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

[Mezzaluna]

Hiya, some of my own thoughts on what Edna said.

Skills:
I don't think it should have all knowledge skills in-class; maybe if Voyager Knowledge made the selected skill a class skill it would be effectively the same with less of a perception of power issue? It's more of a /flavor/ issue, really: most of the classes with all knowledge skills as class skills are the really studious ones, and not even the 'poster child' skill monkey, the Rogue, gets those.

Assisted Escape:
I think the speed-based extra psionic focus feat helps with this decent enough to make it an emergency button, as well as Lightning Focus to regain the emergency button. Could be stronger, but okay as is. Prone and Entangled are such big weaknesses that I think it's not a bad pick.

Combo Strike:
Completely agree. I also think the feat taxes to make it even passable are too much; Maneuver Augmentation should be built in and isn't worth a feat. Making a combat maneuver at +X bonus is already way worse a use of your standard action than a Manifestation of Speed attack with +Xd6 damage. It needs Maneuver Augmentation to even be worth considering as an option now, really.

Manifestation of Speed: Dash
I actually disagree with this one a fair bit, letting the movement ignore AoO devalues the teleport option too much. I think it's fine as is and should stay provoking. This does tie in a bit to the melee vs ranged voyager issue though - this is an issue that ranged builds have to worry about much less, and I'm not sure what to do about that.

Pause:
Agree, it's not worth using how it is right now. Probably wouldn't pick it over the other two even if it didn't have a save.

There's... a lot more for me to address individually but those were the main things that stood out for me to add to or disagree with, because that's the playrange I've seen so far with my Voyager experience.

I hope everything turns out well too! I'm really interested to see how the Voyager shapes up. Manifestation of Speed's Blink and Dash options in their current form go a long way in giving the class a dynamic playstyle in its current form and I hope it can keep that dynamism at it goes up in levels.

[Deimosaur]

Aaaaah.

Okay. There's been a number of changes, which can be seen below. The document itself is, as usual, here.

General:
The voyager can no longer swap her initiative with her parallel initiative once rolled. However, the initial penalty to her parallel initiative is reduced, and her parallel initiative's penalty becomes a bonus at later levels. Metronome has received a corresponding, tamer change.

The feats Momentous Maneuvers and Maneuver Augmentation have been removed. The reason why will be obvious as we continue onwards.

How afterimages move has been changed again. Shh.

At 5th level, Momentous Maneuvers has been added as a class feature. It was already a feat that only voyagers could take, and enabled a playstyle that I doubt would overly dominate if it was made baseline (but of course, tell me if it does). Additional options open for mostly melee voyagers, which I think is a good step.

Temporal Duelist cannot be gamed with range anymore.

Manifestation of Speed:
Lightning Focus has been replaced with Maneuver Augmentation, allowing the voyager to use combat maneuvers with augmented attacks.

Shove has been replaced with Speeding Strike, bringing back an option for area of effect damage.

• 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?

I believe the re-jiggering of manifestation of speed a few days ago should address this as well. The voyager can choose to apply her buffs before or after her attack.

Parallel Actions
1st Level:
Combo Strike has been replaced with Phantom Feint, a tool that can bait out attacks of opportunity or feint with better action economy (Dual Threat may get a rework later).

3rd Level:
Pause has been reworked (again, I know). This version is rather closer to my original intent with it.

7th Level:
Stretched Time has been replaced with Lightning Focus, which should help with regaining psionic focus. Rather than overshadowing Psionic Meditation entirely as a tool for regaining focus, it hopefully can both be used as a replacement while also rewarding investment into the feat.

Crossfire
Firing Squad is now the replacement of Speeding Strike, and has been somewhat reworked. Their multitask now progresses at the same rate as the voyager.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I appreciate the changes you have applied to the voyager; they are good steps forward and for the better. You have not addressed all of my concerns, but then, I did not expect you to in so short a time frame.

1. Afterimages are now in a good position. Some wording to clarify that enemies can/cannot (which is it?) pass through afterimages would be appreciated, however.

2. Phantom feint's feint attempt really needs to be replaced with a Reflex or Will saving throw of some kind; voyagers are not Charisma-based, and it is a little mean to tax voyagers who want to use phantom feint into selecting Cunning Liar or Clever Wordplay (Bluff) as a trait.

3. Manifestation of speed makes mention of "applying each applicable effect in the order specified by the ability," but power channel still talks of manifesting a power "simultaneously," which is still unclear on timing.

4. The new pause needs a clarification on whether or not it is subject to size limits. From the looks of it, pause seems to ignore size limits, but this could use an explicit spelling-out.

5. Momentous maneuvers, free as it is, is still rather awful. It provokes an attack of opportunity (it should not!), and a character by this level probably has Amplified Momentum, so spending momentum for +1 to a combat maneuver check is a poor deal compared to +1d6+1 damage on an attack. Momentous maneuvers should also allow a voyager to use their Dexterity or Intelligence modifier for the combat maneuver check. Voyagers being taxed into taking Agile Maneuvers just to make use of momentous maneuvers is a little disheartening.

6. The new lightning focus is a great addition to a voyager's arsenal at 7th level. That said, power echo and special delivery are still looking mediocre; perhaps they could use upgrades?

7. The metronome has no reason not to receive upgrades at 11th, 15th, and 19th, because the regular voyager outpaces it by 11th level. Perhaps the metronome should gain a +1 initiative bonus at those levels? Possibly even +2?

8. The new metronome is unclear on how the timing of its parallel turn actually works. This should be cleaned up, because otherwise, there is the potential for gruesome invincibility exploits by using pause on oneself.

9. Power echo plus bestow power and a torc of power preservation might just be infinite power points between two voyagers. This should be patched up.

10. Can afterimages pass through tiny cracks? They cannot pass through walls, but what of an arrow slit? This should be clarified too.

11. Speeding strike may be too strong and spammable in conjunction with lightning focus. Perhaps it should have a target limit of two or three creatures? Applying a full-powered attack to many targets is still quite strong.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Earlier, I had played in a Pathfinder port of the D&D 3.5 version of White Plume Mountain. We were three 6th-level characters: a poorly-optimized human unchained barbarian (primal disciple for half-initiation) with two warhammers, a middlingly-optimized soulknife 3/aegis 3 with initiator's soul, and me, a hummingbird tengu voyager (metronome) with an elven curve blade.

The barbarian was missing for the first three battles of the session, but then joined us later for the next four battles.

Despite the tight dungeon spaces at times, my voyager fared perfectly fine in terms of their ability to build up momentum, close in on targets, and bounce away with Narcissism (The Skirmisher) and blink/dash. They would have been completely screwed without Narcissism (The Skirmisher) though, so something to simulate its functionality would surely help non-reach melee voyagers a great deal.

My character used foreshadow, rewind, and pause roughly equally, which is a good sign that the three parallel actions are balanced against each other. Pause was a very interesting and satisfying parallel action to consider and actually use. I activated pause whenever there was no pressing need for extra mobility, and yet I still had to think carefully on which target to pause. I often weighed between pausing a key enemy that would use devastating actions, and pausing a less important enemy so that the party could outright kill the key enemy. I worry that it is hard for ranged voyagers to use though, since it requires adjacency from either you or your parallel image.

My character was so elusive and high-AC (Expanded Knowledge for force screen sure cranked up AC) that they were seldom targeted. Even when they were, almost all attacks against them missed. Throughout seven battles, they took zero hits and zero damage.

My character still dealt about ~20% of the raw damage of the middlingly-optimized soulknife 3/aegis 3, but there is only so much one can ask for against an initiating aegis. Path of War turns nearly everything into a terrifying combatant. My character's damage output was acceptable enough.

As far as rules quibbles are concerned, I encountered nothing that I had not already posted about earlier, in my list of grievances and nitpicks.

