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Yeah while I like the concept of the Guardian, there are a number of Defenders from 4e that i really enjoyed, but the way they designed it seems pretty bad to me with one exception in Hampering Sweeps. It could definitely be fixed but I feel like Taunt needs to be closer to at least one of the 4e Defenders marking options. Which would involve doing something like 4e Fighter that marks any enemy they attack for a round or Warden and some of the others who use an Action (or possibly Minor in 4e) to mark all enemies in an area. Then with something beyond just the mark's penalty to attack allies as enforcement, like a Fighter who can use a Reaction to attack a marked enemy who tries to attack an ally, or a Swordmage that can Reaction to teleport to intercept an attack either by reducing the damage or making an attack against the marked enemy who tries to attack their allies. There are a couple feats that feel like they should either be baked into the class or turned into Subclasses. The actual choices for what happens with Taunt seem really bad. One lets you do a small amount of extra damage to a Taunted enemy who takes a hostile action that doesn't include you as a target. The bonus damage seems awfully small, but more importantly this only lasts until the end of your turn so will basically never happen unless you Taunt an enemy and they somehow take a hostile action on your Turn after you Taunted them and then you manage to make a Strike against them all in that same Turn. Your Turn ends the damage bonus goes away, so if they provoke a Reactive Strike on their turn after making a hostile action that doesn't include you it is already too late, and of course once your next Turn starts they are no longer Taunted anyway. Just making it End of Next Turn helps that to at least be usable. The other option is a minimal, laughable even, amount of Resistance on a Critical hit from a Taunted enemy that decides to attack you. This only works on a Critical Hit, doesn't stack with any of your other Damage Resistance such as from the laughable Armor Specialization or from Intercept Strike, and while the resistance amount could be nice enough against regular attacks, maybe, it just isn't remotely enough to do anything to a Critical Hit. And I know some might disagree with my take on Armor Specialization but the amount of resistance it provides is fairly small and only effects one type of damage. It might be useful for some but again it doesn't stack with any of the other resistance that the Guardian can have, especially Intercept Strike. A lot of the class just feels like it is at odds with itself, a bunch of things that don't stack and step on each other's toes.
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May 1, 2024 05:25
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Andrast posted:Kinda just seems worse at doing that than a champion with the one exception of a level 2 feat (Hampering sweeps) Some people really don't want to play religious characters. Fair enough. Some players simply don't like the idea of an external power controlling your class features, like with a paladin, cleric, or witch. Is an Oracle better then a Cleric? Not really, you just get to be cleric-ish without the god. Sometimes the player wants to play a paladin, but not really a LG character. My paladin player combed through Nethys looking for obscure gods whose anathemas wouldn't be an inconvenience. He seems to think the Paladin's Oath and Tenets of Good are just fluff, if he noticed them at all while building his characters in pathbuilder. Whatever, I'm not gonna yuck his yum. I think there's plenty of room for another defender character type, and the new guy doesn't necessarily need to be better than the old guy to get some traction.
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May 1, 2024 05:29
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Thanks!
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May 1, 2024 05:34
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Facebook Aunt posted:Some people really don't want to play religious characters. Fair enough. Nobody is saying the guardian needs to be better than a champ. I want it to have a mechanical niche that isn't "worse champ without a god", all the god stuff could be excised from the champ incredibly easily and it would still be much better since it's mostly just flavor. On that note, Oracle should definitely also get a bunch of glowups in their remaster since the class in a similar zone as the pre-remaster witch where it's just kinda underbaked.
