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This seems to be a incredibly versatile and expressive class rewarding creativity.
So it's unfortunate that some runes seem a little boring and some a little weak. I don't have much to offer on the boring side, I'm no game developer.
Rune of fire is incredibly niche on its initial effect to the point where 90 percent of the time you only casting it for it's invocation.
Why not persistent fire, weakness to fire, you can always use a different rune when you run into something with resistance.
Why make impact hurt you if your unarmed? There is so little unarmed support in this play test that this just feels mean spirited.
Thunder, why is the scaling on the non invocation+1? Make it 1d4 please.
I think if you were to change invoking to once per round (to limit the absurd potential burst while keeping from over weakening the class) you could change preservation to something a little more frequent?
Rune of intensity is odd given the removal of ability mod to cantrips. At higher levels it's hard to justify an entire action for a single source is 6-7 damage.
Homecoming is a rare example of arguably too much power. Given it has no range limit or even dimension. You could use it to yoink a friendly or if maze.
Rune of gravity is one of those rare ones where majority of the time you just don't want to invoke.
A lot of runes I feel their passive effect do not line up with their invocation. I want hard decisions. Which means passive effects need to be good as well as invocation.
Then we just need some more runes, with just a runesmith can quickly get most if not all the runes. I know it's a play test but it's still worth mentioning.
I can tell you majority of the time as a off kas martial, I'm going to be spending my first 3 of my 4 known runes on whetstone, fire and thunder.
I'd also like some better feat support. Make engraving strike simply add a strike to your trace. So long as you have the ability to hit the opponent. That means two action ranged strikes with tracing and one action melee tracing.
Currently while ranged gets there, it definitely takes a bit to kick in. Feels clunky.
I agree that I feel like the runes tend to be very specific, and not always fun. They're mostly combat abilities that you can exchange for burst damage.
I was expecting a lot more of an interesting push and pull between runes that are noncombat, and runes that are meant for combat. I think the light one is a GREAT example- usually, you want it on an ally for utility. However, it's also sometimes good to trace on an enemy- and it's ALWAYS good to invoke on an enemy!
It feels like runes have very, very limited utility out of combat, which is kinda boring.
For instance, maybe a rune that helps with charisma skills, but you invoke it to make the target distracted/dazzled/fascinated/agog/agape/etc.
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Justnobodyfqwl wrote: I think the light one is a GREAT example- usually, you want it on an ally for utility. However, it's also sometimes good to trace on an enemy- and it's ALWAYS good to invoke on an enemy!
Every party member within 40' of the enemy: "It's not good to invoke, it's not good to invoke!!!"
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Xenocrat wrote: Justnobodyfqwl wrote: I think the light one is a GREAT example- usually, you want it on an ally for utility. However, it's also sometimes good to trace on an enemy- and it's ALWAYS good to invoke on an enemy!
Every party member within 40' of the enemy: "It's not good to invoke, it's not good to invoke!!!" Me putting on my totally radical protective sunglasses and full coverage ear protection: WHAT WAS THAT? INVOKE THE RUNE? OK!
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Yeah, I love the class but dislike its current options. Hoping to see it get a tune-up like the Kineticist did!
If you mean tune-up as in more runes then clearly they skipped giving us enough to playtest properly.
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I really wished paizo would start caring about giving us more utility options in the playtest phase. It's really hard to give data about how fun a class is when all we're given is a basic suite of combat abilities which are mostly damage focused.
Like, the rune of binding is incredibly cool; but it's also, like, level 17. I also really like the rune of sorrow. Make no mistake, I think the blasty Runes are fun and important too; but I'm not a fan that blasting is one of the few things a low level runesmith can do
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
ElementalofCuteness wrote: If you mean tune-up as in more runes then clearly they skipped giving us enough to playtest properly. The lack of options really is a big problem. With the fact that there's absolutely no reason to take the Lexicon feat unless you also already have the Grimoire feat, it leads to a weird situation that people who do take them have access to almost every single rune in the playtest (especially considering the corrupting rune is... not something which is super usable in most games). Limited choices are expected, but this is more close to "next to none"
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Alchemic_Genius wrote: I really wished paizo would start caring about giving us more utility options in the playtest phase. It's really hard to give data about how fun a class is when all we're given is a basic suite of combat abilities which are mostly damage focused.
