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My takeaway is that Psychic Dedication needs to give Timber Sentinel.Only if we can Amp it. ;)
The Amp allows the tree to use Quick Alchemy, right? :D
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I think the genie is well and truly out of the bottle with regards to class dedication power. It makes me wonder if some of the designers thought that using them should be one of the standard build choices, not an exceptional one. As in, maybe half of all characters should be willing to pay feats to "multiclass". Even without free archetype, like in PFS, multiclassing is worth it.
* Rogue gives light armor, two skills, a skill feat, and surprise attack. As well as some really good later feat options like Mobility. Really strong choice for casters looking to fix their defenses.
* Champion gives even better armor proficiency and you can become sanctified. Looking at the main champion class to see what being sanctified does for you, it means it can make all your strikes holy. Can be pretty strong in some campaigns.
* Alchemist dedication is really good now that formulas automatically heighten.
Compared to so many other strong dedications, I don't think psychic is out of line in general. The problem is that the magus is so dissatisfied with their own focus spells that they'll forego free spellstrike recharge to go shop for focus attacks in other classes.
I think Champion is in a good place for a "strong" archetype. There's a lot to like there and it lets you do cool things, but it's not a "take one feat and never touch it again" situation for the majority of characters that take it. I mean, some folks will do that just for the armor, but most of the time you're going to want to invest more into it. This is strong, but fine.
The ones I take issue with are the heavily front loaded ones where it becomes a one and done situation. Psychic is one of those: the real benefit is in the dedication itself and there's no reason to ever take another feat from the archetype unless you want more spell slots or Free Archetype forces you to. The actual dedication gives a LOT for a single feat, far more than what most other level 2 feats are doing.
And that's the same problem Exemplar and Alchemist Dedication have. The dedication is way out of line for a level 2 feat vs what those generally do.
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I just never saw it as particularly strong past the early levels to begin with. A kineticist spending 2A on timber sentinel at level 11 to prevent 60 damage is not good; that's usually worse than using a higher level impulse for utility or AoE damage. A kineticist spending 2A at level 1 or 3 to prevent 10 or 20 damage, though? That could stop someone from hitting the floor the next time they get hit, so that's pretty good. Archetyping for Timber Sentinel also usually means that you're either using Timber Sentinel instead of casting a higher rank spell (which is usually bad) or instead of just doing your job as a martial (which is also usually bad because you're important to winning the damage race). My read has been that most people play at low levels, so people have an inflated opinion of Timber Sentinel.
I'm GMing a SoT campaign with a Wood/Fire Kineticist. Timer Sentinel is a huge pain in the butt. I warned the player (who is my GM in another game) that I reserved the right to nerf it given its reputation. I've thought about it, but have never pulled the trigger.
I don't know if thats because it's on the line for me of overpowered but never actually crossing it, or if its just because I have a soft spot for support abilities. Because even if it is over the line for me, if its over the line in a "this lets other players stay in fights longer and have more fun" way... do I really need to nerf that?
Since we're in book 4, it looks like the answer is no. Maybe by the end of the AP I'll know where I actually stand on it, heh.
This whole thing only bothers me because "it means the tree's ally, not you!" is such a strange reading. If someone thought that Protector Tree was itself just written wrong, or was poorly balanced and wanted to change it, that'd be something else entirely. But I just don't see how to get to "the spell protects the caster" by RAW. And Trip seems to be arguing that the RAW is that it's talking about the tree's ally. So I'm left scratching my head. That's the part that especially bothers me.
It's a weird one because people are reading it in two ways:
1. The spell creates a tree and makes it do stuff. Since it's a spell effect that is doing it, the caster is the source point for who is an "ally".2. The spell creates a tree and the tree does stuff. Since the tree is an actor that has some of its own stats, can be targeted independently, and can react without the caster doing anything, the tree is the one doing the blocking and thus the tree is the source point for who is an "ally".
Inside Protector Tree itself, we don't have any guidance in terms of descriptive text or anything to suggest what was intended. So people reading it one of those ways will see it as making total sense and not understand the other way.
The closest thing we have to a statement of intent on Protector Tree is in Tree Ward, which says this:
You've lived among trees for so long they recognize your presence and seek to protect you from harm. You can cast protector tree as a primal innate spell once per day.
The first sentence of that doesn't make any sense if Protector Tree doesn't protect the caster.
Counterpoint: It's a feat from a rare ancestry in a Lost Omens book, so its not exactly a strong reference vs something in a core book that has more eyes on it. Plus it wouldn't be the first time descriptive text has not matched what the ability does.
