[Dreamscarred Press] New Playtest: the Voyager, a psionic skirmisher!

[Deimosaur]

Since I had guns on the mind, a few changes (buffs and options) have been added to the crossfire. Check them (and the rest of the voyager) out here.

Spoiler: The Short Story

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Crossfire:
Slowed Step, Steady Aim: Amateur Gunslinger as a bonus feat at 1st level.

Firearm Assistance: Now works to fix broken conditions on a firearm, even if they aren't from a misfire.

Focused Crossfire:
Gunfire Training: More bonus feats from a set list! And an option to trade additional powers known, for additional feats from this list.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Firearms are still a hard enough sell that I would advise keeping the accelerate reduction to 5 feet rather than 10 feet.

On a flavor note:

And like a voyager, a bullet’s offensive power is tied to its kinetic energy.

This is an incredibly stupid-sounding thing to say, considering how physical weapons work in general; perhaps a more speed-based analogy is in order? Say, "And like a voyager, a bullet soars swifter than the wind."

[AlienFromBeyond]

This is an incredibly stupid-sounding thing to say, considering how physical weapons work in general; perhaps a more speed-based analogy is in order? Say, "And like a voyager, a bullet soars swifter than the wind."

I could say the same about yours. Bullets don't "soar" after all.

[Galacktic]

Neither works. Maybe something like: "And just like the Voyager, their bullets are imbued with the very essence of speed."

Less straightforward and more flowery, and also not literal.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I could say the same about yours. Bullets don't "soar" after all.

1 a :to fly aloft or about

There is a connotation of "soar" involving flying at a high altitude, but it is just that, a connotation, in the same way that "voyage" has a connotation of naval travel yet is used to name a class with no special tie to maritime travel.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Recently, I had completed a six-session, four-combat, 6th-level playtest game involving three rajahs all limited to Radiant Dawn and one voyager (metronome).

I immediately moved on to a new playtest mini-campaign in which both of the PCs are 7th-level voyagers (metronome), and by playtest game, I mean "it took us until the climax of the second session to reach combat, because the entire adventure had been investigation, infiltration, and in-character chit-chat before then." Both of them were hummingbird tengus, one of them had an elven curve blade, and the other was a crossfire with a pistol.

Outside of combat, the voyager is really quite effective at infiltration. Its sheer mobility makes getting in and out of secure locations a breeze, particularly its ability to rewind to an afterimage. The PCs had trouble with Stealth checks against high-Perception monsters; maybe it would have been a good idea for both of them to have taken chameleon as a power known. I noted that shunning of the material from Psionics Augmented: Seventh Path would have been a great help at one point. It would be nice if the voyager's power list was updated to include some powers from Psionics Augmented: Seventh Path, Psionics Augmented: Occult, Psionics Augmented: Powers, and Psionics Augmented: Powers II.

One of our players was constantly confused by afterimages, however. They were convinced that afterimages could be made realistic-looking enough to pass as a convincing decoy of a person even up close, which simply was not the case in the rules. This is a point I had to correct numerous times, so perhaps afterimages could be strongly clarified to say that using them this way is impossible. Perhaps a feat could open up afterimage-based illusions?

The climactic battle saw the two 7th-level PCs square off against a CR 10 zohanil.

The PCs were in a poor position. Their infiltration was crumbling apart (yet it lasted far longer than most other characters could have managed), so they had no time to buff themselves other than a fully-augmented inertial armor from hours before. Worse, they were sickened for a long duration due to an earlier mishap. Even worse, the zohanil was pre-buffed with protection from good, and it gained a surprise round against the PCs by sliding in from the Ethereal Plane.

A major quibble immediately arose then and there: it is easy to determine how much momentum a voyager starts with if they have time to pre-buff, and it is likewise easy to determine where their afterimage would be... but what if the voyager is suddenly thrown into combat? There could stand to be a quick-and-dirty means of adjudicating how much momentum a voyager can be allowed to start combat with during impromptu battles, and where they are allowed to set their afterimage.

The sahkil's initiative was higher than theirs, it panicked and shook the PCs with its gaze, it denied them actions with overwhelming grief, and it turned greater invisible on top of that. Both of them had dropped their weapons, and the zohanil was standing over the crossfire's pistol. The voyagers were looking to be completely screwed. (The zohanil was also a catgirl nurse and the PCs were also dressed as anime nurses, but those are irrelevant details.) My general interpretation of suggestion is that "stop fighting" is never a reasonable _suggestion_, so that SLA was off the table for the zohanil.

After surviving the zohanil's attacks when while Dexterity-denied due to uncanny dodge, that is when the PCs made a heroic comeback. They broke free of the overwhelming grief and manifested touchsight. It sure is convenient that _touchsight_ was recently added to the voyager's power list; while see invisibility would have forced the PCs to confront the sahkil's gaze, touchsight ensured that they could fight with their eyes closed. Thanks to some trickery with the foreshadow and helping hand parallel actions, they managed to rearm themselves.

Both voyagers had deflect (immediate action, spend 3 power points, negate any ranged attack) and sidestep (immediate action, spend 3 power points, negate any melee attack) among their powers known. They quickly discovered that augmented attack's blink and dash allowed them to effortlessly skirmish away from the mostly-melee zohanil. Since the sahkil had no pounce, this meant that the sahkil was forced to move and attack, only to have their attack sidestepped. Similarly, the zohanil could redirect the PCs' own attacks against them with foe to friend, but that was just as easily deflected or sidestepped.

Let this be a lesson: voyagers are fragile due to their d6 HD, but augmented attack's blink and dash let them simultaneously crank up their AC and Reflex with momentum and bounce away from melee monsters. Any melee monster without pounce is limited to a single attack against a voyager, which can be negated with sidestep.

Still, the sahkil was quite durable even against full-momentum attacks that dealt an extra 7d6+7 damage with Amplified Momentum, and so the entire battle took a grueling 15 rounds before the zohanil was finally placed under an akashic Symbol of Mercy. The PCs ended the battle in critical hit points and with an obnoxious amount of power points hemorrhaged away, so it was perhaps a pyrrhic victory.

I was skeptical over the voyager (crossfire) as an archetype. It receives nowhere as much firearm benefits as a mystic (gunsmoke mystic) or a warlord (desperado), so how could it possibly stand up to an elven curve blade with free proficiency from being a hummingbird tengu? As it turns out, with naught but a humble pistol and alchemical paper cartridges, the crossfire actually managed to be more powerful and reliable than the regular voyager, even without spending any grit.

A voyager (crossfire) is highly mobile, quite likely to make only a single attack each round, and capable of repairing a misfire with a parallel action, so misfires are no concern and it is no problem to close in for a ranged touch attack. Most of a voyager's damage comes from momentum (and Amplified Momentum, at that), so a firearm's low damage is of no concern, and the immense accuracy increase from ranged touch attacks cannot be denied. So, please do not underestimate the crossfire; it uses pistols more efficaciously than it would seem at first glance.

I would also like to add that there is really no reason for a voyager to not be a metronome. So much of a voyager's playstyle benefits from chaining together a parallel action with an augmented attack (or vice versa) that it is well worth the initiative penalty. I cannot imagine any of our voyager's tricky tactics with foreshadow, rewind, and pause having worked anywhere as well with the default voyager. I am not saying that the metronome should be downgraded; rather, the vanilla voyager should be upgraded to make the parallel turn more enticing.

As I had expected, however, there was hardly any point to using power channel. Over the course of 15 rounds, it was used only twice: once when the melee voyager tried a destiny dissonance only to run into spell resistance, and a second time when the voyager (crossfire) had to spend a move action to retrieve their weapon and settled for dealing damage through focused shot and dissolving touch. Power channel is really quite niche, and never a mainstay of a voyager. It was exactly like this in my previous playtest mini-campaign as well; I do not place much value in the feature.

Another issue we noticed was that pause is a little confusing. Despite the general rules for stacking miss chances, people constantly thought that the miss chances stacked. People also thought that any voyager spending momentum could ignore the miss chance, and furthermore, it was unclear to everyone which of the miss chances spending momentum actually ignored.

A further quibble had to do with parallel actions. They are neither "real" turns nor "real" actions, so can they be used while denied actions? Consider surprise rounds, frightened/panicked, and effects like overwhelming grief. Is a voyager still eligible for their parallel actions? What of a metronome?

The voyage of the two voyagers will continue next week.

I consider the voyager to have the single most interesting combat playstyle out of any non-initiating Pathfinder class I have ever seen. I find its combat paradigm to be delightfully unique and flexible by non-initiator standards.

I will also say that the voyager is a strong class for a tier 3. It obviously pales in comparison to the noncombat potential of prepared full spellcasters, and it cannot hold a candle to initiators abusing the likes of zenith strikes and reflected blade style, but it is among the most flexible and potent of the half-casters and half-manifesters.

Many other pairs of 7th-level characters would have completely flunked the infiltration scenario in my game (and the voyagers would have passed it effortlessly if only they had selected chameleon as a power known). Likewise, few are the pairs of non-initiating 7th-level characters who would have been able to survive the encounter against the CR 10 zohanil under the same circumstances (sickened for a long duration, indoors, surprise round, lost initiative, caught with only hours-long buffs). It takes a good understanding of the voyager's mechanics to unlock its full potential, however; this is no class for lazy players.

As far as longevity over the course of an adventuring day is concerned, the voyager is fairly well-off as long as the player does not fall into the trap of regularly spending power points on power channel. A voyager has one-and-one-third as much power points as any other half-manifester, and its optimal tactic is the usual: pre-buff before combat, toss out utility here and there, and seldom manifest during combat itself.

During this particular encounter with the CR 10 zohanil, the two 7th-level voyagers had to bleed through a disheartening amount of power points simply to survive via Deflect and Sidestep, but I imagine that many other duos of 7th-level non-initiators would have been crushed by the same battle under the same circumstances.

[sunderedhero]

I really like this class, but there's something that concerns me, "Rewind" effectively make the Voyager unkillable unless you drop them in a single turn. "Emergency Stasis" suffers from the same problem.

[Galacktic]

Stasis locks you in a single spot, entirely in view of everyone, and you can't contribute. Even though you do heal when you get out, you could have lost the battle by that point and the enemy have just surrounded you and set up a trap. That's the risk of it. Any turn that you're stasis'd, that's a turn you're not helping kill the enemy.

And Rewind lets you mark your HP, but it only lasts for one turn and you expend your focus to do so. It's more of a heal in battle than anything, and using that still means that you're not doing your primary job (as a skirmisher, blowing up the enemy with your spellstrike and momentum)

[Deimosaur]

One of our players was constantly confused by afterimages, however. They were convinced that afterimages could be made realistic-looking enough to pass as a convincing decoy of a person even up close, which simply was not the case in the rules. This is a point I had to correct numerous times, so perhaps afterimages could be strongly clarified to say that using them this way is impossible. Perhaps a feat could open up afterimage-based illusions?

