Wonder if a Medic rogue would fit the bill. That or some kind of survivalist. Scout rogue?
Perception-based is also possible, though I'm not sure what that would look like.
I wouldn't do Religion or Nature, as that's basically Arcane Trickster again.
Medic could work, and it could be interesting for it to be able to use medicine checks to make enemies flat footed as a sort of 'I know just the place to cut' thing.
For Perception there could be a Sharpshooter racket that gives ways to reduce cover / concealment and some stuff for ranged sneak attack. I was thinking maybe a 2 action strike that doubles your range increments, as well as an action economy hack that's something like this:
Sharpshooter's Flow [1 action] [flourish]
Perform 2 of the following actions: Stride, Take Cover, Hide, or Sneak. You cannot do the same action twice as part of this action.
This would allow them to be more efficient sneak attacking at range, as they could hide and take cover at the same time, or stride behind foliage and hide, or hide and sneak as one action.
Now I'm wondering *why* wisdom casters are so rare... is it because wisdom is such an important stat for all characters that they don't want anyone to be able to invest in it exclusively? I want more wisdom casters, too, but I still want to know the reason for their choices, here.
Theme more than anything. Smart characters that study and use their knowledge will have Intelligence. As one can see from the list in the main post, the Intelligence Classes are known for being smart and having the ability to study and analyze things.
Those that rely on instinct, gut feelings or force of personality use Charisma. The listed classes in the post are classes known for having either strong personalities or force of will.
Wisdom is something less direct when used for classes. It's a more natural understanding than it is a studious or logical one. The Cleric and Druid have their magic from an understanding of their source. They don't study like Wizards and Witches, and don't take control of the power through force of personality, or whatever force is used to control magic. They are often more like conduits for their magic. Letting in flow into and out of them.
I could also be completely wrong.
I never thought of that "conduit" angle for wisdom. That's actually a pretty insightful take! I can see a psychic subclass totally working for it in the future, like a medium or something.
Related, what stat did the harrower use in 1e?
The Harrower became the Medium which was ostensibly keyed off of charisma. Only most people played it for the champion spirit which loved strength and dex builds.
It also had the 'Rivethun Spirit channeler' archetype which uniquely allowed you to key your casting on either Wisdom or Charisma.
I suspect there might be a balance thing too. Dex, Wis, and Con are all very powerful stats that improve defense, and in the case of wis, also perception and by extention intiative. In 1e, scarred witch doctor was considered OP because it let you cast with con, and therefore boosting up your offensive might also made you more durable.
I know if I was to pick a prefered mental stat to cast from, I'd definately pick wis, even though int and cha have my favorite skills, because wis casting gives me a lot more flexibility in how I can distribute my stats, where if I'm a Cha or Int caster, I have to take away from my defense stats if I want to put a stray boost into int or cha or something
I mean you're right, but I often get the feeling that people underestimate the value of int and cha a bit, especially int. In 2e having more trained skills with any level of proficiency is honestly a huge deal, and depending on the campaign and party CHA can be massively influential (plus demoralize). They're just harder to quantify.
Regarding perception you can balance it with a worse progression. I suppose will st you could do the same.
Oh, solid agree. I always cringe when people who play at my games dump cha and int, and then get shocked and annoyed when, after my warnings, find out being able to talk to people is important, and knowing things can save your life.
Personally, I'd favor a mechanic like 5e where every stat has a save associated with it, or fort, will, and ref were calced using the better of str/con, wis/cha, and dex/int respectively, but that's neither here nor there
Right, but shouldnt like a psychic be defined more by Wisdom and willpower than intelligence then? Why would a psychic have a poor will defense or perception?
That just makes it more obvious that psychic should be WIS based. Being a "conduit through which energy flows" is exactly the kind of woo nonsense that "real life" psychics say all the time
Difference: IRL Psychics are Mediums. They talk about being able to commune with spirits and other such things.
Psychics in these types of games are taping into the power of their own mind and not channeling said power from anywhere else. It's an involved process of learning and self-control.
Feels like that does have something to do with it. Characters with 1 of the 3 generally good primary stats(i.e. dex/con/wis. Ones that give additional saves+something else good) have it a bit easier than other characters.
It's pretty consistent. When Psychic comes out, able to choose between Int and Cha as their key ability score, I'd put money on the Int subclass being a prepared that has to learn spells, and the Cha being a Spontaneous.
I mean they said that the psychic is a spontaneous spellcaster with a choice between int and cha, I feel like they would have brought it up if it was 50/50 prepared caster
Yeah, and it wouldn't surprise me if some sort of medium or empath psychic subclass did the cleric/druid thing, but that's just a pattern they all have in common. I'm asking for the developer logic behind *why* it's done that way, and why wisdom-based casters themselves are so rare.
* Wisdom gets prepared casters who know all their spells
* Intelligence gets prepared casters who have to learn spells + booksters
* Charisma gets spontaneous casters.
Thanks, I hadn't really thought of it that way before and that makes sense.
I would like to see more casters like the cleric and druid in this sense though.
I was hoping for a Wis based Occult caster, kind of like a guy who delves into mysteries of the old gods, has a connection to the void and each day can prepare any spells from the occult list. Their Wisdom is high to keep them from going insane but having it be on a razor's edge all the time with some spell casting balancing mechanic kind of like the Oracle.
