How is this hard? If someone wants to play a blaster and wants the full power and range of primal spells (or arcane spells), Animist is a step up from casters limited to the divine list but a step down from something like sorc, because the Animist can neither cast the amount of primal spells nor the range of primal spells the sorc can. The apparition is not a 'massive point of power' from an overall game perspective because the Animist doesn't overtop any currently existing blasting capability. Yes, apparitions make this divine caster better than other divine casters at primal blasting. It's much much better than trying to build a divine caster with a primal access archetype to get those spells. But the class is still not as good at primal blasting as a primal caster.
I think you could easily make this a lot less hard for yourself by not expecting a divine caster to be a full primal caster. In fact, you could do yourself a world of good by accepting that a divine caster is, in fact, a divine caster, and thus has access to the divine blasting spells that a divine caster has. Being able to also cast arcane, primal, and occult spells on top as divine spells is a bonus, one that a skillful Animist leverages as part of their flexibility. You seem to be drawing this false dichotomy where you insist that a class can only cast spells from one or another spell list, when the Animist can and does cast spells from across several spell lists, thanks to the signature spells from the apparitions they've attuned to for the day. I don't really see the value in this doublethink where the Animist is assumed to be a 2-slot divine caster and a 2-ish-slot apparition caster, but never the two at the same time, when that is what they are in practice.
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I think Easl might be expressing that the animist's slot progression feels like a psychic with a non-occult witch multiclass (but with a faster progression). Since you only get 2 slots per rank of occult and 2 slots per rank of whatever other tradition, you miss out on the ability to spam particular spells as much as a bard or sorcerer might enjoy in exchange for the versatility.
I'd say if you're trying to spam the same spell over and over again, which you shouldn't really be doing in the first place, then the Animist is probably not going to be the class for you, especially as the entire point to the class is that they do different things at once. If, however, you decide to actually make use of the fuller range of your spells, then you will have more spell slots to play with than a Bard, Cleric, Druid, or Witch. The entire point to the class is that you have both divine and apparition spellcasting to play with; it doesn't make any sense to treat the Animist as only one of those spellcasters in isolation. Even the multiclass bit isn't true, as you always get at least one top-rank slot on each side all the way up to level 19-20.
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I think everyone here agrees that the animist is a strong class. It has a great chassis, great flexibility, is a full caster with 3 to 4 spells including some poachable ones, and good utility. I love my animist and I'm having a blast playing it.
The problem with it IMHO is that you're still constrained (even with liturgist helping) by a number of action per turn, and although you can switch roles, you can assume only one of them every round.
What I mean is: what does an animist do when entering combat against a group of opponents ?
Since he's very flexible, he has many choices. Let's list them.
1 - He can blast.
The animist has several tools at his disposal to enhance his blasting. Channeling stance, earth's bile, cardinal guardians and a couple non-divine spells added to his list makes him a force to be reckoned with. In fact, I even started a thread stating that with channeling stance active, an animist into oracle could throw disgusting numbers in one round. Let's also not forget how he can quicken his spells more than other
So yeah, the animist certainly can blast and earth's bile is very unique since it's a one-action AOE with good dps.
However, comparing it to most other spellcasters deemed powerful (like a sorcerer or an oracle), it needs a bit of a setup and lacks stamina, having only 3 top spells per day even at end game (in comparison to a fire/tempest oracle's or a divine sorcerer's 6). In fact, if you're taking into account N and N-1 slots, it has 6 to a divine sorcerer's or fire oracle's 11. That's kind of a big deal, since blasting can hardly be downcasted. The sorcerer also has sorcerous potency and can more easily multiclass into oracle, while the oracle has free foretell harm and can get access to the spells he lacks (like chain lighting for tempest, + one free from mysterious repertoire, + divine access).
I think we can safely say that, as blasting goes and while staying on the divine list so as not to skew the comparison, divine sorcerer and oracle are better than the animist - or at least on par, while having a bigger tank.
So yeah, the animist can blast, and blast pretty well. But if you're actually blasting, you would have been more powerful using one of those two other choices.
2 - He can use non-blasting spells and abilities
As a divine caster, the animist has a lot of buffs and debuffs, including some of his vessel spells that I rather like, and can empower them through cardinal guardians. It makes it a pretty powerful controller in its own right.
Problem is he lacks the most important buffing and debuffing spells. There's no simple way to get mass slow. No simple way to get synesthesia. No simple way to get mass haste.
It has calm, which is awesome but is incapacitation and thus needs a top slot even against mooks, and those come at a premium. It can eventually get a single quandary, a single phantasmagoria.
Meanwhile, any occult caster has all these spells and then some, the oracle could grab some of those, and the arcane sorcerer can get up to -3 on the save.
So, again, you can control ok - especially through gems like nymph's grace.
3 - He can melee
Well, not really.
Seeing that, you might think it's pretty powerful.
"Wait, I'm almost as good than blasters at blasting, and almost as good than controllers at controlling, and I can even melee for some reason".
Which is true.
But you could also say:
"Wait, I'm not the best at blasting. Nor the best at controlling. Nor the best at meleeing."
Which is true as well.
Also, as has been said, your tank is much smaller than an oracle or sorcerer.
So it really depends on how much you value this versatility.
In most games, it's better to have the right spell at the right time - someone casting mass slow while another is casting chain lighting - than being able to switch roles.
Since most groups consist of four, maybe five players, there's most of the time 2 or 3 casters max. By taking an animist, I believe you're not making your group stronger than by taking a sorcerer or an oracle. Especially if you insist on going melee.
It would maybe be the case if you're the only caster, but that's a hard cross to bear.
Of course, it would be incredibly boring if everybody only played sorcerers and oracles, but we're talking about optimization here, so that's where my money goes.
YMMV and if you value versatility, you will probably love your animist - like I said, I love mine. But to go back to first post, being able to "almost" be as good in many domains is not necessarily better than be "the best" in one domain, since you're limited by your actions.
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How do we feel the animist compares to warpriest on martial capability, keeping polymorph options in mind (not that they necessarily matter)?
Here's my opinion:
One is not better than the other, they have different approaches.