Wording has been added to afterimages to make this more clear.

A major quibble immediately arose then and there: it is easy to determine how much momentum a voyager starts with if they have time to pre-buff, and it is likewise easy to determine where their afterimage would be... but what if the voyager is suddenly thrown into combat? There could stand to be a quick-and-dirty means of adjudicating how much momentum a voyager can be allowed to start combat with during impromptu battles, and where they are allowed to set their afterimage.

This is something that's always going to require GM adjudication, I think. But a sidebar has been added to make decision-making easier.

Another issue we noticed was that pause is a little confusing. Despite the general rules for stacking miss chances, people constantly thought that the miss chances stacked. People also thought that any voyager spending momentum could ignore the miss chance, and furthermore, it was unclear to everyone which of the miss chances spending momentum actually ignored.

A further quibble had to do with parallel actions. They are neither "real" turns nor "real" actions, so can they be used while denied actions? Consider surprise rounds, frightened/panicked, and effects like overwhelming grief. Is a voyager still eligible for their parallel actions? What of a metronome?

These two issues have also been clarified! Using momentum should work to avoid the miss chance you inflict on yourself, and the miss chance you potentially gave an enemy.

Since I opted for the 'weaker' option by default for parallel actions... a new feat, called Independent Action, opens up the stronger interpretation (with a bonus).

Stasis locks you in a single spot, entirely in view of everyone, and you can't contribute. Even though you do heal when you get out, you could have lost the battle by that point and the enemy have just surrounded you and set up a trap. That's the risk of it. Any turn that you're stasis'd, that's a turn you're not helping kill the enemy.

And Rewind lets you mark your HP, but it only lasts for one turn and you expend your focus to do so. It's more of a heal in battle than anything, and using that still means that you're not doing your primary job (as a skirmisher, blowing up the enemy with your spellstrike and momentum)

Indeed, being able to bow out of a fight like this isn't as strong as it looks. The exception might be in solo play, and even then the enemy can make preparations for your return.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Also, we actually forgot about 7th-level parallel actions entirely, but now that I analyze the battle, power echo is the only one that would have mattered, for spamming deflect and sidestep.

Another thing I note about the voyager is that parallel actions tend to confuse players in the sense that they keep forgetting that they can use parallel actions through their afterimage. It is a single, easy-to-miss line in the description of afterimages, not in the description of parallel actions. For example, it is a staple trick for a voyager to use helping hand via afterimage, but the current wording misleads players into thinking that the object has to be adjacent to the voyager, and only the voyager.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I am concerned that accomplished accomplice effectively becomes a scaling bonus to virtually any skill check a voyager makes, whether it is Knowledge or Perception. Is this the intent?

I am not so sure I like that, since it is a no-brainer selection for any voyager who appreciates having high skill checks. For a 6th-level voyager, it is a +3 bonus to the vast majority of their skill checks, which is... really quite good, as you can imagine.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

My report on the voyager continues. We played for another 11.5 hours stretched out over two days, because the noncombat side of the mini-campaign was proving quite gripping. We did get into one battle, which showcased more of the voyager's strengths and weaknesses.

The battlefield was a 195-foot-long, 120-foot-wide, 30-foot-tall enclosure. The area was split lengthwise into an field of clear terrain and a field of difficult terrain. The opponent was a CR 12 diplodocus with Intelligence 21 and Charisma 21, surely a fearsome foe for two 7th-level half-manifesters. Due to the outcome of previous noncombat challenges, they were able to enter battle only with inertial armor and defensive precognition for buffs (they did not have a chance to manifest concealing amorpha).

The melee voyager and the pistol voyager started adjacent to each other and twenty feet west of the diplodocus, which was in the dead center of the area. This was a poor starting position. Despite suffering a -9 penalty to their Knowledge checks due to a previous noncombat challenge and despite being blindsided by the sudden appearance of this foe, they were able to identify the diplodocus and its major abilities. They likewise won initiative, despite the metronome initiative penalty and despite the diplodocus's Improved Initiative.

The players and their PCs knew that they had to avoid three things:
1. Attacks of opportunity from the diplodocus's 60-foot-reach, Combat Reflexes, and Dexterity 14.
2. Full attacks from the dual tail lashes.
3. Tramples. The rules for this monster ability are vague, but I ruled it as allowing a single iteration of movement speed, not a double move. The party knew that trample would be the death of them due to its obnoxious save DC, and due to it not being a melee attack, therefore being ineligible for a sidestep.

Realistically, they could avoid only two of the three, but not all three. The players opted to avoid #2 and #3.

The players made intelligent use of the foreshadow and rewind parallel actions, which have consistently proven to be the two most useful parallel actions for any voyager so far. They were dominant in positioning thanks to foreshadow and rewind. Narcissism (The Skirmisher) gave them even more flexibility when retreating, and they were always ready to use augmented attack's dash to place distance between themselves and the diplodocus.

Nevertheless, over the course of the five-round battle, they each provoked a single attack of opportunity during some of their turns, whether due to movement or due to making a ranged attack in a threatened area. The PCs prevailed nevertheless. The diplodocus was in a position to use trample not even once, and it was able to full attack only during one round, in which one voyager made a blatant tactical error after forgetting a caveat on parallel actions.

The voyagers were quite lucky during this combat due to the diplodocus's awful attack rolls, but then again, their ACs were stupendously high due to +3 AC from defensive precognition and +Intelligence AC from leftover momentum. That plus the diplodocus being sickened by a destiny dissonance meant that the saurian had trouble hitting the party. Even when it did, a sidestep was there to negate the hard-hitting blow. The party found their power point resources moderately taxed after the battle, but they should still be good to go for easier battles up ahead, thanks to the extra power points from stored power.

I am really quite impressed by how much mobility the voyagers had, between foreshadow, rewind, Narcissism (The Skirmisher), augmented attack's dash, and the raw speed boost from the accelerate class feature. This was a massive arena, and yet the characters were bouncing around it like pinballs or like wuxia heroes. One player praised how riveting a tactical exercise it was to figure out where and how to move the voyagers each turn, and I have to agree: playing in a voyager-heavy party transforms the game into a tactical positioning challenge often missing from Pathfinder. It was very engaging for all of us.

I have mentioned previously that the voyager is a very strong and flexible class for a non-initiating tier 3, and that it has the single most interesting combat playstyle out of any non-initiator I have ever seen. I stand by that wholeheartedly and without a doubt in my mind: the voyager has a supremely gripping combat style.

However, this does come at a price of complexity. The class has many, many moving parts, between keeping track of afterimages, momentum, power points, augmented attacks, and parallel images. One player expressed that they were completely overwhelmed by option paralysis at one point in the battle. I think that the voyager is in a good place mechanically, but it could strongly use a guide on how to play the class, written by the author (Deimosaur) themselves. A complex class deserves as gentle as possible a hand-holding guide to ease players into making the most of its complex yet rewarding mechanics.

We ran into four rules quibbles during this fight:
1. Is the momentum from an attack spent before any attacks of opportunity, or after any attacks of opportunity? We went with "after" for this battle, which favored the voyagers' AC against attacks of opportunity.
2. Can an afterimage be freely moved through difficult terrain, walls, and the like? For this battle, we said "yes" to difficult terrain but "no" to walls.
3. An afterimage can be moved "5 feet per 3 additional class levels." Does that count the initial 3 class levels, letting a 3rd-level voyager move their afterimage 20 feet? We said "yes" for this fight.
4. Does the extra damage from the Amplified Momentum feat multiply on a critical hit? We said "no" for this combat.

Unsurprisingly, the voyager (metronome) archetype still proved to be worth its weight in gold. I saw no spots whatsoever wherein a regular voyager's parallel turn would have been more useful, and indeed, it was only due to the metronome archetype that the party was able to achieve such tricksy positioning tactics to avoid the diplodocus's most dangerous offense modes.

The voyager (crossfire), yet again, proved significantly more powerful and reliable than the regular voyager. Perhaps this is simply a symptom of how I tend to run over-CRed battles, but targeting touch AC really is quite a boon for a class that relies mostly on single-attack momentum for damage. Misfiring is not much of a problem for a voyager (crossfire) either, so that eliminates a major weakness of firearms. I would not say to downgrade the regular voyager, but I would advise keeping an eye on the crossfire; by no means does it deserve further upgrades given how well it can leverage a pistol.

Accomplished accomplice was definitely pulling its weight as well; it is an insane, global bonus to the majority of skill checks.

[khadgar567]

My report on the voyager continues. We played for another 11.5 hours stretched out over two days, because the noncombat side of the mini-campaign was proving quite gripping. We did get into one battle, which showcased more of the voyager's strengths and weaknesses.

The battlefield was a 195-foot-long, 120-foot-wide, 30-foot-tall enclosure. The area was split lengthwise into an field of clear terrain and a field of difficult terrain. The opponent was a CR 12 diplodocus with Intelligence 21 and Charisma 21, surely a fearsome foe for two 7th-level half-manifesters. Due to the outcome of previous noncombat challenges, they were able to enter battle only with inertial armor and defensive precognition for buffs (they did not have a chance to manifest concealing amorpha).

The melee voyager and the pistol voyager started adjacent to each other and twenty feet west of the diplodocus, which was in the dead center of the area. This was a poor starting position. Despite suffering a -9 penalty to their Knowledge checks due to a previous noncombat challenge and despite being blindsided by the sudden appearance of this foe, they were able to identify the diplodocus and its major abilities. They likewise won initiative, despite the metronome initiative penalty and despite the diplodocus's Improved Initiative.

The players and their PCs knew that they had to avoid three things:
1. Attacks of opportunity from the diplodocus's 60-foot-reach, Combat Reflexes, and Dexterity 14.
2. Full attacks from the dual tail lashes.
3. Tramples. The rules for this monster ability are vague, but I ruled it as allowing a single iteration of movement speed, not a double move. The party knew that trample would be the death of them due to its obnoxious save DC, and due to it not being a melee attack, therefore being ineligible for a sidestep.

Realistically, they could avoid only two of the three, but not all three. The players opted to avoid #2 and #3.

The players made intelligent use of the foreshadow and rewind parallel actions, which have consistently proven to be the two most useful parallel actions for any voyager so far. They were dominant in positioning thanks to foreshadow and rewind. Narcissism (The Skirmisher) gave them even more flexibility when retreating, and they were always ready to use augmented attack's dash to place distance between themselves and the diplodocus.