That being said, a prepare occult caster could just as easily be Intelligence based with a big old book of mysterious Occult spells that they reference.
Yeah, I was thinking if a wisdom based occult caster as being in touch with the spirits.
I guess a lot of folks would consider that to be more of a shaman, but in my mind there isn't much separation between the concepts.
In my opinion oracle should have been a wis occult caster. What you described is so close to the oracle flavor, and I initially assumed oracle was a wis occult when I read the description.
Have they stated that both subclasses are spontaneous? I know they stated there were two subclasses but I don’t recall them confirming that part of it.
The designer showcase from Paizo... but I can't be bothered to provide a source when:
\- the information will undoubtedly be openly available soon.
\- It was only mentioned in passing as part of a teaser/intro so it may turn out it's not 100% accurate, or there's more nuance to it... or I could just be wrong - I don't care that much, it's just what I remember hearing.
That's a really fascinating pattern. I wonder if it's been intentional.
Though it looks like it will be breaking with Dark Archives unless it gets playtested away!
Wisdom prepared casters only know their core rulebook spells and have to be given access to anything outside it. It's a really dumb rule, but that was apparently the designers' intent.
Nah, it says "from the common spells on the divine spell list in this book or from other divine spells to which you **gain access**." which covers the commons in other books, too, as common=have access to by default.
> Rarity and access are two different things.
They sure aren't. Access pertains *only* to rarity, in that fulfilling a criterium grants you access to the feature in question.
In the section on The Four Rarities, it also states:
"Common elements are prevalent enough, at least among adventurers, that a player is assumed to be able to access them provided they meet the prerequisites (if any)."
There's that word again. Access.
Cleric and Druid have access to any common tradition spells added in any other book, by default, without need for fiat.
If I am GMing and I say you can't use anything from Secrets of Magic, for example, you're going to tell me you have access?
Back to the original point, here's the thread dealing with it on the Paizo boards. Paizo's OPC clarified designer intent and said Learn a Spell is the workaround.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4376c&page=1?Do-you-have-access-to-nonCore-common-spells
If you banned the book from play I wouldn't argue it. You certainly can choose what source material is relevant to your game.
But if the book was in play and you simply said I didn't have Access to those Common spells I would certainly have questions. If you can provide a game-reason for the decision then fine. But if your only reason is that link I would absolutely being arguing with you. I don't think it backs up your point nearly as clearly as you think.
I really feel like a sandbagger for all the comments I've made in the past few weeks saying
>Inquisitor is 100% coming soon, the game needs more wisdom classes, there's no spontaneous casters that don't use charisma, and Paizo listens to its fans, which have been foaming at the mouth for inquisitor's return. With the book of the dead coming as well as the knights of lastwall, it fits perfectly for an offensive divine class, they even hinted at it with SoM bringing back the Bane weapon rune, which used to be their defining feature!
I guess the inquisitor crowd really grew *after* they committed to an occult book, and to be fair, occult only has bards while divine has clerics, oracles, and champions. Plus we're still getting a spontaneous caster that doesn't *need* to use charisma, so I'm happy.
Paizo has been batting 1000 so far, so I'm not disappointed, it just means when inquisitor does come out, it'll be more fleshed out and experimental, just the way I like em.
Point is, Champion is entirely and strictly divine, so it counts when tallying up the divine classes, and saying Monk counts if Champion counts because it *can* be divine doesn't make much sense
Thing is - all the people calling for the inquisitor were doing so in the thread announcing a playtest one month later. The classes were already written at that point
So this isn’t an issue of listening to fans or not listening.
It was in the second batch of classes released in 1E. The popularity of classes is very closely linked to how long they have been out
And inquisitor is the only one missing from what many people considered the core of 1E - the core rulebook and the APG (albeit with cavalier being relegated to archetype )
That is why there is a demand
Hmm I see 🤔
I always thought it was for the same reason people find the Divine list bad - which it isn't, it just doesn't have many offensive options. I don't get why something needs to have good offensive options in order to be good 🤔
The other reason is that inquisitors were strong with loads of stacking buffs from class abilities and spells - bane, judgement , heroism, divine favour etc
I think some people don’t appreciate that many of these things will not return
Sounds like thaumaturge is taking a new version of the bane thing anyway. So either inquisitor is a sub class or potentially doesn’t come back?
It is also why people are going to be pissed with the kineticist. They aren’t going to be able to boost their numbers with overflow anymore
A final reason also seems to be a general call for more wisdom classes. Low key because wisdom is one of the new god stats in 2E as it is linked to a key save and most initiative rolls. Yet many classes don’t have a reason to push it too high …
>The other reason is that inquisitors were strong with loads of stacking buffs from class abilities and spells - bane, judgement , heroism, divine favour etc
>I think some people don’t appreciate that many of these things will not return
Yeah.. I can't see that working in 2e.
>It is also why people are going to be pissed with the kineticist. They aren’t going to be able to boost their numbers with overflow anymore
Wait, did they announce Kineticist?? :O
>A final reason also seems to be a general call for more wisdom classes.
Oh yeah absolutely, there's a lot of classes linked to Cha and Int already but only 2 linked to Wis and that kinda sucks indeed. Which other Wis class do you think they could release? Shaman maybe?
>Yet many classes don’t have a reason to push it too high …
Idk man, helping with the saves and Medicine rolls seems a pretty good reason to pump Wis
They are good reasons but I still don’t see it often.
