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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

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    Oct 2015

    Default Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    This is a subsystem for pathfinder based upon a base class I made in the past, and is inspired by Akashic Mysteries, the Soulknife and the Aegis.

    The basic premise is the character awakens something dormant within themselves, a fragment of an ancient broken artifact. This fragment gives the character the ability to create a substance called Auracite, which they can shape into other things (swords, tables, forks, bridges etc) with.

    Originally I made the system with the only way into the system was through feats, and the only way to gain new abilities in the system was through feats. The idea was that the system was open to characters of any class to use. Unfortunately it was very difficult to balance, the feats were too powerful, while at the same time having to use all those feats to get into the system was too expensive. 4 feats to basically become a soulknife for example.
    To 'help' with that I added a prestige class to give a few extra feats, then I added a base class where you built the class yourself by getting a feat or technique at every level. I wasn't very happy with how I implemented things, but I stuck with it, even though I received feedback from several people telling me this was a bad idea.
    Now I've decided to follow that advice and I've removed the feat entry requirement, entry into the system now requires a base class. For now there is only one base class and one prestige class, but I might add more in the future.

    I personally really like the system, and even though I recognize that it is very niche, I think I did a good job. Then again, I am biased here

    The Inheritors of Auracite system

    Since the last update, I've done several things to improve the system, most of which I will put in the changelog post down below(those I remembered to make a note of at least), but a quick TL:DR: Changed entry into the system, removed several feats, changed the reinforcement and AP recovery mechanics, made paths more important, removed some things, changed the name of several things and generally made things better and easier to use. At least I think it is better and easier now.

    The only thing I'm currently missing are some psionic powers to replace the spells magic based Scholars use, but I'm kinda stuck on that at the moment. I might add something that the psionic Scholar just uses most the same spells as the magic Scholar, but just flavored to be psionic. I'm not sure yet.

    Spoiler: Original Post
    Show
    The basic premise is the character awakens something dormant within themselves, a fragment of a divine artefact. This fragment gives the character the ability to create a substance called Auracite, which they can shape into other things (swords, tables, forks, bridges etc) with.
    The character awakens their power by taking an [Auracite] feat, which gives them the ability to produce Auracite, and the ability to shape the Auracite into objects. If the character wants to learn more Auracite abilities, they need to take more [Auracite] feats. These feats are the only way to gain Auracite abilities.

    I had three goals when making this system:
    First was to make an interesting "I make things from nothing" system
    Second was to make a system not constrained by "X times per day"
    Third was to make a system available to all classes
    I think I managed to accomplish all three goals, but I'm probably too biased to tell how well I did. Also the system has not been thoroughly playtested yet, so I'm not sure how balanced it is.

    I am quite pleased with the system, and would very much like some feedback on it.

    Inheritors of Auracite subsystem old version

    Regarding the divine artefact, the lore I've put into the system is that a long dead deity of crafting created the artefact, and it shattered when the deity was killed, and ever since some mortals have been born with a shard of the artefact lodged in their soul, and the shard is what is awakened by taking the first [Auracite] feat. I did it this way so that the deity could fit into more or less any setting without forcing the DM to incorporate a new deity. However the role of the deity as the forger of the artefact could just as easily be given to a different crafter god, such as Moradin, if that fits the setting more.

    Spoiler: A bit more background on why I made this subsystem feat based rather than class based
    Show

    Like stated above, the only way to use this subsystem is through feats. There is no base class for this system, and the prestige class only gives small bonuses, but mainly just gives more [Auracite] feats.

    A friend of mine suggested to me that I make my Auracite class into a subsystem rather than try to cram all my ideas into a single class.
    He suggested I look at Incarnum and take inspiration from it, particularly how it is accessible to other classes through feats.
    What he said made sense, so I decided to take his advice.

    Reading Incarnum for the first time I was quite excited with the ideas and potential and disappointed at the execution of the ideas presented, especially for the classes.
    I did find some inspiration there, such as how feats could be used as entry gates to a subsystem for the core classes.

    Then I found Akashic Mysteries and the psionic class Aegis and I more or less fell in love with both.
    I was told that Akashic Mysteries was essentially Incarnum ported to Pathfinder but done far better and I absolutely agree with that and I encourage anyone who liked the ideas and premise of Incarnum to check it out.

    I really like the flexibility of both the Aegis and soulmelding/veilweaving, such as with how the soulmelds/veils can be exchanged and moved about, which was quite similar to what I had envisioned the Path of the Shroud could do for my class and is something I want to build more upon.

    Other than the Auracite class itself, both Akashic Mysteries and the Aegis class have been hugely influential on this piece of work and serve as my main inspirations both thematically and rules wise.

    Because of this, some of this system will be quite similar to elements from both Akashic and the Aegis, partially because Auracite was already similar to them, and in part because both Akashic and the Aegis do things that fit very well with my vision for Auracite and how I want it to work.
    Hopefully I will add enough of my own spin to things for this system not to be just a rehash of the inspirations.

    Last edited by Kael_Thor; 2021-01-29 at 08:15 AM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    While I understand the draw of having a path based on the Aegis, as that's a wonderful mechanical implementation of ability-swapping, I think the Auracite Shroud needs to go and its properties "bled out" into actual crafting-based mechanics. As it is currently, the Shroud is just about the only thing worth digging into for a "toolbox" build, as everything else costs an excessive number of feats. Splitting weapons, armor and shields and creation, enhancement and Special Qualities is the biggest case of this, eating nine feats for basic equipment.

    Having a crafting power set carry a "spell" failure chance for using heavy armor or a shield is similarly nonsensical, and makes it extremely hard to justify for the martials who actually use the gear you'd be making as their standard combat activity. Having each Technique cost a feat furthers this issue of funneling users into the Shroud as the only thing with low enough build impact to be worth using, especially as AP is a daily resource that must be physically recovered in a matter of rounds, thus making it of minimal value to archers.

    The generalities of what I'd go for:

    1. To reduce the feat-hunger, I'd make Shape Auracite handle all mundane equipment creation with reasonable success rates at 1st level, have Auracite Points scale automatically with Forger Level, and automatically get a Technique with each Auracite feat taken, as well as centralizing improvements to being split thematically rather than split by item type.
    2. To make it viable for ranged characters, I'd make Auracite a "per encounter" resource, using upkeep costs instead of duration to offset the issues of this. Combined with the above, increased investment grants breadth of function to handle the increased expectation of kind, rather than being required for the basic expectation of scale.
    3. To force Auracite-based characters into being their own thing instead of tacked on via feats, I'd have the automatic Forger level be 1/2 character level on the feat, while introducing Auracite archetypes and splitting the prestige class, having those two options be full progression for their level. This also gives a good place to put more complicated transparency options.
    4. To further increase the variety of Auracite character types, I'd split the entrance feat into three, with one for Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity, respectively making it transparent with caster level for item crafting, Cleric level for Channeling feats, and Fighter level for Combat feats, as well as a Technique that ties into the associated mechanics in addition to Shape Auracite.
    6. To allow it to be used readily by melee characters, I'd have it draw from only the Armor Check Penalty, not requiring Concentration checks for the expected mid-combat uses and having access to the various mechanics for mitigating Armor Check Penalty. Effects with round-based Forging times, however, would still require Concentration while making.

    The details I've thought of so far would be having the DC require a roll of 6 with the expected bonus for the level, which, for a base 16 Intelligence on a Craft check and using the Automatic Bonus Progression, would be +7 at 1st level (3 from Intelligence, 3 from a trained class skill, 1 from the skill point) and increase by 1 per level for the skill point, 1 per 6 starting at 5 for Mental Prowess and 1 per 8 from level-based ability score increases. A fairly close approximation is 12+1 1/3xlevel, meaning the DC raises by one per level, and by two every third level. The potential problems of deliberately inflated skill checks can be headed off with Forger Level restrictions and Auracite requirements cutting off extreme optimization from going above-curve on power by much.

    I'd go with Simple weapons at 1st level (DC 13), Martial weapons at 3rd level (DC 16) and Exotic weapons at 5th level (DC 18), with armor instead being something like 9+3xAC, with the AC multiplier raised by one for Light Armor and reduced by one for Heavy Armor. Auracite costs would be by weight or volume for raw material concerns, expressed as lbs./5ft.^3 per Forger Level, making it so that there's an exponential growth of raw stuff with level. Capitalizing on this scaling method would be having the root of the constructs be Animated Objects, making the best pure-Auracite constructs eat a considerable amount of Auracite Points from needing to maintain their mass, on top of the cost of the animation.

    As for the Techniques offered by the split entrance feats, the one for direct access to Item Crafting feats would get the Technique for applying an Enhancement bonus to existing items, as well as the basic mostly-mundane special qualities like Keen and Fortification, the one for Channeling feats would be temporary HP or Force damage with a rate of 3/Auracite, and the one for Fighter Bonus Feats would be enacting combat maneuvers at a distance.

    For feats, I'd have "Metaforging" feats be more DC increases than Auracite Point cost increases, with some outright passive features, as most of the metamagic functions tend to be better explained by more skilled forging rather than shoving more Auracite in. And the latter is also oftentimes covered by the mechanical space of Reinforcement. For the crafting improvements, I'd have it key off of Craft Auracite, as a Permanency effect, having that stuff relate to the base item being Auracite, with Reconfigure Item being the key workaround to get the effects of other things into Auracite items so one may relentlessly screw with them through Techniques and other Auracite feats. And making the cost on that be a third of the item's market price, so it's a discount over just making the end product from scratch. Otherwise, why don't you just make the item from scratch? Similarly, Salvage to "break down" items into permanent Auracite value should be two-thirds for a slight increase over just selling the item, because otherwise, why aren't you just selling it for the gold to make the item you want yourself?

    Additionally, I'd have a significant number of Auracite Combat Feats, having counterparts for, as a start, Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, Power Attack and Cleave, and Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Defense. Two deep into the "default" combat trees, basically, so that Martials aren't particularly interrupted in their feat-intensive builds to get to passable baseline competence. Similarly, the "Quick Forging" feat, or whatever you want to call the "Metaforging" equivalent to Quicken Spell, in addition to increasing the DC by 8 (for a six-level offset, since the functions in question are generally not nearly as much of a problem as spellcasting), would count as the Quick Draw feat for prerequisites.

    With Techniques, try to focus on item enhancement and item creation, not direct Doing Things. Rather than a direct-damage Technique, have it be making a thrown weapon as part of the same action as throwing it, with Reinforcement options for making more of them if you wish to Full Attack, increase the damage on a hit, or even make it a Splash weapon. Instead of "Totally Not Fireball", have that Technique space be a Technique for Energy infusion for damage or resistance, turning into the "Totally Not Fireball" when used with the suddenly-made Splash weapons.

    There's a lot of things to compare to for limiting the total output. The Soulknife of the same creators as the Aegis that inspired you is probably the best example for how far one may push a single feature-item with full-build focus, while the Summoner's Eidolon would be the benchmark to avoid exceeding for a "One Big Summon" setup. Divorcing the subsystem from daily uses adds a number of hickups, but Path of War and Tome of Battle (the former is the third-party Pathfinder port of the latter) are examples for per-encounter powers, and you know Akashic Mysteries, which is a port of Incarnum, as a benchmark for mostly-passive power that's shuffled throughout the day.

    I'll also bring up Spheres of Power as a casting-based subsystem rooted in at-will powers with a daily resource for "pushing" it, as your current setup is designed to accommodate. The Creation and Enhancement Spheres would be the most relevant for a purely item-based implementation, while the Conjuration and Alteration Spheres being the system's examples for making and modifying creatures, respectively.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

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    Oct 2015

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Firstly, thanks for the feedback. While I'm a bit discouraged by the number of things "wrong", getting good feedback is awesome, and necessary so I hopefully can fix and improve things.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    While I understand the draw of having a path based on the Aegis, as that's a wonderful mechanical implementation of ability-swapping, I think the Auracite Shroud needs to go and its properties "bled out" into actual crafting-based mechanics. As it is currently, the Shroud is just about the only thing worth digging into for a "toolbox" build, as everything else costs an excessive number of feats. Splitting weapons, armor and shields and creation, enhancement and Special Qualities is the biggest case of this, eating nine feats for basic equipment.
    Shroud is actually the part I'm most happy about, at one point I was thinking of just baking everything else into it. However I do see your point. What I'm leaning towards doing is taking it out and putting it back in the form of a dedicated prestige class, perhaps one that gets Shroud and a lesser overall Auracite progression.

    I agree that everything costs too many feats, its a difficult balance to find. Essentially I'm allowing players to trade feats for gold, in that they can take feats to eliminate certain gear dependencies. I don't think I can have one feat give Blade, Armor and Shield, and if I have one feat give Blade and later Blade enhancement, the cost becomes too low for what you get out of it. Getting not only a weapon, but a magic scaling weapon for just two feats is too good.
    I've been doubting my decision to make this system feat based for a while now, and the more I think about it, I find more and more problems. Right now I'm leaning between trying to balance the system as it is, or just scrapping the feat based idea and go for archetypes and prestige classes instead.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Having a crafting power set carry a "spell" failure chance for using heavy armor or a shield is similarly nonsensical, and makes it extremely hard to justify for the martials who actually use the gear you'd be making as their standard combat activity. Having each Technique cost a feat furthers this issue of funneling users into the Shroud as the only thing with low enough build impact to be worth using, especially as AP is a daily resource that must be physically recovered in a matter of rounds, thus making it of minimal value to archers.
    The "spell" failure is actually a remnant from when the Auracite abilities were spell like abilities, and I added it because I thought it fit. On further thought I agree it doesn't make much sense though, and might need to be replaced.