[Deimosaur]

Mini-update, focusing on clarification and rebalancing weak options.

General:
Added this text to momentum:

Spoiler

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Effects that move or teleport the voyager unwillingly, such as a bull rush or a hostile teleport effect do not cause the voyager to generate momentum.

Afterimage got more clarification. Again.

Astral Voyager has received clarifying wording and gains upgrades at levels 10 and 15.

Speeding Strike tuned down in the absolute best-case scenario of striking a massive amount of targets with a single speeding strike.

Parallel Actions:
Helping Hand has an alternate use, letting all voyagers preserve their accumulated momentum.

Special Delivery now penalizes saves in general, allowing the voyager to support her allies with it.

Emergency Stasis is now usable on others and has had some edge cases clarified.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

1. Emergency stasis is still awful and situational compared to the immensely useful, 5e-style advantage of reversal of fortune. Emergency stasis cannot stack up to the competition, which is useful both in and out of combat.

2. The new astral voyager should remind the reader that a psi-like ability is automatically augmented up to the user's manifester level. The only spot in the rules wherein this is stipulated is the psionic bestiary.

3. Power echo is still looking too situational in comparison... except for energy ray builds, perhaps.

4. On foreshadow: "For 1 round, the voyager can move through these squares at full speed, even if they are occupied or would cost her additional movement her normally." Look at that typographical error. Also, does this mean that squeezing would cost nothing?

[EarthSeraphEdna]

The great voyager playtest continues. (The part wherein I played a 6th-level voyager through a Pathfinder conversion of White Plume Mountain and had made good use of foreshadow, rewind, and pause in seven combat encounters did not, in fact, belong to the great voyager playtest.) We played for a good 7.5 hours, with a battle taking up two of those hours. The two 8th-level voyagers have been adventuring in a mindscape all this time, but now, they have entered the Astral Plane using their astral voyager class feature. The voyager is noteworthy for being the one class in all of Paizo and Dreamscarred Press that receives the earliest access to genuine planar travel, making planar adventures quite feasible as early as 5th level.

As a side note, my take on the Astral Plane draws heavily from another Dreamscarred Press archetype, the medium (empath). The zeitgeists like Little Dip o' the Dops and Iron Eye may be unable to exert direct influence on most planes, but in the Astral Plane, they act as god-like power players can manifest many an aspect. Mythical spirits like the Archmage and the Hierophant operate much the same way in the Astral Plane, and another Dreamscarred Press creation, the Overmind, joins them in the silvery void. Since the PCs interacted with aspects of the Overmind this session, I suppose it goes to show that Dreamscarred Press has successfully created an internally cohesive "shared mythology" for its products' lore.

Unfortunately, this session's battle playtest data was for nothing. The combat lasted for 8 rounds, and during rounds #5 through #8, we exploited the pause parallel action on a voyager (metronome). Unbeknownst to us, Deimosaur had applied a stealth update to the voyager (metronome) archetype addressing that exact exploit, probably after I urged Deimosaur to do so in this very forum. Still, the first four rounds had legitimate data. For example, we discovered that pause really is a fair, balanced, and useful parallel action that encourages plenty of tactical considerations and thinking ahead. We likewise found out that was ambiguous as to whether or not a character could split up a single blink or dash to break up the movement before and after an attack.

Battle of the Session:
• Buffs on the Party: Free astral caravan psi-like ability with full augmentation for flight and 25% miss chance in the Astral Plane, 7-point inertial armor, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons, 7-point defensive precognition, 5-point touchsight, and, in the case of the melee voyager, 7-point offensive precognition.

• Enemies: Three supposedly CR 7 ksarite drakes from Dreamscarred Press's very own Psionic Bestiary. Ksarite drakes are extremely hardcore for CR 7s, having fly 120 feet, AC 28, at-will breath of the black dragon for 12d6 damage (Reflex DC 23 half), and at-will concussive onslaught for a repeating 6d6 force damage (Fortitude DC 23 half). Dreamscarred Press is even worse at assigning reasonable CRs to its monsters than Paizo ever was. These specific ksarite drakes were even more hardcore than usual, having very high Intelligence and Alertness as a bonus feat.

• Terrain and Starting Positions

• Terrain Gimmick #1: The area was 155 feet by 125 feet, with a ceiling height of 30 feet. There were numerous 10 feet by 10 feet pillars interspersed through the area.

• Terrain Gimmick #2: The entire area was filled with a fog much like a fog cloud spell. The ksarite drakes had blindsight 120 feet, and the PCs had touchsight.

• Terrain Gimmick #3: The battle was set in the Astral Plane, so the voyagers could make use of their free astral caravan psi-like ability with full augmentation for flight and 25% miss chance in the Astral Plane. Also due to this battle being set in the Astral Plane, everybody's powers and psi-like abilities were automatically Quickened... which favored the ksarite drakes far more than the voyagers.

• Intended Difficulty: Extremely hard.

• Initiative Results: The voyagers first, then the ksarite drakes.

• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The voyager (crossfire).

• Parallel Actions: Pause for every single parallel action, except for a single accomplished accomplice to help with accuracy. Unfortunately, from round #5 onwards, we neglected to take into account Deimosaur's stealth update to the metronome archetype, so we were exploiting pause to action-deny enemies.

• Power Points Expended: None, because destiny dissonance was of little use given the dragons' power resistance, and the drakes did not rely on attack rolls anyway. The dragons only ever made attack rolls for (trip) attacks of opportunity, which temporal duelist and a 25% miss chance turned aside, so sidestep saw no use.

• Cyclops Helms Expended: The melee voyager's had been expended.

• Battle Duration: 8 rounds.

• Murky Rule: Can a voyager split up a single blink or dash to break up the movement before and after an attack?

• Notes on Actual Play: By all rights, the voyagers should have lost this battle. The ksarite drakes were far smarter than the average ksarite drake and thus knew to spam concussive onslaught using both their standard action and their swift action, targeting the voyagers' weak Fortitude. The voyagers lucked out of this one by winning initiative and using pause to action-deny the ksarite drakes while focusing on one non-paused drake at a time. It was a good divide-and-conquer strategy, and thanks to the party's exceptional luck with Fortitude saving throws, the two voyagers were able to withstand the concussive onslaughts of one ksarite drake at a time, even as it gradually covered the area in fields of repeating force damage.

• Alas, by round #5 onwards, we gained the "clever" idea of using pause and the voyager (metronome) archetype to action-deny the ksarite drakes while still getting to attack them. (We did not bother with the even more broken exploit of using pause on oneself.) We failed to notice Deimosaur's stealth update to the metronome that patched up this exploit. Thus did the voyagers deviously action-deny the ksarite drakes to assure victory. In the end, despite some unfortunate luck, the voyagers won the battle with the voyager (crossfire) taken out and the melee voyager left at exactly 1 HP. This does mean that without the already-patched exploit, the voyagers would have terribly lost.

To conclude, judging from the results of rounds #1 through #4, pause is an extremely useful parallel action even when used legitimately. It is so useful, in fact, that under the right circumstances, a voyager can efficiently divide and conquer an enemy group. It was spammed and spammed during that battle, but that is perhaps due to the unique circumstance of a party consisting solely of two voyagers, and an enemy group ripe for being divided. Under my seven-battle White Plume Mountain run, I used pause only sparingly, so as to give the party opportunities to actually take out opponents.

The metronome stealth update is an important one that should never be reverted, because otherwise, degeneracy and hardcore action denial ensue, and a voyager can become nigh-invincible by using pause on themselves.