So I don't think its existence will convince anyone who didn't already lean that way.
I guess I'm also kind of baffled by the assertion that Protector Tree creates a animated tree creature. That's just... not necessary for the spell to work, and not said by the spell.
Well, Protector Tree itself says the tree isn't immobile (emphasis mine):
Whenever an ally adjacent to the tree is hit by a Strike, the tree interposes its branches and takes the damage first.
The tree can't change locations, but it is able to move its branches based on what is happening around it.
So, define "animated tree creature". :) Sometimes I hate how imprecise English is.
This stuff is more "I'm really nitpicky about semantics (both as part of who I am and because my degree trained me to be)"
The semantics get really silly if you dig deep enough. According to Player Core's glossary, one could argue that the Tree is in fact a creature while it's active:
Creature: An active participant in the story and world. This includes monsters and nonplayer characters (played by the Game Master) and player characters (played by the other players).
While the tree is interposing itself to block damage, it's active and is a participant in the story. Since it's a creature that does stuff without someone else spending actions to make it do that, it makes sense that the tree is the one doing the thing and thus it's the trees allies that count.
Now I'm certain this isn't how the definition is meant to be used, but if you take RAW to its extremes, you get outcomes like this. Which is why I don't tend to do that when I'm making rulings for my table.
than it is that I think it's essential to keep Timber Sentinel from protecting the caster. I do think it's too strong at early levels if it protects the caster, but it falls off pretty fast. If it turned out I was wrong and Timber Sentinel protected the caster, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Yeah, Timber Sentinel is the issue. Were I to decide to nerf it, that's where I'd be aiming.
The issue is that if you do it at the Protector Tree level, you've also nerfed the spell when its cast by a spellcaster at a substantially higher cost (since casting this from a slot 5 ranks below max is basically a waste of a turn). That's part of what makes this a weird situation: the spell as a spell really isn't a big deal. It was just repurposed as a class ability where it got a lot stronger as a result.
I don't really know where I'm going with this post, heh. Just musing on the thought process of the two viewpoints, I suppose. This feels like one where it'll be hard to change anyone's mind because what's different is the thought process involved in getting to a conclusion.
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That also calls to attention the issue with Paizo's philosophy that L1 & 2 class feats are "supposed" to be weak and low impact. Yet, Paizo also plugs their ears and "la la la" puts the feat tax fixers in those levels (instead of fixing the class chassis).
And those fixer feats can be absurdly powerful.
The result is a s$@&show where you have the absolute, never-take-this level of trash like identifying alch items quicker, put right next to "gain a familiar" and Quick Bomber, for f*&#s sake.Quick Bomber is outright in the running for most powerful feat in the whole Alchemist class.
Diverse Lore comes to mind as well. I don't think I've ever seen a Thaumaturge without it. For the cost of a level 1 feat, you get to outright be the best knowledge character in the game by a huge margin.
I mean, I don't mind if a level 18 class feat is better than a level 2 class feat. That feels like progression. One of the things I dislike about Remaster Oracle is how front loaded the Cursebound abilities are, so there's no real sense of progression in them after Debilitating Dichotomy.
But the level 2 class feats should still feel worth taking, and there's a bunch that just don't. Meanwhile there's these outliers that are so good they eclipse everything.
That's going to happen at the end of the day because in a game this big with this many options, some of them will be better than others. That's how it is. I don't mind it so much with Diverse Lore (getting to tell people info as the GM is fun), but I agree about Quick Bomber: it feels like it's mandatory because any Alchemist that throws bombs feels SO much better with it that the class just feels terrible without it.
It's basically mandatory to fix the build.
The Exemplar Archetype is something that literally every class whose main combat loop involves "doing damage with a weapon or an unarmed attack" would want to take since it's 1 feat for +2 damage for each weapon die with no restrictions.
My Psychic Archetype MC Monk on the other hand spent 3 feats on the dedication (Tangible Mind for Shield), the Mental Resistance feat, and Psi Strikes for +1d6 damage, +1 AC, and Mental Resistance Level/2 for a 2 action loop.
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It's kind of an issue when several (but not all generally) are just better to take than your own feats at those levels. It should be an interresting *option* to invest into if it fits your playstyle, not a straight up better choice 9 times out of 10.
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I think it's generally good news when an archetype feels like a worthwhile option for branching out to something a bit different from one's main playstyle, and bad news when an archetype feels better than one's main class options for that same playstyle. Sometimes it's because the archetype is so overpowered that it significantly benefits virtually any build, as with the Champion or Exemplar dedications, and sometimes it's because the other class's feats are so deficient that pretty much any archetype is a better alternative, as is the case still with many caster feats, though less so than before.