Nevertheless, over the course of the five-round battle, they each provoked a single attack of opportunity during some of their turns, whether due to movement or due to making a ranged attack in a threatened area. The PCs prevailed nevertheless. The diplodocus was in a position to use trample not even once, and it was able to full attack only during one round, in which one voyager made a blatant tactical error after forgetting a caveat on parallel actions.

The voyagers were quite lucky during this combat due to the diplodocus's awful attack rolls, but then again, their ACs were stupendously high due to +3 AC from defensive precognition and +Intelligence AC from leftover momentum. That plus the diplodocus being sickened by a destiny dissonance meant that the saurian had trouble hitting the party. Even when it did, a sidestep was there to negate the hard-hitting blow. The party found their power point resources moderately taxed after the battle, but they should still be good to go for easier battles up ahead, thanks to the extra power points from stored power.

I am really quite impressed by how much mobility the voyagers had, between foreshadow, rewind, Narcissism (The Skirmisher), augmented attack's dash, and the raw speed boost from the accelerate class feature. This was a massive arena, and yet the characters were bouncing around it like pinballs or like wuxia heroes. One player praised how riveting a tactical exercise it was to figure out where and how to move the voyagers each turn, and I have to agree: playing in a voyager-heavy party transforms the game into a tactical positioning challenge often missing from Pathfinder. It was very engaging for all of us.

I have mentioned previously that the voyager is a very strong and flexible class for a non-initiating tier 3, and that it has the single most interesting combat playstyle out of any non-initiator I have ever seen. I stand by that wholeheartedly and without a doubt in my mind: the voyager has a supremely gripping combat style.

However, this does come at a price of complexity. The class has many, many moving parts, between keeping track of afterimages, momentum, power points, augmented attacks, and parallel images. One player expressed that they were completely overwhelmed by option paralysis at one point in the battle. I think that the voyager is in a good place mechanically, but it could strongly use a guide on how to play the class, written by the author (Deimosaur) themselves. A complex class deserves as gentle as possible a hand-holding guide to ease players into making the most of its complex yet rewarding mechanics.

We ran into four rules quibbles during this fight:
1. Is the momentum from an attack spent before any attacks of opportunity, or after any attacks of opportunity? We went with "after" for this battle, which favored the voyagers' AC against attacks of opportunity.
2. Can an afterimage be freely moved through difficult terrain, walls, and the like? For this battle, we said "yes" to difficult terrain but "no" to walls.
3. An afterimage can be moved "5 feet per 3 additional class levels." Does that count the initial 3 class levels, letting a 3rd-level voyager move their afterimage 20 feet? We said "yes" for this fight.
4. Does the extra damage from the Amplified Momentum feat multiply on a critical hit? We said "no" for this combat.

Unsurprisingly, the voyager (metronome) archetype still proved to be worth its weight in gold. I saw no spots whatsoever wherein a regular voyager's parallel turn would have been more useful, and indeed, it was only due to the metronome archetype that the party was able to achieve such tricksy positioning tactics to avoid the diplodocus's most dangerous offense modes.

The voyager (crossfire), yet again, proved significantly more powerful and reliable than the regular voyager. Perhaps this is simply a symptom of how I tend to run over-CRed battles, but targeting touch AC really is quite a boon for a class that relies mostly on single-attack momentum for damage. Misfiring is not much of a problem for a voyager (crossfire) either, so that eliminates a major weakness of firearms. I would not say to downgrade the regular voyager, but I would advise keeping an eye on the crossfire; by no means does it deserve further upgrades given how well it can leverage a pistol.

Accomplished accomplice was definitely pulling its weight as well; it is an insane, global bonus to the majority of skill checks.

You know i wish every people make their peaches like edna and i hate to say it but its quite good feedback besides full turn by turn review of combat. Thanks again edna

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I would also like to add that if nothing else, the kryptonite of a voyager will be anything that can negate singular, powerful attacks, such as Deflect Arrows, psionic powers like deflect and sidestep, and Path of War counters. Voyagers are worse-off than initiators in this regard, because initiators have multiattack strikes and the option of boosting and full attacking, whereas voyagers are mostly screwed if they come across attack-cancelers. Momentum-empowered attacks could use a chance to break through something as simple as Deflect Arrows, if only due to sheer, well, momentum.

It is funny; a voyager versus a voyager will probably stalemate one another due to deflect and sidestep.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

My report on the voyager continues. Today's session was shorter at a mere five hours long, but we did go through a single battle. Our characters were expecting a fight with a pair of archers in the outdoor section of an 85-by-85-foot floating island. They already had a inertial armor up at 7 points for +7 AC. Through the psionic power-sharing mechanic, they further buffed up with defensive precognition at 7 points for +3 AC, skate, concealing amorpha, and, for the melee non-firearm voyager, offensive precognition at 7 points for +3 attack.

Unfortunately, the two archers turned out to be a pair of zuishin kami. These were variants that used constant _mage armor_ rather than breastplates for the same AC, treated all intruders to the area as evil for the purposes of detect evil and holy weapons, could not re-merge with their ward while they were still in combat with conscious enemies, and had Symbol of Mercy as a bonus feat. They also had land speeds rather than fly speeds, which, I suppose, effectively made them more CR 9-ish.

The variant zuishin appeared atop the cottage's roof and opened up with a surprise round. They had see invisibility and could thus see the voyagers' inertial armor, which the zuishin promptly dispelled. Even worse, once the PCs identified the zuishin with Knowledge (planes), it became clear that Improved Precise Shot would completely obviate the miss chances from concealing amorpha and the pause parallel action. Things were looking grim for the voyagers as usual! It is such a shame that the voyagers opted against Deflect Arrows as a bonus feat (though I suppose I may let them swap to it after this battle).

Fortunately, the 7th-level characters' extreme mobility options promptly got them up on the roof, which is where the rest of the battle took place. The voyagers did not have to worry about attacks of opportunity while the two zuishin had their bows out, so the voyagers were free to move around with impunity.

The PCs both used power channel to manifest 1-point inertial armor. The melee voyager liked to activate accomplished accomplice to add +3 to their attack rolls, while the voyager (crossfire) favored spamming power echo to manifest destiny dissonance at a low power point cost of 0, until it finally powered through the enemies' spell resistance. The melee voyager also liked to corner one zuishin by the edge of the rooftop and threaten it with an attack of opportunity, thereby forcing it to settle for a dispel magic (on a destiny dissonance or an inertial armor) and a dimension door away.

Even with only 1-point inertial armor up, the voyagers proved frustratingly difficult for enemies with Point-Blank Shot and Rapid Shot. Defensive precognition on top of +Intelligence to AC is no joke, and the zuishin being sickened did not help their accuracy either. The PCs had cold iron weapons and ammunition, and so were able to penetrate the enemies' damage reduction. The zuishin liked to use a healing arrow loaded with heal or breath of life as the final attack in their full attack sequence and were able to successfully do so a few times, although they had some misfortune with their attack rolls while trying to hit themselves, and Symbol of Mercy helped prevent an annoying breath of life.

After a staggering 12 rounds (including the surprise round), after some very close calls and many power points expended on deflect, our voyagers proved victorious. Only one of them was left standing with 3 hit points, while the other was under a Symbol of Mercy, and both of them were completely tapped out on power points.

We learned during that battle that although power channel is quite niche beyond destiny dissonance, it can be a life-saver in certain situations, such as when inertial armor is dispelled.

We also saw that accomplished accomplice really is too strong a parallel action. Not only is it a scaling bonus to most skill checks, but it is a scaling bonus to attacks on demand as well. I could still see people taking it if it was just an aid another to an attack; it would be a go-to parallel action for "nothing else is useful, so I will make my attack more accurate." Having it apply to most skill checks outside of combat, which happened many times this session, is extravagant.

Only four rules quibbles came up here:
1. Does power echo's cost reduction apply to the momentum cap as well on augmented attacks? In other words, if a 7th-level voyager manifests destiny dissonance for exactly 0 power points, can they then shove 7 momentum onto an augmented attack?
2. The pause parallel action provides a miss chance "attacks," but it is not quite concealment. How does it interact with effects like Improved Precise Shot, then? For that matter, given the bizarre definition of "attacks" in the core rules, would it affect a stone call or a dispel magic?
3. It occurred to me at one point that sensitivity to psychic impressions would have been an extremely useful power to have at a certain point, but it is strangely missing from the voyager's power list, despite being time/history-themed. Why does the voyager have object reading but not sensitivity to psychic impressions?
4. Power echo will completely break shunning of the material by making it all-day, and it is already a broken power (e.g. wrap yourself in a bedsheet for cheap etherealness).

GMing for these voyagers has made for the most entertaining Pathfinder combat experience I have ever had as a GM. Battles really are quite dynamic and mobile ala wuxia.

Throughout all three of these battles, there has been not a single moment wherein each of the voyagers lacked their full +Intelligence to AC and Reflex, though this may be skewed by Narcissism (The Skirmisher). To that end, I do not see defensive precognition at 8th level (a terrible name for a class feature, by the way, given the overlap with defensive precognition) being all that exciting a class feature beyond just +2 AC and Reflex against a single enemy... and that is assuming the voyager is willing to cough up swift actions and willing to stay within close range, rather than darting well out of range.

[Deimosaur]

Momentum:
Momentum defenses scale at +1 per point now instead of +2. The cap is the same (Int modifier), but this should slow down the rate at which a voyager gets unhittable amounts of AC and Reflex.
Wording on fall-off clause while restrained adjusted.

Changes to Parallel Actions:
Accomplished Accomplice pared down to affecting only three "known" skills. It still always can affect attack rolls and AC of the assisted character as normal. It's been a rather dominant out-of-combat bonus, this should narrow its focus a little.

Foreshadow adjusted. The immunity to attacks of opportunity from moving only applies to one selected creature, but that creature is treated as flat-footed against the voyager's next attack (with caveats, see the full text). This should give the voyager some leeway when facing enemies with counters or abilities that can actively nullify their attacks.

Pause's clause with the voyager's momentum has been adjusted. The only voyager that can avoid the miss chance of any given use of Pause should be the one who used it.

Power list:
Sensitivity to psychic impressions added.

We ran into four rules quibbles during this fight:
1. Is the momentum from an attack spent before any attacks of opportunity, or after any attacks of opportunity? We went with "after" for this battle, which favored the voyagers' AC against attacks of opportunity.
2. Can an afterimage be freely moved through difficult terrain, walls, and the like? For this battle, we said "yes" to difficult terrain but "no" to walls.
3. An afterimage can be moved "5 feet per 3 additional class levels." Does that count the initial 3 class levels, letting a 3rd-level voyager move their afterimage 20 feet? We said "yes" for this fight.
4. Does the extra damage from the Amplified Momentum feat multiply on a critical hit? We said "no" for this combat.

