Neat guide. The first thing that comes to mind is that you're not labelling uncommon and/or legacy only items at all, and that can be a problem because those may not be available at a given table (which is the default for uncommon).
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That's a cool guide!
In general, I would recommend to switch the ratings towards the different versions of the spellheart, e.g. don't rate the spellheart itself but the base/greater/major version. For example, the base Jolt Coil is the best spellheart around its level but the higher-level versions are less useful because of the static DC and it giving less resistance than other spellhearts.
As for the ratings themselves:
You underrated the Jolt Coil, as its base version is definitely the best spellheart (around its level), as Electric Arc is the best damage cantrip and electricity resistance is fairly useful.
The Foxglove Token is also critically underrated, as there is no other way to get poison resistance that easily - you can always get energy-resistant runes for your armor against fire/acid/cold/electricity damage, but poison resistance is super hard to get and poison is fairly often encountered, especially as it reduces all persistent poison damage.
The same is true for the Heartmoss: mental resistance is hard to get, but also a more rare damage type compared to poison.
The Perfect Droplet is very campaign dependent, as its resistance is to the water trait, not any specific damage type. In an aquatic campaign this might be valued as if it were hardness.
Same for the Polished Demon Horn: in anti-demon/anti-devil/anti-undead campaigns the resistance to unholy triggers very often.
The Warding Statuette seems very overrated imo, as you have both the issue of fixed spell attack and spell attacks being weak in general; in other words, you never really hit with the spells and thus never get the bonus AC.
The ratings of the cantrips should probably be based on Gortle's Spell Guide, as Puff of Poison is much worse than Scatter Scree - an AoE cantrip that you can use against swarms for example.
The save bonuses in general can be disregarded, as people usually get a resilient armor rune as soon as they can, at least before getting a spellheart if possible, and the item bonuses don't stack.
For that reason some of the spellhearts, like Jyoti's Feather would have a lower rating as far as I'm concerned.
less useful because of the static DC
Spellhearts have special rules and may use your Spell DC. Depending on your build of course, the item DC is often irrelevant.
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Yeah that only applies to the Cantrips unfortunately, which means higher tier spellhearts mostly fall into the same problem of other PF2 activate items: they very quickly become irrelevant.
Whereas a cheap one gives you Electric Arc for an entire campaign.
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Hey all -
...
I'd love any thoughts/feedback/comments.
Love the guide and all the work you have put into it but one of your basic concepts doesn't sound right.
"Because the cantrip and spells all have “Activate Cast a Spell” to use them, you must have a spellcasting feature to use those functions. This means either your base class, or an archetype dedication that grants the Cast a Spell activity."
To me "cast a spell" is an activity, not an ability, therefore anyone can do it. If you don't have spells it won't do anything, but that doesn't stop you from being able to do it.
I glanced through a few of the classes and don't see anywhere that they give anyone exclusive access to this activity so I see it as available to everyone.
Maybe I'm missing something here and you or the forum can correct me?
Thanks in advance.
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Not to dogpile, but "Cast a Spell" activations are also how Wands, Scrolls, and Staves operate.
A character very much does need spellcasting to use such items.
Alternatives for non-casters are things like the necklace of fireballs, which uses an Interact activation but straight up invokes the fireball spell for its effect.
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Has it ever been confirmed that the spells from different spellheart versions are cumulative? The guide claims that they are (in the rating guidelines), but I don't think it's stated anywhere. I remember looking into it at some point, and neither the general item rules nor the spellheart rules seem to say anything about it. There's the rule specifically for staves, but that just seems to imply that it needs to be explicitly stated.
The way I've read it is that a spellheart always has everything from the base version and everything that's listed in the specific version, meaning that every version has at least the cantrip. It would kind of make sense for the spells to be cumulative, though, so maybe I've missed something. Or maybe I'm just misinterpreting what the guide is trying to say, since the claim is in the rating guidelines and not in the rule section.
No, but I think community consensus is that it's cumulative because otherwise you either get something that is actively worse if you upgrade it (literally no one would ever use anything beyond a base Jolt Coil since Electric Arc is the point), or a case where "the third version inherits the first version but not the second version", which is just clunkier than how PF2 rules usually work.
I don't think it's stated anywhere, but the community consensus AFAIK is that they work like staves and the upgrades inherit what came before.
I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said about possible updates to this guide, but I can give you my thumbs up and salute for making another excellent guide for the game. Keep up the good work!
Interesting. Well, "do what Foundry does" is often a good path of least resistance since a lot of folks will accept it as the default. Good call to go with that. :)
Contributor
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Foundry also has been the place where a ton of developer clarifications have gone, and about the only place that scenarios are errated. As such, if it goes with something, I tend to pay attention to it.
Hmm
PS Thanks for the guide! Spellhearts are my favorite items.