With Psychic Dedication and the Magus, I think it's a bit of both: on one hand, the dedication feat I think is genuinely too strong due to amps often being quite a bit stronger than other focus spells, but on the other hand there's clearly a high demand for a powerful attack spell to complement the Magus's Spellstrike without costing one of their precious few spell slots, one that isn't met by any of the class's own feats. Taking amps out of the Psychic archetype would largely address one half of the issue (and I think Ryangwy is right that offering the unique psi cantrip in the dedication would make the feat desirable yet still balanced), and giving the Magus a 1st- or 2nd-level feat offering an attack focus spell, or simply adding that focus spell to the base class, would allow the class to feel less deficient. If the Magus doesn't have to feel like they need to dip into their spell slots for damage either, that could give the class significantly more baseline freedom to opt into more utility instead.
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I still think that for Magus' issue specifically removing that focus spell interraction in order to add more things elswhere in the base chassis and into better feats would be healthier in the long run.
And off course: adding more attack roll spells in general would be nice, main issue is that Magus is the only one who bothers using them (from the perception of the community, even if its false)
I mean True Strike got a big nerf (which imo was warranted and opens up room for more strong stuff to be added within spells) so that kind of change is totally possible. But can only be done alongside a full rework of Magus. Not as a simple errata. The most that could be done in an errata is removing that compatibility and adding a line about conflux spells that any focus spells recharge spellstrike, as compensation. But well, getting out of topic. (I really should write that full "remaster" version on pftools or something
(I think Ryangwy is right that offering the unique psi cantrip in the dedication would make the feat desirable yet still balanced).
No, offering the unique psi cantrip would not be "still balanced."
People have outright stated that the entire point of taking the psychic archetype as a magus is to spam imaginary weapon, the unique surface psi cantrip for the Tangible Dream conscious mind. They aren't taking the psychic archetype for the figment or shield amps...
Instead of having to wait until 6th level and spend a second feat on Psi Development, all that proposal would do would grant access to a unique class spell at 2nd level without needing any more resources.
Allowing other non-psychics access to telekinetic rend, thermal stasis, forbidden thought, or distortion lens (and the corresponding amp) with nothing more than the dedication feat would similarly make it more desirable than it is now with "only" a standard psi cantrip and amp.
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No, offering the unique psi cantrip would not be "still balanced."
People have outright stated that the entire point of taking the psychic archetype as a magus is to spam imaginary weapon, the unique surface psi cantrip for the Tangible Dream conscious mind. They aren't taking the psychic archetype for the figment or shield amps...
Instead of having to wait until 6th level and spend a second feat on Psi Development, all that proposal would do would grant access to a unique class spell at 2nd level without needing any more resources.
Allowing other non-psychics access to telekinetic rend, thermal stasis, forbidden thought, or distortion lens (and the corresponding amp) with nothing more than the dedication feat would similarly make it more desirable than it is now with "only" a standard psi cantrip and amp.
I feel this diatribe could have been avoided if you had read the post in its entirety, instead of just mining that one quote. Specifically, the sentence immediately preceding the one you picked:
Taking amps out of the Psychic archetype would largely address one half of the issue (and I think Ryangwy is right that offering the unique psi cantrip in the dedication would make the feat desirable yet still balanced)
Emphasis added in bold, because apparently it wasn't obvious enough the first time. To the best of my recollection, the Magus does not pick imaginary weapon in order to Spellstrike with an unamped cantrip, particularly not when gouging claw exists on the arcane list. The reason the archetype is so effective on the Magus, or any other class really, is because of the amp. Taking out those cantrips' amps from the archetype's feats would therefore allow those unique cantrips to offer interesting new options to other classes without providing the far more powerful benefits of their amped versions. It would therefore, in my opinion, be balanced.
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Without the Amp Imaginary Weapon is just a very cool and flavorful strong cantrip. It's good, but Gouging Claw will usually outdamage it. It has the benefit of covering a damage type that gouging claw doesn't have (bludgeoning) so it's a very nice addition to have but wouldn't feel "mandatory" the way it does now.
Without the Amp Imaginary Weapon is just a very cool and flavorful strong cantrip. It's good, but Gouging Claw will usually outdamage it. It has the benefit of covering a damage type that gouging claw doesn't have (bludgeoning) so it's a very nice addition to have but wouldn't feel "mandatory" the way it does now.
