[Dreamscarred Press] Psionics Augmented: Occult

[Forrestfire]

Welcome to the playtest for Psionics Augmented: Occult, the latest in Dreamscarred Press’ line of psionics expansions. With this project, we’re working to integrate Pathfinder’s recent book Occult Adventures with our psionics system, bringing psionic versions of occult classes, ties to the occult for psionic classes, new feats and powers, and more.

Unlike some of Dreamscarred Press’ previous playtests, we’re trying a new model with this one. Rather than releasing an entire book worth of material for testing at once, we’ll be putting out smaller packets of rules over time. We hope that this “rolling playtest” will allow us to focus on, well, focused testing of new class options, abilities, and the like, and allow us to release them sooner rather than later. The end result will be that we can get the new stuff from the playtest to your table as efficiently as possible, without compromising on the quality you’ve come to expect from DSP. We will be periodically updating the playtest with new material, as well as keeping a close eye on the feedback we receive here.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what we’ve got to offer:

Wave A (December 18th, 2015)


The Gambler (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.rgazf78tpet7), a kineticist archetype focused on balancing high amounts of risk for a great reward, while delivering variable elemental damage with their kinetic blasts.


The Goetic (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fj__MUc9jfTzRHYnbSFu1-sYgSwJSViLBNtFQmIKfgs/edit?usp=sharing), a spiritualist archetype who, rather than calling a phantom to do their bidding, binds seven otherworldly horrors into their body to make their power their own. This defense-focused archetype allows the spiritualist to transform themselves into horrific new forms to warp the battlefield and protect what is theirs. In addition, we have two more, less intensive archetypes for the spiritualist: the Athanatic Channeler (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VBx58NcL-Ed0GxaZNKybByU_FsgNi6vLN18y-z6Rs5w/edit#heading=h.fib6q4da7gwz), a spiritualist who uses psionic powers rather than psychic spells, and the Crystalline Binder (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VBx58NcL-Ed0GxaZNKybByU_FsgNi6vLN18y-z6Rs5w/edit#heading=h.ud1b7456z4hl), who stores their phantom in a psicrystal and can cause it to transform into a heavily-armored creature of crystal and ectoplasm. Finally, we have the Unpattern (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VBx58NcL-Ed0GxaZNKybByU_FsgNi6vLN18y-z6Rs5w/edit#heading=h.lsqkw1gtqzf), an archetype that can be applied to a spiritualist’s phantom, allowing it to tear reality asunder with its tattered form.


The Living Legend (https://docs.google.com/document/d/11s0QOvYSzcOZNxyhqrKnJrIg-jROgdUxM0o8jUHRdzM/edit?usp=sharing), a soulknife archetype that invokes stories of heroes and villains to gain their strength, weaving words into weaponry and creating the tools out of mental power to make their mark on the world.


The Ringleader (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UohuZJyWtyDLXugPt-pNxxzkVk4_OYwrTYGgM6ODE4c/edit?usp=sharing), a mesmerist who’s always the life of the party, and can draw both allies and enemies into his festivities with a special collective called a carnevale.

Wave B (January 8th, 2016)


The Govi (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.hp26gjz07rfa), an occultist who inverts their normal training in the arts of magic circles and mystical traps to go on the attack against extraplanar interlopers and possessing creatures. We've also added a few new feats for occultists in their document, with more to come.


The Host of Heroes (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pZCqqDCNYMTMXo56HPDKK61r-_H2qVO6Ydoz-F9FIhM/edit#), an aegis archetype with medium-theming similar to the Living Legend. They can modify their astral suit to fit legendary figures they seek to emulate and piggyback on the fame of, and gain benefits based on the myths they weave into their power.


The Mindrender (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9QhIKQ5oHcfzjIXaUpBfS57E-2NVu5HYvEScCpnPOQ/edit?usp=sharing), a mesmerist with dread terrors who is more terrifying that fear itself, who can lock people down with his stare.


The Shattered Mind (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.las0oihqo89v), a psionic occultist who shards off his mind and soul into his implements, turning them into psicrystals and storing his psionic powers in them.


Wave C (January 29th, 2016)

The Avant Guard (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.d6k8i1ul1jjg), a kineticist archetype that partially shields their body from the ill effects of burn using psionic power, and manifests the remainder of their power in the form of an ectoplasmic guardian. We've also written up some new feats (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.7v1mbt7g9d13) for kineticists.


The Shadow Aspect (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hP2rqjm2129K0doNLwlIk9-z2Wk-tLh6DjXGYVNQUPg/edit?usp=sharing), a wilder fueled by emptiness and neglect. Rather than getting standard wild surges, they gain a special type of phantom.


Psionic discipline occultist implements (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.256f214d264o); one each for athanatism, clairsentience, metacreativity, psychokinesis, psychometabolism, psychoportation, and telepathy. Any occultist with the psionic subtype may learn to use these implements, allowing a spellcasting occultist to cross over into uncharted territory, or a Shattered Mind occultist to focus entirely on psionics.


A set of Psionic Skill Unlocks (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit#heading=h.d1f7f6a93bwl) and several related feats, as well as rules for using occult skill unlocks as a psionic character.


Wave D (February 21st, 2016)

The Cryptographer (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.u7ochwsjrffu) psion archetype, who has cracked the code of psychic magic in order to gain access to an occultist implement matching their discipline specialization.


The Empath (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NMamgmha06ojsDqMjeR0u91UkVChpo0I3tgrIdc2vIk/edit?usp=sharing), a psionic medium archetype that eschews spirits and instead allows a character to connect themselves to all people and all histories, and share in the most powerful communal thoughts through the ages. These Zeitgeists determine the psionic powers and class abilities of an Empath.


Psionically-themed kineticist wild talents (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.w10pq963j3ks) for use by both normal kineticists and Avant Guards.


A section on the differences between psionics and psychic magic (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit#), as well as two new feats (Charlatan and Psicrystal Ball) towards the end of that document.


Some feats for spiritualists, (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VBx58NcL-Ed0GxaZNKybByU_FsgNi6vLN18y-z6Rs5w/edit#heading=h.tl8g3adj8wcn) psionic or otherwise.

We look forward to your feedback, and hope you enjoy the ride.

[tekevil]

Gambler Feedback

Fluff: I like the theme of the Gambler, it seems pretty cool!

Class Skills: I would use a trait to nab Sense Motive, so thanks for saving me a trait :)

Gamblers Blast: The rules work, but the type of Physical damage for the Blast isn't listed as Piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning.

Powers: This is definitely a way to address some of the utility issue people sometimes find in their Kineticists.

Playing with Fire: For some unlucky Players this burn change is going to result in a character death lol

Wagers: These interact pretty heavily in the subsystems and I really can't tell by looking at them what the outcome will be. I need to actually use this in game to judge.

I'm gonna have to run one of these against my players, but it looks interesting for sure!

How does a Gambler interact with Diadems?

[Kymera]

Is there an established definition anywhere for the term "temporary power points"? If so, which book is it in, and which section?

[Forrestfire]

Gambler Feedback <snip>

The physical blast of a gambler deals damage of their active element; effectively, they make a choice between "touch attack and SR" and "a bit more damage, normal attack, and no SR." For the kineticist's diadems, a gambler's blast will get the bonus damage out of one if they are currently in the right active energy type, because Gambler's Blast carries an elemental type based on that (water for cold, fire for fire, air for electricity, and earth for sonic).


Is there an established definition anywhere for the term "temporary power points"? If so, which book is it in, and which section?

There is not; the word is used informally, to denote that these power points will vanish after being used.

[Milo v3]

The physical blast of a gambler deals damage of their active element; effectively, they make a choice between "touch attack and SR" and "a bit more damage, normal attack, and no SR." For the kineticist's diadems, a gambler's blast will get the bonus damage out of one if they are currently in the right active energy type, because Gambler's Blast carries an elemental type based on that (water for cold, fire for fire, air for electricity, and earth for sonic).
That doesn't really make sense though.... Are physical fire blasts affected by Damage Reduction? Are they affected by Fire Resistance? What would it even look like? Why break the division between the physical damage types and the energy damage types?

[Mehangel]

I noticed that in the soulknife archetype, under the trickster, there is a typo in its sneak attack.


Sneak Attack (Intermediate, Su): You gain the sneak attack ability. Whenever you attack a creature that’s its Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when you flank your target, you deal extra damage. This extra damage is 2d6 at 4th level, and increases by 1d6 for every three living legend levels thereafter. This otherwise functions as the rogue ability of the same name.



Sneak Attack (Intermediate, Su): You gain the sneak attack ability. Whenever you attack a creature that’s denied its Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when you flank your target, you deal extra damage. This extra damage is 2d6 at 4th level, and increases by 1d6 for every three living legend levels thereafter. This otherwise functions as the rogue ability of the same name.

[master4sword]

For the Living Legend:

Because you replaced both the 2nd and 4th level blade skills, it's kinda pointless to include a prerequisite of 6th level on legendary stunts (because the earliest you can even pick a skill or stunt is the 6th-level blade skill, as it's the earliest one you didn't replace).

[Forrestfire]

That doesn't really make sense though.... Are physical fire blasts affected by Damage Reduction? Are they affected by Fire Resistance? What would it even look like? Why break the division between the physical damage types and the energy damage types?

The physical form of Gambler's Blast functions the same way as the existing physical blasts the kineticist has that deal energy damage (Blizzard Blast, Charged Water Blast, Ice Blast, Magma Blast, Plasma Blast, Steam Blast, Thunderstorm Blast, and Winter Blast). They are not affected by damage reduction (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qe9), but are affected by energy resistance. The reason for this is that the Gambler does not get composite blasts and is themed around using shifting elements. The added versatility helps keep them relevant later, and allows them to stay on-theme regardless of which type they're firing. Mainly, though, and it's there to allow them to function against enemies with Spell Resistance (just like the existing physical blasts that deal energy damage help with).

As to what it looks like, it could take a multitude of forms. Maybe it's something similar to the physical substance of the elemental plane of fire, or a bundle of superheated plasma. A physical electricity blast might take the form of lightning similar to a natural lightning bolt, rather than a magical one. A sonic energy blast is likely a wave of sound, while a sonic physical blast might look like vibrations in the target that don't make a noise at all, as it shakes them apart. The important thing is just that they do something that bypasses normal defenses against magical effects that a golem or other monster might possess. It could even potentially be fluffed as an overcharged shot (less easy to hit with, so it's not a touch attack, and deals more damage/punches through SR).


I noticed that in the soulknife archetype, under the trickster, there is a typo in its sneak attack.

Well that's just downright embarrassing. Thanks for the catch.


For the Living Legend:

Because you replaced both the 2nd and 4th level blade skills, it's kinda pointless to include a prerequisite of 6th level on legendary stunts (because the earliest you can even pick a skill or stunt is the 6th-level blade skill, as it's the earliest one you didn't replace).

That limit is there because it's still possible to take the Extra Blade Skill (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/extra-blade-skill-psionic) feat beforehand, if the character so wishes.

[Kiton2]

Best Kineticist one can make, kudos to that.
But it's still rather weak: You need several rounds to spool up to attaching/using any powers you want or riders... which sounds great...

Except combat tends to be OVER in 2-3 rounds, so there's a very high risk of "We're done, let's go." "Wait! I'm finally ready to unleash my full power upon these foes!"

[master4sword]

That limit is there because it's still possible to take the Extra Blade Skill (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/extra-blade-skill-psionic) feat beforehand, if the character so wishes.

Extra Blade Skill requires the Blade Skill class feature, and since you're not getting one until 6th, you don't qualify for the feat until 6th level, unless I'm horribly mistaken.

[tekevil]

Best Kineticist one can make, kudos to that.
But it's still rather weak: You need several rounds to spool up to attaching/using any powers you want or riders... which sounds great...

Except combat tends to be OVER in 2-3 rounds, so there's a very high risk of "We're done, let's go." "Wait! I'm finally ready to unleash my full power upon these foes!"

I dunno, I think this is the kind of thing that may require more than conjecture.

It seems to me that at worst you'd be set up on round 2, so no worse than most classes.

[Milo v3]

Living Legend is rather cool.

[Forrestfire]

Extra Blade Skill requires the Blade Skill class feature, and since you're not getting one until 6th, you don't qualify for the feat until 6th level, unless I'm horribly mistaken.

You are absolutely correct. This oversight has been discussed internally, and the change we're going with is a slight tweak to the Protagonist's Portrayal ability to give them back their 2nd-level blade skill (which is important for allowing Focused Offense, one of the intended possible buildpaths of the archetype).

[Kiton2]

Actually, since all wagers are Swifts unless stated otherwise...

Round 1: Wager to build burn
Round 2: Cash Out
Round 3: now you can use those temp PPs.

The round 1 wager may cost you PPs as well. So you're pretty far from "all day blasting", and you aren't gonna be adding any riders to your blast before round 3, nor getting any free casting before then.

[Forrestfire]

Don't forget that burn persists between encounters. There is some amount of risk involved, but generally, a Gambler Kineticist will want to keep at least some burn on them to fuel Elemental Overflow and have on hand for cashing out at the beginning of an encounter.

A potential scenario might be:


Round 1: Cash Out, use temporary pp to manifest a power to blast or debuff, such as energy stun.
Round 2: Use a wager to build more burn, possibly attaching a debuff or an AoE to your kinetic blast
Round 3: Cash Out again or continue on the offensive with another wager.


Or, if you know an encounter is coming, using Cash Out beforehand to have temporary PP on hand for use in a round 1 rider blast.

[Kiton2]

That's far from a certainty. Your first encounter of the day certainly does not offer this, and any cashing out beyond this requires you to have kept some from your first fight. The gambler has no utilities or defenses he can spend burn on to shore it up in the morning. He's gotta blast someone.

Maybe 'know when to fold space' could inflict burn. Certainly better than a filthy "1+con/day" limit like it was some sort of vancian bloodline.

[Forrestfire]

Each of the wagers except for Raise the Stakes can be made without any resource expenditure or an actual target, because you can always just fire your kinetic blast at a space instead of a creature. That's a good point about Know When to Fold Space, though. The ability has gone through several revisions before reaching its current form. Currently, I'm unsure if a powerful defensive teleport should be spammable all day, so it has the limit to keep it from being something used every round of every fight, so long as the Gambler has psionic focus(es) to burn. If it proves to be a non-issue, it may end up less limited, or it might be shifted to something that gives you burn and is less spammable when you're running hot.

[master4sword]

You are absolutely correct. This oversight has been discussed internally, and the change we're going with is a slight tweak to the Protagonist's Portrayal ability to give them back their 2nd-level blade skill (which is important for allowing Focused Offense, one of the intended possible buildpaths of the archetype).

Awesome. Int-based Focused Offense was the first thing I thought of when I saw that the archetype switched everything to Intelligence, only for me to then discover that the first two blade skills were gone.

[Thealtruistorc]

Loving the Ringleader and the Living Legend (although the title on the latter could use a little work. Maybe something like Legend Scion). They are not only flavorful and versatile, but also seem really fun to play. The only issue I have is that the Ringleader doesn't seem to have many clear strategies. What would I be doing with the allies/enemies that I have in my collective, and how would that be shaping the fight?

[khadgar567]

small question about living legend can regular medium call living legend as his/her spirit for day what happens and what not happens?

[Forrestfire]

No. The Living Legend's roles, while taking some abilities, the name scheme, and theme from the Medium's spirits, are their own distinct thing that the Medium doesn't get access to. There's more to come for the Medium, but this isn't it.

[twas_Brillig]

Living Legends seem awesome. A few questions:

Storied Blade: Just to be clear, Living Legends have the same enhancements for both their roles' mind blades, right? That's the interpretation I'm getting from Shape Mind Blade (where "your mind blade" is always singular), but it's a little confusing with Storied Blade (since "your roles mind blades" is always plural -- but maybe just refers to their shape?). What happens if an enhancement is valid for one shape but not the other?

Protagonist Portrayal: If a feat 'must be the same type as the feat it replaces', do you mean combat vs. psionic? Might be good to be explicit, but probably not the biggest deal.

Blade Skills: I'm starting to think you need to add descriptors to blade skills so you can more succinctly future-proof against archetypes who can't select skills that change the shape of their mind blade.

Legendary Stunts: we should all be grateful that this archetype's keyword is "legendary" and not "cunning".


While the living legend is psionically focused, he can hide himself view in the open without anything to actually hide behind as long as he is within 10 feet of an area of dim light.
I think you either need to remove "view", or add "from" in front of it.

High Wizard's Fury: If your active role is the archmage, you can deal damage of your active energy type. It might be good to include a sidebar about how and when a soulknife chooses their active energy (when they regain power points, unless they're multiclassed or I'm missing something).

Weapon groups: Especially given the Champion's taboo, what weapon group(s) are the various mind blades in? The champion is a lot less attractive if you can't use any other role's mind blade will you have it bound.


Throwing a storied blade while wielding a crystal bookmark does not require the crystal hilt be thrown.


Living Legend (although the title on the latter could use a little work. Maybe something like Legend Scion).

I get what you're saying ("Living Legend" means someone who is alive, who is a legend), but I think the the name still works (someone who makes legends live again through them, for instance) and it has a good sound to it.

(side note: It's really annoying that you can only look at a Google Doc's revision history if you have edit permissions...it'd be really useful for these playtests.)

[drafghast]

Hey guys! Glad to hear you like the Ringleader - that one is my baby. As for what its role is...honestly, I played around with that myself. I ended up on kind of a weird mishmash of support and debuffing, but I feel that debuffing got left behind. But don't worry! There are some thematic enemy-targeting tricks in the works, as well as a few more "bold stare"-esque options that will *ahem* Razzle and/or Dazzle.

[Forrestfire]

Before addressing these questions, I wanted to note that the author of the Goetic has pushed a few wording changes and cleaned up the archetype some to make it easier to read and parse.


Living Legends seem awesome. A few questions:

Storied Blade: Just to be clear, Living Legends have the same enhancements for both their roles' mind blades, right? That's the interpretation I'm getting from Shape Mind Blade (where "your mind blade" is always singular), but it's a little confusing with Storied Blade (since "your roles mind blades" is always plural -- but maybe just refers to their shape?). What happens if an enhancement is valid for one shape but not the other?

This has been something I've flip-flopped on when writing this up until now, about whether or not the living legend should enhance his roles' mind blades individually. I've finally decided that the general annoyance of having to have a mind blade that only functions in one form or the other is not worth the hassle on the players' part, and added in a new alteration to the Enhanced Mind Blade class feature.


Protagonist Portrayal: If a feat 'must be the same type as the feat it replaces', do you mean combat vs. psionic? Might be good to be explicit, but probably not the biggest deal.

That's a good point, I've added in a note making it explicit.


Blade Skills: I'm starting to think you need to add descriptors to blade skills so you can more succinctly future-proof against archetypes who can't select skills that change the shape of their mind blade.
That'd be a good idea if we had a time machine. It's something to that's been thought about, but right now errataing the psionics subsystem is sadly beyond my reach.


Legendary Stunts: we should all be grateful that this archetype's keyword is "legendary" and not "cunning".
I had to google that to understand :smallredface::smallamused:


I think you either need to remove "view", or add "from" in front of it.
Thanks for the catch.


High Wizard's Fury: If your active role is the archmage, you can deal damage of your active energy type. It might be good to include a sidebar about how and when a soulknife chooses their active energy (when they regain power points, unless they're multiclassed or I'm missing something).

That's a good point; in Path of War Expanded, we have a similar sidebar on the Zealot. I've copied it over to the Living Legend as well.


Weapon groups: Especially given the Champion's taboo, what weapon group(s) are the various mind blades in? The champion is a lot less attractive if you can't use any other role's mind blade will you have it bound.