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May 1, 2024 06:09
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So my wife wants to get into pathfinder and wants to be a witch, I'm going to read all the remaster stuff for it but is there any traps she should avoid? She's going to do a mosquito witch. Reading the familiar stuff and Jesus there's a ton of familiar abilities
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May 1, 2024 07:45
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queeb posted:So my wife wants to get into pathfinder and wants to be a witch, I'm going to read all the remaster stuff for it but is there any traps she should avoid? She's going to do a mosquito witch. Make sure you have a +4 in your primary stat. 80% of the spells are a trap. Someone here can give you advice on spell selection if you'd like. edit: Mosquito Witch is pre-remaster, from when the witch was in a very bad place. Someone with more experience with witches might know how they are these days. The primal spell list is pretty great though. At rank 1 I'd recommend checking out Gust of Wind, Heal, Runic Weapon, and Fear. Grease can be good if you are in a dungeon. At later ranks I'd slam pick any and every wall spell. Wall of Water is so much better than it might initially look, especially if you have a fighter with reactive strikes or someone who can grapple. When I say 80% of the spells are a trap, what is a good rank 1 spell will dramatically change as you level up and gain access to higher rank spells. You'll need to change what you memorize as you level up. Runic Weapon is the best spell in the game at level 1, but you won't need to ever cast it after level 2 or 3. Damaging and healing spells need to be cast with your highest or second highest rank spell slots. Lower ranks should be converted to utility, debuffs, or reactions. You can find a lot of people complain about pf2e casters online, but I think a lot of that comes down to a combination of spell selection and not using a staff or buying scrolls. Martial characters spend money on weapons and armor, spellcasters spend it on bags of holding filled with scrolls. Try to memorize a variety of spells that require different saving throws. At level 1 having Gust of Wind, Fear, and Thunderstrike memorized would let you target any enemy's lowest save, which can be really important. Spellcasters that go all in on a single element or saving throw or just damage are almost always just bad. They are designed around being a versatile toolbox. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 08:16 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 07:49
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KPC_Mammon posted:edit: Mosquito Witch is pre-remaster, from when the witch was in a very bad place. Someone with more experience with witches might know how they are these days. Mosquite witches are fine but they need a patron familiar ability since they don't have it by default as it's a remaster feature. PFS gives Mosquito witches the resentment patron ability, which is very good, so if you follow that example it ends up in a great place. Andrast fucked around with this message at 10:05 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 09:54
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queeb posted:So my wife wants to get into pathfinder and wants to be a witch, I'm going to read all the remaster stuff for it but is there any traps she should avoid? She's going to do a mosquito witch. Don't take Improved Familiar unless your wife actually intends to take one of the specific familiars. In fact, don't invest Witch class feats into familiar unless she really wants it to be a central component of the character. You kinda need to commit to it to get the most out of a familiar. Avoid Witch's Armaments/Sympathetic strike. It might sound cool on paper but it's very hard to actually make work in practice and the rewards are underwhelming. As always: Counterspell sucks unless you really deeply invest into the related feats.
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May 1, 2024 12:51
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Thanks all!! Yeah I saw they gave the resentment witch familiar ability to mosquito witch, on top of mosquito witches really good Hex cantrip buzzing bites makes it seem really strong
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May 1, 2024 14:26
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oh also, is the battlezoo stuff good for pf2e? i see they have a bestiary and lots of cool looking stuff, plus a kickstarter finishing soon
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May 1, 2024 15:28
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queeb posted:oh also, is the battlezoo stuff good for pf2e? i see they have a bestiary and lots of cool looking stuff, plus a kickstarter finishing soon Battlezoo and Team+ stuff are the two most well regarded lines of third party PF2E content. Battlezoo stuff in particular is mostly written by Mark Seifter who is one of the PF2E original designers, so, from a balance standpoint and an “understanding the goals of the system” standpoint, it’s all pretty bang on.
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May 1, 2024 15:31
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Chevy Slyme posted:Battlezoo and Team+ stuff are the two most well regarded lines of third party PF2E content. hell yeah, the bestiary looks dope, ill probably give it a look over and grab it later
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May 1, 2024 15:40
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Yeah I love the BattleZoo stuff, it's really great.
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May 1, 2024 16:16
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Re: Playing a witch. Independent is a pretty great trait to take on your familiar. It helps a lot with the action economy and allows you to still reposition your familiar without needing to spend an action to give it two.
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May 1, 2024 16:38
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On the discussion of familiars, what is the best way to use one if you're not investing feats into upgrading them? I have a druid that went order explorer into leaf order, mainly to get the cornucopia spell, but it also grants a leshy familiar. If I only get two familiar abilities, I am not sure how useful something like independent/manual dexterity will be. Or I could go for cantrip connection/spell battery for just passive buffs, but then I'd have to make sure the familiar didn't get exploded in combat because it's just standing there, since I don't really want to invest actions into using/moving it. Absorb familiar and either cantrip connection or spell battery? I dunno. What's the strat?