The bludgeoning is nice and the force tag hitting incorporeal creatures past their resistance.
I agree. It isn't mandatory. There is only class that breaks imaginary weapon with one ability.
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Yeah if there was no amp magus would still take it often but it wouldn't break its design. It'd be like taking cleric for divine lance to get a decent spirit damage cantrip.
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It just seems like it was an accidental mixture but then again Fire Ray is the second really good focus spell to spam on a Magus if you wish to be honest. The problem is just Spell striking but that's not even an issue.
Fire Ray is the second "offender" 'cause one archetype can grant it fairly easily and all. But yes spellstrike is the part that needs one line to fix this
I do think there is a separate issue with the Magus here for sure, and Spellstrike synergizing mostly with a subset of spells that Paizo seem to have largely moved away from is one of the class's problems. I do feel they'd be a lot less incentivized to poach focus attack spells from other classes if they just had one of their own, and suggested something to that effect in a homebrew thread, but in all cases they could do with having less incentive to dip into any kind of multiclass just to get what is ostensibly a very desirable spell for them.
With respect to the Psychic and their unamped psi cantrips, what I do find interesting is that despite conscious minds buffing standard cantrips and featuring unique psi cantrips of their own, most of them I think still fall into "nice to have" territory: there are some pretty decent buffs, like TKP getting its range increased, shield targeting another character, or warp step providing even more movement, but these I'd say are all in line with other minor benefits you'd get from low-level caster feats. There's opportunities for synergies there still, but without the amps, the power you'd get from the dedication offering two psi cantrips, standard or unique, would be in line with other caster dedications, even if the offering would still be specific to the Psychic.
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You know it's weird 'cause unless linked directly to a thread, the homebrew section just appears empty to me. I should also write down my own stuff there sometime
But regarding psychic specifically, yes I aggree.
It's a weird one because people are reading it in two ways:
1. The spell creates a tree and makes it do stuff. Since it's a spell effect that is doing it, the caster is the source point for who is an "ally".2. The spell creates a tree and the tree does stuff. Since the tree is an actor that has some of its own stats, can be targeted independently, and can react without the caster doing anything, the tree is the one doing the blocking and thus the tree is the source point for who is an "ally".
Inside Protector Tree itself, we don't have any guidance in terms of descriptive text or anything to suggest what was intended. So people reading it one of those ways will see it as making total sense and not understand the other way.
I guess the thing that's weird to me specifically about Trip's reading is that it hones in on a convention that seems like coincidence at best—that spells like protector tree have a subject+intransitive verb or a passive voice construction up front, and don't say "you do x"—and uses that convention to argue that the point of view of "ally" changes for reading such spells. The idea that the spell would change its reading if it said "You cause a medium tree to suddenly grow in an unoccupied square within range..." strikes me as prima facie absurd.
The tree can't change locations, but it is able to move its branches based on what is happening around it.
So, define "animated tree creature". :) Sometimes I hate how imprecise English is.
Yeah. Words are inherently vague, and it's not always for the best.
In my book, it just doesn't need to be more "animated" than a dancing weapon to perform the function being requested. It could be "alive" in the way a construct creature is alive, as well, but that doesn't feel necessary.
...It's a bit weird, too, because a tree is already alive in the colloquial sense anyways. It's a tree.
The semantics get really silly if you dig deep enough. According to Player Core's glossary, one could argue that the Tree is in fact a creature while it's active:
Player Core Glossary wrote:Creature: An active participant in the story and world. This includes monsters and nonplayer characters (played by the Game Master) and player characters (played by the other players).
While the tree is interposing itself to block damage, it's active and is a participant in the story. Since it's a creature that does stuff without someone else spending actions to make it do that, it makes sense that the tree is the one doing the thing and thus it's the trees allies that count.
Now I'm certain this isn't how the definition is meant to be used, but if you take RAW to its extremes, you get outcomes like this. Which is why I don't tend to do that when I'm making rulings for my table.
Okay, that got one heck of a good laugh out of me. Point taken.
FWIW, my usual understanding of the game is that it mostly has two classes of "thing" at the top of its "ontology," and those are creatures and objects (with objects further being split into attended and unattended objects). The difference between creatures and objects is mostly is how you can interact with them, based on what rules text references each. The lines between them are sometimes blurry (particularly in the case of constructs and intelligent items), and sometimes, you need to override rules text that distinguishes the two when it probably shouldn't. (Strike only targets creatures by RAW, which is often a problem, though I can see why they would want you to need GM permission to target attended objects.) But I see those as being the main categories of thing in the game.