    I disagree that recovering AP before it disappears makes it less valuable to archers though. If I understand your point correctly, you value AP recovery for archers less because they'd have to move to their arrows and recover the AP used to form arrows before the AP is lost, but that was not my intention with this:
    If forming a non-thrown ranged weapon using this technique you may invest 1 additional AP as you form the weapon to allow the weapon to produce any ammunition it needs.
    My intention was that the AP you could recover was in the weapon, not the ammunition, though now that I think about it, I might have to better specify that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The generalities of what I'd go for:

    1. To reduce the feat-hunger, I'd make Shape Auracite handle all mundane equipment creation with reasonable success rates at 1st level, have Auracite Points scale automatically with Forger Level, and automatically get a Technique with each Auracite feat taken, as well as centralizing improvements to being split thematically rather than split by item type.
    If I understand what you mean, you suggest merging Armor, Blade and Shield with the current Shape Auracite, correct? I feel that might be a bit too much for one ability. It would drastically reduce the number of feats required, but would also really increase the amount of versatility gained from just a couple of feats.

    I thought about having AP scale with Forging level, and I might still do that. The reason I didn’t was that I didn’t want someone who took just one Auracite feat to be able to use their Auracite just as much as someone who took say ten feats. However your suggestion on the scaling of Forger level would address that issue.

    Gaining a technique from all the auracite feats is a good idea, I might just remove the Gain Auracite Technique feat and instead add “Additionally when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique of your choice” to the other feats instead.

    When you say centralizing improvements, what improvements do you mean? I just realised I’m using the word Improvement for too many things, do you mean the improved techniques, or the Improving Touch improvements?
    I will try to answer for both:
    Several of the Technique Improvements and Reinforcements can be consolidated, especially if I do decide to combine Armor, Blade and Shield. I don’t technically need three “the item you make gets an enhancement bonus” techniques, for instance.

    I do like how the various Improving Touch improvements are split, but some consolidation could be done there as well I suppose.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    2. To make it viable for ranged characters, I'd make Auracite a "per encounter" resource, using upkeep costs instead of duration to offset the issues of this. Combined with the above, increased investment grants breadth of function to handle the increased expectation of kind, rather than being required for the basic expectation of scale.
    To address the scale first, I originally wanted to have an automatic scaling. You use one feat to take Blade, and at X level Blade gets 1 enhancement bonus, for example, but I was told that was too much for just one feat. Personally I agree that ideally you would continue to invest feats into the system to broaden your skills with Auracite, not grow stronger with it, but so far I haven’t found a way to balance that properly.

    About upkeep costs, I’m hesitant to implement that, not just because it is difficult but because it could mean you would need large amounts of AP in order to be able to anything other than very bare bones things If you only have 10 AP, and the upkeep cost for your Blade is 1 per round, and the upkeep cost of your armor is also 1 per round, you can’t really afford to do anything other than those two things.
    Fluff/lore wise that makes the most sense, but mechanically I’m unsure how to do it properly. As far as I know, only Ethermagic by Interjection Games has introduced an upkeep cost in Pathfinder, unless I’m forgetting something obvious, and while I thought about doing something similar, the book keeping a system like that requires is a bit too much.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    3. To force Auracite-based characters into being their own thing instead of tacked on via feats, I'd have the automatic Forger level be 1/2 character level on the feat, while introducing Auracite archetypes and splitting the prestige class, having those two options be full progression for their level. This also gives a good place to put more complicated transparency options.
    I was trying to avoid having to make large amounts of archetypes and prestige classes for this, but it looks like I’m going to have to make at least a few, because your idea is a good one. Originally Forger level was based upon the number of auracite feats you had, but I discarded that because of reasons I can’t remember at the moment.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    4. To further increase the variety of Auracite character types, I'd split the entrance feat into three, with one for Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity, respectively making it transparent with caster level for item crafting, Cleric level for Channeling feats, and Fighter level for Combat feats, as well as a Technique that ties into the associated mechanics in addition to Shape Auracite.
    I can see where caster level and Combat feats come in, but why Channeling feats? How does Channeling connect with my system? Similarly Intelligence and Dexterity makes sense, but how does Wisdom help with creating stuff?

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    6. To allow it to be used readily by melee characters, I'd have it draw from only the Armor Check Penalty, not requiring Concentration checks for the expected mid-combat uses and having access to the various mechanics for mitigating Armor Check Penalty. Effects with round-based Forging times, however, would still require Concentration while making.

    The details I've thought of so far would be having the DC require a roll of 6 with the expected bonus for the level, which, for a base 16 Intelligence on a Craft check and using the Automatic Bonus Progression, would be +7 at 1st level (3 from Intelligence, 3 from a trained class skill, 1 from the skill point) and increase by 1 per level for the skill point, 1 per 6 starting at 5 for Mental Prowess and 1 per 8 from level-based ability score increases. A fairly close approximation is 12+1 1/3xlevel, meaning the DC raises by one per level, and by two every third level. The potential problems of deliberately inflated skill checks can be headed off with Forger Level restrictions and Auracite requirements cutting off extreme optimization from going above-curve on power by much.

    I'd go with Simple weapons at 1st level (DC 13), Martial weapons at 3rd level (DC 16) and Exotic weapons at 5th level (DC 18), with armor instead being something like 9+3xAC, with the AC multiplier raised by one for Light Armor and reduced by one for Heavy Armor. Auracite costs would be by weight or volume for raw material concerns, expressed as lbs./5ft.^3 per Forger Level, making it so that there's an exponential growth of raw stuff with level. Capitalizing on this scaling method would be having the root of the constructs be Animated Objects, making the best pure-Auracite constructs eat a considerable amount of Auracite Points from needing to maintain their mass, on top of the cost of the animation.
    Moving away from “spell” failure towards armor check penalty and leaning more on Craft checks sounds like a good idea, and fits the theme better anyway than “spell” failure.

    Technically Shape Auracite’s cost is already determined by volume, a Medium or smaller object costs 1 AP, a Large object costs 3 AP etc.

    I don’t have a considerable increase in the cost of larger Auracite Constructs because that could severely limit a Constructs focused style of play. Astral Construct, which Auracite Construct is based upon, requires double the amount of additional points to level up than Auracite Constructs, but a character based upon Astral Constructs will have far more PP than a character has AP. Again fluff wise the cost increase should be larger, but mechanically I’m not sure I want to do that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    For feats, I'd have "Metaforging" feats be more DC increases than Auracite Point cost increases, with some outright passive features, as most of the metamagic functions tend to be better explained by more skilled forging rather than shoving more Auracite in. And the latter is also oftentimes covered by the mechanical space of Reinforcement. For the crafting improvements, I'd have it key off of Craft Auracite, as a Permanency effect, having that stuff relate to the base item being Auracite, with Reconfigure Item being the key workaround to get the effects of other things into Auracite items so one may relentlessly screw with them through Techniques and other Auracite feats. And making the cost on that be a third of the item's market price, so it's a discount over just making the end product from scratch. Otherwise, why don't you just make the item from scratch? Similarly, Salvage to "break down" items into permanent Auracite value should be two-thirds for a slight increase over just selling the item, because otherwise, why aren't you just selling it for the gold to make the item you want yourself?
    “Metaforging” sounds awesome, I’m tempted to rename Technique Improvements to that and move them out of techniques and into feats instead.

    I’m not quite pleased with the crafting improvement feats, especially the Craft (Auracite) feat, which is more or less mandatory. Maybe expanding into making real items from Auracite is the way to go, I’m going to have to think on that a bit more.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Additionally, I'd have a significant number of Auracite Combat Feats, having counterparts for, as a start, Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, Power Attack and Cleave, and Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Defense. Two deep into the "default" combat trees, basically, so that Martials aren't particularly interrupted in their feat-intensive builds to get to passable baseline competence. Similarly, the "Quick Forging" feat, or whatever you want to call the "Metaforging" equivalent to Quicken Spell, in addition to increasing the DC by 8 (for a six-level offset, since the functions in question are generally not nearly as much of a problem as spellcasting), would count as the Quick Draw feat for prerequisites.
    The problem with having Auracite versions of feats like Point Blank Shot and Power Attack is how do you balance it so it doesn’t become the default choice over the normal feat? The only way I can think of right now, other than having some wonky math like Auracite Power Attack gives ¾ the bonus as the regular feat, is to have the auracite feat require a higher level than the regular feat.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    With Techniques, try to focus on item enhancement and item creation, not direct Doing Things. Rather than a direct-damage Technique, have it be making a thrown weapon as part of the same action as throwing it, with Reinforcement options for making more of them if you wish to Full Attack, increase the damage on a hit, or even make it a Splash weapon. Instead of "Totally Not Fireball", have that Technique space be a Technique for Energy infusion for damage or resistance, turning into the "Totally Not Fireball" when used with the suddenly-made Splash weapons.

    There's a lot of things to compare to for limiting the total output. The Soulknife of the same creators as the Aegis that inspired you is probably the best example for how far one may push a single feature-item with full-build focus, while the Summoner's Eidolon would be the benchmark to avoid exceeding for a "One Big Summon" setup. Divorcing the subsystem from daily uses adds a number of hickups, but Path of War and Tome of Battle (the former is the third-party Pathfinder port of the latter) are examples for per-encounter powers, and you know Akashic Mysteries, which is a port of Incarnum, as a benchmark for mostly-passive power that's shuffled throughout the day.

    I'll also bring up Spheres of Power as a casting-based subsystem rooted in at-will powers with a daily resource for "pushing" it, as your current setup is designed to accommodate. The Creation and Enhancement Spheres would be the most relevant for a purely item-based implementation, while the Conjuration and Alteration Spheres being the system's examples for making and modifying creatures, respectively.
    Again very good ideas. Funny you should mention Spheres of Power, I did think about just making this whole subsystem into a casting tradition for SoP, but by then I was so deep into it I didn’t want to just scrap everything and start over.
    Making techniques more into the talents of the SoP system could be a good direction to take though.

    As for Dreamscarred Press’ Soulknife, it was very influential on the base class I made and based this system on, so I should probably list it as one of the inspirations.

    Again, thank you very much for the feedback, you’ve given me a lot to think about.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    With regards to my suggestion making Shape Auracite too powerful, the initial option is just any mundane equipment, doesn't come with Enhancement bonuses or anything by that baseline. The split improvements thing wasn't referencing Improving Touch (I didn't look over the Technique list in much detail, instead focusing on the "root" of the system that I could identify, due to my attention span/"working memory" issues), but rather the general "thing" of improving equipment. The idea being splitting it by the themes of what kind of improvement is being done. Separating them by theme of the kind of improvement, rather than what's being improved, which also means an overall rather broad list of available Special Qualities, but with the various important kinds split apart.

    ---

    For the balance point on alternative feats, Incarnum used half-effectiveness from the feat itself giving one Essentia, carrying over the investment limit of Soulmelds for them to scale to higher totals if used by a Meldshaper class. Not sure if Akashic Mysteries kept that blunt "like X, but made better by the subsystem" group of feats. Did have some hilarious breakage with Psionics, as well. The thing being that you have to take a serious opportunity cost of going further with your main thing to get the necessary subsystem resources to make it work out, though automatically getting AP with Auracite does make this a more complicated matter to do. Similarly, to discuss the first-party comparison of feat power, the Variant Multiclassing rules take half your feats for class features, with the Magus option giving you the Arcane Pool of a Magus two levels lower at level 3.

    Why this is relevant is that the base Arcane Pool feature allows you to get an Enhancement bonus to a weapon you're holding for one minute a number of times per day equal to 1/2 your Magus level + your Intelligence modifier, with the scaling being that it hits +2 at level 5 (and thus 7 for Variant Multiclassing for one feat) and you can by default trade Enhancement bonus for dancing, flaming, flaming burst, frost, icy burst, keen, shock, shocking burst, speed, or vorpal. And for another feat to get a Magus Arcana, you can add Brilliant Energy and Ghost Touch (at level 11), any Bane (at level 17), any of the four Alignment qualities (at level 14), or increase the duration to 1 minute/level (at level 8). Which are all oddly after you're forced by Variant Multiclassing to get a Magus Arcana for a feat at level 7.

    The Magus Arcane Pool is not, technically, at will or permanent. But fights rarely last longer than 10 rounds, and facing more than 5 combats per day isn't exactly common, so by 5th level it might as well be whatever qualities you need. Also, it's a Swift Action to activate, so it doesn't even cost your first attack. And I suggest the base Shape Auracite just cover the base, mundane, equipment, to offset the often-practically-permanent nature of its benefits and being applicable to weapons and armor interchangeably, alongside being more cumbersome to use mid-combat than most of the other such effects due to eating actually-important actions. The upkeep cost is more a matter of smoothing out the contrast between Akasha/Incarnum-like investment and using Auracite as an active resource pool. It'd be more along the lines of being 2 Auracite/minute or 1/2 Forging Cost/hour, or a unified mechanic that just substitutes duration with how often you have to re-spend the Auracite to keep the item, not a per-round thing, as it'd be a measure of how much you can just have on you.

    ---

    If you're trying to balance it around feat-to-gold ratio, remember that Craft Magic Arms and Armor effectively doubles your GP for the purposes of... well, arms and armor. And Craft Wondrous Item does the same for the bulk of the remainder of good things. Crafting is measured in days/1,000 gp, so it's not trivial, but crafting is generally extremely feat light for very large gains in gear value. Both have no prerequisites other than caster level, and the higher of the two is CL 5. Another single-feat value-extender, Harvest Parts, gives you 10gp x CR^2 per enemy of at least CR 1, which can occupy up to a quarter of the cost of a crafted item. Which may actually be half the crafting cost, if the former "quarter cost" is of market value, because the wording doesn't specify whether it's crafting or market cost that it can be a quarter of. Being more abstract, the Cleave feat is in most scenarios better than the Speed quality as a simple Standard Action, which is a +3 equivalent bonus, which can be considered at least 18,000 gp.

    Feats have room for being worth a lot of gold, the balancing point should concern itself with whether or not you're exceeding the mechanical output of other builds. And with mechanics focused directly on item creation and enhancement, it'd be rather simple to calculate the damage output, as there'd be a minimal amount that isn't ultimately capped by the existing Martial mechanics. Of course, another thing to note for the balance is that Auracite being item-focused means that its saving of costs isn't nearly so valuable because it's competing with the magic items you'd spend it on unless invested significantly into specifically not doing that, which holds the opportunity cost of not pushing your Auracite itself to even higher and better places. And it's those places four or five feats deep that'd be worth using for spellcasters, who are generally not bothered by the use of most kinds of magic item, because otherwise it's using weapon attacks as a primary spellcaster, or taking a sizable pile of feats for purely defensive properties. Which admittedly can pay off for a melee-focused Arcanist or Witch willing to Fireball themselves in the face on the regular or wanting to be able to quickly magic up gear for their area-denial meatshield.