[ThirdProgenitor]

At a first glance the class looks amazingly fun and i would love to try it. However, it seems completely overloaded and powerful. At level 1 you can get either a +1 to ac or +2d6 and +2 to hit. thats really strong. not to mention parallel action and initiative. And every level almost seems to give it an increase of at least 2 abilities. I would love to play it, but with how front loaded it is, and how op it looks overall, and how overloaded the class seems, i know for a fact my dm would NEVER allow this as is.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

At a first glance the class looks amazingly fun and i would love to try it. However, it seems completely overloaded and powerful. At level 1 you can get either a +1 to ac or +2d6 and +2 to hit. thats really strong. not to mention parallel action and initiative. And every level almost seems to give it an increase of at least 2 abilities. I would love to play it, but with how front loaded it is, and how op it looks overall, and how overloaded the class seems, i know for a fact my dm would NEVER allow this as is.

I stand by my previous statement.

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).

[Deimosaur]

At a first glance the class looks amazingly fun and i would love to try it. However, it seems completely overloaded and powerful. At level 1 you can get either a +1 to ac or +2d6 and +2 to hit. thats really strong. not to mention parallel action and initiative.

I'm a little curious as to how you're getting +2d6 at 1st level. Momentum is capped to class level and spending momentum gives 1d6 damage per point. Could you clarify here?

And every level almost seems to give it an increase of at least 2 abilities. I would love to play it, but with how front loaded it is, and how op it looks overall, and how overloaded the class seems, i know for a fact my dm would NEVER allow this as is.

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about the design philosophy (and numbers) behind the voyager. I know you said looks op, but I feel like I can at least clarify why things are the way they are and why I think it isn't overpowered at the moment.

I like to think that the focus of the voyager's followup class features are on versatility and utility rather than increasing damage. I admit that it might look a little front-loaded, but overall voyager gameplay is intended to be centered around the interactions between momentum, manifestation of speed, and parallel actions. I think that these abilities need to be available early so that players can get into the meat of the class quickly. I dislike classes that need to wait a long time to get defining core features. I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced right now, but I'm just stating my reasoning:

Spoiler: Momentum

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Momentum is the voyager's damage and defenses. The damage portion potentially scales faster than abilities like sneak attack, but I think the caveat of potentially is very important here. Sometimes the voyager will have to choose between offense and defense. Also, unlike most damage boosters (such as sneak attack), you can't apply the full value of it to every iterative of a full attack. Comparing them directly would be a false equivalence.

In certain situations, the voyager won't be able to gain the maximum amount of momentum and apply it to an attack. Like I've said before, I think a psychic warrior or other full BAB class should be able to outpunch and outlast a voyager directly (higher BAB, higher HP, etc).

Spoiler: Parallel Actions

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Parallel actions are rather difficult to quantify as far as value goes. Accomplished accomplice can be a +2 to attack rolls on a successful check but early on it's rather shaky (but it gets better with level). Nothing else really directly boosts damage or accuracy. A few parallel actions help generate or retain momentum, which can help them get full value out of momentum.

Spoiler: Manifestation of Speed

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Manifestation of speed is somewhat necessary to enable a move-and-hit playstyle, especially once they start competing with full attackers. But it's not really a damage boost. Compare it to the magus's spellstrike, if you like: The voyager can move a lot more (move action + blink/dash opposed to full attack), but doesn't get any more damage. In fact, she can potentially deal less, as any damage she deals with a power is an opportunity cost. She could have spent those power points on momentum damage dice.

Don't take a direct spellstrike / manifestation of speed comparison too seriously, though. It's . . . weird, thanks to the differences in spellcasting and manifesting.

Following voyager abilities past this point are mostly fluff or utility oriented, or support these three core features.

If you can, I'd like it if you could pinpoint what exactly looks overpowered here. Is it partially the big class table? For clarity's sake I added progression levels of certain abilities (such as Accelerate), which may be inflating how it looks.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

The great voyager playtest continues. We played for two exceedingly long sessions a few days ago.

As usual, most of the two sessions were an exercise in the voyager's ability to skill monkey around with its 6 base skill points, Intelligence key ability score, information exchange, and accomplished accomplice. It helped that both characters had the Student of Philosophy trait for Intelligence-based social skills. Among the party's accomplishments in those two sessions are bamboozling a pair of succubi (conceal thoughts was of great help here), pulling an elaborate prank on a CR 15 advanced acrididaemon (rewind was of great use for this), and disarming a Disable Device DC 37 magical trap (trap foresight was key). The party is now in the midst of entreating a yandere CR 16 advanced memitim psychopomp against crashing the wedding of her shinigami psionicist ex-lover.

I have previously spoken of the voyager's overall power level. 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).

However, said power level comes with a huge caveat: the voyager is one of the most complex classes to play during actual combat. I dare say it has more difficult mid-battle decisions to make than most full initiators. Precise positioning is life or death for a voyager. The class has myriad options on what to do with its momentum, Amplified Momentum, manifestation of speed, and parallel actions. This is not a class for casual players by any means, and I say that with no exaggeration. If someone plays a voyager without thinking too deeply on their tactics, the character will be mediocre and quite possibly die. It is certainly a far cry, from, say, a "boost and full attack all day" psychic armory/war soul.

The above was demonstrated by the one combat we had played out. For whatever reason, perhaps due to both players being fatigued and/or suffering from an "off-day," they had forgotten about many of the tricks available to them as a voyager and bungled up their turns. Their tactics were passable by "boost and full attack all day" psychic armory/war soul standards, yet astoundingly suboptimal by voyager standards. Thus, what was supposed to be an easy encounter instead resulted in total defeat for the party.

In the playtest mini-campaign immediately preceding this one, the three rajah, one voyager party suffered a total defeat at one point. I proceeded on with the campaign (all-female polygamous forced marriages, fluffy-tailed devils, and shrine maidens were involved), because while the party did lose due to tactical errors, the players did not show signs of fatigue and/or suffering from an "off-day."

In this recent battle, I instead opted for a restart, because the players did exhibit such signs. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the players were unavailable for the reboot. Luckily, said players were fine with me playing out the battle by myself, and reading rudimentary logs afterwards. Despite me playing the enemies with optimal tactics, the two voyagers won the second time around. At the very least, we encountered no murky rules this time around, which is a good sign for the voyager.

Battle of the Session:
• Buffs on the Party: 7-point inertial armor, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons. Nothing else.
• Regular Enemy: One supposedly CR 9 pakalchi sahkil. It was already under the effects of fly and protection from good.
• Special Enemy: One supposedly CR 10 whispers from beyond haunt. This one was upgraded to CR 13 by giving it fast (+1 CR) and increased area (+1 CR) and by increasing its Perception DC to 29 (+1 CR). These subsequently raised its HP to 58 and its Knowledge DC to 28. I am completely skeptical that fast and the Perception DC increase each worth +1 CR, so it was probably over-CRed due to those two upgrades.
• Starting Terrain and Positions
• Terrain Gimmick #1: The area was a 260-foot-wide, 7-foot-ceiling corridor that had sealed up behind them.
• Terrain Gimmick #2: Exactly 164 NPCs were accompanying them during this battle. They could take no meaningful actions of their own. They provided cover, occupied spaces, allowed the PCs to cross their spaces, and took shelter in the lower left and lower right corners of the battlefield.
• Terrain Gimmick #3: The battle was set in the Astral Plane, but the voyagers' astral caravan formation was broken. They could still manifest their powers under Quicken Power. Likewise, the sahkil and the wihsaak it subsequently summoned could use their spell-like abilities under Quicken Spell.
• Intended Difficulty: Easy.
• Initiative Results: There was a surprise round, and the melee voyager failed her Perception check. The initiative order was the ranged voyager (crossfire), the haunt, the pakalchi (and later, its summoned wihsaak), and then the melee voyager. I preserved this state of affairs for the second attempt.
• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The melee voyager. I also preserved this for the second attempt.
• An Interesting Battle Opening: At the start of their respective first turns, each of the PCs failed their Will saving throws against the pakalchi's gaze, panicking them for 1 round and shaking them for 4 rounds. However, during the pakalchi's surprise round, it attempted to use a Quickened dominate person on the melee voyager, who resisted. In addition to all of this, the PCs soon succeeded on their Knowledge (planes) checks to identify both the pakalchi and the whispers from beyond to such a large degree that I gave them the statistics for both outright; thank you, information exchange. I likewise preserved all of this for the second attempt.

