Dreamscarred Press Announces: Path of War Expanded

[Prime32]

Makes sense, figured I'd ask though simply because it's a cool archetype that's always been hard to express in d20 without just going anti paladin (which has its own issues doing it etc. etc.) and since we have stuff like a light armored damage oriented dual wielding warder blurring the lines might happen more.

You are right though, the idea is basically half a warder and half a harbinger smooshed together.

I figure it might work as a martial archetype for the dread.

Speaking of dread, this homebrew might interest you.

[Anlashok]

I figure it might work as a martial archetype for the dread.

I've mostly written off the Dread at this point, but could be.

Speaking of dread, this homebrew might interest you.

I do like this class though. Very spiffy.

[PsyBomb]

I have a Dread in a game I'm running (Kingdom Hearts setting, he's playing Jack Skellington). Don't dismiss them out of hand, they can be dangerous and very tough to kill. Perhaps not as cleanly done and strong as the other manifesters, but still far from truly bad.

[Anlashok]

I have a Dread in a game I'm running (Kingdom Hearts setting, he's playing Jack Skellington). Don't dismiss them out of hand, they can be dangerous and very tough to kill. Perhaps not as cleanly done and strong as the other manifesters, but still far from truly bad.

Well, monks can be dangerous and tough to kill too. Just can't help but feel like the class did not get nearly as much attention as others. No racial archetypes, asynergistic manifesting, half casting -and- 3/4ths BAB, relatively underwhelming terrors, feat taxes, only class without a racial archetype... and all propped up by one really great class feature.

Not unworkable, but feels like a beta rather than a finished product.

[Relinara]

So if overlapping archetypes are a problem, do you consider the Soul Hunter a mistake? Not only does it share themes and equipment with the Harbinger, but both of their claiming features are nearly identical.

Second question, are you going to put the class templates on the new classes at all? A Zealot Bushi seems so obvious I'm surprised you can't do it right now and I suppose Harbingers might make decent Privateers.

[Snowbluff]

When are you guys planning to fix Bladecaster?

[Lord_Gareth]

So if overlapping archetypes are a problem, do you consider the Soul Hunter a mistake? Not only does it share themes and equipment with the Harbinger, but both of their claiming features are nearly identical.

Not overlapping; transformative. Harbinger's not a heavy armored tank. Turning it into one would be quite the expense of effort. Frankly I wasn't too sold on doing Ravenlord at first but it was...shall we say, insisted upon, and I've grown to like it. A heavy-armored tank focused around debuffs and/or evil is a Warder or a Zealot, not a Harbinger. Soul Hunter works fine; it doesn't change Stalker's essential role/identity, it just refines it in a different direction. A Soul Hunter is still a damage-oriented striker whose chief tools are mobility, single strikes and ki.

What bothers me is when you see archetypes that take a class and turn it into a cheap imitation of another class. I'd rather see, oh, bardic music on a paladin than I would a "divine bard" archetype that adds more martial features and changes up the spell list. For me, personally, it's a question of elegance. Why change almost everything about Class X when Class Y only needs a few things changed to fit your concept?

Second question, are you going to put the class templates on the new classes at all? A Zealot Bushi seems so obvious I'm surprised you can't do it right now and I suppose Harbingers might make decent Privateers.

We miiiiiight. This is still under discussion/internal development, but it's not as simple as it looks, strictly. We may also, or instead, do class templates made with the new classes in mind.

[squiggit]

Been trying to make a strength harbinger with a giant weapon. Stat juggling is a bit annoying and Accursed Will is an absolute godsend because of it, but more importantly I've discovered that there's very, very few strength/int races.

Seriously, looking at jiang-shi dhampir, werecrocodile skinwalkers or male lashunta and that's it. Almost makes me want to lobby for you guys to change your stance in PoW races.

Starting to warm up to the idea of a giant angry harbinger crocodile though.

