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The Thunderstrike change is annoying to a Magus. It's nice that all of a sudden its a good low level Wizard nuke, but it's a big loss to a Magus. The Timmy thing was to always have a max rank Shocking Grasp prepared so you could shoot for the moon once per day and maybe score that crit that levels an opponent. It's a fun turn and a quarter of your effective spell repertoire, so it's by no means busted. But Magi don't have a replacement for it at a lot of ranks. Secrets of Magic bizarrely provided very few attack roll spells, I think just Chromatic Ray and that thing is good damage, except for the times it decides to roll poison and just not work as a result. So its a nice option for Wizards et al and a loss for Magus. Bizarre, maybe they do a 2d12 melee attack roll spell with good scaling to replace it. Ultimately outside of PFS you can still use Shocking Grasp, otherwise its grabbing Psychic Dedication for Magus and spamming Amped Produce Flame while the goings good.
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Sep 21, 2023 22:44
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Chevy Slyme posted:The problem is that leveled spells (and focus spells) feel too weak relative to what non-casters are doing, as well as relative to cantrips. Yeah the details will shake out if it but conceptually makes sense to bring cantrips down a bit because they're literally all some of my spellcaster players want to do. Like it or not, some players are offended at the very concept of using a limited resource for any reason, and will always gravitate towards what is effective and renewable. It's not as bad as D&D5e where you could set your watch to spellcasters running around using Firebolt and Eldritch Blast until and unless something forced them to do literally anything else, but this is a good opportunity to really branch away from that.
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Sep 21, 2023 22:49
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mind the walrus posted:Yeah the details will shake out if it but conceptually makes sense to bring cantrips down a bit because they're literally all some of my spellcaster players want to do. Like it or not, some players are offended at the very concept of using a limited resource for any reason, and will always gravitate towards what is effective and renewable. That's because casters (the ones that don't have good focus spells anyway) don't really have the resources to do much other than spam cantrips at levels 1-5 for most turns. Worse cantrips mostly seems like a nerf to lower level casters, especially classes like the wizard and most sorcerers who don't really have alternatives. To me it seems like a bit of a baffling change since it's not like Electric arc spam was overpowered. At higher levels it doesn't really matter since spell slots are way better anyway. Andrast fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Sep 21, 2023 |
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Sep 21, 2023 22:58
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It does seem like a nerf, it's just a nerf I happen to agree with... but you make a good point out that yeah casters aren't going to feel like they have a lot of resources and most prepared materials I've seen (maps, encounters, etc.) seem to encourage spellcasters to think further outside the box in terms of utility/support -- doubly true for more casual players who will start at low level and likely only ever stay there for the 1-2 campaigns they play. The ideal solution there is to give low-level casters more obvious options to help out that also play into their gimmick -- more powerful buff/debuff cantrips, more design of obvious environmental elements they can use, and Recall Knowledge is clearly meant to be helpful for sussing out weaknesses at lower levels, more powerful 1st and 2nd Rank spells -- and hopefully those are available/intuitive enough for players to use.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:08
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Froghammer posted:Your other long-term option is to go with unarmed attacks, which would let you keep your shield. Lizardfolk get their choice of Razor Claws, Sharp Fangs, or Tail Whip. It's worth remembering that the shield is a weapon. Add shield spikes (1d6P) or shield boss (1d6B) for 5sp and you can still add weapon runes.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:09
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Jen X posted:I’m baffled by the idea of cantrips actually being too strong by comparison, but I’m just gonna trust their math I actually have felt like they were too strong, especially when I was swashbuckling. Electric Arc, mainly, but that's besides the point. I think it was at level 3 where our wizard used one and did 9 damage to two targets, while I was looking at 3d6+1 on a single target (with panache). Cyouni fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Sep 21, 2023 |
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Sep 21, 2023 23:21
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I will wager 5 InternetBux that Cantrips are being slightly suckified because they're functionally going Daily/Encounter/At-Will 4e style for Spellcasters. The Dailies will be the traditional spell slots, the Focus spells are the encounter ones, and the Cantrips are the At-Will. In this design model the At-Will stuff needs to be slightly worse because the expectation is that every caster has some cool stuff to do every combat encounter with their Focus spells. So, they stole from the Cantrips to boost 'em. Nobody wants their Dailies to get worse.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:21
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I will wager 5 InternetBux that Cantrips are being slightly suckified because they're functionally going Daily/Encounter/At-Will 4e style for Spellcasters. And there’s clear evidence of this, and it’s good… the problem is specifically the casters that aren’t getting a remaster. The Summoner is probably okay because of how their power budget is setup, and the psychic suddenly looks, well, paychic, with how amps play into the new model. But the Magus is going to be busted down by this pretty badly and unlike the other casters, isn’t getting a balance pass to adjust to the new world. They are going to live and die by how good the new spells are in their own right. Needle Darts is promising but insufficient, and if the leveled options are going to get strictly worse (for them, not for other casters, as has happened so far,), then it could be an issue in the making.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:29
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Completely agree but I thought all the classes are getting Remastered? I know they did say Magus is getting their spell school stuff yanked and replaced, so I imagine they'll also get a way to amp their Spellstrike a couple of times per encounter...maybe? It just seems really odd for them to say "well we changed cantrips to be worse...that means Maguses are functionally worse across the board. No notes!" but who knows?
