APG Class Opinions?
- Thread starter Sylrae
- Start date
Noir le Lotus
First Post
I like the oracle and witch concepts, but the other classes are not for my taste.
Alchemist and Summoner really don't fit my taste, I need to read more on the inquisitor to make an opinion. I'm still not ocnvinced by the cavalier : the class seems to be halfway between fighter and paladin et inferior to both ...
On the other hand, I've found the alternate options and additionnal powers for the 11 base classes really great. The new powers offer new possibilities but really few power crunch and the alternate class features /domains / schools all seem great and balanced.
Alchemist and Summoner really don't fit my taste, I need to read more on the inquisitor to make an opinion. I'm still not ocnvinced by the cavalier : the class seems to be halfway between fighter and paladin et inferior to both ...
On the other hand, I've found the alternate options and additionnal powers for the 11 base classes really great. The new powers offer new possibilities but really few power crunch and the alternate class features /domains / schools all seem great and balanced.
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I've playtested the Beta versions of the Alchemist, Oracle and Witch classes, and my brother has been DMing a game with one player using the Inquisitor, and another using the Summoner.
I've used the Alchemist and Witch as NPCs so far, and they've been incredibly fun to run. The new tactics used when setting up the encounters were a nice change, and I could easily see myself picking either of them as a player.
___________
Here's my thoughts (mostly based on Beta info/testing)...
Alchemist
The new casting method and abilities (bombs and mutagens) really make this worthy of being a new base class. It felt completely different from playing any other spellcaster, or any other half-caster (such as the Bard).
Theoretically, there's some potential for nova with the bombs, but overall it doesn't seem to wreck combat in application (and believe me, I'm a powergamer DM, so I tried).
What really make me happy is that this seems ready made for making an Artificer variant, with small enough changes to call it an archetype. I've got that in my list of "things to do", right next to my Assassin rewrite and Brawler (fighter archetype).
Cavalier
This class always seemed a bit mish-mash in it's abilities. It seems like he's supposed to be the secular paladin with his Order/edicts, but then something of a commander with his tactical feats and ally boosting, and then there's the mounted combat focus.
I'd rather they had gone more focused and dropped the mount aspect and went full "Commander/Order" with the class, and perhaps had the mount as an option in one of the Order choices. Mounted combat has always been a bit hard to pull off (relying on a pet you can't buff yourself for your combat prowess, or just fitting into some regions like indoors or underground).
I really think there's place for a base class that can fulfill the General/Tactician/Morale type of concept without having to resort to magical abilities (like the Bard), and would liked to have seen this class be the one.
Inquisitor
I really like the "monster hunter" idea behind this class, and despite the Ranger's ability to fulfill that role a bit, this class really hits home the "Assassin for God" feeling.
My brother has been running a game with one player using this class, and it has had some great roleplaying ramifications that the Paladin, Cleric or Ranger would not have really filled.
The mechanic for scaling bonus over rounds was quite clunky, and I'm glad it was simplified in the final print, although I kinda wished they had some new mechanic for the Judgments that was a little more unique (without the clunk).
Oracle
The perfect replacement for the Favored Soul. This class is very versatile in building different concepts (elemental, nature, death, battle -oriented ideas). As a 3/4 BAB, they can be built like a battle cleric, especially with a number of the curse and mystery choices.
The only problem I ran into was that the curses were extremely varied in how badly they affected your character. In particular, the vision and hearing curses far, far hamper the general roleplaying of your character compared to the others. With the vision curse, my player had to spend nearly the entire game trying to ignore the metagame knowledge from the descriptions I was giving, because most of the time he simply couldn't see what I had to describe to the other players.
It was neat for a little while, but by the 10th session of tailoring descriptions we were all tired of the process and the player eventually changed characters when it was story appropriate by 5th or 6th level.
The hearing curse appears to be even worse (from others accounts on the Paizo boards), and really could stand to use some additional sidebar rules for lip reading and linguistic skill stuff for sign language, etc.
If I were to have a player wanting these particular curses, I'd probably tone them back to no longer be "all or nothing" and instead just have severe penalties (so a vision curse oracle can watch a sunset, but not read a sign outside his vision range).
Summoner
My thoughts on the summoner can be found in the other thread.
A quick rundown: I like the idea, but feel the body types/mode of travel and size/utility options should be tweaked (and have done so from player requests during playtesting), and feel that the Eidolon doesn't hurt the game by being out 100% of the time, nor should have the magic item restrictions. Something else should have been toned back instead.
Overall though, I really like the mechanic and have ideas of expanding on it already (multiple eidolons and shapeshifter class ideas).
Witch
Oh, the witch... what an amazingly fun class to play. As a DM, I loved the flavor of the Coven and Hexes, and the tactics that it allowed to bring out.