Though mostly I wanted to say I love the class, both of the new disciplines are all kinds of awesome (though on every one I've been making I've traded away primal fury for something else). The movement types are awesome. The debuffs are awesome. The idea of a super-speedster smart debuffer is a bit of an odd one, but it ends up coming together really well (sort of reminds me of the cryptic in that regard, love the class but it's a very strange hodgepodge to sum up to someone).

[Ilorin Lorati]

Human can also get double +2, by trading out their skill and feat.

Probably wouldn't want to do that, though.

[Chris Robin R2]

Is there some reason you can't have heavy armor AND be mobile?

[deuxhero]

DSP already made a +strength +int race, though the Forgeborn have yet to be added to the SRD.

[Shinken]

Is there some reason you can't have heavy armor AND be mobile?

Well, the whole point of having a difference between light, medium and heavy armor is enforcing concepts like that. You could make a class to avoid all that (dwarves kind of already do, anyway), but I don't think going too far in that direction is good design.

[Seerow]

Well, the whole point of having a difference between light, medium and heavy armor is enforcing concepts like that. You could make a class to avoid all that (dwarves kind of already do, anyway), but I don't think going too far in that direction is good design.

Given that heavy armor doesn't provide a meaningful level of protection compared to light armor, I tend to think the mobility limitations on it are pretty draconian. I generally let anyone strong enough totally ignore the movement speed penalties imposed by Medium/Heavy armor just to see people wear something other than Mithral Breastplates.

[deuxhero]

Noticed you could pair Bushi's ability to recover manuvers for free every round with Awakened Blade's abilities to gain psionic focus when regaining manuvers and ability expend focus to double up counters. Being able to throw out 3 counters a round is pretty nice, but being able to almost always do at least 2 is nice.

[Shinken]

Given that heavy armor doesn't provide a meaningful level of protection compared to light armor, I tend to think the mobility limitations on it are pretty draconian.

It provides much better protection if you don't have high Dex. Can't do anything if you don't like it. Change it in your games, I guess.

[Seerow]

It provides much better protection if you don't have high Dex. Can't do anything if you don't like it. Change it in your games, I guess.

Somewhere between level 8 and 12 AC loses a huge chunk of its value, so even if the AC bonus was significant, nobody would really care much. Factor in that the bonus really isn't all that significant compared to all of the other factors that go into AC, and it makes heavy armor a burden to have, rather than a bonus. Because while having high AC loses its value, being restricted to 2/3rds your max move speed remains a meaningful penalty until you have at will teleportation (something most people interested in heavy armor aren't going to get).


But thank you for the permission to change rules I disagree with in my games. I never would have though of it.

[PsyBomb]

Somewhere between level 8 and 12 AC loses a huge chunk of its value, so even if the AC bonus was significant, nobody would really care much. Factor in that the bonus really isn't all that significant compared to all of the other factors that go into AC, and it makes heavy armor a burden to have, rather than a bonus. Because while having high AC loses its value, being restricted to 2/3rds your max move speed remains a meaningful penalty until you have at will teleportation (something most people interested in heavy armor aren't going to get).


But thank you for the permission to change rules I disagree with in my games. I never would have though of it.

Ironically, given the topic of the thread, the heavily-armored players we are talking about can be relatively easily built with nigh at-will teleportation in combat. Speaking of, a Tradition of mysticism for Veiled Moon would make SO many buids easier to make it isn't even funny.

[Sayt]

Noticed you could pair Bushi's ability to recover manuvers for free every round with Awakened Blade's abilities to gain psionic focus when regaining manuvers and ability expend focus to double up counters. Being able to throw out 3 counters a round is pretty nice, but being able to almost always do at least 2 is nice.

Pathwalker Awakened Blade can do this to a point as well. Attack someone, maybe with a strike, activating Greater Psionic Weapon, and spend a swift action as per Pathwalker's recovery mechanism, regain a maneuver, hypercognitive focus regains the focus you expended on Greater Psionic Weapon. Rinse, repeat, using a different strike each turn.