- The animist is a full caster who can sometimes badly melee
- The warpriest is a lesser full caster who can melee great.So depending if you want to lean on the casting or melee part, they both give you something different.
In one of my previous posts, I calculated the average damage a warpriest could do with Channel smite. And that's not taking into account any damage booster.
Your animist at level 17 with forest's Heart will strike for 4d8 + 10 (28 av) once during his turn and then maybe twice during his off-turn.
Using two actions and keeping one free, a level 17 warpriest using a guisarme will deal 4d10+9d10+7 (av 78,5). If he uses his last action for a cry of destruction, he'll deal an extra 9d12 more, putting it at 137 average.
And if he's optimized, he's got an AOO as well that, although dealing very little, will still add up to the tally.
And if he needs to heal or cast a wall spell, he can do it without dropping all his focus spells and losing both actions and focus points.
So, yeah, 28 damage is piddly, even with all your AOOs.
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A comparison in the other thread showed the Animist isn't far behind elemental and imperial sorcerers in terms of blasting power -- and this is before even factoring in being able to Sustain a second damage spell and boost all of their spell DCs and spell attacks by 2. In fact, the person who ran the comparison pointed out that the Animist required less setup than several Sorcerer builds, so their action compression does matter. If the Animist can look that good even when you subtract a spell and a bunch of feats from their damage output, including those Oracle feats that the Animist can easily access, and also limit them to just half their spells instead of factoring in the many non-divine spells they can cast, then that in my opinion says a lot about how good a blaster the Animist is, and how scared some people are of acknowledging that.
I also think it's worth pointing out that the Animist not only has access to the divine list, i.e. the best list for protection and buffing, but also has access to incredibly potent debuff and crowd control spells like lifewood cage, quandary, uncontrollable dance, and laughing fit. This is more than any other divine caster can access, so the Animist does in fact have greater spell access than most casters, and has a comprehensive package of buffs and debuffs that is more versatile than any other caster's.
Finally, the class absolutely can melee. It's not just the many vessel spells, the apparition spells in support of this, and the incredibly robust base stats that make them more survivable than even many martial classes, it's also the feats that massively extend your range or let you basically opt into martial feats as a caster -- and most of these feats can be swapped out each day! A Sorcerer isn't exactly going to be able to pull this off, nor would they ever want to, and it's impossible to have more "gas in the tank" than unlimited resources in the day. Even on a pure spell slot comparison, the Animist is only two slots behind the Sorcerer, and if we include feats, the extra castings a Sorcerer can get are rendered moot by the Animist being able to generate their own spell slot every hour. Not only is the Animist the strongest generalist and one of the strongest blasters, they also have the most gas in the tank compared to other casters, particularly as their vessel spells are often made to be self-sufficient. That's a lot of "best-in-class" strengths for one class, and that's only covering a few.
How do we feel the animist compares to warpriest on martial capability, keeping polymorph options in mind (not that they necessarily matter)?
In terms of defenses, I think the two are about equally-matched: the Animist gets an earlier bump to their AC, but both are likely to get heavy armor proficiency anyway and progress at the same rate there. The Animist gets plenty of extra slots and spells to use for their own defense, but the Warpriest can get a heal font, so both can get pretty tanky as needed.
In terms of Strikes, the Animist can reach a higher ceiling with the combination of a battle form spell and embodiment of battle. The Warpriest can get feats like Channel Smite for more damage, but aside from the benefits of battle forms, the Animist can also get force multipliers like Forest's Heart that are similarly endlessly reusable. Importantly, the Animist also gets access to spells like true strike, enlarge, and true target with the Witness to Ancient Battles that they can use outside of battle forms, which a Warpriest won't easily be able to access all at once unless there's a deity somewhere that offers exactly those three spells. Arguably the biggest difference though is Reactive Strike, which gives the Animist a significant edge that the Warpriest can't get to the same degree even if they pick Divine Rebuttal.
Finally, in terms of action economy, the Warpriest isn't inherently constrained by a need to Sustain heroism if they use it, but they are still likely to want to spend actions repositioning. These are actions an Animist can spend to both reposition and Sustain, so despite the fact that embodiment of battle is one of the few spells that does nothing when Sustained, its action tax is significantly mitigated by the Liturgist. If you're using devouring dark form, you can in fact Sustain both spells and Step Twice with Dancing Invocation and Elf Step, which also lets you make a jaws Strike, so you can even find yourself with actions to spare on your turn (which, if you so desire, you could spend on store time if used during setup for an extra Reactive Strike).
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Not an argument, really, but a small correction: You can't Channel Smite and Cry of Destruction on the same turn.
Still, if your Warpriest has been spending gold on Property Runes, they could be doing 4d10+9d10+3d6+7 on that Channel Smite (+8 if they have a Str Apex.) Heck, maybe you've got Lasting Armament for another 2d6 Spirit.
I'll admit to preferring Heal for my Font over Harm though.
Anyways, enough Warpriest fanboy'ing for one post...
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How do we feel the animist compares to warpriest on martial capability, keeping polymorph options in mind (not that they necessarily matter)?
I think they are on par with the warpriest. The battle spell gives a status bonus and a warpriest can cast heroism, so that part is a wash.
Warpriest eventually gets master proficiency with their deity weapon. They only end with Master casting proficiency, which is what the animist ends up with if they use battle apparition spell.
No sustain for the warpriest.
Warpriest can grab useful spells from their deity and get divine font for extra heals or harm.
The channel smite feat line can be pretty brutal.
I would say it is a wash with the warpriest having more upside damage potential and the animist having more versatility.
Anyway, it's great to strike and cast a spell while tumbling and leaping around while also having 2 other effects go off.
I’m definitely not up to speed on most of the mechanical points being made here. And so I wonder, with all of the talk about action economy and action compression - narratively (and citing the above example), are other classes doing as much?
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Anyway, it's great to strike and cast a spell while tumbling and leaping around while also having 2 other effects go off.I’m definitely not up to speed on most of the mechanical points being made here. And so I wonder, with all of the talk about action economy and action compression - narratively (and citing the above example), are other classes doing as much?