1. I'd say after. Attacks of opportunity happen before the attack happens, momentum is spent while the attack is happening.
2-3. Added some wording to afterimage to clarify these.
4. No, I don't think so.

The melee voyager liked to activate accomplished accomplice to add +3 to their attack rolls, while the voyager (crossfire) favored spamming power echo to manifest destiny dissonance at a low power point cost of 0, until it finally powered through the enemies' spell resistance..

1. Does power echo's cost reduction apply to the momentum cap as well on augmented attacks? In other words, if a 7th-level voyager manifests destiny dissonance for exactly 0 power points, can they then shove 7 momentum onto an augmented attack?
4. Power echo will completely break shunning of the material by making it all-day, and it is already a broken power (e.g. wrap yourself in a bedsheet for cheap etherealness).

Bit of a note here for the future, power echo's refund rounds down. A power with a cost of 1 wouldn't get a refund at all.

GMing for these voyagers has made for the most entertaining Pathfinder combat experience I have ever had as a GM. Battles really are quite dynamic and mobile ala wuxia.

Very gratifying to hear.

Throughout all three of these battles, there has been not a single moment wherein each of the voyagers lacked their full +Intelligence to AC and Reflex, though this may be skewed by Narcissism (The Skirmisher). To that end, I do not see defensive precognition at 8th level (a terrible name for a class feature, by the way, given the overlap with defensive precognition) being all that exciting a class feature beyond just +2 AC and Reflex against a single enemy... and that is assuming the voyager is willing to cough up swift actions and willing to stay within close range, rather than darting well out of range.

What I'm sort of hearing here is that it's somewhat unnecessary to use at the moment? Are the voyager's defenses up to snuff already? Renamed it for now, anyways.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Deimosaur, the writer of the voyager class, is really quite an interactive designer who listens to feedback. Let us go over the changes to the voyager class.

1. Stealth Update: Destiny dissonance is back to being a 1st-level power for voyagers, rather than 2nd-level.
Likely Prompted by: IRC chatter with Deimosaur.
My Verdict: A good change that could go a step further. It is perhaps an inevitability that destiny dissonance will be picked up by a voyager for augmented attacks, simply because of how it works. Transferring it to 2nd level is like making shocking grasp a 2nd-level power for maguses simply because it is ubiquitous for them. Besides, Expanded Knowledge as a bonus feat at 4th level can pick up destiny dissonance as a 1st-level power anyway. I think that it would be better if voyagers simply received destiny dissonance as a bonus power known outright at 2nd level, if it is so great a part of their playstyle.

2. "Momentum defenses scale at +1 per point now instead of +2. The cap is the same (Int modifier), but this should slow down the rate at which a voyager gets unhittable amounts of AC and Reflex."
Likely Prompted by: A mix of playtest feedback on the voyager, Deimosaur's own theorycrafting and testing, and suggestions from Dreamscarred Press's internal team.
My Verdict: I wholly disapprove of this. When I was praising the voyager's very high AC in my playtest feedback, that was with a 7-point inertial armor and a 7-point defensive precognition in mind. Those take a heavy expenditure of power points, which is a non-negligible opportunity cost. I was never actually saying to lower the voyager's effective AC. My issue was with temporal duelist at 8th, rather than momentum itself.

Right now, I think that the voyager is suffering from a defensive downgrade that was not warranted, especially considering the class's d6 HD. Low-level voyagers suffer the most from this change; they will be eaten alive with their paltry d6 HD and minimal defensive options.

I have seen absolutely nobody ever complain about a psychic warrior (meditant) for receiving a constant Wisdom to unarmored (read: inertial armor) AC and CMD, +1 for every four levels, and that archetype is compatible with the pathwalker for initiation too. If a meditant can have that, surely a voyager can have something similar more conditionally and with a smaller bonus, no? And if not this, then Deimosaur should at least make the class d8 HD to restore some of its durability, like every other 3/4 BAB class in Paizo and Dreamscarred Press products, and/or reinstate Psionic Body as a bonus feat.

One of my two players dislikes this change mostly due to how much more of a hassle it will be to track AC and Reflex, and I must agree with them; it is certainly harder to track than simply assuming maxed-out Intelligence to AC and Reflex.

3. "Wording on fall-off clause while restrained adjusted."
Likely Prompted by: IRC chatter with Deimosaur.
My Verdict: A good change that could go a step further. It was absolutely stupid for a voyager hit with a tanglefoot bag or an entangling ectoplasm to be completely hosed out of their momentum, even with just their speed halved. That said, I think Deimosaur should also remove the "loses all of her momentum" part. A voyager who is grappled or otherwise immobilized is already in a tough enough spot; this is an emergent weakness of the class's playstyle, and I strongly doubt that the voyager needs to be screwed over even further in such situations.

4. "Accomplished Accomplice pared down to affecting only three 'known' skills. It still always can affect attack rolls and AC of the assisted character as normal. It's been a rather dominant out-of-combat bonus, this should narrow its focus a little. "
Likely Prompted by: Playtest feedback.
My Verdict: A good change. Accomplished accomplice was previously a global bonus to nearly all skill checks, which was overwhelmingly strong.

5. "Foreshadow adjusted. The immunity to attacks of opportunity from moving only applies to one selected creature, but that creature is treated as flat-footed against the voyager's next attack (with caveats, see the full text). This should give the voyager some leeway when facing enemies with counters or abilities that can actively nullify their attacks."
Likely Prompted by: Playtest feedback.
My Verdict: Mixed. On the positive side, it is nice that a voyager has this as a rock-solid option for beelining towards an enemy, attacking its flat-footed AC for extra accuracy, and denying it Deflect Arrows and immediate actions unless it has uncanny dodge. On the negative side, the old foreshadow was part and parcel of the voyager's playstyle, and I think that the old foreshadow should be preserved as an option for voyagers interested in such freedom to disengage and weave through multiple enemies. As another negative, I can see single-attacking initiators dipping into voyager just for the privilege of flat-footing enemies for accuracy and counter-denial.

6. "Pause's clause with the voyager's momentum has been adjusted. The only voyager that can avoid the miss chance of any given use of Pause should be the one who used it."
Likely Prompted by: IRC chatter with Deimosaur, exactly when I asked about this while GMing a battle.
My Verdict: A good change that could go a step further. Pause is strong because it is a miss chance that is not from concealment, which means very few effects can ignore it. Pause ramps up rapidly; a 50% miss chance on demand is quite nice by 9th level. Furthermore, Paizo's RAW for the definition of "attack" ensures that pause will stop cold even spells like slow and stinking cloud, especially since it is not concealment. And yet, I do not think this is all that out of line for this parallel action, seeing how it does little for mobility. Perhaps pause should be more explicit about its miss chance applying to any offensive combat action, so as to clarify what it can impose the miss chance on?

7. "Power list: Sensitivity to psychic impressions added."
Likely Prompted by: Playtest feedback.
My Verdict: A good change. Sensitivity to psychic impressions is history-themed, so it fits thematically, and it adds some noncombat utility to the voyager's repertoire.

8. "Added some wording to afterimage to clarify."
Likely Prompted by: Playtest feedback.
My Verdict: Mixed. One one hand, it is nice that the exact distance of moving afterimages is specified. On the other hand, if it cannot pass through creatures and objects, then that is just silly. It cannot move through allies or even a simple curtain, which is obviously something an afterimage should be able to do. Furthermore, moving afterimages is still fraught with ambiguities. Can an enemy occupy an afterimage's space? Can you move an afterimage "blindly" around a corner? Can you rewind to an afterimage that you cannot see, bypassing the line of sight restriction for parallel actions? What happens if you rewind to an afterimage when its space is already occupied by another creature? These are hardly corner cases; these have all come up at various points in my playtest games.

Bonus: Apparently, in my previous playtest, we were handling power echo incorrectly by assuming that it rounded down the power's cost. Given that all three of us at the table had misinterpreted power echo this way, perhaps its wording should be made crystal-clear by way of example.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

All of the above commentary on the voyager updates aside, my report on the voyager continues. We played for 6.5 hours this time. Outside of combat, the voyagers once again proved to be competent and capable skill monkeys thanks to their 6 base skill points on an Intelligence class, information exchange, and pre-downgrade accomplished accomplice. They also happened to use their time saver class feature a few times, once in the most R-rated manner possible, showcasing an unusually productive use for it of which no more shall be said.

The battle of the session was very special, and bear in mind that it was pre-momentum-AC-downgrade. The two 7th-level voyagers had a full night to rest beforehand. They knew their opponents and the battlefield: six CR 7 Hounds of Tindalos on eternal standby in the dead center of a small and claustrophobic labyrinth. The area had a ceiling of merely ten feet, the Hounds of Tindalos could never be surprised while inside it, and the voyagers could bring into the area only those items the PCs had already owned for at least a few days.

The voyagers performed library research, which was very quick due to time saver, and quite effective due to Intelligence as a key ability score, information exchange, and pre-downgrade accomplished accomplice. The PCs earned enough information to warrant the players being given the full statistics of the Hounds of Tindalos, and they also had the exact layout of the labyrinth on hand.

The voyagers and their players were rather concerned that the Hounds of Tindalos were almost an exact counter for the PCs' abilities as mobile teleporters, and that the Hounds could effectively teleport into any square in the labyrinth as a swift action. Worse, the Hounds had air walk and could thus three-dimensionally gang up on a single PC. (There was an in-universe reason for why this counter was explicitly designed to counter the voyagers.)

The players thought long and hard on how to tackle this challenge. Ultimately, they settled on "the usual": focus on one enemy at a time; place down destiny dissonance whenever practical; use mobility from blink, dash, and the Skirmisher to elude the enemies as much as possible; and avoid being cornered. However, the players also planned on spamming the pause parallel action. Although the Hounds had Blind-Fight, that feat affects concealment, whereas the miss chance from pause is not actually concealment. Furthermore, due to Paizo's quirky definition of "attacks" in the core rules, pause would apply a miss chance onto the Hounds' slow spell-like ability.

The voyagers used the psionic power-sharing mechanic to manifest 7-point inertial armor for +7 AC, 7-point defensive precognition for +3 AC and saving throws, concealing amorpha for 20% concealment miss chance, touchsight to circumvent the Hounds' gaze attacks, skate for extra speed, and, for the melee non-firearm voyager, 7-point offensive precognition for a +3 bonus to attack rolls. The PCs had recently earned an NPC ally who could use magic weapon as a spell-like ability, and so for this one fight, the PCs' masterwork weapons became +1 weapons instead. This would be the fight of their lives, and so the voyagers would go nova.

