[PF] Occult Adventures Playtest is out!

[Raven777]

The Occult Adventures playtest is out!

I just skimmed it, and it looks cool as all getup. At first glance...

There's a Warlock (the Kineticist).
There's a Binder (the Medium).
There's a Beguiler (the Mesmer).
There's an Incarna-ish guy (the Occultist)
There's a Psion (the Psychic).
There's an Ardent / Summoner 2.0 (the Spiritualist)

[Vortenger]

I really hope that the Binder equivalent complements Radiant House's Occultist rather than supplanting it. That the Radiance Occultist author himself loves the coming book is a good sign, though.

[The Glyphstone]

Thoughts one by one...

Kineticist - Meh. It's a Warlock with even the Warlock's small amount of non-combat utility stripped away....so really, it's more of a Pathfinder Warmage, since literally the only thing it is capable of doing is blasting stuff.

Medium - this one is very, very cool. Definitely Binder-esque, but with a built-in limit that forces you to rotate out your spirit companions instead of just repeating the best combo over and over.

Mesmerist - Whether this is decent or sucky depends on if maintaining Hypnotic Stare takes a swift action every round, or just to initiate the effect.

Occultist - Not sure what to make of this.

Psychic - Whatever. Dreamscarred Press did it first and did it better.

Spiritualist - Not sure why this exists. It's a Summoner with built-on optional Synthesist abilities, but with a much weaker and less customizable Eidolon.

[Extra Anchovies]

First, the Kineticist looks awesome. I was expecting to open the book and be disappointed by the warlock-equivalent no longer having the otherworldly-powers fluff, but what they replaced it with is just as cool. The telekineticist's basic attack involves flinging unattended objects. And they're a Constitution-based caster! The burn effects seem like they'd get pretty brutal on long adventuring days, and since the damage scales with character level a Kineticist doesn't get any better at accepting burn as they level. Almost enough to turn me off the class, but not quite

2+Int skills on a non-Int-based class always hurts, but they get Perception and UMD. For humans and those with (for some reason) high intelligence can also nab Intimidate and/or Stealth, too. For its size, the skill list is nice.

Glyphstone has a point about their not being capable of much other than direct damage, though. Can they do iteratives/full attacks with their blasts? The core ability description doesn't specific an action type, and all of the others say "You [do X to a target] as a ranged attack." To me, it seems like they can, but I'm unsure.

ETA: Unexpected downside to the book's current title is that in 3.P games we'll always be getting it mixed up with Oriental Adventures

[Alent]

I guess with all the subsystem love that's been happening lately, Paizo themselves couldn't help but jump onboard.

Skimming through it now between calls, Their implementation of Warlock seems interesting, but not much else really appeals to me at a glance.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I'll have to check it out when i get home from work. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what I find after that ACG playtest.

[Psyren]

Ooh, subsystems!

*waits for Occultist Handbook to start trending*

ETA: Unexpected downside to the book's current title is that in 3.P games we'll always be getting it mixed up with Oriental Adventures

We can call it OcA.

Thoughts one by one...

Kineticist - Meh. It's a Warlock with even the Warlock's small amount of non-combat utility stripped away....so really, it's more of a Pathfinder Warmage, since literally the only thing it is capable of doing is blasting stuff.

Medium - this one is very, very cool. Definitely Binder-esque, but with a built-in limit that forces you to rotate out your spirit companions instead of just repeating the best combo over and over.

Mesmerist - Whether this is decent or sucky depends on if maintaining Hypnotic Stare takes a swift action every round, or just to initiate the effect.

Occultist - Not sure what to make of this.

Psychic - Whatever. Dreamscarred Press did it first and did it better.

Spiritualist - Not sure why this exists. It's a Summoner with built-on optional Synthesist abilities, but with a much weaker and less customizable Eidolon.

Agreed on Kineticist but I wouldn't write off the non-blasting utility just yet. They can fly (at least, Air, Fire and Aether can) and they do get some control abilities and some utility like tremorsense. And a Con/Dex based "caster" is just fun.

Medium I am not impressed with at all. Yeah the mechanic is cool but the spirit abilities look weak and you risk turning yourself into an NPC (temporarily, but still) if you dig too deep. You also have limited spells and no martial chassis to speak of. Pass.

Mesmerist is kinda a weird Mountebank/Jester thing? I guess? And no, as written the stare requires no action to maintain. I like that the Tricks let you implant your allies with a bunch of trap cards.

The psychic classes I will dive deeper on later but I like the flavor - and it's nice that they came up with a way to make all the magic spells feel "psychic". Spiritualist and Occultist seem to be comfortably in T3, Psychic is T2. (They brought back discipline-MAD... yay...) At least we can be happy that they haven't treaded on psionics' toes. I like the new T and E components.