Currently, mind blades are not in any weapon group. It was an oversight when the soulknife was originally printed and has yet to be errata'd or otherwise clarified. The intent was that if you choose that Champion taboo, it limits what weapons you can turn your Thousand Blades of the Champion mind blade into, while otherwise not keeping you from using your other mind blade. I have amended the taboo to state that, since that intent doesn't seem to have made it into the wording at all.



I get what you're saying ("Living Legend" means someone who is alive, who is a legend), but I think the the name still works (someone who makes legends live again through them, for instance) and it has a good sound to it.

(side note: It's really annoying that you can only look at a Google Doc's revision history if you have edit permissions...it'd be really useful for these playtests.)

Loving the Ringleader and the Living Legend (although the title on the latter could use a little work. Maybe something like Legend Scion).

It's meant as a double-meaning. The archetype is both someone who lives legends, and a "living legend;" that is, the idiom sometimes used to describe someone who's so famous as to be legendary, oftentimes considered a national treasure, celebrity, or a major contributor to society. It's also slightly generic, which fits into some of the established names for soulknife classes and prestige classes, such as the Cutthroat, the Marvel, and the Strategos (in fact, almost every soulknife option is named one of "something something soul," "something something weapon," or "something generic but meant to evoke competence or general awesomeness").

[Alea]

Hey, this looks pretty cool.


although the title on the [Living Legend] could use a little work. Maybe something like Legend Scion
Wow, I could not disagree more strongly. I think Living Legend is a great name, and I think “Legend Scion” sounds awful.

[Forrestfire]

Just popping in to let everyone know that the Goetic (apparently our most fluid archetype right now) has gone through some more changes in response to feedback. The rules text for their class features have been tightened up, and fiddly details have been eliminated where possible to make the archetype less messy.

The big changes are that the Goetic can choose to specialize in three horrors, giving up the ability to use the other four in exchange for being able to use their main three twice as much, and that the way horrors gain feats has been changed. Horrors' bonus feats have been removed from their progression, replaced with ability score bonuses. The "give each horror a different feat" thing has been made into a feat, but that feat is also due for revision.

The goal here has been to make the class more accessible, and more easily built for those who aren't interested in spending a ton of time on character creation.

At this point, a minimal-effort goetic has to pick three horrors (and the horrors class feature has been updated with a handy list with brief descriptions), and then every four levels he's got to make an either-or choice for each of those. This still leaves quite a lot of customizability.

[twas_Brillig]

Goetic looks really cool.

Possessed Manifestation: As far as I can tell, this never says explicitly that a spliced goetic gets the horror's abilities. The Horrors section discusses them exclusively as distinct entities, and not as bundles of traits to be attached to a spliced goetic. I'd say the intent is clear (I'm guessing you wouldn't spend a lot of time fleshing out abilities that mostly only matter if the insane horror from out of space slips the leash), but it'd probably be worth making explicit just to save on silly arguments down the line. How long to horror effects last after a splice drops?

Psionic Flesh: I think most people aren't going to argue for 14 bonus hit points at level two (one per horror), but "each of the horrors’ ability score bonuses" is technically ambiguous as to whether it means "one at 2nd level, and every four levels there after" or "that, per horror". If the intent is that the horrors' ability score bonuses only count as feats while the goetic is manifesting them, language to that effect should be added (carefully phrased so that the goetic still counts as a psionic creature even while not manifesting, most likely).

Martyr's Consolation: When this says "Separate instances of this delayed damage do not stack: only the largest single instance of such damage is applied to Athanatism.", does that mean Anathanatism drops all but the highest split damage? This seems underwhelming compared to Martyr's Preparation until you get Mirror of the Soul...maybe because this mentions taking an effect for an ally, but not what happens in response to that. Without that, you get the ability to maybe tank some extra damage with a well-timed heal until 12th level, and then you can also potentially reduce the damage you take by your level. Martyr's Preparation gets to reduce damage taken by your level from the get-go, at the cost of requiring some good planning to get benefit from a heal. There's some good synergy with Destiny Bond and Guardian Stranger, though those come late, and are 1/day.

Martyr's Preparation: How long do the bonus points from healing last? Until it refreshes next round? Until they're expended? (ala temporary hit points)

Mirror of the Soul: Missed the "once per round, use one of its 1st level abilities as a free action" language from the other 12th level features.

Ancestral Guidance: This is a hilarious way to tank possession effects.

Clarisentience: Ironically, for "the most difficult horror to understand", granting a wisdom bonus makes it easier for the goetic to make Will saves and stay in control.

Look Forward: Describes Clarisentience as being the one to see the target's future, but the target gets the reroll effect. Should either change the language ("allows a creature it locks eyes with to observe the terrible consequences of its actions in the immediate future", also not a gaze attack), or allow Clarisentience to reroll a d20 that effects that creature (mirroring the effect of Gaze Backwards).

Gift of Vision: This is a really neat effect. All Seeing is pretty cool, too, but Gift of Vision is cooler.

Future Sight: Who is aware of the pseudo-turn? Also, "and it reverts back to its position and status prior to taking this pseudo-turn" could be cleaned up a little -- sort of sounds like you revert before taking the turn rather than afterwards.

Psychocreativity:
Astral Doppleganger: Should there be a restriction to having one construct out a time, or can a goetic with nothing else to do with their swifts have up to three by constantly refreshing them?

Zone of Shields: Missing "of" in "regardless its chosen..."

Psychokinesis: Does it's slam attack count as a weapon attack for the basic effect? Is it intended that psychokinesis keeps its powerful build ability while increasing to Large and Huge?

Telekinetic Limb: Can this wield a weapon? At what penalty?

Telekinetic Melee: Another cheesemonkey problem: how many weapons can you wield like this? Might be addressable by changing "its weapons" to "the weapons it is currently wielding".

Energy Arena: "Each of them rerolls initiative, and fights their own separate battle within the sphere." This needs some clean up. I'm also not sure why it's necessary to reroll initiative, especially if there's a chance that the goetic will need to drop the splice for whatever reason. How long does this last? Can it be dismissed?

Psychoportation: You missed editing out a reference to Scorn Earth in the second to last sentence of the second paragraph of the basic effect.

Tesseract/Impossible Step: one name is used in the header, and one at the start of its description.

[Forrestfire]

I've passed your feedback to the author of the Goetic, and here's his responses. Thanks for the feedback :smallsmile:

Many thanks for the interest!

Possessed Manifestation:​ As far as I can tell, this never says explicitly that a spliced goetic gets the horror's abilities. The Horrors section discusses them exclusively as distinct entities, and not as bundles of traits to be attached to a spliced goetic. I'd say the intent is clear (I'm guessing you wouldn't spend a lot of time fleshing out abilities that mostly only matter if the insane horror from out of space slips the leash), but it'd probably be worth making explicit just to save on silly arguments down the line. How long to horror effects last after a splice drops?

Actually the horror ​is​ separate, it just inherits the goetic’s stuff, and then the goetic possesses it. I will attempt to make the distinction clearer.

Psionic Flesh:​ I think most people ​aren't​ going to argue for 14 bonus hit points at level two (one per horror), but "each of the horrors’ ability score bonuses" is technically ambiguous as to whether it means "one at 2nd level, and every four levels there after" or "that, per horror". If the intent is that the horrors' ability score bonuses only count as feats while the goetic is manifesting them, language to that effect should be added (carefully phrased so that the goetic still counts as a psionic creature even while not manifesting, most likely).

You only get the bonus during a possessed manifestation, so you aren’t going to benefit from it outside of one. So it’s technically correct, and I don’t think there’s any ambiguity in terms of intent. I may clarify but I think the current wording really should suffice.

Martyr's Consolation:​ When this says "Separate instances of this delayed damage do not stack: only the largest single instance of such damage is applied to Athanatism.", does that mean Anathanatism drops all but the highest split damage?

It does mean that, yes.

This seems underwhelming compared to Martyr's Preparation until you get Mirror of the Soul...maybe because this mentions taking an effect for an ally, but not what happens in response to that. Without that, you get the ability to maybe tank some extra damage with a well-timed heal until 12th level, and then you can also potentially reduce the damage you take by your level. Martyr's Preparation gets to reduce damage taken by your level from the get-go, at the cost of requiring some good planning to get benefit from a heal. There's some good synergy with Destiny Bond and Guardian Stranger, though those come late, and are 1/day.

Well, if nothing else, horrors can respec every level. But yes, it's not much good when you only have one source of damage coming to you. Perhaps the 1st-level features should just apply to all damage to/by the target for 1 round, no immediate action needed. That would make it much better (though possibly too much better)


Martyr's Preparation:​ How long do the bonus points from healing last? Until it refreshes next round? Until they're expended? (ala temporary hit points)

There are no “bonus points,” healing can just be applied to the soak pool instead of your normal HP pool. You cannot exceed that pool’s size with healing.

Mirror of the Soul:​ Missed the "once per round, use one of its 1st level abilities as a free action" language from the other 12th level features.

Will fix. Or possibly make the 1st-level abilities just a passive effect for one round, rather than requiring immediate actions. The 12th-level feature would let you apply it to two allies/two enemies.

Ancestral Guidance:​ This is a hilarious way to tank possession effects.

Note that the ​source​ of the effect gets the option of switching it to Athanatism, not the original target or Athanatism. So it wouldn’t do that unless the source was dumb.
​(that may be an unnecessary balancing factor)

Clarisentience:​ Ironically, for "the most difficult horror to understand", granting a wisdom bonus makes it easier for the goetic to make Will saves and stay in control.

Maintaining control doesn’t necessarily mean understanding the horror, but fair enough.

Look Forward:​ Describes Clarisentience as being the one to see the target's future, but the target gets the reroll effect. Should either change the language ("allows a creature it locks eyes with to observe the terrible consequences of its actions in the immediate future", also not a gaze attack), or allow Clarisentience to reroll a d20 that effects that creature (mirroring the effect of Gaze Backwards).

Will fix.
​
Gift of Vision:​ This is a really neat effect. All Seeing is pretty cool, too, but Gift of Vision is cooler.

Glad you like it; I thought it was really solid.
​
Future Sight:​ Who is aware of the pseudo-turn? Also, "and it reverts back to its position and status prior to taking this pseudo-turn" could be cleaned up a little -- sort of sounds like you revert before taking the turn rather than afterwards.

Will fix. Intent was that Clairsentience and allies who can see it are aware of the pseudo-turn (i.e. the future).
​
Astral Doppleganger:​ Should there be a restriction to having one construct out a time, or can a goetic with nothing else to do with their swifts have up to three by constantly refreshing them?

Well, swift+full-round to regain psionic focus. Or swift+move with Psionic Meditation. Wasn't intended, but I’m not sure it’s a problem.
​
Zone of Shields:​ Missing "of" in "regardless its chosen..."

Will fix.
​
Psychokinesis:​ Does it's slam attack count as a weapon attack for the basic effect? Is it intended that psychokinesis keeps its powerful build ability while increasing to Large and Huge?

Yes and yes. One of Psychokinesis’s perks is being the largest.
​
Telekinetic Limb:​ Can this wield a weapon? At what penalty?

It can, and I hadn’t intended a penalty but I suppose one might be warranted.
​
Telekinetic Melee:​ Another cheesemonkey problem: how many weapons can you wield like this? Might be addressable by changing "its weapons" to "the weapons it is currently wielding".

Point, will do.
​
Energy Arena:​ "Each of them rerolls initiative, and fights their own separate battle within the sphere." This needs some clean up. I'm also not sure why it's necessary to reroll initiative, especially if there's a chance that the goetic will need to drop the splice for whatever reason. How long does this last? Can it be dismissed?

It... does have a listed duration? “The sphere lasts a number of rounds equal to one quarter of Psychokinesis’s caster level, or until either Psychokinesis or its target are dead.” Rerolling initiative was to give Psychokinesis a chance to go “first” in the separate duel.
​
Psychoportation:​ You missed editing out a reference to Scorn Earth in the second to last sentence of the second paragraph of the basic effect.

Good catch, will fix. Might be worthwhile to just name the ability what it is. Could be useful, in theory, for a prereq.
​
Tesseract/Impossible Step:​ one name is used in the header, and one at the start of its description.

Tesseract is intended, will fix.

​That was some seriously thorough reviewing!

Happy holidays!

[JerichoPenumbra]

I like what I see and aim to give a thorough read through them all.

However one thing that caught my eye for the Gambler Kineticist is its capstone. Is it suppose to just be bucket of free power points? My reasoning is that since using All-In removes the limit of how much burn can be taken in at once, how much the kineticist can hold, free extra burn each turn, and gives a second swift action each turn then one can arguably make multiple wagers in a round, like spamming Elemental Roulette and Raise the Stakes, or toss quickened blasts. Then the Kineticist could just use Cash-out on the "pot" before the minute is up, not worry about any backlash from All-In and get 4 power points for each point of the obscene amount of burn that was built up. Bug or Feature?

I know most games don't actually reach that point but I'm curious about the design idea. I'll be working through the other archetypes as I can.

[Forrestfire]

I like what I see and aim to give a thorough read through them all.

However one thing that caught my eye for the Gambler Kineticist is its capstone. Is it suppose to just be bucket of free power points? My reasoning is that since using All-In removes the limit of how much burn can be taken in at once, how much the kineticist can hold, free extra burn each turn, and gives a second swift action each turn then one can arguably make multiple wagers in a round, like spamming Elemental Roulette and Raise the Stakes, or toss quickened blasts. Then the Kineticist could just use Cash-out on the "pot" before the minute is up, not worry about any backlash from All-In and get 4 power points for each point of the obscene amount of burn that was built up. Bug or Feature?

I know most games don't actually reach that point but I'm curious about the design idea. I'll be working through the other archetypes as I can.

That is actually a bug; each wager was originally meant to be able to be made once per round, even while using All In and getting an extra swift action. In addition, Cash Out was meant to be capped by your normal maximum burn when using the capstone (so you could use it to negate the additional gain each round and fuel any other wagers as needed, but couldn't use it to cash out the entire pot). These concepts seem to have not made it into the current doc.

Thanks for the catch. I've amended the playtest document.

[Tuvarkz]

A few questions:
-If the kinetic blast confirms a critical strike while holding a power via Elemental Roulette/Raise the Stakes, does the power crit as well-even if it would normally not be able to crit due to not needing an attack roll? (Such as Energy Ball)
-In the same situation, if the blast is an energy one and the enemy has SR/PR (Or both counting as the same as DMs often do), do both the blast and the power need to do a manifester level check against it, or just a single one?
-When using All-In, the amount of Burn gained/reduceable with Cash Out per round is usual his per-round cap (Namely 7 at level 20) or his normal total cap (3+Con)?

[Nyaa]

Although these blade skills are tied to his legendary roles, the living legend can use them regardless of which roles he has invited. Unlike other blade skills, the living legend only gains the benefits of these abilities while he has roles inhabiting him
Wut?


You must use your own magical or psionic solution to a challenge if he can


Champion - Grounded: I expected it to be insight bonus.



Overall, I'm really sad it doesn't stack with War Soul and think that Occultist from Radiance House is just better at being Binder.

Now that I think about it, given OGL nature of Pathfinder, would it be feasible to give each role an associated martial discipline?

[Forrestfire]

A few questions:
-If the kinetic blast confirms a critical strike while holding a power via Elemental Roulette/Raise the Stakes, does the power crit as well-even if it would normally not be able to crit due to not needing an attack roll? (Such as Energy Ball)
-In the same situation, if the blast is an energy one and the enemy has SR/PR (Or both counting as the same as DMs often do), do both the blast and the power need to do a manifester level check against it, or just a single one?
-When using All-In, the amount of Burn gained/reduceable with Cash Out per round is usual his per-round cap (Namely 7 at level 20) or his normal total cap (3+Con)?

- The power does not crit. If you fired a power that normally would use an attack roll, it would crit (similarly to a Magus using Spellstrike), but if not, it merely delivers the AoE or effect to them.

- Both the RAW and RAI here are very muddy. After discussing it internally, we've decided to go with "a single roll." A sentence has been added to say such.

- 3 + Con. I've changed the wording slightly to make this explicit.


Wut?

It's two different things—(a) you can use them regardless of which roles you've invited, and (b) you have to have roles invited to use them; they don't function if you're not channeling a story's power. I've reworded it slightly, should hopefully be clearer.

Thanks for the catch on the archmage taboo.


Champion - Grounded: I expected it to be insight bonus.

We were considering giving it have a bonus type, but decided not to, so it could stack with other save bonuses, similarly to Divine Grace or Charmed Life.


Overall, I'm really sad it doesn't stack with War Soul and think that Occultist from Radiance House is just better at being Binder.

Now that I think about it, given OGL nature of Pathfinder, would it be feasible to give each role an associated martial discipline?

I'm sorry to hear that. It was an intentional choice to make it incompatible with War Soul, in order to allow us to make a stronger and more versatile archetype than we would normally be able to if we had to keep initiating in mind. There won't be any official crossover between the Living Legend and Path of War, although you can definitely get your hands on maneuvers farily easily, either through multiclassing or the Martial Training feats (and the possibility of floating feats make the Living Legend fairly good at it). For homebrew, that could be fairly neat, and I could see a couple disciplines fitting each role well (Elemental Flux and Archmage go together nicely as well as combinations like Sleeping Goddess+Overmind, Veiled Moon and/or Shattered Mirror+Trickster, Silver Crane and Black Seraph+Hierophant, etc).

Regarding similarity to the Binder, the Living Legend isn't actually trying to be one, just like the Medium itself. It's using the Medium's gimmick (much smaller list of scaling and powerful spirits, rather than a larger list of mix-and-match vestiges to grab abilities from). We do have a psionic Medium in the works that's much that's closer to its original roots as a psychic Binder, though.


On a different note, the author of the Goetic has put in some some changes in response to feedback:


Fractured mind no longer requires more sleep, but you wake up shaken.
Clarified possession aspects and ability score bonuses
Cleaned up typos and wording issues in future sight, zone of shields, telekinetic melee, Psychoportation's basic effect, and Psychoportation's 8th.
Athanatism's 1st level features now apply to all damage/effects by/to the target for one round, instead of eating an immediate.



Did not address concerns about feats or spellcasting, they remain under consideration.

[MilleniaAntares]

I think Now You See Me (https://docs.google.com/document/d/11s0QOvYSzcOZNxyhqrKnJrIg-jROgdUxM0o8jUHRdzM/edit#bookmark=kix.fc22g3pxozcs) should have "or darker" added to "area of dim light", unless it's only intended to be used in areas with some light, but not in, say, dark caves.

[Forrestfire]

No, it was meant to be Hide in Plain Sight, except that I made the mistake of copying the text from the Shadowdancer, thinking it'd be good to keep to Pathfinder's wording for it. Today I learned I should have grabbed from the Assassin instead. Thanks for the catch!

[Jurai]

I am in awe. This made my imagination light afire, especially Living Legend and Gambler.

[ImperatorV]

I'm a huge fan of the Goetic. It's awesome, has a lot of great roleplay implications and it fills a fluff niche that I've wanted to be filled for a while now. I do have some issues with the class though.

First, specialization seems weak. You're giving up four horror uses for three bonus uses. A strict downgrade unless there are at least two horrors you wouldn't use at all. More problematically, the highest level horror abilities can only be used once per day. Doubling the use time and number of uses of the horrors themselves does not grant extra uses of these abilities, so a specialist loses out on half of their best horror powers with no benefit gained. Specialists should get extra daily uses of their horror's 16th and 20th level powers, and some other minor bonus to make up for going from seven horrors per day to six.