In all three of the previous battles, the voyagers started off in a terrible and hope-crushing position, often bereft of buffs. The PCs would gradually make a comeback as the voyagers pieced together the enemies' mobility-based shortcomings and then used their voyager mobility abilities to exploit those weaknesses. (Somewhat like stereotypical shounen battles, really.) This battle against the Hounds of Tindalos was an inversion, as it started off extremely favorably for the voyagers, only for things to get dicey by the middle of round #4.

I had the Hounds of Tindalos act on a single initiative count. Unfortunately for the Hounds, the PCs won the initiative. During the first round, the voyagers immediately alpha-struck one of the six Hounds with a cyclops helm, placing it under a Symbol of Mercy. Afterwards, one Hound used haste, and the other four all tried to slow our PCs, but between the 40% miss chance from pause and the +3 bonus to saving throws from defensive precognition, our voyagers came out of the magical barrage completely unscathed. The Hounds surrounded the PCs, but were unable to corner them.

During the second round, the PCs provoked many attacks of opportunity due to their back-and-forth "let me build up momentum" movement and the crossfire's pistol attack. These attacks did not matter, because pause's miss chance and high AC (this was before the momentum AC downgrade) made the voyagers very difficult to hit. The PCs whittled down the HP of a second Hound of Tindalos with a different cyclops helm. So far, this was looking to be the PCs' easiest battle yet, quite ironic given how the Hounds were supposed to counter our PCs' best strengths. By the end of the second round, the remaining Hounds all tried to slow down the PCs... and a single slow slipped through pause's miss chance and high saving throws to slow the melee voyager.

Luck fell out of the PCs' favor during the third round. The voyagers still provoked many attacks of opportunity for their movement and their ranged attack, but only one of these was able to punch through pause's miss chance and high ACs, which was then sidestepped. However, untimely misses led to minimal progress in eliminating Hounds, such as the melee voyager's 7-momentum attack (their last one with full momentum while slowed!) rolling a natural 1. Additionally, the remaining four Hounds all used slow on the crossfire, and one of them finally broke pause's miss chance and high saving throws to slow the crossfire as well.

At the start of the fourth round, the slowed crossfire took a shot and evaded the one attack of opportunity that came their way due to pause's miss chance and high AC. That attack had 6 momentum and a destiny dissonance, but dissapointingly, its damage roll was pathetically low. We had to end the session there, as both of my players had to leave for other business. What was looking to be their easiest battle has since turned into something more desperate... and even worse, Deimosaur had downgraded the voyager's momentum-based AC after the battle, so the PCs will resume the battle in a more vulnerable state! Will our voyagers be able to survive against the four remaining Hounds of Tindalos, despite their spike of misfortune, their slowed status, and the AC downgrade? <= TO BE CONTINUED.

That session brought up a few quibbles:
1. Afterimage is still unclear. Why can an afterimage not move through allies and curtains? Can an enemy occupy an afterimage's space? Can you move an afterimage "blindly" around a corner? Can you rewind to an afterimage that you cannot see, bypassing the line of sight restriction for parallel actions? What happens if you rewind to an afterimage when its space is already occupied by another creature?
2. When does a character gain momentum from spending power points from their stored power pool, exactly? Can a voyager use augmented attack, manifest dissolving touch for 3 power points from stored power, and then spend the ensuing 1 momentum on that same attack?
3. When using their astral voyager class feature for astral caravan, does a voyager still have to start off with everyone (lewdly) holding hands? Or can a voyager circumvent that entirely, even at the start? This is unclear in the text.

During this battle and the last three, the crossfire's player and I have been keeping an eye on the crossfire's various options. There has been not a single turn wherein round redirection would have been more useful than a different parallel action, so perhaps it could use an upgrade. Likewise, focused shot has seen exactly one use so far, and many are the situations wherein blink would have been more appreciated. A crossfire is bound to use a pistol due to reload times, so that means getting close to the fray, and that sometimes means winding up adjacent to one or more enemies. Blink is a godsend for a crossfire who wants to easily disengage and pop off a destiny dissonance or a dissolving touch, so I would take it over focused shot any day.

I do not think the crossfire is in need of any downgrades, since the new foreshadow ensures great accuracy even for a voyager targeting regular AC.

Pause is strong, but I do not think it needs a change, since it is an important defensive option in a voyager's repertoire.

I hope to see the voyager class polished further and further as the days go on. It has been a joy to GM for these two voyagers in combat, given their mobile and dynamic playstyles. I think that an optimized voyager's combat playstyle is even more interesting than an optimized initiator's playstyle, because while the latter can simply explode everything mindlessly, an optimized voyager actually has to think carefully about positioning and the best way to use their class features from turn to turn. I adore how Deimosaur has somehow managed to create such an interesting combat playstyle.

[Tariyan Draegr]

*snip*

I have to say, I usually just wait on most DSP classes to end up in my inbox at months end after reading the initial playtest because I enjoy being surprised at what changes and I usually can't roll up a new character to playtest with at a moments notice but your absolutely constant glowing reviews of the class makes me want to break tradition

[Deimosaur]

Updated Temporal Duelist, building on its niche of "specialized defense against one enemy", in a voyager-ey manner.

And a (minor) wording update to Stored Power, to make when the voyager gets momentum from spending the extra power points more clear.

Pause has been adjusted slightly. Given it's found its niche as a good defensive tool, it doesn't need to preserve momentum as it had before.

The players thought long and hard on how to tackle this challenge. Ultimately, they settled on "the usual": focus on one enemy at a time; place down destiny dissonance whenever practical; use mobility from blink, dash, and the Skirmisher to elude the enemies as much as possible; and avoid being cornered. However, the players also planned on spamming the pause parallel action. Although the Hounds had Blind-Fight, that feat affects concealment, whereas the miss chance from pause is not actually concealment. Furthermore, due to Paizo's quirky definition of "attacks" in the core rules, pause would apply a miss chance onto the Hounds' slow spell-like ability.

To be fair, concealment uses the wording of "attacks" as well. With this ruling, the miss chance from concealment would affect this slow SLA as well.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

In light of destiny dissonance being back at 1st level in the voyager power list, I am currently building a 7th-level voyager. I am compensating for the recent loss of some of the voyager's momentum-based AC by taking Expanded Knowledge (force screen), which grants a +4 shield bonus to AC for 1 minute per level, for the low cost of 1 power point. Between that and inertial armor, I am quickly discovering that the best strategy for such a voyager is to take Mobility from the bonus feat list, spam pause for a parallel action, and then run around the battlefield willy-nilly, safe in the knowledge that enemies will almost certainly have great difficulty in hitting the voyager.

I worry that this will be a dominant build, and that it will sabotage the tactical depth of the voyager by having a spammable, low-risk combat tactic available. Am I overreacting? How can this be fixed? Should Mobility be replaced in the voyager bonus feat list with something else? Should the pause parallel action not apply against attacks of opportunity?

This is what a voyager has to resort to for navigating an enemy-crowded battlefield now that the old foreshadow is gone.

Also, it seems that Deimosaur went and gave pause a downgrade, even when I said that pause was just fine and did not need the downgrade. This seems a little arbitrary and overreactionary. I think that Deimosaur should reinstate the "preserve momentum" function, yet bar pause from affecting attacks of opportunity, making it less of a "run around the battlefield unscathed" option.

Perhaps pause should only work from the end of your turn to the start of your next turn?

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Proposed set of solutions: Say that the momentum bonus is an untyped bonus to AC, CMD, and Reflex. It is a force effect (flavored as a momentum barrier) that does not stack with shield bonuses that come from force effects. Then, make pause only work from the end of your turn to the start of your turn. Finally, replace Mobility on the bonus feat list with something else.

This way, there is no force screen stacking, and pause cannot be used to tank attacks of opportunity.

[Deimosaur]

These changes below are overall oriented towards making a tabletop experience faster, along with some balance/thematic concerns.

Afterimage:
For the sake of simplicity, afterimages now move according to the same 'rules' as the voyager. They are hindered by difficult terrain if the voyager would be. On the flip side, if the voyager has a climb or fly speed, the afterimage can move according to how those speeds work.

Stored Power:
Stored power's wording has been clarified to grant momentum after the power points are spent.

Parallel Actions:
Assisted escape is always going to be somewhat situational, but its use cases have been expanded somewhat. Simply knowing assisted escape is somewhat valuable now, in emergencies where simply being 5 feet away from her location is important, the voyager can use it as an immediate action by expending her psionic focus.

Foreshadow's path distance has been reduced, but the path's abilities have been improved (becoming a mix of the old and new versions). This means drawing the path is less annoying for the rest of the party, and the path itself is more meaningful to the voyager. I believe that at some point foreshadow was also made so that paths do not have to start from the voyager's position, so this should encourage voyagers to draw directly where they think they'll need foreshadow's benefits rather than covering every space available with their speed.

Pause and shifting steps have been switched (and rebalanced) for a number of reasons: thematic and balance. After seeing pause in play for a while now, I'm not happy with its current location and use. I'll just go ahead and admit that shifting steps was initially designed as a variant to pause, so I believe the theme of old shifting steps is usable for pause.

Using pause every turn on herself meant the voyager has a permanent, scaling concealing amorpha-esque effect. As a direct comparison to a power, I'm uncomfortable with it being available this early. The appeal of pause as a semi-permanent concealing amorpha, 'free' was enough to stomach not using any other parallel actions in some cases.

Paradox shift (new shifting steps) doesn't have to include as much awkward text about scaling miss chance. It also doesn't allow the voyager to circumvent it through use of momentum (after all, that is a rather trivial cost). Now it will be reserved for when the voyager needs safety on herself, or to take an enemy out of the fight somewhat, at the cost of making them harder to eliminate. It's worth noting that heartseeker or seeking weapons could start becoming available for the voyager and possibly her enemies at this time.

[AHeroNamedHawke]

Longtime Path of War lover here, I've been playing a bit with the Voyager at early levels and reading over the rest of the class. While I still have to do more testing, there are a few things concerning me.

Power Channel
I was initially excited by this prospect, having recently picked up several Psywar builds (including an abuse of Share Power with Vigor and Psicrystals), but upon rereading realized you're limited by your level for spending momentum and power points. I do not feel like very many powers hold up to the loss of momentum damage (Save 1 point wonders like Destiny Dissonance and Inevitable Strike), making the ability very niche in its use or reserved for turns in which you just want to self buff and do low damage on an attack. The Voyager has a small pool to begin with, so I feel like allowing some casting outside of their level wouldn't cause a huge issue.

