The Psychic and their remaster

[Teridax]

Relaunching this discussion with Maya's blessing: there's been a lot of discussion lately around the Psychic after their changes were leaked for the Dark Archive remaster. Just to avoid having to sift through another thread, here are the changes that were reported:

General Changes
The following are changes that apply to the entire Psychic class.

1. Amping is now defined as a free action, while still being incompatible with spellshapes. This prevents amping from being used on subordinate actions such as the spell cast as part of the Magus's Spellstrike, as well as out-of-turn actions.

2. Unleash Psyche's status bonus to damage is now tweaked to follow the same wording as the Sorcerer's sorcerous potency feature, meaning it now applies to the first instance of damage dealt by a spell. This allows the bonus to apply to spells with a duration.

3. The wording on verbal and thought components was updated to the remaster: although the Psychic doesn't need to use incantations to cast their spells, this no longer necessarily allows them to cast spells through silence.

Specific Changes
The following are changes that apply to elements of the Psychic's subclasses and feats.

1. Tangible Dream's imaginary weapon's damage dice are now d6s instead of d8s, and its damage type is changed to force instead of bludgeoning or slashing.

2. Distant Grasp's vector screen has double its current area width.

3. Infinite Eye now has locate instead of organsight, a Secrets of Magic spell, in its list.

4. Oscillating Wave has a reworked spell list: although most spells were converted to their remaster versions, the spell list now features blazing bolt, ice storm, frozen fog, and volcanic eruption instead of heat metal (an APG spell), fire shield, flame vortex (a SoM spell), and fiery body respectively.

5. Tangible Dream now has invisibility and resplendent mansion instead of mirror image and prismatic sphere, both Core Rulebook spells with no remaster equivalents.

6. The Violent Unleash feat is now a single-action activity that no longer stuns, rather than a free-action activity that leaves you stunned 1. This means you'll still pay the action cost if you're slowed, and can't use a quickened action to negate the cost.

7. The Whispering Steps feat now has the enemy Stride instead of Step; this is still forced movement.

8. Twin Psyche is now an 18th-level feat instead of a 20th-level feat.

9. The Become Thought feat no longer gives weakness to spirit.

10. A new 12th-level feat, Amp Focus, lets you fully recover all of your Focus Points when you Refocus, even if you've spent Focus Points on something other than an amp.

11. A new 20th-level feat, Autonomic Psychic Action, makes you permanently quickened; you can use the extra action only to use a psyche action.

Multiclass Archetype Changes
The following are changes specific to the Psychic's multiclass archetype:

1. Psychic Dedication no longer gives an amp or Focus Point. Everything else is unchanged.

2. Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

---

And that's about it for the changes as far as I'm aware. I personally have some strong opinions about this set of changes and their impact, but would rather first open the floor for others to express their own opinions. Please bear in mind that however others feel about these changes is valid: we can discuss the facts and what they mean for the Psychic in Pathfinder, but whether people hate this remaster, love it, or experience anything in-between is entirely their prerogative. The previous thread devolved into heated arguments in no small part because a couple of people were trying to tell others how they should feel about these changes, dismissing others' concerns, and engaging in manipulative tactics to induce confusion and frustration, so let's please have none of that here this time.

[Tridus]

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

I'd have to assume actual Psychics still get focus points from them or are getting them some other way?

Quote:

Amping is now defined as a free action, while still being incompatible with spellshapes. This prevents amping from being used on subordinate actions such as the spell cast as part of the Magus's Spellstrike, as well as out-of-turn actions.

The out of turn part has to be an error or oversight IMO. I can't believe they'd deliberately make that not work.

Quote:

The wording on verbal and thought components was updated to the remaster: although the Psychic doesn't need to use incantations to cast their spells, this no longer necessarily allows them to cast spells through silence.

Feels like an unnecessary nerf to something that didn't come up that often in the first place. Not sure if it's deliberate or just an oversight.

Overall it's really underwhelming IMO. There were definitly things the class needed that it didn't get here and they seem to have taken the feedback on the archetype being very strong by nerfing it three different ways at the same time which overshot the mark.

[rakem]

One quick addition to the changes:

Unbound Step got a significant buff to Distortion Lens, making it a 5-foot burst instead of one 5-foot square, effectively quadrupling its AOE. This now allows the amped version to add 15 feet to allies' movement if they move through it at a diagonal.

[Finoan]

Tridus wrote:

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster.

Agreed. There is no reason to override the standard definitions of how to calculate your number of focus points. The standard rules for that already account for having focus spell cantrips (you don't get a focus point for those). So with the standard rules, you would get one focus point for each different Amp that you have, whether it is linked to a particular cantrip or a stand-alone that you can add to them.

Why make it more complicated than that?

Tridus wrote:

Quote:

Amping is now defined as a free action, while still being incompatible with spellshapes. This prevents amping from being used on subordinate actions such as the spell cast as part of the Magus's Spellstrike, as well as out-of-turn actions.

The out of turn part has to be an error or oversight IMO. I can't believe they'd deliberately make that not work.

I kinda can understand. Amps are mechanically behaving like Spellshapes at this point. And Spellshapes are already not able to work with subordinate actions such as Spellstrike or out-of-turn actions. That doesn't make Spellshapes worthless, so I don't think it is going to make Amps worthless either. At least not in general.