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Sep 21, 2023 23:34
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"Our method of disincentivizing magi spamming spellstrike every round is to make spellstrike fuckin terrible. Big brain!"
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Sep 21, 2023 23:45
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Completely agree but I thought all the classes are getting Remastered? I know they did say Magus is getting their spell school stuff yanked and replaced, so I imagine they'll also get a way to amp their Spellstrike a couple of times per encounter...maybe? It just seems really odd for them to say "well we changed cantrips to be worse...that means Maguses are functionally worse across the board. No notes!" but who knows? But it's not getting a full reprinting, and there's different expectations for how much you can reasonably change in errata vs a proper rerelease. Still, as a current Magus player, I feel like their focus spells are... mostly good enough to fit the psuedo-AWED format Pathfinder will be using after the focus spell system reworks. It's still basically going to work and fulfill the class fantasies, albeit with worse numbers. The real problem is if they'll include enough attack-roll spells in the arcane spell list, since that's already more niche than you'd expect. (Honestly, Inventor's the class not being reprinted in the Player Cores that probably could use the most retouching, and that doesn't even involve spells.)
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Sep 21, 2023 23:45
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All of the classes from books other than the player's guide -- Gunslinger, Inventor, Psychic, Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, and Kineticist-- have NOT been listed for Player Core or Player Core 2 so it's reasonable to assume that Paizo had to put them on the backburner and will remaster them at a later date.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:47
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Like this is a valid issue but also like, loving chill.
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Sep 21, 2023 23:49
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Frankly I wish the focus spells were fully "per-encounter" abilities instead of the current system, where (without a feat) if you use more than one focus spell per encounter, you have one less per-encounter spell to use for the rest of the day. Though I can't remember if how they handle using multiple focus points was also part of the remaster.
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Sep 22, 2023 00:18
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mind the walrus posted:All of the classes from books other than the player's guide -- Gunslinger, Inventor, Psychic, Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, and Kineticist-- have NOT been listed for Player Core or Player Core 2 so it's reasonable to assume that Paizo had to put them on the backburner and will remaster them at a later date. Kineticist was built with the remaster in mind, so, doesn’t really enter this conversation. Gunslinger, Inventor, Thaumaturge, don’t really interact with any of the major systems changes being made, so, also not really a factor. That leaves Psychic, Summoner, and Magus, in need of some attention. Psychic feels like the changes to focus regen alone will put it in a great place. Summoner is also in a bit of a weird place, like Magus, but in general, they are less dependent on cantrip damage or on specific slotted spells, being much more content to work from the whole list in every list, so, again, less of a concern.
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Sep 22, 2023 00:28
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SithDrummer posted:Frankly I wish the focus spells were fully "per-encounter" abilities instead of the current system, where (without a feat) if you use more than one focus spell per encounter, you have one less per-encounter spell to use for the rest of the day. This is changing. You can fully recharge up to your focus point cap in 10 minute increments. So 30 minutes per fight and you have 3 focus spells again.
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Sep 22, 2023 00:29
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:One thing that's surprised me a bit about 2e, coming almost directly from 4e, is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of 1hp mook or cannon-fodder type model for enemies. There's the weak template, but still it seems like the Pathfinder Society adventures I've been playing/running tend to have only 2-3 enemies (against a 4-5 person group) all the time because of it. I don’t always follow along with the thread, but did you already know about Troops? https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=367 They are not the same, sadly, but they are there to try and fill the niche of slaying through a bunch of enemies. Unfortunately, they also add more work to the GM for how to represent them on a grid whether in person or online, and how to describe them losing numbers. But overall, I do like them for a similar reason to why I like Oozes; they just reposition into a spear or horseshoe formation, vroom into players, and then go wild with attacks.