The game mainly delineates between the two, in my view, to try to rule out some "unfun" interactions from the start. E.G., it rules out having enemies target your gear in most cases, and also keeps people from litigating what happens to a metal table in the area of a burning hands spell (because it affects creatures).
Yeah, Timber Sentinel is the issue. Were I to decide to nerf it, that's where I'd be aiming.
The issue is that if you do it at the Protector Tree level, you've also nerfed the spell when its cast by a spellcaster at a substantially higher cost (since casting this from a slot 5 ranks below max is basically a waste of a turn). That's part of what makes this a weird situation: the spell as a spell really isn't a big deal. It was just repurposed as a class ability where it got a lot stronger as a result.
Yeah. I agree.
As an aside, Timber Sentinel is also very strange in that it has a kind of narrative power the game has desperately tried to curb. Create Water isn't a cantrip anymore, so that you can't spend all day making a lake... but a kineticist can absolutely spend all day repopulating a forest. That's kind of silly, isn't it?
I don't really know where I'm going with this post, heh. Just musing on the thought process of the two viewpoints, I suppose. This feels like one where it'll be hard to change anyone's mind because what's different is the thought process involved in getting to a conclusion.
I definitely enjoyed reading it. I don't think I'm likely to agree with Trip on this, but it is a fun discussion.
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Yeah. I agree.
As an aside, Timber Sentinel is also very strange in that it has a kind of narrative power the game has desperately tried to curb. Create Water isn't a cantrip anymore, so that you can't spend all day making a lake... but a kineticist can absolutely spend all day repopulating a forest. That's kind of silly, isn't it?
Hey, Kineticists can also spend all day creating a lake! If they're Wood/Water, they can do both! And if they're Earth, they can play Minecraft without a computer!
Truly, the most OP class.
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How did we honestly go from Psychic Dedication as the title reads to how OP Timber Sentinel is on Kineticist? A class which on it's own is not very good if you try to min-max damage unless you are at the higher levels with Fire, Air and Water so you can use the Hurricane Compound junction. Kineticist doesn't even work with Mythic that well...and Paizo said they'd fix it and still haven't.
The thing is Timber Sentinel is nice but it's 2 Actions that yu could be using for other stuff but in the end it is one of the more effective level 1 impulses.
However how does this relate to Psychic Dedication being OP just because at level one you get 1 Focus Point and 1 Focus Spell and 1 Cantrip? Sure the +1 Focus point is good but you need to reach level 6 before you can steal Imaginary Weapon which is 2 feat dip, which is not much I will admit but all this proves is that Paizo either overtuned that one Psychic Cantrip.
The problem I don't think is truly Imaginary Weapon but rather the strange path Paizo took to nerf Magus subtly by removing more Attack Spelsl which leaves a huge gap in their arsenal. If you remove Imaginary Weapon from Magus then I will bet we will be seeing 95% of them going Oracle (Flames) > Domain > fire > Fire Ray. Since I can't think fo any other focus spell which seems as good as Imaginary Weapon outside of Fire Ray.
Would be restricting Spell-Strike to normal Spell-slots and Cantrips fix Magus or would it cause an even bigger problem? That is the real question to be asked here I would think.
Would be restricting Spell-Strike to normal Spell-slots and Cantrips fix Magus or would it cause an even bigger problem? That is the real question to be asked here I would think.
Although that question relates much more to the topic of conversation than protector tree, I feel that too doesn't fully cover the Psychic Dedication, since even outside of the Magus's own synergy it can provide extremely powerful options such as amped guidance. Amps really are the core issue to the archetype in my opinion, and I'd personally be entirely fine with giving out the class's psi cantrips more freely if they remained unamped to non-Psychics.
As for the question you ask: cutting focus spells out of Spellstrike would of course stop the synergy between the Magus and the Psychic archetype. Personally, I'm not the most comfortable with that proposal though because despite the excessive synergy going on, I think there are legitimately good things that come out of the Magus relying on an amped imaginary weapon for Spellstrikes: for starters, it gives the class access to high Spellstrike damage in a manner that can be reliably used every encounter, which makes the class feel a lot less constrained overall. Because it takes pressure off of the Magus's limited spell slots for Spellstrike damage, I think it also makes it a bit easier to prepare utility spells into those slots instead. Although I don't think the Magus should be tied to the Psychic archetype forever, I'd still like to preserve at least those bits of gameplay somehow, minus the downsides of needing to take an archetype for those benefits.
