because while it's really fun to have options like Nimble Dodge or Stunning Fist, they occupy a completely different mental space and required powerlevel to deliver the same fantasy as Stumbling Stance, Crossbow Expert, or any Multiclass Archetype in the first place.
Rogue archetype is very good for almost every class. Good feats, able to work skills up, lots of bang for the buck.
Champion archetype can be good for martials who want to pick up Champion's reaction without being a champion. A few good low level feats like Aura of Courage.
Bard isn't bad for charisma classes. Can grab Courageous Anthem for a group buff.
Psychic archetype to grab some quality cantrips. Psychic feats are terrible, but the cantrips can be good, especially imaginary weapon for a magus.
Investigator falls into a similar area as the rogue with weaker feats. But good for skill increases.
I took Magus on a fighter. One spellstrike per encounter isn't bad with fighter accuracy. Feats aren't much use though.
This is also my short list. Bard is very high on it, since Courageous Anthem+Lingering Composition is going to give a party more value than a lot of the caster feats a CHA caster could take instead. It's also an easy way to get your partywide status bonus in a game with FA.
Champion isn't as good as it used to be, since they nerfed the armor training. But champion reaction is still well worth it on a lot of characters. Champion can also access some very solid focus spells.
Rogue is my favorite thing to pick up with the Multitalented ancestry feat in a game with FA. By level 9, you've probably gotten most of what you wanted out of your first archetype, and Skill Mastery is immediately available, useful to basically every character, and can be taken multiple times. It's one of the few ways to become good at a lot of skills.
Just picking up a casting class, taking only casting feats, and grabbing saveless prebuffs and utility is pretty alright too. Being able to use scrolls and wands is an immense benefit if you plan ahead with consumables. I also think spell slots tend to compare favorably to class feat pickups when spent wisely.
-Picking up a basic Sorc casting feat to get Sure Strike 1/day, heightened tailwind 1/day, and heroism 1/day is a pretty alright deal, and probably a better value than many class feats, even if the return on investment isn't complete until L8. (Or maybe you're a sure strike x3 kinda player—It's still pretty good.) It doesn't really hurt to delay the pickup until a convenient level because of the delayed return on investment, as well.
-The expert spellcasting feat can give you something like fly or heightened invisibility (which is an incredible defensive prebuff spell) for R4, heightened see invisibility or wall of stone for R5, heightened heroism for R6. Again, I think this is a really good payoff for a feat investment, even if the full return takes a while to come online. (Or maybe you're just a sure strike x6 kinda player. I'm not judging.)
I'd say very few dedications (the whole dedication, not just the archetype) are OP. As others have mentioned, it would be a short list (and a contested one due to people differing opinions on what is or is not an OP option.)
My particular list for OP. (Either for times seen take with no real character reason, just for mechanics or potential power)
1. Exemplar
2. Champion
3. Rogue (I'm more neutral on this one)
4. Beastmaster
5. Any class caster dedication (except maybe Animist, Summoner, or Magus)
6. Acrobat (Free Acrobatic scaling)
7. Inventor (For Crafting Scaling)
8. Spirit Warrior (Merely because it's mostly a better Monk dedication since it invalidates the whole reason behind nerfing FoB and for a dedication only)
9. Pre nerf Six Pillars.
Not sure I'd ban any of these at my own tables, but these stick out as the biggest outliers for me. Only possible add would be Kinetistic dedication, mostly due to spam of some skills. But yeah, as others have already said, these are the only ones I'd see changing game balance more than expected.
As for the unpowered option... I'll do a different post on that. I've had tables where I've given some dedications and their feats as separate rewards because no one would take such options otherwise.
Undertuned that I can think of is Summoner. Which is weird, since some archetypes give A LOT of the other class (Exemplar, which is the issue), while Summoners give basically nothing of it. Zero access to Tandem actions and a weaker Summon.
Fighter, for sure. It needs to give something else, since it's been nerfed since the Wizard+Fighter combo of the playtest and never looked back since. It should give Shield Block along with weapon proficiency.
Overall, I think all multiclasses could give Expert on their skills. They're require qualification for and could warrant a smallish buff, while better archetypes require basically nothing.