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Sep 22, 2023 00:44
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:One thing that's surprised me a bit about 2e, coming almost directly from 4e, is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of 1hp mook or cannon-fodder type model for enemies. There's the weak template, but still it seems like the Pathfinder Society adventures I've been playing/running tend to have only 2-3 enemies (against a 4-5 person group) all the time because of it. Since this was brought back up, I may as well share my take. The way I see it, Pathfinder's classes just aren't structured in a way that makes 4e-style minions feel good. Minions work in 4e because there is so much incidental AoE that you can usually have something that can deal with them efficiently. Controller was one of the four main roles, and even if you had a nonstandard party that means a lot of classes had small controller-esque elements that would give them some way to deal with them. Pathfinder... really doesn't have that. Sure, if you have an arcane or primal caster you probably have one AoE cantrip or another, but it's not an assumed pillar of the game. And that means you need to spend an entire real attack to deal with a single one HP minion, and that's just frustrating.
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Sep 22, 2023 01:43
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Unless they do a big rework of spells to make them not mostly suck rear end then it’s just a very weird change
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Sep 22, 2023 04:18
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HidaO-Win posted:The Thunderstrike change is annoying to a Magus. Gouging Claw was SoM, wasn't it? It's the best damage cantrip (you know, for now, since that's changing)
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Sep 22, 2023 04:28
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The funny thing is that with cantrips removing stat mod from the damage there is not much of a reason for a Magus to invest into INT. I guess you could put points into cha and use distracting spellstrike way better than before
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Sep 22, 2023 05:50
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KPC_Mammon posted:Champion is better at this than Fighter because they have higher AC and the Fighter's bonus to weapon accuracy isn't relevant for a grappler. Self healing is also really nice for a tank. Redeemer Champion can grab onto an enemy to make sure they are within range of their extremely powerful reaction, which lets other melee engage the grappled enemy with impunity. Without grappling it is pretty easy for enemies to just move out of range of the Champion's reaction. it's absolutely relevant because snagging strike exists to work off of fighter's higher proficiency. fighter is the best at all the basic stuff because it gets the feats to do cool stuff with its basic maneuvers in-class, where other classes simply don't and have to archetype into wrestler or dual weapon warrior or mauler or w/e to leech off fighter feats, which might conflict with taking feat taxes for their class gimmicks. i'm of the opinion that fighter shouldn't exist, and all its feats should just be a big pool that all the martials can take. give casters something similar probably. this is probably the most evident with monk and ranger, classes that work better as vehicles for multiple archetypes (early flurry access and MAP reduction) than as anything you want to take the actual class feats of Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Sep 22, 2023 |
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Sep 22, 2023 05:55
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I wonder if you could get a satisfying minion feel by dropping defenses 5 or more points. PCs get to crit a bunch and see their cool effects happen, NPCs die faster but aren't completely trivial and can still hurt you if you leave them alive.
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Sep 22, 2023 06:18
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Mister Olympus posted:it's absolutely relevant because snagging strike exists to work off of fighter's higher proficiency. fighter is the best at all the basic stuff because it gets the feats to do cool stuff with its basic maneuvers in-class, where other classes simply don't and have to archetype into wrestler or dual weapon warrior or mauler or w/e to leech off fighter feats, which might conflict with taking feat taxes for their class gimmicks. Snagging Strike does nothing to stop enemy movement, Combat Grab is a press at a hefty MAP penalty, and after level 2 anyone can have athletics proficiency comparable to a fighter's martial proficiency. Have you even tried a champion tank that focuses on maneuvers? They bring something completely different to the table (actual tanking) that a fighter can't match. Your opinion seems to be based more on fighters being good at something else. Or maybe just not liking classes in general, since you apparently want to do away with most of them.