There are a couple of specific Amps that need to have an override to allow them to be used as part of a reaction.

[Xenocrat]

Tridus wrote:

I'd have to assume actual Psychics still get focus points from them or are getting them some other way?

Actual Psychics get their focus points from class features, not their number of available amps. "Psi Cantrips and Amps" says you start with a pool of 2 Focus Points, Clarity of Focus (5th level class featgure) increases your pool by 1 point.

[Maya Coleman]

Thanks for relaunching the discussion, Teridax! Please keep things civil everyone!

[Easl]

Tridus wrote:

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell.

I don't have the remastered rules so bear with me, but this means the archetype dedication gives you trained in occult, in spell casting, and 1 cantrip which can be cast as a normal cantrip. Then the L4 archetype feat gives you the focus point to amp it for additional effect. Is that right?

It kinda makes sense from a progression point of view. Though IMO the dedication should probably have come with a second cantrip if there's no additional benefit. 1+familiar makes sense for witch, 1+FP made sense for old psychic, but 1+nada is not consistent with the 2 cantrip standard for most of the other caster archetypes.

[Teridax]

Psi Development is a 6th-level feat, and no longer gives you a Focus Point if you already have a focus pool (by contrast, it gives you one if you don't, so pick this before other focus spell if you want more Focus Points). The remastered dedication feat indeed makes you a spellcaster trained in spell attack modifier and spell DC, plus trained proficiency in Occultism and a single psi cantrip; definitely agreed that it could've easily given an extra psi cantrip and been absolutely fine. I also agree with Tridus and others who pointed this out that the dissociation between amps and Focus Points here is really clunky, and having order of feat selection matter when trying to expand one's focus pool feels more like an oversight than an intentional design element.

[Squark]

Tridus wrote:

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

I'd have to assume actual Psychics still get focus points from them or are getting them some other way?

I think this an ill considered attempt at internal consistency, actually. Ampable cantrips are not focus spells. If they were, psychics would start with 3 focus points at level 1, and Psi Development would give you two focus points. So Psychics (Multiclass or otherwise) get either the number of focus points their class/archetype tells them, or the a number of focus points equal to the number of focus spells they know (which is 0 from Psychic)

But like I said, it's a horrible change in practice.

Alkarius wrote:

Quote:

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

Domain Initiate from Cleric works similarly right?

Nope. It gives you a focus spell, and unless something is giving you extra focus points, you have focus points equal to the number of focus spells you have, up to 3.

[Tridus]

Alkarius wrote:

Quote:

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

Domain Initiate from Cleric works similarly right?

Domain Initiate gives you a focus pool if you don't have one. If you do have one, it adds a focus point, because it gives a focus spell and you have focus points equal to your number of focus spells (max 3). Nothing that grants focus spells in the remaster specifies that it grants an extra focus point because it's a core rule now.

Psi cantrips don't follow that rule inherently because they're cantrips rather than focus spells. So they need to say they give you one, or they don't.

The really weird part here seems to be how it will give you a focus pool if you don't have one and thus 1 focus point, but it won't add a focus point if you already have one. That means taking Psychic archetype and Psi Development, then taking Cleric Dedication and Domain Initiate would give you 2 focus points.

Reversing the order gives you 1 focus point for the same feats and the same spells. And that is wonky.

[Tridus]

Teridax wrote:

Psi Development is a 6th-level feat, and no longer gives you a Focus Point if you already have a focus pool (by contrast, it gives you one if you don't, so pick this before other focus spell if you want more Focus Points). The remastered dedication feat indeed makes you a spellcaster trained in spell attack modifier and spell DC, plus trained proficiency in Occultism and a single psi cantrip; definitely agreed that it could've easily given an extra psi cantrip and been absolutely fine. I also agree with Tridus and others who pointed this out that the dissociation between amps and Focus Points here is really clunky, and having order of feat selection matter when trying to expand one's focus pool feels more like an oversight than an intentional design element.

If I'm understanding it right, that means:

- Make a character with no focus spells
- Take Cleric Dedication
- Take Domain Initiate and some other Cleric feat (focus pool 1)
- Take Psychic Dedication and Psi Development (focus pool 1)

Is a different outcome than:

- Make a character with no focus spells
- Take Psychic Dedication and Psi Development and some other Psychic feat (focus pool 1)
- Take Cleric Dedication
- Take Domain Initiate (focus pool 2)

If that's correct, then that is just wild, because remaster focus spells should not care about order of operations like this. Those are the same feats giving a different outcome just based on the order you take them.

Easl wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell.

I don't have the remastered rules so bear with me, but this means the archetype dedication gives you trained in occult, in spell casting, and 1 cantrip which can be cast as a normal cantrip. Then the L4 archetype feat gives you the focus point to amp it for additional effect. Is that right?

It kinda makes sense from a progression point of view. Though IMO the dedication should probably have come with a second cantrip if there's no additional benefit. 1+familiar makes sense for witch, 1+FP made sense for old psychic, but 1+nada is not consistent with the 2 cantrip standard for most of the other caster archetypes.

It feels overnerfed. It was a very strong dedication, but they hit it with multiple nerfs at the same time and overshot, I think.