Ars Goetia seems too strong for a feat. That isn't to say you should get rid of it. Giving each horror a separate feat is a cool ability that should definitely be somewhere. Maybe add some sort of balancing factor to the feat? Perhaps losing some safe time with the horrors, because the feat made them more powerful?

I was somewhat disappointed in telepathy. First, because after seeing metacreativity get major creation, psychportation get fold space and greater teleport, and psychometabolism get metamorphosis, I expected telepathy to have dominate and/or suggestion. Second, because all of it's abilities are "activates when a ally gets hit." I get that this is a major theme of the class, but each horror should have some offensive or self defensive abilities or they will start to seem redundant and boring in play.

The other six horrors are awesome. Good job on those.

[Forrestfire]

Some responses from the author of the Goetic:


I'm a huge fan of the Goetic. It's awesome, has a lot of great roleplay implications and it fills a fluff niche that I've wanted to be filled for a while now.
"Awesome, glad you like it!"


I do have some issues with the class though.
"Also awesome—feedback is always appreciated."
​

First, specialization seems weak. You're giving up four horror uses for three bonus uses. A strict downgrade unless there are at least two horrors you wouldn't use at all.
"You also get to, ya know, specialize, focus your resources on those three horrors. Considering the goetic's MAD, this is a pretty big deal."
​

More problematically, the highest level horror abilities can only be used once per day. Doubling the use time and number of uses of the horrors themselves does not grant extra uses of these abilities, so a specialist loses out on half of their best horror powers with no benefit gained. Specialists should get extra daily uses of their horror's 16th and 20th level powers
"This is a good point; will do something along these lines."
​

and some other minor bonus to make up for going from seven horrors per day to six.
"Less inclined to do this, but may do something with the capstone since as-is the capstone gives most of the benefit of specializing to non-specialists."
​

Ars Goetia seems too strong for a feat.
"You're getting one feat at a time, and you're burning a feat to ​no​ effect when unspliced. It's a good, even great feat, but I'm not sure I buy it's overpowered. It emphasizes the thematics of the goetic even more strongly: you are giving up your personal power for the horrors'. ​That said, the feat is problematic in a few ways, so it may be due for some reconsideration. If nothing else, the feat's text takes up an ​enormous​ amount of space. ​So changes may be coming there."
​

Perhaps losing some safe time with the horrors, because the feat made them more powerful?
"Definitely not this, though. While the limits on daily horror use are important, I ​do​ want you to be able to use the things."
​

I was somewhat disappointed in telepathy.
"Huh, Telepathy is my favorite, and has been very popular."
​

First, because after seeing metacreativity get major creation, psychportation get fold space and greater teleport, and psychometabolism get metamorphosis, I expected telepathy to have dominate and/or suggestion.
"While I can see that, those do fall well outside the goetic's role. The archetype does stick very close to what it does."
​

Second, because all of it's abilities are "activates when a ally gets hit." I get that this is a major theme of the class, but each horror should have some offensive or self defensive abilities or they will start to seem redundant and boring in play.
"Remember that the goetic still gets spiritualist spellcasting. Ars Goetia also includes Martial Training for a reason. Also, all of the horrors do very different things when reacting to enemies."
​
"That said, you're not wrong that Telepathy, perhaps more than any other horror, has two "chains" that simply follow one from the other in very linear progressions. Might be worth doing something different. Alternatively, some of the ideas I've had for Ars Goetia have included unique options for various horrors; I could see adding more features like this to the horror that way."

-------------------------------------------------

Personally, I greatly like that Telepathy doesn't really get any true mind control. The way it handles it is a road not often explored when it comes to telepathic power, and allows for some cool abilities that might otherwise had their space be spent on yet another mind control effect. Don't forget that they still cast spells, though. The Spiritualist spell list includes dominate person and more than a few other mental effects.

[Kymera]

Is there an established definition anywhere for the term "temporary power points"? If so, which book is it in, and which section?

There is not; the word is used informally, to denote that these power points will vanish after being used.

How does that work for stacking? Is it limited only by whatever explicit stacking clauses the abilities in question include? If I repeatedly use TPP-granting abilities without such stacking clauses, do they just keep adding up, and does the answer change depending on whether it's the same ability repeatedly, or several different abilities each used once?

[Forrestfire]

How does that work for stacking? Is it limited only by whatever explicit stacking clauses the abilities in question include? If I repeatedly use TPP-granting abilities without such stacking clauses, do they just keep adding up, and does the answer change depending on whether it's the same ability repeatedly, or several different abilities each used once?

The Cash Out wager gives you power points and doesn't stack with itself, and other abilities that do similar things would follow their own stated rules. As Temporary Power Points are not currently a thing, I've edited it and excised the word entirely, replacing it with a synonymous phrase to help prevent confusion.

If they did become a thing, I think they'd probably end up stacking with each other but not themselves, like temporary hit points.

[Kymera]

Goetic > Psychoportation > Warp Step
Activating this ability appears to cost a Standard action. Is this intentional? It seems rather limiting for what the ability does and the level it does it at,

[Mithril Leaf]

The Cash Out wager gives you power points and doesn't stack with itself, and other abilities that do similar things would follow their own stated rules. As Temporary Power Points are not currently a thing, I've edited it and excised the word entirely, replacing it with a synonymous phrase to help prevent confusion.

If they did become a thing, I think they'd probably end up stacking with each other but not themselves, like temporary hit points.

They are also mentioned in Scales of Damnation which is within Seventh Path.

[Forrestfire]

And, having done some more digging, they do actually exist and I'm an idiot for saying they don't :smallredface: Apparently ctrl+f is a cruel mistress.


Temporary Power Points: Certain effects give a character temporary power points, usually for a set duration (10 minutes unless specified otherwise). Any power points spent are deducted from these temporary power points first (the manifester may spend both temporary power points and power points from his own power point reserve when manifesting). When the duration wears off, any unspent temporary power points are lost. Spent temporary power points cannot be regained through normal means (although the character could gain additional temporary power points through the same or another effect). If the character gains additional temporary power points while existing power points remain, they overlap (they do not stack) so only the highest total remains, and the duration is reset to the latest temporary power points’ duration.


I'm terribly sorry about that. In any case, a with this in mind, the Gambler does not grant temporary power points with its Cash Out wager. Unlike temporary hit points, temporary power points don't stack with each other from different sources. The Gambler's Cash Out power points would stack with any temporary or other bonus power points gained.

[Kymera]

The Ars Goetia feat, on the Athanatism list, references the feats "Angel Blood" and "Angel Flesh". I've been unable to find feats by those names. Is it intended to refer to "Angelic Blood" and "Angelic Flesh"?

[Forrestfire]

That's correct. Our bad; it's been fixed in the doc.

[Kymera]

Also, Life Lure is listed, but doesn't have the superscripted "2" that allows it to be used with the special pool of these-feats-only channelling attempts, nor to count Athanatism has having channel energy. Is this feat intended to only be an option for multiclass or gestalt goetics who have channel energy from another class?

It also lists "Negative Energy Affinity" as a feat. I was unable to find any feat by that name, though I did find a universal monster ability.

And I was unable to find anything at all for "Resist the Lure" and "Touch of the Grave".

And on the "all horrors" list:
Psionic Body: all goetics already get this as a bonus feat at level 3, so at best this is a trap option if Ars Goetia is taken at level 1, since it'll only do anything for 2 levels.

I was unable to find any feat named "Smiting Reversal".

Emotional Conduit: When taken by Metacreativity, this is required to function as per the "Dedication" emotional focus, but Emotional Conduit doesn't have an entry for "Dedication". Should this be "Devotion"?

[Vhaidara]

Emotional Conduit: When taken by Metacreativity, this is required to function as per the "Dedication" emotional focus, but Emotional Conduit doesn't have an entry for "Dedication". Should this be "Devotion"?

That one is on Paizo. The Phantom is called Dedication, there is no Devotion phantom.

[Kymera]

That one is on Paizo. The Phantom is called Dedication, there is no Devotion phantom.

In that case, the Goetic should probably have a note pointing out that the spell list being used is the one labelled in the feat as "Devotion".



on Telepathy's list:
Telepathy already has Mounted Combat for prerequisite purposes, and is unable to use its actual feat effect anyway, due to not having a mount as a separate creature.

Xenoglossy's effect is almost entirely superseded by the second paragraph of Telepathy's basic effect.

[Forrestfire]

Also, Life Lure is listed, but doesn't have the superscripted "2" that allows it to be used with the special pool of these-feats-only channelling attempts, nor to count Athanatism has having channel energy. Is this feat intended to only be an option for multiclass or gestalt goetics who have channel energy from another class?

It also lists "Negative Energy Affinity" as a feat. I was unable to find any feat by that name, though I did find a universal monster ability.

And I was unable to find anything at all for "Resist the Lure" and "Touch of the Grave".

And on the "all horrors" list:
Psionic Body: all goetics already get this as a bonus feat at level 3, so at best this is a trap option if Ars Goetia is taken at level 1, since it'll only do anything for 2 levels.

I was unable to find any feat named "Smiting Reversal".

Emotional Conduit: When taken by Metacreativity, this is required to function as per the "Dedication" emotional focus, but Emotional Conduit doesn't have an entry for "Dedication". Should this be "Devotion"?


In that case, the Goetic should probably have a note pointing out that the spell list being used is the one labelled in the feat as "Devotion".

on Telepathy's list:
Telepathy already has Mounted Combat for prerequisite purposes, and is unable to use its actual feat effect anyway, due to not having a mount as a separate creature.

Xenoglossy's effect is almost entirely superseded by the second paragraph of Telepathy's basic effect.

Responses from the author:


Life Lure was meant to have a 2, and now does in the document.
Negative Energy Affinity, Resist the Lure, and Touch of the Grave are from Seventh Path.
Psionic Body is on the list because Ars Goetia allows you to choose feats that require one of the feats on a given horror's list. Each goetic gets Psionic Body for free, and it's possible to gain things like Deep Focus later.
Smiting Reversal is from Agents of Evil.
Emotional Conduit's issues are something we're discussing and trying to figure out the best way to list it for when the inevitable errata comes through and fixes the typo.
Telepathy has Mounted Combat listed for the same reason Psionic Body is listed—so that it can use Ars Goetia to take feats that require it as a prerequisite.
While Telepathy does have part of Xenoglossy's effect, it doesn't do the most important one: secret conversations. Many Telepathy users won't take it, but it's very thematic and still has some decent uses.


Thanks again for the feedback!

[Kymera]

Goetic

When Psychoportation uses Lure, is there any limitation to where the target can be sent? Is the destination limited to the same Close range as the point of origin?

[Forrestfire]

We accidentally a word. It's meant to teleport them adjacent to the horror.

EDIT: We've also made some updates to the Unpattern phantom archetype, to make their pattern rend ability less awkward to use, action-wise, and added in a slight buff to its Unpattern Potency ability.

[Forrestfire]

We've got some new stuff for you all today!


The Govi (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#bookmark=id.lmc1uj448rhb), an occultist who inverts their normal training in the arts of magic circles and mystical traps to go on the attack against extraplanar interlopers and possessing creatures. We've also added a few new feats for occultists in their document, with more to come.


The Host of Heroes (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pZCqqDCNYMTMXo56HPDKK61r-_H2qVO6Ydoz-F9FIhM/edit#), an aegis archetype with medium-theming similar to the Living Legend. They can modify their astral suit to fit legendary figures they seek to emulate and piggyback on the fame of, and gain benefits based on the myths they weave into their power.


The Mindrender (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9QhIKQ5oHcfzjIXaUpBfS57E-2NVu5HYvEScCpnPOQ/edit?usp=sharing), a mesmerist with dread terrors who is more terrifying that fear itself, who can lock people down with his stare.


The Shattered Mind (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#bookmark=id.6bvvcrrpcywp), a psionic occultist who shards off his mind and soul into his implements, turning them into psicrystals and storing his psionic powers in them.

[Tuvarkz]

About the Host of Heroes
-Beacon Customization-Shouldn't this be a circumstance bonus (which also makes sense fluffwise-the enemy shining bright is basically painting a big target on them rather than making your ally better at attacking him). There's a good amount of ways to get a competence bonus to attack rolls +1 or higher (And similarly for damage rolls, even if not as rare), making the first two points of investment rather useless.

[drafghast]

About the Host of Heroes
-Beacon Customization-Shouldn't this be a circumstance bonus (which also makes sense fluffwise-the enemy shining bright is basically painting a big target on them rather than making your ally better at attacking him). There's a good amount of ways to get a competence bonus to attack rolls +1 or higher (And similarly for damage rolls, even if not as rare), making the first two points of investment rather useless.

That's a fair point. My initial intent was to have it mimic the bardic bonus, but I hadn't considered the massive amount of sources of competence bonuses. This may be something we look into in future versions of this release.

[Edited for slight rewording]

[Kiton2]

I'd normally do this over on /pfg/ but the thread'll be dead and changed in half an hour.
I've been going through the Host of Heroes, because Aegis. Quite interesting so far, but a couple of bits:

1) It's going to have potentially extremely stiff competition from the aegis mech archetype, whenever ssalarn returns from the dead.

2) In exchange for DR/- you gain bonuses but only when *not* focused. This gets rather strange. How does it interact with abilities that require you to expend it? Say you expend focus for a skill bonus, do you get the unfocused rite of passage bonus as well on the roll, or were you considered focused since expenditure was as part of the roll?

3) Beacon is melee only. WHY. Make that stop. I'm getting flashbacks from the steelforge document. Otherwise the new customizations are actually quite nice, but right now you would want them elsewhere, not on here.

4) Monomyths. Not very good. Using the archmage as an example: The ranged attack series of customizations is generally viewed as an emergency-augment or last-ditch weapon, and even the Crystal Warrior took a severe hit now with options like "add a laser to your psi-core, it's a robot now", or Strategos. Given the costs are pretty much exactly the customizations themselves, small bonuses that come with the monomyth aren't worth locking your points into something that's not worth it.

Simply put, the range is dangerously short, it's unaffected by size increases (unless something's changed recently), it can't be enchanted or enhanced, its touch mode is a standard action... Basically you get the slight accuracy problems of the Aegis without the best parts of its damage-boosting capabilities.


But nastier here is actually that... thing. All of them have it. "Once per day, expend focus, costs PPs". Feels like I'm reading the 5e warlock invocations. You know, the ones that get rated red because they not only go counter to what the class is about by being done this way, but are also a raw deal for something you're pouring several levels into?

The Aegis can already normally switch many of his abilities around every day. This archetype, currently as-is, takes away much of that flexibility if you're to actually get any of what it gives you, but without giving you something in return to the level of the other archetypes. The class loses some of its splashiness, but not in a good way: why spend your CPts on these monomyths when you can get better elsewhere? Keep in mind that Elsewhere in this case is still Aegis, and that "but you can change it out every day" is ALSO an Aegis thing.

>Initiator Soul customizations give access to stances that can easily equate the slight extras you get for going deep into your monomyth. In fact many level 1 stances are easily worth the extras from going 6-deep into a monomyth. (for 'archmage' this also includes phantom sun stance which allows you to put your points into giant bows with infinite ammo)

>Veilweaving customizations, while quickly very expensive if you want more than one (I'd say 2 and an essence pool is still very good though. it's a very solid set of customs). And I've given a lot of **** to the Hand Cannons veil before (I'll be happy to see it improved if it ever gets some rework) but if you're going to pump a bunch of points into something either way, it IS a better option

>SotAS and 4 levels of warsoul, with Discipline Shapes, still leaves you with a better set of weapons than archmage mode, and your suit would give you things rather than being nothing but a set of robes.



That said it's not all bad: Guardian would be pretty sweet at 6 (9 is way too situational; how about when YOU hit with an AoO rather than when you get hit by one?) if it wasn't 1/day. Why are things 1/day. Four Arms good. Vancian bad. At worst make them 1/encounter or "can't reuse for 5 minutes" or something.

The concept is there, I can see the idea, and I like it... but the execution leaves one looking at anything else you can do with Aegis and has one go "THIS I could do better by shaping my suit THAT way today, and THAT other one I could just reconfigure and do..."

[drafghast]

I'd normally do this over on /pfg/ but the thread'll be dead and changed in half an hour.
I've been going through the Host of Heroes, because Aegis. Quite interesting so far, but a couple of bits:

First, let me say thank you for some very in depth analysis and great feedback!


1) It's going to have potentially extremely stiff competition from the aegis mech archetype, whenever ssalarn returns from the dead.

A little interdepartmental competition is good for us :) Besides, I'm not here to try and put anyone out - I just want to introduce a few more quality options for folks.



2) In exchange for DR/- you gain bonuses but only when *not* focused. This gets rather strange. How does it interact with abilities that require you to expend it? Say you expend focus for a skill bonus, do you get the unfocused rite of passage bonus as well on the roll, or were you considered focused since expenditure was as part of the roll?

This point, in particular, is an excellent one. Removing the DR was a last minute decision, and hasn't seen a lot of internal review. Overall, we like the idea, but we may need to buff the things it got bumped for. Like, the unfocused bonuses. Those were something that were seen as cool and thematic, and I feel there is something to the idea. Clarifications aren't a bad idea, whether or not it stays the same or changes. In fact, I'm gonna go add some now. Intent says that if he expends to make a relevant, RoP'ed check, he counts as not focused and would gain the RoP bonus.


3) Beacon is melee only. WHY. Make that stop. I'm getting flashbacks from the steelforge document. Otherwise the new customizations are actually quite nice, but right now you would want them elsewhere, not on here.

This one was due to my mental image of the marshal being strictly a melee one. I have zero issue making this ranged (in fact, I just changed it TO include ranged), as I don't want to exclude the ranged leaders/generals/etc. I'm glad you like the customizations, though. I was a little concerned about the balancing of things like magecraft, but I wanted to get some playtest feedback on it.


4) Monomyths. Not very good. Using the archmage as an example: The ranged attack series of customizations is generally viewed as an emergency-augment or last-ditch weapon, and even the Crystal Warrior took a severe hit now with options like "add a laser to your psi-core, it's a robot now", or Strategos. Given the costs are pretty much exactly the customizations themselves, small bonuses that come with the monomyth aren't worth locking your points into something that's not worth it.

Simply put, the range is dangerously short, it's unaffected by size increases (unless something's changed recently), it can't be enchanted or enhanced, its touch mode is a standard action... Basically you get the slight accuracy problems of the Aegis without the best parts of its damage-boosting capabilities.

But nastier here is actually that... thing. All of them have it. "Once per day, expend focus, costs PPs". Feels like I'm reading the 5e warlock invocations. You know, the ones that get rated red because they not only go counter to what the class is about by being done this way, but are also a raw deal for something you're pouring several levels into?

The Aegis can already normally switch many of his abilities around every day. This archetype, currently as-is, takes away much of that flexibility if you're to actually get any of what it gives you, but without giving you something in return to the level of the other archetypes. The class loses some of its splashiness, but not in a good way: why spend your CPts on these monomyths when you can get better elsewhere? Keep in mind that Elsewhere in this case is still Aegis, and that "but you can change it out every day" is ALSO an Aegis thing.

We're trying to come up with a way to make the benefits from investing in a monomyth worth the cost, but I derped about quite a few of the customizations not being worth being locked into. I also didn't want to develop a huge amount of new customizations. So, I think its safe to say that we will be (at least in part) changing the actual mechanical benefits for investing in a monomyth, while retaining the overall theme of each.