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Sep 22, 2023 06:32
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sorry, i meant combat grab. point being that anyone can focus on maneuvers, but fighters can focus on maneuvers and pick up a sideline--like archery, maybe--since a champion is handicapping themselves if they don't take the various improvements to their reaction. the fighter can then do both of those things at a generally higher success rate because of the flat bonus. this is okay balance wise because a champion's unique gimmick at least contributes effectively in terms of the numbers game, but something like ranger falls behind pretty hard. and i was under the impression part of the point of remastering classes was to bring the early classes up to the more interesting standards of the later classes. but i've observed that a lot of that can be accomplished just by deleting fighter, because fighter kind of hogs all the cool unique actions to itself in terms of the core classes. Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Sep 22, 2023 |
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Sep 22, 2023 06:39
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A fighter using Combat grab is significantly less accurate than someone just using trip/grapple normally without MAP. A champion investing into athletics is taking exactly 0 class feats from them.
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Sep 22, 2023 06:43
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why wouldn't you take wrestler for a grappling build, though? which feeds into my point, that a lot of archetypes exist to give other classes an amount of what fighter has universal access toAndrast posted:A fighter using Combat grab is significantly less accurate than someone just using trip/grapple normally without MAP. i'm also not really seeing where this is the case, especially since as you get higher in levels, fortitude tends to be the strongest average save among creatures. fort DC is frequently within 1 point of AC in either direction on a lot of statlines. and fort DC can't be decreased by flanking in the same way that AC can Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Sep 22, 2023 |
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Sep 22, 2023 06:45
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Mister Olympus posted:why wouldn't you take wrestler for a grappling build, though? which feeds into my point, that a lot of archetypes exist to give other classes an amount of what fighter has universal access to Because you don't need to 'build for' grapple aside from taking athletics and a couple of skills feats because it's an extremely strong option without any big investment. Against the monsters with high fort you use trip over grapple because targeting the lower save is obviously the thing to do.
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Sep 22, 2023 06:50
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If I understand it correctly, because so many archetypes of fighting styles are essentially archetypes of fighter traitlines, fighters must be strong since they get that stuff without having to archetype. The counter argument is that the other classes don’t necessarily have to archetype. A Champion can stride, grab, and raise a shield, while also then having its reaction class feats and features, for example. Yes, others can get Flurry of Blows at level 10 but Monk still has the best overall defenses built into their class chassis. The counter-counter argument is that Fighters get to do a bunch of combat maneuvers through their class feats, which allow them to get maneuver benefit + do an extra thing. And why wouldn’t you want to do an extra thing? That’s part of what makes the combat style archetypes appealing. You get to do the maneuvers and other stuff. But I would then say as a counter-counter-counter argument that the other classes are still getting to do their own cool thing, just more versatile from their class features and the class feats that they may still pick up over archetype feats at some levels. At that point it’s a point of preference. Did I do the argument thing right?
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Sep 22, 2023 12:05
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Andrast posted:Because you don't need to 'build for' grapple aside from taking athletics and a couple of skills feats because it's an extremely strong option without any big investment. Against the monsters with high fort you use trip over grapple because targeting the lower save is obviously the thing to do.
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Sep 22, 2023 12:31
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As a human Kineticist, what would be a good archetype to take with the level 9 heritage feat? I was thinking Wizard for access to spell scrolls without needing to take Trick Magic Item, but I wasn't sure if there was anything that might synergize better or just be more useful in general.
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Sep 22, 2023 12:37
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the_steve posted:As a human Kineticist, what would be a good archetype to take with the level 9 heritage feat? What’s your Kineticist element/how are you playing it? There’s a lot of options but Kineticist is a versatile class and the lane you’re in is going to define which of those make sense. For example, Bastion is great in combination with the metal/wood impulses that give you a free respawning and level scaled shield. But there’s a feat tax problem for it (needs a general) that Humans get to sidestep. Wizard for scroll access is… not great. Kinetic activation is a thing after all, and the best thing you can get from a caster archetype is usually focus spells since you don’t have any of your own and the wizards are… bad. If you’re doing a one and done archetype without putting more class feats into it, Acrobat for free scaling acrobatics is hard to go wrong with. Same for dandy for two free expert skills. The usual suspects like Beastmaster, Blessed One, Medic, and Sentinel can all be good as well.