Shot on the Run
I'm a little unclear on the exact wording here, as the difference between Attack and Attack Action has always been a point of contention, but to my understanding you cannot use Augmented Attacks with this feat. That limitation makes it basically useless, where I feel like it has potential for more interesting positioning and movement. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Initiators vs base Pathfinder
As far as I can tell, the Voyager excels at kiting standard Pathfinder enemies, due to a great deal of them lacking the speed to keep up. In the context of base PF, their design is almost perfect for a skirmisher and works very well. However, when faced with PoW opponents, their speed becomes much less impressive with the prevalence of charge maneuvers, and their primary method of attack becomes a liability. Any stalker they come across will be able to counter their Foreshadow augmented attacks with little trouble, and leave them with no recourse. Anyone with a Feint can drop them fairly easily, as their only survivability comes from dodge bonuses, their speed and Deflect. Conversely, anything without Feint can do little to interact if they rely on single attacks, even full initiators. That's more due to Sidestep, and they have a small point pool to compensate.

Rewind
Easily the best Parallel action, and I love it. I do however feel like it greatly overshadows other actions, especially some of the later ones. Both Stretched Time and Special Delivery are fairly disappointing by comparison, while Power Echo is limited by what I outlined above. Foreshadow, Rewind and Assisted Escape appear to be the most effective actions overall, so I think Dual Threat could use a bit more oomph. Combo Strike I have yet to experiment with, though 3/4 BAB Dex classes tend to struggle landing Combat Maneuvers. I also feel like Pause was nerfed too hard; the reduction of speed requiring you to be adjacent to your enemy does not feel like something I'd want to use due to the save, since you'd have to begin or end your turn next to an enemy and quite possibly die to a full attack.

Metronome
As the other guy said, best archetype hands down. Having to wait to use your Parallel action can leave you wide open if your Afterimage got a bad roll, and I'd much rather take the penalty to initiative than delay my first turn by -8. It feels great to use, but baseline Voyager could probably use something to compete with it.

Melee vs Crossfire Voyager
From yet another limited experience, and especially with the Foreshadow change, I feel like melee Voyagers are much weaker than their ranged counterparts. Most of their damage comes from Momentum anyway, and ranged characters have much greater freedom to build it up. On top of that, anything in range is free to interrupt their manifesting, and they have a much harder time getting away after an attack. This can easily lead to them getting dogpiled after their opening move, unless they use a Metronome Rewind and can charge an enemy every round.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the class so far, and will be watching your updates closely.

[Galacktic]

These changes below are overall oriented towards making a tabletop experience faster, along with some balance/thematic concerns.

Afterimage:
For the sake of simplicity, afterimages now move according to the same 'rules' as the voyager. They are hindered by difficult terrain if the voyager would be. On the flip side, if the voyager has a climb or fly speed, the afterimage can move according to how those speeds work.

Stored Power:
Stored power's wording has been clarified to grant momentum after the power points are spent.

Parallel Actions:
Assisted escape is always going to be somewhat situational, but its use cases have been expanded somewhat. Simply knowing assisted escape is somewhat valuable now, in emergencies where simply being 5 feet away from her location is important, the voyager can use it as an immediate action by expending her psionic focus.

Foreshadow's path distance has been reduced, but the path's abilities have been improved (becoming a mix of the old and new versions). This means drawing the path is less annoying for the rest of the party, and the path itself is more meaningful to the voyager. I believe that at some point foreshadow was also made so that paths do not have to start from the voyager's position, so this should encourage voyagers to draw directly where they think they'll need foreshadow's benefits rather than covering every space available with their speed.

Pause and shifting steps have been switched (and rebalanced) for a number of reasons: thematic and balance. After seeing pause in play for a while now, I'm not happy with its current location and use. I'll just go ahead and admit that shifting steps was initially designed as a variant to pause, so I believe the theme of old shifting steps is usable for pause.

Using pause every turn on herself meant the voyager has a permanent, scaling concealing amorpha-esque effect. As a direct comparison to a power, I'm uncomfortable with it being available this early. The appeal of pause as a semi-permanent concealing amorpha, 'free' was enough to stomach not using any other parallel actions in some cases.

Paradox shift (new shifting steps) doesn't have to include as much awkward text about scaling miss chance. It also doesn't allow the voyager to circumvent it through use of momentum (after all, that is a rather trivial cost). Now it will be reserved for when the voyager needs safety on herself, or to take an enemy out of the fight somewhat, at the cost of making them harder to eliminate. It's worth noting that heartseeker or seeking weapons could start becoming available for the voyager and possibly her enemies at this time.

I just checked the document and couldn't find Shifting Steps anywhere in there. I think it was forgotten!

[AHeroNamedHawke]

I just checked the document and couldn't find Shifting Steps anywhere in there. I think it was forgotten!

It's called Paradox Shift now, under 11th level actions.

[Deimosaur]

Foreshadow got too good. Oops. I'm taking the flat-footed mechanic off of it. For starters, it was far too easy to trigger. Flat-footing an enemy should have a greater cost to it, both build-wise and action wise. So . . .

I'm adding two feats to the document, forming a small chain in conjunction with already-existing feats. Slipstream Feint lets a character feint in a different sort of way, and Blink Ambush brings in the ability to flat-foot enemies after feinting them.

This makes it available to voyagers who didn't take that parallel action . . . and also other types of characters qualify for it!

[MilleniaAntares]

I don't like Voyager Knowledge a lot. It can be simplified quite a bit.

Here's a suggestion, with some of the wording taken from the monk bonus feats:

At 4th level and every 3 levels thereafter, the voyager adds a special trick to her psionic repertoire. The voyager may select a bonus feat that must be taken from the following list:

Acrobatic Steps, Blind-Fight, Expanded Knowledge, Mobility, Momentous Maneuvers, Quick Draw, and Up The Walls

At 7th level, the following feats are added to the list:

Cloak Dance, Deflect Arrows, Mixed Combat, Shot on the Run, Relentless Shot, and Trick Shooter

At 13th level, the following feats are added to the list:

Circuitous Shot, Cartwheel Dodge, Knockdown Shot, Snap Shot, and Return Shot

[Deimosaur]

Some of you might notice that manifestation of speed's opening looks significantly different. Don't worry, nothing has really changed. Brief clarifications have been added where needed, and the order in which the voyager makes her decisions has been determined.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Spoiler: Playtest Stories

Show

Last week on the great voyager playtest, the two fully-buffed, 7th-level voyagers were four rounds into a battle against a pack of six CR 7 Hounds of Tindalos. Such fearsome entities hunt down spacetime-manipulators and have abilities to hard-counter such characters. Worse, due to storyline reasons, the characters had no choice but to confront the Hounds in a tight and cramped space so full of angles that the Hounds could teleport as a swift action to any spot on the map.

Half a week ago, we restarted the battle. Unfortunately, by that time, Deimosaur had issued vast and sweeping changes to the voyager. I restarted the battle, this time upgrading the enemies to six CR 8 advanced Hounds of Tindalos; against all odds, the party still won initiative and achieved victory regardless. However, soon after the combat concluded, Deimosaur issued more major changes to the voyager again, so the playtest data was for nothing. Therefore, it is completely worthless to talk about that battle, except to say that the older version of the foreshadow parallel action that automatically flat-footed an enemy was quite strong.

Let us talk about the current state of the voyager. Despite the extensive downgrades from the last few updates, in terms of power and flexibility, the voyager is comparable to some of Paizo's stronger half-casters, like unarchetyped hunters, archer unarchetyped inquisitors, archer inquisitors (sacred huntmaster), or occultists (haunt collector) with the Trappings of the Warrior. It has nowhere near the broad utility and power of an inquisitor (monster tactician) or a summoner, nor can it stack up to third-party flexible powerhouses like an aether blade avowed, an aether barrage avowed, or a kineticist (gambler). It certainly cannot match up to the combat strength of even a middlingly-optimized Path of War initiator (something I have personally seen in five actual battles).

Nevertheless, the voyager is rather "janky" in multiple fields that feel clunky and disappointing to gain and use. I think that the voyager could use some small upgrades in these areas. This may ramp up its strength and flexibility, but the voyager would feel better and more empowering to play, and it still would not match up to inquisitors (monster tactician), summoners, aether blade avowed, aether barrage avowed, kineticist (gamblers), or, with regards to combat potency, middlingly-optimized initiators.

Clunky and Unclear Rules: None of the below are edge cases. All of the following questions arose during actual gameplay of our latest playtest sessions, which took place two days ago and yesterday. These areas in the voyager's mechanics were so janky that they tripped up both of the players and even soured the mood of one player.
• 1st Level: Momentum: Does a voyager gain momentum for forced movement, such as from being bull rushed? Does a voyager gain momentum from falling? In our latest playtest sessions, the voyagers were using their high movement speeds and boots of speed to eke out slightly more momentum by making ten-foot-high jumps at certain points in their turn.
• 2nd Level: Manifestation of Speed: Blink and Dash: Since the psychoportation discipline's rules lack the magic rules' provision against teleporting to open spaces, can blink be used to teleport a voyager three-dimensionally? Likewise, what happens if a melee voyager jumps up and attacks an enemy? Can they use blink three-dimensionally then, during the jump? Can they use dash three-dimensionally during the jump, like some sort of video-game-style "air dash" or "jump cancel"?
• 2nd Level: Manifestation of Speed: Power Channel: What does it mean to "simultaneously" manifest the power? How does the timing here work, exactly? The example that came up during actual gameplay was manifesting touchsight simultaneously as an attack against an invisible opponent; would the attack be made with total concealment?
• 3rd Level: Afterimage: By far the single jankiest class feature of the voyager. This tripped up both of the players, even soured the mood of one player, and brought the game to a grinding halt at a few points. How do afterimages actually move? Can they make Acrobatics checks, Climb checks, or Swim checks? What skill bonuses do they use? If they have such limited movement speed, do they take a penalty to Acrobatics checks made to jump? Is their movement quartered/halved when using Climb or Swim? Can an afterimage make Stealth checks to hide? Does an afterimage occupy a space? Can it enter an enemy's space? Can enemies enter an afterimage's space?
All of these (except for the Stealth issue) would be non-issues if Deimosaur simply rolled back the update and reverted afterimages to be like illusory figments, which could be freely "flown" around. Freeform "flight" for afterimages originally made rewind quite useful for mobility around and over obstacles. The current afterimage operates clunkily, demands rolling and adjudicating skills for a "creature, but not really a creature," and undermines the mobility of rewind.
• 5th Level: Astral Voyager: Does this take a standard action to use as per psi-like abilities (standard action planar travel at 5th level!), or an hour? Is it automatically augmented, as is standard for psi-like abilities?
Furthermore, this is not so much murkiness with astral voyager as it is with astral caravan itself, but perhaps the voyager class can stealthily patch this up: astral caravan says that "you appear on your chosen plane within 10–1,000 (1d% x 10) miles of your intended destination on that plane," but who determines the direction? The manifester? The GM? Random chance? If it is determined by random chance, since psychoportation lacks the rule against appearing in an open space, does this mean that you can arrive in outer space? Perhaps the astral voyager class feature should stealthily patch this by specifying that the voyager gets to choose the direction.
• 7th Level: Temporal Duelist: Is an enemy aware that they can break the effect by moving outside of the voyager's close range? This came up mid-game when I, the GM, had a monster move out of close range to fire a ranged touch attack at the temporally-dueling voyager. Furthermore, if an enemy does move outside of close range, is the temporal duelist effect cancelled (i.e. it must be reestablished with another swift action), or merely suppressed?

