I'm gonna take a second to b#*#~ about a couple Animist vessel spells, namely "Darkened Forest Form" but also heightened levels of "Devouring Dark Form" that allow you to transform into aquatic creatures, and the "Store Time" Spell.
The basic problem is that all the spells that transform you into animal forms have the same "sustained 1 minute" duration the other focus spells do, rather than the 10 minute duration the "spell book" versions get. Which means you get fewer actions per round, AND fewer rounds to use the animal form for things like special movement (swimming under water, flying) or (relevant to a plan I wanted to try) sneaking around spying on bandit camps. In combat 1 minute seems like a lot, but effectively you get 20 actions to use, which is very little when it comes to movement and exploration. And since the battle forms are not really any stronger than you baseline humanoid form at that level and still require you to spend an action sustaining... just what are you gonna use these spells for?
I would love to see those spells get an Errata to give them a longer non-sustain duration when cast as an exploration or downtime activity, perhpas the same 10 minutes as the spell book versions. Yes, that does mean Animists could use the spell to "pre-buff" but as noted, they don't normally gain much from the battle forms and would be down a focus point. It might even allow indefinite use as long as the Animist keeps refocusing and casting, which is strong but also precludes some other activities, effectively puts you down a focus point all day long, and requires re-casting the spell every 10 minutes. As an upside, this PERFECTLY fits the traditional stories of a shaman transforming into a creature and doing various types of long term activities (spying on a hero, traveling across long distances) and maybe getting detected by a clever hero / enemy while doing so.
An entirely sperate issue is the "Store Time" spell. I'm sure many people have commented on how strange / awkward it is to use. I won't belabor that but instead want to point out that it is the only vessel spell that gains NOTHING from being heightened. There is ample potential there to add stronger / more easily used options at higher levels. Performing an action and then triggering it as a reaction would be very nice, for example. I know your authors can be MUCH more creative with temporal effects, because you NAILED it with the Withcwarper!
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The basic problem is that all the spells that transform you into animal forms have the same "sustained 1 minute" duration the other focus spells do, rather than the 10 minute duration the "spell book" versions get.
1) The base spell versions last 1 minute and NOT 10 minutes (without sustain, admittedly)
2) If you care enough, getting Animal form added to your Apparition spells is a 4th level feat. Aerial form with a 8th level feat.3) That sustain gets you a free move action (assuming you're a L9+ Liturgist) AND lets you swap shapes (which can be very valuable at midish levels when elementals are added to your list)
4) Its only 1 action to cast the Vessel spell so you're ahead of a normal caster the round you cast, tied the next, and only then do you start to fall behind in actions. As a L9+ Liturgist you're going to be tied just about all the time (you maybe miss your third attack. Which isn't worth much especially as a non martial).
As it is if you want to play a shifting gish spell caster a good case could be made for a druid OR for an animist (both have pluses and minuses). If the changes you're suggesting were implemented the choice would become insanely easy. Which would be a bad thing.
I've played shifting druids AND shifting animists at quite a few levels (1-20 as druid, 1-15 with gaps as an animist). Up to about L12-14 or so both are quite viable and approximately equal. Past that the Animist loses out as it has no good high level options. Still a perfectly viable character, mind, just needs to move to a more or less pure spell caster most of the time.
1) Pest Form has a duration of 10 minutes. The spells the heightened versions mimic are one minute. So maybe just change the duration of the Pest Form cast. The sustain cost is ... unfortunate but maybe a price for flexibility. A liturgist can partly bypass it I guess.
2) Good point, and I suppose the fact that those are one minute when cast from spell slots does make the vessel spell a much closer equal anyhow.
3) Its a step, leap, or tumble through action. That's more limiting than a general movement action, and even more so when using a form that has a climb, swim, or fly move. The shape swap might be useful (or not) but I suppose either way for animal form it nets you a refreshing 5 temp HP since you get that when you choose a form, and can choose a form every turn.