The once per day/expend PP thing was an attempt to both give the host a way to spend some PP and give him some cool extras-immediately before release, it was actually discussed to replace them with PLAs. So, more potential change there. The loss of flexibility, however...the large intent of the archetype is to mostly lock you into one legend, with options for switching temporarily. What it may be failing to do is to adequately account for lost versatility. This is something that I had not truly valued as much as I should have, and may be integrated into later versions.


That said it's not all bad: Guardian would be pretty sweet at 6 (9 is way too situational; how about when YOU hit with an AoO rather than when you get hit by one?) if it wasn't 1/day. Why are things 1/day. Four Arms good. Vancian bad. At worst make them 1/encounter or "can't reuse for 5 minutes" or something.

The concept is there, I can see the idea, and I like it... but the execution leaves one looking at anything else you can do with Aegis and has one go "THIS I could do better by shaping my suit THAT way today, and THAT other one I could just reconfigure and do..."

Well, I'm glad you like it! The Vancian issue is an entire different problem, and one that we can work around in some cases. Reviews and testing will tell us if this is one of those. The Guardian issue you mentioned is actually exactly how it should have been, but errors happen (fixed now).

Great reviews, guys! Keep 'em coming!

[Kiton2]

Yeah, Power Point systems are fun partly because they're NOT "once per day" unless you're using all your points and had really bad stats. Even then, manifester level limit usually ensures that can't happen. There's this feeling of redundancy to those monomyth abilities as a result: It's once a day ability from your "one pool per day" fuel tank using an integral part of your "all day long, action-economy-limited" system.

Edit: A few examples of the extreme versatility, just to help out. Because Aegis can *really* go far that way. It's only the literal lack of non-item (since anyone could just grab a scroll and make the claims otherwise right?) access to highest level spells/powers and their campaign-altering capabilities that keeps them from tier 1 after all.

Daevic Veils: These range from Armory of the Conqueror (at higher levels this is the step up after augmented weapons; more expensive to set up in points and equipment but once capacity and/or catalysts let you get 2+ size-ups it's an upgrade) to a party-buffing totem to a forcefield generator to dreamcatchers, (more) tentacles, succubus techniques, THP and general skill bonuses. Also healings!

Maneuvers: This can not only give you Call Weapon at 0 cost with only a little effort/feat (Now armory those rocket launchers and see a slow-firing weapon finally almost sorta kinda keep up with a longbow full-attack; which is also a full round to do too) but opens up teleports, heal boosts, exorcisms, status effects, counters and all sorts of other goodies.

Harness Skill Shard: 1k for +10 to a skill for 1pp whenever. Yes.

Trailblazers: "How will you get there now?" "Yes". Aegis mobility in general is already top-notch, fast as it gets short of long range teleport-without-errors. Although we're lacking interstellar flight (and/or the weapons needed at such speeds and ranges) and vacuum-compatible life support, hint hint.

Extra Arms: Always useful whether melee or ranged (where at the very least you could get ExArms II and get a shield and reloading hand to go with your rifle). Remember shields? Defensive Expertise hopes you do!

You obviously know about power-stone repositories given how you did the overmind.

Stealth: Aegii are actually quite good at it, especially with recent options: A chameleon with stalker's tabi and veiled moon maneuvers not only has excellent circumstance and insight bonuses to stealth, but can add the 1st level Chameleon(again?) POWER for another +10 enhancement to it. And then that stealth rating gets used on counters and the like.

Toughness: The Forgelord (levels 2-4 of which continue to advance class features) can attune to either worn armor or an AC-granting astral suit to *also* stack his class levels to the Aegis existing DR/-. Now add in Evasion and Stalwart.

[ImperatorV]

The shattered mind looks cool! Especially the capstone. A very unique method of evading death.

Am I reading it right that the implements received at low levels don't have their powers known scale? Seems odd that the schools a person specializes in early get less powers known the the ones they get later. If anything I'd think it'd be the reverse.

Also a question regarding the fluff: are the psicrystal implements independent entities that form a gestalt when carried together by their home meatsuit, or is there only a single mind that is always connected to it's other parts, but has trouble expressing itself when it's physical pieces are separated?

[MilleniaAntares]

The Hierophant Monomyth for the Host of Heroes Aegis says: "6 Points: You gain the following free customizations: darkvision, flight. You gain the following free customizations: retaliate, stalwart."

If the four free customizations are intended, then they should be in one sentence.

However, I think that darkvision + flight is more than enough. Flight is really really good after all...

[Forrestfire]

The shattered mind looks cool! Especially the capstone. A very unique method of evading death.

Am I reading it right that the implements received at low levels don't have their powers known scale? Seems odd that the schools a person specializes in early get less powers known the the ones they get later. If anything I'd think it'd be the reverse.

Also a question regarding the fluff: are the psicrystal implements independent entities that form a gestalt when carried together by their home meatsuit, or is there only a single mind that is always connected to it's other parts, but has trouble expressing itself when it's physical pieces are separated?

Glad to hear you like it. The implements received at low levels don't have their powers known scale, yes. It's a little odd, but I figured that in order to keep their relatively unique power-learning mechanic, it's for the best. In comparison, a normal Occultist learns 42 spells, but they're scattered across each level. Psionic powers scale slightly worse when not used at full power, but many scale significantly better than low-level spells with their augments. The the eventual conclusion was that between this and the fact that they can pull their powers from any list, they should have less powers known overall (and keep it scaling at something closer to the speed of normal manifesters) than the Occultist has spells.

Regarding their mind; mechanically, a Shattered Mind is between two and eight separate creatures, telepathically linked together. Fluffwise, they're as you put it: a single mind that distrubuted across the psicrystals that has trouble expressing itself when its physical pieces aren't together. They still need the body to keep them fully networked, but as the Shattered Mind levels up, more and more of their mind will be offloaded into their "external data storage."

[drafghast]

The Hierophant Monomyth for the Host of Heroes Aegis says: "6 Points: You gain the following free customizations: darkvision, flight. You gain the following free customizations: retaliate, stalwart."

If the four free customizations are intended, then they should be in one sentence.

However, I think that darkvision + flight is more than enough. Flight is really really good after all...

Thanks for the heads up! And thanks in large part to the commentary we've already received, we will be (at least in part) reworking the way monomyth is set up.

SO we will definitely take all suggestions, comments, concerns, and complaints into account on our way to a strong, finalized product :)

[Kiton2]

Except the aegis could've just spent 2 points on flight at level 5 instead of waiting for 6th.

[ImperatorV]

Glad to hear you like it. The implements received at low levels don't have their powers known scale, yes. It's a little odd, but I figured that in order to keep their relatively unique power-learning mechanic, it's for the best. In comparison, a normal Occultist learns 42 spells, but they're scattered across each level. Psionic powers scale slightly worse when not used at full power, but many scale significantly better than low-level spells with their augments. The the eventual conclusion was that between this and the fact that they can pull their powers from any list, they should have less powers known overall (and keep it scaling at something closer to the speed of normal manifesters) than the Occultist has spells.

That makes sense. I'm just a little concerned that people won't be able to pick up their favorite discipline at low levels for fear of not getting enough powers. I'd prefer if the implements received at lower levels scaled, and the ones at higher levels didn't. Maybe something like...

"Whenever a Shattered Mind received a new level powers, each of their existing implements gains one additional power known." (That's 5+5+5+4+3+2+1=25 powers known from implements, vs the current 20. Too much).

How about...

"Whenever a Shattered mind receives a new level of powers they can choose three implements to receive a new power known. Each implement can contain a maximum number of powers equal to the highest level power the shattered mind can manifest." (7 implements + 15 bonus = 22. Closer but still too high).

"Starting at level four, and at each level thereafter where the shattered mind does not receive a new implement, they can choose one implement and invest more of their mind into it, gaining one additional power known from that implement. Each implement can contain a maximum number of powers equal to the highest level power the shattered mind can manifest." (7 implements + 13 bonus = 20 total. Yessss. I like this one, it gives a more gradual progression then sudden bursts of known powers at high levels. Unless the powers being learned all at once was part of the balance?)


Regarding their mind; mechanically, a Shattered Mind is between two and eight separate creatures, telepathically linked together. Fluffwise, they're as you put it: a single mind that distrubuted across the psicrystals that has trouble expressing itself when its physical pieces aren't together. They still need the body to keep them fully networked, but as the Shattered Mind levels up, more and more of their mind will be offloaded into their "external data storage."

So it's treated as multiple creatures for mechanics purposes, but is actually just one person. Got it.

Also, a concern regarding the capstone: It says the Shattered mind "can" take over people, implying it doesn't automatically go off when the dead shattered mind's implements are carried by people. But the implements stop functioning as psicrystals when they are dead, so they have no way of knowing if they are even being carried! As it is now, I'm reading it as the shattered mind chooses when they die to automatically try to hijack anyone suitable who picks them up or to stay inert and wait for a ressurection. Would you consider allowing the psicrystal implements to retain their senses, or have an unconscious sense of who/what is carrying them so they can selectively take over people? Or is supposed to be like a cured item virus sort of thing, anyone who touches the implements after the shattered mind's death better hope they roll good will saves?

[Forrestfire]

"Starting at level four, and at each level thereafter where the shattered mind does not receive a new implement, they can choose one implement and invest more of their mind into it, gaining one additional power known from that implement. Each implement can contain a maximum number of powers equal to the highest level power the shattered mind can manifest." (7 implements + 13 bonus = 20 total. Yessss. I like this one, it gives a more gradual progression then sudden bursts of known powers at high levels. Unless the powers being learned all at once was part of the balance?)

This is wonderful, and solves a problem we were having difficulty with. It's been implemented. Thank you! :smallbiggrin:



So it's treated as multiple creatures for mechanics purposes, but is actually just one person. Got it.

Also, a concern regarding the capstone: It says the Shattered mind "can" take over people, implying it doesn't automatically go off when the dead shattered mind's implements are carried by people. But the implements stop functioning as psicrystals when they are dead, so they have no way of knowing if they are even being carried! As it is now, I'm reading it as the shattered mind chooses when they die to automatically try to hijack anyone suitable who picks them up or to stay inert and wait for a ressurection. Would you consider allowing the psicrystal implements to retain their senses, or have an unconscious sense of who/what is carrying them so they can selectively take over people? Or is supposed to be like a cured item virus sort of thing, anyone who touches the implements after the shattered mind's death better hope they roll good will saves?

The shattered mind's capstone was meant to work as sort of a cursed item virus sort of thing; I've edited the text slightly to that effect. If a shattered mind wants to make sure he stays dead, he should probably hook deadman switches to his pet rocks.

[Aditus]

Really love the goetic, though I feel a small twinge of concern at the immunity to possession plus massive damage to possessors, I'm curious about the reasoning behind that effect.

Also, the class feature "Phantom Recall" is replaced twice, once by Possessed Manifestation and once by Gratuitous Horror. Not a difficult issue to fix, just something I noticed while checking the archetype for compatibility with others.

[meemaas]

The Terrible Trickery Terror for the Mindrender says it can be taken an additional time for every five levels after 11th, up to a max of four at 19th. Should be for every four levels to make sense.

[ImperatorV]

This is wonderful, and solves a problem we were having difficulty with. It's been implemented. Thank you! :smallbiggrin:

Glad I could contribute. RPG rules design is fun!

[Forrestfire]

Really love the goetic, though I feel a small twinge of concern at the immunity to possession plus massive damage to possessors, I'm curious about the reasoning behind that effect.

Also, the class feature "Phantom Recall" is replaced twice, once by Possessed Manifestation and once by Gratuitous Horror. Not a difficult issue to fix, just something I noticed while checking the archetype for compatibility with others.

Regarding possessors, the reasoning behind the effect is that possession is a fairly rare ability possessed by few creatures. Many campaigns will likely run their course without seeing it come up unless the players themselves are using it. In the campaigns where it does, the ability is definitely stronger, but even then, it's a relatively niche defense that still might not come up at all. On top of that, the immunity part can be gained through a 4,500 gp expenditure (wayfinder with a clear spindle ioun stone), which also gives you blanket immunity to any and all mental control effects on top of it. Or just by casting a protection from evil spell when you think there might be a danger, even if that doesn't last all day like the wayfinder's version does.

The Phantom Recall discrepancy is being fixed as we speak.


The Terrible Trickery Terror for the Mindrender says it can be taken an additional time for every five levels after 11th, up to a max of four at 19th. Should be for every four levels to make sense.

Thanks for the catch.

[Aditus]

Right, it's less the "immune to possession" that I was commenting on than the "and any would-be possessor takes damage equal to five times [the goetic's] level, cannot take any more actions this turn, and is flat-footed for one round."

While it is relatively unlikely to come up, it still seems like a bit much to me.

[drafghast]

The Terrible Trickery Terror for the Mindrender says it can be taken an additional time for every five levels after 11th, up to a max of four at 19th. Should be for every four levels to make sense.

Good catch! I'll be sure to fix that ASAP.

[drafghast]

Well, folks - you spoke, and we listened. We got some great feedback for the host of heroes, so we went back and took a really thorough look at it. Its monomyth system has been thoroughly overhauled for power and versatility more in tune with that an aegis player is used to, we refined and polished some of the rough edges (rites of passage and the usages of forge destiny, for example), integrated some information about initiators and the host, and just generally made it better. I'm really excited about the changes, and I hope you are too! Enjoy!

[Kiton2]

Alrighty, let's have a look.
First off, two specific disciplines is kinda restrictive. I'll be keeping that restriction in mind as I look through. But I would like to note one problem there: it really pigeonholes a few of the roles in ways they may find quite useless. Golden Lion, for example, is almost exclusively melee, even some of its boosts and buffs won't do so well otherwise. So, that's kinda that for the marshal eh? Maybe if they replaced Sleeping Goddess instead: It's kinda skippable for a lot of characters due to everything on it having easy-to-make-saves.

Anyways:

1) The association system seems at first glance to be a marked improvement.

Archmage: Big improvement here as well. I'd still be very iffy on the blast given its pathetic range, but its output has certainly gone up by being a weapon. Expensive spread, though. Please remember energy blast has requirements which are not associated to the suit. Is this deliberate?

The rite of passage could be an issue: you're supposed to be using your energy blast as a weapon, but it is not something that can currently be enchanted, and your "Robes" aren't counted as armor either. May wanna add some compatibility there?

The one-a-day psychoport can be acceptable since at least it's a long distance travel power.


Marshal: there are *SIX* levels between gaining teamwork feats and being able to actually use them. That's seven too many.

Overmind: >Ranged attack. Yeah uh, I know someone else who kinda requires it for their monomyth to work. Maybe swap the two freebies? Energy Resist and Ranged Attack?

"Armor bonus to AC". Yeah no. It's a skin so you can already be wearing armor, so it'll do nothing until higher levels most of the time. Furthermore it won't actually keep up at high levels because you'd be using enchanted armor, and the touch bonus is insanely expensive; not only in PPs but because you could just use a counter, with far higher chance of avoiding the blow than this.

"Flight": Does it count AS the flight customization though? I ask effectively whether one has to purchase flight again, or if you can directly start pumping points for speed boosts as if it was flight.

[drafghast]

Alrighty, let's have a look.
First off, two specific disciplines is kinda restrictive. I'll be keeping that restriction in mind as I look through. But I would like to note one problem there: it really pigeonholes a few of the roles in ways they may find quite useless. Golden Lion, for example, is almost exclusively melee, even some of its boosts and buffs won't do so well otherwise. So, that's kinda that for the marshal eh? Maybe if they replaced Sleeping Goddess instead: It's kinda skippable for a lot of characters due to everything on it having easy-to-make-saves.


Thanks for taking a look at the changes so quickly! For this part, we felt that we did want to shoehorn the various heroic roles into specific initiator types; that having been said, if it doesn't play a major role in your build, or if you need a different discipline, you still have that third slot. An overall note - free customizations do not count towards monomyth.


1) The association system seems at first glance to be a marked improvement.

Archmage: Big improvement here as well. I'd still be very iffy on the blast given its pathetic range, but its output has certainly gone up by being a weapon. Expensive spread, though. Please remember energy blast has requirements which are not associated to the suit. Is this deliberate?

The rite of passage could be an issue: you're supposed to be using your energy blast as a weapon, but it is not something that can currently be enchanted, and your "Robes" aren't counted as armor either. May wanna add some compatibility there?

The one-a-day psychoport can be acceptable since at least it's a long distance travel power.


Glad you like the change! The energy blast prereqs and Rite issue with Archmage are some things that slipped through the design cracks, and we are looking into some ways to make those work.

EDIT: The Archmage's astral suit has been changed to allow taking energy blast as early as 1st level while you are wearing it, to get you through those pesky early levels.


Marshal: there are *SIX* levels between gaining teamwork feats and being able to actually use them. That's seven too many.


For this one, you can still use the teamwork feat when you get it, it just doesn't make you a cavalier until later. It was felt that this was ok, as we didn't want to render any other roles obsolete. The rest of the Marshal stuff is designed with synergy in mind, leading and optimizing teamwork.


Overmind: >Ranged attack. Yeah uh, I know someone else who kinda requires it for their monomyth to work. Maybe swap the two freebies? Energy Resist and Ranged Attack?

"Armor bonus to AC". Yeah no. It's a skin so you can already be wearing armor, so it'll do nothing until higher levels most of the time. Furthermore it won't actually keep up at high levels because you'd be using enchanted armor, and the touch bonus is insanely expensive; not only in PPs but because you could just use a counter, with far higher chance of avoiding the blow than this.

"Flight": Does it count AS the flight customization though? I ask effectively whether one has to purchase flight again, or if you can directly start pumping points for speed boosts as if it was flight.

The ranged attack and energy resistance swap was an oversight, and the documents have been changed to reflect this. Good eye!
The armor bonus is not meant to incredibly powerful. Its good if your armor is loaded with special abilities, or if you're not wearing any, and goes great with the Archmage's defensive suite if you decide to mix them.
The flight was very much a flavor choice. Given the Overmind's nature, we felt there had to be a telekinetic representation as well as telepathic. So, we went with TK flight. The intent was that taking any future flight customizations will buff it as normal - we are investigating further clarifications in regards to that.

[Kiton2]

Remember though that it won't actually work unless others in the party have those teamwork feats. This is what is generally meant by them being nonfunctional until/unless you've got some levels in tactician, etc. They're good when they can be shared, but very weak for PCs otherwise. Without sharing, other characters have to pick the same teamwork feats at the same levels as you do or there is no effect at all until they get it, and the bonuses or abilities they grant are often only slightly better - if at all - than if everyone had just grabbed a feat for themselves.

Yes, that's a pretty big clump of ability, but unfortunately it basically needs that to work. If other things have to be taken out or delayed instead to pay for that, that may be for the best. Either that or expect (by design) no one to take it at low levels unless teamed with a teamwork feat user class in their party, and to only engage this one at 9 or more.


One last thing: You DO need to specify what weapon categories the ranged attack and energy blast can qualify for. This is important for things such as weapon adaptation, discipline focus, solar wind, and so on.

[drafghast]

Remember though that it won't actually work unless others in the party have those teamwork feats. This is what is generally meant by them being nonfunctional until/unless you've got some levels in tactician, etc. They're good when they can be shared, but very weak for PCs otherwise. Without sharing, other characters have to pick the same teamwork feats at the same levels as you do or there is no effect at all until they get it, and the bonuses or abilities they grant are often only slightly better - if at all - than if everyone had just grabbed a feat for themselves.

We had some internal discussion, and came to a similar conclusion as you, actually. Changes are being made now to reflect gaining the ability to share a teamwork feat earlier on, while we reserve the changeable bonus teamwork feat for a bit later. Overall, it makes you better at it, as long as you're willing to invest the feat in it. If you want to have the feat and share it without any outside investment, that happens a bit later.