Another odd point, is that due to the vast majority of strikes being single hit attacks, Furious Focus becomes, I think, a much better feat for initiators. You're only going to be making one attack most rounds, so you really want to make sure that attack hits. It also means you can double down on Power Attack and Primal Fury Supah power attack strikes while still having a to hit which isn't trash.

[Snowbluff]

And I don't think Bladecaster can... action economy being BORKED and everything. They can't use their features without a swift action available.

#bladecasterborked

EDIT: Who wrote the class? Is the reason why complaints against the class have gone unanswered personal? Are you favoring Psionics on purpose? Why haven't we received word on the class? Is it really that unpopular? Did the Paizo board complain during playtest, dooming the PrC to a Swashbuckler-type mess? Is this sort of thing why new members are not allowed to post on the DSP board? Trying to keep the hype train going? It's been a while, and I'm wondering what you're going to do about this.

[Shinken]

But thank you for the permission to change rules I disagree with in my games. I never would have though of it.

Was that rudeness necessary? I've been nothing but polite towards you.

Pathwalker Awakened Blade can do this to a point as well. Attack someone, maybe with a strike, activating Greater Psionic Weapon, and spend a swift action as per Pathwalker's recovery mechanism, regain a maneuver, hypercognitive focus regains the focus you expended on Greater Psionic Weapon. Rinse, repeat, using a different strike each turn.

Soul Hunter can do the same. I thought they were going to change it so you couldn't do that, since it seems a bit too strong.

Another odd point, is that due to the vast majority of strikes being single hit attacks, Furious Focus becomes, I think, a much better feat for initiators. You're only going to be making one attack most rounds, so you really want to make sure that attack hits. It also means you can double down on Power Attack and Primal Fury Supah power attack strikes while still having a to hit which isn't trash.

I really don't like those maneuvers. We already have Power Attack the feat, after all, why Power Attack the discipline? I don't think any of my characters will ever take those maneuvers.

[ghanjrho]

Some thoughts on Disciplines for existing classes. I'm focusing mainly on the Discipines released with PoW 1

Barbarian: Primal Fury
Bard: Golden Lion,
Fighter: Broken Blade, Thrashing Dragon, Scarlet Throne, Primal Fury, Iron Tortoise
Monk: Broken Blade
Paladin: Silver Crane, Golden Lion
Ranger: Primal Fury, Thrashing Dragon/Solar Wind
Rogue: Steel Serpent, Veiled Moon, Thrashing Dragon, Scarlet Throne
Alchemist: Broken Blade (maybe)
Cavalier: Golden Lion, Scarlet Throne, Piercing Lance
Inquisitor: Silver Crane/Black Seraph (by deity), Golden Lion, Solar Wind
Magus: I wouldn't.
Gunslinger: Solar Wind.

Obviously, this is just a partial list, and I've left off almost all of the Disciplines to come out in PoW:E (just don't know them very well). Magus is too thematically about using spells to fight, IMO, for maneuvers. Alchemist is surprisingly tough to assign disciplines to; most combat builds use either natural weapons or splash weapons, the latter of which doesn't really map to any disciplines. Fighter should probably get all non-supernatural disciplines, with the possible exception of Mithral Current.

[ghanjrho]

Sorry for the double post, but they're about different things.

