Dreamscarred Press - Tzocatl, The First Language: Open Playtest

[Vhaidara]

How would the flavour work for non-int truenaming?

Whispering gently into the universe's ear.

More seriously, I feel it would be more like battlecries. They know the words, they might even know what they mean, but what they care about is that the words give them strength. They don't question it, or study it, they just use it.

It's an odd parallel, but if you've read the Dresden Files, think of Michael's Latin battlecries.

[Milo v3]

A logical speaker versus demagoguery? Thats the way I think of it.

Demagoguery?

[NomGarret]

First off: sorry to hear about James, but if this project had to fall into someone else's hands, I'm glad it fell where it did.

I'm going to have to go back and look some more, but the one bit that I remember being concerned about is the effectiveness of spamming edicts when you don't meet the DC. Namely, is it better to fail a higher level edict since the base effect will still go off than hope to make a lower level edict with emphases?

[Ssalarn]

First off: sorry to hear about James, but if this project had to fall into someone else's hands, I'm glad it fell where it did.

I'm going to have to go back and look some more, but the one bit that I remember being concerned about is the effectiveness of spamming edicts when you don't meet the DC. Namely, is it better to fail a higher level edict since the base effect will still go off than hope to make a lower level edict with emphases?

I saw you bring that up, and it's actually one of the things I'm looking into right now. Thanks for the support and the feedback!

[NomGarret]

My initial thought is -1 attack/save DC if you fail to meet the txocatl check, but that doesn't address all the other edicts that have neither an attack roll nor a save.

[Mithril Leaf]

Damn it Ssalarn, I was almost done with your subsystems. Hopefully I shall get another distinct mechanic to graft onto my Aegis.

[Ssalarn]

Damn it Ssalarn, I was almost done with your subsystems. Hopefully I shall get another distinct mechanic to graft onto my Aegis.

You'll never be done! I've still got Psitech and Shadow Magic waiting in the wings, and those are just the things I've already run by Andreas and Jeremy! Muahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahhaha!


Wait, I actually came here to say something.... One second... I know it was important....

Ah, got it.

So, planned changes that I'm working on-

1) Removing Tzocatl Training as a class feature and rolling it up with Edicts and Litanies so there's one solid base that all the little pieces of the subsystem can refer directly to. This is largely to streamline things and make the system easier to grasp. Will have a version of what this looks like available shortly.

2) Knight-Scholar is being converted to a Cha-based full-BAB chassis, as I've kind of talked a bit about earlier. As part of this, some of his class features, like Scholarly Knowledge, are being shifted to the Advocate to emphasize that class as "the Intelligence guy" and some new class features, like Warcries, are being written in to take its place. Think of it kind of like the difference between a lecturing professor and a motivational speaker- they both have to know what they're talking about enough to make a point, but one guy uses a huge depth of knowledge and an expansive vocabulary of precise terms, while the other guy uses a narrower lexicon of attention-grabbing keywords. I'm pondering whether or not to have a general rule that you must have a minimum Intelligence score of 10 to make Tzocatl checks at all- I don't want to make classes and archetypes that rely on different mental ability scores too MAD, but I'm also very much against the idea of bumbling idiots who can still pronounce the words that define existence.

3) Minor changes and additions to the core rules and feats to accomodate points 1 and 2.

4) I'm going to be trying out something called Elemental Affinity, similar to the psionic mechanic of active element types. Whenever you learn an edict or litany that interacts with a particular element, the default of that element is always the one selected for your Elemental Affinity, the aspect of creation you are most attuned to based on your character and personality. You can select a different element by increasing the DC of your Tzocatl check by 3, or 5 if the selected element opposes your affinity (so, for example, if your natural affinity is water (cold), you could speak an Edict to instead deal earth (acid) damage with the edict by increasing the check by 3, or you could deal fire damage by increasing the DC by 5. The goal here isn't to turn the Tzocatl characters into yet another type of bender, so I'm not looking at adding many more elemental themed powers, it's to give the Tzocatl system itself some much needed versatility and increased synergy within its own chassis.

5) And of course, archetypes. Bard and Ranger are coming up as soon as I finish my projects on the Advocate and Warspeaker.

I'm working on getting these changes ready for playtest and review now, aiming to get them out to you all ASAP. When I do, I may need to start a new thread so I can take over the OP and post any updated links or similar necessities. If that happens I'll post a link to that new thread here to try and head off any confusion.