This is an interesting thought experiment. The animist does feel very different from other casters in their approach to spell casting. They really are not a “spam the same thing” over and over again caster, and so pigeonholing them into any caster role except maybe healer is going to end up a little off. Channeler’s stance for pure blasting is unwieldy. Mixing it in to a combo of healing and multi round sustained damage with debuffs is not too bad and not really something other casters do to well. Its melee potential is much better as a secondary option for when casting isn’t optimal. It can do a fair bit of control, but through weird means, link grabbing and making enemies waste time with their vessel spells.its just pretty different from something repetitive like a sorcerer or Oracle.
Not an argument, really, but a small correction: You can't Channel Smite and Cry of Destruction on the same turn.
Still, if your Warpriest has been spending gold on Property Runes, they could be doing 4d10+9d10+3d6+7 on that Channel Smite (+8 if they have a Str Apex.) Heck, maybe you've got Lasting Armament for another 2d6 Spirit.
I'll admit to preferring Heal for my Font over Harm though.
Anyways, enough Warpriest fanboy'ing for one post...
Whops, yeah, my bad, it's been a long time since I used it.
You could use Savor the sting for an extra 9d4 + 9d4 persistent.As for property runes and feats, I specifically didn't mention them in the comparison but it's true that they'll boost the damage even further (but then so could the animist).
As for healing/harming font, it's really two different ways of playing your warpriest. If you're the sole healer, it might be prudent to be healing font but if someone can be a backup healer, then Medicine + a few healing slots are usually enough to go through the day. Especially if you go with medic archetype on Ragathiel (for the sweet bastard sword and haste).
I really love what you can do with harm, from burst damage (in a pinch, you *could* deal 27d10 damage, save for half), to making anyone prone on anything but a crit, to healing yourself and your friends through dealing damage (not much but hey, some shadow priest vibes) to channel smite without manipulate.
Warpriest is one of the few classes where I'm usually strapped for feats since there are so many fun ones.
I’m definitely not up to speed on most of the mechanical points being made here. And so I wonder, with all of the talk about action economy and action compression - narratively (and citing the above example), are other classes doing as much?
I would say narrative is, by nature, more difficult to define in strict terms compared to mechanics, so the Animist's narrative weight heavily depends on how your GM decides to weigh apparitions over specialist classes.
I'd say that generally in practice, any GM will try to balance the narrative spotlight so that everyone gets an equal chance, such that an Animist with a Witness to Ancient Battles apparition won't steal the spotlight from a Fighter, nor would they also hog the limelight from a Druid with a Custodian of Groves and Gardens or sideline a Rogue with an Impostor in Hidden Places. Although the Animist can touch upon all of these narrative niches by communing with their apparitions, and change which niches they touch upon each day, pure narrative gameplay tends to often depend on personal judgment calls, so I'd say a GM is unlikely to give any one of those apparitions the same narrative weight as a fully-fledged class.
Of course, because this kind of gameplay is more subjective, there's also the risk that a GM may accidentally treat the Animist as an entire party of different classes unto themselves. Where it gets a bit more complicated is when that narrative does hinge on mechanics: for every apparition they have, the Animist gets two auto-scaling Lore skills, and while those are often overlooked, they can in fact have a significant narrative impact out-of-combat. Your Thief Rogue may be a seasoned criminal, but when it comes to sussing out the local criminal networks, your Animist with an Impostor in Hidden Places apparition would be much better equipped mechanically to do the Recall Knowledge check with their auto-scaling Underworld Lore. Your Inventor may have received a formal technical education at a school of mechanical design, but might still not be able to answer questions related to architecture or engineering as well as an Animist with a Crafter in the Vault.
All of which is to say: narratively, the Animist does have the potential to encroach on the spotlight of other classes, especially as they get plenty of Lore skills in support of this. However, unlike mechanics, I'd say this is much easier for a GM to manage, as they can and likely will make a point of distributing the spotlight equally and giving more narrative weight to individual classes than individual apparitions. On a personal note, I actually quite like how the Animist can have apparitions share their knowledge and skill with them, and find it a really big narrative draw of the class. I do think that would be even better-served if bonds with apparitions weren't so tenuous by default, though, as in my opinion it can make the Animist's narrative feel very busy, not terribly consistent over time, but also a bit diluted compared to specialist classes whose specialty defines their narrative progression throughout their career.
A regular Animist, and by that I mean a Liturgist, will honestly not feel all that different from many other casters. Adding a sustain to movement only matters in cases you need the movement, which is less vital to casters in the backline.
Wasn't the point a few posts ago that this movement was necessary due to the short-ranged nature of most vessel spells? This feels like one of the actual few applications of Schrödinger's Animist in this thread, where the Animist is both uniquely constrained in their need to move and Sustain their one-action vessel spells and also plays identically to other casters.
It is not any sort of spectacular improvement or game unbalancing OP greatness for players who like the primal/arcane lists and want to use them fully as blasters.
There is literally only one class in Pathfinder 2e that can blast with primal spells at 4 slots per rank, and that's the Sorcerer. They are joined by the Wizard as the only two 4-slot arcane casters, and the Wizard isn't nearly as effective a blaster. Having more spell slots than most casters while having far more access to spells of different lists than any caster is a major strength in and of itself, particularly in a game where versatility is both immensely powerful and severely undervalued.
Again, there is this issue of tunnel vision here where the Animist, a divine caster, is also being expected to be able to use all of their slots for the entirety of primal and arcane spellcasting when compared to the Sorcerer, when the more honest point of comparison would be a divine Sorcerer, who'd lack access to all the different spells the Animist can get from their apparitions for any one given day, let alone across multiple days. That, and from the get-go the Animist gets more signature spells than the Sorcerer too: you could argue that the Sorcerer has more choice over which signature spells to pick, but by that same token the Animist doesn't need to commit to any particular signature spells; they can just swap apparitions from day to day. This isn't just relevant to blasting (and the Animist in my opinion blasts quite differently from a Sorcerer, though no less effectively), but also for healing, buffing, debuffing, gish combat, and so on. Although you won't be able to benefit from literally every apparition at once, you certainly get to benefit from four at once, and even the two you start with are enough to provide a bevy of different benefits from other lists.