[Roxxy]

I have only read Kineticist so far. Do like. Can be volcano mage now.

[Extra Anchovies]

Two questions regarding the Kinetic Defense ability granted to the Telekineticist:

Force Ward (Su): As an immediate action, you surround yourself with a shield of force powered by your telekinetic power. You gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your kineticist level. You always lose these temporary hit points first, before any other temporary hit points. If an attack fails to deal more damage than the remaining hit points in your force ward, it still reduces those temporary hit points but otherwise counts as a miss for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss. These temporary hit points regenerate at a rate of 1 per minute. By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase the strength of your force ward by a number of temporary hit points equal to half your kineticist level until the next time you recover burn; this increase stacks with multiple uses. You can dismiss this effect as an immediate action, but otherwise it continues until you dismiss it.

Burn damage is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward fully regenerates every 20 minutes. Thus, a Telekineticist can accept one point of burn per 20 minutes with virtually no ill effects. I hope this is something they overlooked, rather than an intentional workaround, because it's quite the exploit.

Also, couldn't you just spend two immediate actions to restore the temporary HP pool rather than waiting 20 minutes? That makes Telekineticist Burn-Cycling even more of an issue.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'm quite fond of the Undercasting rule; it obviously works best as written with spontaneous casters, but it's so convenient. I wish it could get backported for normal casters to use.

[Raven777]

"Mediums are flexible and versatile, filling whatever role the party needs at the moment by channeling the right spirit."

Right now the Medium is kinda weak. The description implies it should be good at something different every day, but it ends up being bad at something different every day instead. I also think that the risk to turn yourself into an NPC for a day upon reaching Influence 4 is not exactly great for the game. Not a fan of Trance being a full round action in early levels. It should be Move or even Swift from the start. Basically, I find the class comes online to late. Early levels have a pretty big lack of options.

The rules on what effects you get depending on Alignment and Ability Score matches for secondary, tertiary and quaternary spirits also sound complicated to remember. Flowchart levels of complicated.

I still need to look up all the spirits to get a clearer idea.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

It appears to be based off the Harrow deck Paizo put out; it has 54 cards, each keyed to an ability score and alignment. The Mesmer looks fun; I know several people who will be excited to play a psychic Face. I love how it's buffs are literally tricking and exploiting their allies.

[Bluydee]

Also, check the official class discussions for Occult Adventures on the paizo forums. They have extra feats that are also being play tested.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Also, check the official class discussions for Occult Adventures on the paizo forums. They have extra feats that are also being play tested.

Mind sharing a link to the relevant post / thread?

[Psyren]

Mind sharing a link to the relevant post / thread?

The link in the OP will take you to all of them (e.g.: "General Discussion: Mesmerist.")

[NightbringerGGZ]

The link in the OP will take you to all of them (e.g.: "General Discussion: Mesmerist.")

I see, they're in individual threads. I was looking for a general "extra feats" thread. Thanks!

[deuxhero]

I can see some of the names getting... confusing.

I like undercasting.

Oh boy! Ego Whip is back! Take THAT Charisma dumpers!

[Renegade Paladin]

Glyphstone has a point about their not being capable of much other than direct damage, though. Can they do iteratives/full attacks with their blasts? The core ability description doesn't specific an action type, and all of the others say "You [do X to a target] as a ranged attack." To me, it seems like they can, but I'm unsure.

If something doesn't specify an action type, it means a standard action. In this case, the Metakinesis ability spells out explicitly that the blast powers are standard actions when it differentiates between Quickened and non-Quickened powers in the bit about using two with one action (at 17th level).

[Extra Anchovies]

If something doesn't specify an action type, it means a standard action. In this case, the Metakinesis ability spells out explicitly that the blast powers are standard actions when it differentiates between Quickened and non-Quickened powers in the bit about using two with one action (at 17th level).

Oh. There goes about half of my interest in the Kineticist, since they're worse at damage dealing than the average volley archer by a long shot, and have to stay within 30 feet unless they're an Aerokineticist or they're willing to take Burn.

[Milo v3]

Three abilities into the Kineticist and my view went from "Oh cool, element benders." to "Noooo... don't use Wild Talent as the ability name. You're just gonna make confusion with 3.P games and DSP PF games..."

[Extra Anchovies]

Something I just noticed, tucked away in a sidebar: the playtest doc only has 18 of the 54 Spirits available to the medium. It's going to have one for each card in the Harrow deck, which gives me a good idea for how to pick the day's selection of active spirits if I ever get around to playing one

Also it means we really only are seeing one-third of the class. Not enough to pass a solid judgement, IMO.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Three abilities into the Kineticist and my view went from "Oh cool, element benders." to "Noooo... don't use Wild Talent as the ability name. You're just gonna make confusion with 3.P games and DSP PF games..."