Like, the rune of binding is incredibly cool; but it's also, like, level 17. I also really like the rune of sorrow. Make no mistake, I think the blasty Runes are fun and important too; but I'm not a fan that blasting is one of the few things a low level runesmith can do
I can understand that Paizo probably feels as if they understand out-of-combat balancing more than combat balancing, and thus want to emphasize combat abilities in playtests
However, I think the non-combat abilities of a class are core to it working! They make up a huge part of what makes a class distinct and interesting, and presenting a class without them will always be less satisfying
Also, I think the difference between Player Core Pathfinder 2e Skill Feats and Starfinder 2e Playtest's Skill Feats proves that they're willing to make skill feats much less niche and much more inviting to actually pick. Out-of-combat abilities seem more important than ever to Paizo, and I wanna playtest that!
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Playtests should have some options that are purely promotional cool things to get folks excited for the final format. But they aren't necessarily there to be "playtested" but to paint an overall story about what the final class could look like.
I'm surprised there aren't runes that straight up are copy or advance common runes (e.g., getting a pre-remaster blade ally bonus rune on your weapon or maybe armour). Imagine being able to trace that to get any of the skill boosting utility runes you'd never add to your normal weapons and Armour.
When I think about some of the cool options from other classes I think of the mirror implement short distance teleport, a stealth rune to hide you and your party, the ability to trace runes that only certain people can see for secret communications, some movements options like a rocket jump to get short distance pseudo fly, a super speedy rune that could give you a free or no action 60ft dash to close distance, an alarm rune for ensuring you are attacked in the night, all the power word x spells, etc.
Then what new things could you do with the power of the written word? I think it'd be cool to summon little rune monsters that out of combat could be unseen servants or in combat could personify the runes intention (you animate the 'protect rune' and it jumps to take hits and tank, you animate the 'revenge rune' and it will always attack the creature who last attacked an ally, you animate the help rune and it will aid another). That opens up so many flavourful options for a poorly worded 1 word program that does something you want but never in the most optimal way unless you highly coordinate with your team. It's like true naming a quality/concept vs. A creature.
I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around.
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Red Griffyn wrote: Playtests should have some options that are purely promotional cool things to get folks excited for the final format. But they aren't necessarily there to be "playtested" but to paint an overall story about what the final class could look like.
I'm surprised there aren't runes that straight up are copy or advance common runes (e.g., getting a pre-remaster blade ally bonus rune on your weapon or maybe armour). Imagine being able to trace that to get any of the skill boosting utility runes you'd never add to your normal weapons and Armour.
When I think about some of the cool options from other classes I think of the mirror implement short distance teleport, a stealth rune to hide you and your party, the ability to trace runes that only certain people can see for secret communications, some movements options like a rocket jump to get short distance pseudo fly, a super speedy rune that could give you a free or no action 60ft dash to close distance, an alarm rune for ensuring you are attacked in the night, all the power word x spells, etc.
Then what new things could you do with the power of the written word? I think it'd be cool to summon little rune monsters that out of combat could be unseen servants or in combat could personify the runes intention (you animate the 'protect rune' and it jumps to take hits and tank, you animate the 'revenge rune' and it will always attack the creature who last attacked an ally, you animate the help rune and it will aid another). That opens up so many flavourful options for a poorly worded 1 word program that does something you want but never in the most optimal way unless you highly coordinate with your team. It's like true naming a quality/concept vs. A creature.
I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around.
Oh my gosh, I 100% love all of these ideas! I couldn't agree more, it feels like these are really obvious and cool abilities that interact with adventuring in fun ways- that AREN'T only about combat.
I feel like giving temporary access to conditional runes is really smart, too- really gives players a chance to try-before-you-buy.
I would especially love runes that lean into the idea that theyre engraved onto objects. This feat gives you a rune that lets you teleport anything its engraved on to your hand. This Pinocchio feat gives you a rune that turns any 1 bulk item its engraved on into an unseen servant.
Or maybe runes that really play into the idea of language. You can trace a rune on your tongue that translates all of your speech to anyone listening to the universal ancient language, or do the same on your ears. Start a plot hook where a podunk farmer accidentally created a cattle brand that exactly recreates the Rune Of Speech- and now the cows are speaking up and speaking out in revolt.