[Sayt]

All good to hear! I do love me some rangers...


Y'know, I the Warcries thing made me think of it having a an archetype, or the Warlord having an imitation archetype (Like the Pathwarlker PsyWar and initiating) that gets Warcries. Make it Golden Lion focused: Speaker for the Pride.

Also, might it be worth seeing if anything of value can be included from the Words of Power system that was Ultimate Magic? It never erally got any support from Paizo, but I think you could make an interesting Wordcaster/Edit Theurge, and perhaps expand the words of power system a little?

[Taveena]

It's gonna be tricky. While the hierarchy of elements has changed from 3.5e to PF - Cold now being the most commonly resisted - it's still THERE, and it seems like it's just going to be a stronger option to pick Acid, Electricity, or Sonic over Fire or Cold in almost all situations.

I dunno. It's probably possible, but when they're all on an apparently equal footing, in practice they've got other problems just because of the targets.

[NomGarret]

Sonic is more thematically appropriate than fire or cold, anyway. Heck physical damage (calling up the earth, commanding armor to stab inward, etc) seems more fitting somehow.

[Mithril Leaf]

It's gonna be tricky. While the hierarchy of elements has changed from 3.5e to PF - Cold now being the most commonly resisted - it's still THERE, and it seems like it's just going to be a stronger option to pick Acid, Electricity, or Sonic over Fire or Cold in almost all situations.

I dunno. It's probably possible, but when they're all on an apparently equal footing, in practice they've got other problems just because of the targets.

I can't quite recall the forum thread where they analyzed it, but I think there are no monsters immune to both acid and fire. I do recall that acid and electricity are about on even footing with sonic as by far the least resisted type. I think it was around 100 for each of acid and electricity.

[Abithrios]

It has been quite a while since I last looked at this. I have forgotten most of the details, but I recall having a couple of misgivings about some of the mechanics, and I don't remember if they were ever resolved. The first is that it was possible to take a twenty on many of the Tzocatl checks. It's not a formal rule, merely an emergent property of having long duration buffs castable at will with variable effects. If you don't get the maximum effect the first time, just try again until you do. The other (which I may be misremembering) was that Tzocatl results in more difficult table math (what is my attack modifier today?).

[meemaas]

It has been quite a while since I last looked at this. I have forgotten most of the details, but I recall having a couple of misgivings about some of the mechanics, and I don't remember if they were ever resolved. The first is that it was possible to take a twenty on many of the Tzocatl checks. It's not a formal rule, merely an emergent property of having long duration buffs castable at will with variable effects. If you don't get the maximum effect the first time, just try again until you do. The other (which I may be misremembering) was that Tzocatl results in more difficult table math (what is my attack modifier today?).

I think I had the same misgivings about your first point here. Probably the best solution is to make it so you can't overwrite an existing edict until it's duration expires naturally. I'm sure Ssalarn can get the right wording to solve that easily.

Also, excited to see that you've taken this project over Ssalarn, I love your work on Akashic Mysteries and I know you will be able to do this project justice.

[Ssalarn]

Anyone familiar with the new Occultist class from Paizo? I was thinking of hijacking it for my totemist archetype, but I'm worried that Occult Adventures may not be widely used enough for me to be taking a big concept and hanging it on something from that book. Just trying to get a feel for where people are at on it.

(My personal opinion- Occult Adventures is a great book, probably one of the better pieces of work Paizo has done in quite a while, though the Occultist is probably one of the bottom two classes of the bunch. That being said, "implements" becomes "totems" so easily, and I'll be gutting most of the subpar options and mechanics for the archetype anyways.)

[Milo v3]

Anyone familiar with the new Occultist class from Paizo? I was thinking of hijacking it for my totemist archetype, but I'm worried that Occult Adventures may not be widely used enough for me to be taking a big concept and hanging it on something from that book. Just trying to get a feel for where people are at on it.

(My personal opinion- Occult Adventures is a great book, probably one of the better pieces of work Paizo has done in quite a while, though the Occultist is probably one of the bottom two classes of the bunch. That being said, "implements" becomes "totems" so easily, and I'll be gutting most of the subpar options and mechanics for the archetype anyways.)

Ooh, do it. I've been wondering when DSP will decide that they're willing to put in Occult stuff, and the Occultist is a great opportunity when it comes to potential archetypes with how they handled the implemeents.