My wishlist for PoW2: PoW Harder


Something to enhance unarmed strikes that doesn't labor under the delusion that unarmed strikes are natural weapons.
Some exotic weapons that are worth the feat.
Dualistic (preferably in the +10K version) and the discipline special weapons from ToB*
Some archtypes for the Stalker that play with it's discipline loadout.
An Adaptive Style-esque feat, or at least something to let the Warlord and Martial Trainees get more use out their unreadied maneuvers. I think that maintaining the readied/unreadied status and limiting it to initiation modifier is a good start.
Some initiator-oriented traits. DC on specific maneuvers, IL increases for specific disciplines. Can be a help to Martial Trainees, to limit some the induced MAD. Martial Training VI practically requires a +5 modifier to the ability that governs the discipline skill.
All the little items to avoid TPK by lack of spellcaster (the slime pet et al)

*in ToB, it was a +1 enchant that gave +1 to hit if you knew a maneuver of the given discipline, increasing to +3 if you were using a stance or maneuver of that discipline. For PoW, maybe something like a +2 equivalent, with the same accuracy bonus as before, while increasing the DCs of maneuvers from the discipline by 2.

[Sayt]

I'm on the fence about them myself. I like them "Ohhh, big numbers", but I'm afraid Gm's are going to go "Numbers are how big?"

And as for the schools for the PF classes, those look about right, although I don't know about Solar wind for Inquisitor, the Iconic wields a bow, but none of their class features are specifically tailored towards archery.

[squiggit]

Magus is too thematically about using spells to fight, IMO, for maneuvers.

Magus is all about seamlessly meshing martial and magical combat, practically screams maneuver capable. Plus disciplines like shattered mirror and scarlet throne are perfect for 'em.

[PsyBomb]

Some thoughts on Disciplines for existing classes. I'm focusing mainly on the Discipines released with PoW 1

Barbarian: Primal Fury
Bard: Golden Lion,
Fighter: Broken Blade, Thrashing Dragon, Scarlet Throne, Primal Fury, Iron Tortoise
Monk: Broken Blade
Paladin: Silver Crane, Golden Lion
Ranger: Primal Fury, Thrashing Dragon/Solar Wind
Rogue: Steel Serpent, Veiled Moon, Thrashing Dragon, Scarlet Throne
Alchemist: Broken Blade (maybe)
Cavalier: Golden Lion, Scarlet Throne, Piercing Lance
Inquisitor: Silver Crane/Black Seraph (by deity), Golden Lion, Solar Wind
Magus: I wouldn't.
Gunslinger: Solar Wind.

Obviously, this is just a partial list, and I've left off almost all of the Disciplines to come out in PoW:E (just don't know them very well). Magus is too thematically about using spells to fight, IMO, for maneuvers. Alchemist is surprisingly tough to assign disciplines to; most combat builds use either natural weapons or splash weapons, the latter of which doesn't really map to any disciplines. Fighter should probably get all non-supernatural disciplines, with the possible exception of Mithral Current.

I would give Veiled Moon to Monk as well, given that it blends the Physical and the Mystical (which is, in theory, what the Monk is all about). I'm too lazy to pull up the weapons reference list to flesh it out a bit more, but let's face it, the Monk needs some serious help if you're working from baseline.

[Shinken]

Magus is all about seamlessly meshing martial and magical combat, practically screams maneuver capable. Plus disciplines like shattered mirror and scarlet throne are perfect for 'em.

This, so much this. A martial magus would probably change spell combat to do a Strike + a spell, I believe.

[Lord_Gareth]

This, so much this. A martial magus would probably change spell combat to do a Strike + a spell, I believe.

I'll be writing the magus archetype. I have...ideas...already.

[Sayt]

I would give Veiled Moon to Monk as well, given that it blends the Physical and the Mystical (which is, in theory, what the Monk is all about). I'm too lazy to pull up the weapons reference list to flesh it out a bit more, but let's face it, the Monk needs some serious help if you're working from baseline.

Actually, I agree with this. I also nominate Steel Serpent for Monks, due to it being about ki manipulation.

[Taveena]

Given Abundant Step, they're literally already doing what Veiled Moon does by default. Just in a really boring way.

[Forrestfire]

So, I decided to take a full look at the Bladecaster prestige class, since gishes are my favorite sort of concept to play, and really, my main thought on it is...