Attempt #1, wherein the PCs lose:
• Cyclops Helms Expended: The ranged voyager's had been expended.
• The Losing Strategy: Despite having directly observed the pakalchi use the Astral Plane to Quicken its spell-like abilities, the PCs did not think to do the same for their powers. They opted against buffing, and instead decided to take down the pakalchi immediately, which had proven rather difficult due to its Quickened blink and its damage reduction 10/good. The PCs employed subpar positioning due to misunderstandings on how gaze attacks worked, and the players should have been familiar with the gaze rules ever since their previous sahkil encounter earlier in the playtest mini-campaign.
• The PCs never used pause since they were trying to kill the pakalchi. They instead spammed rewind turn after turn to get into (poor) positions against the pakalchi, and to attempt to escape the 40-foot run action of the haunt. They failed to elude the haunt for the most part, so during the time they spent trying to fell the pakalchi, they were taking Wisdom damage all the while. Eventually, the pakalchi used calm emotions on the heavily Wisdom-damaged, poisoned melee voyager, screwing over the party's action economy. Even after the ranged voyager defeated the pakalchi, the two PCs were too Wisdom-debuffed to stand a chance against destroying the haunt, so they ultimately fell to Wisdom damage and drain.
• During this process, the the pakalchi kept on trying to hit the melee voyager with its ranged attacks, yet bloated AC drove off most attacks. One attack pushed through, however. Said melee voyager neglected to use deflect, which led to heavy Wisdom damage throughout the battle from the pakalchi's poison.

Attempt #2, wherein the PCs win:
• Cyclops Helms Expended: None.
• Power Points Expended: Nearly all of them on various buffs, deflects, and hustles.
• The Winning Strategy: Both PCs started off by buffing up with the help of the Astral Plane's Quicken, and by using their parallel actions to pause the pakalchi. Afterwards, the ranged voyager (crossfire) spammed pause to keep the pakalchi out of the battle, then focused on using full-round actions to damage the haunt; she took plenty of Wisdom damage/drain, and she was eventually knocked out. The melee voyager used hustle and rewind in order to enter the haunt, use a full-round action to damage it, and then escape the haunt outside of its 40-foot run distance. Once the ranged voyager (crossfire) was knocked out and the pakalchi had a wihsaak out, the melee voyager used pause to keep the wihsaak out of the fight and then take out the pakalchi.
• During this process, the pakalchi kept on trying to hit the melee voyager with its ranged attacks, yet bloated AC and deflect prevented them from ever landing.
• Due to some unluckily high rolls from my side as a GM, the party ended the battle with 13 Wisdom drain (out of 14 Wisdom) on the melee voyager, and 13 Wisdom drain (also out of 14 Wisdom) and 3 Wisdom damage on the ranged voyager. Some NPCs in their caravan had to de-lobotomize them afterwards.

The lesson here is that the voyager is a very high-complexity class in actual combat. One should study it very carefully and be sharp of mind while playing the class, lest one stumble and die.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I had just completed a combat-heavy run of the D&D 3.5 version of White Plume Mountain, converted to Pathfinder for optimized 6th-level characters. We were three characters: a poorly-optimized human unchained barbarian (primal disciple for half-initiation) with two warhammers, a middlingly-optimized soulknife 3/aegis 3 with initiator's soul, and me, a hummingbird tengu voyager (metronome) with an elven curve blade.

The dungeon's tight spaces did not constrain me at all, and momentum was almost never an issue. I was almost always able to build up momentum, close in on targets, and bounce away with Narcissism (The Skirmisher) and blink/dash. It would have been troublesome with Narcissism (The Skirmisher), so again, it would be nice to see its functionality directly implemented into manifestation of speed so as to help non-reach melee voyagers.

The pause parallel action was absolutely, positively my character's mainstay. It mutilated the enemy's action economy to a huge degree. During every one of my turns, I was always on the lookout for a good opportunity to use pause, and I only ever settled for foreshadow or rewind when absolutely necessary. Despite this spam, pause was a very interesting and satisfying parallel action to consider and actually use. I still had to think carefully on which target to pause. I often weighed between pausing a key enemy that would use devastating actions, and pausing a less important enemy so that the party could outright said the key enemy. I worry that it is hard for ranged voyagers to use though, since it requires adjacency from either you or your parallel image.

Thanks to inertial armor and Expanded Knolwedge (force screen), my character's AC was so high that even after they became the target for focused fire at several points, they were hit not a single time throughout the whole adventure.

What can we learn from this? Pause is a voyagers's mainstay for parallel actions; others get brought in only during the occasions wherein pause cannot solve all problems.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

A public service announcement for voyagers.

As has been pointed out by someone else, this is an amazing item for voyagers, who are otherwise heavily stymied by being knocked prone:

Aura moderate transmutation; CL 4th
Slot belt; Price 10,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.

DESCRIPTION

This surprisingly soft belt has an absurdly large buckle, made even more absurd by the fact that it’s crafted in the shape of a smiling weasel’s face.

It grants its wearer a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity, and the ability to move at half normal speed while prone. Treat the enhancement bonus to Dexterity as a temporary ability bonus for the first 24 hours the belt is worn. The wearer does not take a penalty on melee attack rolls or to AC against melee attacks while prone. Additionally, the wearer gains the compression ability.

[TiaC]

A public service announcement for voyagers.

As has been pointed out by someone else, this is an amazing item for voyagers, who are otherwise heavily stymied by being knocked prone:

Cord of Unearthly Grace is better from 11th level onwards.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Cord of Unearthly Grace is better from 11th level onwards.

Swift actions are important for voyagers by 10th level due to their borrowed time class feature, which allows them to use a swift action to use a parallel action.

[Mezzaluna]

I've got a small list of odds and ends suggestions that I think would be cool to see in the Voyager, so I'm going to throw them here and see what sticks.

The first two are from the 'speedster' thematic point of view:

1) While you can move really fast and skirmish well, there's a big aspect of speedster fluff that I think's missing: the ability to interact with things really fast, or zoom in, handle an item, and zoom away again. A voyager's speed with always be hindered by action economy and the fact that they can't break their move action apart besides using manifestation of speed.

Off the top of my head, something like this would be cool to see:
"Helping Hand: By spending 2 momentum, the Voyager may use Helping Hand as a free action while moving, as many times as she wishes per turn. Using helping hand this way limits her manipulations to move action equivalents from her own space (not her afterimage's) and does not preserve her momentum on her next turn."
I don't think this feels too strong, but even a lesser version of it would just feel nice to have, like rolling it into an existing feat (Faster and Faster?), making it need expending focus, or maybe just using it once as a swift action.

2) Calculating voyager speed pointed me towards the rules on running, and the 'you can only use the Run action for a number of rounds equal to your CON modifier in a row' rule. Maybe a way to let Voyagers use their INT in place on their CON for that would be a nice ribbon?

3) Afterimages and stealth: At the moment there's no way at all to hide an afterimage from being noticed, which gets in the way of a lot of stealth voyager strategies. I think it would be cool if that functionality was available somehow (Not sure if it would be worth a feat on its own, but maybe an item? Part of another feat?)