4) Fair enough if your interest is using it to fight. IMO that is not a very interesting use, since an Animist who wants to do so can already fight decently well. My complaint is less that the spells are BAD, as they are so limiting that they offer nothing new and discourage you from picking that apparition.
So yeah, it does seem what is was thinking of is out of line for anything higher level than Pest Form. Personally I'd be happy with weaker forms that lasted a longer time, since my fantasy for shapeshifting isn't killing stuff as an X, but instead is "living / traveling at will as an X"
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Tumble through can be used to just move and does work with fly etc speeds. It takes a bit of careful parsing to realize this but the key is on the “can move through”. Note that a developer confirmed that this was deliberate and the reason they added tumble through to the play test version so this is NOT rules lawyering away from RAI.
As to your other points, you’re right. It seems like your fantasy might be best served by Druid or possibly animist with a Druid archetype (or martial with Druid). The Animist apparitions are very combat focused.
Which, IMO, is fine. Some build SHOULD be best at some things
It seems silly that if the inclusion of Tumble Through was intended to freely permit any sort of striding / climbing / flying / swimming. Why dance around the subject when you can use the plain language of allowing movement?
But I guess that's a separate issue. In my interpretation, if you don't try to move through the space of an enemy, you aren't using Tumble Through, you are just striding (or otherwise moving). You don't have to succeed, but you have to make that Acrobatics check and potentially accept the (minor) consequences of failure.
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It seems silly that if the inclusion of Tumble Through was intended to freely permit any sort of striding / climbing / flying / swimming. Why dance around the subject when you can use the plain language of allowing movement?
But I guess that's a separate issue. In my interpretation, if you don't try to move through the space of an enemy, you aren't using Tumble Through, you are just striding (or otherwise moving). You don't have to succeed, but you have to make that Acrobatics check and potentially accept the (minor) consequences of failure.
I agree that it could have been worded better. If I had to guess I'd guess that it was intended one way by its original author and then interpreted differently by the Animist team.
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I agree that it could have been worded better. If I had to guess I'd guess that it was intended one way by its original author and then interpreted differently by the Animist team.
I mean unless you think we were just lied to the change was on purpose. The original version of the ability had notably different language that made it function significantly differently.
It seems silly that if the inclusion of Tumble Through was intended to freely permit any sort of striding / climbing / flying / swimming. Why dance around the subject when you can use the plain language of allowing movement?
One advantage is that by not referencing Stride directly, it breaks synergy with actions that give you Strides. An Animist cannot sustain for free with the additional action granted by Haste, for instance, because the ability keys off Tumble rather than Stride.
In my interpretation, if you don't try to move through the space of an enemy, you aren't using Tumble Through, you are just striding (or otherwise moving). You don't have to succeed, but you have to make that Acrobatics check and potentially accept the (minor) consequences of failure.
As long as you know how it actually works feel free to change it as much as you like. Though it feels weird to complain about the class being weak and then institute a houserule to make it worse.
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I agree that it could have been worded better. If I had to guess I'd guess that it was intended one way by its original author and then interpreted differently by the Animist team.I mean unless you think we were just lied to the change was on purpose. The original version of the ability had notably different language that made it function significantly differently.
You misunderstand me. I understand why the current team made the change to Animist. I never thought that we were being lied to.
However, I believe that the wording of Tumble Through is pretty poor IF the original intent was to allow it to also be a multi movement stride action. So I postulated the possibility that the RAI for Tumble Through are NOT the RAW.
It takes a bit of careful parsing to realize this but the key is on the “can move through”. Note that a developer confirmed that this was deliberate and the reason they added tumble through to the play test version so this is NOT rules lawyering away from RAI.
Do you by chance have a link for that?
And I still think it needs clarification because relying on a 'careful parsing' of the rules to determine intended behavior is a pretty big problem for rules clarity. It starts edging back to the 1e meta of the game where there are two player base groups having a very different experience - those who look up all the powergaming tips and tricks online and those who just want to play the game and enjoy it.