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May 1, 2024 16:49
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the strat is to simply not use that familiar in combat at all use a familiar pocket or have it scramble away from any fight or just don't track it because it isn't a combatant
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May 1, 2024 16:53
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Tattoo Transformation is a good ability to put on a familiar if you're just looking to get an extra passive benefit of some kind and don't want to worry about tracking it.
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May 1, 2024 16:57
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atelier morgan posted:or just don't track it because it isn't a combatant Yeah, this is what I see a lot of DMs do. If your familiar isn't actively participating in a way where tracking it is a relevancy, then just handwave it. You have a pinecone sitting on top of your head. Like, as a witch, my familiar has an actual impact on game state, so he has to get tracked. A druid who just has spell battery and cantrip expansion does not derive any moment-to-moment impact from the familiar and tracking its state just doesn't make sense from a game flow sense, IMO.
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May 1, 2024 16:59
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queeb posted:oh also, is the battlezoo stuff good for pf2e? i see they have a bestiary and lots of cool looking stuff, plus a kickstarter finishing soon I'm in a Gatewalkers campaign right now where the GM let us all use the dragon PC heritage from their Dragons supplement, and it's been a good time so far. Nothing super game-breaking yet.
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May 1, 2024 17:13
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atelier morgan posted:the strat is to simply not use that familiar in combat at all Yeah. Witches are incentivized to use their familiars because whatever their pact is gives a different bonus to their familiar whenever they use their hex or a focus point ability. But if you have a familiar that doesn't really provide any function besides "be a meat shield" then yeah you're better off just getting a familiar pocket for it.
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May 1, 2024 17:16
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3 Action Economist posted:Yeah I love the BattleZoo stuff, it's really great. I'm incredibly impressed with the Elemental Avatar, which really is a "here's another way they could have done the Kineticist" class. Haven't gotten to play with it yet on account of not having a Foundry VTT module but the PDF had me smiling.
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May 1, 2024 17:35
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Dick Burglar posted:On the discussion of familiars, what is the best way to use one if you're not investing feats into upgrading them? I have a druid that went order explorer into leaf order, mainly to get the cornucopia spell, but it also grants a leshy familiar. If I only get two familiar abilities, I am not sure how useful something like independent/manual dexterity will be. Or I could go for cantrip connection/spell battery for just passive buffs, but then I'd have to make sure the familiar didn't get exploded in combat because it's just standing there, since I don't really want to invest actions into using/moving it. Absorb familiar and either cantrip connection or spell battery? I dunno. What's the strat? Absorb Familiar and Spell Battery/cantrip connection if you don't wanna have to think about it. Familiar Focus and Restorative Familiar are also pretty good but require the familiar to be present. Also familiars are by definition tiny and light so there's really no reason not to let them move along with their masters by riding on their shoulders or whatever. Both GMs of my two groups tend to handwave things like familiars having to do saving throws if someone just gets a two-ability familiar that does nothing but grant spell slots or the occasional focus point. It's less overhead this way, and there's really nothing you can do with familiars you don't invest in that skews the balance of the game too much. Clerical Terrors fucked around with this message at 18:00 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 17:53
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Dick Burglar posted:On the discussion of familiars, what is the best way to use one if you're not investing feats into upgrading them? I have a druid that went order explorer into leaf order, mainly to get the cornucopia spell, but it also grants a leshy familiar. If I only get two familiar abilities, I am not sure how useful something like independent/manual dexterity will be. Or I could go for cantrip connection/spell battery for just passive buffs, but then I'd have to make sure the familiar didn't get exploded in combat because it's just standing there, since I don't really want to invest actions into using/moving it. Absorb familiar and either cantrip connection or spell battery? I dunno. What's the strat? as a gm i ask my players whether they plan on using their familiar in combat or not. if they do, we keep track of it and then they gotta make saves etc. if they don't, we just ignore it because it's not worth keeping track of with all the other moving parts of combat going on. it's a player/gm conversation more than a mechanical thing in my experience
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May 1, 2024 17:59
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In 5e Phandelver I've got an owl familiar that does flybys to give advantage, but our DM shortcuts it since we have so many players and I will often intentionally move it to a side hallway away from the combat or just outside a dungeon to "watch our backs" so we don't have to worry about it for a busy fight. The advantage has helped us maybe 3 or 4 times. It got eaten by a dragon that snuck up on it once when it flew up over the trees to see what the roaring we kept hearing was, and it died three times to area of effect attacks. It's been fun roleplaying with it too but after seeing my experience our warlock chose not to go chain pact route despite wanting an imp familiar. When we started our Abom Vaults run in this game I considered one for my thaum but decided against it. I think that's been a good choice with the cramped rooms and halls.
