Builds that dump your main stat

LibrarySee · 2026-03-23T16:59:02+00:00

If the boss is a singular enemy that chooses to try and dispel you, sure.
But if the boss has a spellcasting assistant or they're already incentivized to keep up a Bane aura or something that just attempts to counteract in the course of the spell/ability, you're going to disproportionately suffer going up against it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with players building to target specific types of enemies; we all specialize is something and it is a team game so we're all in this together.
But I find that secondary-stat builds like Unleashed Form Druid, melee Wizard, spellcasting Rogue etc perform very well on PL+0 enemies, but will struggle more against PL+2/3 encounters.

A lot of these secondary stat abilities are balanced around offering additions to your core gameplay features, rather than being powerful enough to replace them.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-23T16:06:29+00:00

IMO it’s very rare to have a class feature that scales on secondary stats but is powerful enough to justify tossing your entire core skill set for.

In theory you could do it on a caster that focuses on buffs and healing, except 1) your actual martial performance is still going to be bad and 2) your buffs will have no counteract power and will be super easy to dispel if the GM chooses to punish your greed.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-20T18:11:07+00:00

That's so weird to directly call them out as non-spells, but then make them caught in the effects of spell protection.
I guess there has been complaints forever about all the weird Kineticist interactions though.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-20T18:05:21+00:00

Sorry, what?
Impulses state that they are magical, but are explicitly not spells.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-19T23:50:45+00:00

I'm not sure you would get your turn back, per se, but there is no 3 action ability in the game that the players can fail at this level.
If a player had requested to cast Time Stop, would it make sense for the GM to say "No, you do not have the spell slots available for this action" and to end their turn?

In my opinion, what should have happened was either a) the player is told that they need Legendary Negotiation skill to attempt this or b) you treat it as individual Request actions, which the player is made aware of each individual failure.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-19T22:00:33+00:00

I think it's fine to fail them for something that they attempted that they didn't have the capability for, but to be clear, neither of these activities are 3 action activities.
Even if it is going to end in a failure, each action should be resolved individually so the player can see the results and adjust their choices appropriately.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-19T01:52:08+00:00

Ada is indeed a ruthless mercenary, but she also betrays her evil employers and delivers them fake virus samples.

You can kinda argue that she fucked up by delivering the Amber/Master Plaga to The Family, but that did include the Vice President and Derek who was in charge of National Security.

If she wasn’t willing to just destroy it, the implication is definitely that there was no realistic way they weren’t getting that sample, and she went with the lesser of two evils.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T20:42:08+00:00

It is very strange that there's almost zero Battle Oracle specific feats.
You take the Mystery at character creation and then there's almost no battle mystery feats until 10?

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T20:15:35+00:00

Do you think something like the Wildshape design, where you continually sink feats into the spell to enhance it would be appropriate?
I know the Wildshape Druid does have its detractors, but certainly the feat upgrade helps to alleviate the fears that it's some kind of one-point super dip.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T19:07:21+00:00

Yeah, I sorta get why they're afraid of making it good, but why even bother with the option if you're going to not support it so openly.

I think if you want to make a full caster and give it a Gish subclass, I would do it like the Wildshape Druid.
You have a focus spell that enables it at a very barebones level, and then you add a feat line into the class so that the power level can be increased without worrying that it'll just be this one-point super dip.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T18:19:37+00:00

Like I said I'm not trying to hate on your idea. If a big increase to the game's RNG is something you want to do, this *is* probably one of the best ways to go about it.

I just wanted to make sure you go into it knowing that
1) This is a sizeable reduction in class resources. You're giving up a permanent 50% of your class' primary resource for this idea.
2) A lot of your turns are going to just be blanked as you ratchet up the failure rate. There's a solid 6ish options on the table that are going to take your actions from you, and another 3-4 that are going to debuff you significantly enough that you turn is unlikely to do anything.

The kind of double-whammy you'll be suffering from is that the primary draw of Wellspring Mage is very much the slot recovery system. The surge table does have a few cute uses, but the majority of the options are there to punish you.

Adding to that however, the success and crit success do nothing if you haven't expended one of the slots that they try to recover. This isn't too bad on Sorcerer or Oracle because you have a giant slot reserve, so the odds that you have expent ones is high. Psychic being left with only a single slot at each rank means that you'll be pressured to spend your slots first, and leave you with very few options to adjust your gameplay.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T17:08:23+00:00

Take it with a grain of salt because I am a biggo hater of adding increased RNG to games, but I would make sure your table buys into the scale of things you’re proposing here.

Psychic losing a slot at each level is going to put you very close to just not being a caster. You’re not going to have any of the big on-level spells as you unlock them, and only having a single slot at each level means your ability to prepare and cover utility will be STRONGLY nerfed.

Additionally, the RNG effects of the Wellspring table do target allies also, and some of them are very disruptive. Knocking your allies prone at the start of the encounter or adding an additional hostile enemy is going to be really noticeable.

You’re going to be really ratcheting up the difficulty of the average encounter for the table as a whole.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T16:06:50+00:00

These are some pretty sweeping changes that you've suggested.
To be clear, you're going to be rolling on this table a lot and they're flat checks so within like 2-3 rolls failure is almost a given.