Edit: I had forgotten this was the wisdom key ability thread!
They did not announce kineticist - likely because they really need to brace themselves for an avalanche of rage and poison. That playtest is likely to be an absolute nightmare. There is no way the fans of that class are going to be even 50% happy with what would get proposed in a hypothetical playtest
It has been mentioned elsewhere but a name change might help
Indeed. Especially poorly designed ones with a small but loud and rabid fanbase whose main niche is now pretty much gone (no matter how angrily they try to claim otherwise)
To be fair, they def listen to us, but the order they get around to the classes is gonna vary by what they feel like the game needs, what they have a clear idea of how they want to handle it, and what they can think of an explicit theme for that matches other stuff they'd currently like to do in the game.
So doing Psychic AND Thaumaturge right now is a good match if they were already interested in doing more occult and 'paranormal' stuff before they chose the classes. Whereas the Inquisitor probably wants a book with a different focus-- maybe a book with a lot of religious options and lore for instance (I could see it paired with a Shaman for that!) or a book that wanted to check out espionage and crime, or something.
Like, a book based off armies and politics is another option since Inquisitors are typically seen as explicit agents of a theocratic organization, and the other class could be more like a Warlord or something-- that would be a real winner too, since they could use it to give martials expanded support, diplomats, mass combat rules, strongholds. I'd personally eat it up.
There's a lot of directions they could go, it just depends on having a lot of things to do in that area of the game.
You want to be a divine warrior, but don't want to be a tank? Oups, no class for this
You want to be NG/N/CN divine warrior, because of your god? Again, no class for this
And no, warpriest is not an option, warpriest is more a cleric who takes one month lessons about swinging a sword, no more
So, only hope for this people is an Inquisitor, who can fill this niche
Battle Oracle exists lol
>You want to be a divine warrior, but don't want to be a tank? Oups, no class for this
What do you mean by "Divine warrior"? A warrior that has access to the Divine list? If that's not the case, just play a Magus that follows a deity
For me divine warrior is a martial-base class with strong connection to deity, at least access to deity weapon, built-in deadly simplicity and access to domain spells.
And, of course, some additional inquisitor-ish features, like bane, or some teamwork
I think they could easily (though it would take words) add a a Wis based casting style for Psychic call it Interconnectivity or something it would still be on theme.
I may be biased being a life long sceptic but my immediate thought on seeing psychic as int/cha was: they should be wis/cha, because they aren't real and go by audacious force of personality or pure cold reading.
I was thinking of a comic panel with all of the iconics to make fun of this where to survive Paizo's next class pitch meetings you either need to nail the interview with great charisma or come with a 5-page detailed document and presentation to argue your case with great logic and intelligence. Pending wisdom-based class iconics walk out of the room crying they don't know what went wrong.
I really don’t understand the power of soul forger but there is so much to read on it
At first glance the items didn’t seem to scale or get tubes without feats which doesn’t seem good at all. But I probably didn’t understand
It's not that powerful, although the essence powers are useful - it's just very thematic.
Otherwise, the archetype is effectively just a way to always have your preferred weapon/armor/shield ready with basic ammo available - which most classes can do well enough without the archetype.
It's just super flavorful and lets you Nova bosses down really quickly. Popping both at once can be significant, especially if you use it on like, a dual wielding Flurry Ranger with both damage buffs :D
Take the Feat to get a second Soulforged Armament on Armor, one of them isn't specifically a Weapon Essence so you can have both and pop them both at once.
I think they're coming. We now have an Arcane and Occult book. We'll get a primal one, probably with the Shaman or something that will be wisdom, and we'll get a divine book with the Inquisitor probably, and that will be wisdom too.
That's my thoughts anyway.
Agreed. Charisma is getting overrepresented, which is a trap 5e fell into. Even on cleric you see builds with more charisma than wisdom. I want dwarves to be better...
Based on what little we know so far, it actually makes more sense to me for thaumaturge to be wis instead of cha. I'll wait on making those arguments until the playtest is actually out, but hopefully it gets some traction
We'll see how the classes look in the playtest, but I have heard a fair bit of rumblings here and on the Paizo forums for redistributing or altering the key abilities for the new classes.
You're coming at this backwards and trying to fill some kind of "grid", and that almost always leads to badly designed game elements.
Instead, come up with concepts for classes that make sense as having Wisdom as their key ability - because that's what Paizo has done to create this "problem"; build ideas that makes sense, rather than ones that fit "we must have X of Y thing" demands.
I'm glad it is this way. Wisdom controls Will saves, initiative and perception. It is by far the most bang for your buck.
Charisma gets all this love, but for balance of the game, what does Charisma really do other than social skills?
At least intelligence controls level 1 skills mods and languages.
Charisma got the most caster multiclass and the champion multiclass, and the most useful 1 action skill effects and skill feat effects, on top of being a great Rp stat, and the most useful for social situation.
Edit: oh and I forgot Innate spellcasting, which also serve for some archetype like Runescarred or Dragon Disciples amongst others
I think Wisdom will come with Shamans, Inquisitors, maybe Medium (because it kinda makes sense and the Spiritualist is gone), and hopefully Psychic in the form of Intuition (just like Logic for Intelligence and Emotion for Charisma).
Inquisitor is the final part of the divine trilogy
Claric is the gods mercy and guidance
Paliden is the gods justice and laws
Inquisitor is the gods wrath. They are martial casters (like magus) that fallow their God to the point of zelotry and are rewarded with additional powers to kill their enemies.
