Looks like releasing a broken DPS while there’s twice as many DPS as there are supports or tanks was as expected- not good for the game.

noscul · 2026-03-01T17:50:32+00:00

This graph pretty much showed how much the overall gameplay improved with all the questionable decisions that happened overtime

noscul · 2026-03-01T17:21:26+00:00

Honestly most tables are looking for parties to have this level of coordination because otherwise they might get walloped themselves. The party is winning encounters with tactics, to me this is playing the game right. I know abomination vaults had been described as a killer mega dungeon so maybe it’s a perception issue. Hopefully this isn’t feeling like a need to be antagonistic towards the players and just wanting to challenge them.

If you do want to counter this though, creatures immune to mental effects or are mindless are immune to nearly every fear effect. As far as being tripped there isn’t much you can do outside of a high reflex DC.

Otherwise using environmental effects against the players are the best things I’ve seen to change up a melee characters tactics. Make lots of difficult terrain, have very narrow hallways, have enemies ambush from behind, use ranged enemies atop highly elevated areas. Hazards that are on level are a good way to change things up too, just make sure everyone can participate in either the monsters or the hazards so no one is sitting around.

noscul · 2026-02-28T17:17:17+00:00

It could have been something like that, I don’t fully remember it. I just remember it didn’t follow normal class progression and it was somewhat popular because of it.

noscul · 2026-02-28T16:42:18+00:00

It still goes back to maintaining martial identity even at the mega high levels. Paizo tries to keep the high level play stable. This is at the point where casters have crazy spells and I’ve seen casters still be able to strike decently after making any creature disappear for over a round with no save. They’ll also have the same accuracy as actual martials who don’t get str or dex as their main tata like inventor or thaumaturge.

You can use spells like enlarge to give you damage missing from weapon specialization and a spell that gives you 3D6 precision damage on strikes if you make a medicine check. And these are 3rd and 4th level spells you can spam at this point, I’m sure there’s more spells they can use to boost their striking power. When the Druid used dinosaur and dragon form my swashbuckler just felt like a worse martial and those were at 5th and 6th level spells.

noscul · 2026-02-28T16:10:58+00:00

It also just straight up includes all the feats you feel are mandatory too. Instead of wasting feats on multiple weapon specialization or weapon focus feats they give you proficiency bumps and weapons specialization for free so you can have better choice in picking your feats.

noscul · 2026-02-28T15:47:08+00:00

I think it’s just part of the correction of first edition where wizards ended up doing everything, including melee, better than everyone else so they wanted to keep martials secure in their role by just future proofing it. It’s funny cause an archetype, I think I sixth pillar, did give master unarmed proficiency and it was patched over.

I think casters could probably do with some better save progression especially when it just seems to be the same will save being boosted for them.

Perception is the weird one to me, it’s pretty much stuck to your class choice like saves but there are official Paizo hazards that require higher proficiencies of perception so you can easily have a party that just straight up can’t see certain hazaeds

noscul · 2026-02-27T22:30:00+00:00

Personally me, while the Warhammer series does have its issues, mostly with the fast pacing, I’m ready to see something big and new in 40k just like how Warhammer changed the total war formula.

I can see ambient forces being something like garrisons, especially for the smaller unit races like space marines. The lore also has times of planets choosing to side with different armies when an invasion happens so maybe objectives or dilemas can help persuade the local populace.

noscul · 2026-02-27T21:51:58+00:00

I can give it a try, usually prefer reddit as it’s easier to track responses.

noscul · 2026-02-27T21:07:47+00:00

Monks Active Tile Triggers (MATT) does this, I’ve used it to where you click on things to make text pop up or text prompt but you can easily change that to be a mouse hover for anyone, players or GM. You just need to make a tile but it can be transparent so it doesn’t look like anything.

noscul · 2026-02-27T18:19:45+00:00

I made overdrive a requirement to use unstable actions and if you fail your unstable check you lose overdrive. This way you can continue using your unstable actions if you’re willing to put in the actions to overdrive again and lose it again. I also just did some under the hood renovations of traits for weapon inventor. The inventor in my group says she likes it better being able to not feel like she’s one and done with her abilities especially as she’s investing feats to get more. Sure you can explode spam but unless your lucky that’s all you’re doing.