[Vhaidara]

Yeah, Occult stuff is awesome. I haven't had much chance to play around with base Occultist (been using my own Sphere Occultist), but Spiritualist and Mesmerist are both crazy kinds of fun.

[Nihilarian]

Occult Adventures seems pretty uninspired to me.

[Vhaidara]

Occult Adventures seems pretty uninspired to me.

Care to elaborate? I find all of the classes quite well done
Kineticist was the victim of over conservation, but the idea is sound and easily salvaged.
Medium is a nice take on the Binder, and the archetypes are amazing
Mesmerist is a great debuffer with a great variety of builds for it
Occultist is a great idea with execution that I haven't had a chance to try yet
Spiritualist is a very cool take on the Summoner that fixes a lot of the balance issues while keeping the core of the eidolon focused class
Psychic i don't care about.

[Ssalarn]

Care to elaborate? I find all of the classes quite well done
Kineticist was the victim of over conservation, but the idea is sound and easily salvaged.
Medium is a nice take on the Binder, and the archetypes are amazing
Mesmerist is a great debuffer with a great variety of builds for it
Occultist is a great idea with execution that I haven't had a chance to try yet
Spiritualist is a very cool take on the Summoner that fixes a lot of the balance issues while keeping the core of the eidolon focused class
Psychic i don't care about.

Posted my thoughts on Occult Adventures here.

[Nihilarian]

Care to elaborate? I find all of the classes quite well done
Kineticist was the victim of over conservation, but the idea is sound and easily salvaged.
Medium is a nice take on the Binder, and the archetypes are amazing
Mesmerist is a great debuffer with a great variety of builds for it
Occultist is a great idea with execution that I haven't had a chance to try yet
Spiritualist is a very cool take on the Summoner that fixes a lot of the balance issues while keeping the core of the eidolon focused class
Psychic i don't care about.

to start with, 5/6 of them are fairly typical casters. Psychic Magic isn't appreciably different from Magic Magic. At least Psionics had a different method of resource management.

Kineticist: Warlock, but with the Hellfire baked in, a fairly generic elemental theme, and somewhat awkward seeming besides. Managing burn seems like it would be a pain, especially since the Warlock was fairly simple.

Medium: they turned a class with unique mechanics and fantastic flavor into a spellcaster who uses generic spirts. Also, hope your DM puts one of the listed spots somewhere near you every morning or else you'll go through the day as a 3/4th BAB 4/9th caster. Maybe he'll even give you the one you want.

Mesmerist: The Mesmerist isn't bad, and I especially appreciate it's ability to get past immunity to it's gimmick. Considering it's based on a regular spellcaster I don't have any complaints about where they took it.

Occultist: all right, I suppose. The resonant powers do bring to mind Soulmelds, but nothing else about the class does.

Psychic: No one seems to have anything to say about this class other than "it's a full caster, what did you expect?"

Spiritualist: this one doesn't even go back to 3.5 for "inspiration". At least it's at a more reasonable power level than the summoner?

[Vhaidara]

Ignore psychic magic completely. Psychic magic is stupid and pointless. Look at the actual classes.

Kineticist: Managing burn is actually quite nice. People overcomplicate it. It's just a resource that you expend over the course of the day, and you get a bonus when you do.
Medium: there's an archetype to get around that. And the Reanimated Medium. Also, you're objecting to it on the grounds of ******* GM. ******* GM can ruin anyone's day. Also, there is going to eventually be the Harrow Medium, which will come with 54 spirits (the original was this, but they realized it was taking its own book)
Mesmerist: How is this based on a regular spellcaster?
Occultist and Spiritualist: You're acting like not going back to 3.5 for inspiration is a bad thing, but you said you found the book uninspired. What part of doing different things is uninspired?

[Taveena]

For what very little my opinion's worth, Occult Adventures is... I dunno. Kinda disappointing. The entire reason I LIKE Warlock is because of their lack of resource management. Burn is even worse than spell slots or power points because not only do you have the tossup of 'now vs later', you've also got to try to work out exactly how much HP you can get by with. Plus, the elemental damage blasts are basically a trap option.

Medium, meanwhile, is down to a minuscule 6 spirits, has a daily resource (two, really, given you can only reduce once per day). and has so many less options than the Binder.

To be entirely honest, though, Pact Magic Unbound felt like a significant drop in power from the Binder, too, without a clear role in combat, but it at least had the things that I like about the Binding system involved, which Medium didn't.