Nevermind, I forgot what I was talking about. :)
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And although Magus it's the worst offender, it's not the only class where Psychic Dedication itself is one of the strongest level 2 feats in the entire game. It's not quite as bas as Exemplar and basically any martial, but it's up there. If you compare Imaginary Weapon to Fire Ray for a Magus to get, Imaginary Weapon is stronger and cheaper. It really shouldn't be both of those.If the ability to Amp was a second feat, it's...
How is Imaginary Weapon cheaper than Fire Ray? It is indeed better, but they both need two feats to learn. Psychic Dedication only grants you a standard psi cantrip, so you still need Psi Development at 6th level to learn Imaginary Weapon. Same as Oracle Dedication needing to take Domain Acumen at 4th level for Fire Ray.
How is Imaginary Weapon cheaper than Fire Ray? It is indeed better, but they both need two feats to learn. Psychic Dedication only grants you a standard psi cantrip, so you still need Psi Development at 6th level to learn Imaginary Weapon. Same as Oracle Dedication needing to take Domain Acumen at 4th level for Fire Ray.
And although Magus it's the worst offender, it's not the only class where Psychic Dedication itself is one of the strongest level 2 feats in the entire game. It's not quite as bas as Exemplar and basically any martial, but it's up there. If you compare Imaginary Weapon to Fire Ray for a Magus to get, Imaginary Weapon is stronger and cheaper. It really shouldn't be both of those.If the ability to Amp was a second feat, it's...
Right, my bad. That's what I get writing stuff too early in the morning.
Right, my bad. That's what I get writing stuff too early in the morning.
All good, making sure I wasn't going crazy myself lol
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How is Imaginary Weapon cheaper than Fire Ray? It is indeed better, but they both need two feats to learn. Psychic Dedication only grants you a standard psi cantrip, so you still need Psi Development at 6th level to learn Imaginary Weapon. Same as Oracle Dedication needing to take Domain Acumen at 4th level for Fire Ray.
And although Magus it's the worst offender, it's not the only class where Psychic Dedication itself is one of the strongest level 2 feats in the entire game. It's not quite as bas as Exemplar and basically any martial, but it's up there. If you compare Imaginary Weapon to Fire Ray for a Magus to get, Imaginary Weapon is stronger and cheaper. It really shouldn't be both of those.If the ability to Amp was a second feat, it's...
Psychic Dedication doesn't require an off-stat investment that's costly for Magus, and it gives you your third focus point in those two feats. Same number of feats, though.
My personal fix for Psychic Dedication would simply be to have the dedication grant the two psi cantrips from the chosen Conscious Mind with the improvements, but with no amp or focus point.
Then, Basic Psychic Spellcasting can give the surface psi cantrip from that conscious mind (much like Basic Witch Spellcasting gives an extra familiar ability).
Finally, Psi Development (the 6th level feat) is changed to give you a focus point and amp for one psi cantrip that you know, and can be taken multiple times.
The whole situation with Magus will hopefully be fixed by them making changes to the Magus rather than to psi cantrips and amps. Otherwise, people will just archetype into Cleric for Fire Ray or Druid for Stone Lance instead. I'm hoping in the remaster of Secrets of Magic that along with the implementation of the recent change to Spellstrike that allows a Magus to use it with single-target save spells, they also alter it so that it can't be used with Focus spells full stop.
Of course the Magus might need a little bit of love if they were to make this change. My suggestion would be to just add two more slots of each rank to their bounded spellcasting, but require those slots to have single-target damaging spells with an attack roll or basic save prepared in them. If they take Expansive Spellstrike, maybe have a later feat that follows on from that which would allow them to prepare area damage spells with a basic save in those slots instead.
It's funny, I had the same idea of Striking Spells Slots. Though I'd also want extra focus spells to benefit the class, so I'd honestly advocate to make them recharge spellstrike as well. Less action efficient than conflux spells, but still very useful.
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Psychic Dedication doesn't require an off-stat investment that's costly for Magus, and it gives you your third focus point in those two feats. Same number of feats, though.
Low rank occult slots tend to be better than divine slots too. Even if it's just for true strike or illusory object.
Psychic Dedication doesn't require an off-stat investment that's costly for Magus, and it gives you your third focus point in those two feats. Same number of feats, though.Low rank occult slots tend to be better than divine slots too. Even if it's just for true strike or illusory object.