    Another note for feat-power would be the Binder from 3.5's Tome of Magic, as well as taking a close look at the output found in pre-existing translation conventions, such as the Sleeping Goddess Discipline's transparency with Psionics, or the Tome of Battle and Magic of Incarnum [Psionic] feats (which include such things as 1 PP/Maneuver Level recovery on a Swift Action and spending Psionic Focus to maximize invested Essentia). Using Metaforging instead of Technique Expansions, which is honestly not that out there if improvements are determined more by theme than by what's being improved, can also be directly compared to the Magus' Arcane Pool and other class-specific improvements due to the feat-equivalence of those options.

    For this working alongside Dreamscarred Studios material, something worth mentioning is that the 3.5 mechanics that Akashic Mysteries is based on occupied magic item slots, Veils don't. This means that there's not a conflict between Auracite-as-items and Veilshaping, which is not the case for the 3.5 Incarnum Soulmelds.

    ---

    As for Channel... It's mostly digging for something to be the "healer" of the party for Auracite feat-entry, to be sure the subsystem has the mechanics to meet the needs of as many mechanical roles as possible. Flavor-wise, it'd be a raw burst of Auracite to make a crude, ablative "shell" or simply batter people directly, with baseline Reinforcement for area and raw dice. As a per-encounter power, the comparison would be found in Path of War's Silver Crane Discipline, which it could potentially exceed due to being temporary HP with a "leash", making it pre-emptive, non-recovering and range-limited.

    It could also be the base ability for direct slotless buffs and debuffs (have the Metaforging or Technique Expansion for that allow it to be used on slot-appropriate Auracite objects?), adding a limit to how much damage can be taken before the buffs fall off. Possibly having it be gradual in some way, but that gets rather cumbersome to work out the bookkeeping for. Does help with making the "Auracite Shroud" kind of build less of a problem by making its defenses be mostly a very large pile of temporary HP, and as that's damaged, you lose bonuses. Maybe have that be a "thing" with Auracite item HP being transparent with Auracite Points, so one of the counters for enemy Auracite users is making Sunder attempts to degrade their stuff and potentially steal the Auracite for yourself? Also means Auracite would make Sunder actually able to be used against PCs without being a giant jerk move, as it's per-definition relatively easily repaired and exceptionally durable.

    Also, thanks for pointing out the ammo generation. I missed that clause.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    With regards to my suggestion making Shape Auracite too powerful, the initial option is just any mundane equipment, doesn't come with Enhancement bonuses or anything by that baseline. The split improvements thing wasn't referencing Improving Touch (I didn't look over the Technique list in much detail, instead focusing on the "root" of the system that I could identify, due to my attention span/"working memory" issues), but rather the general "thing" of improving equipment. The idea being splitting it by the themes of what kind of improvement is being done. Separating them by theme of the kind of improvement, rather than what's being improved, which also means an overall rather broad list of available Special Qualities, but with the various important kinds split apart.
    Making Shape Auracite the base ability for all auracite usage, and making the techniques be alterations/additions to that base ability is an interesting thought, kind of similar to how Spheres of Power does things. I’m very tempted to do that.

    If I do make Shape Auracite the base ability, I will bake Armor, Blade and Shield into it and merge the three techniques for giving Armor, Blade or Shield enhancement bonuses into one technique(which I’ll probably make into a feat, rather than a technique).

    Splitting the special qualities thematically sounds cool, I’m thinking something like an elemental category with things like Flame, which provides fire dmg if applied to a weapon, or fire resistance if applied to armor or shield, but it might be more cumbersome and complicated than its worth. The benefit of keeping it like it is now, is that it fits with existing magic item rules. I dunno, have to think some more about that one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Snip
    I didn’t know about the variant multiclassing, that’s kinda interesting, opens up a lot of build options. It does seem that costing three feats(if I consolidate armor, blade and shield into Shape) for the ability to make and grant gear enhancement bonuses and special qualities isn’t that bad, and a lot better than needing ten feats (one for access to auracite, three for each type of gear).

    I’m unsure about upkeep costs still. I don’t think it would fit well with the reclaim auracite mechanic, and the sustain mechanic. Flavour/fluff wise I think it fits, but mechanically I’m less sure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Snip
    I disagree that Cleave is better than Speed, Speed gives you another attack, which can be at the same target as all your other attacks, the extra attack Cleave gives has to be against a different target, which makes it more situational. I do get your point though, feats can give abilities worth a lot of gold and I shouldn’t necessarily balance from that perspective. Especially knowing I can build a character who, for two feats, gets a ‘free’ +2 weapon at level 7, and a Magus Arcana as well. Suddenly one feat to make something, and another feat to give it enhancement bonuses sounds perfectly acceptable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Snip
    I don’t want to add reduction in bonuses from the object taking damage, that way lies a whole load of bookkeeping. Fluff/flavour wise it makes sense, the more damage the object the less effective it is, but keeping track of it all doesn’t sound fun to me.

    Adding a healer option could be interesting, I know Ethermagic has a healer archetype I could look to for inspiration. We’ll see, I’ll add it to my list.

    As for Sunder, if I was a DM and I had a player using Auracite, I would absolutely send a Sunder user against them. I have thought about adding a way for someone to steal Auracite and add to their own reserves, it could be cool but I haven’t fleshed it out just yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also, thanks for pointing out the ammo generation. I missed that clause.
    Happy to help

    Right now these are the changes I’m thinking about making to the system:
    1. Make Shape Auracite the base ability
    2. Merge Armor, Blade and Shield into Shape Auracite
    3. Merge the three different grant enhancement bonus techniques into one
    4. Perhaps merge the three different special qualities techniques into one
    5. Move Shroud into a dedicated 5 lvl prestige class - done
    6. Rewrite some of the strange rules, such as the "spell" failure -done
    7. Change Forging Level to scale differently for feats and classes
    8. Make AP scale with Forging Level -done
    9. Take a look at the feats, some can be changed, some can be removed. I'm thinking of removing both the Craft (Auracite) and the Gain Auracite Technique feats, and instead make Craft: Auracite a baseline skill gained from the Awaken Auracite feat, and adding so that every Auracite feat grants a technique
    10. Some techniques can be moved to feats, some merged, some removed
    11. Clarify/improve the rules language
    12. Add more archetypes and prestige classes
    13. Add a feat to reduce arcane spell failure chance due to armor/shield?
    14. Rework the Craft (Auracite) feat to be closer to Arrtisan's Craft Training? - done


    This is the list I've made for myself about possible changes. I'm still not sure, this would be an extensive rewrite of the system and I'm not sure if I want to or how I want to do the changes yet.
    Also I've been advised to wait to make any significant changes until after I've been able to playtest the system, which makes sense, so I might do that. I might also get impatient and start messing with this anyway, but for now I'm in the planing/deliberating stage. That doesn't mean I'm not still open to feedback, just that for now I'm thinking and writing down what I might want to change, but haven't yet decided what changes to make, or even if I want to make the changes.

    Edit1: I've just remembered why Armor, Blade and Shield is not part of Shape. Technically you can make armor, shields and weapons using Shape Auracite, but it takes 10 minute to do and the item has a duration rather than being sustained. Picking, say, Auracite Blade represents training with creating weapons so that you can make weapons with just a move action, and sustain it as long as you want.
    Remembering that makes me less sure if I want to merge Armor, Blade and Shield fully into Shape. I think I might keep them separate for now, but I might merge the three 'add enhancement bonus to the gear you make' techniques into one.

    Edit 2: I changed my mind, and changed some things anyway.
    Changelog 16.03.2020:
    1. Added to Awaken Auracite: "When you take this feat, you gain Forging level 1. Whenever your character level increases, your Forging level increases by the same amount.". This means your Forging level scales from the point you take Awaken Auracite, meaning you can't take Awaken Auracite at level 10 and have Forging level 10.
    2. Added to all Auracite feats other than Awaken Auracite: "Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.". I did this so you don't have to choose between an auracite feat you want and a technique you want.
    3. Removed the Gain Auracite Technique feat. It wasn't necessary with the above change.
    4. Added the Extra Auracite feat. This allows a character who doesn't want any of the other feats to still gain techniques.


    These are the changes I've done so far, not a lot but hopefully they are improvements none the less. I have not implemented that Forging level scales differently for feats vs classes yet, since I want to wait until I have more than one class to choose from before doing that. I have also kept Shroud in, because I want it available until I finish the class dedicated to it.

    I'm still thinking about the other items on the "to-do" list, but those will take significantly longer to even decide what I want to do about them, especially the add archetypes and prestige classes one.
    Last edited by Kael_Thor; 2020-04-01 at 07:52 AM.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    I haven't changed much, but I've done some changes and made some decisions:

    Changelog 25 march 2020:
    • I've added the Shrouded Inheritor, a prestige class around the Auracite Shroud. This class is now the only way to get the Auracite Shroud.
    • I've rewritten A Growing Shard and A Grown Core. They can now be gained from both current prestige classes, and now stack.
    • I've done some thinking, and some math, on Forging level scaling, and AP scaling, and for now I'm going to keep the Forging level as scaling 1 for 1 with character level, and with 2 AP per Forging level. However I've changed the bonus from A Growing Shard to be bonus AP.


    For now that is all I've done, not huge changes but its a start towards tackling my list.

    Edit:
    Changelog 30 march 2020:
    • Removed the clunky failure chance due to armor, added in arcane spell failure chance to auracite techniques
    • Reworked the Auracite Adept's Warrior path to better fit with the above changes, and scale better


    Edit 2:
    Changelog 1 april 2020:
    • Reworded Magic Training to be clearer
    • Reworked the Craft (Auracite) feat
    Last edited by Kael_Thor; 2020-04-01 at 07:50 AM.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Changelog 22 april 2020:
    • Renamed Auracite Adept into Studied Inheritor and changed it from a prestige class to a base class
    • Removed A Grown Core from Shrouded Inheritor, it fits better as the last ability of a base class
    • Changed A Growing Shard


    Originally I didn't want to add a base class to this system. The idea was that the system should be open to any class through feats, and if someone wanted to specialize they could do so with prestige classes.
    But as Morphic tide pointed out, the system is too feat hungry. If a fighter wants to be able to create magical weapons with special qualities, he would need four feats to do that. If he also wanted to create magical armor with special qualities, he would need in total seven feats. And from that large investment, he gets relatively little in return. Only three techniques, and expansions to two of them.

    That means hardly anyone would want to really dive into the system. I can't remember the last time I made a character that had feat slots left open that I didn't know what to do with.

    I considered several ways to solve the problem, ultimately the one I settled on is adding in a base class, changing the prestige class Auracite Adept into the base class Studied Inheritor. Admittedly the class is very much a 'build you own' class, somewhat inspired by the Fighter, but I feel it fits the flexible nature of the system.

    The system is still open to be entered into with feats, but now the system also has more options for more in depth, dedicated builds.

    I have some ideas for more prestige classes, which would also help with the problem, but I'm still working out the details of those, so they won't come until later.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Changelog 14 june 2020:
    • Added Auracite Armory feat
    • Added Skilled Armory technique
    • Some grammar fixes


    I haven't been able to work much on this lately, inspiration has been a bit lacking lately.

    The Auracite Armory feat and the technique it gives is an attempt to reduce the techniques needed to be able to create and enhance armor and weapons and shields. Previously if you wanted to make armor, shields and weapons, and make all of them magic with special abilities, you would need 9 techniques. With this you 'only' need 7. Not a huge discount, and you don't learn to make your things quicker, but it's something at least.

    I didn't make Skilled Armory reduce the action to form something, because I didn't want it to completely reduce the usefulness of the other Skilled techniques.

    I'm not sure what else this system needs now. I can't think of anything I have to add at least, but somehow it still feels incomplete.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    I took a break from this system for a while and after reading it over again I found several things I wanted to change and fix. Some things didn’t work, some didn’t really fit with the overall theme and some I just didn't like.

    Changelog 31 august 2020:
    • Changed ’Inheritor modifier’ to Forging modifier
    • Changed ’Eye see you’ to more closely resemble other similar abilities, such as the https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/s/sense-link/ power
    • Made regaining AP from active effects provoke AoOs
    • Thought about making reinforcing effects provoke AoOs, but held off on that for now.
    • Changed reinforcement to allow effects to be reinforced when made, rather than just after they are made
    • Changed Tricky Forging to allow for take 10 even while distracted or in danger, rather than just allow to take 10, which you already can and I forgot about
    • Removed the following feats: Combine Items, Craft Anywhere, Expert Crafter, Reconfigure Item and the Salvage, because they didn’t really fit with the rest. I like the feats, and they fit with the idea of inheriting aptitude from a crafting diety, but systemically they didn’t fit.
    • Removed references to outdated mechanics
    • Changed the text of Augmented Body from «By investing a number of AP, you apply a temporary bonus to yourself by reinforcing your body» to «You reinforce your body to gain a temporary bonus»
    • Changed Durable Auracite to be a feat, nerfed it slightly, added the «you gain a technique» line and that it can be taken multiple times
    • Changed Spot Weakpoints from «per long rest» to «per day»
    • General language fixes, improvements, clarifications, condensation
    • Fixed several sections of missing text
    • Added Enhanced Shroud feat, allowing the Shroud to gain magic properties

    Spoiler: The removed feats
    Show

    Combine Items [Auracite]
    *Practice allows the Inheritor to combine two items into a new item with the properties of both*

    **Prerequisites:** Awaken Auracite, Forging level 12.
    **Benefit:** When you take this feat, you learn to combine two different magic items into one, new item with the properties of the original items.
    ___
    Combining two magic items requires they have the same basic shape or magic item slot, takes the same time and costs twice as much as making the more expensive of the two items to be combined.

    Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.

