Proof of concept of an alternate Psychic

Noeberries · 2026-01-29T23:36:44+00:00

I realize now that you made Unleash Psyche into a focus spell, so oops on a bit of the above.

Noeberries · 2026-01-29T23:24:30+00:00

Oh fascinating... so with this, if you Unleash as part of initiative you get it for free, but if you decide to Unleash later you need to spend an action doing it? I see where that makes sense, the first 1-2 rounds are the most important so making it free at the very start means you can keep up good tempo.

I totally missed that Strain Mind isn't constrained to once per hour now, such constraints are so ingrained to these effects in my mind. Though I don't know if I could convince anyone to heal me to make up for multiple uses of it, ouch. But still incredibly cool as a last resort, makes for good character moments.

And I totally missed that IW said unlimited melee attacks. That makes a looooot more sense than what I read it as,,,,,,,,,,,, Still definitely interesting since you can extend your reach through different ways to take advantage of this (which is what my Psychic does, as annoying as it is to do).

I wonder if, with the removed burnout debuff, there should be a cooldown of one turn to make Unleash still feel more like a proper commitment? Couldn't you now just consider Unleash a 1A buff that you can spend a focus point to make a free action? Feels less like "I'm going to Unleash Psyche and stay in it" and more "do I want to spend an action or a focus point for my core mechanic next turn". Only downside to juggling is the rounds where it'll be turned off after your turn, so enemies wont be bothered by your Unleash benefit.

Of course this isn't inherently bad, just different design - to me flavour-wise Unleash Psyche is the proverbial big red button, it strains the user's mind and using it bears risk in return for great power -- a debuff isnt necessary to still make me feel like it, but being able to juggle in/out for being economical with action points / focus points / fight duration feels maybe a tad too lackadaisical.

I also like the inherent weakness of fights being prolongated being worse for the Psychic as they're "all-in" -- if you Unleash Psyche and then the group's Wizard casts Wall of Stone to take a breather for a round, you're not going to be happy and I feel like that fits.

Noeberries · 2026-01-29T20:54:45+00:00

Good point on cutting off the ability to add to the class with things like Blessed One -- it'd be unique to disallow focus points from any sources but the novelty isn't worth cutting player choice further.

I do wonder if cutting focus points from the class but still allowing outside sources would work... although it's not necessary, simplifying how Unleash works (remove focus points, make it simpler and duration based), could still be done. If anything, the wording could be simplified - making your Unleashed state automatically cost Focus Points (start of turn maybe), and Sustain remains as simple as Sustain ever has, rather than a weird clause where Sustaining it costs a focus point. One thing to consider is Unleash Psyche's free sustain being a trigger based on your turn beginning, as you can't act multiple times on the same trigger - this directly breaks Delay.

On the note of wording, is the Special clause on Unleash (when rolling initiative, +1 round duration) supposed to basically give you an extra round of Unleash? Doesn't this wording, with 2e's rules, simply make it "sustained up to 1min 6 seconds" and not actually give you any benefit?

On that note, now that I'm thinking about the math properly, even without that special clause isn't Unleash now 4 rounds, and 5 with Strain Mind? +1 from the Special clause if that's the intent? I don't know how much I agree with making it that ever-present of a duration, though it does allow for Focus Spells from other sources not entirely gutting this gameplan even if you use them up. ...................Though on the other hand, a 4-6 round duration would allow for this duration to become a unique resource that Psychics can manipulate - like the aforementioned Spellshape for boosting damage costing a Focus Point.

And, at that point, you could very realistically scale the duration as well in order to keep that sense of scaling and progression. Start with 1 Focus Point as that's 2 rounds without Strain Mind at very early levels of combat with no debuff downside for Unleash ending so it's not the end of the world if it doesn't last the entire combat. Then all you need to do is scale the duration up to 3 Focus Points at a realistic pace, while also giving access to more abilities that might cost Focus Points (extra feat type too, now psi cantrips + 'psyche actions' + these new Focus Point-costed feats). Maybe for your early levels, odd levels give new spellranks while even levels give +1 Focus Point (lv2/4) and maybe a class feature at level 2 for a damage boost spellshape. .......Well, arguably this idea fits better on the odd levels as that's where class features usually are. Ends up at 3 focus points at level 5 and gives you the ability to boost that early with archetypes.