Pathfinder currently has two entirely separate abilities that can be placed on melee weapons called Dueling. There are several shamans and at least two skalds, two brawlers, and 2-3 swashbucklers. As much as I love their stuff, keeping up with names isn't really one of their strong suits.

Something I just noticed, tucked away in a sidebar: the playtest doc only has 18 of the 54 Spirits available to the medium. It's going to have one for each card in the Harrow deck, which gives me a good idea for how to pick the day's selection of active spirits if I ever get around to playing one

Also it means we really only are seeing one-third of the class. Not enough to pass a solid judgement, IMO.

Heheheh... tempted to use my Harrow deck as an aid. Probably what they intended; wonder what it will be like if one were to play the Harrowing with a Medium?

[Extra Anchovies]

Heheheh... tempted to use my Harrow deck as an aid. Probably what they intended; wonder what it will be like if one were to play the Harrowing with a Medium?

I think they've been slowly pushing the Harrow pseudo-subsystem more and more lately. I think it's a good thing; I'm a fan of game developers coming up with something both easily adaptable and wholly new like that. (Yes, I know it's similar to Tarot cards, but they came up with their own deck arrangement rather than just telling us to use tarot/playing cards)

[Roxxy]

I really like the flavor of Kineticist, and I think that the class features can be modified into something great, but I do have issues. Mainly, the fact that you can't become a dual element user until level 7. That makes volcano mages and the like harder to do.

[Extra Anchovies]

I really like the flavor of Kineticist, and I think that the class features can be modified into something great, but I do have issues. Mainly, the fact that you can't become a dual element user until level 7. That makes volcano mages and the like harder to do.

Definitely agreed; I want my Steam Mage (water/fire, or if that doesn't work water/air) active from level 1. I hope there's a dual-element archetype.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Well, the Harrowing was a module based around the deck when it first came out. Lots of elements and characters from the deck (the Tyrant is the BBEG, you are challenged by the Prince... and he's an damn fey. Fortunately, I was playing a Hellknight...) It would be amusing meeting someone, then saying 'Oh! I called you up yesterday! How are you doing?'

[DerangedSquid]

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something, but it looks like the Kineticist can get unlimited out of combat healing at level 1 by using a move action to reduce burn cost for a Wild Talent by 1 (as described under the Burn class feature) and then using Kintetic Healer on the same turn.

[Elricaltovilla]

I'm reading through the Kineticist right now, and much as I want to love it, I've got two major problems. The first is that its not clear what sort of action is used to make a kinetic blast. I'm specifically concerned about whether its a standard action or an "attack action" as the warlock's big issue was that he could only use his eldritch blast once per round, which sucked. My second issue is that I HATE the idea of a class which has to damage itself in order to use its abilities. I don't care if its only nonlethal damage, its just stupid.

[DerangedSquid]

Two questions regarding the Kinetic Defense ability granted to the Telekineticist:

Burn damage is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward fully regenerates every 20 minutes. Thus, a Telekineticist can accept one point of burn per 20 minutes with virtually no ill effects. I hope this is something they overlooked, rather than an intentional workaround, because it's quite the exploit.

Also, couldn't you just spend two immediate actions to restore the temporary HP pool rather than waiting 20 minutes? That makes Telekineticist Burn-Cycling even more of an issue.

For the first question, I'm fairly certain that doesn't work as nonlethal damage doesn't work that way in pathfinder. Instead of subtracting from current hp it builds up separately, so having temporary hp wouldn't prevent burn from accumulating.

As for the second question, I don't see why you couldn't. I'd imagine they'll probably fix that sooner or later though.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm reading through the Kineticist right now, and much as I want to love it, I've got two major problems. The first is that its not clear what sort of action is used to make a kinetic blast. I'm specifically concerned about whether its a standard action or an "attack action" as the warlock's big issue was that he could only use his eldritch blast once per round, which sucked. My second issue is that I HATE the idea of a class which has to damage itself in order to use its abilities. I don't care if its only nonlethal damage, its just stupid.

Kinetic Blast is a spell-like, which means it's a standard action.

Definitely agreed with you about the second issue, though. There needs to be a way to eliminate the nonlethal damage from burn. Otherwise a lot of the burn effects are not worth learning.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something, but it looks like the Kineticist can get unlimited out of combat healing at level 1 by using a move action to reduce burn cost for a Wild Talent by 1 (as described under the Burn class feature) and then using Kintetic Healer on the same turn.

Check the first post of this thread. The move action burn reduction only applies to the blast. Although kinetic healer heals damage equal to the blast damage, it isn't actually a blast. That change is a big nerf to a lot of the Talents, really.