    Craft Anywhere [Auracite]
    *Training combined with the inherited aptitude from the Great Forger allows the Inheritor to learn how to continue her work, even in the strangest environments.*

    **Prerequisites:** Awaken Auracite, Forging level 6
    **Benefit:** When you take this feat you learn how to dedicate time to crafting, up to 8 hours a day, even while adventuring.
    ___
    The hours dedicated to crafting count towards days crafted, 8 hours counts as 1 day of progress, anything less counts towards the next full day.
    So if you dedicate 3 hours one day, and 5 hours the next, the total progress you make is equal to one full day of work.
    ___
    This assumes the standard Pathfinder crafting rules, adjust as necessary for altered crafting rules.

    Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.

    Expert Crafter [Auracite]
    *Your crafting prowess reaches levels surpassing even that of expert craftsmen.*

    **Prerequisite:** Awaken Auracite, Auracite Crafting, Forging level 12
    **Benefit(s):** When you take this feat your skill reaches a level which allows you to craft exceptionally quickly, becoming able to craft items, including magical items, in half the normal amount of time.
    This ability only works for crafting items using the [Craft](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/craft) skill, not for class abilities or Auracite techniques.

    Additionally, your skill has reached a point where you never ruin your materials, even if you fail your [Craft](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/craft) DC by 5 or more.

    Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.

    Reconfigure Item [Auracite]
    *Through careful practice you learn to reforge a magic item without it loosing its magic.*

    **Prerequisite:** Awaken Auracite, Forging level 12
    **Benefit:**
    When you take this feat you learn to change the form of a magic item, essentially remaking the item into a different form.
    You must meet all the prerequisites to create both the original and the new form of the item.

    Changing the form of a magic item takes the same time and costs as much as making the original item + one quarter the cost of the original item, if the new form takes a magic item slot.
    If the new form can be hand-held, changing its form takes the same time and costs as much as making the original item + half the cost of the original item.
    If the new form is an [ioun stone](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items...-l/ioun-stones), changing its form takes the same time and costs twice as much as making the original item.
    ___
    Some magic items may not be able to be changed into some forms (either due to the essential function of the items original form – such as a magic musical instrument or weapon, or because the end result is too silly – such as a clown nose of intellect) at the discretion of the GM.

    Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.

    Salvage [Auracite]
    *You follow the idiom of 'waste not, want not'*

    **Prerequisite:** Forging level 3
    **Benefit:** When you take this feat you learn to salvage useable material from other items.

    You must dedicate in total a day of work salvaging the item and you must have the appropriate item creation feat for the item you are salvaging.

    After the requisite time the item is destroyed and you gain materials up to half the gp value it took to create the item.

    The materials gained depends on the item salvaged and the total gp value depends on the state of the item, at the discretion of the DM, but generally a broken item should give material of less value than an unharmed item.

    Additionally, when you take this feat you gain an Auracite technique, chosen at the time you gain this feat. You must meet any requirements of the chosen Auracite technique.

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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    I'm back with a new and improved version of this system

    Changelog 20.01.2021
    • Several miscellaneous layout and language changes/corrections/improvements/deletions
    • Changed the balancing on most reinforcement options to buff several things. Previously the numbers made options such as Blade way weaker than comparable options. Compared to the soulknife, at level 7 the soulknife has a +3, while the inheritor had a +2, and at level 12 the soulknife has +5 while the inheritor had a +3.
    • I decided to take advice given to me and removed the Awaken Auracite feat, and instead baked it into the base class. Having it as a feat just didn’t work very well. I also changed the base class to be more structured. You still customize your character by picking your own talents and techniques, but now the class is more than 'just' feats and techniques.
    • Changed the Shrouded Inheritor prestige class to be a 10 level class and made some changes to it because of that. The changes I made to the Advancement portion of the prestige class was changed to future proof the class in case I ever add more base classes, as well as to fit with the changes made to the system by removing the feat accessibility. This is technically a nerf to the class, since it no longer progresses non-auracite spellcasting classes.
    • I also changed the Shroud itself. It's cost was increased, it can't be sundered but the active configurations can be(this so a single sunder doesn't remove the whole thing, which I felt was a bit harsh. A single dispel does still remove the whole thing though), Attack now works with feats like Power Attack and Weapon Focus, you can now activate more configurations after the Shroud is made, changed the Grab config to be a melee attack with the grab ability, removed forging level and mod being used instead of str or dex for attack, impale and grab configs(made that option into a talent instead which I felt fit since Soulknife has a blade skill that does the same essentially)
      Controlled Shroud now gives enhancement bonus to the Shroud itself, rather than individual configurations, and the configurations gain increased effects from the Shroud's enhancement bonus. I think this is better than the previous way I did this, it should be more AP efficient(read: less expensive) as well. It certainly is easier to keep track of.
    • I made some major changes to the feats. Some were outright removed, but most were changed into talents and some were baked into the base and prestige classes. I also added a few, such as Extra Talent feat and the Second Path Feature feat.
    • Many feats were changed to talents and some of the feats the base class got was changed to talents instead. Talents are supposed to be similar to the Soulknife's blade skills and the Rogue's Rogue Talents, ways of gaining new options or improving existing options.
    • Removed the Opportunity Shatter, Spell Sunder, Spot Weakpoints, Shattering Strike and Negating blade techniques because I didn't think they fit very well with the system. I like them, but I've been trying to remove things other that I don't really think fits. I did keep Precise Shattering in the form of a talent, at least for now. Technically it doesn't have anything to do with Auracite either but I am keeping it because I think it fits with the theme of being so skilled at crafting you can destroy something so precisely you can easily fix it later.
    • Added Spell Resistance armor and shield special abilities and the reflecting shield special ability.
    • Changed the way AP is handled. You can still regain AP from an active auracite effect, but AP no longer sticks around when an effect is destroyed. I also added the burn keyword to differentiate from the invested keyword. Invested AP can be regained from an active effect, burned AP can only be regained through rest. This allows me to keep the investment and regaining AP from active effects mechanic but also have more powerful effects that would be too powerful if you could regain AP from. The reason I removed AP sticking around, even though I really like the concept, is because it quickly becomes a bookkeeping nightmare trying to keep track of how much AP is in what square and what duration each square's AP has remaining and it doesn't really add anything positive to the gameplay. To compensate for the class now having less stamina, I gave it more AP (2xlevel plus mod)
    • Changed the Strengthen effect of the Augmented Body to only be used with physical ability scores, because it didn’t make sense to be able to improve mental scores
    • Changed the duration of Construct Model to scale by forging mod rather than int
    • Changed Auracite Grenade to be a base technique
    • Removed the Improved Shield technique
    • Changed Increased Size to burn AP rather than increase cost
    • Changed It’s a Trap! to burn AP used
    • Changed Overcharged Blade and Construction to detonate the item and burn the AP
    • Changed the Skilled techniques to have a limit on how many enhancement bonuses the item can have
    • Changed Overcharged Shroud to Amplified Shroud, changed it to burn AP rather than destroy itself
    • Changed Controlled Shroud’s Body Reinforcement to only provide Ant Haul rather than an enhancement bonus to physical stats
    • Specified the AP generated by the Generator ability can’t be absorbed by the inheritor
    • Removed that feats give technique, added the extra technique feat
    • Added a table of contents
    • Changed paths, they now have more features and gain techniques exclusive to the path. Paths are more important now, and brings more of an identity to them than before. I did remove the Trickster path, and I'm not completely happy with the Scholar path. Scholar is a bit weird, since it gets a few spells and it gets item and body improvement. For now I'll keep it that way but I might change Scholar into two paths in the future, one with spells and one with item and body improvement. I still think it fits that it is the Scholar that gets those two things, because the Scholar is more studious than the other two paths, but spells and item improvements are rather different so there is a bit of a disconnect fluffwise.
    • I removed the divine nature of the Great Forger, now it is 'just' a master artisan that died years ago. Having the Great Forger be a dead god kinda forces some changes to the cosmology of a setting, and that isn't really my place to do.
    • The player now has to choose arcane, divine or psionic(might add other options later) at 1st level. This determines what the auracite will be affected by, such as anti-magic and dispelling.


    I know there are other things I've changed as well, but I didn't write them down so I can't remember exactly what I did

    Quite the substantial amount of changes this time, hopefully for the better. Link to the old version is in the spoiler at the top post.

    As always, feedback is very much appreciated

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Feedback:

    I'm not clear how investment is supposed to work. The rules say you lose the AP until you rest or touch the effect to regain auracite. What about if the effect runs out naturally, or is instantaneous? Does it sort of collapse into a puddle of auracite which you have to touch? Or does it just instantly come back with no action needed?

    I don't know if you've noticed, but feats and talents are now exactly equivalent, since talents can be spent on feats and feats can be spent on talents. The only difference is that talents have a prerequisite of inheritor level 2. This makes talents like Task Constructs entirely redundant. I'd suggest you either a) get rid of extra talent, b) get rid of auracite talent, or c) get rid of both of them and turn all the talents into feats. (Also, if it's kept, auracite talent desperately needs to be renamed!)

    Reinforcement also confuses me. The introduction talks as if it's going to be added to an auracite effect after you've made it, but things like Augmented Body seem to treat it more like an alternative thing you can do with the technique.

    Pet peeve: The Shrouded Inheritor's level 10 ability says she "has come to the realization that she isn't the only one who should benefit from her shroud." I'm really not a fan of writing a character's beliefs and moral understanding into the fluff of a class feature. What happens if my Inheritor always wanted to let other people benefit but couldn't figure out how? What about if she doesn't want to share it, even though she knows how to do it? Can this be rewritten in a more neutral way?

    Organisation comment: It's hard to understand the techniques when they're sorted in the order they are, since you have to keep searching for base techniques before you can understand the advanced ones. Perhaps it would be easier to follow if the upgrades to a technique were formatted differently and placed immediately after the base technique?

    Auracite Blade: I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be like a mindblade, where it's a weapon of its own kind with very tightly defined properties - 1d6 damage, 19-20 crit, light, melee, no special abilities. (Or similar one handed and two handed). Or whether it's more like a warpriest's weapon, where you're choosing an actual weapon to imitate and then just changing the damage to some fixed amount. Could I make my auracite blade a composite longbow so I can add my strength bonus to damage, for example? In a setting with guns everywhere, could I make it a firearm so I can target touch AC? Also, if I turn a ranged weapon into an auracite weapon, can I get unlimited ammunition for it? A strict RAW reading says I can't.

    The scholar path seems rather weak, at least at first. Your big first level ability is to cast a few cantrips, and burning your aura for the day to do so. Yay. There are a few higher level options, but they're the most expensive and are rather bad spells that wizards don't normally bother with.

    The constructor path, on the other hand, is very strong. You get to summon astral constructs that are as good as those a psion could make, at a cost of 1AP per two power points, and when they run out of health you can just absorb the auracite and summon them again? That's kind of ridiculous. And adds insult to injury for the poor scholar, who has to burn 4AP to make a second level spell. The constructor can invest those 4AP in the equivalent of a 4th level power. Even if it cost twice as much AP (doing the 1AP=1PP thing which seems to happen elsewhere) it would still be excessive.

    Auracite Grenade: Wording glitch, "the target" should be "all creatures in the area of effect". Also, the save DC increase should be removed. You already have DCs of 10+1/2 level + modifier.

    Auracite Platform: Grammar error, "Alternative to the normal platform,..."

    Auracite Shield: Sounds like it's a passive ability that doesn't require AP. Reword?

    Auracite Strike: Effect entry is wrong. Also, seems rather strong - it's like you're getting an auracite bolt as a swift action with a huge to hit bonus, and your next attack with your weapon also gets that to hit bonus. I realise this is warrior only, but still. The to hit bonus may be a bit much.

    Binding Bolt: Again, remove the DC increase. This seems rather weak, basically just a tanglefoot bag with a better DC. Maybe have the reinforcement increase the duration and/or worsen the condition it inflicts?

    Eye See You: Should this count as a reinforcement?

    Fortify Body: Cost should be 2-4 as written. Investing 1 auracite will do nothing.

    It's a Trap: Far too expensive, considering the auracite is burned. Traps are situational at best anyway. And even if they all hit, you're getting, what, 3 instances of dealing [level]d8 damage to an enemy and then you've used up all your class features for the day? I suggest halving the cost (but capping the damage at forging level still) and making it invested rather than burned. This option, I'm afraid, is a trap in more ways than one :P

    Overcharged Blade: I'm struggling to see why I'd ever use this rather than Auracite strike. Especially since it includes you in the blast damage, and burns the auracite. And leaves you without a weapon until your next turn, meaning you can't continue into a full attack.

    Overcharged Construction: I'm guessing the standard action is to make the construct explode, not to increase the duration? The two parts of this seem to work against each other. If I'm going to be having my construct blow up when its duration ends, then I don't want its duration to be measured in minutes. At least make it blow up when it dies. I can't see myself using this as a standard action, although as a swift action I might possibly consider it against the BBEG when I know I'm not going to need to do anything else after this battle. Though even then, only if I have something better to do with my next turn after a construct dies than resummoning it. Which, frankly, I probably don't if I'm a constructor of level 16.

    Reshape Auracite: Does this work with stuff made with techniques other than shape auracite? If so, it needs more rules explanation. If not, it should be a technique expansion.

    Skilled Armour Forging: Not available until forging level 5, but tells you what happens at forging level 3. Also, level 5 is a long time to wait for +1 armour.

    Skilled Armory: Auracite Armory is a talent, not a feat. Also, does it really need to be a separate talent/feat? It's impossible to take the technique without taking the talent, and impossible to take the talent without getting the technique. And you can already spend a talent to get a technique. The only difference is that you can't get the technique from your class directly at level 5, you have to spend a feat or wait for your level 6 talent. That seems like a very strange restriction. I'm also struggling to see why you would ever take Skilled [Armour/Blade/Shield]. This seems like a straight upgrade, unless you really want to be able to summon your equipment marginally faster. Why not just get rid of those three specialised techniques? Also, same comments as for Skilled Armour Forging.