The flat-up casters I just dislike, like pretty much every caster that isn't fixed-list or using a weird subsystem. (Psychic magic doesn't get to be a subsystem. Divine and Arcane aren't different subsystems.)

This is all entirely subjective, but none of these are playstyles I enjoy, and I have no interest in practice in playing any of those.

[Nihilarian]

@Keledrath

Except for the Kineticist, all of the classes are Psychic Mages. If you find Psychic Magic pointless, it's a wonder you're trying to defend them at all.

Kineticist: I'll take your word for it. It's still a Warlock.

Medium: the fact that 3/5 of the class' archetypes make it so you can pick and choose your spirit makes it all the more baffling why the base class has to rely on the DM giving you what you want. No amount of archetypes can save it from the fact that Vestiges were just way more flavorful.

"The DM can mess up any class" is a lousy excuse because other classes don't encourage your DM to make fundamental choices for you.

Mesmerist: it's Pathfinder's answer to the beguiler, and I think I actually like it better than the beguiler, so I'm not sure why you're defending it? Having actual class features helps.

Occultist: Ssalarn was asking about using this class as the basis for a Totemist archetype, which is why I brought up soulmelds. I don't actually have much to say about it; it's gimmick seems a logical extension of Arcane Bond? That's about it.

Spiritualist: I was suggesting that it took inspiration from a Pathfinder class, not that it was wholly original.

[Kaidinah]

Anyone familiar with the new Occultist class from Paizo? I was thinking of hijacking it for my totemist archetype, but I'm worried that Occult Adventures may not be widely used enough for me to be taking a big concept and hanging it on something from that book. Just trying to get a feel for where people are at on it.

(My personal opinion- Occult Adventures is a great book, probably one of the better pieces of work Paizo has done in quite a while, though the Occultist is probably one of the bottom two classes of the bunch. That being said, "implements" becomes "totems" so easily, and I'll be gutting most of the subpar options and mechanics for the archetype anyways.)

I think that would be pretty cool. I wouldn't mind seeing the Occultist mixed in. Besides, the Occultist is on the SRD, so at least its accessible. I'd imagine most 3rd party users will be willing to use the SRD anyway, since 3rd party already has so much non-print content to begin with.

[Vhaidara]

@Keledrath

Except for the Kineticist, all of the classes are Psychic Mages. If you find Psychic Magic pointless, it's a wonder you're trying to defend them at all.

Because I judge a class by its features, not some idiotic tag paizo put on it? Magus isn't good because it casts arcane spells, its good because of its class features. It could cast divine spells and it would still be good. Ditto Bloodrager, inquisitor, and bard, off the top of my head. Likewise, spiritualist, mesmerist, and medium are about their class features more than their spell list. Hell, my spiritualist only casts out of combat, and that's because he's a backup healer (for when the cleric goes down)

Also, on vestiges being more flavorful: I disagree completely. Vestiges had more prewritten flavor. Spirits have a lot more player driven flavor. Hell, one of my go to is actually similar to reanimated medium: you channel your own futures. But it leaves it up to player creativity.

More on topic, I would love to see a truenaming mesmerist. I love people who can sweet talk the universe into doing their bidding.

[Ssalarn]

More on topic, I would love to see a truenaming mesmerist. I love people who can sweet talk the universe into doing their bidding.

Hmmm.... What if it includes things like being able to decrease the DC of a Tzocatl check against a target affected by your beguiling gaze, essentially reprogamming them into a simpler universal template of themselves?
I swear, that sounded like a perfectly straightforward idea in my head.

Point being, I really like the idea and it's inspiring some interesting thoughts about how to blend the mechanics together.

[NomGarret]

Since margin of success matters for txocatl checks, would it scan easier to grant a txocatl roll bonus rather than apply a DC penalty?

[Fax Celestis]

Hey guys, thought I would check in. Glad to see Ssalarn has picked this up.