That’s a factor if you do it with cleric, but if you do it with champion you just take the reaction instead. And maybe even lay on hands for your third focus point, though that is competing with ancient elf champion -> force fang -> have an additional higher level feat instead of lay on hands
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they also alter it so that it can't be used with Focus spells full stop.
If the concern is magi archetyping too much a better fix would be to add an in class focus attack spell. That would take pressure off archetyping without gutting certain cool build designs or any other fallout.
The issue that a remastered magus has to deal with is that the focus spell space of the class was given over to conflux spells that recharge the spell strike. When you MC to get spell attack roll spells, you do lose out on the recharge focus spell option. That doesn’t really matter much with the starlight magus but the rest of them do have action economy issues with having to spend an action just to recharge. Just adding in conflux spells that use an attack roll ihas more complications that it might seem like.
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I think it's a sign of not quite successful design if the go-to build is multiclassing. If there's something the class itself isn't providing that you really want and can get elsewhere much better.
I love multiclassed builds, and they don't have to be weaker than singular builds, but if they're consistently the favorite solution then something is off.
For the magus that's a combination of:
* A conspicuous gap between how fast cantrips heighten (+1d6 per rank at best) and how fast slotted spells heighten (+2d6 per rank is common)
* Doing a lot of damage early in the encounter is worth a lot, but you're a wave caster and you're gonna run out of slots fast
Unless you know adventuring days are consistently very short, it's really attractive to supplement your fuel tank with focus spells.
My recent experience playing a dragon sorcerer in Prey for Death is that to have focus spells that do 90% of the damage of a highest-rank slot spell is glorious. You can blast with top-shelf damage every encounter, by just mixing in 1-2 focus casts. Once you've tasted that you don't want to go back to cantrips.
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The issue that a remastered magus has to deal with is that the focus spell space of the class was given over to conflux spells that recharge the spell strike. When you MC to get spell attack roll spells, you do lose out on the recharge focus spell option. That doesn’t really matter much with the starlight magus but the rest of them do have action economy issues with having to spend an action just to recharge. Just adding in conflux spells that use an attack roll ihas more complications that it might seem like.
You don't lose the option at all. You're still free to spend your focus points as you see fit. And psychic even gives you focus points more quickly than just going plain Magus, considering you get good focus spells at 2 and 6 instead of just at 2 (Force Fang) and then possibly never afterwards (depending on your opinion of Hasted Assault). If you really are in a situation where using a conflux spell multiple times is beneficial, you can use it more often for having taken psychic archetype—not less.
Of course I am just expressing my opinion and observations, but there is no way a remastered magus gets a focus spell version of imaginary weapon as a conflux spell, nor do I think it will get a fire ray, because magus focus spells recharge the spell strike.
Maybe they get a D8 scaling focus spell, but for the exception of the ranged Magus, spending an action every turn to just recharge your spell strike hurts and it is much more of a one or two spell strikes per encounter than an every round activity unless you are using conflux spells (as I have seen in all the campaigns or PFS games).
I think it is very likely that imaginary weapon goes away as an option for Magus with remastering, but I don’t really think it is a big deal to leave it if it just can’t be used at ranged. The rest of the psychic cantrips are not a big deal for any class, and don’t really need to be all that restricted. For the sake of Psychic class niche protection, I think limiting MC psychics to 1 amp max per refocus period would be all that is needed.
Of course I am just expressing my opinion and observations, but there is no way a remastered magus gets a focus spell version of imaginary weapon as a conflux spell, nor do I think it will get a fire ray, because magus focus spells recharge the spell strike.
Although conflux spells recharge Spellstrike, using a conflux spell as part of a Spellstrike wouldn't recharge it:
After you use Spellstrike, you can’t do so again until you recharge your Spellstrike as a single action, which has the concentrate trait. You also recharge your Spellstrike when you cast a conflux spell that takes at least 1 action to cast; casting a focus spell of another type doesn’t recharge your Spellstrike.
It is only after using Spellstrike that the need to be recharged kicks in. Although conflux spells are currently very much designed to not be compatible with Spellstrike, a hypothetical Magus focus spell with a spell attack roll wouldn't recharge the action if used as part of it.
Because outside of the Magus, the Psychic dedication is popular, but not really game breaking. It is pretty specifically the magus that makes imaginary weapon as a MC ability an actual balance problem for the game.
Otherwise it is almost always just shield or guidance that I see players taking with Psychic MC, and it often does make those characters better than they were before, but not usually in all that powerful of a way, and if the psychic archetypes could only cast one amped ability per refocus time, then it would really limit other classes from being able to do the things a psychic can do.