Red Griffyn wrote: I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around. That one's easy.
- Rune for Cold damage
- Rune for Acid damage
- Rune for Poison damage
- Rune for Sonic damage
- Rune for Mental damage
- Rune for Void damage
- Rune for Spirit damage
- Rune for Piercing damage
- Rune for Bludgeoning damage
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JiCi wrote: Red Griffyn wrote: I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around. That one's easy.
- Rune for Cold damage
- Rune for Acid damage
- Rune for Poison damage
- Rune for Sonic damage
- Rune for Mental damage
- Rune for Void damage
- Rune for Spirit damage
- Rune for Piercing damage
- Rune for Bludgeoning damage Lol...Well OP clearly wanted non-combat runes. But I think just copy pasta of the same old underlying damage rune with a minor flavour based difference (e.g., cold reduces speed) is the wrong way to go because you'll end up having multiple stacking runes, boosting the existing burst damage of the class. I'd much rather a elemental rune (fire/cold/acid/electric/sonic) and physical rune (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing) that gives versatility but doesn't eat up rune count. That provides a hard cap to damage rune stacking (since only two could stack) and prevents you feeling 'required' to spend all your runes on damage. It will take less page count to even add those flavour boosters based on damage type as well if desired. Everyone can spare 2 runes which opens up people to take a weird corner case rune or diacritic modifying rune.
Just pondering again, but think there could be a reasonable desire to specialize in one kind or damage or another. Maybe there could be a higher level feat to specialize a versatile rune like that for one damage type. Like a L8 feat that boosts the fire to add persistent fire damage, the cold status penalty to speed to require a check to move (similar to being on ice), sonic causing a creature to be unable to perform actions/spells that have the auditory trait, etc.
I think the other really cool thing that is missing is the scaling ability to improve the complexity of your runes. Its there in some of the later feats where you're causing effects based on the rune magic type in combination, but I mean more a later level feat or feature to add two diacritic runes to modify so those baseline runes can get increasingly more complicated. Maybe you could even let you double dip on the diacritic rune (increase the AOE radius on expansion, double the INT damage, etc.).
justnobodyfqwl wrote: Or maybe runes that really play into the idea of language. You can trace a rune on your tongue that translates all of your speech to anyone listening to the universal ancient language, or do the same on your ears. Start a plot hook where a podunk farmer accidentally created a cattle brand that exactly recreates the Rune Of Speech- and now the cows are speaking up and speaking out in revolt. I love this. Maybe it could provide a passive bonus to one CHA skill of your choice as its scaling effect (great for your party face) and maybe you could invoke it to give a reroll on a failed CHA check? That would be a really fun utility rune that could also be used in combat for demoralize/bon mot.
Other Utility Rune Ideas:
- Immovable Rod Rune that adds a huge mass to and object.
- Levitation Rune that decreases your mass and lets you hover.
- Binding rune that binds two objects (or later PCs?) to each other and requires a DC to escape. Sort of like a sovereign glue/everlasting adhesive.
- Repulsion runes that prevent two objects (or later PCs?) form approaching each other without a save.
- Elemental Control Rune(s) similar to the kineticist kinesis
- Runes you can place in space and walk/climb like a versatile floating disk spell. This could enable a higher level version where you can 'create' larger structures like a bridge or w/e.
- Runes to transmute things from one thing to another (either temporarily or permanently if reapplied a lot). Think of Brandon Sanderson's emperor's soul type imprints (things that coax a crappy thing to be better by rewriting its 'history'). Imagine if you could transmute your possessions into any item of the same item (weapon, handheld, alchemical bomb, etc.) type after ~7 days of imprinting that is of a level equal to or lower than the item's level. Then you add in a really cool 1-4 scaling items that are up to your PC level but those require daily reapplies (so you can't up cycle and break the economy). That would be a really cool versatile option opener AND it would have some really cool narrative options to describing how exactly you changed a part of the item history (was it they were taken care of better, were they crafted with higher skill from a master crafstman, was there a locksmith of your dungeon cell who predominantly used a specifically 'worse' kind of lock making it easier to escape the dungeon, etc.). For items of the item level it could be as simple as 7 days to change a random key into an exact replica of the vault key you stole from the banker to improve your heist abilities. TONS of fun gameplay here. It also reinforces the INT/Crafting angle of the runesmith.