To be honest the multiclass Archetypes are all over the place. Much like the Non-Multiclass Archetypes. You got some which are super powerful, I.E Champion, Bard, Exemplar, Investigator, Psychic & Rogue. While on the other end you got stuff like Barbarian, Fighter, Gunslinger, Ranger, Swashbuckler. Multiclass Archetypes I have NEVER seen taken period.
Then you got all the Spellcasting Multiclasses which I think are situational but good for most characters and else Kineticist, if you want utility nothing beats it.
As for Archetypes I see in play you have Acrobat, Blessed One, Fan Dancer, Medic, Sentinel, Spirit Warrior (The new Monk), Wrestler. Most other Archetypes people ignore.
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Fighter is useful for Reactive Strike builds not based on martials (Druid Shapeshifter, reach Mutagenist). Barbarian is excellent on mid level martials, especially Fighter. +6 damage at level 6 is extremely high. Swashbuckler is good for reactions, One For All mostly but Guardian's Deflection is absolutely awesome (but expensive). Gunslinger is good for Fake Out. Ranger is excellent on Bow Fighters.
I've seen most of these archetypes played. And I don't play with Free Archetypes.
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Alchemist is good for higher accuracy on martials. Bestial Mutagen, war blooded (uncommon, ask gm), and fury cocktail mutagens give a higher item bonus than available potency rune at most levels.
You can buy a collar of the shifting spider at 5th level to inject a mutagen as a free action when you roll initiative. This eliminates the action tax of drinking it at the start of combat.
Alchemist is good for higher accuracy on martials. Bestial Mutagen, war blooded (uncommon, ask gm), and fury cocktail mutagens give a higher item bonus than available potency rune at most levels.
You can buy a collar of the shifting spider at 5th level to inject a mutagen as a free action when you roll initiative. This eliminates the action tax of drinking it at the start of combat.
Be careful that the Collar asks for a free hand to be used. So it doesn't help weapon martials who generally have their hands full and as such will need an action to change their grip or draw.
Be careful that the Collar asks for a free hand to be used. So it doesn't help weapon martials who generally have their hands full and as such will need an action to change their grip or draw.
I don't see anything in the item description or in the Interact/Manipulate rules that indicates you need to have a free hand.
The collar indicates that it is activated by a free action/Interact action.
The Interact action simply states that you use a hand or hands to [do something]. (But see below.)
The Manipulate trait only requires that you have an appendage capable of manipulating things in your environment.
None of those explicitly require a free hand (that is, one that is empty, not holding or wielding anything).
Spellcasting, for example, often has the manipulate trait, but can still be done even with your arms full of spellbooks and scrolls, or weapons like staffs or powerful artifacts. You still have the hand, even when it is occupied.
The only time you couldn't Cast a Spell with the Manipulate trait, or take any other kind of Interact or Manipulate action, is if you didn't have the appropriate hands/appendages available to you at all, such as if you were bound, a nonhumanoid lacking said anatomy, or had such anatomy forcefully removed from you.
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Spells are not Interact actions. They are an example of manipulate actions that don't require a free hand.
The collar uses pre-master rules which are very explicite that interact actions to activate items require a free hand.
Interact
This component works like the Interact basic action. Activate an Item gains the manipulate trait and requires you to use your hands, just like with any Interact action.
I don't see anything in the item description or in the Interact/Manipulate rules that indicates you need to have a free hand.
You are mistaking Interact for Manipulate. Interact asks for a free hand (or multiple) and is a Manipulate action. Manipulate doesn't ask for anything.
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Even Post-Remaster requires a free hand :
Manipulate Activations
Source GM Core pg. 220 2.0
If an activation has the manipulate trait, you can activate it only if you’re wielding the item (if it’s a held item) or touching it with a free hand (if it’s another type of item).
I don't see anything in the item description or in the Interact/Manipulate rules that indicates you need to have a free hand.You are mistaking Interact for Manipulate. Interact asks for a free hand (or multiple) and is a Manipulate action. Manipulate doesn't ask for anything.
I was not mistaking them for one another. I've always known them to be distinct. I was, however, applying the same logic of one to the other due to their similar wording.
Absent the rule provided by The Raven Black above, my interpretation would have been entirely logical and correct.