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Saurian spike is a 4 star, precise scent is god tier and enables so much b#+@$!$# with invisibility usage and concealment for your team. Sure, echo receptors exist, but the spike gets longer range and isn’t invested. The rest of the abilities on the spellhearts don’t really matter but gouging claw is a decent cantrip I guess.
Vigilant eye I’d move down to 3 stars because having a high enough level vigilant eye to get the effect is really expensive, even if it did scale all the way to 20. It’s good that the effect is passive but it’s still pretty niche.
Five feathered wreath is a four star item entirely off the back of being the most convenient form factor to cast air walk in combat, as opposed to a wand or scroll. You can get multiple so it’s not just once/day, put them on some spare gauntlets. This is like the one time a spellheart is actually good at casting it’s spell.
Any other spellheart that doesn’t have a purely passive benefit should be moved down to rank two max. Having to spend actions on some dogwater fixed DC spell is not worth the actions or the money to (possibly) keep the spell ok instead of outscaled. Some activate on cantrips too, but typically casting a cantrip is the last thing I want to be doing round one just to get a little bit of resistance, assuming the cantrip tied to the spellheart is any good anyways. Exceptions exist, clay sphere both gives what already happens to be a top of the line spellstrike cantrip *and* triggers it’s (pretty good) effect off it, so it’s not hurting your action economy and choices much, but unless you’ve got something like that it just ain’t worth it.
Cantrips ought to be ranked separately as how good a spellheart is as a pure cantrip battery is pretty separate from other considerations. You can put two combat cantrips on gauntlets and as many utility cantrips as you want on spare daggers, so generally speaking you don’t need your armor and weapon spellhearts to have good cantrips - you can get those from the lowest level version of whatever spellheart gives your preferred cantrip. It’s not that much of a gold difference and at the levels where it is you have better things to spend money on than worrying about cantrips 9/10 times.
For that ranking obviously electric arc is 4 star but there are some other pretty good cantrips there
I find it silly there is no low level Judgement Thurible for Divine Lance while stuff like Jolt Coil is level 3. Nope the minimal level of the Judgement Thurible is 10 fora awesome cantrip but alright effect, who balances these?
I find it silly there is no low level Judgement Thurible for Divine Lance while stuff like Jolt Coil is level 3. Nope the minimal level of the Judgement Thurible is 10 fora awesome cantrip but alright effect, who balances these?
same team that decided (accidentally?) to strict RAW restrict them to casters against the item’s own description.
And slapped on fixed DCs that make them bad at actually being a spellcasting item under most circumstances.
I honestly don’t think they ever considered that people would mostly use them as extra cantrips.
It's paizo's way. Take a piece of design space and print a bunch of really bad options and two or three good ones.
Still don't think I'd take a saurian spike though. By the time it's available you've been tricking a 5th rank see invis wand since level 11. And disappearance beats non sight senses anyway. Cool ability to have, just too expensive compared to alternatives and in a level range where you have lots of things to buy/upgrade.
I guess just looking at spellhearts it'd be rated highly, but that feels misleading when I can't see ever going out of my way to buy it, unlike maybe a jolt coil or the doorknob.
It's paizo's way. Take a piece of design space and print a bunch of really bad options and two or three good ones.
Still don't think I'd take a saurian spike though. By the time it's available you've been tricking a 5th rank see invis wand since level 11. And disappearance beats non sight senses anyway. Cool ability to have, just too expensive compared to alternatives and in a level range where you have lots of things to buy/upgrade.
I guess just looking at spellhearts it'd be rated highly, but that feels misleading when I can't see ever going out of my way to buy it, unlike maybe a jolt coil or the doorknob.
You'd take saurian spike (or echo receptors, comes down to price vs range + uninvested, probably start with the receptors either way) over see invisibility for several reasons.
1. See invisibility only reduces hidden to concealment. So right out the gate, a non-visual precise sense will let you hit the enemy more often.
2. Negate concealment. You don't have to worry about any mist spells or the like the enemy throws down, and more importantly you can throw down your own and give yourself one way concealment.
3. Allies. With a non-visual precise sense you can target your concealed/invisible allies with no penalty whatsoever, enabling them to use invis with little downside and party wide concealment spam.
4. This all comes together to everyone in the party using invisibility (dust of disappearance or scroll) with mind blank wands/scrolls (to beat the omnipresent truesight) to secure a flat 50% dodge chance for any non-AOE attack without screwing over attempts to heal or buff allies. If the enemy does have some way to counter invisibility, or you can't afford mind blank yet, you can do it with concealment instead (sunflower censor is the best form factor for a mist producing item I'm aware of, but there are multiple ways)
Even something like treerazor's truesight is only 8th rank, so you beat it unless you crit fail your mind blank counteract - admittedly possible when fighting literal treerazor, but a minor concern for other enemies.
Non-visual precise senses are the critical synergy piece tying everything together here and a saurian spike is one of the better ways to get it - that's why I say it's a 4-star spellheart.