[EarthSeraphEdna]

The great voyager playtest continues. All throughout the past two weeks, we have been playing a great many sessions relatively light on the combat, though we still managed to run four battles. The two 8th-level voyagers reached 9th-level after the first. As usual, most of the sessions were a showcase in the voyager's skill monkeying across the Ethereal Plane and the Plane of Shadow. 6 base skill points, Intelligence as a key ability score, information exchange, and accomplished accomplice all add up to a remarkable proficiency with skill checks. They also got to use sensitivity to psychic impressions to solve a major plot point, and later, the selfsame power to crack open an ancient mystery, so thank you, Deimosaur, for including that in the voyager power list.

During this past fortnight, we brought towards Deimosaur a few minor rules quibbles with Deimosaur, like the precise timing of power channel, and minor wording ambiguities with temporal duelist at 8th level. One quibble still stands: during a critical moment in combat, one player argued that the "spending power points normally" provision in multitask at 9th level and greater multitask at 17th level circumvented the momentum/power point expenditure cap of augmented attack, because of the usage of "normally." This would effectively grant a voyager a free standard action with which to manifest mid-combat. I considered it a sketchy reading, but I conceded that it was valid nevertheless, so I had allowed it. Is this intentional?

A quibble I noticed myself is the helping hand parallel action, right from 1st level. It bars off attacks and magical items, but what of psionic items and alchemical items? Can a helping hand activate a smokestick, for example? What of a dorje? Speaking of helping hand, one player was complaining about how helping hand still suffered from any temporary penalties the voyager was suffering from, such as Strength damage; I do not think their complaint holds much water, but it is worth pointing out.

Another thing I had observed is that both players, seasoned veterans to the class, were still ofttimes confused as to how afterimages worked. At the very least, they were tripped up by things other than afterimage movement:
• They frequently assumed that their afterimages could talk, for whatever reason. The afterimage rules should explicitly deny this.
• They constantly forgot that parallel actions could use afterimages as an origin point. This is something I had mentioned to Deimosaur long ago, but it bears repeating: the rules should blatantly spell out "adjacent to you or your afterimage" in each applicable parallel action, because even long-time players regularly neglect it.
• They were often confused by how the rules for concealing afterimages or using them in conjunction with Stealth worked... probably because the afterimage rules fail to lay out such a thing. This actually came up multiple times, forcing me to gloss over it as "Yes, your afterimage can effectively use Stealth." This could use clarification.

It was also during these sessions that I discovered just how beautiful a feat Independent Action is. It does not need a downgrade, but I would recommend that any mid-level voyager take this top-notch feat. Independent Action allows a character to break free from just about any sort of mind-affecting effect given enough turns, which means rejoining a battle after having been taken out by a mind-affecting save-or-lose, or being able to shrug off any charm, suggestion, or dominate outside of combat. It even allows for silly business like teleporting around with afterimages and rewind even while petrified. I have a quibble with it: on a successful retried save against a magical effect, is the voyager notified via hostile tingle? This is important in the case of subtle charms, suggestions, and the like.

On to the battle reports. It should be noted that at some point, the PCs traded in their cyclops helms, their +2 Dexterity items, and some gold for belts of the weasel. I would strongly recommend this item to any non-flying voyager. Being tripped is terribly inconvenient for any voyager, and this makes being knocked prone sting much less.

Battle #1 of the Latest Batch of Sessions:
• Party: Melee voyager (metronome) and ranged voyager (crossfire, metronome), both 8th-level

• Buffs on the Party: 7-point inertial armor, 7-point defensive precognition, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons, 3-point concealing amorpha, 1-point force screen, and, in the case of the melee voyager, 7-point offensive precognition

• Enemy: One supposedly CR 15 nemhain

• Starting Terrain and Positions

• Terrain Gimmick #1: This was the Ethereal Plane, so everyone could fly. Since the Ethereal Plane's rules are fuzzy, I ruled that only vertical movement incurred the doubled movement cost.

• Terrain Gimmick #2: The nemhain ignored all sources of cover and all negative terrain effects in this battlefield, since this was her demesne.

• Terrain Gimmick #3: The golden webs forced a DC 30 Reflex save upon anyone traveling through, above, or below them. Failure caused entanglement and immobilization in the webs. They also provided cover.

• Terrain Gimmick #4: The shards forced a DC 30 Reflex save upon anyone traveling through, above, or below them. Failure caused the staggered condition until the end of the creature's next turn. They likewise provided cover.

• Terrain Gimmick #5: The nemhain had an unlimited supply of 6d6 damage Colossal obsidian chakrams for use with its telekinesis.

• Terrain Gimmick #6: To counteract the nemhain's major terrain benefits, the party and their allies conducted an occult ritual to prevent the nemhain from incorporeally occupying any of the asteroids. A similar ritual imbued the PCs' weapons with 1 electricity damage.

• Intended Difficulty: Easy.

• Initiative Results: The melee voyager, then the nemhain, then the ranged voyager.

• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The voyagers were successfully able to kite around in such a way as to render focused fire unfeasible.

• Power Points Expended: The melee voyager spent 3 power points on hustle to reach the nemhain during the first round, 1 power point for destiny dissonance as part of a power channel also during the first round, and 3 power points on a deflect against a lucky Colossal obsidian chakram

• Notes on the Actual Combat: The nemhain started the battle already with an antilife shell up, but I ruled that teleportation could take a character into an antilife shell. That is how the melee voyager used hustle, destiny dissonance, and blink to pound the nemhain with eight rounds of automatically being sickened; their very high Reflex blew right through the dangerous terrain. Since they had identified the nemhain's statistics from prior research and high Knowledge skills, from there, they figured out that all they had to do was kite away from the nemhain's measly speed 30 feet and play defensively to exhaust the nemhain's spell-like abilities. Once that happened, then they could chip away at the nemhain as though it was a fish in a barrel.

• Between the voyagers' completely bloated AC, total defense actions, temporal duelist, concealing amorpha, and destiny dissonance, the nemhain could hit with ranged attacks for telekinesis only on a natural 20, and could likewise land the ranged touch attacks for its special versions of harm and slay living only on a natural 18+. Even then, temporal duelist would force rerolls, and the likes of harm and slay living allowed Fortitude saving throws. Naturally high speeds and boots of speed ensured that the nemhain could never actually close in on the party for a melee attack. The voyagers thus found it trivial to exhaust the nemhain's resources, thus allowing them to claim victory not by physically beating down their opponent, but by outlasting it with frustratingly elusive defenses.

• The nemhain was incredibly lucky and managed to kill one PC thanks to very unfortunate dice rolls, but we knew that to be a statistical outlier. In other, hypothetical playthroughs of this battle, both voyagers would have won unscathed the vast majority of the time. The point still stood: this was a battle that allowed the voyagers to win through sheer defense and endurance, rather than offense. (The dead PC was raised later via occult ritual.)

Reports on the second, third, and fourth battles coming soon.

[Thealtruistorc]

I think I'm going to enjoy this class quite a bit. Just checked back on it after a long time and I have to say that some stellar work has been done.

Having just finished the new season of Stranger Things, I'm very tempted to now call this class the Zoomer. Maybe a future archetype...

More importantly, however, will this class support Seventh Path at all? I envision several athanatism powers could be useful to it.

[Deimosaur]

Hey, all. After all the holiday stuff has happened and the new year has passed us by, Dreamscarred Press is considering a release for the voyager at the end of January. This is not a concrete commitment, just an expression of our goals.

This announcement comes with a relatively small update, not really adding or removing much, but focused on balance and clarification:

• Multitask and greater multitask have slightly more clarified wording (in addition to the already-existing clarifications in other parts of the class).

• Momentous Maneuvers has an additional option added, letting momentum be spent for damage on relevant combat maneuvers such as sunder and the damage option of grappling.