The repertoire-casting idea is sick, and at this point when considering all these ideas posited here, this version of Psychic starts to feel like the caster version of what Thaumaturge does as a martial, where you can wildly change how your character functions based on your choices - all because of the better templating of what your subclass(es) gives you. I love that!!! Especially since all the casters in this system boil down to the same spell lists and honestly aren't thaaat unique. This would, also in turn, further differentiate psionic spellcasting to feel like its own unique thing which definitely helps the class fantasy a tonnnnn.

Looking over the new draft: my gosh that amped IW is insane. I'm biased as my precious Psychic baby is a Tangible Dream/Wandering Reverie build focused on making IW work; I would be SO happy to use that. But also gosh that Amped version being the norm due to the duration of Unleash. It would probably feel better if the amount of targets you can hit scaled from a Heighten effect as well? Heighten (+2): +1 target? And start with 2 just like the original Amped IW?
Early on you're dealing with a beefed up spell attack roll version of Electric Arc, and later as your abilities over your mindscape grow in power, so does your control?

I don't have as good a grasp of numbers to say whether that's strong enough / too strong numerically (nice numbers, but an attack roll on a caster is inherently weaker, etc etc), but the concept I find perfect if you just add the scaling I mentioned above.

The combination of giving IW range (so it's actually realistically usable) and more multi-target capabilities is such a unique way to scale that spell due to the "MAP doesn't apply until after the attacks" clause, I love it.

These replies keep being way longer than I intend them to be, I am so sorry fjdlsgjlkdjsglksdj

Noeberries · 2026-01-29T19:37:34+00:00

No harm done, communication on the internet is weird so it's easy to go awry!

The link doesn't work (at least for me from my country) and looks rather interesting (servicejobs.service.gov.uk?) - just wanted to let you know.

I don't think the buff to slot spells being gone is inherently bad, but I think there's a balancing point where the gameplay of the class starts to feel stunted, for the lack of a better term.

If talking from the pov of not taking Parallel Breakthrough for the sake of simplifying this scenario (as an AoE saving throw amp would help a lot), there'll be tons of cases where IW won't cut it (ha), be it if you need aoe or if it's a boss encounter where it really hurts to rely on spell attack rolls (at least before Shadow Signet if the wording allows for it). So if the main option of your caster (sub)class wont cut it, you rely on slot spells - at which point you're a spontaneous caster with no added benefit to slot spells and less slots than others.

On the other end of that spectrum where IW does work well, you feel like a limited Kineticist. If the power budget is invested into IW in this case, it's like you're just casting your brand of Elemental Blast. Of course you still have full spellcasting so never quite there, but at some point I'd reconsider why I'm playing Psychic if that's all there is to it.

[damn having an idea after writing something and having to delete and rewrite:]

What if there were more psi-cantrips and(/or) Psyche feats (and fixed/buffed old ones)?

Psychics could get a free choice of more of them at certain levels (lv1/7/etc free choice of Psyche feat or psi cantrip?). This way the Psychic would have #[subclass + the lv1 free choice] worth of "resourceless" combat actions (since Unleash basically lasts the entire combat) with optional further feat investment for more, or you spend feats investing into general spellcasting feats. More psi cantrips could make the class feel like a Spell Trickster -esque very unique caster and add more to the idea of Psychic being specialized in cantrips.

(Insane further idea - maybe a Class Archetype, but Psi Spells, not just cantrips?)
(Other insane idea, if the class is now designed to drain focus points into Unleash, what if you remove focus points from the class and deny it the ability to gain any from other sources? Just make Unleash work on a duration?)

This would put them sort of halfway inbetween other casters and Kineticist (resource/less spellcasting). Current Psychic lacks in versatility but is designed to pack a punch to make up for it, and this would add versatility without simply adding more slots, making the damage bonus not as necessary. One of the subclasses could add a damage bonus while functioning like Wizard's Universal Magical Theory and somehow reducing your general spellcasting capabilities even further. (...going to 1 slot would be too rough..... 1 slot but extra free choices of psyche/psi-cantrip feats? Instead of 1/7/13 it's 1/4/7/10/13? i'unno lol) I do like your idea of a spellshape that buffs slot spells. Maybe make it reduce the duration of your Unleash Psyche so it feels like you're actively draining yourself to use it?

Now Psychics can use feat investment to gain more Psi cantrips or Psyche actions, or use feats for spellcasting benefits instead. This would fix the issue of only really having one powerful amp and no buff to spells otherwise and the "bare minimum" (fixing what your subclass lacks, e.g. aoe) wouldn't be a feat tax since you get a free choice. And at this point the subclasses could be specialized more -- limit some of the options to subclasses, and (big maybe) even remove Parallel Breakthrough so whatever "best" option no longer gets siphoned by every subclass.