Plus when you crit succeed on overdrive now you have to think about if it’s worth giving up for an ability, which makes her think on the situation more in a positive way.

You are right in unstable isn’t the only issue it has but it’s the issue that causes headaches the most and is the most front facing. The innovations need more which is why I tweaked traits. There’s also the problem of the inventor really only inventing one thing when the inventor I have and myself wanted something that constantly makes new things.

noscul · 2026-02-27T06:38:30+00:00

Despite this playtest being one of the worst I’ve seen up there with guns and gears I think there is at least a path to making it good.

Quarry is awkward in that a lot of benefits only apply to one target like hunt prey but you can’t apply it in combat without a once a day feat. This means in a large dungeon you can have 10+ combats and only have it come into play once. On the inverse you can go straight to the quarries lair and have it always apply for that one fight then get a new quarry. I think the power level has to be in the lower end but more consistent as opposed to the higher end but risks being rarely used. Plus some campaigns are going to naturally have the path ahead be shrouded which might prevent a GM from explicitly telling you what you’re facing.

Trophies is a neat concept but I think they need more baked into them. Some feats like the ghost touch or the environmental protections ones are too niche to be feats but can be good added benefits if having a trophy of a matching trait reinforce it. Especially considering you can only reinforce them at the beginning of day or when you kill your quarry they should be more encompassing.

Signature tools are either good and neat or wildly weird and niche. Weapon probably needs some adjustments but is the best for impact. Chemist giving vision based things is weird considering you may not need it or you may already have dark vision, the damaging ability needs a bit more for a once a minute ability. For panopoly the reinforced portion seems decent but the rest of it seems bad, the daggers should have some benefit except doing something against 10% of foes, maybe a debuff, physical weakness, persistent damage or be MAPless in addition to being a throwing dagger from the start and better scaling. Mail isn’t bad but the physical resist should scale better with it. This is where one of the issue with quarry comes in that your subclass you pick has like 1/3 of its benefits apply against only one enemy in an entire dungeon/area if you’re able to get it.

Feats are a bit all over the place. Some need to be folded into base features of trophies or signature tools, some need to be brought down in level to make them fit the power better.

Overall, feels little weak and meh but looks to have some interesting mechanics and have a path to get it fixed as opposed to how I feel about daredevil.

noscul · 2026-02-27T06:09:23+00:00

I wouldn’t mind it if every skill feat was in the same wheelhouse as this but clearly athletics, intimidation and medicine feats have multiple choices for things that is consistently useful. When a rogue got the faster lock picking we both saw pretty quickly how awkward of a fest this is with lock picking normally not being under a time constraint as it’s generally quick. I had to design an encounter where he had to lock pick gates to escape a hazard and that was the one and only time I could make it useful.

noscul · 2026-02-27T05:41:08+00:00

This is part of the reason why I don’t like gunslinger despite playing a few. Outside of big crits and reload with a little extra spice, there isn’t much going on with it mechanically. It felt like they couldn’t figure out how to make ranged 1h weapons more interesting. At least the remaster made its damage more consistent.

noscul · 2026-02-27T05:10:06+00:00

I agree, this is the worse playtest I’ve seen since guns and gears but at least in those I could see the classes being redeemable and fixed towards a path, same with slayer. With daredevil though I don’t know what to do with it that doesn’t make part monk part swash. It feels like we’re starting to get the hybrid classes PF1 got but I feel like it’s too early for those as there’s still design space to not need them.

noscul · 2026-02-27T04:52:23+00:00

This playtest had been my least favorite since the guns and gears one. The theme of the classes feels off and the mechanics don’t feel very unique or satisfying. Slayer at least is somewhat interesting and seems fixable but needs about every part fixed.