• Pause can no longer be continuously used on a single creature to keep them out of the fight forever.

• Emergency Stasis can now be used as an immediate action with the expenditure of psionic focus.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Momentous maneuvers' damage option needs to be a bit stronger, because as it stands, it is worse than the option of adding +2 attack and +1d6/momentum on a regular attack.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

This is a continuation of the previous voyager playtest report. I have been terribly distracted and preoccupied this holiday season, so only now have I been able to get around to writing up reports of the remaining four battles. I am somewhat late to the party, since it seems that Deimosaur had already updated the voyager based on my past commentary, but the playtests were still somewhat useful, because they highlighted the sheer action-denying power of pause and the ambiguity of multitask.

Battle #2 of the Latest Batch of Sessions:
• Party: Melee voyager (metronome) and ranged voyager (crossfire, metronome), both 9th-level

• Buffs on the Party: 7-point inertial armor, 7-point defensive precognition, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons, 3-point concealing amorpha, 1-point force screen, and, in the case of the melee voyager, 7-point offensive precognition

• Enemies: Four supposedly CR 7 nogitsune, upgraded to CR 8 with the advanced simple template. These nogitsune were even tougher than advanced nogitsune; their feints worked on ranged attacks, their blue whinnis poison was DC 16 rather than DC 14, and they ignored any concealment less than total concealment on their attacks.

• Starting Terrain and Positions

• Terrain Gimmick #1: The purple-shaded squares on the map were extremely dangerous. If a creature started or ended their turn in such a square (even vertically), they had to make a DC 30 Will saving throw or take 3 Strength drain, 3 Dexterity drain, 3 Constitution drain, 3 Intelligence drain, 3 Wisdom drain, and 3 Charisma drain. Each of these instances of ability drain could not decrease any of a creature's ability scores to 0. These instances of ability drain likewise could not cause a creature with 0 or more hit points to enter negative hit points; if this would have happened, the creature would have instead dropped to 0 hit points.

• Terrain Gimmick #2: A nogitsune who entered a purple-shaded square on the map gained an extra 10 feet of movement speed, which did not count against its fleet distraction (su) ability.

• Terrain Gimmick #3: There were 20 feet between the floor and the ceiling, and the nogitsune started the battle hanging from the ceiling with their climb speeds. Fortunately, given boots of speed on top of a massive land speed, the melee voyager was easily able to jump around and strike at the nogitsune on the ceiling.

• Terrain Gimmick #4: There was a girl inside an extremely sturdy cage affixed to the ceiling. Said girl was combat-incapable, but after the surprise round, she begun to sing a special song that granted the nogitsune a +7 competence bonus to Bluff checks and attack rolls. The song could be stopped for the battle by giving the girl a headpat (a combat maneuver against CMD 16), but the girl was inside a sturdy cage, so reaching her was difficult.

• Intended Difficulty: Easy.

• Initiative Results: The players were intelligent enough to suspect that these creatures had some form of Stealth-breaking special senses (scent, in this case), so they began their ambush from a long distance, thereby ensuring a surprise round wherein only the voyagers acted. In all subsequent rounds, the nogitsunes acted first, then the voyagers second.

• Battle Duration: 1 surprise round, then 5 regular rounds.

• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: Similarly to the previous battle, the voyagers were successfully able to kite around in such a way as to render focused fire unfeasible.

• Power Points Expended: Each voyager spent 3 power points on a hustle during the surprise round, then 6 power points each on various manifestations of deflect and sidestep to avoid attacks.

• Notes on the Actual Combat: Although the PCs started off the surprise round far from the enemies (so as to avoid special senses), manifestations of hustle brought them into the thick of the nogitsune to let them launch their attacks.

• After the surprise round, the voyagers quickly learned that enemies were really quite good at feinting (ranged feinting, at that), which is like kryptonite to a voyager. The feinting did not always work, but whenever it did, the voyager was in for a sharp chunk of damage from sneak attack +3d6 and DC 16 blue whinnis poison. Fortunately, feints do not actually flat-foot the victim, so the voyagers were able to throw up deflects and sidesteps throughout the battle to survive. Let this be a lesson: feint-specialized combatants can wreck a voyager.

• Once the girl in the cage begun to sing, it was easy for the ranged voyager to shut down the singing. All the PC had to do was jump up with Acrobatics, declare a combat maneuver check for a headpat upgraded by momentous maneuvers, use destiny dissonance to blink inside the cage, and then deliver the headpat. Then the PC used rewind to get out.

• After the singing ended, the PCs and the nogitsune engaged in an extremely dynamic battle that spread out across the entirety of the map, because both sides were mobility-oriented. I was quite impressed, because most party compositions would have resulted in the combat being confined to a single small section of the map. Instead, since the PCs were both voyagers, they were constantly bouncing around the map to build up momentum, take cover from the enemies, and split up their attacks so as to avoid being focus-fired.

• The PCs spammed a routine of moving around to build up momentum, launching an augmented attack, rebuilding momentum from The Skirmisher and dash, and then using pause. The voyagers were able to deny the nogitsune many turns using pause. If we had played this battle after Deimosaur had downgraded pause, then there would have been more variety in this combat.

• The nogitsune put up a decent fight with their ranged feints (allowing them to actually hit the voyagers), but ultimately, the action denial from pause and the high damage from Amplified Momentum pulled through. The voyagers were able to knock all of the nogitsune into the far negatives, rendering their regeneration moot.

• As an additional note, the nogitsune did make use of their spell-like abilities, such as a haste to start off combat. Displacement, unfortunately, was not of much use when the voyagers could manifest touchsight, and the nogitsune had foreknowledge on such a capacity of the PCs and thus simply did not bother.

Battle #3 of the Latest Batch of Sessions:
• Party: Melee voyager (metronome) and ranged voyager (crossfire, metronome), both 9th-level

• Buffs on the Party: 7-point inertial armor, 5-point metaphysical weapon on both weapons, nothing else.

• Enemy: One supposedly CR 16 qolok sahkil, downgraded to CR 15 with the quick rules version of the degenerate template.

• Starting Terrain and Positions:
The melee voyager and the ranged voyager were in the center, sharing their afterimages' space. Although the picture might make it look as if the degenerate qolok is underneath several people, in truth, the degenerate qolok was actually floating above them. Everyone else was random civilian bystanders of the Plane of Shadow caught up in a wacky battle.

• Terrain Gimmick #1: At the start of the battle, everyone but the qolok had to make a DC 24 Reflex save or fall prone. They also had to make a DC 24 Will saving throw or suffer from a symbol of debauchery for 20 rounds, and another DC 24 Will saving throw or suffer the qolok's gaze attack. The melee voyager passed the Reflex save and the Will save against the gaze attack, but succumbed to the symbol of debauchery. In a stroke of ill luck, the ranged voyager failed all of the saving throws. The civilian bystanders were treated as having failed their saving throws.

• Terrain Gimmick #2: Since the civilian bystanders were prone and indulging in debauchery, their spaces could be moved into, but such movement costed double regardless of whether or not someone used Acrobatics to hop around.

• Terrain Gimmick #3: This was an enclosed space, and there were 20 feet between the floor and the ceiling. The degenerate qolok and its 10-foot-space were occupying the upper half of the area in altitude. Fortunately, the melee voyager had enough Acrobatics from a ridiculously high movement speed to jump up and attack the qolok each time.

• Terrain Gimmick #4: The degenerate qolok was denied any extradimensional movement, although it could still attempt to summon pakalchis.

• Intended Difficulty: Hard.

• Initiative Results: The degenerate qolok sahkil, then the voyagers.

• Battle Duration: 17 rounds.

• PC Who Got Focus-Fired: The melee voyager, as she had broken out of the symbol of debauchery using Independent Action, and was the only PC to have actually acted during this battle.