    Skilled Blade Forging, Skilled Shield Forging: Same comments as for Skilled Armour Forging. Skilled Blade Forging is particularly problematic, since most Warriors are going to want at least auracite armour as well, so with the existence of Skilled Armory, SBF is essentially a dead class feature other than being a weaker version of quick draw.

    Auracite Tasker: Again, no need to make this a separate talent/feat. In fact it also caused me confusion here - since the prerequisite doesn't make it clear that Task Constructs is a feat, I assumed it was the base technique that AT is expanding on and got confused when I couldn't find it.

    Improved X Enhancements: 9th level seems very late to be able to get special qualities. By that point, your gear will all be +5 equivalent! Or more, if you bought an auracite grip/hilt/spaulders. The limits on level are also rather pointless if you can't get the techniques until 9th level...

    Shroud, Attack: "A shroud with the Attack configuration allows you to make an attack action using your shroud." An attack action is a specific sort of standard action attack. I think you meant you can use it in place of an attack? Also, what ability scores should be used for to-hit and damage with this weapon? And does it count as two handed for power attack?

    Shroud, Camouflage: +1 stealth is not equivalent to +2 deflection bonus to AC.

    Controlled Shroud: You're technically giving an enhancement bonus to a deflection bonus. Which is allowed, but unconventional. The new abilities the technique introduces don't benefit from the Shroud's enhancement bonus. I realise you get some of them two levels later with Efficient Shroud, but it feels rather strange not to give them immediately. And some (ie movement) don't get enhanced at all.

    Controlled Shroud, Impale: Again, what ability score do we add here? And can we use other feats like power attack?

    Controlled Shroud, Movement: Three points. 1) You've used movement as a specific configuration and the name of a class of configurations, which is confusing. Rename to mobility? 2) This uses competence bonuses and camouflage used enhancement. Be consistent? 3) You have four different options which are effectively totally different configurations all under the same name. Either combine their effects, or split them into different configurations.

    Efficient Shroud: Again the new abilities don't benefit from an enhancement bonus. Since the bonus will be rather higher at this point, this makes them much less appealing to pick than the abilities you already had.

    Efficient Shroud, Blocking: I'm not a big fan of readied actions, especially when they're reliant on an enemy trying to attack you or an adjacent ally. At best you spend your whole turn to negate one enemy attack. If you're not playing PoW the enemy is probably full attacking, in which case that was not a good use of your turn. Maybe make this an immediate action? Might be too strong at that point though.

    Efficient Shroud, Improved Movement: Hmm. Climb speed 15ft, or fly speed 15ft+ via wings. Which should I choose? The climb speed should be available earlier.

    Efficient Shroud, Kinetic Feedback/Thorns: What happens when the duration runs out? Do you have to switch to another configuration? Or is that configuration and the aura burnt to make it lost forever?

    Enhanced Shroud talent: Due to quirks of prerequisites, it's impossible to get special properties on the shield configuration without being able to make actual shields. Ditto for weapons and armour. Which means you almost certainly want to use a different configuration for your shroud.

    Amplified Shroud: DC increase unnecessary, again. It's also confusing that the technique lists a cost of 1 auracite burnt, then starts with a passive ability that's always on. Could that be moved to class features?

    Amplified Shroud, Wings: There are already rules for how many creatures (or rather, how much weight) you can carry while flying. It basically depends on your carry capacity, IIRC. Look that up and increase the amount you can carry based on that.

    Psionic Scholar: 1PP = 2AP? Is that really the right way round? Regardless, psi-like abilities are automatically augmented to their maximum for free, so this is unnecessary.
    Last edited by pi4t; 2021-03-04 at 07:15 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2015

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    First of all, thanks for taking the time to give feedback, it’s always nice to know that someone is interested enough to read through the entirety of this monstrosity.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Feedback:
    I'm not clear how investment is supposed to work. The rules say you lose the AP until you rest or touch the effect to regain auracite. What about if the effect runs out naturally, or is instantaneous? Does it sort of collapse into a puddle of auracite which you have to touch? Or does it just instantly come back with no action needed?
    It used to collapse into a puddle that you could regain from, but that added way too much bookkeeping so I cut it.
    Added «AP cannot be regained from an ended or instantaneous effect.» and «...touch an ongoing auracite effect»

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    I don't know if you've noticed, but feats and talents are now exactly equivalent, since talents can be spent on feats and feats can be spent on talents. The only difference is that talents have a prerequisite of inheritor level 2. This makes talents like Task Constructs entirely redundant. I'd suggest you either a) get rid of extra talent, b) get rid of auracite talent, or c) get rid of both of them and turn all the talents into feats. (Also, if it's kept, auracite talent desperately needs to be renamed!)
    Auracite talents and feats used to be the same thing(feats), but I split them, partially to move further away from the feat based version of the past, and partially because I felt it fit better. Anyway, I took inspiration for the feats and talents split partially from rogue talents, where talents and feats are also equivalent.
    For now I’ll keep the Extra Talent and Auracite Talent(but renamed) because I want a player to be able to use feats to get more talents but also if a player doesn’t want a talent on a particular level they can use it to gain an auracite feat instead.
    I’m not sure how this makes Task Constructs redundant. I do agree that Auracite Talent needs to be renamed.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Reinforcement also confuses me. The introduction talks as if it's going to be added to an auracite effect after you've made it, but things like Augmented Body seem to treat it more like an alternative thing you can do with the technique.
    Reinforcement is a way to both gain more numbers(such as increasing Auracite Bolt’s dmg) and to gain new options(such as being able to use Augmented Body on someone else). I kind of think of it as built in metamagic options.
    “Most Auracite effects can be improved by reinforcing the Auracite used for the effect, allowing for increased benefit or even entirely new benefits from the effect. “
    I kinda want to keep both options(increased numbers and new options) as the same thing(i.e reinforcement) because I think it fits thematically, but I will admit it could be written clearer. (This is probably true for the whole system as well.) I’m just not sure how to write it so it is clearer.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Pet peeve: The Shrouded Inheritor's level 10 ability says she "has come to the realization that she isn't the only one who should benefit from her shroud." I'm really not a fan of writing a character's beliefs and moral understanding into the fluff of a class feature. What happens if my Inheritor always wanted to let other people benefit but couldn't figure out how? What about if she doesn't want to share it, even though she knows how to do it? Can this be rewritten in a more neutral way?
    I agree, changing that. For some reason I always find fluff for ablities to be annoying to write, not sure why.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Organisation comment: It's hard to understand the techniques when they're sorted in the order they are, since you have to keep searching for base techniques before you can understand the advanced ones. Perhaps it would be easier to follow if the upgrades to a technique were formatted differently and placed immediately after the base technique?
    To be honest, I organised them this way because I thought I would get way more complaints if they weren’t sorted alphabetically, but I kinda agree. Not sure about formatting the expansions differently, but I’ll think about it.
    After thinking about sorting the techniques differently, I’ve decided to keep them as they are, but put in a list that shows what techniques are base, expansions and so on and what pages they are on.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Blade: I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be like a mindblade, where it's a weapon of its own kind with very tightly defined properties - 1d6 damage, 19-20 crit, light, melee, no special abilities. (Or similar one handed and two handed). Or whether it's more like a warpriest's weapon, where you're choosing an actual weapon to imitate and then just changing the damage to some fixed amount. Could I make my auracite blade a composite longbow so I can add my strength bonus to damage, for example? In a setting with guns everywhere, could I make it a firearm so I can target touch AC?
    Auracite Blade is modelled after the mindblade yes, except I didn’t want to restrict it to one form because I think that’s a silly restriction.
    I hadn’t thought through ranged weapons well enough, going to have to consider that some more, possibly look at the Mindbolt archetype to see how that does things. I might even split Blade into Blade and Bow. If I do I’ll add in that Blade can only make melee weapons.
    I would say you can’t make a gun to target touch AC, maybe as a talent or feat? Unsure, going to have to think on that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Also, if I turn a ranged weapon into an auracite weapon, can I get unlimited ammunition for it? A strict RAW reading says I can't.
    You can get unlimited ammunition for it.
    “If forming a non-thrown ranged weapon using this technique you may invest 1 additional AP as you form the weapon to allow the weapon to produce any ammunition it needs. The ammunition is formed as the weapon is readied to fire(string being pulled etc).”

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    The scholar path seems rather weak, at least at first. Your big first level ability is to cast a few cantrips, and burning your aura for the day to do so. Yay. There are a few higher level options, but they're the most expensive and are rather bad spells that wizards don't normally bother with.
    I am not happy with scholar. Honestly I’m thinking of removing it because I’m not sure how to make it as good as the others. Warrior and Construct both fit their theme well as well as get good abilities, but Scholar feels like it doesn’t, and like you said it’s rather weak. Honestly the only reason it gets casting at level 1 and 20 is because I blanked on what to give it, and casting was what it got in previous versions so I just gave it that.
    I could give it Improving Touch at level 1, but that still doesn’t really fit the theme. The Scholar is supposed to be the one that focuses on how magic and Auracite works together and I’m not sure how to fulfil that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    The constructor path, on the other hand, is very strong. You get to summon astral constructs that are as good as those a psion could make, at a cost of 1AP per two power points, and when they run out of health you can just absorb the auracite and summon them again? That's kind of ridiculous. And adds insult to injury for the poor scholar, who has to burn 4AP to make a second level spell. The constructor can invest those 4AP in the equivalent of a 4th level power. Even if it cost twice as much AP (doing the 1AP=1PP thing which seems to happen elsewhere) it would still be excessive.
    Constructor is quite strong, and yes you can make as strong constructs as a psion can. But keep in mind(pun not intended) the psion has more points after level 1(at level 1 they are equal, at level 2 the psion has at least 1 more than the inheritor, and the difference increases from there) and has more things they can do. And yes, you can absorb the ap used for the construct and resummon it, but you have to absorb it before the construct dies/duration expires.
    But I agree, comparing Constructor and Scholar doesn’t look good. I don’t think Constructor is too strong, but it does highlight how weak Scholar is in comparison. I really need to fix Scholar somehow.

    As for x AP = x PP, it is problematic for multiple reasons. 1 AP isn’t necessary as powerful as 1 PP and vice versa. For example, for 1 AP or 1 PP you get a level 1 auracite or astral construct. But for 2 AP you get a level 2 auracite construct, while you need 3 PP for a level 2 astral construct.
    If you compare the Auracite Bolt technique with the Crystal Shard power, AP and PP become almost equal, with 1 AP and 1 PP both dealing 1d6 dmg, 2 AP and 2 PP both dealing 2d6 dmg. But Crystal Shard is a ranged touch attack, while Auracite Bolt is a normal ranged attack. Also Crystal Shard is one target, while Auracite Bolt can be split to hit multiple targets.
    Generally psionic classes are going to have more PP than inheritors have AP, but they also need more points for the same effects. I have tried to balance the two up with each other while keeping in mind the differences and honestly, Scholar and Psionic Scholar aside, I’m generally happy with the cost of things, though I’m going to have to look at a few things again.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Grenade: Wording glitch, "the target" should be "all creatures in the area of effect". Also, the save DC increase should be removed. You already have DCs of 10+1/2 level + modifier.
    Thanks, fixing that.
    The save DC increase I kind of want to keep, considering how expensive Grenade is, especially now that it burns AP. I took inspiration from the Energy Burst psionic power for this technique, where augmentation also increases the DC.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Platform: Grammar error, "Alternative to the normal platform,..."
    Thanks, fixing that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Shield: Sounds like it's a passive ability that doesn't require AP. Reword?
    Yeah, this needs rewording. I modelled this on the Mind Shield blade skill for the soulknife, so I got lazy I guess :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Strike: Effect entry is wrong. Also, seems rather strong - it's like you're getting an auracite bolt as a swift action with a huge to hit bonus, and your next attack with your weapon also gets that to hit bonus. I realise this is warrior only, but still. The to hit bonus may be a bit much.
    Whops, fixing that.
    Yes Strike is strong, my thought was that as a medium bab martial the Warrior needed both a boost to accuracy and damage, but I can see how it would be too strong. I’ll think about removing the bonus to hit.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Binding Bolt: Again, remove the DC increase. This seems rather weak, basically just a tanglefoot bag with a better DC. Maybe have the reinforcement increase the duration and/or worsen the condition it inflicts?
    I had a reason for making Binding Bolt not deal damage, but I can’t think of that reason now. I don’t like the idea of upgrading the condition, I think I’ll change Binding Bolt to be similar to SoP’s Crystal Blast, I.e downgrading the dmg dealt but entangling if target fails the save. Downgrading the dmg and requiring a save seems a fair cost for some decent CC.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Eye See You: Should this count as a reinforcement?
    No, I don’t think so. Eye See You gives new options to other techniques, it doesn’t add any improvement to other techniques.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Fortify Body: Cost should be 2-4 as written. Investing 1 auracite will do nothing.
    Agreed, changing that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    It's a Trap: Far too expensive, considering the auracite is burned. Traps are situational at best anyway. And even if they all hit, you're getting, what, 3 instances of dealing [level]d8 damage to an enemy and then you've used up all your class features for the day? I suggest halving the cost (but capping the damage at forging level still) and making it invested rather than burned. This option, I'm afraid, is a trap in more ways than one :P
    I’m tempted to say its a trap choice on purpose, but that would be a lie :P
    I can increase the damage, but making it invested rather than burned would mean removing the part that you can trigger your own trap, not sure I want to do that, I like that you have to be careful not to trigger it yourself. Also I have to be careful not to increase the damage dealt too much, since that would make it outperform Bolt.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Overcharged Blade: I'm struggling to see why I'd ever use this rather than Auracite strike. Especially since it includes you in the blast damage, and burns the auracite. And leaves you without a weapon until your next turn, meaning you can't continue into a full attack.
    The Overcharged techniques were supposed to be last resort type techniques. However realistically you are probably right, there isn’t enough reward to using it over something else.
    For now I’ll leave it as is, until I can figure out a better technique to replace it with. I might split the to hit bonus and the dmg bonus of Auracite strike, leaving the to hit bonus with strike(after renaming it) and putting the dmg bonus into Overcharged Blade(which also needs a new name if I do this) but I’m not sure if I want to do this.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Overcharged Construction: I'm guessing the standard action is to make the construct explode, not to increase the duration? The two parts of this seem to work against each other. If I'm going to be having my construct blow up when its duration ends, then I don't want its duration to be measured in minutes. At least make it blow up when it dies. I can't see myself using this as a standard action, although as a swift action I might possibly consider it against the BBEG when I know I'm not going to need to do anything else after this battle. Though even then, only if I have something better to do with my next turn after a construct dies than resummoning it. Which, frankly, I probably don't if I'm a constructor of level 16.
    The standard action is to prime the construct to explode yes. I’ll be removing the duration increase from the technique, possibly making that a talent of its own, possibly removing it completely, considering psion doesn’t get a similar increase to duration.
    As for the exploding part, I am considering three options. One is to make the action to prime the construct a swift action, one is so you can prime to explode without touching the construct, and one is to give you the option of making a construct explosive when you make it, so that it detonates when it dies or the duration of the construct expires. Options one and two could be combined as well. Personally I think I’m leaning more towards option three at the moment but I haven’t decided yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Reshape Auracite: Does this work with stuff made with techniques other than shape auracite? If so, it needs more rules explanation. If not, it should be a technique expansion.
    Originally, this was intended to be used for stuff other than shape auracite. Now I’m thinking that I’m going to add that Reshape can be used to heal auracite objects not created with shape auracite, but can only reshape those created with shape auracite.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Skilled Armour Forging: Not available until forging level 5, but tells you what happens at forging level 3. Also, level 5 is a long time to wait for +1 armour.
    +
    Skilled Blade Forging, Skilled Shield Forging: Same comments as for Skilled Armour Forging. Skilled Blade Forging is particularly problematic, since most Warriors are going to want at least auracite armour as well, so with the existence of Skilled Armory, SBF is essentially a dead class feature other than being a weaker version of quick draw.
    +
    Improved X Enhancements: 9th level seems very late to be able to get special qualities. By that point, your gear will all be +5 equivalent! Or more, if you bought an auracite grip/hilt/spaulders. The limits on level are also rather pointless if you can't get the techniques until 9th level...
    The reason skilled armor and shield(and previously blade as well) is available at level 5, rather than level 3 is because I didn’t want to step on the toes of the soulknife more than I already do, since soulknife gets +1 at level 3. I didn’t make it available at level 4 because there is no way for you to get it at level 4, you get no technique, talent or feat that level, so it feels weird to give it a prerequisite that can only be achieved with multiclassing. So it ended up at level 5.
    And now that I think about it, I’ve made multiple techniques have a prerequisite of level 4, so I am apparently a massive hypocrite. Going to have to fix that somehow.