[Squark]

Tridus wrote:

Alkarius wrote:

Quote:

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

Domain Initiate from Cleric works similarly right?

Domain Initiate gives you a focus pool if you don't have one. If you do have one, it adds a focus point, because it gives a focus spell and you have focus points equal to your number of focus spells (max 3). Nothing that grants focus spells in the remaster specifies that it grants an extra focus point because it's a core rule now.

Psi cantrips don't follow that rule inherently because they're cantrips rather than focus spells. So they need to say they give you one, or they don't.

The really weird part here seems to be how it will give you a focus pool if you don't have one and thus 1 focus point, but it won't add a focus point if you already have one. That means taking Psychic archetype and Psi Development, then taking Cleric Dedication and Domain Initiate would give you 2 focus points.

Reversing the order gives you 1 focus point for the same feats and the same spells. And that is wonky.

I don't think reversing the order changes things. Feats that give you focus spells are largely losing the language that they also five you a focus point- That's now just a property of focus spells- You have focus points equal to the number fo focus spells you know up to three (unless Animist or Psychic gives you more focus points because they break the rules). If you take Psi Development and then gain a regular focus spell, you still only know one focus spell, so you only have one focus point.

It's consistent, even if I vehemently dislike it.

[ScooterScoots]

It may be de jure consistent but come on amps are focus spells de facto, what is this nonsense

[Teridax]

Tridus wrote:

If that's correct, then that is just wild, because remaster focus spells should not care about order of operations like this. Those are the same feats giving a different outcome just based on the order you take them.

You are correct, the two sequences would yield different amounts of Focus Points. I also agree with you, order of operations should not matter for this and I find it quite silly that it applies here. I'm fairly certain this was an oversight, one that would have been very easily addressed by adding a bit of text stating your focus pool increases by 1 Focus Point if you have one already.

[Tridus]

ScooterScoots wrote:

It may be de jure consistent but come on amps are focus spells de facto, what is this nonsense

Yeah this is how I'd house rule it. "Amps use focus points but aren't focus spells and thus you don't gain focus points when you get one if you already have a focus pool" is just too WTF.

Once you can amp it, treat it like a focus spell for focus pool purposes. That works much more elegantly. The archetype got nerfed plenty even with it giving focus points.

[Tridus]

Squark wrote:

I don't think reversing the order changes things. Feats that give you focus spells are largely losing the language that they also five you a focus point- That's now just a property of focus spells- You have focus points equal to the number fo focus spells you know up to three (unless Animist or Psychic gives you more focus points because they break the rules). If you take Psi Development and then gain a regular focus spell, you still only know one focus spell, so you only have one focus point.

It's consistent, even if I vehemently dislike it.

...

yeah I can see how this interpretation makes sense.

I also really, really hate that it's potentially a thing. I'm just going to house rule it away and kind of be baffled at how things got to this point.

[Squiggit]

Kind of a nothingburger for the psychic itself. Unleash working once on duration spells is pretty nice, especially for weird spells that do something once but still have a duration. The IW nerf is complete nonsense and feels like whoever wrote it was reacting to the Magus without knowing about the multiclass changes, but also ultimately pretty minor practically, the spell changes are a mixed bag, mostly fine. Oscillating Wave lost some difficult to use spells, but I think the new list suffers a bit from giving you lots of different ways to do AoE damage, so it kind of obsoletes parts of itself even more now.

Minor but don't like this:

Quote:

Infinite Eye now has locate instead of organsight, a Secrets of Magic spell, in its list.

Locate is an Uncommon spell. Having a GM facing way to limit spells that might cause issues and then creating player facing ways to circumvent that limitation is really goofy. They did this back in PC1 too by making teleport being a Wizard School Spell. I don't really get it.

Paizo almost completing punting on refocusing is interesting. Psychic getting some sort of augment to offset the fact that their unique refocusing gimmick was no longer unique was something everyone "knew" had to be coming with the remaster, but Paizo doesn't seem to think it's an issue at all.

Kind of disappointing all around. The Tangible Dream Psychic in my current game was never very strong (especially since the consensus also seemed to be it wasn't a very exceptional class in the first place), now she's going to be slightly worse off for no real reason.

I guess my own Silent Whisper Psychic can be glad they didn't know about Shatter Mind and that can remain literally the only spell I cast.

[Easl]

Isn't the 'order of operations' problem a bit white room? You're talking about 1 vs 2 focus points on a L10 non-caster (because you need 4 progressions in one archetype before getting the second). How often is a martial/cleric/psychic actually going to be played.

I think the more impactful problem is that the martial/psychic build now has to wait until L6 to amp, which is a big change for low level campaigns. We actually have one of those (no not a IW magus), and he loves amping once per battle. Not sure what the GM plans but if he asks my advice, I'm going to suggest continuing to use the premaster rules since thats the way the PC was built.

Low-level Wizard probably won't archetype into it either any more, where before it was a good combo. Low-level Witch and Cleric may not care since they have easy access to FPs. Higher level campaigns may see no effect since you can plan out your PC in a way to maximize FPs before session 1 even starts.

[Teridax]

Squiggit wrote:

Locate is an Uncommon spell. Having a GM facing way to limit spells that might cause issues and then creating player facing ways to circumvent that limitation is really goofy. They did this back in PC1 too by making teleport being a Wizard School Spell. I don't really get it.