• Power Points Expended: The melee voyager spent too many power points to count, as the qolok was constantly dispelling buffs only for the melee voyager to reapply them with power channel and multitask. This battle eliminated an obnoxiously large chunk of power points from the melee voyager.

• Notes on the Actual Combat: Independent Action was absolutely, positively the most valuable feat in the voyagers' arsenal here. It allowed the melee voyager to break away from the symbol of debauchery... granted, only after six rounds, in a stroke of misfortune. The ranged voyager broke out of the symbol of debauchery only after sixteen rounds, in an even more improbable fit of bad luck. Nevertheless, Independent Action was a top-notch feat here, because it gave the voyagers the chance to actually take action after having succumbed to a save-or-lose. I would strongly recommend Independent Action to any voyager who would like to be able to break free of mind-affecting effects.

• In other words, for all intents and purposes, the battle was an 11-round duel between the melee voyager and the degenerate qolok.

• The voyagers were not the only ones who had poor dice luck. The degenerate qolok had great trouble as well. It failed to summon pakalchi sahkils at the start of combat, and often rolled natural 1s through 3s for its caster level checks (penalized by the quick rules version of the degenerate template) for greater dispel magic. Nevertheless, it managed to push some dispels through anyway.

• This was the battle wherein we had discovered an ambiguity in the wording of multitask. It is a good thing we had pointed it out to Deimosaur earlier, and an even better thing that Deimosaur actually addressed it. The melee voyager was caught without her usual pre-battle buffs, and the degenerate qolok had the annoying tendency to toss out a greater dispel magic every so often, so the melee voyager abused the pre-update wording of multitask to rapidly throw up various buffs to help her in the battle, such as touchsight to avoid the qolok's gaze.

• Each and every round, all the melee voyager did was use foreshadow as a parallel action, move around, jump up to hit the degenerate qolok, and slash at it with full momentum. They rinsed and repeated every round. The battle took a long while due to the qolok's damage reduction and fast healing.

• The degenerate qolok had trouble inflicting any offensive measures on the melee voyager. Disintegrate's ranged touch attacks missed due to temporal duelist, it could never get into a position to full attack, and even its trip attempts had trouble going through due to temporal duelist.

• Ultimately, the melee voyager's kiting and steady attacks overtook the degenerate qolok's troubled offense, and so the melee voyager single-handedly achieved a miraculous victory against such a dangerous foe. This battle was a lesson in the old, murky wording of multitask. It was also a demonstration of the value of Independent Action (even if the dice luck disagreed), and also a showcase of how a voyager can be nearly untouchable against a lone enemy due to temporal duelist.

Battle #4 of the Latest Batch of Sessions:
• Note: This is an extremely unusual battle that is more of a showcase in how a lone voyager might operate while completely outside of their element.

• Party: Melee voyager (metronome), 9th-level, all by herself

• Buffs on the Party: 7-point offensive precognition, 5-point touchsight

• Enemy: One supposedly CR 15 locust plague swarm, whose multiply (ex) ability was a special version that filled an entire cavern system with supposedly CR 8 plague locust swarms. While swarms are normally the bane of many weapon-wielders, both voyagers had already acquired swarmbane clasps some time ago.

• Starting Terrain and Positions:
CR 8 plague locust swarms filled every single square of the cavern wherever the CR 15 locust plague swarm was not already occupying it.

• Terrain Gimmick #1: The entire cavern was full of nasty, slippery terrain that costed triple movement to enter and increased all Acrobatics checks DCs by +10. However, the melee voyager circumvented this by bunny-hopping with Acrobatics.

• Terrain Gimmick #2: Due to storyline reasons, it was imperative that the melee voyager had to destroy the CR 15 locust plague swarm right here and now, without it reforming. The reform (su) ability of the swarm was a little different. In order to truly destroy the swarm, the melee voyager had to perform the following steps in order: (1) wear a specific nonmagical suit of Small masterwork full plate with great historical value, (2) get the swarm to devour the armor while the melee voyager was still wearing it, (3) get the swarm to devour a specific Small +4 collision, corrosive, keen, shocking elven curve blade with great historical value, and then (4) destroy the swarm with a different weapon. Both the armor and the weapon had to be at full HP by the time the voyager confronted the swarm.

• Terrain Gimmick #3: In other words, the melee voyager had to cripple herself by wearing masterwork full plate, which denied her Speed of Thought, further reduced her speed, and applied a nonproficiency penalty across her initiative and attack rolls. Fortunately, she got to wield a Small +4 collision, corrosive, keen, shocking elven curve blade to make up for it.

• Terrain Gimmick #4: As a reward for previous efforts in a noncombat scene, the melee voyager was blessed with a temporary aura that caused her to deny the usage of mythic power on mythic feats. This evened the playing field and gave the PC a fighting chance against the swarm and its Mythic Dodge feat.

• Sneaking in Plate: The melee voyager entered at a time when the CR 8 swarms were sleeping. She was entitled to six Stealth checks (with the armor check penalty for masterwork full plate) to creep past the CR 8 swarms' Perception +1. However, she suffered an additional -20 penalty on her Stealth checks due to the threat of stepping on a locust or two. Despite the armor check penalty and her further -20 penalty, she was able to use her accomplished accomplice parallel action to improve her Stealth checks and successfully land all six of the Stealth checks.

• More Sneaking in Plate: Finally, the melee voyager was entitled to a seventh Stealth check to gain a surprise round against the CR 15 swarm's Perception +24. For this last check, rather than a -20 penalty, she had a +8 bonus for the heavily distracted (though not sleeping) swarm. Despite the burden of her masterwork full plate, she used accomplished accomplice to once again boost her Stealth check, beat the swarm's Perception, and earn a surprise round.

• Intended Difficulty: Hard.

• Initiative Results: A surprise round with only the voyager acting. After the surprise round, the CR 15 swarm acted first, then the CR 8 swarms, then the voyager, then the CR 15 swarm again due to dual initiative.

• Battle Duration: 1 surprise round, then 3 regular rounds.

• Power Points Expended: 6 power points, both on uses of hustle.

• Surprise Round: The voyager expended psionic focus and used her parallel action to mark her afterimage with her current hit point total. She then used hustle and boots of speed to build up momentum even while in plate armor, then smashed into the swarm with Amplified Momentum and the heavily-enchanted sword. The Skirmisher and dash subsequently built up further momentum.

• Regular Round #1: The CR 15 swarm entered the voyager's space. This provoked an attack of opportunity from the voyager, who spent momentum to deal heavy damage to the swarm with the help of the hyper-magical sword. The swarm dealt its automatic damage, heavily wounding the voyager but also destroying the Small armor, which liberated the PC from its heavy penalties. The PC suffered more damage from the CR 8 swarms. Then the PC used hustle and boots of speed to replenish momentum and swing at the swarm, finishing it off... or rather, placing it under an akashic Symbol of Mercy. This triggered the destruction of all the CR 8 swarms and prevented the CR 15 swarm from taking action. The voyager subsequently used rewind to replenish their HP to full.

• Regular Rounds #2 to #3: From here, it was simply a matter of using a standard action to dispense a command of "Devour this sword" to the CR 15 swarm, which it did. Naturally, the plague swarm then tried to move into the voyager's space, but the voyager's subsequent attack of opportunity with their regular sword finished off the swarm once and for all.

• Accomplished accomplice was a great boon in the leadup to this battle, because it helped the voyager cross the veritable ocean of CR 8 swarms and then earn a surprise round against the CR 15 swarm. However, we did note that the rules were unclear on whether or not the afterimage would have been spotted, which is why we are still confused by how afterimage Stealth actually works.