    Yes, level 5 for a +1 armor/shield is too late, which is why you are getting a +2 armor instead.
    I started the scaling from level 3 to keep up with the soulknife’s scaling. If I started the scaling at level 5 it would scale too slowly to be competitive.

    The reason blade starts at level 4 is because if fits the split between the various path features.
    To be honest, I’m not really happy with the level split between the various path features. They fit nicely and evenly on the class table, but it is a long time to wait for important abilities. I tried to avoid front-scaling too much and giving too much too fast but in doing so I’ve spread important features over too large a level range.
    I’m going to have to take a look at the path scaling again, because I agree with you that getting magic armour at level 5 is too long to wait, and special qualities at level 9 is way too late.
    I might just ignore the whole not stepping on the soulknife part, and set Skilled at level 3, and Improved Enhancements at level 5.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Skilled Armory: Auracite Armory is a talent, not a feat. Also, does it really need to be a separate talent/feat? It's impossible to take the technique without taking the talent, and impossible to take the talent without getting the technique. And you can already spend a talent to get a technique. The only difference is that you can't get the technique from your class directly at level 5, you have to spend a feat or wait for your level 6 talent. That seems like a very strange restriction. I'm also struggling to see why you would ever take Skilled [Armour/Blade/Shield]. This seems like a straight upgrade, unless you really want to be able to summon your equipment marginally faster. Why not just get rid of those three specialised techniques? Also, same comments as for Skilled Armour Forging.
    Armory was a feat before I split feats into feats and talents, must have slipped by in my edit.
    Taking into consideration your comments on the skilled techniques, and other comments I’ve gotten before, I’m thinking of doing as you suggest and removing the three specialised skilled techniques and just leaving Armory. Armory was originally added to reduce the feat tax of taking all the auracite armaments feats anyway(back when feats were the only way to get the techniques), so this will just be a continuation of that.
    I’ll probably add in the forging time decrease as a talent or something, or allow quick draw to reduce the forging time.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Auracite Tasker: Again, no need to make this a separate talent/feat. In fact it also caused me confusion here - since the prerequisite doesn't make it clear that Task Constructs is a feat, I assumed it was the base technique that AT is expanding on and got confused when I couldn't find it.
    Task Constructs is a talent and yes I should have stated that in the prerequisites. If I kept the talent I would be adding that.
    The reason Auracite Tasker is a separate technique that requires a talent is because I wanted it to be something you specifically choose to learn. Technically it should be a feat, because it is a feat for the psion(I believe it is 3.5 or even 3.0 not pathfinder material but I’ve ported it over because I liked it).
    Now that I think about it, that is a bit silly, you do specifically choose to learn most techniques so having it as a talent is redundant. Going to change it to just be a technique.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Shroud, Attack: "A shroud with the Attack configuration allows you to make an attack action using your shroud." An attack action is a specific sort of standard action attack. I think you meant you can use it in place of an attack? Also, what ability scores should be used for to-hit and damage with this weapon? And does it count as two handed for power attack?
    I intended for the attack configuration to count as a weapon, but didn’t want to just copy stuff from Auracite Blade, which I should have done. Changing it to explicitly state that it counts as a two-handed weapon.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Shroud, Camouflage: +1 stealth is not equivalent to +2 deflection bonus to AC.
    True, but you can have both. The various configurations are not meant to be completely equal in value, they are meant to be tools you might use. Not all tools are equally useful in all situations. That said, +1 to stealth might be too little, changing it to +2 at base, with +2 per enhancement bonus of the shroud.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Controlled Shroud: You're technically giving an enhancement bonus to a deflection bonus. Which is allowed, but unconventional. The new abilities the technique introduces don't benefit from the Shroud's enhancement bonus. I realise you get some of them two levels later with Efficient Shroud, but it feels rather strange not to give them immediately. And some (ie movement) don't get enhanced at all.
    I wasn’t aware there are rules for what is allowed or not allowed on things like this but I agree, giving an enchantment to a deflection bonus sounds a bit strange.
    In previous versions, each configuration type were reinforced separately, which quickly became both very expensive and very difficult to keep track of. So I changed it to reinforcing the shroud itself, and improving the configurations based on that. A downside of that is that all active configurations get the same enhancement bonus, reducing player control and customizability.
    I can change it so that the ac from the armor config increases based upon the shroud’s enhancement, rather than the current wording, if that’s better? Something like “the AC bonus of the Armor configuration increase by 1 per enhancement bonus of the shroud”

    The reason the new configurations don’t benefit from the enhancement bonus straight away is because I felt it would be too much to gain the new configurations and be able to enhance them straight away. I’ll think about changing that.

    Those that don’t get enhanced at all I generally couldn’t figure out how to give balanced enhancements to, such as the enhancement bonus to speed. That could get out of hand really quickly if I allowed it to be enhanced.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Controlled Shroud, Impale: Again, what ability score do we add here? And can we use other feats like power attack?
    Like Attack, I’ll be rewriting this. It was intended to count as a weapon.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Controlled Shroud, Movement: Three points. 1) You've used movement as a specific configuration and the name of a class of configurations, which is confusing. Rename to mobility? 2) This uses competence bonuses and camouflage used enhancement. Be consistent? 3) You have four different options which are effectively totally different configurations all under the same name. Either combine their effects, or split them into different configurations.
    1) I agree, mobility is a much better name for the configuration type. Changing it to that.
    2) You are right, that’s confusing. Changing Camouflage to be competence bonus as well.
    3) I don’t see why I should split them, and combining them would be too strong. In my opinion they each fit under the umbrella of movement augmentations, so I’ll be keeping them separate. Especially with the changes I’ll be making because of reviewing Improved Movement again.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Efficient Shroud: Again the new abilities don't benefit from an enhancement bonus. Since the bonus will be rather higher at this point, this makes them much less appealing to pick than the abilities you already had.
    Yes, I’m concerned about that as well, but like I said above I think letting the new configurations be enhanced right out the gate might be too strong. I’m thinking on it.
    I’m also thinking about increasing the enhancement bonus for the shroud overall, +1 at level 8 feels rather weak. Maybe I’ll link it to the prestige class levels, rather than forging level, maybe let a level 3 shrouded inheritor have a +3 shroud, or something liken that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Efficient Shroud, Blocking: I'm not a big fan of readied actions, especially when they're reliant on an enemy trying to attack you or an adjacent ally. At best you spend your whole turn to negate one enemy attack. If you're not playing PoW the enemy is probably full attacking, in which case that was not a good use of your turn. Maybe make this an immediate action? Might be too strong at that point though.
    I’m also not a big fan of readied actions, but I also thought it might be too strong as an immediate action. However now that I think about it again, the shroud takes the damage, so you run the risk of breaking the shroud if you use this, which is the kind of risk v reward I wanted and that might be enough to not make it op. So I think I’m going to change it to be an immediate action, and make sure to clarify that the shroud counts as an object and can only have hp restored through spells like Mending or the Reshape Auracite technique, or by recreating it.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Efficient Shroud, Improved Movement: Hmm. Climb speed 15ft, or fly speed 15ft+ via wings. Which should I choose? The climb speed should be available earlier.
    Initially I thought getting a climb speed at level 8 was too early, now that I think about it again by level 8 flying is already available for many, so it could actually be argued that it’s late. I’ll be taking Improved Movement and putting it into the regular Movement configuration, replacing the climb bonus. Also going to buff the acrobatics bonus, probably to +4.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Efficient Shroud, Kinetic Feedback/Thorns: What happens when the duration runs out? Do you have to switch to another configuration? Or is that configuration and the aura burnt to make it lost forever?
    Right, forgot to define that. The intention was that the configuration becomes inactive after the duration expires, so you would have to activate it again or switch to a different one. Have to add that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Enhanced Shroud talent: Due to quirks of prerequisites, it's impossible to get special properties on the shield configuration without being able to make actual shields. Ditto for weapons and armour. Which means you almost certainly want to use a different configuration for your shroud.
    I have no idea why I made this talent require the base techniques, since Shroud has it’s own enhancement bonus technique, it makes more sense to allow the Shroud to use the Improved Enhancements technique without prerequisites. Changing that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Amplified Shroud: DC increase unnecessary, again. It's also confusing that the technique lists a cost of 1 auracite burnt, then starts with a passive ability that's always on. Could that be moved to class features?
    The AP cost of Amplified Shroud should say special, see text like the other shroud expansions, fixing that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Amplified Shroud, Wings: There are already rules for how many creatures (or rather, how much weight) you can carry while flying. It basically depends on your carry capacity, IIRC. Look that up and increase the amount you can carry based on that.
    I did look that up and as far as I remember I couldn’t find any concrete rules on it, but it makes sense it depends on carry capacity and I just missed it. Going to have to find a new amplified bonus for Wings then, bonus to carry capacity perhaps?

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Psionic Scholar: 1PP = 2AP? Is that really the right way round? Regardless, psi-like abilities are automatically augmented to their maximum for free, so this is unnecessary.
    I am really not happy with Psionic Scholar, the only reason it’s even included is because I specifically got asked about adding it. If I do end up keeping Scholar, I might actually just scrap Psionic Scholar and just bake it into the regular Scholar.
    And you are correct, 1 PP = 2 AP isn’t right, it should be 1 AP = 2 PP.
    I wasn’t aware that psi-like abilities are automatically augmented, which is another complicating factor I guess.

    Again, thanks for the feedback pi4t, you gave me quite a few things to think about.

    Here are the changes I've done so far:
    Changelog 07.03.2021
    • Added: “… the Inheritor may touch an active Auracite effect...” and “AP cannot be regained from an ended or instantaneous effect.”
    • Added “When an Auracite effect ends, regardless of why it ended, all AP invested or burned into the effect immediately degrades and disappears and can only be regained through rest. ”
    • Renamed the talent “Auracite Talent” into “Auracite Training”
    • Removed Auracite Armory talent, removed Skilled Armor, Skilled Blade, Skilled Shield techniques, gave Warrior Path the Skilled Armory technique
    • Changed Auracite Bolt and Auracite Grenade to burn the AP used
    • Replaced “You must fulfill the prerequisites” to “You need not fulfill the prerequisites” for the Enhanced Shroud talent
    • Changed the Twin Shroud class ability’s fluff to be “The Shrouded Inheritor has figured out how to share her shroud.”
    • Added “Only active effects can be reinforced and instantaneous effects can only be reinforced as part of its Forging action.” to the reinforcement rules.
    • Changed Auracite Grenade to deal damage to all creatures in its aoe
    • Changed Auracite Platform to say “Alternatively you may,” rather than “Alternative to the normal platforms”
    • Changed Auracite Shield to more accurately show that you make a shield
    • Changed Auracite Strike’s effect to be “empowered strike”
    • Changed AP cost of Fortify Body to be 2-4
    • Removed Task Constructs talent, made Auracite Tasker require the advanced constructs feature of the constructor path
    • Changed Eye See You to be a Technique Expansion
    • Added table with Auracite Techniques
    • Buffed Binding Bolt to not remove dmg dealt, and be useable with grenade.
    • Reshape Auracite: removed AP cost, made it so it can only reshape objects created using Shape Auracite, made it so it can restore 1d4 hit points to Auracite objects
    • Changed the Attack and Impale configurations to count as two-handed weapons.
    • Buffed the Camouflage configuration to give +2 to stealth, and +2 per enhancement bonus of the shroud with Controlled Shroud. Changed the bonus from Camouflage to be competence bonus.
    • Changed the name of the movement configuration type to mobility, I felt that fit better
    • Changed the Blocking configuration to be an immediate action to use.
    • Changed AP cost of Amplified Shroud to be special, see text
    • Tried to clarify how the Shroud interacts with taking damage, sundering and restoring hit points. Hopefully I managed to make it clear
    • Merged the Improved Movement configuration with the Movement configuration, replacing the bonus to climb, increased the bonus to Acrobatics to +4
    • Clarified what happens then the duration expires on the Kinetic Feedback and Thorns configurations

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Quote Originally Posted by Kael_Thor View Post
    I’m not sure how this makes Task Constructs redundant. I do agree that Auracite Talent needs to be renamed.