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Sep 22, 2023 13:04
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The new acid splash, caustic blast, looks a lot better than the old cantrip and if this is what they are going to do with spells and cantrips I can see it working out ok. They just have to rework a bunch of spells. quote:Caustic Blast [two-actions] Cantrip The best change is that it targets reflex now and is no longer a spell attack which are pretty much agreed to be not that great for most spellcasters. My character before I got put on GM duty was an acid wizard and I rarely hit with acid splash. Changing the splash to a burst makes it a much better AOE, it could target 4 enemies if the positioning is correct. The change to having only one spellcasting modifier that is your best is a huge change, especially for free archetype games. It really just opens up the different spell lists for basically any spellcaster which is probably a pretty big overall increase in caster power. I don't know if I'm a huge fan of it because it seems to take away some of the uniqueness of the different classes and merges magic into a more unified thing. Edit: Would the magus be improved if they had a class ability to use spell attacks instead of saves like as a class feature? I haven't seen one in play and it does suck to make one class worse to make others better. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Sep 22, 2023 |
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Sep 22, 2023 13:22
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gurragadon posted:The change to having only one spellcasting modifier that is your best is a huge change, especially for free archetype games. It really just opens up the different spell lists for basically any spellcaster which is probably a pretty big overall increase in caster power. I don't know if I'm a huge fan of it because it seems to take away some of the uniqueness of the different classes and merges magic into a more unified thing. The change only means that your archetype slots are not forced to be dedicated to utility spells so you can get some fun combat spells out of it. You are still going to be have way less of them and they are going to be lower rank than your actual spellcasting. If a class is only defined by the spell list they use then the class design sucks imo.
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Sep 22, 2023 13:49
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Hasn't the core balance of cantrips been kind of dumb for a while now? One reason everyone always takes electric arks is specifically because it is so strong compared to some of the other choices. It'd be great if they did some kind of general errata on the numbers of most damage cantrips so that Daze isn't a complete waste of cantrip slot.
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Sep 22, 2023 13:54
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Andrast posted:The change only means that your archetype slots are not forced to be dedicated to utility spells so you can get some fun combat spells out of it. You are still going to be have way less of them and they are going to be lower rank than your actual spellcasting. Yeah, but some of those fun combat spells are particularly powerful. A divine cleric can cast fireball at level 8 with its divine spell DC at level 8. I don't think its a bad thing by any means, but I think you could string together some really strong combos now. I disagree with the second part if it's a spellcasting class, but that's just my opinion.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:00
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Chevy Slyme posted:What’s your Kineticist element/how are you playing it? Pure Earth style brawler/striker, and I didn't think Acrobat/Blessed One/etc were options since they didn't have the multiclass tag and the heritage feat specifies multiclass.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:06
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the_steve posted:Pure Earth style brawler/striker, and I didn't think Acrobat/Blessed One/etc were options since they didn't have the multiclass tag and the heritage feat specifies multiclass. You’re right. It does. In that case I would… probably take a different feat tbh. All of the human level 9 feats are very strong and getting a multiclass dedication that late is actually among the weakest options there. Group Aid or the improvisation feat both probably better choices. If you must, I’d probably go Champion for a reaction.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:10
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gurragadon posted:Yeah, but some of those fun combat spells are particularly powerful. A divine cleric can cast fireball at level 8 with its divine spell DC at level 8. I don't think its a bad thing by any means, but I think you could string together some really strong combos now. I don't think being able to cast a single 3rd level fireball when you are one level away from 5th level spells is particularly strong. It's fine but not really overpowered or anything, if anything this is will bring more variety to the archetypes since people are capable of using a much wider range of spells from their archetype slots. All the cool pf2 casters have way more poo poo going on than just their tradition. The biggest reason why wizard feels so dull is that they are kind of just the arcane list on legs without any real flair of their own. Clerical Terrors posted:Hasn't the core balance of cantrips been kind of dumb for a while now? One reason everyone always takes electric arks is specifically because it is so strong compared to some of the other choices. It'd be great if they did some kind of general errata on the numbers of most damage cantrips so that Daze isn't a complete waste of cantrip slot. In my opinions the game would be better if every cantrip was closer electric arc tier rather than electric arc being worse. Cantrips don't just compete with each other in a vacuum, they compete with stuff that other classes can do. This is mostly an issue at levels 1-5 where cantrip damage is a massive portion of your contribution to the party. Playing a low level wizard or something without the stronger cantrips just feels kind of bad.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:13
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Chevy Slyme posted:This is changing. You can fully recharge up to your focus point cap in 10 minute increments. So 30 minutes per fight and you have 3 focus spells again.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:15
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