Disappointing Features: Some features of the voyager are rather disappointing and anticlimactic. It would be nice to see them improved:
• 1st Level: Class Skills: It would really be nice if the voyager had all Knowledge skills as class skills, as certain skill monkey classes do. The voyager is supposed to be a skill monkey who, to quote the class description, "always know more than she should," and yet a voyager receives a Knowledge-related class feature only at 6th level. It would support a voyager's Intelligence-based skill monkey role to have all Knowledges in-class.
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: The separate initiative mechanic is unreliable, enough that every voyager I have seen so far has been a metronome and has not regretted it. There needs to be a more potent incentive to being a vanilla voyager; perhaps the parallel turn should start at a smaller penalty, and eventually become a bonus?
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: Accomplished Accomplice: Having to roll the aid another is clunky, particularly when it is nearly an automatic success by 3rd-level anyway. It also means that 1st- and 2nd-level voyagers have the most trouble actually using accomplished accomplice, for no good reason. This should simply be a flat bonus decoupled from aid another, especially since it does not interact with any upgrades to aid another anyway.
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: Assisted Escape: Although it solves one of the voyager's greatest weaknesses (getting knocked prone), it is still too situational to be worth taking. Expending psionic focus and an immediate action to use this out-of-turn is rather costly, because maintaining psionic focus is hugely important for a voyager due to Speed of Thought, and a voyager is too feat-starved early on to spring for Psionic Meditation (which would cost precious move actions anyway).
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: Combo Strike: A 3/4 BAB, Strength-dumping class simply is not going to be able to make much use of these combat maneuvers, let alone against mid/high-level monsters.
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: Dual Threat: If this allowed a voyager to designate a 10-by-10-foot square or so, then I would consider picking this up, but with a 5-by-5-foot square, this is lacking in oomph. Even a reach weapon leaves gaps in threatened areas.
• 1st Level: Parallel Action: Foreshadow: In my game, we have reached the point wherein drawing the path for foreshadow has become clunky to use. Furthermore, the players liked using the original foreshadow and its greater degree of freedom in avoiding attacks of opportunity. It is nice that the new foreshadow lets a character pass through enemies, but that undermines rewind (which has already been undermined by the downgrade to afterimage movement). The original foreshadow would be welcome, and it would not overlap with rewind, as our older playtest sessions' experiences had shown.
• 2nd Level: Manifestation of Speed: Dash: This really, really needs to not provoke attacks of opportunity. Otherwise, non-reach melee voyagers without Narcissism (The Skirmisher) are stuck either blowing power points to blink or spamming foreshadow in order to attack and then replenish thier momentum by dashing away. Ranged voyagers have no such problem.
• 3rd Level: Afterimage (and Parallel Action: Rewind): I have already covered above why this is clunky to use and has been undermined by updates.
• 3rd Level: Parallel Action: Pause: Complete and utter garbage. It sometimes allows a voyager to shut down the movement of enemies with middling movement speeds... if they fail a Will saving throw. Even if they do, the voyager's speed is still debuffed, and speed is of vital essence to a voyager.
• 5th Level: Astral Voyager: A voyager receives this as a class feature. A voyager is supposed to be good at traveling the Astral Plane and dealing with its challenges. However, the Astral Plane's subjective directional gravity is Wisdom-based, and a voyager cannot make use of its Quicken Spell benefit, as a voyager most likely shies away from standard action mid-combat powers. Perhaps a voyager should receive Intelligence-based subjective directional gravity, and some manifesting benefits while in the Astral Plane?
• 5th Level: Manifestation of Speed: Lightning Focus: A voyager seldom wants to expend psionic focus due to the importance of Speed of Thought, and Psionic Meditation costs a precious move action. 3 momentum is an inconvenient price. I have seen voyagers in play in many, many battles by this point, and I have seen lightning focus used exactly once. This, along with the fact that astral voyager is a ribbon in most games, makes 5th level a very disappointing level indeed.
• 7th Level: Parallel Action: All three of them at this level: These are all terribly underwhelming and situational. They need a revamp to be of any use. I have seen stretched time used not a single time, and power echo's only use so far has been saving power points on two manifestations of metaphysical weapon at the start of an adventuring workday.
• 12th Level: Improved Evasion: It simply is not very meaningful to gain improved evasion when a voyager's Reflex is likely through the roof and bloated by momentum. This is effectively a dead level.
• 13th Level: Manifestation of Speed: Shove: Considering that this is a 13th-level ability, this should not allow a saving throw, especially seeing how bull rush does not allow a saving throw either. Maybe this could be forced teleportation (not into the air, unless the target can fly) too for so high-level a feature.
• 15th Level: Parallel Action: Emergency Stasis: Completely and utterly dreck. Not only do you need to set this up beforehand, but it only works when you are dead, an absolute worst-case scenario. Compared to reversal of fortune right below it, which is constant 5e-style advantage both in and out of combat, emergency stasis is terribly niche. It needs to be replaced with something that gives as much ground-shaking advantage (no pun intended) as reversal of fortune, in and out of battle.
• 17th Level: Manifestation of Speed: Greater Multitask: I am having a hard time seeing where this will be of use. Surely, power channel and (regular) multitask alone will be able to cover a voyager's mid-battle manifesting needs?
• 20th Level: Eternity Awaits: This is one of the weaker 20th-level features I have seen, mostly because it does nothing for you while you are still alive. For comparison, the rajah's 20th-level feature comes with a major benefit that applies at all times, in addition to its self-resurrection benefit. Perhaps eternity awaits could use a similar passive benefit?
• Feats: Slipstream Feint and Blink Ambush: These are supposed to solve the issue of a voyager being completely screwed over by Deflect Arrows, deflect, sidestep, Path of War counters, and similar abilties, since a voyager is so heavily-dependent on singular attacks. However, sinking three feats towards Blink Ambush is too heavy an investment that most players would hardly ever consider. Two feats, maybe, but three feats, certainly not.

I suppose I should talk about the two playtest characters I am running for. They are 8th-level by now. Both are hummingbird tengu, because it is an extremely optimal race for a voyager without resorting to construct type cheese or fly speed cheese: -2 Strength (irrelevant), +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, Small size for Stealth and accuracy, and, for a melee voyager, free elven curve blade proficiency. They are both metronomes, because until Deimosaur buffs vanilla voyagers, there is no good reason not to reap the benefits of the metronome archetype. Both have cyclops helms and boots of speed by this point.

One character is a melee voyager with an elven curve blade, and the other is a voyager (crossfire) with a pistol. They both have Narcissism (The Skirmisher) to help replenish momentum after attacking, and it is especially useful for the melee voyager, who would provoke attacks of opportunity with dash otherwise. It would sure be nice if Deimosaur was to let dash avoid provoking attacks of opportunity, thereby making Narcissism (The Skirmisher) and blink less mandatory for a melee voyager.

As per Deimosaur's request, I have recently imposed a ban on the psionic power-sharing mechanic, so as not to distort the playtest data. The characters' powers known are literally all combat powers, 0-level powers aside. This is perhaps due to my specific GMing style, which places heavy emphasis on mundane infiltration skills, Knowledge skills, and social skills; in my interpretation of Golarion, people are savvy on how magic/psionics work, they are wary of magical/psionic trickery, and they implement all kinds of countermeasures against magic/psionics, so utility spells/powers are in a more tenuous position. Furthermore, my combats are extremely difficult and very high-stakes. Therefore, in my Pathfinder campaigns, the kind of characters who flourish are skill monkeys and combat machines.

The characters use inertial armor (hours per level), force screen (via Expanded Knowledge as a bonus feat), defensive precognition, concealing amorpha, deflect, and sidestep to make them nigh-untouchable by most attack rolls against AC. They have stupidly, stupidly high AC given those buffs, which is why I have tried to shake things up every so often by including surprise battles that offer no buffing time. This is less of a voyager problem and more of a psionics problem; psionic powers are hilariously good for stacking AC astronomically high. A psychic warrior (meditant) can have even higher AC constantly, and they can also be a pathwalker and an awakened blade for full initiation.

The characters are at their strongest against enemies that...
• Rely on melee full attacks and lack pounce. The voyagers can simply skirmish away from them with ease, and throw up a sidestep against the few attacks that do land.
• Rely on attacking regular AC to take out targets, presuming the voyagers have had time to buffs. The voyagers have titanic regular AC. Even pouncers and ranged full attackers must face the nigh-impregnable AC of the characters. Even a highly-damaging attack benefiting from true strike can be turned aside via deflect or sidestep.
• Rely on forcing Reflex saving throws, due to momentum bloating Reflex saves.

The characters have some trouble with enemies that...
• Target touch AC, because those blow straight past inertial armor and force screen.
• Think to substitute regular melee attacks with trip attacks, which likewise go past inertial armor and force screen. Tripping is awful for a voyager's mobility prospects, especially if the voyager opted against selecting assisted escape.
• Can land a grapple or an immobilizing entanglement against a voyager, such as via black tentacles. Even if the voyager escapes via assisted escape or rewind, crashing the voyager's momentum down to 0 at the start of their turn is terribly inconvenient.
• Have 15+ feet of reach, which forces a voyager to think more carefully about how to engage and disengage. Combat Reflexes makes such enemies especially irritating.
• Have spell resistance to resist a destiny dissonance, as the voyagers make good use of no-save sickening enemies to reduce their accuracy even further.

The characters are absolutely terrified by...
• Enemies that have Deflect Arrows, deflect, sidestep, Path of War counters, or similar abilities, because voyagers live and die by singular attacks. Slipstream Feint and Blink Ambush are supposed to solve this, but they really need to be compressed down to a two-feat chain rather than three.
• Enemies that can target their Fortitude with a save-or-lose. With their poor Fortitude progression, the only defense they can throw up is the saving throw bonus from defensive precognition.
• In the same vein as above yet to a lesser extent, enemies that can target their Will with a save-or-lose. They at least have a good Will progression.