- LOTR style runic magic doors (only opens on certain days, in the moonlight, or with passphrases, etc.)
Red Griffyn wrote: JiCi wrote: Red Griffyn wrote: I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around. That one's easy.
- Rune for Cold damage
- Rune for Acid damage
- Rune for Poison damage
- Rune for Sonic damage
- Rune for Mental damage
- Rune for Void damage
- Rune for Spirit damage
- Rune for Piercing damage
- Rune for Bludgeoning damage Lol...Well OP clearly wanted non-combat runes. But I think just copy pasta of the same old underlying damage rune with a minor flavour based difference (e.g., cold reduces speed) is the wrong way to go because you'll end up having multiple stacking runes, boosting the existing burst damage of the class. I'd much rather a elemental rune (fire/cold/acid/electric/sonic) and physical rune (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing) that gives versatility but doesn't eat up rune count. That provides a hard cap to damage rune stacking (since only two could stack) and prevents you feeling 'required' to spend all your runes on damage. It will take less page count to even add those flavour boosters based on damage type as well if desired. Everyone can spare 2 runes which opens up people to take a weird corner case rune or diacritic modifying rune. Well in this case, how about this?
- ARCANE rune of power (fire, cold, acid, electricity, poison)
- DIVINE rune of power (spirit, vitality, void)
- PRIMAL rune of power (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing)
- OCCULT rune of power (mental, sonic)
JiCi wrote: Red Griffyn wrote: JiCi wrote: Red Griffyn wrote: I think a thread on how the runes are boring should throw out more cool ideas for effects you'd want to see for the design team to implement and balance around. That one's easy.
- Rune for Cold damage
- Rune for Acid damage
- Rune for Poison damage
- Rune for Sonic damage
- Rune for Mental damage
- Rune for Void damage
- Rune for Spirit damage
- Rune for Piercing damage
- Rune for Bludgeoning damage Lol...Well OP clearly wanted non-combat runes. But I think just copy pasta of the same old underlying damage rune with a minor flavour based difference (e.g., cold reduces speed) is the wrong way to go because you'll end up having multiple stacking runes, boosting the existing burst damage of the class. I'd much rather a elemental rune (fire/cold/acid/electric/sonic) and physical rune (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing) that gives versatility but doesn't eat up rune count. That provides a hard cap to damage rune stacking (since only two could stack) and prevents you feeling 'required' to spend all your runes on damage. It will take less page count to even add those flavour boosters based on damage type as well if desired. Everyone can spare 2 runes which opens up people to take a weird corner case rune or diacritic modifying rune. Well in this case, how about this?
- ARCANE rune of power (fire, cold, acid, electricity, poison)
- DIVINE rune of power (spirit, vitality, void)
- PRIMAL rune of power (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing)
- OCCULT rune of power (mental, sonic) Currently, each rune has a highly specific and unique trace effect
What you suggest is certainly more modular but I fear the unique trace effects might get lost.
Is every arcane rune going to become just resistance lower?
Makes me wish the multiple rounds of play testing would come back so we could get more runes and see how feedback was taken.
Seeing more runes would be enough, honestly...
The vaccum we are in doesn't help...One round doesn't help when the two classes are THIS complex honestly.
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Martialmasters wrote: Currently, each rune has a highly specific and unique trace effect
What you suggest is certainly more modular but I fear the unique trace effects might get lost.
Is every arcane rune going to become just resistance lower?
I'm gonna throw something... for Arcane runes, to start with...
- Tracing "Atryl" reduces the bearer's resistance by an ammount, according to the selected damage type.
- Invoking "Atryl" detonates the rune, dealing damage. HOWEVER, the dazzling condition changes according to the type... unless you can find me when a Cold effect dazzles :p
- Tracing "Ranshu", but as a DIACRITIC rune, have the bearer take the equivalent of persistant damage, according to the selected type again. Logically, if "Atryl" reduces your resistance, "Ranshu" should make it more evident.
I get the feeling that a runsmith could theoratically Trace a 3-rune phrase, as 3 separate actions though, with one main rune and 2 diacritic ones.
Basically, one rune for damage type and another rune to apply conditions and effects, to a maximum a 3-rune phrase.
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