One last thing: You DO need to specify what weapon categories the ranged attack and energy blast can qualify for. This is important for things such as weapon adaptation, discipline focus, solar wind, and so on.

We're working on clarifying this one as well; results should be available soon. Thanks for the catch!

[Thealtruistorc]

The Host of Heroes is just an awesome premise, as is the Living Legend. Will it be possible to take levels in Metaforge that combine the two? (Maybe add a feat for progression)

On another note, were these archetypes at all inspired by the Graphic Novel Boxers & Saints? The main character uses a ritual very similar to what is described in these archetypes and the effect is very similar.


What I have many questions about is the premise of psionic dreamscapes. Will it be possible to create a dreamscape using psionics or interact with them in some way? Is the microcosm power considered to be a dreamscape? What about psychic duels (X-men style psionic duels would be so cool)? I would love to see more information on this topic.

[Forrestfire]

The Host of Heroes is just an awesome premise, as is the Living Legend. Will it be possible to take levels in Metaforge that combine the two? (Maybe add a feat for progression)

On another note, were these archetypes at all inspired by the Graphic Novel Boxers & Saints? The main character uses a ritual very similar to what is described in these archetypes and the effect is very similar.

Glad you like them! As far as I'm aware, none of us had actually head of Boxers & Saints (is it something you'd recommend checking out?). The Living Legend in particular was written up from what I like about the Medium and attempts to make it fit "psionics" more than "psychic magic." The "storyteller" theme was actually inspired in part by a manga called Sengoku Youko, in which a character's importance to the narrative is an in-universe plot point. Ended up taking that little fragment of a concept and spiraling it into the larger archetype.

Regarding the concept of multiclassing the Living Legend and Host of Heroes, the rest of the team I have discussed this, and the overall answer to it is "no, the metaforge isn't going to combine the two's unique abilities, no will there be a feat for it." We've worked hard to give them class features worth staying in the class for, and while I personally love prestige classes, I don't think it's right for one to be able to take over a class and become strictly better than it (which is what would happen if such a fusion worked).

However, that's not to say that multiclassing the Living Legend and Host isn't possible; in fact, thanks to some of the soulknife's options, it can be quite good. A Living Legend 4/Host of Heroes 6/Metaforge 10 with the Fighter's Blade and Student of the Astral Suit feats (Ultimate Psionics) and the Natural Blade trait (Psionics Augmented: Soulknife) gets full mind blade progression (+4 from Fighter's Blade and +2 from Natural Blade), full Astral Suit progression (+4 from Student of the Astral Suit), and some of the key class features from each (the intermediate Protagonist powers, and the 3 and 6-point Monomyth abilities). It won't get the later class features, but is a functional fusion of the two concepts.


What I have many questions about is the premise of psionic dreamscapes. Will it be possible to create a dreamscape using psionics or interact with them in some way? Is the microcosm power considered to be a dreamscape? What about psychic duels (X-men style psionic duels would be so cool)? I would love to see more information on this topic.

That's something that's been discussed internally but hasn't had a lot of focus yet; all I can really say about it is that we're taking how best to handle those into consideration.

[Thealtruistorc]

Glad you like them! As far as I'm aware, none of us had actually head of Boxers & Saints (is it something you'd recommend checking out?). The Living Legend in particular was written up from what I like about the Medium and attempts to make it fit "psionics" more than "psychic magic." The "storyteller" theme was actually inspired in part by a manga called Sengoku Youko, in which a character's importance to the narrative is an in-universe plot point. Ended up taking that little fragment of a concept and spiraling it into the larger archetype.


Thanks for your response. I have also read and loved Sengoku Youko. Boxers and Saints is a graphic novel pair based on the Boxer Rebellion in China (one book tells the story from the rebel perspective, the other from the loyalist perspective), and is definitely worth checking out for history or fantasy fans.

[Nyaa]

Since we are talking Aegis here, why does Energy Blast cost 2cp? Ditto about Improved Ranged Attack. I'm not sure they are worth even permanent 1, and with Ranged Attack as prerequisite you can't Augment Suit either until level 12, so when you absolutely need to shoot something you are spending Reconfigure use during more than half of you character's theoretic, and likely the whole actual, life.

[Forrestfire]

The reason for those, according to the bosses, is that when making the aegis they, they felt that the ranged attacks and energy blasts were not the primary focus of the class. It's possible that we might do an archetype that does go wild with ranged attacks (as the Host of Heroes merely makes them usable as a primary, instead of outright focusing on them), but on the base aegis, they were intended as backup weapons.

[StygianRose]

I really want to like the Crystalline Binder, but I have to ask something - what is the point of it? That is to say, the archetype gets a psicrystal and chops everything else numerical about the archetype in half. Is it meant to be a support for the psionic version of Spiritualist? They can get the psicrystal with a feat without gutting their class numbers. So clearly, not meant to support them except on a ridiculously feat starved build where you might maybe break even.

I will go on to say that I -want- to like it. I really, truly do. I just think the archetypes takes away more than it gives.

-Unless your DM rules that Share Power + Share Spells are equivocal due to Psionics/Magic transparency, you can't target it with spells.

-You don't have Vigor+Share pain for shenanigans when your psicrystal is untargetable and immune to damage, unless you take the psionic archetype which as I have stated, doesn't need this.

-You get to roll twice on knowledge checks (about the only skill your Psicrystal can make when you make it), but you're not an int primary class and skill points are a premium with only four.

-You can shunt debilitating conditions to your psicrystal... Except you can do that baseline, and get better perks for having your Phantom confined in your brain.

-Your Phantom gets DR 20/- way later than it matters, due to the inflation of damage curve.

-It gets an extra bite attack, which while nice won't noticeably increase its damage output vs an Eidolon or one of the 'Best in Slot' Animal Companions. Or a fighter. Or anything else which can do the DPR game. So I am not sure why it came around, except for the beauty of omni-mundane DR piercing AoO.

So you're overall left with a archetype which is weaker than the base class in every way, which while part of Paizo's design philosophy is something that I understand Dreamscarred Press has a reputation for attempting to avoid. Since literally no-one has posted about that archetype, and the idea of it is interesting to me I wanted to voice my own concerns.

[Kaidinah]

I really want to like the Crystalline Binder, but I have to ask something - what is the point of it? That is to say, the archetype gets a psicrystal and chops everything else numerical about the archetype in half. Is it meant to be a support for the psionic version of Spiritualist? They can get the psicrystal with a feat without gutting their class numbers. So clearly, not meant to support them except on a ridiculously feat starved build where you might maybe break even.

I will go on to say that I -want- to like it. I really, truly do. I just think the archetypes takes away more than it gives.

-Unless your DM rules that Share Power + Share Spells are equivocal due to Psionics/Magic transparency, you can't target it with spells.

-You don't have Vigor+Share pain for shenanigans when your psicrystal is untargetable and immune to damage, unless you take the psionic archetype which as I have stated, doesn't need this.

-You get to roll twice on knowledge checks (about the only skill your Psicrystal can make when you make it), but you're not an int primary class and skill points are a premium with only four.

-You can shunt debilitating conditions to your psicrystal... Except you can do that baseline, and get better perks for having your Phantom confined in your brain.

-Your Phantom gets DR 20/- way later than it matters, due to the inflation of damage curve.

-It gets an extra bite attack, which while nice won't noticeably increase its damage output vs an Eidolon or one of the 'Best in Slot' Animal Companions. Or a fighter. Or anything else which can do the DPR game. So I am not sure why it came around, except for the beauty of omni-mundane DR piercing AoO.

So you're overall left with a archetype which is weaker than the base class in every way, which while part of Paizo's design philosophy is something that I understand Dreamscarred Press has a reputation for attempting to avoid. Since literally no-one has posted about that archetype, and the idea of it is interesting to me I wanted to voice my own concerns.
Hello I am Kaidinah, the author of the Athanatic Channeler, Crystalline Binder and the Unpattern. Thank you very much for your feedback!

I will be looking into the share spell/share power. I do wish to make the crystalline binder work just fine, whether using psionics or psychic magic.

The reason the save vs mind affecting effects was halved and the skill bonuses reduced was because the psicrystal's personality grants a bonus (+2 to will saves even, depending on what you choose) and Alertness in most situations you would want it. Additionally, the psicrystal can also roll perception and sense motive quite well. It is more that just a knowledge enhancement. I believe that as it is now, the reduction received in skill bonuses and saves is more than made up for by the utility gained.

As for the DR, the other designers and I agree that it comes too late. This will be addressed.

The primary advantage of the crystalline bond ability is that it allows the Crystalline Binder to provide spell support while the Phantom remains to tank. The base spiritualist's equivalent class feature instead removes the phantom from the table to grant the Spiritualist some tankiness.

Is there any other reason you feel the Crystalline Binder is weaker than the base class? I would like to address any concerns you may have.

[StygianRose]

Oh, hello! It is so nice to hear from you.

I am glad that the DR is being looked into, because bonded manifestation in the Crystalline Binder's version is significantly more appealing to me than turning into a goo tentacle monster.


The primary advantage of the crystalline bond ability is that it allows the Crystalline Binder to provide spell support while the Phantom remains to tank. The base spiritualist's equivalent class feature instead removes the phantom from the table to grant the Spiritualist some tankiness.

This actually begs a question I have wished to ask, which is if your Psicrystal stays in your hand if you were holding it when you activate Crystalline Bond, and simply becomes immune:all until you deactivate or run out of rounds? Or does the psicrystal disappear into your phantom and pop out when it ends potentially 30+ feet away?

Your text here seems to imply that the Binder can cast spells through share spell/power while holding the untargetable crystal and buff the Phantom?

I think my biggest hope for the Binder is that it will get more of a synergism between the phantom and the crystal, rather than the binder ending up as this alkward double-buddy class. As an example, disabling the Psicrystals ability to share skill ranks while the phantom is manifested but granting those ranks to the Phantom... Maybe capped by its hit die?

Or other ways that the line between crystal and phantom can be blurred, rather than being weirdly distinct entities. Now, that is only my desired interpretation, because Crystalline Binder literally revitalized a character that I attempted to make work in freefrom RPs for more than two years and pretty much gave up on until I saw your wonderful subclass.

I will have more comments about the Unpattern when I get home, but my basic feeling is that it is amazing and flavorful. In fact, my big request for it would be a Cryptic archetype that trades some features for an Unpattern Phantom.

[Forrestfire]

From the author of the Goetic spiritualist:


Hey all, wanted to prod for some feedback on goetic.

Specifically, concerns have been raised elsewhere that the goetic is problematically feat-starved, even with the Ars Goetia option. I sympathize with that, and note that the spiritualist avoids this problem because the phantom gets its own feats.

On the other hand, it does seem like a lot to give out. So I'm asking around and looking for feedback on this point: if goetic, say, started with a lower splicing cost and instead of upgrading to that cost granted a bonus feat (and possibly another later on), would it feel like the archetype is giving out too much free candy? Particularly interested in DMs who would be considering the content for their games.

[Forrestfire]

Well, it's been another three weeks, so we've got another set of playtest materials for you all to peruse.


The Ectoplasmic Artist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.d6k8i1ul1jjg), a kineticist archetype that partially shields their body from the ill effects of burn using psionic power, and manifests the remainder of their power in the form of an ectoplasmic guardian. We've also written up some new feats (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.7v1mbt7g9d13) for kineticists.


The Shadow Aspect (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hP2rqjm2129K0doNLwlIk9-z2Wk-tLh6DjXGYVNQUPg/edit?usp=sharing), a wilder fueled by emptiness and neglect. Rather than getting standard wild surges, they gain a special type of phantom.


Psionic discipline occultist implements (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.256f214d264o); one each for athanatism, clairsentience, metacreativity, psychokinesis, psychometabolism, psychoportation, and telepathy. Any occultist with the psionic subtype may learn to use these implements, allowing a spellcasting occultist to cross over into uncharted territory, or a Shattered Mind occultist to focus entirely on psionics.


A set of Psionic Skill Unlocks (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit?usp=sharing) and several related feats, as well as rules for using occult skill unlocks as a psionic character.

[Tuvarkz]

I know this is more me thinking of the feat's fluff rather than the mechanical balance, but any chances Detect Hostility can allow for Scent as a replacement to Blind Fight for prereq purposes? With all the 'detecting the enemy's intent' and such, Scent seems to fit the situation as well.

[Forrestfire]

That's a good idea. After some discussion, we decided to make it so (and also fixed a couple things in response to other feedback).

[TiaC]

Let me just say that I really like the ectoplasmic artist. Here were all my thoughts.

Am I right in assuming that "An ectoplasmic artist cannot willingly gain burn except with this ability" means that all their burn is either forced upon them or gained through Sculptor of the Soul?

If I have a magnum opus out and use Stand Together at an enemy outside of it's reach, what happens?

I'm not sure how Stand Together works with Elemental Overflow. It looks like the free action attack gets the benefits, but the attack bonus is granted in Stand Together and the damage bonus is granted in Elemental Overflow?

How does Never Outnumbered function with rider effects? e.g. If an ectoplasmic artist is stabbed with a poisoned weapon and Never Outnumbered triggers, who takes the poison?

Impeccable Craftsmanship's 11th level upgrade seems unbalanced. Air is strong, but fire and water are pretty weak.

As far as I can tell, Grappling Infusion is the only infusion that functions with Stand Together. You might want to give it some associated infusions.


Edit:
Should the Shadow Aspect's Shared Surge count as Wild Surge for effects? Do they get surge augments/can they use surge feats...?

Subconscious Casting runs into dependency issues. Inescapable Despair, Frightful Attack, and Sneak Attack all depend on the lost abilities.

[drafghast]

Should the Shadow Aspect's Shared Surge count as Wild Surge for effects? Do they get surge augments/can they use surge feats...?

Subconscious Casting runs into dependency issues. Inescapable Despair, Frightful Attack, and Sneak Attack all depend on the lost abilities.

Shared Surge was intended to count as Wild Surge for qualification purposes, and not having written as such can be considered to be an oversight on our part. We will be looking into other possible interactions before changing it.

Subconscious Casting may well replace other abilities, depending on if we opt to scale it differently. This is a good find, as I didn't realize precisely which abilities it would make unobtainable.

[MilleniaAntares]

Can you use Project Hostility more than once a day? The text itself doesn't say so, but the general rule (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-rules/occult-skill-unlocks) is once a day or week.

[Prime32]

Can you use Project Hostility more than once a day? The text itself doesn't say so, but the general rule (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-rules/occult-skill-unlocks) is once a day or week.It's once per day per person.

[Forrestfire]

That is correct. Once per day per target.


Let me just say that I really like the ectoplasmic artist. Here were all my thoughts.

I'm glad you like it; thanks for the feedback! :smallbiggrin:


Am I right in assuming that "An ectoplasmic artist cannot willingly gain burn except with this ability" means that all there burn is either forced upon them or gained through Sculptor of the Soul?

That's correct. They get a discount on wild talent costs based on how much they took on from that ability, but otherwise can't get more burn on their own.


If I have a magnum opus out and use Stand Together at an enemy outside of it's reach, what happens?

Your magnum opus vanishes and you create a new one punching the target (the first option in Stand Together), which then lands in a space it could reach them (or the nearest unoccupied space).


I'm not sure how Stand Together works with Elemental Overflow. It looks like the free action attack gets the benefits, but the attack bonus is granted in Stand Together and the damage bonus is granted in Elemental Overflow?

After some discussion and running some numbers, I've decided to change the bonus from Elemental Overflow to just buff the astral construct's damage at all times. Should be a lot clearer to read.


How does Never Outnumbered function with rider effects? e.g. If an ectoplasmic artist is stabbed with a poisoned weapon and Never Outnumbered triggers, who takes the poison?

That slipped my mind, embarrassingly. I've added verbiage to clarify; the magnum opus will take the additional effects of an attack it blocks with Never Outnumbered.


Impeccable Craftsmanship's 11th level upgrade seems unbalanced. Air is strong, but fire and water are pretty weak.

That's a good point, and one I've added some extra things to fix. Air is definitely strong, but note that a 20ft fly speed is a menu A choice, and a 40ft fly speed is a menu B choice, so really all it's doing is giving you something in-between and saving you the need to pick it.


As far as I can tell, Grappling Infusion is the only infusion that functions with Stand Together. You might want to give it some associated infusions.

It was meant for Stand Together to work with any infusions. I've added a note about associated infusions and clarified how substance infusions work when using it.


Edit:
Should the Shadow Aspect's Shared Surge count as Wild Surge for effects? Do they get surge augments/can they use surge feats...?

Subconscious Casting runs into dependency issues. Inescapable Despair, Frightful Attack, and Sneak Attack all depend on the lost abilities.

As drafghast noted, that was an oversight. Should be fixed shortly when we get the chance.


On another note:
It's now been almost two months since the Psionics Augmented: Occult playtest started, and I wanted to thank you guys for being a great playerbase and giving us wonderful feedback thus far. Looking back at what we've got, I was wondering if you all might be willing to share your thoughts on the overall process.

Is there anything in particular you've liked? Disliked? That you want to stab us with pointy sticks over? Anything that doesn't exist that you wish did? Anything you expected but hasn't shown up yet? Also, what are your thoughts on the style of playtest this has been, with smaller packets of stuff released every couple weeks rather than a large dump at the start?

[TiaC]

Thanks for the response, I know I have a lot to say. On that note, here's even more stuff.


After some discussion and running some numbers, I've decided to change the bonus from Elemental Overflow to just buff the astral construct's damage at all times. Should be a lot clearer to read.
It's still not clear if that's replacing the usual bonus to blast damage or not.


That's a good point, and one I've added some extra things to fix. Air is definitely strong, but note that a 20ft fly speed is a menu A choice, and a 40ft fly speed is a menu B choice, so really all it's doing is giving you something in-between and saving you the need to pick it.
Much improved. I know fly is easy to get, it was just the contrast with the subtypes that made it stand out.


It was meant for Stand Together to work with any infusions. I've added a note about associated infusions and clarified how substance infusions work when using it.
Much better. You still need the element to pick them, so it shouldn't get too insane.

The Host of Heroes is really cool. I like how you can mix and match suits and Monomyth abilities.

Can I complete more than one Rite of Passage? Can the benefits from more than one stack? I don't see any limits on this, but that allows the possibility of a 3rd level character with a +7 weapon.

How often can the Psi-like Abilities from the Potential customization be used?


The Goetic is conceptually rich, I think it does a better job of portraying eldritch horrors than any other Pathfinder content.

However, I'm not too fond of most of the 1st level powers. They have a lot of complexity for minor effects. So, most of them are pretty similar; some form of +2 AC, +1 saves to an ally with a rider effect. This means that the Horrors don't feel too different at low levels. Also, since it does give a bonus, even if a small one, there's no reason not to use them if you can. This is made worse by the 12th level upgrade making it a free action. So, you have a pretty minor effect that has no action cost. Then there are the immediate action abilities, which can really break the flow of the game. A good immediate action is like the PoW counters, it's used when the DM is already interacting with you. These ones interrupt interactions between the DM and the other players. Basically, these abilities will slow down the game too much for what they do.


Harrowing Link: A minor debuff that has to be reapplied every round and forces a decision every time they deal damage. It forces the DM to keep track of who is targeted round-by-round. This is just too much for level 1.
Harrowing Ward: Almost exactly the same thing as Harrowing Link.

Gaze Backward: I like the goading effect, but I don't see the need for a non-standard debuff. It won't come up too often, so you could just go with shaken or sickened or even remove it entirely.
Look Forward: This would be far simpler if it let the target choose when it applied, rather than forcing the Goetic's player to pay attention to every roll they make.