Why would anyone be scared of Animist being a good blaster?
Because they made this topic of discussion their hill to die on, and dug their hills in so deep for weeks now that the prospect of being wrong is unlikely to appeal. This is made rather obvious by the fact that the person who made the comparison, who also argued at length on this thread against the Animist's ability to achieve anything well, made numerous accommodations to let an Elemental Sorcerer set up with fiery body, but refused to make the same accommodation for the Animist casting invoke spirits, despite that setup using up the same number of actions.
While I also agree with you that these are white-room comparisons, I don't think it really works out the way you want it to: Explosion of Power, for instance, is extremely short-ranged, so the white-room situation would favor that. Similarly, relying solely on ignition or any singular damage type as the Sorcerer does makes them much more vulnerable to being countered by resistance or immunity compared to an Animist, who uses mixed damage types to blast, and who uses damage types like spirit and bludgeoning which are either hard to resist or often trigger weaknesses. The person themselves admitted that there was an uncalculated action economy advantage in favor of the Animist in those comparisons. So I do agree with you: one must be wary of white-room comparisons, but one must also understand precisely how reality may differ. Simply labeling something a white-room comparison without making the effort of pointing out the crucial factors that may differ in play is, in my honest opinion, a flimsy excuse deployed in online arguments to dismiss contrary evidence.
Huh? Yes, the point indeed is that the short-ranged nature of vessels spells makes adding that movement to a sustain much more important.
Alright, glad we agree. How then can you simultaneously argue that moving into close ranges and Sustaining these vessel spells, which you admitted to being the main draw of the class, does not feel different from playing any other caster, despite the fact that the latter do not engage in this gameplay? This is a pretty glaring difference, so if this does not register as different to you, I'm curious to know what does.
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Practices are interesting in theory, but the design of the Animist and how apparitions work is really difficult to make practices work out…in practice. The re are only two tiers of connection to an apparition, either it is your primary apparition or it it isn’t. There really isn’t any room for having a deeper connection to an apparition beyond primary without adding something like a new higher rank apparition spell, or special exclusive feat. Trying to give any flat bonus to casting that apparition’s spells doesn’t really work because the apparitions are so different from each other. That is kind of how you end up with a medium that gets this weird hodgepodge of bonuses. If there was more consistent advice about how lore skills are used to recall knowledge, especially about creatures, the medium could have just leaned in hard to being the recall knowledge practice with a first level feat that gains a bonus from recalling knowledge against a creature, a level 9 ability that lets the medium recall knowledge with their attuned lore skills as a free action when sustaining a spell (or the other way around), and then give a set of bonuses to attack or cast against an identified enemy as a final ability…but this isn’t narratively a tie in to having a tighter connection with just one apparition, and it couldn’t be, because you’d need to make sure your lore skills are going to be useful each day. The seer and shaman practices mostly do what they say they do, and the seer practice is actually pretty overtuned in a campaign that goes all in on ghosts and haunts, but that isn’t likely to cart through an entire AP, so it is kind of a practice that is really good for like one book of an AP and then maybe 10% of the campaign…so a character choice that pretty much exists for one offs and adventure modules.
It kinda makes sense that the default Animist is the Litgurist because the mechanics of the class are “pick the apparitions that benefit you the most in the scenarios you are most likely to face” and that narratively kinda has to mean being opportunistic with your apparitions and jumping around between them. So it probably would have been fine for the animist just to be a litgurist, without other practices even existing, for the seer to either be a class archetype or a generic archetype, something that could have worked for the shaman and the medium as well. Like having your familiar class be able to turn into a ghost could probably have been a generic archetype with a familiar requirement, and an archetype that granted a floating lore tied to a ghost that possesses you and then grants you bonuses for using that lore to recall knowledge would have been cool on a bunch of classes that do t need to be caster or martial exclusively. In fact, moving forward with classes like the rune smith and the commander that get these cool pools of new abilities not generally available to a lot of classes, it would be cool to see more non-multiclass archetypes that offer ways to interact with small aspects of that subsystem without having be saddled with all the other things those classes do. We have a lot of examples of this with alchemical items, and a few with casting archetypes that grant very specific spells, it would be cool if we can get similar things with tactics, runes and apparitions.
Practices are interesting in theory, but the design of the Animist and how apparitions work is really difficult to make practices work out…in practice. The re are only two tiers of connection to an apparition, either it is your primary apparition or it it isn’t. There really isn’t any room for having a deeper connection to an apparition beyond primary without adding something like a new higher rank apparition spell, or special exclusive feat.
I agree with pretty much all of this. In the playtest, practices were an obvious afterthought that were only thrown in because the Animist needed some sort of permanent character choice, and I don't think they improved by all that much in the release, outside of no longer withholding essential save progression. What's weird is that the practices we got seem to be mostly just cobbled together from feats, except this process is incomplete, so certain effects like Dancing Invocation are exclusive to their practice while practices like the Shaman will have strictly no unique benefits until level 17. Not only does this make certain practices imbalanced by dint of being almost entirely poachable, the balance in-between benefits is completely off, and even before level 9 the Liturgist wins out.
As much as the Liturgist is by far the strongest choice among practices, the issue I see with making the Liturgist's benefits default and eliminating practices is that it would remove the one true element of permanent choice from the Animist, however illusory it may be: because the class is a prepared spellcaster, chooses which apparitions to attune to each day, and can even swap out several of their class feats daily, there is virtually nothing in the class's options that are set in stone. Although being exceptionally flexible is not a bad thing, this in my opinion is such an extreme degree of day-to-day changeability that I think it becomes harmful to the class. Specifically, when nearly every choice can be undone from one day to the next, that limits the number of choices that can be made meaningful through long-term commitment. It also means that if an Animist can rebuild themselves into anything on the same character, all it takes is just one Animist character to play every Animist worth building.