Same, and I'm honestly confused by the choice of spell here. If we were to just stick to common remaster and Dark Archive spells, there's still behold the weave, clairaudience, hypercognition, scrying ripples, and show the way at 3rd rank that would fit the theme just fine. I'm also not a fan of including uncommon spells in common subclasses and other character options, and I feel there needs to be some concept of inheritance of rarity for it to be respected: choices that feature uncommon options should be uncommon, or rare if they ever have rare options, and common choices should only feature common options. Otherwise, it kind of defeats the point.

Squiggit wrote:

I guess my own Silent Whisper Psychic can be glad they didn't know about Shatter Mind and that can remain literally the only spell I cast.

Yeah, amped shatter mind is freakishly strong, and I feel ought've been the standard to set for other amps. Dealing about 79% of howling blizzard's damage (or 107% with Unleash) while also applying a condition on a failed save I feel is a very good standard to set for an amped psi cantrip, and in my opinion the only reason it's spammed on Silent Whisper is mainly because none of the other amps are nearly as good. It definitely puts the IW nerf into perspective as well.

[Squiggit]

Easl wrote:

Isn't the 'order of operations' problem a bit white room?

??? No literally the opposite, it's one of the most impactful changes here.

Now everyone who has a focus point from somewhere has to consider that investing in the Psychic will get them no extra points.

That's every spellcaster and every martial with an in-class focus point option. Who cares if it doesn't effect fighters, rogues, or barbarians they aren't even taking psychic that often anyways.

Premaster this wouldn't have mattered as much because you only refocus one at a time, but with anyone being able to regain all their focus points with time, having half as many focus points is a pretty big deal. I have no idea how you call that white room only.

[Tridus]

Easl wrote:

Isn't the 'order of operations' problem a bit white room? You're talking about 1 vs 2 focus points on a L10 non-caster (because you need 4 progressions in one archetype before getting the second). How often is a martial/cleric/psychic actually going to be played.

That example is contrived to demonstrate the problem, but I don't have to change it much to come up with a real case. My wife in Spore War right now is playing a Thaumaturge with both Psychic and Champion archetypes (and Acrobat, because high level).

Swap Cleric for Champion and the same thing happens with Lay on Hands. It's just a really bizarre situation and I really don't think "the order you take the feats in changes what you get" should be a thing.

Of course, the point was also raised that it may not and the intention may be that you don't get the second focus point at all, which would be even worse.

Quote:

I think the more impactful problem is that the martial/psychic build now has to wait until L6 to amp, which is a big change for low level campaigns. We actually have one of those (no not a IW magus), and he loves amping once per battle. Not sure what the GM plans but if he asks my advice, I'm going to suggest continuing to use the premaster rules since thats the way the PC was built.

Yeah my wife's character does the same thing with Amp Guidance. Given that we're deep into a high level AP, we may just keep the old version. That's what I've done in the past with sketchy remaster changes like this.

[WWHsmackdown]

The kit definitely seems more light for a d6 cloth caster than necessary. It's magic raging damage is only +1 per rank over what other classes can grab while also being limited to two turns and punished once completed. All that coupled with 2 slots feels like the class has a whole lot of give for not that much get.

The unleash change to duration spells is nice, but I was really expecting some sort of bump to unleash duration, or easing of unleash penalty, or bumping of spell slots, or bumping defenses, or more feat brush ups to aid accessibility and limit the friendly fire.

One or two of those changes would've been nice. Unfortunately, psychic came out the remaster process largely unscathed, just like inventor.

Like I said in the last thread, I'm mostly shrugging my shoulders and waiting for an interesting class archetype like wizards got with war mage. Until then, the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

[Squiggit]

In a vacuum the multiclass is really weird to look at.

Psychic Dedication is just worse than other spellcaster dedications, giving you one fewer cantrip and no other benefits.

Psi Development is on a slower track than other archetype focus feats, coming at 6 instead of 4.

Then finally Psi Development is written to bypass the normal focus point rules so you still only have one focus point after picking up the amp instead of 2 if you'd gone with another archetype + focus spell feat.

Ignoring the baggage, if this was the first time the Psychic was printed, does any of that really make sense?

[moosher12]

With some time to digest, I had earlier arrived at two potential fixes to Imaginary Weapon that I feel might bring the spell to a more pleasant state. But they were pretty spread apart, so I wanted to gather them in one small place.

Essentially, there are two strategies to buffing Imaginary Weapon I found. The first is keeping its niche as a high-risk, high-reward melee-only cantrip that deals large amounts of damage, and searching for a form of equilibrium with the original version when fighting a creature with a resistance. The second is changing its niche to support a melee-ranged mixed usage to make the subclass more versatile.

1. The Melee-only buff would work as follows. You would keep the base cantrip the same, but buff the amped version. The amped damage would be increased such that it gained 2d6 + 1 per additional rank instead of 2d6. (Optionally, the base damage might also be increased from 2d6 to 2d6 + 1.) What this does functionally, is close the gap between the original Imaginary Weapon, and the new Imaginary Weapon, such that even for the amped version, the difference in the average damage between both spells is much closer to the expected resistances you'd find in monsters of appropriate level. It makes the spell feel like a nerf against the average monster, but feel like a buff against a monster with resistance.