• Although it was not necessary in the combat, rewind's "mark your hit points" function was a healthy safety buffer against anything going wrong in the fight. In the event that the voyager had missed with any of her attacks, the plague swarm would have had another opportunity to devastate her with automatic damage, so it was important for the voyager to stay fresh and at full hit points. It was somewhat inconvenient to use, but there is no doubt that it would have been a life-saver if any of the voyager's attacks had missed and prolonged the fight.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Earlier this week, I was playing a voyager in an 11th-level party. It had highlighted a few major issues with the voyager by the mid-levels. Our very first battle, you see, was against sixteen low-level enemies, and I was playing alongside a guru and a paladin (knight-disciple) with Advanced Study.

1. The voyager absolutely, positively cannot handle crowds to save its life, right until 13th level, when it receives speeding strike. In fact, it is worse than many other half-casters/half-manifesters at doing so, because the voyager is so strongly reliant on standard action attacks that the voyager has awful full attacks. An 11th- or 12th-level inquisitor or occultist would be able to full attack and take out multiple enemies with each full attack, but a voyager can hardly do anything similar. For comparison, the guru and the paladin (knight-disciple) were capable of casually hurling out AoE effects from their veils and their maneuvers, so my voyager was completely trivialized.

What the voyager needs is some sort of relatively low-impact AoE effect. I had a look at the various class features of the voyager, and out of all of them, momentous maneuvers and maneuver augmentation need to go. I have seen them used not a single time in all of my playtest battles, of which there have been between many. They are near-worthless to the voyager's playstyle, and the extra damage option for grapples and sunders is a worse deal than the extra damage and +2 attack for regular uses of momentum.

With that in mind, I would scrap momentous maneuvers and maneuver augmentation (turn them into a strong voyager feat or an alternative class feature, ala focused crossfire) in favor of something like:
Force Wave (Su): At 5th level, a voyager can channel her momentum into selective blasts of concussive force. As a standard action, a voyager can spend any amount of momentum and deal force damage to any enemies she designates in a (10? 15?)-foot cone. The length of this cone increases by 5 feet for every (2? 3?) class levels beyond 5th level. The cone deals damage equal to the damage she could normally deal with momentum (normally 1d6 per point of momentum spent in this way), with a Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 the voyager's class level + the voyager's Intelligence modifier) for half damage.

Bear in mind that this would not interact with augmented attack, so it is never strictly better than attacking.

2. Like it or not, as a Dreamscarred Press product, a voyager is going to wind up in a party with Path of War initiators sooner or later. This was the case in my very first voyager playtest mini-campaign, and this was also the case in this new campaign. The traditional way for mid-level characters without initiator archetypes (or the dreaded initiator customizations, whether from a genuine aegis or form astral suit) to catch up to initiators is to take Martial Training, and certainly, this works for Dreamscarred Press classes like the malefex and Deimosaur's very own highlord (sovereign) can do this. The voyager, on the other hand, cannot, because augmented attack is a standard action. Worse, at 10th level, a voyager's swift actions are eaten up by borrowed time.

I think that this can be rectified by replacing augmented attack's "Making an augmented attack is a standard action and is made like a normal attack with a weapon, but is prefaced by the expenditure of points of momentum, power points, or both" with "When a voyager makes an attack with a weapon and without Vital Strike feats as part of a standard action, she can declare it to be an augmented attack, which is prefaced by the expenditure of points of momentum, power points, or both." Paizo's kineticist already includes precedent against ruling out Vital Strike, and this would make a voyager's augmented attacks compatible with strikes from Martial Training, weapon-based maneuvers like sunders and trips, and so on.

Yes, it would make a voyager/initiator multiclass strong, but I do not think it would be any more egregious than other initiator multiclasses. If a malefex and a highlord (sovereign) can fool around with Martial Training, I do not see why a voyager should be left out.

3. There really, really needs to be an actual rule for using Stealth with an afterimage. This has come up discomfortingly often, and it is particularly important for the keep watch parallel action at 11th level, which is near-useless for scouting if afterimages cannot act stealthily.

4. Paradox shift at 11th level is a mess of a parallel action, assuming it affects only attack rolls. It mutilates the party's attack rolls against the target, while leaving the target completely free to hurl out save-or-lose spells or powers. There is also the cheesy exploit of a ranged voyager wielding a seeking weapon (already an incredibly useful magic weapon special ability), slapping a paradox shift on themselves, and ignoring the miss chance.

Paradox shift should probably be something like:
Paradox Shift: The voyager’s parallel selves reach out and disrupt the flow of time, causing the actions and actions made against her targets to become inconsistent. This parallel action affects herself and a creature adjacent to her, though the voyager and choose whether or not to exclude herself or another creature from the effects as she wishes.
Until the end of their next turn, when an affected creature attempts to take a standard action or a full-round action, or when an offensive combat action (anything that could break invisibility) is attempted against an affected creature, the voyager rolls a d20 without modifiers. On an 11+, the action never resolves and is wasted, though no resources are spent. If both conditions would trigger, then only one such d20 roll is made.

5. Independent Action is a feat that could use some clarification. Does the afterimage have access to its own set of senses? Does the afterimage know what it is looking at or hearing? Can the afterimage keep watch as the voyager is sleeping? What does "you are affected by an ongoing mind-affecting effect that allows a saving throw, you can use your parallel action to make another save against it" actually mean? Does it apply against the likes of suggestion or charm person, or does it only work against overwhelming grief and similar effects? (My GM insisted that it worked only on overwhelming grief and similar effects.) Likewise, can a voyager use borrowed future to activate the saving throw function?

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I see that afterimage Stealth and Independent Action have been updated.

What if a voyager wants to have their afterimage use Stealth while the voyager remains in plain view? Is that impossible?

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Another annoying quibble I had observed for my 11th-level voyager was that it is really quite irksome for the metronome to have no initiative-related benefit at 11th, 15th, and 19th level. Perhaps a metronome should gain +1 initiative at those levels?

[Daridan]

Is momentum precision damage? Or is it multiplied on crits?

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Earlier, I was playing in another session and another battle as an 11th-level voyager (crossfire, metronome). We had faced a total of ten enemies this time around. Much like before, as far as ability to deal with crowds is concerned, I did not think that the voyager was matching up to the paladin (knight-disciple) with Advanced Study or the guru, and those classes are not even especially known for their crowd control abilities.

I was still miffed by many of the same issues as before, which can be found in this post.

While #3 and #5 have since been fixed, #1, #2, and #4 still very much applied. In particular, I found myself spamming paradox shift every single round, exactly the same as the previous battle, because there was absolutely no reason to ever pass up on a 50% miss chance that could be ignored by something like a seeking ranged weapon.

I also still found it annoying that a metronome is missing out on initiative benefits at 11th, 15th, and 19th level.

[Deimosaur]

Paradox shift has been adjusted.

Is momentum precision damage? Or is it multiplied on crits?

No, and no. Momentum is bonus damage, like from a fighter's weapon training, or the power attack feat. Its damage type is the same as the same as the rest of the damage of the attack it's being delivered with.

[Air0r]

Paradox shift has been adjusted.


No, and no. Momentum is bonus damage, like from a fighter's weapon training, or the power attack feat. Its damage type is the same as the same as the rest of the damage of the attack it's being delivered with.

but wait... wouldn't that mean that is DOES get multiplied in a crit, just like a fighter's weapon training and power attack?

[Tkags]

but wait... wouldn't that mean that is DOES get multiplied in a crit, just like a fighter's weapon training and power attack?

Yes it does!

[Forrestfire]

No, it doesn't.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied.

Per the core rules, bonus dice are never multiplied on crits (regardless of source), but it's otherwise the same as any other additional damage (such as counting as part of the base attack for overcoming DR, sharing damage type, and the like).