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For Vital Composite Invocation, I'm noticing that there aren't any Divine or Primal runes provided that heal the bearer. The ones that are supplied damage and/or debuff the bearer when invoked, but this feat wants to heal the bearer.
I'm assuming there are healing- or buff-oriented runes planned but not included in the playtest? It's somewhat difficult to get a good sense of how this feat performs without them, though. Well, that and the first Divine rune included in the playtest comes three levels after this feat, which makes the feat dead for three levels even if you were okay with damaging your party member.
For Clashing Composite Invocation at level 10, you can invoke an Arcane + Divine combination on one target, forcing them to make a Fortitude save or be Sickened. The only Divine rune available at this level in the playtest is a Diacritic and can't be applied by itself. Assuming that a Diacritic counts as being applied to the bearer of the base rune, we could apply this to an Arcane rune to use Clashing. At a minimum, though, this requires four actions across two turns (Tracing Trance can quicken you to trace runes faster, but then you can't Invoke that turn).
You probably don't want Zohk, Rune of Homecoming traced on an enemy for a round unless you're sure that it'll be immobilized on its turn? You almost certainly don't want to trace Feikris, Rune of Gravity on an enemy for a full turn and give it bonuses to Athletics. I guess you can trace Kajastri, Rune of Insolation on an enemy who's wearing armor, as long as none of your melee party members plan on hitting them. Trolstiri, Rune of Forlorn Sorrow is iffy: I feel like this is intended to be traced/etched onto an ally but would still be semi-functional traced on an enemy? Lastly there's Aiuen, the Elf-Gate Key. I'm pretty sure you don't want to let your enemy teleport for a round before you can Invoke; plus, if you're invoking this one there's a decent chance the fight is about to be over anyway.
You could instead do a Primal + Occult pair here, but Occult has similar issues to Arcane. Here at least you can do Primal the turn before, then Occult + Clashing Invocation on turn 2. Hopefully none of your allies are invisible or concealed, though, because the only Occult rune you can inscribe on most creatures is going to mess with that. The other option requires that the enemy is holding a shield, and it's not really one you want to invoke if your allies are in melee.
Astral Composite Invocation comes at level 12 and requires Arcane + Occult, save or be stupefied. Check the wall of text above about why you probably don't want to leave any of the relevant runes on an enemy for a round.
Annihilating Composite Invocation at 18 seems to be a mess, partially because of the limited selection of runes. I'm assuming this is supposed to be a two-action ability like the other composite invocations, but there's no action icons in the playtest pdf. In theory, you can set up all four required traditions with three or four actions, but you'll have to leave an Arcane or Occult rune on the enemy for a full round. And for all this setup, you get a whole extra 10d4 damage on a basic Fort save? Beyond the issues of rune selection, I think you could jump through fewer hoops to get more damage and similar utility, even on Runesmith.
I do get the sense that all of these issues could be addressed by adding in more rune selection, which will presumably be part of any full release. In the meantime, I'm not sure it's possible to provide meaningful feedback on these feats without homebrewing new runes to shore up the following gaps:
- A buffing/healing Divine rune
- A buffing/healing Primal rune
- A debuffing/damaging Arcane rune
- A debuffing/damaging Occult rune
Preferably the Arcane and Occult runes wouldn't have terrible friendly fire, if any.
N.B.
Some runes have a specific tradition trait; for instance, the elemental ranshu, rune of thunder is a primal rune. Any rune that doesn’t have a specific tradition trait can be written in the style of one of the four magical traditions to give it that trait if you are trained in that tradition’s skill
Still, those feats are weird since it basically means you want to be trained in all four skills then a bunch of runes can be whatever tradition you want them to be, so you're better off knowing/using runes that don't have a specific tradition.
N.B.
Some runes have a specific tradition trait; for instance, the elemental ranshu, rune of thunder is a primal rune. Any rune that doesn’t have a specific tradition trait can be written in the style of one of the four magical traditions to give it that trait if you are trained in that tradition’s skillStill, those feats are weird since it basically means you want to be trained in all four skills then a bunch of runes can be whatever tradition you want them to be, so you're better off knowing/using runes that don't have a specific tradition.
Naturally, that's not in the sidebar on runes, bleh. Well, that does make things significantly easier to pull off.
I think my other point about the level 18 feat still stands, but at least the issues with the traditions was just me (and everyone I talked to before making the post) missing a line of text...
I hate these feats because they are (1) almost always weak, (2) cost an extra action, and (3) restrict you from "invoke any number of runes you want" to "only invoke these specific runes."
The (1) benefits are not worth the (2) and (3) costs.
The feats should grant training in at least 1 of those skills because it feels bad when 1-3 of your skill trainings need to go into the Magical Tradition skill just to be able to pull off these combination Invocation feats. I hope some of them are good in the final release but we just don't have enough generic runes to make these really work and since they need runes to be on the SAME target it makes the Whetstones Ruen not qualify for the feats but WHY!? It's the only damaging rune which can be made into non-primal unless you consider INTH-, DIACRITIC RUNE OF CORRUPTION when Invoked to be Divine as it's Trait applies, so you got 2 Primal Runes, 1 Divine rune and 1 Rune that doesn't apply for damage.