Shield Interposition: This isn't too spammable, but it still moves you and your AC around as an interrupt. It does require that you pay a lot of attention out of turn.
Shield Shelter: One-turn buffs are generally hard to keep track of, especially when they only apply within a small area.

Energy Cleave: This does add a lot of rolls, but they're all on your turn and it doesn't require anyone else to keep track of how your class abilities work.
Telekinetic Crush: Passive effect. Simple and easy. Even the conditional increase isn't bad.

Grasping Tendril: This is an interrupt that involves an opposed roll and forces the DM to recalculate CMD. So much of the time it will have no effect, and even when it works, it's pretty complicated.
Psychometabolic Terrain: This requires a lot of redrawing of the battlemap.

Harrier: Another tiny debuff, but this is also a movement power with a condition attached to it. Why can't this just be "As an immediate action, Psychoportation can teleport to any space adjacent to an enemy"?
Lure: Again, a small debuff with conditional battlefield control. You have to keep track of all your enemies' attacks and then interrupt them in a way that makes the DM reconsider the rest of their turn.

Harsh Rebuke: Except for the out-of-turn triggering condition, this is good. Perhaps "As an swift action Telepathy can damage a creature in close range (25 feet + 5 feet per two goetic levels) that attacked or affected an ally since Telepathy's last turn."
Inspire Vengeance: Not bad, this at least sees the person who was targeted making the response.

So, there are too many out-of turn effects, too many minor numerical changes, and generally too much to keep track of.

[Forrestfire]

It's still not clear if that's replacing the usual bonus to blast damage or not.

It doesn't replace it, it's in addition to (although it wouldn't apply twice to the Stand Together blast because in version A, you deal the damage and get the bonus, and in version B, the magnum opus does). I forgot to add the line saying such when I reworded it.


The Host of Heroes is really cool. I like how you can mix and match suits and Monomyth abilities.

Can I complete more than one Rite of Passage? Can the benefits from more than one stack? I don't see any limits on this, but that allows the possibility of a 3rd level character with a +7 weapon.

How often can the Psi-like Abilities from the Potential customization be used?

You can complete more than one Rite of Passage (and get their small abilities), but the item benefits were meant to only be gettable once per five levels. I've fixed the wording. Potential is meant to be once per day per power. Thanks for catching these.

Also, I've passed the feedback on the Goetic to its author. Should have a response when he gets the chance.

[Alea]

Gotta say, I haven't had a chance to play the goetic, but reading it reminded me a lot of defenders in 4e. The kinds of interrupt abilities you're talking about are totally par for the course, there, and never caused the problems you're talking about. For that matter, it's not like they're without precedent in Pathfinder; the spiritualist's own phantom could have features like that (e.g. dutiful strike or jealous combatant).

[Forrestfire]

The Goetic is conceptually rich, I think it does a better job of portraying eldritch horrors than any other Pathfinder content.

However, I'm not too fond of most of the 1st level powers. They have a lot of complexity for minor effects. So, most of them are pretty similar; some form of +2 AC, +1 saves to an ally with a rider effect. This means that the Horrors don't feel too different at low levels. Also, since it does give a bonus, even if a small one, there's no reason not to use them if you can. This is made worse by the 12th level upgrade making it a free action. So, you have a pretty minor effect that has no action cost. Then there are the immediate action abilities, which can really break the flow of the game. A good immediate action is like the PoW counters, it's used when the DM is already interacting with you. These ones interrupt interactions between the DM and the other players. Basically, these abilities will slow down the game too much for what they do.


Harrowing Link: A minor debuff that has to be reapplied every round and forces a decision every time they deal damage. It forces the DM to keep track of who is targeted round-by-round. This is just too much for level 1.
Harrowing Ward: Almost exactly the same thing as Harrowing Link.

Gaze Backward: I like the goading effect, but I don't see the need for a non-standard debuff. It won't come up too often, so you could just go with shaken or sickened or even remove it entirely.
Look Forward: This would be far simpler if it let the target choose when it applied, rather than forcing the Goetic's player to pay attention to every roll they make.

Shield Interposition: This isn't too spammable, but it still moves you and your AC around as an interrupt. It does require that you pay a lot of attention out of turn.
Shield Shelter: One-turn buffs are generally hard to keep track of, especially when they only apply within a small area.

Energy Cleave: This does add a lot of rolls, but they're all on your turn and it doesn't require anyone else to keep track of how your class abilities work.
Telekinetic Crush: Passive effect. Simple and easy. Even the conditional increase isn't bad.

Grasping Tendril: This is an interrupt that involves an opposed roll and forces the DM to recalculate CMD. So much of the time it will have no effect, and even when it works, it's pretty complicated.
Psychometabolic Terrain: This requires a lot of redrawing of the battlemap.

Harrier: Another tiny debuff, but this is also a movement power with a condition attached to it. Why can't this just be "As an immediate action, Psychoportation can teleport to any space adjacent to an enemy"?
Lure: Again, a small debuff with conditional battlefield control. You have to keep track of all your enemies' attacks and then interrupt them in a way that makes the DM reconsider the rest of their turn.

Harsh Rebuke: Except for the out-of-turn triggering condition, this is good. Perhaps "As an swift action Telepathy can damage a creature in close range (25 feet + 5 feet per two goetic levels) that attacked or affected an ally since Telepathy's last turn."
Inspire Vengeance: Not bad, this at least sees the person who was targeted making the response.

So, there are too many out-of turn effects, too many minor numerical changes, and generally too much to keep track of.


Here's some responses from the author of the Goetic; sorry for the wait.


The Goetic is conceptually rich, I think it does a better job of portraying eldritch horrors than any other Pathfinder content.
Glad you like it! A lot of work went into getting the “feel” right.


However, I'm not too fond of most of the 1st level powers. They have a lot of complexity for minor effects.
I’m sorry they’re not to your taste, but I’m afraid I don’t really agree; I don’t consider them especially complicated, and I don’t think their effects are all that minor.


So, most of them are pretty similar; some form of +2 AC, +1 saves to an ally with a rider effect. This means that the Horrors don't feel too different at low levels.
I’m going to ask for a little clarification here: do you mean that one goetic’s Athanatism isn’t different enough from another goetic’s Athanatism, or that one goetic’s Athanatism isn’t too different from his own Clairsentience?

If the former, that I feel is probably true, but ultimately difficult to avoid because there is also the need to establish each horror’s own identity, while maintaining the goetic class’s identity. That said, even in the most similar cases (Athanatism and Psychokinesis), the distinctions made are fairly significant IMO.

If the latter, could you expand more on what you see as similar?


Also, since it does give a bonus, even if a small one, there's no reason not to use them if you can. This is made worse by the 12th level upgrade making it a free action. So, you have a pretty minor effect that has no action cost.
This is intentional. The 1st-level abilities are supposed to be the iconic powers of the horror, the thing that horror is doing all the time to influence reality. Because they are used so much, they carry shoulder most of the burden of defining the horror and how it operates.


Then there are the immediate action abilities, which can really break the flow of the game. A good immediate action is like the PoW counters, it's used when the DM is already interacting with you. These ones interrupt interactions between the DM and the other players. Basically, these abilities will slow down the game too much for what they do.
Here I’m afraid I can’t do much more than disagree. In my playtesting and the playtesting feedback I’ve received, this has not seemed to be a problem. I generally assume that players are paying attention.

As for “what defines a ‘good’ immediate action,” I find your definition very limiting, and again, well, don’t agree. Hard-counters have their place, certainly, but the horrors are very intentionally all about interaction. They are trying to fundamentally change the nature of the battle, inserting themselves into the rules of reality.

I’ll note that in many of your responses to the individual powers, you object to the notion of a condition. These, I’m afraid, are very much central to what a horror is trying to do, which is to incentivize enemies to play according to its rules, by punishing them for doing something else. If enemies had no way to avoid the punishment, they’d be forced to just accept it and then continue doing whatever they were doing: they would not react to it, and that is precisely what the horror wants to force them to do. A horror wants its enemies to have to abandon their own plans and preferences in favor of its own.


Harrowing Link: A minor debuff that has to be reapplied every round and forces a decision every time they deal damage. It forces the DM to keep track of who is targeted round-by-round. This is just too much for level 1.
The allusion to “for level 1” here is one I disagree with: complexity overall has to be managed, certainly, but it’s not as though the game is (supposed to be) fundamentally a simpler game at 1st level than it is at 20th. The explosion of options can lead to that, but it’s not a feature. If something is too complex, it’s too complex, period, not “for level 1” or what have you.

As for whether this particular ability is too complex, I don’t think it is: it’s a very simple condition, and a very simple debuff applied when that condition is met. The damage redistribution effect is A. on the goetic player’s head to remember, and B. really straight out of shield other but with a small amount of player freedom involved (see A).


Gaze Backward: I like the goading effect, but I don't see the need for a non-standard debuff. It won't come up too often, so you could just go with shaken or sickened or even remove it entirely.
Shaken or sickened would dramatically increase the effect of those riders, and I don’t see how referencing some other effect (which you might have to look up) is easier than having the exact effect spelled out in the ability.


Look Forward: This would be far simpler if it let the target choose when it applied, rather than forcing the Goetic's player to pay attention to every roll they make.
The target can easily get the goetic’s attention if necessary.

You can even just have an agreement as players that the target’s player can control when the goetic uses it. It being under Clairsentience’s control is pretty close to just being a matter of fluff.


Shield Interposition: This isn't too spammable, but it still moves you and your AC around as an interrupt. It does require that you pay a lot of attention out of turn.
I’ve played with this mechanic quite a lot, as it turns out, not just in testing the goetic. My experience has been that it’s quite simple to use and does not unduly slow down game play. It is not what I would call “a lot of attention out of turn.”


Shield Shelter: One-turn buffs are generally hard to keep track of, especially when they only apply within a small area.
Would it be better if I called it an AC-improving aura that you could toggle on or off as a free action? Because that’s mechanically identical, and I can’t see how it would be easier to run or track.


Energy Cleave: This does add a lot of rolls, but they're all on your turn and it doesn't require anyone else to keep track of how your class abilities work.
No more than, say, Two-Weapon Fighting et al.


Grasping Tendril: This is an interrupt that involves an opposed roll and forces the DM to recalculate CMD. So much of the time it will have no effect, and even when it works, it's pretty complicated.
I’ll reconsider the bit about removing Dex from CMD, but unfortunately combat maneuver math is... not ideal. But anyway, the effect is pretty significant if the target can no longer attack the target it wanted to attack. Which is exactly what Psychometabolism wants.


Psychometabolic Terrain: This requires a lot of redrawing of the battlemap.
How is this different from, say, grease?


Harrier: Another tiny debuff, but this is also a movement power with a condition attached to it. Why can't this just be "As an immediate action, Psychoportation can teleport to any space adjacent to an enemy"?
Again, because the entire point is to incentivize behavior from enemies when they might otherwise have other plans in mind. I.e. trying to get away from Psychokinesis, to pick off some easier target, isn’t going to work because Psychokinesis is always going to be on top of you.


Lure: Again, a small debuff with conditional battlefield control. You have to keep track of all your enemies' attacks and then interrupt them in a way that makes the DM reconsider the rest of their turn.
As the player of a character with this ability, it’s a fairly simple part of playing the game to keep track of how the fight is going. The point of the ability is to force the DM to reconsider how the enemy takes their turn. Thus far, it's been fine in playtesting across multiple tables and in the feedback we've gotten.


Harsh Rebuke: Except for the out-of-turn triggering condition, this is good. Perhaps "As an swift action Telepathy can damage a creature in close range (25 feet + 5 feet per two goetic levels) that attacked or affected an ally since Telepathy's last turn."
That means keeping track of which targets were valid, which I consider far more complicated.


Inspire Vengeance: Not bad, this at least sees the person who was targeted making the response.
None of them involve some third party having to get involved. Actually, in that sense, this one involves more people than any of the others: the GM, the goetic’s player, and the target’s player. All the others involve only the GM and the goetic’s player.


So, there are too many out-of turn effects, too many minor numerical changes, and generally too much to keep track of.
Playtesting so far has not found the out-of-turn effects to be as severe as you suggest. So far, at least, players have found that to be acceptable. And minor numerical changes are, I’m afraid, par for the course with this game. The goetic is far from unique in that regard.

[MilleniaAntares]

I’ll reconsider the bit about removing Dex from CMD, but unfortunately combat maneuver math is... not ideal. But anyway, the effect is pretty significant if the target can no longer attack the target it wanted to attack. Which is exactly what Psychometabolism wants.
Removing dex from CMD may not be the best idea, given that the highest CMDs come from size, strength, and BAB. Perhaps a simple penalty (that increases with level or resources spent) may be more desirable.

[TiaC]

So I was somewhat harsh and I apologize for that. I realized that much of my issue came down to a conflict between the horror's fluff and effects. Of the remainder, a lot of it is the issue with 3e's Dodge, which forced the player to repeat an obvious action every round rather than creating persistent effects.



Glad you like it! A lot of work went into getting the “feel” right.

Your descriptions nailed it.


I’m going to ask for a little clarification here: do you mean that one goetic’s Athanatism isn’t different enough from another goetic’s Athanatism, or that one goetic’s Athanatism isn’t too different from his own Clairsentience?

If the former, that I feel is probably true, but ultimately difficult to avoid because there is also the need to establish each horror’s own identity, while maintaining the goetic class’s identity. That said, even in the most similar cases (Athanatism and Psychokinesis), the distinctions made are fairly significant IMO.

If the latter, could you expand more on what you see as similar?

It's not really the first, that only comes up with Athanatism and I think 1 out of 7 is fine. Thinking about it more, I realized that the issue was that too many of the options are some form of "don't attack my friends, attack me instead." 12 of the 14 choices either act to defend allies or encourage attacking the goetic in some way. Not only does this reduce the differences in playstyle between the different horrors, it conflicts with their fluff. When describing the horrors, you emphasize that they are alien beings who do not share your motivations and are possessive and jealous of their host. However, all of them give their host abilities that put the host at risk to protect things that the horrors don't care about. When I read the fluff I was not expecting a highly defensive character.



This is intentional. The 1st-level abilities are supposed to be the iconic powers of the horror, the thing that horror is doing all the time to influence reality. Because they are used so much, they carry shoulder most of the burden of defining the horror and how it operates.

True, but I don't see why some of them can't be passive abilities or ones that have a duration longer than one round. Many of the options could be a swift action action to apply and then last until the Goetic spends a swift to move them to someone else or combat ends. That would reduce the "I declare my dodge on you" (http://www.goblinscomic.org/02042006/) happening every single round and twice at high levels.


Here I’m afraid I can’t do much more than disagree. In my playtesting and the playtesting feedback I’ve received, this has not seemed to be a problem. I generally assume that players are paying attention.

As for “what defines a ‘good’ immediate action,” I find your definition very limiting, and again, well, don’t agree. Hard-counters have their place, certainly, but the horrors are very intentionally all about interaction. They are trying to fundamentally change the nature of the battle, inserting themselves into the rules of reality.
You sound like you play with attentive and experienced groups. You are very lucky to do so. In my experience, most groups have players who are either new or distracted (or drunk, which causes similar problems) and who will have a hard time with these abilities.


I’ll note that in many of your responses to the individual powers, you object to the notion of a condition. These, I’m afraid, are very much central to what a horror is trying to do, which is to incentivize enemies to play according to its rules, by punishing them for doing something else. If enemies had no way to avoid the punishment, they’d be forced to just accept it and then continue doing whatever they were doing: they would not react to it, and that is precisely what the horror wants to force them to do. A horror wants its enemies to have to abandon their own plans and preferences in favor of its own.

Again, much of my problem here is that all of the horrors seem to want the same thing, and that thing makes them all team players despite their anti-social fluff.


The allusion to “for level 1” here is one I disagree with: complexity overall has to be managed, certainly, but it’s not as though the game is (supposed to be) fundamentally a simpler game at 1st level than it is at 20th. The explosion of options can lead to that, but it’s not a feature. If something is too complex, it’s too complex, period, not “for level 1” or what have you.

It's not so much that they are too complex at level 1, it's that you will still be using these abilities at level 20. In the end, it's much the same issue with minion-mancers of all sorts. The goetic will simply be taking more actions than the rest of the party and the effect of many of those actions will be very minor at higher levels.


As for whether this particular ability is too complex, I don’t think it is: it’s a very simple condition, and a very simple debuff applied when that condition is met. The damage redistribution effect is A. on the goetic player’s head to remember, and B. really straight out of shield other but with a small amount of player freedom involved (see A).

Again, I'm not seeing the benefit of making this need to be re-declared every round.


Shaken or sickened would dramatically increase the effect of those riders, and I don’t see how referencing some other effect (which you might have to look up) is easier than having the exact effect spelled out in the ability.

I guess the point is that the condition shouldn't really come up much, so ther isn't much of a need for it in the first place. (Also, it's not clear to what extent they must try. If it's used on a fighter without a clear charge path or a bow does he have to throw his sword at you? If you use it on an unarmed non-combatant do they have to punch you?)


The target can easily get the goetic’s attention if necessary.

You can even just have an agreement as players that the target’s player can control when the goetic uses it. It being under Clairsentience’s control is pretty close to just being a matter of fluff.

Perhaps a note that this can be played that way?


Would it be better if I called it an AC-improving aura that you could toggle on or off as a free action? Because that’s mechanically identical, and I can’t see how it would be easier to run or track.
This is almost exactly the difference between PF Dodge and 3e Dodge and the Pathfinder version is far simpler.


No more than, say, Two-Weapon Fighting et al.
Exactly, this is an effect that can be tracked entirely by the Goetic on their turn. It's flavorful for Psychokinesis, it's effective, and it's distinct from the other Horrors. I quite like it.


I’ll reconsider the bit about removing Dex from CMD, but unfortunately combat maneuver math is... not ideal. But anyway, the effect is pretty significant if the target can no longer attack the target it wanted to attack. Which is exactly what Psychometabolism wants.
I agree that the effect is significant, but as you said, combat maneuvers are always a bit of a pain. Making them more complex should generally be avoided. If this was against normal CMD or gave a flat bonus it would be fine.


How is this different from, say, grease?
Because casting Grease is not done every turn as a free action and once cast it sticks around. This has you adding and removing something from the map every round on top of the Goetic's normal actions. If you aren't playing with a dry-erase battlemat or area templates this is hard to keep track of. It could just be a passive aura and you'd only need to look at the Goetic's mini instead of redrawing the area.


Again, because the entire point is to incentivize behavior from enemies when they might otherwise have other plans in mind. I.e. trying to get away from Psychokinesis, to pick off some easier target, isn’t going to work because Psychokinesis is always going to be on top of you.
First, I assume you mean Psychoportation. I don't see why this needs the added protective effect. It could just let you teleport next to an enemy whenever they move.


As the player of a character with this ability, it’s a fairly simple part of playing the game to keep track of how the fight is going. The point of the ability is to force the DM to reconsider how the enemy takes their turn. Thus far, it's been fine in playtesting across multiple tables and in the feedback we've gotten.
But why is it tied to their attacks? Why not just a pull effect?


That means keeping track of which targets were valid, which I consider far more complicated.
You do this on Psychokinesis' Telekinetic Crush just fine.


None of them involve some third party having to get involved. Actually, in that sense, this one involves more people than any of the others: the GM, the goetic’s player, and the target’s player. All the others involve only the GM and the goetic’s player.
Yes, but this shares the spotlight a bit more instead of the Goetic just taking twice as many actions as everyone else.