Based on what you've said before, Unicore, daily apparitions are your main draw to the Animist, so it's worth preserving that and finding other places to inject more permanence: I agree that current practices could be done away with entirely, and I think what few bespoke features currently exist ought to be made into feats. In my opinion, there are still a few different ways the Animist could have more permanence to their choices:
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John R. IIRC gave examples a while back of practices that would let you choose a larger number of permanent apparitions versus a smaller number of daily apparitions, which would allow fans of either type of model to be happy. Alternatively, rather than offer more fixed apparitions, practices could offer some equally powerful benefit as an alternative to daily apparitions, such as a version of Dancing Invocation at level 1 or something equally build-defining.
Yeah, it was in another thread and I also threw out the idea during playtest (perhaps further fleshed out). The only issue with that is it would add a lot more complexity to the class's entirety and I'm not sure if simplifying other aspects would still overcome that added complexity to generate a net positive in favor of simplification. It'd make it simpler to play AFTER building a character but it'd be a nightmare for some looking to build one for the first time.
Here's that last post about it:
Another idea I had that I suggested during playtest was having the subclass dictate different allowances in the number of accessible apparitions, limit of attunable apparitions, primary apparitions and ease of swapping primaries and/or attuned apparitions. It'd be way more complex but allow for possibly the most diverse class.
For example:
Practice 1 - access to 10 apparitions, can attune to 2 max, stuck with 1 primary each day and can't swap primary
Practice 2 - access to 6 apparitions, can attune to 3 max, 1 primary, able to swap primary during refocus
Practice 3 - access to 4 apparitions, can attune to all 4, attuned apparitions are always primary
I'm sure there could be 1 or 2 other variations but yeah...I thought it was a cool idea but probably broken on what's acceptable for complexity.
The problem with being locked into even just 1 primary apparition for the day is that apparitions don't give you enough for being primarily connected to them to make that choice ever worth making, and having a ton more secondary options really just hyperdrives the apparition spell decision paralysis, and doesn't actually make having connected to one apparition more meaningful from any narrative perspective. Picking one to specialize in shouldn't really have the reward: get broader with lore skills and spells that have nothing to do with your focus.
My last couple of posts have been related to your statement "I'd mention that the apparition spell repertoire (and their associated spell slots) is a massive point of power by itself..."
This is the thing I disagree with. It's not a massive point of power to be able to cast 2 divine + 2 primal/arcane spells per rank.
It absolutely is, though. Nobody else can access spells from across traditions like the Animist does, and the Witch pays a hefty price for their own lessons. That they have 4 spell slots at nearly every rank to make use of this is a strength, not a weakness. I never said it was OP in isolation, I merely pointed out that it's powerful in a way that is demonstrated in the way other classes are balanced, along with their ability to cross traditions with their spells. It is therefore not something to ignore as you've done.
The only issue with that is it would add a lot more complexity to the class's entirety and I'm not sure if simplifying other aspects would still overcome that added complexity to generate a net positive in favor of simplification.
This is fair; I think one way to simplify this is to have a baseline number of apparitions, and have practices grant bonuses on top: one could give you more fixed apparitions, one could unfix your current apparitions, one could provide a mix, and so on. That could make the framework and its associated tradeoffs much simpler to grok.
The problem with being locked into even just 1 primary apparition for the day is that apparitions don't give you enough for being primarily connected to them to make that choice ever worth making, and having a ton more secondary options really just hyperdrives the apparition spell decision paralysis, and doesn't actually make having connected to one apparition more meaningful from any narrative perspective. Picking one to specialize in shouldn't really have the reward: get broader with lore skills and spells that have nothing to do with your focus.
I'd say this is more of a value judgment than a statement of fact, and I personally disagree: Cleric deities, for instance, offer far less than apparitions and are still meaningful. In fact, many subclasses offer less than apparitions, which not only offer a bunch of extra spells, a bunch of extra skills, and a focus spell (plus an avatar form), but make all of those extra spells signature spells. The framework of apparitions is pretty standard for a spontaneous caster subclass, so I think the risk of analysis paralysis there is overblown, but the fact that you're getting all-signature spells is a notably stronger benefit than what most of those other caster subclasses offer.
In all fairness, prepared divine is much better than prepared arcane, and is much less a hindrance to the animist/cleric as it is to the wizard/arcane witch for many reasons:
1) You know your whole spell list with no effort nor cost
2) There are actually a couple silver bullet spells in the divine list (like Sunburst or anointed ground) that a spontaneous caster might not take or use as signature
3) Condition removal spells are mostly used heightened, and very few spontaneous casters will take cleanse affliction, sound body, clear mind and sure footing as signature. It can be invaluable against diseases and poisons, petrification, doomed or drained, and top level scrolls are expensive if even you can buy one.
So, while I still think spontaneous is better, its lead is not as huge as it can be in arcane.
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You know your whole spell list with no effort nor cost
That's something I've taken for granted that is a big deal, especially when mixed in with all the signature spontaneous spells animists get. It seems minor but I think it's a subtle but major strength of the class.
The difference between primary and secondary though is only a vessel spell. Locking that in as an “always must be primary” means only ever having 1 vessel spell you can cast ever. That is incredibly penalizing and having the reward for specializing so heavily in one apparition be that you just get a bunch more secondary apparition benefits doesn’t make any narrative sense. You aren’t bonding closer to one apparition, you are going more apparitions.
There is also the fact that 10 secondary apparitions turns your abilities that burn them into nearly limitless resources. When you first hit apparition’s quickening, you’d be able quicken almost every apparition spell that could be quickened.
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There is also the fact that 10 secondary apparitions turns your abilities that burn them into nearly limitless resources. When you first hit apparition’s quickening, you’d be able quicken almost every apparition spell that could be quickened.
If you're referring to my alternate practice idea, read it again. I never suggested having 10 attuned apparitions at once. Also, if the class were to ever be overhauled THAT much, I'm sure there would be major changes to some feats as well.
I see, access means you’d have to pick when you make your character what apparitions are even in your potential pool of apparitions.
That makes option 1 really bad and makes it almost impossible for them to use feats that burn apparitions throughout the day. It also removes the class narrative of the Animist being the class that can come to the river and reach out to commune with the spirits of the river because it is there, and then reach out to commune with other spirits as they encounter them in the world.
The only one that would be able to play that way is locked in to one primary apparition all the time and that doesn’t really make sense.