2. The ranged buff would work as follows. Because psychics are 6 HP casters, and would normally prefer to be in ranged anyway, expanding their base attack to work at range is an alternate approach to compensate the lower overall damage. This gives psychics a valid basic spell they can use in any game as a primary weapon (even Starfinder), with the drawback of not having as much damage or range as Oscilating Wave's Ignition or The Distant Grasp's Telekinetic Projectile, but having the ability to ignore many damage types as a tradeoff. In addition to the basic effects of both the base and amped versions, you'd add a d4 version of the spell with a 30-foot range. Damage-wise, it will remain behind amped Ignition and both basic and amped telekinetic projectile in damage and range. range wise, it remains behind both basic and amped ignition, and basic and amped telekinetic projectile. Among the different psychic offense cantrips, it can create a new lower damage, lower range, but higher versatility niche.

As a last point, they'd still do the push effect on a critical, though allowing the push to be optional might also be worth considering.

I honestly cannot say which would be the better, as it is frankly a matter of preference. But I do agree that many complaints about the spell were valid. So these were ways I found to potentially fix the spell, if not officially, then at least in home games. I hope these change suggestions are useful to you all.

[In_Cyan]

According to my limited experience of playing as a psychic, the class has two main problems:
1. Limited choices:
Unlike other casters with more spell slots, psychic only has 2 slots each spell level, which means the spell choice is highly limited, especially in lower level campaigns. This would lead to the second problem, that because of this limited casting ability, psychic actually relies on focus spells/cantrips to work properly.
2. No outstanding foucs cantrip ability:
To me, IW nerf is not that much of a problem since I didn't have many chances to use it because I prefer to stay at the backline of the team. However, the problem is that for every conscious mind, there are some cantrips or spells that are not quite usable. In this case, sometimes the optimal choice in a difficult battle becomes repeating the same one cantrip, which leads to a new problem, that psychic no longer outstands other focus spell casters in this case, and psychic would run out of focus points really quickly, even before the unleash psyche ends. I know there's a class feat that allows you to regain a focus point, but that is far less than enough, and that feat also makes Emotional Acceptance stand out from all the subconscious minds.

As a result, I think a rework on conscious minds adding more general solutions would allow players to customise their characters better, and adding more subconscious minds along with a rework on the current ones are also necessary.

[Teridax]

moosher12 wrote:

Essentially, there are two strategies to buffing Imaginary Weapon I found. The first is keeping its niche as a high-risk, high-reward melee-only cantrip that deals large amounts of damage, and searching for a form of equilibrium with the original version when fighting a creature with a resistance. The second is changing its niche to support a melee-ranged mixed usage to make the subclass more versatile.

I like this approach, and both proposals come across to me as ways to make imaginary weapon a bit better in a way that can be largely agreed upon. Personally, I like the idea of giving the cantrip range so that the Tangible Dream Psychic isn't forced to put themselves in major danger to use their only starting damaging psi cantrip, and while I'd be in favor of even larger buffs to both the base cantrip and its amp, even just a slight bump in damage or a range increase I think could go a long way towards improving IW from its current state.

[pauljathome]

Squiggit wrote:

Who cares if it doesn't effect fighters, rogues, or barbarians they aren't even taking psychic that often anyways.

I've seen a fair few martials take Unbound Step/Warp Step for the absurd mobility, especially at L7+.

[pauljathome]

Squiggit wrote:

In a vacuum the multiclass is really weird to look at.

Psychic Dedication is just worse than other spellcaster dedications, giving you one fewer cantrip and no other benefits.

You do still get the slightly stronger psychic version of the cantrip, right? While this isn't all that great it is something and may actually be worth while for some builds.

I think the psychic archetype has gone from really good for a lot of builds to moderately poor for most builds but still useful on some particular builds.

[ScooterScoots]

pauljathome wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Who cares if it doesn't effect fighters, rogues, or barbarians they aren't even taking psychic that often anyways.

I've seen a fair few martials take Unbound Step/Warp Step for the absurd mobility, especially at L7+.

Eh, overrated. Get some spring heels. Sure, they don’t teleport, but they also don’t take class feats or induce dedication lockout. 80/20 that s#+@.

[exequiel759]

I'm honestly curious of the psychic is going to become the new oracle / witch, in that its due to get a rework at some point in the future. Its probably a bit of recency bias, but I don't recall nearly as many people complaining about either the oracle or witch as much as the psychic, even before the new book.

Sadly the oracle and witch had the PC1 and PC2 books to realize those reworks, while the psychic seemingly isn't going to have a similar opportunity. Well, no at least until we enter the last years of this edition where books that "unchain" older classes can be a thing.

[Teridax]

Prior to the remaster, the Oracle and especially the Witch were heavily criticized for sure, and there were calls for reworks. I don't recall the Psychic getting that much criticism before Player Core 1 launched, as the class still had a niche back then, but once casters started getting better focus spells, better Refocusing, and better class features, that's when the class fell comparatively behind and people were expecting buffs to give them an edge once more.