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May 1, 2024 20:12
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Dick Burglar posted:On the discussion of familiars, what is the best way to use one if you're not investing feats into upgrading them? I have a druid that went order explorer into leaf order, mainly to get the cornucopia spell, but it also grants a leshy familiar. If I only get two familiar abilities, I am not sure how useful something like independent/manual dexterity will be. Or I could go for cantrip connection/spell battery for just passive buffs, but then I'd have to make sure the familiar didn't get exploded in combat because it's just standing there, since I don't really want to invest actions into using/moving it. Absorb familiar and either cantrip connection or spell battery? I dunno. What's the strat? As you can see above, experienced GMs know and anticipate this, and how to work with it.
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May 1, 2024 21:41
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ZZT the Fifth posted:I had a realization about Taunt. You're not supposed to taunt everything - mostly the little guys who peel away from you to go after your back line. For the big guys, you're supposed to move in to engage them and keep them stuck to you with stuff like Hampering Sweeps and Athletics moves (which Guardian already starts trained in and emphasizes Strength for). Late but yeah this is what white room math people are not getting about the Guardian. Even when you do taunt you're not going to be getting crit more than your average martial since you should have a shield plus heavy armor, the -2 should just bring you back to normal martial levels. Guardian is supposed to help control the spread of damage in addition to being able to survive the hits that it does absorb with diehard and it's resistance abilities. On first read I like a lot of the guardian feats and think I would have a tough time choosing each level. On the contrary I think the commander chassis is cool but I wasn't excited about a lot of the feats.
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May 1, 2024 22:55
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i get the idea that the penalty without the bonus doesn't actually incentivize the enemy to attack the guardian, since all that would do is make them an equal probability. it is, however, still overall weaker than champion reactions, since those produce either a strike on your part (rather than +2 damage) or an entire-fight debuff, plus a bunch of other riders that accrue over levels automatically, rather than having to be taken as feats like guardian does. it's symptomatic of a recurring problem in PF2, where the most simple and effective ways to fulfill certain roles got done in the corebook, so paizo feels the need to tack on arbitrary number or action taxes to be overcome for different classes in the same roles
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May 1, 2024 23:22
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I prefer to think of them as arbitrary roleplay opportunities
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May 1, 2024 23:38
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Oh right, this got a remaster. Did any of the classes get a major glow-up? I heard witch is pretty good now.
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May 1, 2024 23:50
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Whirling posted:Oh right, this got a remaster. Did any of the classes get a major glow-up? I heard witch is pretty good now. Yeah, the witch feels great now IMO, and I think the general consensus is that the Warpriest (one of the Cleric subclasses) is pretty good now too. The biggest loser in the remaster was probably the Wizard, who got a lot more restricted in their base spell selection (though they can still learn new spells pretty easily). Half the classes / ancestries are still awaiting the remaster treatment in Player Core 2, which is slated for August.
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May 1, 2024 23:58
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Harold Fjord posted:I prefer to think of them as arbitrary roleplay opportunities In all seriousness though I do get what people are complaining about and it is a valid frustration. A lot of tables really want that optimization feel, ideally harmonized with RP mechanics, but all that being said I do think there's a limit where you have to go "well maybe I'll have to roll with some conceit and accept that this is not -- strictly speaking -- the very best or easiest it could be, for the sake of the RP."