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I see, access means you’d have to pick when you make your character what apparitions are even in your potential pool of apparitions.
Yes.
That makes option 1 really bad and makes it almost impossible for them to use feats that burn apparitions throughout the day. It also removes the class narrative of the Animist being the class that can come to the river and reach out to commune with the spirits of the river because it is there, and then reach out to commune with other spirits as they encounter them in the world.
The only one that would be able to play that way is locked in to one primary apparition all the time and that doesn’t really make sense.
Again, this is a hastily thought up idea for an overhaul that would require a lot more work to flesh out properly, both mechanically and narratively. It's not like I'm throwing out ideas and expecting them to be top-selling 3rd party material.
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I see, access means you’d have to pick when you make your character what apparitions are even in your potential pool of apparitions.Yes.
Again, this is a hastily thought up idea for an overhaul that would require a lot more work to flesh out properly, both mechanically and narratively. It's not like I'm throwing out ideas and expecting them to be top-selling 3rd party material.That makes option 1 really bad and makes it almost impossible for them to use feats that burn apparitions throughout the day. It also removes the class narrative of the Animist being the class that can come to the river and reach out to commune with the spirits of the river because it is there, and then reach out to commune with other spirits as they encounter them in the world.
The only one that would be able to play that way is locked in to one primary apparition all the time and that doesn’t really make sense.
Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to be attacking you, just pointing out that the way the animist is built makes in nearly impossible to offer “specialize in one apparition” with any kind of rewards that are worthwhile and narratively cohesive. The logical benefit for being restricted to one apparition would be more vessel spells from that apparition, to make up for the loss of ability to get them from other apparitions, but that doesn’t exist and would really stretch the whole class to fit in. It’s why I think the Liturgist is the only sensible narrative practice that fits over the base mechanics of the class, even if its options were not also mechanically superior.
The difference between primary and secondary though is only a vessel spell. Locking that in as an “always must be primary” means only ever having 1 vessel spell you can cast ever.
Who says that needs to be the case? Having multiple fixed apparitions in my opinion would be a great reason to remove the primary/secondary separation and let the Animist access vessel spells across apparitions freely.
I'm not sure the bespoke access the Animist gets is a huge deal. Again, some players may be looking for that. I'm glad the option is there for them. But it doesn't suddenly render single-list classes obsolete,
This is an example of the flawed metric I was talking about earlier: the Animist does not need to single-handedly invalidate every caster across every tradition for their versatility to be really powerful. Nobody's claiming that the Animist renders single-list classes obsolete; the basic statement made is that the Animist has the greatest spell across traditions among all classes.
I have certainly gotten the impression you think the Animist is OP. Or at least, flexible and powerful enough that it 'steps on the toes' of multiple other caster classes, all at once.
Correct, which is separate from their apparition repertoire being OP in and of itself, which in my opinion is not the case. I think the Animist treads on the toes of other classes not because literally everything they do is single-handedly overpowered just on its own, but because the Animist gets a huge amount of power from a whole lot of different class features and feat choices that broach a variety of niches, the sum total of which makes it very easy for the class to encroach on the niche of others.
The name is weird for “someone who connects to spirits primarily through movement/dance,” for sure. I guess maybe tying that practice to shamanism ran a big risk of trivializing shamanic practices as being too much like interpretive dancing but few people would accuse Christian religious practices as being to frenetically movement inspired? And thus the description doesn’t really come across as potentially mockery.
I think the movement aspect is just so vital to the class because nearly everything you do is close range and your action economy is so bad without the combined movement. Maybe something like a dervish would have created better narrative resonance?
What's weird is that in the playtest the Animist had Sustaining Dance, a 2nd-level class feat that let you Step or Leap and Sustain in one action. Although the effect was already considered very strong back then, it was still a lot less prone to abuse than Dancing Invocation, and had the benefit of being available to Animists of any practice. An assortment of different feats that let you Sustain a vessel spell at the same time as some small action, like Recalling Knowledge or even Demoralizing, could definitely help Animists get their action economy in a way that could cater to a variety of flavors and builds.
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What's weird is that in the playtest the Animist had Sustaining Dance, a 2nd-level class feat that let you Step or Leap and Sustain in one action. Although the effect was already considered very strong back then, it was still a lot less prone to abuse than Dancing Invocation, and had the benefit of being available to Animists of any practice. An assortment of different feats that let you Sustain a vessel spell at the same time as some small action, like Recalling Knowledge or even Demoralizing, could definitely help Animists get their action economy in a way that could cater to a variety of flavors and builds.
Yeah...it's almost like they went in the completely wrong direction with it...other than making it a 9th level ability...
The difference between primary and secondary though is only a vessel spell. Locking that in as an “always must be primary” means only ever having 1 vessel spell you can cast ever. That is incredibly penalizing and having the reward for specializing so heavily in one apparition be that you just get a bunch more secondary apparition benefits doesn’t make any narrative sense. You aren’t bonding closer to one apparition, you are going more apparitions.
Note: Any animist can switch their primary apparition 1) when preparing for the day and 2) when Refocusing ("When you Refocus, you can change which of your currently attuned apparitions is your primary apparition, selecting from any of the apparitions you attuned to during your daily preparations."). Also, any non-liturgist can take the Circle of Spirits feat at 2nd level (or 1st as a human with Natural Ambition) to switch their primary apparition as a single action.
Also, an animist with the medium practice and the Circle of Spirits feat has two primary apparitions (for access to both vessel spells at the same time) at 9th level plus the ability to swap one for their third (secondary) apparition quickly if circumstances make that desirable.
Yes, getting Circle of Spirits automatically with Liturgist and the free Sustain with Leap, Step, or Tumble Through at 9th level is nice. However, an animist using a weapon with the Shove trait (and Instinctive Maneuvers at 8th) to push an enemy (such as into a sustained earth bile area) can also get action compression (as the Shove action allows the character to move when imposing forced movement) even before 9th level.
I think the other practices just need another minor action to ride on sustaining as well. Recall knowledge or seek for seer, strike for medium and command familiar for shaman all seem fine to me.
Famously minor action Strike.