At this point, though, the impression I'm getting is more that people seem to feel that the ship has sailed as far as Paizo's work is concerned. It's a similar perception I've seen for the Wizard, whose remaster ended up nerfing them, and for the Oracle, who despite all the power they received ended up becoming a much more generic class, and a very different beast from their premaster version. Prior to the remaster, I remember Witches+ being a popular third-party supplement, and when Team+ gets around to doing a Psychics+ supplement, I'm fairly certain there's going to be high demand for it as well. I'm personally in the process of drafting up some homebrew to improve the Psychic, and will be looking at other third-party work to see what might interest my Psychic players.

[YuriP]

There are two more points here that I don't know if people noticed regarding the nerfs to dedication and IW.

The dedication nerf is that, besides now only being able to choose a single cantrip, even though they are slightly better than their normal version, it's still one of two choices you can make from your chosen subclass.

While spontaneous spellcasting dedications like the sorcerer give the player a choice between two cantrips from the entire tradition cantrip list plus those from the bloodline, while the wizard gains four cantrips for the spellbook and chooses two to prepare from the tradition and can add new cantrips to the spellbook to expand their options throughout the game, and while druids and clerics can choose two common cantrips from their tradition's entire cantrip list every day, the psychic archetype can only choose from two Standard Psi Cantrips from their conscious mind!

It makes absolutely no sense; the designer responsible for the Psychic remaster completely lost his touch here. If he had to remove the focus point to balance the dedication, because it became a meta to get an extra focus point for many builds, he should at least have compensated by replacing it with both Standard Psi Cantrips, even if they are slightly better than their normal versions, since in the end this is easily compensated by the fact that his choice is ultimately limited to the only 2 cantrips available in the subclass.

It was an overkill nerf that immediately turned the dedication of his position from one of the best dedications in the game to the worst spellcaster dedication in the game!

The IW version, which went from 2d8 to 2d6 and changed the damage type from bludgeoning or slashing (which already offered some choice to avoid certain specific physical resistances) to force, while some in other threads argued that it somewhat compensated for the fact that force damage is one of the damage types with the fewest creatures resistant to it, ultimately has this advantage completely negated by the fact that changing from d8 to d6 reduces an average of 2 damage points in its AMP and 1 damage point in its cantrip damage per rank, but monsters with resistances to physical damage on average receive a resistance equal to or less than their level, meaning one cancels out the other! There's simply no advantage, just a nerf!

The psychic remaster surprised me very negatively because it managed to be even worse than the Wizard version. Since at the end of the day the Wizard still has good options, such as being able to cast up to 6 top-rank spells and 5 top-rank-1 spells per day. The Psychic was only made worse without gaining anything to compensate for the competitiveness lost by the remaster. And what's worse is that it doesn't even have the Wizard's excuse. The Wizard at least has the excuse that it was released in the first book of the remaster, under pressure from time and work, and that its nerf was largely due to the removal of the magic schools. The Psychic spell was nerfed largely simply because the designer decided it needed to be nerfed for reasons unknown, in addition to having an archetype that simply needed at most a small adjustment, completely destroyed. It's madness what was done here!

[The Raven Black]

Teridax wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

Essentially, there are two strategies to buffing Imaginary Weapon I found. The first is keeping its niche as a high-risk, high-reward melee-only cantrip that deals large amounts of damage, and searching for a form of equilibrium with the original version when fighting a creature with a resistance. The second is changing its niche to support a melee-ranged mixed usage to make the subclass more versatile.

I like this approach, and both proposals come across to me as ways to make imaginary weapon a bit better in a way that can be largely agreed upon. Personally, I like the idea of giving the cantrip range so that the Tangible Dream Psychic isn't forced to put themselves in major danger to use their only starting damaging psi cantrip, and while I'd be in favor of even larger buffs to both the base cantrip and its amp, even just a slight bump in damage or a range increase I think could go a long way towards improving IW from its current state.

Isn't Warp Space already giving the range increase ?

[The Raven Black]

YuriP wrote:

There are two more points here that I don't know if people noticed regarding the nerfs to dedication and IW.

The dedication nerf is that, besides now only being able to choose a single cantrip, even though they are slightly better than their normal version, it's still one of two choices you can make from your chosen subclass.

While spontaneous spellcasting dedications like the sorcerer give the player a choice between two cantrips from the entire tradition cantrip list plus those from the bloodline, while the wizard gains four cantrips for the spellbook and chooses two to prepare from the tradition and can add new cantrips to the spellbook to expand their options throughout the game, and while druids and clerics can choose two common cantrips from their tradition's entire cantrip list every day, the psychic archetype can only choose from two Standard Psi Cantrips from their conscious mind!

It makes absolutely no sense; the designer responsible for the Psychic remaster completely lost his touch here. If he had to remove the focus point to balance the dedication, because it became a meta to get an extra focus point for many builds, he should at least have compensated by replacing it with both Standard Psi Cantrips, even if they are slightly better than their normal versions, since in the end this is easily compensated by the fact that his choice is ultimately limited to the only 2 cantrips available in the subclass.

It was an overkill nerf that immediately turned the dedication of his position from one of the best dedications in the game to the worst spellcaster dedication in the game!

The IW version, which went from 2d8 to 2d6 and changed the damage type from bludgeoning or slashing (which already offered some choice to avoid certain specific physical resistances) to force, while some in other threads argued that it somewhat compensated for the fact that force damage is one of the damage types with the fewest creatures resistant to it, ultimately has this advantage completely negated by the fact...