Spoiler: Disappointment

Show

Prerequisites

• +4 BAB, 2nd-level Arcane Spells, 1st-level Maneuvers, and a Stance
  This means that in order to get in, you need to have some combination of these:
  
  • Bard-like caster 4/Full BAB 1
  • Bard-like caster 6
  • Prepared full caster 3/Full BAB 3
  • Full caster 4/Full BAB 2
  • Full caster 6/Full BAB 1
  • Full caster 8
  • The optimal entry into the class is to use Path of War full BAB classes, which is great. The minimum entry into the class with a full arcane caster is level 7, which I personally have issues with. That’s a lot of delaying to reach a “magic knight” concept. The bard entry is useful if you’re fine maxing at 6, but is not what I personally would imagine the class wanting.
  • There is also a possible entry into the class using the Martial Training feats, but you need to either have the BAB (so, taking Martial Training at 7 and Advanced Training at 9 for a stance) or be a wizard, for Knowledge (Martial) access. You would still enter the class at level 9, however, because of the BAB requirements.
• Combat Casting, Improved Counterspell
  
  Feat taxes to enter, but that’s ok. It’s a casting PrC, it’s expected.
• Spellcraft 5 ranks
  
  Any spellcaster worth their salt can have this
  
• Knowledge (Martial) 5 ranks
  
  Locks a dipless entry to the Wizards. Encourages dipping an initiator class. I am ok with this, because it encourages theurging the classes rather than just getting in through feats.
  I've just been informed that I am terrible at remembering rules.

Really, the main issue I have with the prerequisites is that the class requires at least level 6 to even qualify for, which is just… kinda blah. That means that you’ve got two to three levels of being mediocre at two things before you can even begin to meet your character concept and be decent at it. At level 7.

The Class
Stats: Full BAB, one good save, d10 hit die. That’s normal, nothing impressive or unimpressive. It’s a gish class, these are expected. 4+ skill points is nice to see, though.

The Abilities

Spellcasting: 8/10 casting. What I expected. Nothing to see here.

Maneuvers: 1 per level of maneuver. I didn’t expect anything different, but it feels really limited.

Martial Caster (light): Casting in light armor! Awesome. Not something super amazing, but it’s useful and something nice to have.

Stance of Arcane Steel: The stance thing follows the same idea as the Jade Phoenix Mage’s, and is actually better than the first stance that said class got. I’m comparing it to that, because it was a really neat PrC, so being better than that is a plus. The downside? It’s boring, mechanically. You can burn spell slots for minor effects, but it’s just… bleh. The effects are a crappy half-Arcane Strike, the other half of Arcane Strike, an AC bonus that’s just worse than you’d get by burning a 1st-level spell slot for shield (the only real benefits here are that it’s a free action for an untyped bonus, but that’s outweighed by the fact that it only lasts a round, and shields are probably not being used anyway, so the untyped bonus doesn’t matter). Grace of the Arcane is neat and useful, if you know to expect that sort of save in the next round. Situational, but good. Energy Shield is similar.
However, these are just kinda minor magical effects. There’s no real flavor to it, other than “I have buff spells.”

Arcane Steel: Passive effect that gets you temporary HP when you cast a spell. It’s another +minor bonus thing, and another thing that’s just really boring. “Yay, I have bigger numbers.” Isn’t this the sort of thing that Path of War’s trying to fight? Also, why is it called the same thing as the stance?

Arcane Recovery: We finally have an ability that’s actually interesting, but instead of being something that takes the classes the PrC is combining and finds something cool for them to do, it’s a “you can sacrifice part of your abilities to get extra uses of a worse one”. The +2 to caster level is neat (and helps to make up for the 3 caster levels lost so far), but burning spells to recover maneuvers is… less neat. If only because at the back of your mind, there’s going to be a little voice going “why not just cast or save the spell, or use another maneuver. Manuevers recover naturally, spells don’t until the next day.” Burning a limited resource to refuel a less limited resource just feels awkward, even if it’s situationally useful. On the plus side? It totally fits the concept of a warrior who uses magic to fuel their combat abilities. That’s cool. I like that. I just wish it was better.