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I think the other practices just need another minor action to ride on sustaining as well. Recall knowledge or seek for seer, strike for medium and command familiar for shaman all seem fine to me.Famously minor action Strike.
Considering you can currently pull off a free sustain with Skirmish Strike, I don't think a single strike is too far fetched, especially if they reversed the order with the bonus action triggered by the sustain and not the other way around, as it currently is.
...
About Explosion of Power and supposedly being dismissive of white room theorycrafting...Look, believe what you will about Explosion of Power. Perhaps it really is hard to use at your tables. I would consider that weird, even for PFS pick-up play, but okay.
My Sorceror at least has no shortage of allies to anoint who will gleefully wades into the melee to be adjacent to as many enemies as they can, even without the incentive of being turned into a living nuke. Most parties tend to have at least one of them crazy people. They may even start or be expected to grow to large or huge size in your campaign to make that 5 foot emanation really juicy. Since you know this when creating characters you can actually be 100% certain of all of these facts and take them into account, or at least I would be. There is also no range limit. It's not short ranged at all.
And about the damage type, resistances and immunities, these are also things you can make pretty informed decisions about when the campaign is pitched and characters made. The types of Sorcerors most likely to make use of Explosion of Power will end up with either Force, Fire or Spirit and all three will be excellent in a regular campaign. A campaign heavily featuring enemies resistant or immune to Fire or Spirit will need a heads-up beforehand anyway because of its impact on what characters may or may not be viable, so you can choose accordingly.
Sorry about the snark, but I've seen it in action and it's really easy to use, will catch a lot of targets and it will work much, much more often than not, unless we are assuming deliberately antagonistic gm's or fellow players.
Now about that comparison. What I actually said it was not without value, but not to take too much away from it. That's it. And YuriP called his own comparison a whiteroom experiment and quite plainly explained the constraints he put on it.
The only conclusions you can get out of this experiment are about what is put into it and what you are...
I don't find Explosion of Power that easy to use, but mostly because we use distance as a force multiplier. When I can use it, it's very potent.
Look, believe what you will about Explosion of Power. Perhaps it really is hard to use at your tables. I would consider that weird, even for PFS pick-up play, but okay.
My Sorceror at least has no shortage of allies to anoint who will gleefully wades into the melee to be adjacent to as many enemies as they can, even without the incentive of being turned into a living nuke.
Oh, so we're also including Anoint Ally, then? That's great, let's add even more setup time to the Sorcerer while denying a much smaller setup to the Animist, that'll definitely make for a fair comparison.
And about the damage type, resistances and immunities, these are also things you can make pretty informed decisions about when the campaign is pitched and characters made.
No shade on your GM, but it sounds like you play some pretty monotonous campaigns if the distribution of enemies and their resistances and immunities is so homogeneous that you can solve it all at character creation. That certainly hasn't been my experience, and my campaigns have been full of diverse enemies that serve to shake things up rather than just pile on more of the same.
The only conclusions you can get out of this experiment are about what is put into it and what you are measuring. In this case they compared 1 round of average damage against 1 opponent, using a handful of builds they found interesting running the action routine and setup they wanted.
As already pointed out, though, this is false, they also included a build that required prior setup and even made mention of how this gave the Animist an action economy advantage. In fact, your own Anoint Ally + Explosion of Power combo proves this false, as you too are implicitly demanding more setup to favor the Sorcerer. All I'm pointing out here is the double standard in giving the Sorcerer generous amounts of setup time for these calculations while denying a much smaller setup on the Animist that would carry much greater returns, to say nothing of how they also had several other force multipliers and entire parts of their kit excluded. Even if it is not your explicit intention to counterfeit the comparison, that is what it ends up being in practice when every concession is made for the side you've been favoring long before the comparison was made and no such grace is extended towards the other.
I explained this. In detail.
What would register as a difference in gameplay to me is the Animist being unable to combine that move and sustain.
Because then the Animist would be unable to Cast and Sustain effectively like the backline caster could.
I am obviously more focused on the final outcome than how something is done to get there. Both get the same result, and that move tacked on the sustain is just the fix needed to achieve parity.
Hold on, so if all you care about is outcomes, wouldn't this just mean that most classes are the same to you anyway? Forgive me, but this seems like just about the driest, most depressing way to evaluate gameplay that you could suggest me: it's not just that the Animist does generate a combination of outcomes that is unique to them, moving into close ranges and casting from there very much does lead to different outcomes when it changes how you and enemies interact with each other at those ranges. There is no sense in separating the how from the outcome here in my opinion; the two are inextricably linked, and one cannot ignore one or the other without drawing an extremely bland and incomplete picture of any given class.
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Obviously we include Anoint Ally and lets not pretend you didn't know.
I was running on the assumption that we weren't counting any setup. I'm happy to be wrong here, but once more, that means that if we're expecting the Sorcerer to set up, it stands to reason that the Animist ought to be afforded the same courtesy. Why then make excuses against it?
One action per minute is not some huge, complicated set up. Keeping that up all the time should not even require your exploration activity.
Except that same single action to cast a vessel spell or enter a stance is considered a massive action tax on the Animist. How do you reconcile this?
Mostly though: it does not have to be weak for Animists to be a strong blaster. Imho Animist is not in competition with any of the specialists, and that includes the premiere blasting specialist.
How do you get from I said to to this?
I mean, this is quite literally what you said:
And about the damage type, resistances and immunities, these are also things you can make pretty informed decisions about when the campaign is pitched and characters made.
If the "informed decisions" you make are made at character creation, it stands to reason you expect resistances and immunities to be solved at least in substantial part at character creation. This significantly differs from my experience and the experience I know of others, where enemies in any given campaigns are diverse enough that their resistances and immunities can't be solved at just one stage of the game.
You wouldn't inform your players if the campaign focuses on, say, an invasion from the Elemental Plane of Fire, or fighting the magitech soldiers of an ancient civilisation, or lotsa oozes?
I informed my players prior to Abomination Vaults not to overcommit to fire or void damage, but if you know the AP, you should know that it's got quite a few different enemies, so it wouldn't really possible to optimize at character creation. Similarly, by its very premise, Gatewalkers is not exactly something you can prepare perfectly for at character creation. You'll have to tell me about your "oops, all oozes" campaign, but the number of adventures I've seen that revolve around a single monster family are... well, to be honest, I don't think I've played any.