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May 2, 2024 00:13
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Hmm. We're comparing the remaster Guardian to pre-remaster Champion. Maybe the Champion is getting "worse" so the Guardian is stronger than it looks. 
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May 2, 2024 00:24
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Mister Olympus posted:i get the idea that the penalty without the bonus doesn't actually incentivize the enemy to attack the guardian, since all that would do is make them an equal probability. it is, however, still overall weaker than champion reactions, since those produce either a strike on your part (rather than +2 damage) or an entire-fight debuff, plus a bunch of other riders that accrue over levels automatically, rather than having to be taken as feats like guardian does. I do hope that some of the no-brainer feats get turned into class features when the class gets released in full.
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May 2, 2024 00:25
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VikingofRock posted:Yeah, the witch feels great now IMO, and I think the general consensus is that the Warpriest (one of the Cleric subclasses) is pretty good now too. The biggest loser in the remaster was probably the Wizard, who got a lot more restricted in their base spell selection (though they can still learn new spells pretty easily). Wizard didn't really lose that much since the school stuff is pretty minor but they certainly didn't really gain anything either. It's a shame since they really could have used more interesting class features and feats, which they desperately lack. The remastered witch is indeed great, warpriest did get a lot better (as did all clerics), Warrior bards are better, druids got a number of cool feats (like Snowdrift spell and Grown of Oak).
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May 2, 2024 03:55
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poo poo i just saw that wizards of the coast was killing individual purchases on dnd beyond, i feel so spoiled just getting everything for free on AoN
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May 2, 2024 04:16
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queeb posted:poo poo i just saw that wizards of the coast was killing individual purchases on dnd beyond, i feel so spoiled just getting everything for free on AoN In still very confused at what the point of dnd beyond and that Pathfinder nexus are even for. They seem like bad vtts that don't do anything you'd want a vtt to do?
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May 2, 2024 04:53
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I think the primary point is that they're automated character sheets. When I GM'd a 5E campaign for friends, the majority of players were new to roleplaying systems, so it was great for them to have a sheet where they could click on abilities and spells to see what they do. Helped me as well since I could just have their sheets open in a tab and check their spells and abilities and stuff, since there's no free access to rules like Archive of Nethys. And I guess people are easily wowed by the pretty sheets and custom 3D dice.  Nexus, I don't know, it feels like it's made for people who use Beyond and just want a pretty interface or something. I've found the website to be terribly slow. On top of that, Archive of Nethys + Pathbuilder are so much faster and easier to use as both a player and a GM.
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May 2, 2024 09:18
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Nexus would probably be fine if you were just now starting to buy books, but gently caress spending thousands of more dollars on things I already own to make a pretty character sheet.
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May 2, 2024 11:33
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I recently had my players fight an Ochre Jelly, which notably has the ability to split and double itself any time it takes certain types of damage. To my incredible joy, the fight started with one player stabbing it with a rapier to cause it to split, followed by another using electric arc to produce 4 Oozes. They scrambled like panicked cats to evacuate the room that was now full of oozes and started hurling beads from the necklace of fireballs they just found through the doorway. Even though it was a Low difficulty encounter I think it turned out pretty memorable because of its completely unexpected ability that quickly turned the situation upside-down. Can anyone think of any other monsters in the level 3-7ish range that also have interesting abilities with a high propensity to create novel situations for players?
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May 3, 2024 02:58
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Scoss posted:I recently had my players fight an Ochre Jelly, which notably has the ability to split and double itself any time it takes certain types of damage. To my incredible joy, the fight started with one player stabbing it with a rapier to cause it to split, followed by another using electric arc to produce 4 Oozes. They scrambled like panicked cats to evacuate the room that was now full of oozes and started hurling beads from the necklace of fireballs they just found through the doorway. Even though it was a Low difficulty encounter I think it turned out pretty memorable because of its completely unexpected ability that quickly turned the situation upside-down. Mobs of Caligni are fun, legacy Golems are fantastic, Gibbering Mouthers and Pukwudgies are a classic be-careful-in-melee encounters. There was also this rear end in a top hat fish that had a ranged spit thing and i forget the name, that lil guy was fun. Hound of Tindalos has a weird vulnerability that is fun.
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May 3, 2024 04:04
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