As a player, it's possibly the class to make a Mystic Theurge concept from, with an amazing spell list that covers so many bases.
I can see an Archetype of a "Magus" that replaces just the Hexes and possibly opening up an alternative familiar (like the psion's crystal or possibly a divine focus item) to make a pure divine/arcane caster.
In play, between the buff spells and hexes, I was able to make a very wide-spread range of builds (a healer/buffer build, an arcane-ish debuffer/utility build, etc).
With the final print, it seems they fixed most of the squiggly rules that were problems in the Beta, so I'm very satisfied with this class.
Archetypes
Beyond what these options actually already give, I really like that this is an avenue that Pathfinder is going to go with instead of just Base and Prestige classes.
The original 3.0 DMG actually had a section that specifically called out swapping class abilities as a preferred method, with Prestige Classes being more campaign-specific in their application.
I'm really, really hoping that Paizo is going to continue with this idea for future releases.
While I can't actually comment on the mechanics of the individual archetypes themselves (I don't actually have the book/pdf myself), I've had the chance to look over some specific ones, and a quick rundown through the main list.
I'm somewhat disappointed that there isn't a true "non-mystical unarmed combat" archetype floating around (with all the great ideas for monks and fighters, neither one picked this up, although Empty Hand monk comes close). Doesn't stop me from tooling around my own ideas for a Fighter archetype of my own (Brawler), though.
___________
I'm fairly impressed with the classes they presented in the books, with only a few minor clunky bits that I had hoped would be hammered out.
However, what I lost in "out-of-the-box" functionality on those missing bits, it has more than made up with giving me new ideas as foundations to build upon with my own stuff (and hopefully future products from Paizo and 3rd parties).
I'm going to go now and start putting together my Artificer and Shifter ideas...
I've used the Alchemist and Witch as NPCs so far, and they've been incredibly fun to run. The new tactics used when setting up the encounters were a nice change, and I could easily see myself picking either of them as a player.
___________
Here's my thoughts (mostly based on Beta info/testing)...
Alchemist
The new casting method and abilities (bombs and mutagens) really make this worthy of being a new base class. It felt completely different from playing any other spellcaster, or any other half-caster (such as the Bard).
Theoretically, there's some potential for nova with the bombs, but overall it doesn't seem to wreck combat in application (and believe me, I'm a powergamer DM, so I tried).
What really make me happy is that this seems ready made for making an Artificer variant, with small enough changes to call it an archetype. I've got that in my list of "things to do", right next to my Assassin rewrite and Brawler (fighter archetype).
Cavalier
This class always seemed a bit mish-mash in it's abilities. It seems like he's supposed to be the secular paladin with his Order/edicts, but then something of a commander with his tactical feats and ally boosting, and then there's the mounted combat focus.
I'd rather they had gone more focused and dropped the mount aspect and went full "Commander/Order" with the class, and perhaps had the mount as an option in one of the Order choices. Mounted combat has always been a bit hard to pull off (relying on a pet you can't buff yourself for your combat prowess, or just fitting into some regions like indoors or underground).
I really think there's place for a base class that can fulfill the General/Tactician/Morale type of concept without having to resort to magical abilities (like the Bard), and would liked to have seen this class be the one.
Inquisitor
I really like the "monster hunter" idea behind this class, and despite the Ranger's ability to fulfill that role a bit, this class really hits home the "Assassin for God" feeling.
My brother has been running a game with one player using this class, and it has had some great roleplaying ramifications that the Paladin, Cleric or Ranger would not have really filled.
The mechanic for scaling bonus over rounds was quite clunky, and I'm glad it was simplified in the final print, although I kinda wished they had some new mechanic for the Judgments that was a little more unique (without the clunk).
Oracle
The perfect replacement for the Favored Soul. This class is very versatile in building different concepts (elemental, nature, death, battle -oriented ideas). As a 3/4 BAB, they can be built like a battle cleric, especially with a number of the curse and mystery choices.
The only problem I ran into was that the curses were extremely varied in how badly they affected your character. In particular, the vision and hearing curses far, far hamper the general roleplaying of your character compared to the others. With the vision curse, my player had to spend nearly the entire game trying to ignore the metagame knowledge from the descriptions I was giving, because most of the time he simply couldn't see what I had to describe to the other players.
It was neat for a little while, but by the 10th session of tailoring descriptions we were all tired of the process and the player eventually changed characters when it was story appropriate by 5th or 6th level.
The hearing curse appears to be even worse (from others accounts on the Paizo boards), and really could stand to use some additional sidebar rules for lip reading and linguistic skill stuff for sign language, etc.