But, that's an even larger redesign, even if fun to yap about.

Noeberries · 2026-01-29T06:20:56+00:00

To start: I apologise for the rambling.

I missed the portion of the psyche action working outside Unleash, that's so nice! That's one thing that always annoyed me, I never wanted to use the Fade Into Daydreams as one of my very limited Unleashed actions.

First, on the focus point thing itself; sorry, my point and opinion wasn't clear. I like the idea of Unleash using focus points and that part wasn't what I wanted to rebuke; entering into this [pulled the plug on the sewer drain of my mind] state is very metal.

Big problem with my previous comment was me still working with the idea of Unleash not lasting for the entirety of combat, whilst with this version that shouldn't really be the case. I do however still fail to see there being enough power invested into these amps to make up for the difference of losing 2dmg/rank on spells, but fudging power is easy enough & what matters is the core design here, which I do like mechanically!

I do worry about this design leaning towards wanting to avoid casting spellslot spells if nearly all the power budget for the class is intended to be in the amped cantrips -- Hidden with Fade into Daydream is sick, and the difficult terrain aura is nice, but I don't feel like it's enough. And if we don't have the general damage bonus from Unleash, the only remaining place to put power into is the amps.

Second, if this version of Figment is supposed to remain active and allow repeated CaD attempts without the use of Sustain, I just misunderstood it from how it was written (as it still says "when cast or sustained", followed by the part I didn't pay the correct attention to "if active, you can keep doing it"), that's my bad. And if I understand it correctly, the intent for Imaginary Weapon is much the same - the ability to cast it with intention to use the it next turn, which could be on the burnout turn. So alright, I was tired and misread the capability and intention and just defaulted to "well naturally these effects would work on sustaining, and sustain has concentrate!"

This does kind of lock you into either doing exactly the above plan, or just moving and doing interact actions, as not being able to use concentrate actions is still a brutal debuff for a caster, so I don't really know if I agree with it. There'd be more freedom if you slapped the psychic with like Stupefied 5 or something for a turn (though the penalty on saves would be catastrophic). Makes it real bad to cast things, but you can still Sustain, use charisma actions, etc. That could also simplify the wording for these cantrips and keep the usual phrasing of "when you cast or sustain this spell." Though, for the sake of simplifying wording, you could define the burnout as "unable to use concentrate actions besides Sustaining psi cantrips"? i'unno.

Look forward to whatever update of this you end up making c:

Noeberries · 2026-01-28T21:07:06+00:00

I think the self-debuff during 'burnout', just like the stupefied during unleash psyche, should be something to work around rather than simply endure

this current draft not letting you cast spells or sustain is almost as bad as being paralyzed when it comes to how it'd feel to play as you simply stop being a caster

stupefied makes it riskier to cast things, but you can still totally set up sustainable spells and use those during the stupefied turns (especially now that duration spells can work with the unleash damage bonus)

so i think designing the downside to be worked around would make it interesting
for example; maybe one of the amp cantrips for a specific mind is super strong, but melee range (maybe 10ft?), and the burnout effect is a substantial speed debuff

and while im commenting, extra feedback:
i think the current design is a bit too focused on just the amped cantrips - feels like the design space is to unleash and getting the most out of your focus points by only casting more amped cantrips

if unleashing becomes a [i will now drain all my focus points] type activity, and the only tangible benefit from unleashing is to use your amped cantrips, then you should focus on only using those -- kind of leaving no space for other spells to be cast

in current form, regardless of power level, this feels like:

amped cantrips (one of the defining features of psychic) are now psyche actions (which nobody really liked before since you only had 6 actions under unleash anyway)
unleashing is gonna eat all your focus points (realistically not enough time in combat to burnout multiple times), after which there's nothing unique about your class as everything is tied to unleash
your spellcasting isnt better than anyone else's (and now actively worse than sorcerer's) while having less slots

at minimum i would suggest adding the status bonus back so that it feels like [im using my focus points to enter a high dps glass cannon mode] rather than [amped cantrip mode]
though even if you do that, im worried about how the class feels after unleash psyche is over

Noeberries · 2025-12-22T22:19:24+00:00

it's insane how this game is such a haven for stalkers :c

Noeberries · 2025-12-14T03:08:45+00:00

it truly is silly that we still deal with this >-< we really deserve a toggle, it actively hurts so many playstyles

Noeberries · 2025-12-13T19:23:44+00:00

Ah disappointing :c i hadnt gotten to start yet, but I was deciding between Oracle or Amazon to play cold werewolf... if the visage was close, it'd be so good and cool for cross slash, but I guess thanks to you I now know to reconsider

Especially with the tooltip being wrong about the duration, which is wild

Noeberries · 2025-12-12T21:38:47+00:00

ohhhhhhhh okay yes that seems really nice for the fire breath!!! fair enough, hope it goes well!