    You can get unlimited ammunition for it.
    “If forming a non-thrown ranged weapon using this technique you may invest 1 additional AP as you form the weapon to allow the weapon to produce any ammunition it needs. The ammunition is formed as the weapon is readied to fire(string being pulled etc).”
    That's if you make a ranged weapon from Auracite. What about if you already have a bow and coat it in auracite to make it count as an auracite blade? Technically, a strict reading of the technique would be that the unlimited ammo is only available when you make the weapon from auracite.

    I am not happy with scholar. Honestly I’m thinking of removing it because I’m not sure how to make it as good as the others. Warrior and Construct both fit their theme well as well as get good abilities, but Scholar feels like it doesn’t, and like you said it’s rather weak. Honestly the only reason it gets casting at level 1 and 20 is because I blanked on what to give it, and casting was what it got in previous versions so I just gave it that.
    I could give it Improving Touch at level 1, but that still doesn’t really fit the theme. The Scholar is supposed to be the one that focuses on how magic and Auracite works together and I’m not sure how to fulfil that.
    If it were psionics, I'd say you could borrow from Gifted Blade. As it is...how about changing the base ability to "pick N many spells from the wizard list. You can cast them spontaneously, burning appropriate amounts of auracite"? With an appropriate level limit (based on inheritor level?) of course. The higher level options could then be things like making them cheaper, or allowing the use of metamagic and so on.

    Alternatively, you could have Scholar give actual spellcasting, independent of auracite, and then the others augment that by eg letting you use auracite for metamagic effects, giving some sort of "spell and technique" combined actual (like spell combat does for "spell and weapon") etc. The only trouble is that you'd have to either give the ability at 4th level and find something else for level 1, or make it 6 levels of casting (which seems like quite a lot for a path, especially if you can still grab a first level path ability as a feat!)

    Constructor is quite strong, and yes you can make as strong constructs as a psion can. But keep in mind(pun not intended) the psion has more points after level 1(at level 1 they are equal, at level 2 the psion has at least 1 more than the inheritor, and the difference increases from there) and has more things they can do. And yes, you can absorb the ap used for the construct and resummon it, but you have to absorb it before the construct dies/duration expires.
    But I agree, comparing Constructor and Scholar doesn’t look good. I don’t think Constructor is too strong, but it does highlight how weak Scholar is in comparison. I really need to fix Scholar somehow.
    Ok, the fact that you can't just suicide the constructs and summon new ones makes it a lot less powerful. I had visions of an unending stream of astral constructs zerg rushing my dungeon!

    [quote
    As for x AP = x PP, it is problematic for multiple reasons. 1 AP isn’t necessary as powerful as 1 PP and vice versa. For example, for 1 AP or 1 PP you get a level 1 auracite or astral construct. But for 2 AP you get a level 2 auracite construct, while you need 3 PP for a level 2 astral construct.
    If you compare the Auracite Bolt technique with the Crystal Shard power, AP and PP become almost equal, with 1 AP and 1 PP both dealing 1d6 dmg, 2 AP and 2 PP both dealing 2d6 dmg. But Crystal Shard is a ranged touch attack, while Auracite Bolt is a normal ranged attack. Also Crystal Shard is one target, while Auracite Bolt can be split to hit multiple targets.
    Generally psionic classes are going to have more PP than inheritors have AP, but they also need more points for the same effects. I have tried to balance the two up with each other while keeping in mind the differences and honestly, Scholar and Psionic Scholar aside, I’m generally happy with the cost of things, though I’m going to have to look at a few things again.[/quote]

    Something seems to be backwards in this argument. You say Auracite Bolt is designed to be worse than Crystal Shard (ranged attack vs touch attack), and use that to justify giving it a 1AP:1PP ratio rather than the Construct's 1AP:2PP ratio. Shouldn't that be the other way round? Auracite Bolt should have the better ratio?

    Also, I'm very dubious about trying to make abilities that burn Auracite scale linearly with AP spent. My previous feedback assumed that you could recover the AP spent on Auracite Bolt; without it, I consider it extremely bad. Power points grow exponentially (or at least quadratically?) as you gain levels, so you can do your stuff far more times per day at high levels. But your AP is always about twice your level. So I do the equivalent of Crystal Shard twice and then...what, I'm done for the day? I'd be better off playing a Kineticist!

    If you want auracite to be burnt for a simple blast attack, I'd suggest charging only 1 point and having it scale with level automatically.

    The save DC increase I kind of want to keep, considering how expensive Grenade is, especially now that it burns AP. I took inspiration from the Energy Burst psionic power for this technique, where augmentation also increases the DC.
    Oh, they're supposed to both apply, are they? Might want to make that clearer, I thought they were two separate reinforcements you could apply.

    Energy Burst, like all psionic powers, has a fixed DC depending on its power level. The DC increasing from augmenting it is a pretty standard thing (there's even a feat to make that happen for every power) and is just letting it calculate its DCs like a higher level power if you spend enough PP to manifest a higher level power. It's basically just letting it catch up with the free class-level DC scaling that inheritors get automatically. Going beyond that standard 10+1/2 level + ability DC is generally a lot harder, requiring special investment (eg spell focus) for even a couple of points. Adding this DC increase messes with the game's maths: at low levels, it does nothing and Auracite Grenade hasn't been buffed at all; at high levels it makes the saving throws a near automatic failure even for high dex characters. If you want to buff its effects, I suggest you impose a flat -5 on the saving throw or something. Or make it do twice the damage (which is sort of like going from "everyone passed their save" to "everyone failed their save").

    I’m tempted to say its a trap choice on purpose, but that would be a lie :P
    I can increase the damage, but making it invested rather than burned would mean removing the part that you can trigger your own trap, not sure I want to do that, I like that you have to be careful not to trigger it yourself. Also I have to be careful not to increase the damage dealt too much, since that would make it outperform Bolt.
    Aforementioned comments on bolt's cost also apply here. Also, shouldn't it be outperforming bolt? Bolts can be used at will, whenever you want (ignoring the cost, which is the same for both). For a trap, you have to know you're about to face an enemy, then you have to take the time to set the trap and lure the enemy onto the exact space where the trap is. While avoiding stepping on it yourself. Ok, it then triggers without an action from you, but that seems an awful lot harder to me. How many trap rangers do you see around?

    The Overcharged techniques were supposed to be last resort type techniques. However realistically you are probably right, there isn’t enough reward to using it over something else.
    The trouble with a last resort effect that damages you is that by the time it's a last resort, you're probably low on health! Also, by this kind of level the threats you're facing are less likely to be brought down by losing hp. There's also a good chance you're not actually able to attack an enemy, so you can't trigger the power.

    For now I’ll leave it as is, until I can figure out a better technique to replace it with.
    It should really at least equal to what a caster/manifester could do at this level, which is quite a big ask. For the blade, how about an AoE save or die? Your weapon flies apart into shards, striking all creatures in the area who have to save or turn to auracite (like the crystallise power). The main cost would be that you're burning all the auracite in the weapon, and risking getting affected yourself. Make the AoE depend on how much auracite was in the weapon or something. (In an emergency, it could also be used to keep you in stasis until you can be revived safely. Multiple uses!)

    The shield and construct should probably get their own different abilities. For the shield, Resilient Sphere springs to mind...

    The standard action is to prime the construct to explode yes. I’ll be removing the duration increase from the technique, possibly making that a talent of its own, possibly removing it completely, considering psion doesn’t get a similar increase to duration.
    As for the exploding part, I am considering three options. One is to make the action to prime the construct a swift action, one is so you can prime to explode without touching the construct, and one is to give you the option of making a construct explosive when you make it, so that it detonates when it dies or the duration of the construct expires. Options one and two could be combined as well. Personally I think I’m leaning more towards option three at the moment but I haven’t decided yet.
    Option 3 is probably the most "fun". But the inheritor has a massive incentive to keep his constructs alive, so I'm unsure that any of these would see much use.

    The reason skilled armor and shield(and previously blade as well) is available at level 5, rather than level 3 is because I didn’t want to step on the toes of the soulknife more than I already do, since soulknife gets +1 at level 3. I didn’t make it available at level 4 because there is no way for you to get it at level 4, you get no technique, talent or feat that level, so it feels weird to give it a prerequisite that can only be achieved with multiclassing. So it ended up at level 5.
    And now that I think about it, I’ve made multiple techniques have a prerequisite of level 4, so I am apparently a massive hypocrite. Going to have to fix that somehow.
    You've made a class which can choose, as its main ability, the power to summon a magic weapon from nothing. You're stepping on the toes of the soulknife, whether you like it or not. Which is fine; the secondary abilities of the classes are completely different. But I fail to see why making the class worse than the soulknife at levels 3-4 and then having it jump up to soulknife level improves game balance. If the Soulknife is balanced, then that same balance point is good for the inheritor too.

    I might just ignore the whole not stepping on the soulknife part, and set Skilled at level 3, and Improved Enhancements at level 5.
    Have you considered just fitting them together into one technique? It's really a technique tax at this point: if I'm taking an auracite weapon, then I want to be able to enchant it. And I want to be able to give it magic properties.

    Armory was a feat before I split feats into feats and talents, must have slipped by in my edit.
    Taking into consideration your comments on the skilled techniques, and other comments I’ve gotten before, I’m thinking of doing as you suggest and removing the three specialised skilled techniques and just leaving Armory. Armory was originally added to reduce the feat tax of taking all the auracite armaments feats anyway(back when feats were the only way to get the techniques), so this will just be a continuation of that.
    I’ll probably add in the forging time decrease as a talent or something, or allow quick draw to reduce the forging time.
    I think it technically still is a feat (or rather you have to take a feat to get it). But to be honest, the distinction between a feat, a talent and a technique is pretty minor. You don't get many techniques, so you'll probably be spending a few feats on more anyway.

    Now that I think about it, that is a bit silly, you do specifically choose to learn most techniques so having it as a talent is redundant. Going to change it to just be a technique.
    There are quite a few like that, FYI.


    I can change it so that the ac from the armor config increases based upon the shroud’s enhancement, rather than the current wording, if that’s better? Something like “the AC bonus of the Armor configuration increase by 1 per enhancement bonus of the shroud”
    I'd suggest just using a different term for points of Auracite in the shroud. Eg points of reinforcement. Then say each point increases the AC bonus of the armour configuration by 1, increases the camouflage bonus to stealth by 2, gives the attack configuration's weapon a +1 enhancement bonus, etc.

    The reason the new configurations don’t benefit from the enhancement bonus straight away is because I felt it would be too much to gain the new configurations and be able to enhance them straight away. I’ll think about changing that.
    You're not really adding power, though, you're just adding options. Bad options, if you're not giving them an enhancement bonus.

    Those that don’t get enhanced at all I generally couldn’t figure out how to give balanced enhancements to, such as the enhancement bonus to speed. That could get out of hand really quickly if I allowed it to be enhanced.
    Eh, I disagree there. There are still limits on how much enhancement you can give. The Aegis can give himself a huge speed bonus if he wants; so can most akashic characters. The Voyager is a whole class built around it!

    3) I don’t see why I should split them, and combining them would be too strong. In my opinion they each fit under the umbrella of movement augmentations, so I’ll be keeping them separate. Especially with the changes I’ll be making because of reviewing Improved Movement again.
    Because a configuration which allows you to choose from four different options, with no way to change between them without changing configuration...is four different configurations, mechanically. Claiming they're one configuration just makes it confusing for users.

    Initially I thought getting a climb speed at level 8 was too early, now that I think about it again by level 8 flying is already available for many, so it could actually be argued that it’s late. I’ll be taking Improved Movement and putting it into the regular Movement configuration, replacing the climb bonus. Also going to buff the acrobatics bonus, probably to +4.
    You thought level 8 was too early? Spider climb is a level two spell and lasts 10min/level

    I did look that up and as far as I remember I couldn’t find any concrete rules on it, but it makes sense it depends on carry capacity and I just missed it. Going to have to find a new amplified bonus for Wings then, bonus to carry capacity perhaps?
    Bit weak, for burn. How about wing buffet attacks? See the eidolon evolution.

    Again, thanks for the feedback pi4t, you gave me quite a few things to think about.
    You're very welcome!

    I was considering playing this class (for a quadstalt game, so rather unusual circumstances!) In the end I decided it was a bit too weak, being outclassed by other "summon gear" classes like the Aegis and veilusers. (The soulknife wasn't a consideration, for ability score reasons). Being able to use my casting stat for attack and damage was tempting, but not quite enough to justify it. So consider this general feedback that this class could perhaps do with a bit of a buff.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    That's if you make a ranged weapon from Auracite. What about if you already have a bow and coat it in auracite to make it count as an auracite blade? Technically, a strict reading of the technique would be that the unlimited ammo is only available when you make the weapon from auracite.
    Oh, right, the coating option, I completely forgot about that. I’ve decided to remove that because I feel it made the rest of the technique just plain worse than using the coating

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    If it were psionics, I'd say you could borrow from Gifted Blade. As it is...how about changing the base ability to "pick N many spells from the wizard list. You can cast them spontaneously, burning appropriate amounts of auracite"? With an appropriate level limit (based on inheritor level?) of course. The higher level options could then be things like making them cheaper, or allowing the use of metamagic and so on.