Voyager with elven curve blade vs. voyager (crossfire) with pistol:
• The melee voyager deals more damage on a hit, has one more feat to spare, is spending a power known on offensive precognition, does not provoke for attacking, enjoys no misfire hassles, has helping hand for some utility, has a viable attack of opportunity, and is faster. They are less accurate, but if a fully-augmented offensive precognition buff up, this only makes a difference against extremely high-CR enemies. It is generally never an issue for a melee voyager to close in to attack, but they might have trouble disengaging to rebuild momentum unless theyhave a reach weapon, have Narcissism (The Skirmisher), blow power points to blink, or spam foreshadow.
• The ranged voyager deals less damage on a hit, has one less feat to spend, never has to spend a power known on offensive precognition, provokes for attacking, suffers misfire hassles, has no helping hand, has no feasible attack of opportunity, and is slower. They are more accurate, but compared to a melee voyager with a fully-augmented offensive precognition buff up, this only makes a difference against extremely high-CR enemies.
• Overall, I would say that the voyager (crossfire) is slightly better. The ranged voyager is better off in comparison when the melee voyager has no time or power points for an offensive precognition, when the party is facing awfully high-CR enemies, or both. If either or both conditions apply, the voyager (crossfire) is in a better position. Given that a fully-augmented offensive precognition has a hefty power point cost, and that a crossfire does not have to consume a power known on that, I would give the edge to the voyager (crossfire) here.

Spoiler: Playtest Stories

Show

Back to our latest playtest sessions, which took place two days ago and yesterday. (The restart of the Hounds of Tindalos battle took place earlier than these, separately.) We played for a total of 16.5 hours, and during the second session, we went through two battles. The party has leveled up to 8th since then, with a small amount of rebuilding prompted by Deimosaur's major changes to the class. The noncombat sections of the sessions were the usual: skill monkeying around using the voyager's 6 + Intelligence modifier skill points, compressing research time using time saver.

Over the course of these sessions, the PCs formulated a scheme based around astral voyager; I am a Planescape/Great Wheel GM at heart, so I implement more planar action than most GMs in my games. This is where the rules quibbles concerning astral voyager came up.

During both battles, the characters had the following buffs up beforehand: 7-point inertial armor, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons, 7-point defensive precognition, 3-point concealing amorpha, 1-point force screen, and, in the case of the melee voyager, 7-point offensive precognition.

First Battle of the Session:
• Enemies: Two supposedly CR 11 spinosauruses
• Terrain and Starting Positions (the cat and the narwhal girl are afterimage markers)
• Terrain Gimmick #1: This was an enclosed space with a ceiling height of 40 feet.
• Terrain Gimmick #2: The grey squares on the map were not difficult terrain, but rather, increased Acrobatics DCs by 2.
• Terrain Gimmick #3: The aqua squares used the rules for whitewater rapids. It took a Swim DC 20 to cross. If you ended your turn there, you were swept 90 feet towards the right edge of the map harmlessly, although this provoked attacks of opportunity. The spinosauruses were too large and too swimming-adept to be affected by this. The PCs had boots of speed and bloated Acrobatics modifiers that allowed them to wuxia-jump from the island to the river bank with ease, which they did during the first round.
• Intended Difficulty: Easy, but annoying.
• Initiative Results: The spinosauruses first, then the voyagers.
• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The voyager (crossfire).
• Parallel Actions: Mostly foreshadow, with the occasional rewind.
• Power Points Expended: 4 points for the melee voyager (sidestep and destiny dissonance), 7 points for the ranged voyager (two sidesteps and one destiny dissonance).
• Battle Duration: 4 rounds.
• Murky Rules (see above): Due to the importance of using Acrobatics to jump across the river and the threat of having to make Swim checks, we encountered all sorts of questions with regards to how afterimages actually worked. This was rather janky, and it held up the battle unpleasantly. The players were both disgruntled.
• Notes on Actual Play: The dinosaurs gave the PCs trouble in positioning themselves due to their 20-foot-reach and overlapping threatened areas. The limited-path foreshadow really begun to sting here.
• The saurians used trip attempts to restrict the ranged voyager's mobility. The spinosauruses still had great trouble hitting the prone crossfire due to terribly bloated AC, concealing amorpha, momentum, temporal duelist, and sidestep. Nevertheless, one managed to grapple the crossfire while she was prone, which placed her in a terribly inconvenient position and drained all her momentum. It took pains for her to rebuild momentum after that, because starting a turn prone, with 0 momentum, and with an immediate/swift unavailable essentially forces a voyager into taking a feeble turn with a weak attack.
• Despite this, all was looking to be an easy fight, since the enemies had such a hard time dealing damage... until, against all odds, one spinosaurus landed a critical hit on an attack of opportunity on the melee voyager despite her [I]concealing amorpha], bloated AC, and freshly-activated temporal duelist. Since she had just used a swift action, her immediate action was unavailable. The damage roll was well above-average, sending her to -1 hit point. She at least rolled a natural 20 on her Fortitude save against Staggering Critical. This complicated an otherwise easy battle. The ranged voyager had to use her Combat Training (staunching strike) to get the melee voyager back up, and the melee voyager was likewise forced into taking a feeble turn with a weak attack. They won the easy fight all the same after that wildly improbable complication, with both of them left standing.

Second Battle of the Session:
• Enemies: Four supposedly CR 8 blood hags. These were special blood hags that had see in darkness, and they started the battle already in fiery form.
• Terrain and Starting Positions
• Terrain Gimmick #1: Unexpectedly, the area was shrouded in supernatural darkness. The voyagers had to manifest touchsight during their first turn.
• Terrain Gimmick #2: The picture you see above is actually a side view. The battle took place in a seven-foot-wide corridor (five-foot-wide for all game purposes), broken up by many solid platforms. As long as the creatures inside had some method of seeing in supernatural darkness, they would be treated to an out-of-body "side view" of the action in silhouette form, like a shadow play. (Or rather, a platformer video game.)
• Terrain Gimmick #3: The floating platforms were 10 feet apart vertically, forcing daunting DC 40 Acrobatics checks for vertically leaps. Fortunately, thanks to the voyagers' high movement speeds on top of boots of speed, they were able to make multiple jumps during each move action and easily navigate the platforms.
• Intended Difficulty: Hard.
• Initiative Results: The blood hags first, then the voyagers. The blood hags spent the first round getting into position, while the PCs simply used touchsight.
• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The voyagers could never fully avoid the blood hags' attacks, yet they managed to reposition themselves in such a way as to split the fire. Literal fire, as the hags spammed scorching ray.
• Parallel Actions: A mix of foreshadow and rewind to position the party so as to break up focused fire, although those were not especially important in this battle, so accomplished accomplice saw a couple of uses to raise AC, and fast-forward saw a single use to move 130 feet and reach a very high-up blood hag.
• Power Points Expended: 5 points for each for touchsight during the first round.
• Battle Duration: 7 rounds.
• Murky Rules (see above): This battle saw plenty of platforming and jumping action, and so many questions concerning nonstandard acquisitions of momentum and midair usage of blink and dash were raised. Likewise, the question of potentially manifesting touchsight during an augmented attack came up, making us wonder how the timing actually worked. Additionally, I had the hags realize the limitations of temporal duelist and move away enough of a distance to deactivate it, which brought up the concerns on temporal duelist.
• Notes on Actual Play: It was a mistake to use scorching ray spammers during this battle. What I should have done was employ Medium-sized pouncers of greater raw strength, so that the voyagers could better make use of the layout to deny enemies attacks. The blood hags were able to fly and shoot the PCs with impunity, so the voyagers could never quite avoid attacks; the best they could do was make clever use of rewind to split up focused (literal) fire, which was admittedly very important for preserving the party's action economy.
• I had accidentally made this fight far too difficult. This was by far the hardest battle so far, hands-down. I underestimated just how terrifying it would be to face touch-attackers who could blow past inertial armor and force screen for massive damage via scorching ray. If the spinosaurus battle was easy yet complicated by a stroke of luck from one enemy, this was the opposite: the PCs won primarily due to sheer luck. The enemies' ranged touch attacks were stopped cold by concealing amorpha and mediocre rolls against relatively high touch AC.
• The PCs employed their usual tactic of focusing down one enemy at a time. They were reliably able to navigate the platforms using Acrobatics, and then take down one hag each round. They got the situation under control quickly enough, though an untimely natural 1 on an attack rolls from the melee voyager proved a mild complication, thus ending the battle with the ranged voyager (crossfire) unconscious and dying. Fortunately, smelling salts and a self-inflicted Combat Training (staunching strike) got her back up after the battle. The players enjoyed that battle very much, if only because they did not have to deal with afterimage positioning jankiness as much, and because they found hopping around with Acrobatics and then slyly snapping back to an afterimage via rewind was cool.

I had also run two bonus battles outside of the session, completely on my own as a GM. These were nothing but pure formalities to preemptively counter "How can you say you tested the voyagers' limits if you never made them face Fortitude/Will-save-or-lose monsters?" Consider them "joke battles," then. I expected the PCs to lose, but I did not think they would lose so easily. The characters both had their full suite of buffs.

First "Joke Battle":
• Enemy: One supposedly CR 8 gorgon with the advanced template, raising it to CR 9.
• Terrain and Starting Positions: A wide white room with a ceiling 15 feet high. The gorgon started 90 feet away from the voyagers, who were 10 feet away from each other.
• Intended Difficulty: Very hard.
• Initiative Results: The gorgon first, then the voyagers.
• Battle Duration: 3 rounds.
• Notes on Actual Play: The PCs fell prey to ill luck and were curbstomped. The gorgon immediately petrified them, and then rolled a total of 2 on its recharge roll. The PCs could never quite break out of the DC 23 Fortitude petrification. On the third round, the gorgon petrified them for good. Perhaps this was just ill luck though.

Second "Joke Battle":
• Enemy: One supposedly CR 9 fallen young silver dragon, as statted by Paizo.
• Terrain and Starting Positions: A wide white room with a ceiling 15 feet high. The young white dragon started 90 feet away from the voyagers, who were 10 feet away from each other.
• Intended Difficulty: Extremely hard.
• Initiative Results: The fallen young silver dragon first, then the voyagers.
• Battle Duration: 1 round.
• Notes on Actual Play: The dragon went first, unleashed its paralyzing breath, and paralyzed the PCs for 5 rounds. That won the fight right then and there.

I suppose the moral of the story is that if you want to take down a pair of voyagers, the wrong thing to send is not a pack of advanced Hounds of Tindalos, tailor-bred to lock down spacetime-manipulators. You should just send Fortitude-save-or-lose enemies. This is, of course, more of a problem with Pathfinder in general than the voyager in particular. There is little that Deimosaur can do to fix this particular issue.

I hope that this feedback will be of use to Deimosaur in helping polish the voyager. Due to its unique and novel design alone and the dynamic battle styles it encourages, the voyager is easily my favorite class in all of Pathfinder and third-party Pathfinder. I would like to see it flourish.