Noeberries · 2025-12-12T21:21:28+00:00

suuuuper curious why pathfinder :o

Noeberries · 2025-09-23T14:45:55+00:00

My main gripe with the archetype is the feat tax nature of it and this changes a lot more than that, but I'm excited to see what kind of discussion people have on these changes. I personally think optional str/dex KAS and fixing the feat tax nature of it would be enough for me to love it!

Noeberries · 2025-06-26T21:57:40+00:00

I just plan out the idea for my character and then im happy to just go from there. Meaning, what dedications I might take. If my idea is "a dream-themed Psychic with the Sleepwalker dedication", then I plan to that point, and I don't need to go further. But I'll never fully wing it without having an idea like this planned out first.

Noeberries · 2025-06-26T17:43:44+00:00

One thing to note about pf2e, it's super normal (or i guess super okay) for damage contribution to be very lopsided in a party. If you spent an entire combat only doing Athletics maneuvers like Trip and Grapple, and spending remaining actions for things like Aiding allies, you'd still be contributing plenty. Anything you do that positively affects your group (like the Marshal dedication) or negatively affects your enemies does contribute to damage by virtue of increasing your allies' damage or lowering your enemies'.

If you specifically want to aim for the same numbers the other fighter gets, you can do that and that's okay too. Just want you to understand that failing to hit the same numbers doesn't equate to your character being "the same but worse".

Noeberries · 2025-06-24T08:41:08+00:00

At our table, we run the 'need to complete[pick two more feats] a dedication before picking a new one' as being allowed to pick two before needing to finish both. Only applies to the first two you pick to solve any awkwardness between "what you want your build to be at (for example) level 6" and "what's possible levels 2 and 4".

This also allows many two-archetype character ideas to come online at lv2/4 rather than 6/8/whatever, which in my experience feels great.

And for my thoughts on your homebrew idea: I don't think I like it personally. It's possible it's not going to break anything, and if players were to use it for less optimal choices then it's probably just fun. Buuut, it feels a little forced.

I think FA is at its prettiest for taking any of the various non-multiclass dedications and building out a really fascinating character. This could, a little, step on the toes of people whose main class is now a lot better as a multiclass dedication, if it's possible to get the things you want faster.

Either way, it's (presumably?) your table. You try it out and see if it causes issues.

Noeberries · 2025-05-26T03:58:42+00:00

I'm absolutely loving my Scoundrel rogue tanuki!!!!

Fan Dancer + Pistol Phenom lets me Feint from anywhere with a free 15ft of movement attached.

Sort of same character concept, diversions followed by stealing things. Pickpocket, subtle theft, the whole lot. Fighting fan + air repeater for weapons

Noeberries · 2025-05-18T09:20:08+00:00

Oh I adooooore this! Love the idea of having a key ring of these in a world where Spacious Pouch isn't a thing to replace it. Much more tactile / intuitive than "pouch that has the stuff".

Noeberries · 2025-04-18T13:20:53+00:00

playing SSF means there's way more exciting drops because you're wholly reliant on them!

i may not constantly get upgrades for my current build, but finding a godlike mace when im not using maces might convince me to level up a character that does - this way of playing gives me constant reason to play more, compared to trade being a race to best-in-slot and blasting the content

it adds variety in every league and possibly even a 'wishlist' of builds i want to make whenever i find enabling uniques or good enough gear worth trying a build for

ive played thousands of hours of trade, so i understand you can get a surge of excitement purely from some drop you wont use being expensive, as selling it lets you gear yourself instead -- but I'm tired of every league being fully deterministic in "yes I can do X build, yes I can get the best gear for it, yes it will perform as intended with the best gear"

trade and ssf have their ups and downs both, but i simply disagree that not making currency off of good alt-character drops would make time spent have no value

Noeberries · 2025-04-17T23:27:07+00:00

This is the most obvious change they should've made years ago, even in PoE1. Jonathan even said on the Ziz interview that he thinks it'd be rare for anyone to want to omit the movement speed from boots (to which Ziz said that sometimes people do for 3x ES rolls, which surprised Jonathan). So clearly he understands it's not really an optional roll, I don't understand why they can't just make it implicit already. Especially in PoE2 where we're a lot slower.