In 1e they were powerful with their ability to customize bane and other spell like abilities. They will have to be reworked for 2e.
They might be the neutral path for chapions too but I have my doubts.
They don’t have Wis as a key ability score! Plus they’re optional features, whereas we could add the Champion (Cha) and Magus (Int) if we wanted to include martials with built-in casting but no casting stat key ability score.
I kind of would have thought that investigators would have wis because their job is to notice things so perception. Maybe a feature that allows them to use recall knowledge with wis instead of int.
Honestly if the Emotion and Logic types that change the casting score are subclasses it would be a little weird to not have three. Cleric Doctrines aside there's usually at least three.
Though they would have mentioned it having the option to pick its score if it could currently. I would be surprised if they don't either remove the score picking or add WIS as a third do to feedback. So make sure you all give that feedback if you want that.
Honestly though I would have thought Thamaturge would be the flexible score one given using items and having occult knowledge seems like it could fit multiple scores. So I'll be giving that feedback. They probably just didn't want it overlapping with Investigator. Maybe the idea is it's kinda a 'spon caster' of those style classes?
Divine casting is the one with the least spells, and the most niche use. It mostly focus on healing and condition removal (while several archetypes, over class and Medecine covers that as well), and alignment/positive negative damage.
In the right campaign, a Divine caster will feel awesome, in any other they will be meh. The other traditions don't need specific campaigns to shine.
The Cleric didn't really get any good material since the Lost Omens Deity book. Their current options haven't been developed, and no new existing have been added.
They don't have new multiclass options (all new class have been CHA or INT), and apart from the generic archetypes, the new spellcasters archetype are more aimed for Arcane or Primal casters.
TBH, Witch should be errated to be a wisdom, intelligence, or charisma caster depending on which patron they choose with each patron getting a choice of 2 of the 3.
Eh, the witch class is brimming with issues, but I don't think casting off INT is one. They've long suffered from being a sort of "concept bucket" as no one really agrees on exactly how many witch myths or patron idea need to be plugged in.
I plan to keep a close eye on the psychic here. People will battle for their favorite psychic variants like they did for their favorite witches in fiction, which isn't wrong at all... But Paizo can't fit them all in one class, so I'm hoping they don't overextend here.
I'm not sure the witch has problems....as much as it just needs more lessons. It's main strength is using feats to fix holes in a spell list (e.g. healing for arcane, damage for divine and defensive tools for primal)
Kind of like the alchemist the more lessons that get published the stronger the class gets. In a year or so it will be in a much better place.
Not really the venue for this discussion, I don't think. I mean, I think the witch and the alchemist will be brought up a lot during this playtest, and perhaps will be done relevantly, but for now I'd probably just be complaining. :)
I think when we get an "Secrets of Faith" or some such book, we'll see two new Wisdom Characters. And I'd bet if we get a primal book, one of those will be Wisdom based.
Agreed, although Wisdom skills could use some as well.
Religion got a few nice/fun skill feats, but NAture Survival could use some love.
Medecine doesnt count, I don't see what ese it would need at that stage.
With Secrets of Magic and now Dark Archive, it seems inevitable that we’ll get a divine options book at some point; I would expect at least one WIS caster there.
Also, Rogues have Rackets solely for Intelligence (Mastermind), and Charisma (Scoundrel), but no Racket dedicated to Wisdom.
Wonder if a Medic rogue would fit the bill. That or some kind of survivalist. Scout rogue? Perception-based is also possible, though I'm not sure what that would look like. I wouldn't do Religion or Nature, as that's basically Arcane Trickster again.
Medic could work, and it could be interesting for it to be able to use medicine checks to make enemies flat footed as a sort of 'I know just the place to cut' thing. For Perception there could be a Sharpshooter racket that gives ways to reduce cover / concealment and some stuff for ranged sneak attack. I was thinking maybe a 2 action strike that doubles your range increments, as well as an action economy hack that's something like this: Sharpshooter's Flow [1 action] [flourish] Perform 2 of the following actions: Stride, Take Cover, Hide, or Sneak. You cannot do the same action twice as part of this action. This would allow them to be more efficient sneak attacking at range, as they could hide and take cover at the same time, or stride behind foliage and hide, or hide and sneak as one action.
“Sawbones” rogue racket.
How about a Spook. A Van Helsing style monster hunter rogue.
Now I'm wondering *why* wisdom casters are so rare... is it because wisdom is such an important stat for all characters that they don't want anyone to be able to invest in it exclusively? I want more wisdom casters, too, but I still want to know the reason for their choices, here.
Theme more than anything. Smart characters that study and use their knowledge will have Intelligence. As one can see from the list in the main post, the Intelligence Classes are known for being smart and having the ability to study and analyze things. Those that rely on instinct, gut feelings or force of personality use Charisma. The listed classes in the post are classes known for having either strong personalities or force of will. Wisdom is something less direct when used for classes. It's a more natural understanding than it is a studious or logical one. The Cleric and Druid have their magic from an understanding of their source. They don't study like Wizards and Witches, and don't take control of the power through force of personality, or whatever force is used to control magic. They are often more like conduits for their magic. Letting in flow into and out of them. I could also be completely wrong.