Thank you very much for this well-thought post that helped me realize why my initial thought of Force means 1 die size smaller did not hold the water I thought it did and also about the few choices of psy cantrips.

It convinced me in a much better way than the pretty agressive reactions I got on that other thread and in the linked derails of yet other threads.

Having the feeling that people were just dismissing my points without even reading them and reacting to my posts as if I was some kind of enemy was definitely grating.

[Teridax]

The Raven Black wrote:

Isn't Warp Space already giving the range increase ?

Yes, if you take the feat at 2nd level, and spend a Focus Point to use it instead of your regular amp. I’d much rather prefer a buff to the base range so I don’t have to take my 6 HP/level cloth caster into melee to deal more than cantrip-grade damage with that Focus Point. This is generally also why I think amp feats fail to work as good substitutes to regular amps, as the end result tends to still just be a regular cantrip, sometimes with an okay rider on top.

[moosher12]

The Raven Black wrote:

Isn't Warp Space already giving the range increase ?

It's useful for the okay damage at range, but a focus point is a bit too expensive for a primary attack, especially when you're fighting any creature party level - 1 or below, which is to say, the grunts. So a lower damage, but at-will use is vastly more useful to me than moderate damage usable 2-3 times per 20-30 minutes. Because at this point, you're spending resources to cast a spell at range against creatures that do not warrant the expenditure.

If you only have Imaginary Weapon as an offensive cantrip, and you already used up both of your amps fighting at range (which is more likely than typical classes because Psychic only gives you 3 free cantrips to choose from), well now you have no choice but to throw yourself into melee if you wanna do it a third time. If the amp feat was unlimited use, I'd see it as answering the problem, but it isn't. And rightfully so, because it's a problem only for Imaginary Weapon, it also grants its buffs to Ignition and Telekinetic Hand, which are ranged cantrips that much better benefit from the weird angle. For those spells, it's a buff warranting a limited-use resource, but for Imaginary Weapon, it's less a buff, and more an expenditure to get basic functionality.

And frankly, a lot of the time consistent ranged chip damage is more useful to me than a limited use moderate damage. I'd like to at least fall back on chip damage when I run out of focus points against basic grunts I have no right risking melee with or wasting ranked spell slots on.

[Errenor]

Easl wrote:

Low-level Wizard probably won't archetype into it either any more, where before it was a good combo. Low-level Witch and Cleric may not care since they have easy access to FPs. Higher level campaigns may see no effect since you can plan out your PC in a way to maximize FPs before session 1 even starts.

No sense in taking Psyhic dedication for Multitalented humans either. Which will kind of break my PFS char.

pauljathome wrote:

I've seen a fair few martials take Unbound Step/Warp Step for the absurd mobility, especially at L7+.

Why martials though? People seem to be ok spending spell slots on teleports (and 4th+!, as for Translocate), but doing this up to 3 times per combat, for focus points? That (was) a fantastic deal. Exactly what I did for my PFS wizard.

__
Anyway, have read through all of this here and around, I think I'll make a homerule for my table: Psyhics will get 3 spell slots (and repertoire as normal for spontaneous casters). That should at least make them decent and playable on the level of (weak) witches.

[shroudb]

The Raven Black wrote:

Teridax wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

Essentially, there are two strategies to buffing Imaginary Weapon I found. The first is keeping its niche as a high-risk, high-reward melee-only cantrip that deals large amounts of damage, and searching for a form of equilibrium with the original version when fighting a creature with a resistance. The second is changing its niche to support a melee-ranged mixed usage to make the subclass more versatile.

I like this approach, and both proposals come across to me as ways to make imaginary weapon a bit better in a way that can be largely agreed upon. Personally, I like the idea of giving the cantrip range so that the Tangible Dream Psychic isn't forced to put themselves in major danger to use their only starting damaging psi cantrip, and while I'd be in favor of even larger buffs to both the base cantrip and its amp, even just a slight bump in damage or a range increase I think could go a long way towards improving IW from its current state.

Isn't Warp Space already giving the range increase ?

if you're using Warp space for the range, you are not hitting 2 targets, at that point why even waste a feat and not do a ranged psi cantrip instead? A TP as an example would do the same damage but with double the range and better rider effects that a "warp space IW".

[moosher12]

shroudb wrote:

if you're using Warp space for the range, you are not hitting 2 targets, at that point why even waste a feat and not do a ranged psi cantrip instead? A TP as an example would do the same damage but with double the range and better rider effects that a "warp space IW".

Yeah, this too. Allinall. Warp Space, while it's pretty useful for spells like Psychic's enhanced Ignition and telekinetic projectile, is not a very good improvement on Imaginary Weapon. It's too much cost for too little benefit.

[Lucas Yew]

Quote:

The wording on verbal and thought components was updated to the remaster: although the Psychic doesn't need to use incantations to cast their spells, this no longer necessarily allows them to cast spells through silence.

Wait a minute. I thought this was the very point of playing a Psychic above others in the first place, and it turned out even worse than the already nerfed (choose either Thought OR Emotion, instead of AND, compared to PF1) Premaster? Oh, meh...