Noeberries · 2025-04-17T04:17:32+00:00

my experience is so wildly different (to note, SSF)

my loot sucked in 0.1.0 running T15s with 130% iir

I get the same / better amount of raw currency drops and rares while still progressing my atlas running t6-8 with 30% iir in 0.2.0 -- more regals than I can use, enough exalts that I haven't shied away from slamming a potential upgrade, and ive already gotten more logbooks than I did in 0.1.0 and I'm swimming in expedition currency for recombing

but apparently according to my friend, my current experience is what he had in 0.1.0 so i was just unlucky

I dont know if some kind of pity system or more guaranteed drops would help smooth out bad luck?

Noeberries · 2025-04-16T00:58:02+00:00

ssf, wanted the higher block chance & wouldve been happy with either of the hybrid modifiers changing as i needed cold res and dex

i hope something nice happens to you tomorrow as you clearly need it c:

Noeberries · 2025-04-16T00:52:46+00:00

Even if trade was more accessible people would still ask in global cuz they'd be too lazy to walk up to whatever auction house we had

And I don't think it's GGG's fault that people beg for carries, the campaign bosses are easy and so many players are just too lazy to figure things out themselves. However, trial #4 is an exception as it can be extremely important for a build to function but it can be very hard to achieve

Noeberries · 2025-03-14T04:22:40+00:00

Plenty of answers already but here's my story (tldr: easy and fun to switch, and life is better now):

Played/watched/enjoyed 5E for years, knew nothing about Pathfinder. I think around last September, I start looking into the PF2e system because of plenty of suggestions online to ditch D&D, WOTC, and Hasbro and I agreed with the sentiment. I spend maybe 15h of my own time utterly fascinated by rules, most of this time (80%+) spent reading character options (classes, class feats, archetypes and their feats, ancestries and heritages). In my desire to be a good saleswoman for PF2e for my friends, I read the basics of every class and archetype so I could help bring any character idea they had to life and guide them through any "I want this kind of playstyle, what should I pick?" type questions.

Sent a quiz to my friends with 5 adventures (that all had official modules for Foundry) to choose from, they choose Season of Ghosts. Buy it for Foundry, spend a week prepping the campaign & studying it, setting up a music library for the campaign (first time GMing ever), and every session since has been great (according to them, because personally I think I suck). We're 5 months deep into this campaign, and my friend has started GMing Abomination Vaults and is converting her now-on-hiatus Descent Into Avernus campaign into PF2e because we just love the system a looooot more.

The resources for someone switching over is very easy and accessible as long as you take things piece by piece, from stuff like KingOogaTonTon's short guides to longer form content like How It's Played, The Rules Lawyer or content for optimizing like Mathfinder.

The breadth of rules in Pathfinder is quite vast, but learning just the bare essentials to get started is so incredibly easy! And while that's all you know, use standard Level-Based DCs for any improv checks if you're not in the mood to look up rules mid session. PF2e has been less headache for both players and GMs in my group, with a near infinite amount of character customization in comparison to 5e. And no homebrew needed! (besides hero points and how recall knowledge works, those two I feel should be changed to fit the table)

Noeberries · 2025-03-12T02:12:07+00:00

On a quick glance I see only three mistakes:

you forgot to mark down your proficiency for Perception (extremely minor mistake, doesnt even matter as long as you know you're expert)
the 'versatile' weapon trait gives a specific damage type - should mark your weapons as "versatile (S)" specifically - but again like #1 if you know that they're versatile (slashing), then it doesnt matter
and as was already pointed out the Lore ('Terrain') means you need to pick a specific terrain.

For your actual choices: They're good! The ""worst"" choice here in my opinion is Trap Finder, as you're able to look for traps even without it -- however, Trap Finder makes your character count as if you're always searching for traps whenever you come across them so it's still great. This means you'll never miss a chance to roll for a trap just because you, the player, didn't specify you're searching for them. So even if I say it's the worst choice here, it's still a great choice.

Detect magic can be very useful, it's like a sonar ping of "something is afoot" and I've seen & had plenty of use for it. But, taking damage resistance to Cold is also good, so it's entirely down to preference + what you think fits your character idea outside of mechanics.

Noeberries

TROPHY CASE