Blasting Sorcerors in general do not require much setup, if any. This particular build did. That's all.
And yet, that setup was included and now you're demanding to have Explosion of Power and Anoint Ally added on top of that, while refusing to allow the Animist to spend equal to fewer actions setting up. Why are you so afraid of letting the Animist set up to even a lesser extent than your Sorcerer?
By all means, feel free to disagree, but it's all rather self-evident and something everyone sees happening all the time in their games.
But it's not self-evident, is the point. In fact, this assumption that blasters unload their strongest spells always on turn 1 is, in my experience, a myth, because in practice that's just about the least efficient way of using your spells. If you're up against a swarm of low-level enemies then by all means, blast away, as those fights are a game of action economy and AoE rather than extracting every last ounce of damage from a single spell, but against a tough opponent where you'd want to maximize your damage, it'd be very unwise to fire off your blasts without trying to weaken that boss's defenses first. It's one of the reasons why spells like divine wrath are so good despite not scaling as well in raw damage as fireball, because that sickened condition is really useful and, besides helping literally everyone on your team, also sets you up for even more reliable blasting further down the line.
And that's also a major aspect in which the Animist shines, as your play experience would have shown: because vessel spells are designed to provide a benefit throughout the entire encounter, the Animist gets to have this baseline of consistent, reusable power, while spells like ancestral memories or elemental toss only give you their benefits once a pop. Whereas slot-dependent classes like the Sorcerer suffer when forced to settle for lower-rank slots or cantrips, the Animist gets to have that much higher floor of power to fall back on. Not only does the Animist benefit immensely from setup (and still performs well without it), their performance in encounters gets to be a lot more consistent than that of other casters thanks to their vessel spells.
The gameplay elements classes provide are very restricted however, and not that varied. Most classes are indeed very samey when looking at gameplay loops and outcomes. Classes themselves, and the way you can combine them and the by now extensive library of dedications you can plug in means we're about as close to a classless system as this edition's implementation can manage without putting of those who dislike that. This is also true, imho, but your YMMV.
There's not really much I can say to this except: I'm sorry you feel this way. I certainly don't believe this reflects my experience or perception of Pathfinder 2e's classes, and I'd say you're objectively incorrect regarding dedications, given that there is a clear balancing framework in place that prevents certain key benefits from being made available to everyone. However, I'm happy to agree to disagree here.
One thing that doesn't click for me, though, is: if you think no class is unique and everything in Pathfinder just blends into itself, why make a special mention of the Animist? Because according to your spiel here, it's not even that the Animist isn't special in conforming to this framework of yours, it would be effectively impossible for the Animist to be any different. You could have just said "I think all classes are essentially the same and what differences that do exist are erased by archetypes", and that would have been a more accurate reflection of your perspective.
Why are you addressing me with these comments?
Because you're simultaneously trying to advocate for giving the Sorcerer more setup time in this comparison while denying the Animist lesser amounts of setup on the grounds that it's "1 round of average damage", a false argument given that the comparison included a Sorcerer build with a multi-round setup. You are clearly exercising a double standard here, as did the originator of that comparison.
Read my post again, please. You may discover that I said I expect to encounter resistances and immunities, as well as situations where any tactic might be less or not effective.
I literally showed you the quote I was referring to. This isn't about your posts being unclear, this is you clearly stating that you expect resistances and immunities to be solved before the campaign even begins.
As I said, it's a basic practice. You understand how it would not solve everything at character creation? It didn't, right? How this is not 'pick this element, it will not ever be resisted'? How your players could make an informed decision, because you, well, informed them?
So, this is exactly what I said I expect, nothing more, nothing less.
A practice so basic it barely applies to any official AP, you mean? Because that's not the expectation you set; here is what you actually said:
You wouldn't inform your players if the campaign focuses on, say, an invasion from the Elemental Plane of Fire, or fighting the magitech soldiers of an ancient civilisation, or lotsa oozes?
Notice how all of your examples are of hypothetical campaigns focused on a single family of monsters, including "lotsa oozes". My point is that these hypothetical, mono-enemy campaigns are not an accurate reflection of actual APs or other official scenarios, which achieve the opposite of what you're suggesting by presenting diverse enemies that have different resistances, immunities, and weaknesses. The point I am making is that it is not possible to solve this at character creation; you will need to adapt and adjust as you play, something the Animist is very well-equipped to do compared to a Sorcerer exclusively relying on a small subset of spells.
Not what I actually wrote.
Here is what you wrote:
Obviously we include Anoint Ally and lets not pretend you didn't know.
One action per minute is not some huge, complicated set up.
In this case they compared 1 round of average damage against 1 opponent
So yes, it is what you actually wrote. As mentioned to you already, that other user included setup for the Sorcerer, though not the Animist, so your claim about it relying exclusively on a single round is false.
Okay. Thanks.
Just to gently remind you of the point you're trying to avoid with these dismissive replies: the point being made here is it's not particularly realistic to act like there's no such thing as setup. The very comparison being discussed is one where setup would in fact matter the most. Furthermore, as you are no doubt aware from your play experience, the Animist shines especially bright with setup, which is presumably why you're so reluctant to engage with that part of the discussion at all. It's not just that your "hairsplitting countermeasures" aren't salient to what's being said, nor a valid reason to dismiss what's being said out of hand, this is a pertinent answer to your own hair-splitting around this comparison, which you chose to initiate out of your own free will.
I did not single out the Animist. I just said this in this very thread which happens to be about the Animist.
You made a claim about the Animist that, by your own admission, is vacuously true of literally any game element in Pathfinder by your standards. That very much is singling out the Animist.
The gameplay elements classes provide are very restricted however, and not that varied. Most classes are indeed very samey when looking at gameplay loops and outcomes.
Not quite saying the classes are the same.
It is the same statement, only phrased more ambiguously to give yourself more wiggle room when asked to justify yourself. So tell me: what exactly is so "very samey" about classes in your opinion? Could you provide examples of these samey gameplay loops?