[Ezekieru]

Lucas Yew wrote:

Quote:

The wording on verbal and thought components was updated to the remaster: although the Psychic doesn't need to use incantations to cast their spells, this no longer necessarily allows them to cast spells through silence.

Wait a minute. I thought this was the very point of playing a Psychic above others in the first place, and it turned out even worse than the already nerfed (choose either Thought OR Emotion, instead of AND, compared to PF1) Premaster? Oh, meh...

I don't agree with Teridax's assessment on this. Silence stops spellcasters from casting anything but Subtle spells because it's preventing the spellcaster from uttering incantations. If a Remastered Psychic doesn't need to utter incantations to cast any of their spells, they should be unaffected.

The thoughtforms still create auditory effects so you still have a shot of being spotted casting spells by enemy creatures. But that's not the same thing as uttering the incantations needed to cast spells.

Of course, Paizo could have spelled it out better by specifically calling out Silence for the Psychic, but unfortunately, they did not.

[Teridax]

Ezekieru wrote:

I don't agree with Teridax's assessment on this. Silence stops spellcasters from casting anything but Subtle spells because it's preventing the spellcaster from uttering incantations. If a Remastered Psychic doesn't need to utter incantations to cast any of their spells, they should be unaffected.

I think you could use this reasoning to rule that the Psychic gets to cast through silence, and that would be completely valid; my problem is that this ruling requires extrapolating from various bits of text instead of applying the rules directly to one another. Because silence only calls out subtle spells as the exception and the Psychic's spells aren't subtle, the text I think isn't explicit enough if its intent was to allow casting through silence.

[YuriP]

Lucas Yew wrote:

Quote:

The wording on verbal and thought components was updated to the remaster: although the Psychic doesn't need to use incantations to cast their spells, this no longer necessarily allows them to cast spells through silence.

Wait a minute. I thought this was the very point of playing a Psychic above others in the first place, and it turned out even worse than the already nerfed (choose either Thought OR Emotion, instead of AND, compared to PF1) Premaster? Oh, meh...

In practice, it's not like it really removed the ability of psychics to cast under silence or other situations where they can't use incantations to cast.

The general Casting Spells rule still says:

Casting Spells - Source Player Core pg. 299 2.0 wrote:

The casting of a spell can range from a simple word of magical might that creates a fleeting effect to a complex process taking hours to cast and producing a long-term impact. Casting a spell requires the caster to make gestures and utter incantations, so being unable to speak prevents spellcasting for most casters. If your character has a long term disability that prevents or complicates them from speaking (as described in GM Core), work with the GM to determine an analogous way they cast their spells, such as tapping in code on their staff or whistling.

So in general, I believe that most GMs will consider that things like Silence still won't affect the psychics. But I agree that the change can create some different interpretations in many games because it isn't something linked to a clear keyword like it was when the verbal component exists. Being honest, it would better if the designer simply had put the Subtle trait to all psychic spell. This also would help to justify a bit the fact of it having with way fewer slots than other casters.

[Kitusser]

rakem wrote:

One quick addition to the changes:

Unbound Step got a significant buff to Distortion Lens, making it a 5-foot burst instead of one 5-foot square, effectively quadrupling its AOE. This now allows the amped version to add 15 feet to allies' movement if they move through it at a diagonal.

It also lost the ability to sustain and move the effect. So a nerf and a buff. More of a buff though.

In addition, while not directly a Psychic buff, Phase Bolt did get it's range increased to 60ft. So that's nice.

[YuriP]

For those who still don't have access to the remastered version. The Demiplane Nexus just added the Remastered Psychic. So you can read it even if you still don't have the book.

[ottdmk]

I know it's really, really high level, but I look at the idea of having L18's Twin Psyche (which was originally a L20 Capstone) combined with L20's Autonomic Psychic Action (brand new perm quickened for Psyche Actions only Capstone.)

There are a number of fun Psyche Actions, so the notion of a 4 round Unleash Psyche combined with more room for Psyche Actions is cool. I mean, Emotional Surge is a thing; you're not always going to be in a Party with a Bless or Courageous Anthem going on.

[shroudb]

ottdmk wrote:

I know it's really, really high level, but I look at the idea of having L18's Twin Psyche (which was originally a L20 Capstone) combined with L20's Autonomic Psychic Action (brand new perm quickened for Psyche Actions only Capstone.)

There are a number of fun Psyche Actions, so the notion of a 4 round Unleash Psyche combined with more room for Psyche Actions is cool. I mean, Emotional Surge is a thing; you're not always going to be in a Party with a Bless or Courageous Anthem going on.

Psyche should have been Free actions 1/turn to begin with.

From my experience with Psychic, your Unleashed rounds are so full either way that you barely have time to even do 1 of them per battle either way.

Seems kinda wasted to have a whole type of special actions with subclass and feat support, and you can only do them after you hit level 20...

[25speedforseaweedleshy]

now player will take psychic for amp shield

as designer intended

new quicken at level 20 make sense

obviously most player will never get to experience that

[ottdmk]

It's all a matter of priorities. My Psychic player hasn't invested further in Psyche action Feats, but he's used Restore the Mind a lot. If he's not using that when Unleashed he's usually helping our Fighter out by casting Shield.