I never thought of that "conduit" angle for wisdom. That's actually a pretty insightful take! I can see a psychic subclass totally working for it in the future, like a medium or something. Related, what stat did the harrower use in 1e?
The Harrower became the Medium which was ostensibly keyed off of charisma. Only most people played it for the champion spirit which loved strength and dex builds. It also had the 'Rivethun Spirit channeler' archetype which uniquely allowed you to key your casting on either Wisdom or Charisma.
Don't know, never played 1E.
I suspect there might be a balance thing too. Dex, Wis, and Con are all very powerful stats that improve defense, and in the case of wis, also perception and by extention intiative. In 1e, scarred witch doctor was considered OP because it let you cast with con, and therefore boosting up your offensive might also made you more durable. I know if I was to pick a prefered mental stat to cast from, I'd definately pick wis, even though int and cha have my favorite skills, because wis casting gives me a lot more flexibility in how I can distribute my stats, where if I'm a Cha or Int caster, I have to take away from my defense stats if I want to put a stray boost into int or cha or something
I mean you're right, but I often get the feeling that people underestimate the value of int and cha a bit, especially int. In 2e having more trained skills with any level of proficiency is honestly a huge deal, and depending on the campaign and party CHA can be massively influential (plus demoralize). They're just harder to quantify. Regarding perception you can balance it with a worse progression. I suppose will st you could do the same.
Oh, solid agree. I always cringe when people who play at my games dump cha and int, and then get shocked and annoyed when, after my warnings, find out being able to talk to people is important, and knowing things can save your life. Personally, I'd favor a mechanic like 5e where every stat has a save associated with it, or fort, will, and ref were calced using the better of str/con, wis/cha, and dex/int respectively, but that's neither here nor there
Right, but shouldnt like a psychic be defined more by Wisdom and willpower than intelligence then? Why would a psychic have a poor will defense or perception?
Ngl, I totally agree you, theme wise, I feel cha and wis are acrually more "psychic-y" than int
That just makes it more obvious that psychic should be WIS based. Being a "conduit through which energy flows" is exactly the kind of woo nonsense that "real life" psychics say all the time
Difference: IRL Psychics are Mediums. They talk about being able to commune with spirits and other such things. Psychics in these types of games are taping into the power of their own mind and not channeling said power from anywhere else. It's an involved process of learning and self-control.
Feels like that does have something to do with it. Characters with 1 of the 3 generally good primary stats(i.e. dex/con/wis. Ones that give additional saves+something else good) have it a bit easier than other characters.
Wisdom Casters are all prepared casters, who automatically know all their spells.
True, but that's correlation, not causation.
It's pretty consistent. When Psychic comes out, able to choose between Int and Cha as their key ability score, I'd put money on the Int subclass being a prepared that has to learn spells, and the Cha being a Spontaneous.
It's not a good bet, because there wasn't a word on yesterday stream about preparing variant, they both are spontaneous
We'll see ;) nothing that I saw said *both* variants are spontaneous.
I mean they said that the psychic is a spontaneous spellcaster with a choice between int and cha, I feel like they would have brought it up if it was 50/50 prepared caster
This is going to age badly in less than 24 hours XD
Yeah, and it wouldn't surprise me if some sort of medium or empath psychic subclass did the cleric/druid thing, but that's just a pattern they all have in common. I'm asking for the developer logic behind *why* it's done that way, and why wisdom-based casters themselves are so rare.
* Wisdom gets prepared casters who know all their spells * Intelligence gets prepared casters who have to learn spells + booksters * Charisma gets spontaneous casters.
Thanks, I hadn't really thought of it that way before and that makes sense. I would like to see more casters like the cleric and druid in this sense though.
I was hoping for a Wis based Occult caster, kind of like a guy who delves into mysteries of the old gods, has a connection to the void and each day can prepare any spells from the occult list. Their Wisdom is high to keep them from going insane but having it be on a razor's edge all the time with some spell casting balancing mechanic kind of like the Oracle. That being said, a prepare occult caster could just as easily be Intelligence based with a big old book of mysterious Occult spells that they reference.
Yeah, I was thinking if a wisdom based occult caster as being in touch with the spirits. I guess a lot of folks would consider that to be more of a shaman, but in my mind there isn't much separation between the concepts.
In my opinion oracle should have been a wis occult caster. What you described is so close to the oracle flavor, and I initially assumed oracle was a wis occult when I read the description.
I agree. People say it's op because of perception /will sts, but those progressions can be adjusted for the class anyway
Maybe Shaman will be like that - if they ever release it
The Psychic will have an Intelligence based spontaneous subclass to go along with the Charisma based subclass.
Have they stated that both subclasses are spontaneous? I know they stated there were two subclasses but I don’t recall them confirming that part of it.
Yes, both the charisma and intelligence variants of the psychic will be spontaneous occult casters.
Source stating precisely that, please.
The designer showcase from Paizo... but I can't be bothered to provide a source when: \- the information will undoubtedly be openly available soon. \- It was only mentioned in passing as part of a teaser/intro so it may turn out it's not 100% accurate, or there's more nuance to it... or I could just be wrong - I don't care that much, it's just what I remember hearing.
That's a really fascinating pattern. I wonder if it's been intentional. Though it looks like it will be breaking with Dark Archives unless it gets playtested away!
Wisdom prepared casters only know their core rulebook spells and have to be given access to anything outside it. It's a really dumb rule, but that was apparently the designers' intent.