Playtesting so far has not found the out-of-turn effects to be as severe as you suggest. So far, at least, players have found that to be acceptable. And minor numerical changes are, I’m afraid, par for the course with this game. The goetic is far from unique in that regard.
They are par for the course, but they are also a problem for most new players. On the goetic, most of the abilities are perfectly effective without the numerical effects, so I think they are unnecessary. Consider Psychoportation. Immediate action teleportation effects are quite effective by themselves, the extra -2 to attacks doesn't make too much difference.

[digiman619]

This is just a fluff concern, but I think you should have an optional alternate term for 'psychic' magic like you had an optional alternate theme for psionics in Ultimate Psionics, otherwise I could see in-character arguments on which is the true power of the mind (Soulblades vs Magus[Mindblades] leap to mind). Personally I suggest renaming psychic magic as soul magic, as it retains all its flavor while not invading psionics' territory. Of course, if you WANT that to be a disagreement in your game world you can ignore this suggestion, but it seems that if you're using both books (and this book that mixes them), you might want them to work together rather that against one another.

[Forrestfire]

Well, the big thing about psychic magic is that it actually isn't entirely the power of the mind. For the sake of convenience, here's part of a post that I made (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t7qb?Dreamscarred-Press-Psionics-Augmented-Occult#12) over in the Paizo boards' playtest thread towards the start of this project:


The way we're looking at it from a design and fluff-writing perspective is that psychic magic is defined by interacting with and manipulating emotional, spiritual, and conceptual connections between person and person, person and object, and even just yourself and some concept. Unlike arcane magic, it doesn't manipulate the world using energies that are already there, and unlike divine magic, it's not based on using "packets" of power given to you by something else. Finally, unlike psionics, it's not based on using a well of internal power to warp local reality to your own liking.

At its core, psionics is about taking yourself and expressing it—imposing that self on the world. The phrase "I reject your reality, and substitute my own" can be used to sum up how psionics works overall. While psionics does do things based on connections between people or between a person and an object, it tends to be on a micro-scale and almost always is a connection between the manifester themselves and the target. This can be seen in some of the Occult Psionics archetypes we've already released:

The Spiritualist class is someone who has subconsciously tapped into the Ethereal Plane and merged with a phantom. They control the phantom, but it's not something they went out of their way to do, nor an event that they had a choice in the matter about. In comparison, the Goetic called their horrors to them. A Goetic takes their seven horrors and stuffs them into crystals, makes them theirs. They still have psychic spells that they gain from tapping into that network of connections, but at the core of their power is a psionic energy they've used to create a bridge, and to wrangle and control the otherworldly beings within them.

If you compare the Medium and the Living Legend Soulknife: the Medium reaches out to spirits, the astral echoes of souls and concepts past. They channel them through their bodies and gain power from them, using the connections that psychic magic can manipulate. In contrast, the Living Legend takes a story, whether it's someone else's or of their own devising, and uses psionic power to make it their own. The soulknife takes the tale it's living up to and uses it as a "template" for their own psionic power to fill, rather than drawing in a cosmic echo to themselves.

Further psionic and psychic archetypes and options will keep a similar divide; the goal of this project is to make player options that thematically jump ship from psionics to psychic magic, or from psychic magic to psionics, without losing the crucial things that makes their power source unique. In some cases, this might be a full transformation (the Gambler Kineticist, for example, is fully psionic, and runs on psionic concepts with the Kineticist's mechanics as a base and inspiration), but in others, we hope to have a nice fusion of concepts that still feels like it fits into one or the other.


We do plan on having a section in this project and later releases explaining the differences between psionics and psychic magic, their interactions, and possible system rule crossovers (like how currently, only the Occult Psionics classes and archetypes automatically get access to Occult Skill Unlocks—psionics isn't psychic magic, so it's not a default thing for all psionicists to get that crossover).

We may actually do what you're suggesting, and put in suggestions of our own for distinguishing in-universe fluff through names and setting details. However, even though they have fairly similar effects, we feel that psychic magic and psionics are just as distinct from each other as psionics is from, say, arcane and divine magic. Some classes will muddle the line a bit, just like a Mystic Theurge does, but we think we can keep psionics and psychic magic distinct.

In the given example of a Mindblade Magus comparing to a Soulknife, it's likely that the Soulknife would be considered the "true" masters of mental weaponry. He doesn't mess with the interpersonal connections of psychic magic, and he's much more flexible in his use of his materialized mental power as a weapon. Similar scenarios show up when comparing the Psion and the Psychic, or similarly similar pairings. Similar no longer looks like a word, but I'm half-asleep and having difficulty thinking a better one.

[Prime32]

This is just a fluff concern, but I think you should have an optional alternate term for 'psychic' magic like you had an optional alternate theme for psionics in Ultimate Psionics, otherwise I could see in-character arguments on which is the true power of the mind (Soulblades vs Magus[Mindblades] leap to mind). Personally I suggest renaming psychic magic as soul magic, as it retains all its flavor while not invading psionics' territory. Of course, if you WANT that to be a disagreement in your game world you can ignore this suggestion, but it seems that if you're using both books (and this book that mixes them), you might want them to work together rather that against one another.The way I see it is... say a bunch of magic types want a door opened:

The psionic character will walk up and open the door (but he can't stand in one room and open a door in another)
The psychic character will train an animal to open the door (but it might bite)
The arcane character will build a door-opening machine (but it can't do anything else)
The divine character will ask a friend to open the door (but they need to be on good terms)

That is, arcane and divine magic are both refined versions of psychic magic, but they achieved their greater stability by going in different directions. Psychic magic deals with a handful of fickle, half-sentient entities. Divine magic deals with a single predictable entity. Arcane magic works at the quantum level, dealing with myriad tiny forces which are easily controlled (but its spells are more complex as a result, sometimes to the point that wizards need things like cloud computing The Weave to do it).

[Forrestfire]

That's also a pretty good way to look at it as well. We're actually putting in a section about psionics vs psychic magic right now (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit#), in the Supplementary Material document. In that doc you'll also find a pair of new feats (Charlatan and Psicrystal Ball) towards the end (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit#heading=h.vzqolve567b5). We also have some new feats for the spiritualist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VBx58NcL-Ed0GxaZNKybByU_FsgNi6vLN18y-z6Rs5w/edit#heading=h.tl8g3adj8wcn) and their phantom.

There are now psionically-themed kineticist wild talents (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.w10pq963j3ks) and some updates to the Gambler kineticist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.rgazf78tpet7) (in response to playtest feedback, we've worked to make the archetype feel a bit closer to the normal kineticist in playstyle; Cash Out is no longer a wager, and instead replaces Gather Power, serving a similar role in combat. Several of their other abilities have been tweaked, and overall, the archetype has been tightened up to function as the psionic version of the kineticist better than it did before).

In addition, there's a psion archetype, the Cryptographer (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzrGU81xkZUwavvnoTEfpLa-z9ElnkzWbNb_r2r9GJs/edit#heading=h.u7ochwsjrffu), who has cracked the code of psychic magic in order to gain access to an occultist implement matching their discipline specialization.

And finally, by the Goetic's author: the Empath (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NMamgmha06ojsDqMjeR0u91UkVChpo0I3tgrIdc2vIk/edit?usp=sharing), a psionic medium archetype that eschews spirits and instead allows a character to connect themselves to all people and all histories, and share in the most powerful communal thoughts through the ages. These Zeitgeists determine the psionic powers and class abilities of an Empath.


EDIT: Oh, and to TiaC in particular, your feedback hasn't been harsh. The Goetic's author accidentally lost his response to your most recent feedback not once but twice, and got busy with finalizing the Empath. He's gonna try to get to your points tomorrow if he has the chance.

[MilleniaAntares]

Charlatan: For the supernatural maneuver option, would it make sense to allow the initiator to use Knowledge (Martial) in place of Bluff or Spellcraft to obfuscate their ability? The addendum for maneuvers doesn't give that option for the bluffer.

Psicrystal Ball: "When you do, roll a number of d20s and equal to the higher of your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma modifiers and record the results."
"(DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + the higher of your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma modifiers)."

Grammatical nitpick, but I believe they should say "highest"...

Detect Hostility has a clause that allows a sworn defender warder to treat hostility at their wards as against themselves. How about expanding it to other sorts? For instance, the Shield Other spell, Stance of the Eternal Guardian, Shared Pain power...

[TiaC]

Cool, new stuff!

Glad to hear that I didn't come on too strong, it can be hard to tell in text.
Gambler:

• Cash Out no longer has an action type.

• Blistering Bluff references gather power.

• I rather liked still having metakinesis as an option, but I can understand why you changed it.

• How does Ante Up interact with Play the Odds? Does the penalty change with the modified amount of burn?

• This archetype can have a great deal of endurance, but it's a 6th-level manifester who will be relying on powers a lot, so I think it balances out.

New Wild Talents:

Very nice, I especially like the swift and immediate utility talents.


As written, it looks like my Egoist could choose telepathy implements? I think it would be nice if the implement was a little more tied to the psion's abilities. Just something minor like a bonus to recovering focus when holding it would make it seem more important.

Psicrystal Ball has a typo "roll a number of d20s and equal to". Also, it doesn't say its duration. I assume it is done before the roll?

[Forrestfire]

Charlatan: For the supernatural maneuver option, would it make sense to allow the initiator to use Knowledge (Martial) in place of Bluff or Spellcraft to obfuscate their ability? The addendum for maneuvers doesn't give that option for the bluffer.

Psicrystal Ball: "When you do, roll a number of d20s and equal to the higher of your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma modifiers and record the results."
"(DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + the higher of your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma modifiers)."

Grammatical nitpick, but I believe they should say "highest"...

Detect Hostility has a clause that allows a sworn defender warder to treat hostility at their wards as against themselves. How about expanding it to other sorts? For instance, the Shield Other spell, Stance of the Eternal Guardian, Shared Pain power...

Thanks for the typo catches on Psicrystal Ball. Regarding the supernatural maneuver option, my reasoning with it is that if you're spoofing a maneuver as a spell, power, or other effect, you need to know the magic itself, not the maneuver (thus, Spellcraft). (EDIT: We decided to go with allowing people to use that skill)

For Detect Hostility, that's a concept that hadn't been raised, and something we'll need to discuss as a team before getting back to you on that.


Cool, new stuff!

Glad to hear that I didn't come on too strong, it can be hard to tell in text.
Gambler:

• Cash Out no longer has an action type.

• Blistering Bluff references gather power.

• I rather liked still having metakinesis as an option, but I can understand why you changed it.

• How does Ante Up interact with Play the Odds? Does the penalty change with the modified amount of burn?

• This archetype can have a great deal of endurance, but it's a 6th-level manifester who will be relying on powers a lot, so I think it balances out.

New Wild Talents:

Very nice, I especially like the swift and immediate utility talents.


As written, it looks like my Egoist could choose telepathy implements? I think it would be nice if the implement was a little more tied to the psion's abilities. Just something minor like a bonus to recovering focus when holding it would make it seem more important.

Psicrystal Ball has a typo "roll a number of d20s and equal to". Also, it doesn't say its duration. I assume it is done before the roll?

Blistering Bluff not being updated was an oversight; the meaning currently is that you "fake" gathering power, except I forgot to update it. I've put the updated wording in the doc. Ante Up's interaction is something I'll need to run more math on tomorrow when I'm more awake, but I expect that the penalty will not change with the amount of burn reduced or gained (allowing you to gain less burn for a full penalty, or gain more burn without increasing the penalty to high numbers). I'll get back to you on that.

On the Cryptographer, it was meant that you must choose the implement of your specialization. The wording on that has been fixed. Thanks for the feedback!

[Ilorin Lorati]

I'm reading through Empath right now, and it'll take me some time to get through it all to even begin to make balance comments.

That said, there are a few things I can say and ask:

I like it, flavorwise. It gives back some of the flavor from Binder and Occultist that Medium completely lost out on in the transfer from being based on the Harrow to mythic spirits.

I think it's a little bit on the complicated side, especially terms of terminology: having three completely different mechanics that are called a Collective (Cosmic, Local, Personal; I mean, the author had to go out of their way to point out which collective is what when it just says 'collective'), as well as a form of Enervation that is similar only in name to Wilder's Enervation (why does it count as psychic enervation still, as well? I can't think of any feats or abilities for Psychic Enervation that will work mechanically: Enervation Fortitude, for instance, reduces your effective level by half... which does nothing since the penalty doesn't scale with level), is just asking for confusion at the table. ("No, the other collective... no, the other other collective")

A Place in History is pretty damn cool.

I have a burning rage because of the existence of Parasite (in a good way; well meme'd my friend).

Why does Tessa grant appraise? The flavor described doesn't suggest it at all.

The Atmospheric Waveform Spiral Driver in Mac Dex, does it provoke?

[Prime32]

The concept of “power through meditation and self-improvement” is one that exists in many settings, and the psionics subsystem fills that role just as well as classes such as the monk.
You should include a reference to how 4e counted monk as a psionic class. :smalltongue:

Charlatan should probably mention "a supernatural martial maneuver", rather than just "a martial maneuver".

"Empaths and the Psionics Are Different Variant" should start with an explanation of what that variant is, because there were a lot of people who confused the 3.5 variant for a default rule. If you're not familiar with it, you're just going to think "Well of course psionics is different from magic in my campaign, that's why it's called psionics" and then get confused by the rest of the sidebar.
Though... I think this might be better served in the introductory section, so that it can be expanded to other cases of "counts as a different system for interacting with things" - e.g. monks counting as psionic, and creatures who had the "Psionics (Sp)" ability in 3.x.

Cryptographer seems like it should be able to learn a small number of psychic spells as powers (pay PP equal to the desired caster level, cannot go below the minimum CL for a spell of that level).

And I agree on Empath's terminology being needlessly confusing. I suggest renaming "Zeitgeist, Local Collective and Personal Collective" to "Zeitgeist, Volksgeist and Collective" (and just removing the references to "cosmic collectives" entirely - they're not a class feature, but they're referred to like one). Also replacing "Enervating and Surging Compulsions" with:

Compulsions and Goals (Ex): Instead of Influence and Taboos, zeitgeists carry a Compulsion (a standard of behaviour which the empath is expected to follow) and a Goal (an accomplishment which strengthens the empath's link to the zeitgeist if she achieves it).

If an empath ever acts against the Compulsion of a zeitgeist she is channeling, she has a 15% chance of suffering psychic enervation (as the wilder class feature), losing a number of power points equal to her manifester level and becoming dazed until the end of her next turn. This can be modified by feats and abilities which modify psychic enervation. She never risks psychic enervation more than once for the same action, even if it takes place over an extended period of time.

If an empath achieves her zeitgeist's Goal, she gains one use of the Spirit Surge class feature for the duration of the contract. This is the only way in which an empath may use spirit surge. The empath cannot gain more than one use of Spirit Surge per contract, even if she achieves the zeitgeist's Goal more than once.

The empath is always aware of whether an action would break one of her zeitgeist's Compulsions or achieve one of its Goals.

This ability replaces Taboo.

EDIT: The scaling of the empath's (Personal) Collective also does not follow the standard progression, meaning it interacts weirdly with multiclassing and feats that alter Collectives (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/enlarge-collective).

[Forrestfire]

From the author of the empath:


Empath update (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NMamgmha06ojsDqMjeR0u91UkVChpo0I3tgrIdc2vIk/edit?usp=sharing)! Per some excellent suggestions from Prime32, the local collective was renamed to "volksgeist," which is an awesome word, and that should simplify reading and writing about that, zeitgeists, and the actual collective power. He also had some suggestions for cleaning up compulsions and goals, as they're now called, which I half-used.

Evol, Mac Dex, and Nirvana saw some clarifications, and in the last's case, a bit of a nerf cuz I messed up.

The sidebar about non-transparency was moved to the bottom, given a little bit more introduction, and I added another bit about the "rune magic" variant also suggested in UltPsi.

[Prime32]

Not sure if you saw that last bit I edited in about the Collective's weird progression.

Also, this is still confusing:

If an empath achieves her zeitgeist’s goal, she unlocks the ability to use her spirit surge class feature once per contract with that zeitgeist from then on. This is the only way in which an empath may use spirit surge. The empath cannot gain more than one use of spirit surge per contract, even if she achieves the zeitgeist’s goal more than once.
Does the benefit of achieving a goal last for the duration of the contract, or for the duration of the campaign? And if the latter, what's to stop me from achieving these goals in my backstory?

This wording could work:

If an empath ever achieves the goal of a zeitgeist she has a contract with, her bond with that zeitgeist is permanently strengthened: whenever she forms a contract with that zeitgeist in future, she gains a single use of the spirit surge class feature until the end of her contract. Her current contract also benefits from this effect, granting her one use of spirit surge which may be used immediately. This is the only way in which an empath may use spirit surge. The empath may gain multiple uses of spirit surge by completing the goals of multiple zeitgeists, but gains no additional benefit from completing the same zeitgeist's goal more than once.

[Forrestfire]

Should the Shadow Aspect's Shared Surge count as Wild Surge for effects? Do they get surge augments/can they use surge feats...?

Subconscious Casting runs into dependency issues. Inescapable Despair, Frightful Attack, and Sneak Attack all depend on the lost abilities.

After a long wait, we've finally gotten around to fixing these issues. The Shadow Aspect wilder (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hP2rqjm2129K0doNLwlIk9-z2Wk-tLh6DjXGYVNQUPg/edit#) has had wording added to count as Wild Surge for stuff, and the Negation Phantom, after some tinkering, has had its already slow power progression further slowed and no longer replaces the lower-level abilities.


Detect Hostility has a clause that allows a sworn defender warder to treat hostility at their wards as against themselves. How about expanding it to other sorts? For instance, the Shield Other spell, Stance of the Eternal Guardian, Shared Pain power...

We've also added in some wording to the Supplementary Doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcE6T2piHuQYSVcF3BUPkF0eWwvtAS_heH8ZcOQHUHI/edit#heading=h.vzqolve567b5) about this, and updated Detect Hostility's Knowledge (martial) DCs to scale better, as "flat DC + Wis" has turned out to not function well as a barrier for success at high levels (and functioned too well at lower levels in some cases).

[Nyaa]

Host of Heroes' Potential customization looks inconsistent with Faith and Magecraft. It is also not clear if maximum number of powers obtained is 5 or 6.

[drafghast]

Edit: We are reviewing some small, possible changes with Faith, Magecraft, and Potential, so the workspace surrounding those three customizations should be considered to be a work in progress.


Host of Heroes' Potential customization looks inconsistent with Faith and Magecraft. It is also not clear if maximum number of powers obtained is 5 or 6.

Thank you for the catch. Those three customizations have gone through a number of changes in style, and the version of Potential that made it on to the public doc was left over from a previous style. Potential has been changed to better parallel both Faith and Magecraft, as well as give prospective Overmind-wearers more things to spend psionic focus on.

To clarify, each of the three now grants a number of powers or spells equal to the Host of Heroes' Intelligence modifier, with a minimum of 1.

[Forrestfire]

Just wanted to let people know that we've made a slight change to the Ectoplasmic Artist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit?usp=sharing) in response to feedback; their Impeccable Craftsmanship ability had broken wording that needed to be fixed. It works the same way now, but allows you to take Boost Construct after getting it (instead of just working if you had it beforehand). In addition, we've added another Composite Blast to the end of the doc (Crystalline Needle Blast), after looking back over the existing ones and learning that the Ectoplasmic Artist themselves had no ability to get the normal-damage composite blasts, and in some cases got none at all. Now, they will always get at least one (and other aether kineticists can get it as well).

[TiaC]

Nice, it was a little restrictive in element choices before if you wanted composite blasts.

Could the Gambler have text like the Wilder for prestige classes? Without increase to the maximum burn per round, they really can't take any.