For full disclosure purposes, my dad has been in and out of the hospital for cancer for basically the length of this project's lifespan. While that gave me an opportunity to write, it also very harshly impacted my inspiration, as I was worried and stressed and couldn't put my energy into the project. I also have had some financial difficulties (tangentially related to the previous note with my dad), and as such have had to get rid of cable at home, which left me with no internet access (and therefore no way to work on this, among other things). Also have had a lot of upheaval at work: a round of heavy layoffs coupled with implementation of new company-wide software solutions and a department change made my life very very busy. All in all, a lot of crap building up all at the same time. I didn't handle any of this well at all, nor was I on top of my game with letting DSP know up-front, otherwise this would've likely been handed off sooner, but the important thing is that it's been taken care of and will be going somewhere from here. Things are beginning to normalize for me, but I honestly have no idea when--if ever--I'll be able to get back to designing, even part time. That's a huge disappointment for me: I love to design and to make games, and to have to put down my biggest hobby and passion for my responsibilities as a son, as an employee, and as a father is difficult, but it's a decision I've had to make.

Ssalarn, if you have questions for me about anything, particularly about what I had envisioned for the rest of the project or the intention of something that may be too vague, feel free to drop me a line and I'll get to it when I get an opportunity.

Again, my apologies to everyone for how I handled (or rather, didn't handle) this. I have complete faith in Ssalarn's abilities as a designer to complete this project to a wonderful result.

Since margin of success matters for txocatl checks, would it scan easier to grant a txocatl roll bonus rather than apply a DC penalty?

DC reduction works better, I think. Bonuses to tzocatl checks are supposed to be hard to come by, and while the net result is about the same, at least with a DC reduction you don't have to deal with stacking bonuses.

[Mithril Leaf]

I think that it would be very thematically appropriate to have some ability to bind/summon an outsider or maybe some number of CR/HD of them at max based off your check. Perhaps as a Litany so you are limited to not having anything else active if you want your pet out.

EDIT: Also is there any way to actually meet the 56+ check result required to get the max tier dragon breath from Dragonfire Litany?

[Deadkitten]

Hey all! So, here's the deal-

James has unfortunately had to drop out of this project to deal with some real life issues, so I'll be taking his place to run this thing through the finish line. I have a few goals-

1) Maintain the integrity of James' work so far.

2) Tighten up both base classes and get them ready to wrap. This may include beating the Knight-Scholar into something that looks a fair degree different than it does now.

3) Add in some new archetypes that I feel this project would benefit from, particularly the Bard, Ranger, and Witch.

4) Finish, and possibly make a few tweaks to, the existing Litanies and Edicts.

5) Finish the product in a timely manner with the highest possible quality.


I'd love it if you all could help me meet these goals with playtest and feedback data. Some of the things that I'm considering doing to meet these goals include-

1) Reevaluating the role of litanies and edicts. I've seen a few comments on how the progressions of the Advocate and Knight-Scholar are a bit wonky, and I think making Litanies just another type of Edict with the [Litany] keyword is a step towards resolving those problems. I don't believe we need two separate progressions for Edicts and Edicts-that-are-really-just-sustainable-buffs.

2) Switching the Knight-Scholar to a full BAB chassis. This is actually going to involve a lot more work than that simple mission statement would indicate, but I think it's important to establish the Advocate as the "master" of Tzocatl/Truenaming, and that involves strengthening his facility with the new subsystem a bit and shifting the focus of the second class.

I'm also looking at some other options, such as a class or archetype that actually inscribes names into totems or tattoos, using them in a slightly different way, but I'll talk a bit more about that when it's ready.

For now, I'd love to hear what everyone has to say, whether it be about my projected goals and ideas, issues or compliments for the existing materials, or what have you. Anyone worried that this will derail one of my other projects, like Psitech - don't worry. Those are proceeding apace, though I do anticipate that Psitech and Tzocatl will probably have some time where both are in playtest simulaneously.

Thank you everyone!

Good to see another project your working on.

So since I don't have a lot on my plate and I am genuinely interested in this project I will dive right in.
I apologize if I miss something in a previous post I just recently saw this project.

So about the "Knight-Scholar"...
I know you are working in a class feature called Warcries, is it just going to be a rename of the Words of Power class feature?
From what I can a "Knight-Scholar" is a VERY powerful dip for any CHA based class if the class feature remains the same. Both Yaotlalia and Itlacoa are REALLY good trade for a 1 level dip, especially considering they operate on a replenishing pool and have you CHA added to their duration, which means most of combat if you have a focus in them.

Teini: If you keep something like this in the rework, you could possibly word it similar to the Mesmerists Psychic Inception Bold stare, that way it might be balanced at being available at a lower level than 19th

Intelligent Defenses might also be a bit strong as written due to how good a 2 level dip would be.