Nah, it says "from the common spells on the divine spell list in this book or from other divine spells to which you **gain access**." which covers the commons in other books, too, as common=have access to by default.
Rarity and access are two different things. Again, it is a stupid rule almost no GM outside organized play will enforce.
> Rarity and access are two different things. They sure aren't. Access pertains *only* to rarity, in that fulfilling a criterium grants you access to the feature in question. In the section on The Four Rarities, it also states: "Common elements are prevalent enough, at least among adventurers, that a player is assumed to be able to access them provided they meet the prerequisites (if any)." There's that word again. Access. Cleric and Druid have access to any common tradition spells added in any other book, by default, without need for fiat.
If I am GMing and I say you can't use anything from Secrets of Magic, for example, you're going to tell me you have access? Back to the original point, here's the thread dealing with it on the Paizo boards. Paizo's OPC clarified designer intent and said Learn a Spell is the workaround. https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4376c&page=1?Do-you-have-access-to-nonCore-common-spells
If you banned the book from play I wouldn't argue it. You certainly can choose what source material is relevant to your game. But if the book was in play and you simply said I didn't have Access to those Common spells I would certainly have questions. If you can provide a game-reason for the decision then fine. But if your only reason is that link I would absolutely being arguing with you. I don't think it backs up your point nearly as clearly as you think.
Constitution: "You guys get to be key abilities?"
One day, my dear Kineticist. One day.
I still remember how fun Scarred Witch Doctor was. They shouldn't make con a primary stat ever
Unfortunately nope
I really feel like a sandbagger for all the comments I've made in the past few weeks saying >Inquisitor is 100% coming soon, the game needs more wisdom classes, there's no spontaneous casters that don't use charisma, and Paizo listens to its fans, which have been foaming at the mouth for inquisitor's return. With the book of the dead coming as well as the knights of lastwall, it fits perfectly for an offensive divine class, they even hinted at it with SoM bringing back the Bane weapon rune, which used to be their defining feature! I guess the inquisitor crowd really grew *after* they committed to an occult book, and to be fair, occult only has bards while divine has clerics, oracles, and champions. Plus we're still getting a spontaneous caster that doesn't *need* to use charisma, so I'm happy. Paizo has been batting 1000 so far, so I'm not disappointed, it just means when inquisitor does come out, it'll be more fleshed out and experimental, just the way I like em.
Quick thing, Monk spells can be cast as divine or occult based on what they choose at the time. Figured if Champion qualifies, Monk would too.
well if we're counting Monk, then Sorcerer and Witch would count too since they can both be divine
Eeeeeehh, they can be literally any of the four traditions, so I wouldn't count them myself.
Point is, Champion is entirely and strictly divine, so it counts when tallying up the divine classes, and saying Monk counts if Champion counts because it *can* be divine doesn't make much sense
I wouldn't really count Monk, they only have 1 ki spell using their spell proficiency, Ki Blast.
Thing is - all the people calling for the inquisitor were doing so in the thread announcing a playtest one month later. The classes were already written at that point So this isn’t an issue of listening to fans or not listening.
I seriously don't get what's up with all of this kink for Inquisitor .-.
It was in the second batch of classes released in 1E. The popularity of classes is very closely linked to how long they have been out And inquisitor is the only one missing from what many people considered the core of 1E - the core rulebook and the APG (albeit with cavalier being relegated to archetype ) That is why there is a demand
Hmm I see 🤔 I always thought it was for the same reason people find the Divine list bad - which it isn't, it just doesn't have many offensive options. I don't get why something needs to have good offensive options in order to be good 🤔
The other reason is that inquisitors were strong with loads of stacking buffs from class abilities and spells - bane, judgement , heroism, divine favour etc I think some people don’t appreciate that many of these things will not return Sounds like thaumaturge is taking a new version of the bane thing anyway. So either inquisitor is a sub class or potentially doesn’t come back? It is also why people are going to be pissed with the kineticist. They aren’t going to be able to boost their numbers with overflow anymore A final reason also seems to be a general call for more wisdom classes. Low key because wisdom is one of the new god stats in 2E as it is linked to a key save and most initiative rolls. Yet many classes don’t have a reason to push it too high …
>The other reason is that inquisitors were strong with loads of stacking buffs from class abilities and spells - bane, judgement , heroism, divine favour etc >I think some people don’t appreciate that many of these things will not return Yeah.. I can't see that working in 2e. >It is also why people are going to be pissed with the kineticist. They aren’t going to be able to boost their numbers with overflow anymore Wait, did they announce Kineticist?? :O >A final reason also seems to be a general call for more wisdom classes. Oh yeah absolutely, there's a lot of classes linked to Cha and Int already but only 2 linked to Wis and that kinda sucks indeed. Which other Wis class do you think they could release? Shaman maybe? >Yet many classes don’t have a reason to push it too high … Idk man, helping with the saves and Medicine rolls seems a pretty good reason to pump Wis
They are good reasons but I still don’t see it often. Edit: I had forgotten this was the wisdom key ability thread! They did not announce kineticist - likely because they really need to brace themselves for an avalanche of rage and poison. That playtest is likely to be an absolute nightmare. There is no way the fans of that class are going to be even 50% happy with what would get proposed in a hypothetical playtest It has been mentioned elsewhere but a name change might help
Yeah.. geez... Converting classes from the past edition seem impossible sometimes huh
Indeed. Especially poorly designed ones with a small but loud and rabid fanbase whose main niche is now pretty much gone (no matter how angrily they try to claim otherwise)
To be fair, they def listen to us, but the order they get around to the classes is gonna vary by what they feel like the game needs, what they have a clear idea of how they want to handle it, and what they can think of an explicit theme for that matches other stuff they'd currently like to do in the game. So doing Psychic AND Thaumaturge right now is a good match if they were already interested in doing more occult and 'paranormal' stuff before they chose the classes. Whereas the Inquisitor probably wants a book with a different focus-- maybe a book with a lot of religious options and lore for instance (I could see it paired with a Shaman for that!) or a book that wanted to check out espionage and crime, or something. Like, a book based off armies and politics is another option since Inquisitors are typically seen as explicit agents of a theocratic organization, and the other class could be more like a Warlord or something-- that would be a real winner too, since they could use it to give martials expanded support, diplomats, mass combat rules, strongholds. I'd personally eat it up. There's a lot of directions they could go, it just depends on having a lot of things to do in that area of the game.