Battlecaster's Strike: Now we’re getting somewhere. Channeling spells through your weapon. Magic Knight stuff. Badass, thematic, flavorful. It’s touch spells only, which is a shame (and an issue I always had with other spell channel abilities), but at least it’s here. I was going to say something about it requiring a spell level equal to or less than the manuever used, but then I realized that the preferred entry into the class lands you with initiator level 8 and caster level 8 at level 11, when you get this ability. Which is another awkward thing (because it’s down a full two spell and maneuver levels in exchange for being ok at fighting), but at least they grow at the same rate. Limited uses per day makes me sad.

Arcane Ruin: Useful, but boring. It’s another “I have numbers” ability, this time disguised as a debuff. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good. -2 to saves means a lot. It’s just flavorless to me. Also, as written, the debuff seems like it might go away if you use Arcane Recovery at all. Yay anti-synergy?

Martial Counterspell: This is the coolest ability the class has. Honestly, it may as well be the capstone for me, because it’s infinitely cooler than the level 10 ability. This is what playing a gish is about to me, the true blending of magic and swordplay: being able to defend against a magic without using your own, by being just that good. It's awesome, and exceptionally badass thematically. If the class came with the ability to burn spells to negate attack rolls, I think that I’d be in love, even with my other issues with the class. The one downside? This ability comes online at level 14. It would have been a lot cooler earlier, but at least it’s strong enough to compete as an ability at this level. Power-wise, not worth just getting 6th-level spells at level 14 for, but still cool.

Improved Battlecasting: Aha, there’s the channeling of non-touch spells. At level 16, where the cooler ranged touch attacks no longer matter. At least you can disintegrate things with your sword now, though, so that’s neat.

Arcane Assault: Martial Counterspell conveys the full blending of martial techniques and spellcasting better than this. This is, effectively, a free quicken on a ray or touch spell. It’s strong, but it’s just a limited metamagic reducer. On top of that, it makes it so that if you want to combine magic with martial stuff, Golems are now immune to both rather than just the one, as are things with good saves.

I realize that this is pathfinder, so all the martial stuff has to be toned down, even when combined with spellcasting, but the class is just… Boring. It’s also aggravating to enter, suffering from the problems that a Mystic Theurge does, its cool abilities come online way late, and the capstone is exceptionally underwhelming as a capstone. Too many of the abilities are mostly flavorless +numbers abilities (as opposed to, say, the Abjurant Champion, which had exceptionally thematic and flavorful +numbers things, and the Jade Phoenix Mage, whose +numbers things came early and then got dropped for actual abilities).

If I wanted to play a gish, this isn’t where I’d go. Manuevers are cool, but not cool enough for me personally to want to use the class for gishing. I might grab the feats at some point for a few of them, but even then, if I wanted a mostly boring +numbers gish, I’d play a cleric, and have more fun doing it. At least then, I have a lot more versatile spells and the domain abilities on top of my +numbers buffs.

Really, I think that when I opened the Path of War materials, I was looking for a thematically-cool, tightly-designed gishing class. Abjurant Champion has a bunch of abilities that are tied together very nicely and fit the fluff and theme (even the +numbers ones). Jade Phoenix Mage has maneuvers and cool stuff on top of its two boring +numbers abilities. It also has a flashy capstone, which is always a plus.

In the end, the bladecaster is an awkward-to-enter class that gives up the capstone of a full spellcaster (9ths) for a very limited maneuver progression, mostly flavorless abilities, and a decently strong, but situational capstone. If you want to play a character based around touch spells and rays, then this is probably the class for you. If you want literally any other gish archetype? Look somewhere else. There's probably more fun ways to do it.