Even Post-Remaster requires a free hand :
Manipulate Activations
Source GM Core pg. 220 2.0
If an activation has the manipulate trait, you can activate it only if you’re wielding the item (if it’s a held item) or touching it with a free hand (if it’s another type of item).
Thanks!
Is there anything resembling that verbiage in PC1 or PC2? It'd be quite strange if not.
Seems like such a basic thing to bury in what many consider to be a GM only book. Nothing of the sort appears in the Core definitions of Interact or Manipulate when I looked them up on Archives of Nethys.
I still maintain that, under a strict reading of the RAW, there is no requirement for a free hand when using Interact or Manipulate actions for things that are not item Activations. You simply need to have a hand or similar appendage at all.
Reload is another example of an Interact that specifies / re-states that you need a free hand to perform it.
As far as I know, yes, all Interact actions do require (at minimum) a free hand to perform said interaction.
And of course, the Interact action itself says:
You use your hand or hands to manipulate an object or the terrain. You can grab an unattended or stored object, draw a weapon, swap a held item for another (page 268), open a door, or achieve a similar effect. On rare occasions, you might have to attempt a skill check to determine if your Interact action was successful.
In order to be able to use a hand, you need it available for use. As in, a "free" hand. Kinda hard to lawyer that text to claim you don't need a free hand given the context of all specific Interacts needing a free hand.
If you can find some text where Interact is indicated to *not* need a free hand, that would give you some foundation to stand on. As far as I know, there is no "Hands: 0" entry in the pf2 system. In such circumstances, said item/ability/etc would use "Concentrate" or some other non-Manipulate form of activation/interaction.
Very strange to see you stake such an iron-clad ruling like that.
If your hand being occupied didn't stop it from being able to generically Interact as you claim, I'm pretty certain that would enable hands to hold multiple items.
Because the system expects hands to be free for things like pick up, there are no safety checks later on down the line. In your ruling, an Alchemist could keep picking up elixirs into the same hand, and since all 5+ are 1-H items being held in 1-H, that meets the criteria for wielding them, and enables their Activation.
There really is no way to take your ruling seriously there, RD.
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Surprised that people didn't mentioned Oracle Archetype, access to cursebound feats like Foretell Harm, and two different sets of focus spells with the Oracle ones and domains for charisma classes.
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Surprised that people didn't mentioned Oracle Archetype, access to cursebound feats like Foretell Harm, and two different sets of focus spells with the Oracle ones and domains for charisma classes.
Not even for Charisma classes specifically. Charisma is a solid ability score for a lot of classes & builds as a secondary thing and Oracle Archetype can offer something to a huge range of characters given how good the level 1 Cursebound feats are. Even if you don't want to stick around for the spellcasting benefit feats, there's a lot to like here (but spellcasting itself is also handy).
It's a great archetype, especially since putting it on something like a Sorcerer is just a straight up better Oracle.
Yeah, but the +6 damage comes at the cost of -2 AC *and* -1 to Reflex saves.
A d10 Fighter at level 6 deals an average of 15 damage. +6 damage is 40% extra damage. So you absolutely don't care about the AC penalty (which is mostly absorbed by the temporary hit points) and just go for what makes the most damage. The value of Barbarian Dedication on a Fighter quickly goes down, but when you get it it's massive.
And doesn't Swashbuckler Dedication just do nothing with the remaster now that the +1 circumstance bonus and +5 speed bonus are split into a separate class feature?
It's true. But I've never considered Swashbuckler Dedication for these, but only for the excellent feats.
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Yeah, but the +6 damage comes at the cost of -2 AC *and* -1 to Reflex saves.A d10 Fighter at level 6 deals an average of 15 damage. +6 damage is 40% extra damage. So you absolutely don't care about the AC penalty (which is mostly absorbed by the temporary hit points) and just go for what makes the most damage. The value of Barbarian Dedication on a Fighter quickly goes down, but when you get it it's massive.
And doesn't Swashbuckler Dedication just do nothing with the remaster now that the +1 circumstance bonus and +5 speed bonus are split into a separate class feature?It's true. But I've never considered Swashbuckler Dedication for these, but only for the excellent feats.
MC Giant Barbarian on my Paladin was fun.