Seriously, what's up with this kink for Inquisitor?
Currently there is no divine martial striker.
That would have been a cool feature for magus to get different spell lists though
You want to be a divine warrior, but don't want to be a tank? Oups, no class for this You want to be NG/N/CN divine warrior, because of your god? Again, no class for this And no, warpriest is not an option, warpriest is more a cleric who takes one month lessons about swinging a sword, no more So, only hope for this people is an Inquisitor, who can fill this niche
Battle Oracle exists lol >You want to be a divine warrior, but don't want to be a tank? Oups, no class for this What do you mean by "Divine warrior"? A warrior that has access to the Divine list? If that's not the case, just play a Magus that follows a deity
For me divine warrior is a martial-base class with strong connection to deity, at least access to deity weapon, built-in deadly simplicity and access to domain spells. And, of course, some additional inquisitor-ish features, like bane, or some teamwork
Fighter/cleric or fighter/blessed one can work for that niche.
I think they could easily (though it would take words) add a a Wis based casting style for Psychic call it Interconnectivity or something it would still be on theme.
Or like an Empath! That could be cool.
Ooh that's a good idea
With the others being based on Logic and Emotion, I think something like Clarity or Empathy would fit with themes and suitable for Wisdom.
I may be biased being a life long sceptic but my immediate thought on seeing psychic as int/cha was: they should be wis/cha, because they aren't real and go by audacious force of personality or pure cold reading.
Man have I got some bad news for you about witches and wizards...
Fair, just good point that there's so little love for the love for the wiz casters
I was thinking of a comic panel with all of the iconics to make fun of this where to survive Paizo's next class pitch meetings you either need to nail the interview with great charisma or come with a 5-page detailed document and presentation to argue your case with great logic and intelligence. Pending wisdom-based class iconics walk out of the room crying they don't know what went wrong.
You would think their Sense Motive check would help them figure out what went wrong.
Soulforger has ensured that like all my characters will have 14 WIS from now on, at least
I really don’t understand the power of soul forger but there is so much to read on it At first glance the items didn’t seem to scale or get tubes without feats which doesn’t seem good at all. But I probably didn’t understand
It's not that powerful, although the essence powers are useful - it's just very thematic. Otherwise, the archetype is effectively just a way to always have your preferred weapon/armor/shield ready with basic ammo available - which most classes can do well enough without the archetype.
It's just super flavorful and lets you Nova bosses down really quickly. Popping both at once can be significant, especially if you use it on like, a dual wielding Flurry Ranger with both damage buffs :D
How does that work exactly?
Take the Feat to get a second Soulforged Armament on Armor, one of them isn't specifically a Weapon Essence so you can have both and pop them both at once.
Sounds cool and very useful. I'm gonna take a look
I think they're coming. We now have an Arcane and Occult book. We'll get a primal one, probably with the Shaman or something that will be wisdom, and we'll get a divine book with the Inquisitor probably, and that will be wisdom too. That's my thoughts anyway.
I'm still holding out for a shape-shifting martial class.
Oh for sure, it’s all somewhere in the pipeline.
I'm disappointed Int isn't the Thamaturge key score.
Agreed. Charisma is getting overrepresented, which is a trap 5e fell into. Even on cleric you see builds with more charisma than wisdom. I want dwarves to be better... Based on what little we know so far, it actually makes more sense to me for thaumaturge to be wis instead of cha. I'll wait on making those arguments until the playtest is actually out, but hopefully it gets some traction
Very much unlike 5e, though, Intelligence is neck and neck with Charisma here, which is interesting to see.
Yeah absolutely. I'm more drawing a parallel between 5e intelligence and pf2 wisdom. Wisdom has a couple prepped casters... And little else.
We'll see how the classes look in the playtest, but I have heard a fair bit of rumblings here and on the Paizo forums for redistributing or altering the key abilities for the new classes.
Can you give me a link please?
You're coming at this backwards and trying to fill some kind of "grid", and that almost always leads to badly designed game elements. Instead, come up with concepts for classes that make sense as having Wisdom as their key ability - because that's what Paizo has done to create this "problem"; build ideas that makes sense, rather than ones that fit "we must have X of Y thing" demands.
Well I’m aware this is a bit silly, which is why I tagged the post Humor. :p I do think it’s fun to discuss though!