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...Why does it feel like this thread has become more about the Magus than the Psychic?
If there's a fruit stand in business selling oranges and someone wants to discuss why that fruit stand is doing so much business, it will naturally lead to a discussion of the clientele when it turns out that there's a huge scurvy problem in the city's population, and the only other vendor selling oranges is charging way too much for smaller pieces of fruit.
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What if we are looking at this all wrong? What if Psychic Dedication is not Overpowered but all other Dedications for Spellcasters are Underpowered? Psychic gives you the one thing you'd want most from a Dedication. What is all Dedications did that to some degree? Psychic grant focus spells which is better then ANY cantrip (Yes AMP'd Cantrips are both Cantrips and Focus Spells).
That feels much like the problem here, Psychic is frontloaded because it feels amazing. All other Spellcaster Dedications feel weak and like you're wasting a class feat to get a under performing feat to say, here have 2 cantrips AND 1 skill, which is better then the lackluster Cantrip Expansion feat.
Yeah, you can say Psychic is not broken. Magus is not broken but once they unite their hands together they become something more powerful then their individual parts.
As a reminder before the Remastered a lot of classes were grabbing Dangerous Sorcerer just for the flat 1-10 damage on thewir slotted spells.
What if we are looking at this all wrong? What if Psychic Dedication is not Overpowered but all other Dedications for Spellcasters are Underpowered? Psychic gives you the one thing you'd want most from a Dedication. What is all Dedications did that to some degree? Psychic grant focus spells which is better then ANY cantrip (Yes AMP'd Cantrips are both Cantrips and Focus Spells).
I can somewhat agree with this, though I still think that in an ideal world, the Psychic archetype shouldn't give away its psi cantrips' amps, because those are such a central part of the core class that it basically means any other caster can become a better Psychic just by multiclassing into one.
In general, I do think picking a spellcaster dedication is already quite strong if you're not a caster already: without even counting the cantrips you get, you become able to use scrolls and wands of your archetype's tradition and gain all the other benefits of just being a spellcaster, which is quite handy for the versatility it provides. If you already are a caster, it's a bit better than Cantrip Expansion, arguably a pretty mediocre feat, even if it does entail a greater commitment.
At the same time, I can agree that many caster dedications, and in fact most dedication feats in general, can feel pretty samey and underwhelming: you get a few trained skills and a few cantrips, while rarely if ever getting a proper taste of what the class is about. Personally, I feel that if dedication feats no longer had attribute prerequisites, no longer gave out trained skills, and instead included training in those skills as prerequisites, that would leave a lot more room to include some more unique benefits, while also opening up those dedications to a greater range of characters and letting Intelligence classes opt much more easily into archetypes. In the Psychic's case, I think requiring training in Occultism to then give two or even all three starting psi cantrips, minus the amps, would be a much more interesting prospect, and arguably one that would probably still remain balanced.
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Focus spells are good!
Well SOME focus spells are good. Some are really, really bad and a lot more are just mediocre. There are focus spells that are more valuable for the extra focus point they give than the actual spell itself.
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Maybe it's just me, but I feel like some of the problems might be to simply remove the following line from Psychic Dedication:
If you already have a focus pool, increase the number of points in your pool by 1.
If you don't have a focus pool, you gain a point. So that way you can use the Amp you've gained. If you do have a pool, you have a new option, but your resources don't go up. Kind of reminds me of how they do the Basic Alchemy Benefits: if you get them from more than one place, you have more ways to use Vials, but you don't increase the number of vials.
On the Magus side: Well, I've never really seen the need for damaging focus spells to use with Spellstrike. Heck, I'd probably go as far as banning the use of focus spells with Spellstrike. Spellstrikes are devastating enough with just Cantrips, IMHO.
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Having binged all of this just now my favorite suggestion has been to take the Amp and focus point away from Psychic Dedication. Pick one of the Psi Cantrips, this alone is pretty powerful but we can't fix everything.
If we could we would fix all the other archs so they would be less generic, but thats a lot of houseruling and not something we should expect from Paizo. So we have to hope they will tone down what is to strong, though without making it generic. I don't think anyone wants it to be generic just for equality with the other deds we just need some kind of equity with the others so they are "budgeted" the same on power. Trading two cantrips for one psi cantrip might not be perfect but it works imo.
Never give Amp, thats to much of the Psychic identity, and has been the cause of a lot of frustration related to easy power.
Fixing magus is a different topic. Yes removing Amped IW will just encourage different focus spell hunting, but at least for this thread thats not the concern.