    Alternatively, you could have Scholar give actual spellcasting, independent of auracite, and then the others augment that by eg letting you use auracite for metamagic effects, giving some sort of "spell and technique" combined actual (like spell combat does for "spell and weapon") etc. The only trouble is that you'd have to either give the ability at 4th level and find something else for level 1, or make it 6 levels of casting (which seems like quite a lot for a path, especially if you can still grab a first level path ability as a feat!)
    I like your suggestion of picking spells or powers, I'm going to go with that, letting the normal Scholar pick wizard spells and the psionic Scholar pick psion powers.
    I’ve chosen to have the spells cost 3 AP per spell level. I did it this way so that the scholar can’t cast more spells per day than the wizard. If I had the cost be 2 AP per spell level, then at early levels the scholar could cast more spells per day than the wizard, which doesn’t seem right. The exception for this are the cantrips, where I’ve kept the cost at 1 AP per cast.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Ok, the fact that you can't just suicide the constructs and summon new ones makes it a lot less powerful. I had visions of an unending stream of astral constructs zerg rushing my dungeon!
    That’s why I limited Twin Construct to making a maximum of 4 constructs per use. Making four constructs as a standard action is very strong, but then again it’s a level 20(19 now though) ability. So at level 20(19) you can have a mini zerg rush :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Something seems to be backwards in this argument. You say Auracite Bolt is designed to be worse than Crystal Shard (ranged attack vs touch attack), and use that to justify giving it a 1AP:1PP ratio rather than the Construct's 1AP:2PP ratio. Shouldn't that be the other way round? Auracite Bolt should have the better ratio?

    Also, I'm very dubious about trying to make abilities that burn Auracite scale linearly with AP spent. My previous feedback assumed that you could recover the AP spent on Auracite Bolt; without it, I consider it extremely bad. Power points grow exponentially (or at least quadratically?) as you gain levels, so you can do your stuff far more times per day at high levels. But your AP is always about twice your level. So I do the equivalent of Crystal Shard twice and then...what, I'm done for the day? I'd be better off playing a Kineticist!

    If you want auracite to be burnt for a simple blast attack, I'd suggest charging only 1 point and having it scale with level automatically.
    I didn’t mean that Bolt is supposed to be worse than Crystal Shard, just that they are(or at least should be) similar in power. Now the difference is bigger, since Crystal Shard can scale higher, but at greater costs.

    You do make a good point about costs though. I’ll admit that I’ve never been good with math, so I’m blaming that :P I will have to take a new look at the cost of things, especially those that burn AP. Your suggestion of having Bolt cost 1 point and scale automatically is a good one, I think I’ll use that for Bolt, Grenade and Trap.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Oh, they're supposed to both apply, are they? Might want to make that clearer, I thought they were two separate reinforcements you could apply.

    Energy Burst, like all psionic powers, has a fixed DC depending on its power level. The DC increasing from augmenting it is a pretty standard thing (there's even a feat to make that happen for every power) and is just letting it calculate its DCs like a higher level power if you spend enough PP to manifest a higher level power. It's basically just letting it catch up with the free class-level DC scaling that inheritors get automatically. Going beyond that standard 10+1/2 level + ability DC is generally a lot harder, requiring special investment (eg spell focus) for even a couple of points. Adding this DC increase messes with the game's maths: at low levels, it does nothing and Auracite Grenade hasn't been buffed at all; at high levels it makes the saving throws a near automatic failure even for high dex characters. If you want to buff its effects, I suggest you impose a flat -5 on the saving throw or something. Or make it do twice the damage (which is sort of like going from "everyone passed their save" to "everyone failed their save").
    Right, I just went over my math again, because you make a good point on the DC increase, and oh no, I’ve made a big mistake. Removing all DC increases from reinforcement, this got out of hand quickly, what was I thinking?

    I might make a feat that works similarly to Spell Focus, but for Auracite, not sure yet on that

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Aforementioned comments on bolt's cost also apply here. Also, shouldn't it be outperforming bolt? Bolts can be used at will, whenever you want (ignoring the cost, which is the same for both). For a trap, you have to know you're about to face an enemy, then you have to take the time to set the trap and lure the enemy onto the exact space where the trap is. While avoiding stepping on it yourself. Ok, it then triggers without an action from you, but that seems an awful lot harder to me. How many trap rangers do you see around?
    I’ve only seen two trap rangers in the years I’ve been playing, so I get your point. I decided, rather than just buffing the damage, to instead make Trap an expansion of bolt and grenade, allowing you to place a bolt or grenade as a trap, complete with binding added as well if you use that.
    I might even add in the ability to specify the trigger, not sure about that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    The trouble with a last resort effect that damages you is that by the time it's a last resort, you're probably low on health! Also, by this kind of level the threats you're facing are less likely to be brought down by losing hp. There's also a good chance you're not actually able to attack an enemy, so you can't trigger the power.
    The problem was having, when I was deciding to keep the Overcharged techniques as last resort options or not, was that I had to make something that is cool and strong, so you would use it, but not so strong that you use it all the time. I decided to remove Overcharged Blade and partially change Overcharged Construct.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    It should really at least equal to what a caster/manifester could do at this level, which is quite a big ask. For the blade, how about an AoE save or die? Your weapon flies apart into shards, striking all creatures in the area who have to save or turn to auracite (like the crystallise power). The main cost would be that you're burning all the auracite in the weapon, and risking getting affected yourself. Make the AoE depend on how much auracite was in the weapon or something. (In an emergency, it could also be used to keep you in stasis until you can be revived safely. Multiple uses!)
    I don’t like the idea of an aoe save or die, I think that would be too powerful. I could make it into a single target thing, like the crystallise power, but I’m not sure, doesn’t really fit the warrior theme for me.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    The shield and construct should probably get their own different abilities. For the shield, Resilient Sphere springs to mind...
    I’m not sure I want to add more techniques for shield and armor, even though Resilient Sphere would fit the theme.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Option 3 is probably the most "fun". But the inheritor has a massive incentive to keep his constructs alive, so I'm unsure that any of these would see much use.
    I decided to go with option 3. Yes the inheritor wants to keep her constructs alive, but sometimes you gotta blow up something to get the job done :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    You've made a class which can choose, as its main ability, the power to summon a magic weapon from nothing. You're stepping on the toes of the soulknife, whether you like it or not. Which is fine; the secondary abilities of the classes are completely different. But I fail to see why making the class worse than the soulknife at levels 3-4 and then having it jump up to soulknife level improves game balance. If the Soulknife is balanced, then that same balance point is good for the inheritor too.
    You have a point, I’ve been trying to avoid “why should I play soulknife when I can play inheritor, which is better” but I guess that’s less of an issue than I thought. I’ve already been using the soulknife as inspiration for how to write the rules for Blade, might as well use it for guidelines for enhancement bonus and special qualities as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Have you considered just fitting them together into one technique? It's really a technique tax at this point: if I'm taking an auracite weapon, then I want to be able to enchant it. And I want to be able to give it magic properties.
    I have considered it but I like them separately, they fit rather well in the path progression that way but I did combine them somewhat. I removed Armory and reintroduced the Skilled techniques for armor, blade and shield, but merged Improved X Enhancements into them. I think Armory would be too powerful if it also gives special qualities for all three base techniques.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    I think it technically still is a feat (or rather you have to take a feat to get it). But to be honest, the distinction between a feat, a talent and a technique is pretty minor. You don't get many techniques, so you'll probably be spending a few feats on more anyway.
    That’s intentional, I don’t want the player to have access to too many techniques, that way the class keeps some replay value :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    There are quite a few like that, FYI.
    Really? Which ones? I didn’t notice any techniques that still requires a talent.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    I'd suggest just using a different term for points of Auracite in the shroud. Eg points of reinforcement. Then say each point increases the AC bonus of the armour configuration by 1, increases the camouflage bonus to stealth by 2, gives the attack configuration's weapon a +1 enhancement bonus, etc.
    That’s a good idea, I think I’ll use that, its a good fit for the reinforcement mechanic.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    You're not really adding power, though, you're just adding options. Bad options, if you're not giving them an enhancement bonus.
    I suppose you have a point. There really isn't any point adding options no one is going to use.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Eh, I disagree there. There are still limits on how much enhancement you can give. The Aegis can give himself a huge speed bonus if he wants; so can most akashic characters. The Voyager is a whole class built around it!
    True, and I can decide how much speed is affected by the enhancement bonus, +5 feet per +2 for example. Shouldn’t be too difficult to balance it, I’m just being lazy I guess.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Because a configuration which allows you to choose from four different options, with no way to change between them without changing configuration...is four different configurations, mechanically. Claiming they're one configuration just makes it confusing for users.
    Ah, I see what you mean now, and yes you do have a point. I had two options here then, either add in a way to change between the different options without changing the configuration itself, or split the configuration, I decided to go with the latter. And in doing so I really show how bad I am at naming things :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    You thought level 8 was too early? Spider climb is a level two spell and lasts 10min/level
    When you put it like that, I have no idea what I was thinking :P

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    Bit weak, for burn. How about wing buffet attacks? See the eidolon evolution.
    I didn’t think about looking at eidolon evolutions for inspiration, I’ll do that.

    Quote Originally Posted by pi4t View Post
    You're very welcome!

    I was considering playing this class (for a quadstalt game, so rather unusual circumstances!) In the end I decided it was a bit too weak, being outclassed by other "summon gear" classes like the Aegis and veilusers. (The soulknife wasn't a consideration, for ability score reasons). Being able to use my casting stat for attack and damage was tempting, but not quite enough to justify it. So consider this general feedback that this class could perhaps do with a bit of a buff.
    Quadstalt?! I’ve never even heard about that, I’ve played gestalt and heard of tristalt, but never even heard of quadstalt. I can’t even imagine the power level of that campaign...and now I kinda want to try it...

    I’m a bit cautious of making something overpowered, so I’ve probably balanced things a bit more harshly than needed. With the changes I’ve made, things will become stronger, but I’ll try not to let things get too strong.

    Changelog 12.03.21:
    • Restructured the Inheritor and what it gets at what levels. It now gets path features at every odd levels, and either an auracite technique or an inheritor talent at every even levels.
    • Expanded the paths with new features
    ◦ Constructor in addition to old features being reshuffled in levels gets faster creation of constructs, longer range and longer duration
    ◦ Scholar loses Augmented Body and Improving Touch, gains more casting and item creation feats instead
    ◦ Warrior gains enchantment bonus from lvl 3, quicker blade forging time, gains bonus combat feats, and gains Augmented Body and Fortify Body, because I thought it fitting that a warrior learns to give herself temporary bonuses to her body
    • Removed techniques: Auracite Casting and Advanced Auracite Casting, Overcharged Blade, Skilled Armory,
    • Made Improving Touch not be limited to a single path
    • Adjusted prerequisites for multiple techniques/talents/feats
    • Reintroduced Skilled Armor Forging, Skilled Blade Forging, Skilled Shield Forging, renamed them to Enhanced Armor, Enhanced Blade and Enhanced Shield, merged them with the Improved X Enhancement techniques, reduced their AP cost, tweaked the levels options were gained
    • Removed DC increases from Reinforcement
    • Changed Overcharged Construction to be Explosive Construction, changed the priming of the explosive construct to be a choice made before creating the construct.
    • Changed Twin Construct to burn rather than invest AP
    • Removed prerequisites for the Battle Forged talent, given the new distribution of talents this felt appropriate
    • Changed Enhanced Shroud’s level requirement to level 4
    • Changed Auracite Strike to Empowered Weapon, modelling its effect somewhat on the paladin’s Divine Smite ability.
    • Changed It’s a Trap! to be an expansion of Bolt or Grenade
    • Added Rapid Armor and Rapid Shield talents, reducing time needed to form armor and shields
    • Changed Auracite Bolt and Grenade to automatically scale in dmg based on forging level without requiring more AP burned
    • Changed Controlled Shroud
    ◦ Changed the technique to no longer give enhancement bonus to shroud, instead reinforce shroud. 1 AP reinforcement increase the hardness of the shroud by 2 and the hit points of the shroud by 4. I thought about following the hardness+hp increase of enhancement bonus, but I thought +10 to hit points for each 1 AP was too much.
    ◦ Changed how the configurations interact with reinforcement
    ◦ Split the Movement configuration into 5 separate (and highly uninspiredly named) configurations
    • Changed Efficient Shroud to fit with the changes made to Controlled Shroud
    • Removed restriction on how much AP can be used for a single effect, instead placed those restrictions on the individual techniques it applies to.
    • Changed Amplified Shroud, reorganized the effects, gave Wings wing buffet attacks, split the movement effects and gave them new effects
    • Removed the ability to use Auracite Blade to coat an existing weapon. I didn’t like it, I felt it basically invalidated the rest of the technique.
    • Rewrote Enhanced Shroud to fit with the changes done elsewhere
    • Added optional rule for gaining special abilities for magical items
    • Changed Favoured Shroud to fit with the changes done elsewhere
    • Added Psionic Scholar properly
    Last edited by Kael_Thor; 2021-03-12 at 05:48 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

    Join Date
    Jan 2019

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    I'm the DM running the quadstalt game if you're interested.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2015

    Default Re: Inheritors of Auracite - Pathfinder 1e subsystem [PEACH]

    Here I go again, updating this thing. Can't seem to stop.

    Changelog 02.06.2021
    • Added the Shrouded Focus talent, allowing weapon spesific feats to count for multiple offensive shroud configurations.
    • Changed the sustaining rules. Now the number of effects sustained at once scales with level, and you can sustain an effect as long as you want, but you don’t get the benefits of rest while sustaining one or more effects.
    • Removed the Precise Shattering talent. I like the talent, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with Auracite itself, but could perhaps be a standalone crafting/sundering feat instead
    • Changed reinforcing effects to burn AP rather than invest them. This should substantially reduce bookkeeping and simply things. This could end up meaning some techniques needs some changes, if it turns out the Inheritor becomes AP starved too quickly.
    • Changed Quickened Reinforcement to Quickened Absorption, to fit with the above change.
    • Gone over and changed reinforcement effects to say burn rather than invest, changed some text to better reflect the changes.

    I'm not sure about the changes to reinforcement. It might be too big a nerf to things like Armor, Blade, Construct, Shield and Shroud. For now I'm not changing any of the techniques, other than stated above, but I might decide to later if I find they are too weak to justify burn rather than investment.

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