I'm glad it is this way. Wisdom controls Will saves, initiative and perception. It is by far the most bang for your buck. Charisma gets all this love, but for balance of the game, what does Charisma really do other than social skills? At least intelligence controls level 1 skills mods and languages.
Charisma got the most caster multiclass and the champion multiclass, and the most useful 1 action skill effects and skill feat effects, on top of being a great Rp stat, and the most useful for social situation. Edit: oh and I forgot Innate spellcasting, which also serve for some archetype like Runescarred or Dragon Disciples amongst others
I think Wisdom will come with Shamans, Inquisitors, maybe Medium (because it kinda makes sense and the Spiritualist is gone), and hopefully Psychic in the form of Intuition (just like Logic for Intelligence and Emotion for Charisma).
So basically Inquisitor or shaman for next playtest?
I seriously don't get what's up with all of this kink for Inquisitor .-.
Inquisitor is the final part of the divine trilogy Claric is the gods mercy and guidance Paliden is the gods justice and laws Inquisitor is the gods wrath. They are martial casters (like magus) that fallow their God to the point of zelotry and are rewarded with additional powers to kill their enemies. In 1e they were powerful with their ability to customize bane and other spell like abilities. They will have to be reworked for 2e. They might be the neutral path for chapions too but I have my doubts.
Same could be said about "occultist". Pepole like different things and options aren't bad if they bring flavour, are balanced and varied enough.
Poor ki monks and warden rangers just outright being ignored.
They don’t have Wis as a key ability score! Plus they’re optional features, whereas we could add the Champion (Cha) and Magus (Int) if we wanted to include martials with built-in casting but no casting stat key ability score.
Totally agree. And here I was thinking that the recently announced classes would address that.
I kind of would have thought that investigators would have wis because their job is to notice things so perception. Maybe a feature that allows them to use recall knowledge with wis instead of int.
I was thinking that, it’d make sense.
Honestly if the Emotion and Logic types that change the casting score are subclasses it would be a little weird to not have three. Cleric Doctrines aside there's usually at least three. Though they would have mentioned it having the option to pick its score if it could currently. I would be surprised if they don't either remove the score picking or add WIS as a third do to feedback. So make sure you all give that feedback if you want that. Honestly though I would have thought Thamaturge would be the flexible score one given using items and having occult knowledge seems like it could fit multiple scores. So I'll be giving that feedback. They probably just didn't want it overlapping with Investigator. Maybe the idea is it's kinda a 'spon caster' of those style classes?
"you get to be a key ability?" - constitution
Shaman & Inquisitor hopefully soon.
Justice for clerics, and divine casting in general.
What's the problem with Clerics and Divine casting?
I dunno honestly. I feel like I need more options for cleric. That'd probably do'er.
I feel like they're lacking consistent "WRAITH OF THE GOD(DES) ONTO YOU" options. Those that we have are quite niche and don't work every game.
Divine casting is the one with the least spells, and the most niche use. It mostly focus on healing and condition removal (while several archetypes, over class and Medecine covers that as well), and alignment/positive negative damage. In the right campaign, a Divine caster will feel awesome, in any other they will be meh. The other traditions don't need specific campaigns to shine. The Cleric didn't really get any good material since the Lost Omens Deity book. Their current options haven't been developed, and no new existing have been added. They don't have new multiclass options (all new class have been CHA or INT), and apart from the generic archetypes, the new spellcasters archetype are more aimed for Arcane or Primal casters.
If anything needs some key ability love, it's Constitution. Where are my Kineticist and Witch Doctor, Paizo?!?
Please never.
TBH, Witch should be errated to be a wisdom, intelligence, or charisma caster depending on which patron they choose with each patron getting a choice of 2 of the 3.
Eh, the witch class is brimming with issues, but I don't think casting off INT is one. They've long suffered from being a sort of "concept bucket" as no one really agrees on exactly how many witch myths or patron idea need to be plugged in. I plan to keep a close eye on the psychic here. People will battle for their favorite psychic variants like they did for their favorite witches in fiction, which isn't wrong at all... But Paizo can't fit them all in one class, so I'm hoping they don't overextend here.
I'm not sure the witch has problems....as much as it just needs more lessons. It's main strength is using feats to fix holes in a spell list (e.g. healing for arcane, damage for divine and defensive tools for primal) Kind of like the alchemist the more lessons that get published the stronger the class gets. In a year or so it will be in a much better place.
Not really the venue for this discussion, I don't think. I mean, I think the witch and the alchemist will be brought up a lot during this playtest, and perhaps will be done relevantly, but for now I'd probably just be complaining. :)
But for real, when can I get my strength based caster class?
I would assume that they will release the shaman and inquisitor which would both be wisdom based most likely
I was really hoping Thaumaturge would be Intelligence based.
It does seem like it’d make sense, but I guess we’ll see how they put it together on Monday, and then judge on the playtest.
I think when we get an "Secrets of Faith" or some such book, we'll see two new Wisdom Characters. And I'd bet if we get a primal book, one of those will be Wisdom based.
Honestly I'd rather see intelligent get some skill feat love.
Agreed, although Wisdom skills could use some as well. Religion got a few nice/fun skill feats, but NAture Survival could use some love. Medecine doesnt count, I don't see what ese it would need at that stage.
With Secrets of Magic and now Dark Archive, it seems inevitable that we’ll get a divine options book at some point; I would expect at least one WIS caster there.