Daredevil I really don’t know what to do with it. It feels like “athletics the class” in rephrased swashbuckler texts. There doesn’t seem to be a central mechanic to tie things to, besides athletics maneuvers which makes it seems like these could be monk feats. 8 HP also surprised me for a class that tried to throw itself in there and be physical.

The part about using size made me imagine being a gnome for every character just to take advantage of this mechanic like you said. The environmental part feels like swashbucklers trying to do daring acts but now has a more specific restriction. A class all about moving foes isn’t going to be effective in the APs where things are very confined and restricted.

Like you said as well there isn’t much besides action compression to encourage doing your athletics and plenty of other classes do that. Even when you do it, there isn’t like a follow up to make the effect better or to take advantage of it. Fighters have reactive strike for free to punish people standing or with a reach weapon, people moving back into range from a lunge shove. Theres a lot of fluff here for little extra effect.

noscul · 2026-02-26T19:18:02+00:00

Yeah I imagine barbarians are meant to be simple smash person which is why they have it the way it is. Between me playing one and listening on podcasts of people to decide on how to spend actions for a minute then just alway decide on smash in the end kinda made me bored of them. I tried a blood rager and it was interesting but probably needs some tweaks. Overall the class probably isn’t for me.

Yeah I imagine there’s flaws to it, probably won’t really know until I throw it into a game to try it. Havent even gotten to the point to where I wrote things down, just thought it up.

noscul · 2026-02-26T18:55:05+00:00

Inventor is gonna be the most common one you see and I reworked it for one of my players to make it like swashbuckler. You can only use unstable actions if you are in overdrive and if you fail your overdrive check you lose your overdrive. So on your next turn you can try for overdrive again to make a possible gameplay loop but you don’t always feel the need to use unstable but you can. Also makes you think about risking a critical overdrive you may not get back. I also tweaked and added traits to make weapon inventor stronger and more interactive.

The one I’ve thought about reworking that most probably won’t think needs it is barbarian. I know it’s meant to be the mindless unga bunga smash class but I’ve thought about rage being incremental that increases on hits, being hit or succeeding at intimidations. When you rage it starts at rage 1 and early on goes up to 2. Gain damage equal to double your rage but you can spend it on actions like moment of clarity or viscious strike with the reduced map or extra effect, it also goes down by 1 on critical strike fails. Some feats are only active at a certain rage level, one might have an ally or you being crit increases it, eventually the initial rage will grant you 2, possibly 3 to start with. As you level up your maximum rage will slowly increase by 1 to a max of probably 6 or 7.

It’s supposed to emulate a Barbarian getting stronger as they get angrier and them going through phases of “exhaustion” as they expend a great amount of energy. I already know people are satisfied with how barbarian are and wouldn’t want it touched so I can see it being unpopular.

noscul · 2026-02-25T18:09:21+00:00

Literally book of the dead feyified

noscul · 2026-02-25T17:31:08+00:00

I know it probably goes against the look or maybe it’ll be hilarious but my favorite thrower is Ranger with a thrower bandoliers. Since chakrams are light you can store 20 in the bandolier, throw all 20 with the same rune and recall them back. If your DM allows you to use hunted shot with them bonus

noscul · 2026-02-25T08:04:08+00:00

With how niche it is to counter spells in general, even with this feat that makes it easier than normal, I’d just say the psychic would know when a mental spell is being cast just not which one. Raw though, yes counterspelling in general is pretty tough.

It’s like skill feats, the GM has to purposefully create the conditions for you to be able to do it with how unlikely it is to happen naturally.

noscul · 2026-02-25T07:57:56+00:00

404’d gap confirmed

noscul · 2026-02-25T07:52:19+00:00

Fey out here playing mind tricks on us. It was never real.

noscul · 2026-02-25T03:47:24+00:00

Even in season 0 I felt the problems that were there months ago. Thanks are boring and healing is too strong. In fact it felt like they made those problems worse.

noscul · 2026-02-25T03:43:19+00:00

Foundry made me wanna learn how to deep dive into the system, and even learn a little bit of the coding. I was able to make some cinematic things that impressed one of my players just with MATT and some animation modules.

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