[Forrestfire]

The Gambler will be getting a sidebar on the topic; honestly it had slipped my mind and gotten eaten by our internal discussions on the topic of kineticists in general and PrCs.

[tynansdtm]

Regarding the Hierophant for the Living Legend:
The alignment you choose to detect as under Narrative should restrict the abilities. I don't think you should be able to detect as good, yet channel negative energy. Similarly, the alignment domains should be restricted.

[Forrestfire]

Sorry for such a long period of silence; this project has been mostly delayed thanks to Path of War: Expanded finally releasing, among other things. Today I've got some updates to the Ectoplasmic Artist to bring, including a change to its name: as a result of a lot of confusion with the Ectopic Artisan archetype for the aegis (really, I'm not sure what I was thinking with the new name), the Ectoplasmic Artist kineticist is now called the Avant Guard (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit#heading=h.d6k8i1ul1jjg).

The other big changes are that the Avant Guard can now choose from any element, though it still loses its initial set of wild talents/blasts. This should allow some more flexibility in utility talents; aether was rather sparse, and many of its utility talents depended on having Basic Telekinesis. They can also now choose the additional menu choices from the Boost Construct feat, their impeccable craftsmanship feature, and other abilities they might have that buff astral constructs at the time of creation, rather than the start of the day.


Regarding the Hierophant for the Living Legend:
The alignment you choose to detect as under Narrative should restrict the abilities. I don't think you should be able to detect as good, yet channel negative energy. Similarly, the alignment domains should be restricted.

The big thing about the Living Legend is that overall, they're playing a role. They can use these powers through brute forcing it with psionics. You can detect as Good and channel negative energy because it's a mask you're wearing, just like you could use a spell to completely mask someone's alignment signature. Alignment domains are similar; the Living Legend is not beholden to similar rules as the cleric because that's not where they're getting there power from. The power's in them, the role just shapes it.

[TiaC]

Those all look like good changes to me.

Two questions, a blast can contain four different sources of burn (Blast, form infusion, substance infusion, metakinesis). Are these counted together or separately for Sculptor of the Soul's burn reduction?

Also, was it intended that my Magnum Opus can full attack and then I can use Stand Together to allow it to make another full attack by this clause "Your magnum opus can take its actions immediately, although it is treated as though it had just attacked with the natural weapon you chose"?



Now, I thought I'd take another look at the gambler.

This really reminds me of the huckster from Deadlands. Basically, they did magic by making deals for power. However, nothing really wants to give them a good deal. So, they would make "Devil Went Down to Georgia"-style wagers and then cheating on them. Their spellcasting was usually fluffed as a a ghostly poker hand appearing and disappearing in their hand as they cast. However, they could always get caught and suffer a nasty backlash.

It looks like they can just keep minute/level buffs up all day. At higher levels, they could even have some round/level buffs up all the time.

There are many options for burn mitigation. The best, I'd say, are Internal Dominion of the Sleeping Goddess and Riven Hourglass Style. Also very nice are the Called and Lessons of Chaldira traits. With these, you should be able to walk around at full burn all day without fear.

Other powerful options include using a familiar to hit you with a wand of burning hands or something so as to trigger Live Dangerously.

However, despite all this, you are ultimately a 2/3rds manifester with almost no other abilities, something that keeps you from really dominating.

[Forrestfire]

Those all look like good changes to me.

Two questions, a blast can contain four different sources of burn (Blast, form infusion, substance infusion, metakinesis). Are these counted together or separately for Sculptor of the Soul's burn reduction?

Also, was it intended that my Magnum Opus can full attack and then I can use Stand Together to allow it to make another full attack by this clause "Your magnum opus can take its actions immediately, although it is treated as though it had just attacked with the natural weapon you chose"?

To the first question, the total burn cost of the blast, wild talent, or activated ability of a wild talent is what's counted. Sculptor of the Soul procs to reduce burn each time you take it, but burn is taken in combined doses in the case of blasts. (http://paizo.com/threads/gbio8yrx/favorites?Gather-Power-Infusions-and-Metakinesis)

Regarding the magnum opus... If the astral construct is already out and punching them, then you can give it an extra hit regardless of which mode you do (mode A will do damage as if it hit them and teleport it next to them, or mode B will make it hit them again one more time), but it's not meant to double its actions if you do it in a specific order. I've added verbiage in the Magnum Opus wild talent to say so; thank you for catching that.


Now, I thought I'd take another look at the gambler.

This really reminds me of the huckster from Deadlands. Basically, they did magic by making deals for power. However, nothing really wants to give them a good deal. So, they would make "Devil Went Down to Georgia"-style wagers and then cheating on them. Their spellcasting was usually fluffed as a a ghostly poker hand appearing and disappearing in their hand as they cast. However, they could always get caught and suffer a nasty backlash.

It looks like they can just keep minute/level buffs up all day. At higher levels, they could even have some round/level buffs up all the time.

There are many options for burn mitigation. The best, I'd say, are Internal Dominion of the Sleeping Goddess and Riven Hourglass Style. Also very nice are the Called and Lessons of Chaldira traits. With these, you should be able to walk around at full burn all day without fear.

Other powerful options include using a familiar to hit you with a wand of burning hands or something so as to trigger Live Dangerously.

However, despite all this, you are ultimately a 2/3rds manifester with almost no other abilities, something that keeps you from really dominating.

Good analysis. Overall, the Gambler's gimmick is that while they do have a lot of staying power, and you can use resources to mitigate the chance of a backlash, they're overall limited by the fact that their manifesting is really all they've got, unlike other manifesting classes like the vitalist or dread.

[TiaC]

To the first question, the total burn cost of the blast, wild talent, or activated ability of a wild talent is what's counted. Sculptor of the Soul procs to reduce burn each time you take it, but burn is taken in combined doses in the case of blasts. (http://paizo.com/threads/gbio8yrx/favorites?Gather-Power-Infusions-and-Metakinesis)

Regarding the magnum opus... If the astral construct is already out and punching them, then you can give it an extra hit regardless of which mode you do (mode A will do damage as if it hit them and teleport it next to them, or mode B will make it hit them again one more time), but it's not meant to double its actions if you do it in a specific order. I've added verbiage in the Magnum Opus wild talent to say so; thank you for catching that.

Glad to help, but the change to Stand Together is still unclear. May I suggest "Provided it has not already acted this round, your magnum opus can take its actions immediately...".


Good analysis. Overall, the Gambler's gimmick is that while they do have a lot of staying power, and you can use resources to mitigate the chance of a backlash, they're overall limited by the fact that their manifesting is really all they've got, unlike other manifesting classes like the vitalist or dread.

There are still some possibly concerning aspects of this. I would take a look at what can be done with Shared Power. I'm not sure how it stacks up to the insanity that is full-casters, but it might be one of the best buffing classes in the game.

[Kymera]

Goetic > Metacreativity horror > 1st-level special feature > Shield Interposition


Shield Interposition (Ex): So long as Metacreativity has a shield providing a bonus to its AC, it can, as an immediate action when an ally within its threatened area is attacked, swap squares with that ally. The decision to swap may be made after the attack has been rolled. Metacreativity loses the use of one shield providing it an AC bonus when it decides to swap (this shield’s bonus to AC does not apply to the attack).

How, exactly, is this intended to work? From the context, the general mechanical themes of the Goetic, and even (especially) the name of this ability itself, it appears to be intended to allow the goetic to take the blow in place of the ally, but the way it's currently worded, I don't see a way by RAW to do that. I'm picturing it as swapping places with my ally when they're attacked, and then that attack resolves against me instead of against its original target, but the way this is written, we've swapped places, and then the attack proceeds as normal. At best, if it's a melee attack that I was previously out of reach of, putting the original target out of reach might make the attack fail, but that really doesn't feel like it was the intention behind this ability, especially with that "Interposition" in the name.

[tynansdtm]

The big thing about the Living Legend is that overall, they're playing a role. They can use these powers through brute forcing it with psionics. You can detect as Good and channel negative energy because it's a mask you're wearing, just like you could use a spell to completely mask someone's alignment signature. Alignment domains are similar; the Living Legend is not beholden to similar rules as the cleric because that's not where they're getting there power from. The power's in them, the role just shapes it.
Okay, I figured that it would just be a single spirit that it was grabbing multiple properties from (and presumably that spirit couldn't break these rules), but I'm willing to accept that it's "just acting."

On a more mechanical side of things:

The Govi, under Athanatism implement, the Spirit Ward power contains a double "is".
For the Empath, the Expanded Collective feat is reproduced incorrectly, missing the Benefit with the Normal text marked Benefit.
Expansive Collective is reproduced correctly but unfortunately the Empath never receives the Spirit of Many class feature and so never qualifies for it. Is it supposed to be able to qualify? I'd really be happy if it could, because it gets collective things earlier than other classes.

[Forrestfire]

Hello! It's been quite a long time since this project was updated, and I greatly apologize for that. Today we've got some updates to the Goetic (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fj__MUc9jfTzRHYnbSFu1-sYgSwJSViLBNtFQmIKfgs/edit?usp=sharing) and the Empath (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NMamgmha06ojsDqMjeR0u91UkVChpo0I3tgrIdc2vIk/edit?usp=sharing), as well as to the Kineticist options (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19y_V3-_cKBzTYiFwt5M3Tij7ahQoPPt9XLTE1wreV68/edit?usp=sharing).


Empath

Collective Seance now counts as Spirit of Many for prerequisites
Added sidebar about ​the Ultimate Intrigue​ Zeitgeist Binder spiritualist, and added a new feat (Volksgeist Binder) for multiclass Empath/Zeitgeist Binders
Riastrad spirit power reworked.
Fixed Expanded Collective reprint.

Goetic

Lots of general clean-up and clarification.
Specialization became a separate section just to make things easier to read.
Splicing action cost changed to just start at free, then free-out-of-turn at 3rd, then retroactive at 8th.
Fragmented Consciousness gives would-be possessor the opportunity to nope out (and defined Knowledge check to figure out the need to).
Bonus psionic feats at 2nd and 6th.
Specialists given extra uses of 16th-level horror features as part of the Horrific Cooperation capstone, since it's much less useful to them.
Added a section on stuff like auras, knowledge checks, and so on.
Athanatism's Martyr's Consolation no longer reduces the damage taken for allies, only delays it.
Psychokinesis can choose any three weapons it is proficient with, rather than ​having​ to choose martial weapons.

Kineticists

There've been some grammar tweaks in both the Avant Guard and the Gambler.
Crystalline needle blast has had a note added to it about its compatability with infusions.
A new feat has been added, Augmented Elements, that allows kineticists to slightly expand their repertoire of simple blasts.
We've added a section on prestige classes—specifically, how Gamblers and other kineticists with the psionic subtype interact with psionic prestige classes.

[Kiton2]

Given the new options it may be appropriate for the Composite Power Metapsionic (is that really worth two whole points? it's "half X and half Y" not "damage becomes X AND Y") to be allowed to function with any of the elements as the "first", if not the second!

[Adamsmithchan]

I've started looking through the Empath Medium in preparation for an upcoming campaign and I noticed something. It's very difficult to PRC with the class.

I understand not progressing volksgeist, but as it stands you contact zeitgeists based purely on class level, versus manifester level. Is this intentional?

[Forrestfire]

I've discussed this with the author of the Empath, and right now, we're not quite sure how best to implement that. We'll get back to you on the question of Empaths and PrCs.

On an unrelated note, though, the Living Legend is now released! I want to personally thank all the people who've posted and playtested, since you've been incredibly helpful. It can be found wherever you normally get Pathfinder products :smallsmile:

[Milo v3]

The living legend's description says "The release also includes information on playing Soulknives in high-psionics campaigns," is that a reprint of the side-bar from Soulknife Augmented?

[Forrestfire]

Yeah, it's a reprint of the sidebars (the one on the progression and also how it interacts with PrCs) from that, slightly reworded.

[Mehangel]

I had an idea for a soulknife archetype that replaces psychic strike and/or mindblade for kinetic blast, spending blade skills to acquire talents.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Ok, I'm trying to build an Avant Garde/Elemental Ascetic Kineticist and figuring out how attacking with it works is giving me a headache. I'm assuming that since Kinetic Fist is a form and Stand Together is a blast they can be used together, making Stand Together melee and able to be used with iterative/flurry attacks? How would that work then? Does Stand Together replace the normal unarmed attack with a copy of the Magnum Opus attacking? Would I need Feral Combat Training then, since I'd be flurrying with Slam attacks?

[Forrestfire]

Kinetic Fist is... Weird, as a form infusion. It says this:

"You deal an additional 1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast's damage (minimum 1d6), and this damage is of the same type as your kinetic blast's damage."

It's not actually a blast, and wouldn't carry any rider effects, substance infusions, or extra damage like a normal blast. All it does is add damage to your unarmed strikes. You would want Kinetic Blade if you want to use your magnum opus in melee like that.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Kinetic Fist is... Weird, as a form infusion. It says this:

"You deal an additional 1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast's damage (minimum 1d6), and this damage is of the same type as your kinetic blast's damage."

It's not actually a blast, and wouldn't carry any rider effects, substance infusions, or extra damage like a normal blast. All it does is add damage to your unarmed strikes. You would want Kinetic Blade if you want to use your magnum opus in melee like that.
Ok, so that archetype combo would only really give me the ability to flurry with the 'typeless' damage of my Magnum Opus? That's disappointing.

How would Kinetic Blade work, then? I hit them with it and then the whole 'Magnum Opus appears and takes the rest of its turn' thing happens? If I get a Conductive AoMF, do I get one punch a round that also applies Kinetic Blade's effects?

[Forrestfire]

That's correct; the kinetic blade would carry the effect of the blast and summon your magnum opus. A conductive AoMF is probably your best bet for being melee with it (and really, it's a pretty good choice in general, since it will later get you the ability to toss composite blasts and the like onto one punch per round).

[Dr_Dinosaur]

So let's say I go Brawler 2/Avant Guard 3 with the stated setup and the Advanced Construct feat to give my Opus armor spikes. I flurry with my conductive fists, and my first hit deals my normal unarmed damage plus the Opus' slam damage. Then my Opus appears adjacent to the target and may full attack with its armor spikes and its (now secondary) slam attack. Finally, I land my second punch for a total of four attacks. Does that sound right?

Obviously the spikes+slam combo is risky because of the -5 accuracy penalty, but with elemental overflow (presumably since it's part of a blast rider) compensating for that it's a potential 5d6 before adding my strength and the construct's strength as well as my other damage bonuses to our attacks.

[Forrestfire]

That sounds right, yeah.


Punch
Conductive stand together slam attack
Second punch
Magnum opus continues its full attack, making an attack with its armor spikes and any extra slam attacks it has.

[MilleniaAntares]

For the Avant Guard, you have this sentence for Magnum Opus:

"Your ability to create a magnum opus is limited; each you can construct a number of copies at full hit points per day equal to the number of burn accepted during your meditation + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1)."

You need to remove the "each" from the sentence to have it make sense.

[Forrestfire]

Thanks for the catch there; it's been fixed.

[Forrestfire]

Hey, sorry for the long silence. I have two important announcements to make today regarding the Psionics Augmented: Occult project.

The first one is that as of today, this playtest will be officially closing. We've had a really good run, and as always, I am super, super thankful for all of your testing, feedback, commentary, and really just the time and energy invested in helping us at Dreamscarred Press make this product great. Thank you.

In any case, we're going to be moving these archetypes and class options to layout and release in the near future (incorporating changes from the feedback we have received over time), and will not be actively playtesting this project any more. However, I will say that the Goetic Spiritualist archetype is being reworked. It will be its own, stand-alone psychic casting class. Once this is fully written, it'll be playtested separately and then added to the release queue for Psionics Augmented: Occult.

The playtests docs for this project will remain open up until the release of each product. Don't worry; if you're using playtest stuff in your games, it's not going away.

... Now, the second announcement, and a much more sorrowful one: I am going to be taking an extended leave of absence as Creative Director at DSP for personal reasons, and as such, I'm not going to be actively handling playtests or writing content. We've known this was coming for a bit, and have been working to get things cleaned up, handled, and ready to press onwards once I'm gone (hence this playtest closing at the same time as Fool's Errand's—today's my last day actively doing stuff, so we were holding off until now).

It's been a ton of fun, and I hope to return as soon as I can. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the plethora of new products, playtests, and releases coming from Dreamscarred Press.

[digiman619]

... Now, the second announcement, and a much more sorrowful one: I am going to be taking an extended leave of absence as Creative Director at DSP for personal reasons, and as such, I'm not going to be actively handling playtests or writing content. We've known this was coming for a while, and have been working to get things cleaned up, handled, and ready to press onwards once I'm gone (hence this playtest closing at the same time as Fool's Errand's—today's my last day actively doing stuff, so we were holding off until now).

It's been a ton of fun, and I hope to return as soon as I can. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the plethora of new products, playtests, and releases coming from Dreamscarred Press.

I hope whatever your personal reason that they resolve as happily (and hopefully as quickly) as possible. Thank you for your work on all these stuff; it does wonders for my games and I love practically everything DSP makes.

Stay sane (as possible) and healthy!

[jimminychrismas]

Hthe Goetic Spiritualist archetype is being reworked. It will be its own, stand-alone psychic casting class.

This is great news. After "this is really quite cool" my first thought was that it felt like there was enough there for a standalone class, if not an entire alternate subsystem of classes.(though, DSP might be getting collectively tired of outwriting Paizo and Wotc at those.) More of a physical medium than a spiritualist.

It seemed almost hampered by fitting into a template and like it could be improved by dropping some of the spiritualist that was left in favor of more goetia.
Perhaps free spending of minutes per day limited to a minimum of minute-long increments rather than uses per day and a max time. Possibly in exchange for some(or most/all) of its casting, or as the trade-off in an archetype limiting to a specialized link to a single Horror.

Or improved just from more creative control from the writer/s outside the constraints of conforming to an established class.

Either way, this looks like it'll turn out awesome.

[Thealtruistorc]

Something I would like to know: are there plans for psychic theurge classes in the style of the cerebremancer and bladecaster? I had some ideas regarding a psychic/psion villain for my campaign, and will probably create my own version if there isn't an official one. Nonetheless, I would like to know if I'm the only one to anticipate this.

[Cyrocloud]

So, did this drop then? http://dreamscarred.com/product/psionics-augmented-occult/

[vilor]

Is this any new material or reprints of what has already been published? If a collection of reprints will patreon supporters get it as a free update?

[Forrestfire]

The Psionics Augmented: Occult Compilation includes a chapter on supplementary rules, including skill unlocks and some new feats that didn't make it into the smaller releases.

[DMVerdandi]

Can we like...request certain classes be made or published?

[vilor]

The Psionics Augmented: Occult Compilation includes a chapter on supplementary rules, including skill unlocks and some new feats that didn't make it into the smaller releases.

Thanks Forrest, but if the bulk of the book is a compilation of the half a dozen releases already obtained via Patreon I'm not sure I want to pay for this material again....

A more detailed contents would be useful....

[Forrestfire]

Can we like...request certain classes be made or published?

Sadly, this project is over with the release of the compilation. There might be more Occult stuff from DSP in the future, but I don't know of any active plans.


Thanks Forrest, but if the bulk of the book is a compilation of the half a dozen releases already obtained via Patreon I'm not sure I want to pay for this material again....

A more detailed contents would be useful....

I think that the preview on drivethru should include the table of contents, at least? I might also consider asking the Dreamscarred Press Facebook page, or shooting an email to the address listed on their site's "contact us" page. I'm no longer actively working with the company, so I can't really make statements on this with any confidence, particularly with respects to the patreon. My apologies.