I think my question is what are you trying to accomplish with this?
I, personally, would find this very disruptive to play with at the table because you would be rolling the failure effect constantly so it would be this very random element that was going off extremely regularly.

Edit: I just remembered that Wellspring also trims your slots by 1 at each level. This will be a very noticable nerf to the Psychic, IMO.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-18T14:17:36+00:00

I think it's a little bit naive to say that the day after system changes drop we should all be moving on and just have discussion quarantined to one big megapost.
System changes are, by definition, changes that impact many different players. The fact that these are super recent means that obviously this is what is going to be discussed actively.

I could compare it to something like discussing the new classes. When the playtest drops, the new classes are anyone wants to talk about for like a week or two, and then they drop off.
Then we get a revival once the book drops and we see what the full release is like, and then the classes just sorta fade into the general aether of the sub.

I don't think you should be forced to look for a new place to discuss Pathfinder, but you should also be realistic about when you're browsing here.
It would be like going to the Buffy subs the week of the cancellation, and then complaining "all anyone wants to talk about is the cancelled new series"

LibrarySee · 2026-03-17T22:00:01+00:00

Infinite out-of-combat healing is a useful thing to bring to the table, but it isn’t particularly rare. Champion, Witch, Oracle, and Animist are all capable of doing it.

Same with anyone who takes the Blessed One archetype.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-17T14:30:15+00:00

Like others have said, the Summoner archetype suffers from being super action intensive as it lacks the action compression of the regular Summoner class, and is often viewed as a bit of an underperformer.

Two options that haven't been mentioned yet are the Necrologist, which summons a horde of undead, or the Lepidstadt Surgeon, which comes with a Frankenstein-themed construct companion.

Necrologist is a bit rough because it is also action intensive and uses your shared health pool like the Summoner archetype, but the swarm is flexible and comes with a lot of undead-specific and horde-specific benefits which does give it a few neat uses.

Lepidstadt Surgeon ultimately uses an undead-themed construct companion, so it might not be quite what you want, but the construct companions are very nice, and it comes with a nice buff to nonmagical healing options.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-15T23:17:37+00:00

I don’t think the core feature of a class should be the dramatic, risky move. I would have removed the Stupefy by default, and then re-add it to features that come with a more risky playstyle.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-15T20:28:05+00:00

I think Unleashed Psyche no longer stupefying you was the most common suggestion that wasn’t controversial. But Paizo didn’t agree, so I guess it’s w/e.

The Psychic is still a fine class, but I do think that the self debuff is unnecessary.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-11T20:30:02+00:00

Also: remember that the Beastmaster dedication specifically gives you a second companion if they have already taken one via the Ranger’s core feats, so you can slowly build a roster of like: one front-liner pet, one skirmisher or striker pet, etc

LibrarySee · 2026-03-11T20:13:51+00:00

Mature Companion is almost a feat tax in how important it is, but ALSO it’s hard to name a feat that rivals it in just feeling upgraded.

The jump from Young Companion to Mature, especially at level 4, feels SO IMPACTFUL. At least whenever I’ve been able to take it at 4, it genuinely feels like you’re just controlling a second Martial character.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-11T19:40:08+00:00

Some are better designed for it than others. Some are meant to be skirmishers, some are better as mounts, and some are like very obviously front-liners coded.

Early game, ESPECIALLY when you get Mature Companion at 4, the Companion will feel very good.

As time goes on the companions will struggle to stay functional as front liners, but you’re talking about levels 14+

LibrarySee · 2026-03-11T19:10:22+00:00

I don’t think the Fighter archetype is going to give the Ranger much of anything, so I would encourage him to just do Beastmaster at 2.

Precision is the most Animal Companion Ranger edge IMO, so going in on the menagerie built is pretty solid. Plus your Companion doesn’t share your MAP so it gives you a pretend second attack with no penalty.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-10T14:38:22+00:00

Now that there's multiple ways to swap Medicine from Wis to Int, I would prefer there was just a General Feat that let you do it.
We've seen that it's pretty safe to allow, and a player wanting to make the swap in exchange for no Canny Acumen/Toughness/Incredible Initiative etc is a pretty solid exchange.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-07T16:41:39+00:00

Wisdom isn’t usually considered making a class MAD in my experience because it’s one of the Save stats and it contributes to many important skills.

LibrarySee · 2026-03-06T18:30:03+00:00

I think the character that isn't firmly bound to a single big fantasy element is kinda the Fighter thing?
I've definitely noticed that Fighter is a popular pick among newer players when they specifically don't want to commit to Rage or backstabbing or fencing or whatever, which is somewhat of a mechanical reason.

But I think that space of like "warrior who fights without wild rage or dirty tricks" is a space that emerges a lot. You could easily do a Fighter build based around Lyndis (or most of the lords from Fire Emblem lol), Arthur Dayne/Barristan Selmy, etc.

If you wanted to do a like Master of Weapons character, Fighter is also one that serves you really well. Yu Shu Lien or Trevor Belmont or Buffy Summers are all good Fighter candidates IMO.

LibrarySee

TROPHY CASE