If I were to have a player wanting these particular curses, I'd probably tone them back to no longer be "all or nothing" and instead just have severe penalties (so a vision curse oracle can watch a sunset, but not read a sign outside his vision range).
Summoner
My thoughts on the summoner can be found in the other thread.
A quick rundown: I like the idea, but feel the body types/mode of travel and size/utility options should be tweaked (and have done so from player requests during playtesting), and feel that the Eidolon doesn't hurt the game by being out 100% of the time, nor should have the magic item restrictions. Something else should have been toned back instead.
Overall though, I really like the mechanic and have ideas of expanding on it already (multiple eidolons and shapeshifter class ideas).
Witch
Oh, the witch... what an amazingly fun class to play. As a DM, I loved the flavor of the Coven and Hexes, and the tactics that it allowed to bring out.
As a player, it's possibly the class to make a Mystic Theurge concept from, with an amazing spell list that covers so many bases.
I can see an Archetype of a "Magus" that replaces just the Hexes and possibly opening up an alternative familiar (like the psion's crystal or possibly a divine focus item) to make a pure divine/arcane caster.
In play, between the buff spells and hexes, I was able to make a very wide-spread range of builds (a healer/buffer build, an arcane-ish debuffer/utility build, etc).
With the final print, it seems they fixed most of the squiggly rules that were problems in the Beta, so I'm very satisfied with this class.
Archetypes
Beyond what these options actually already give, I really like that this is an avenue that Pathfinder is going to go with instead of just Base and Prestige classes.
The original 3.0 DMG actually had a section that specifically called out swapping class abilities as a preferred method, with Prestige Classes being more campaign-specific in their application.
I'm really, really hoping that Paizo is going to continue with this idea for future releases.
While I can't actually comment on the mechanics of the individual archetypes themselves (I don't actually have the book/pdf myself), I've had the chance to look over some specific ones, and a quick rundown through the main list.
I'm somewhat disappointed that there isn't a true "non-mystical unarmed combat" archetype floating around (with all the great ideas for monks and fighters, neither one picked this up, although Empty Hand monk comes close). Doesn't stop me from tooling around my own ideas for a Fighter archetype of my own (Brawler), though.
___________
I'm fairly impressed with the classes they presented in the books, with only a few minor clunky bits that I had hoped would be hammered out.
However, what I lost in "out-of-the-box" functionality on those missing bits, it has more than made up with giving me new ideas as foundations to build upon with my own stuff (and hopefully future products from Paizo and 3rd parties).
I'm going to go now and start putting together my Artificer and Shifter ideas...
Marc Radle
Legend
I have to agree - this book as a whole is really a solid, well done book and the classes are really good!
I think my favorite is the Oracle. It is to the Cleric what the Sorcerer is to the Wizard - great! I'm thinking of of playing one in our Kingmaker camppaign when it starts up.
I think my favorite is the Oracle. It is to the Cleric what the Sorcerer is to the Wizard - great! I'm thinking of of playing one in our Kingmaker camppaign when it starts up.
I'm really liking the cavalier, oracle, & witch.
The cavalier is one of the best of it's kind. It hits all the right themes, the use of Orders to emulate different types of cavaliers eliminates the need for the prestige class-tweak approach that was often taken during the 3.x/d20 days. And while it's a mounted warrior, that's not the limit of his abilities.
The oracle & witch are fantastic. They emulate the folklore inspirations, are interesting, and more importantly, are not re-skinned & mechanically inferior to the base spellcasters. After seeing the facelift & greater class differentiation the wizard & sorceror received, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I'm very impressed with these two. While I love the cavalier class, I'd jump at the chance to play one of these classes.
Alchemist & Inquisitor - these two I wasn't sold on initially. However, I'm really liking the Alchemist as it's probably the most unique character concept I've seen in a long time. Not a class for everyone, perhaps, but I think it's a great middle-ground choice for players that want a scholarly character that has some magic at his disposal. I see a far greater likelihood for alchemist's in my gaming groups than bards moving forward.
Inquisitor - like the cavalier, one of the best representations I've seen in a long time. It wasn't really on my radar screen in the playtest stage but as I'm absorbing the APG material I really like the class. Can't say how it compares to the Genius Guide Witch Hunter class.
Summoner - for me, the odd man out. While an interesting concept for me, it still strikes me as "Magic-Equivalent of Druid's Animal Companion". That probably isn't a fair characterization but it's how I keep summarizing it in my mind. This is one case where I don't know that a base class was warranted. A more focused wizard archetype, a prestige class, etc. might all have fit the concept better. IMO, the weakest of the classes. However, given that I score all of the others highly, that may not be much of a criticism in the final analysis.
The cavalier is one of the best of it's kind. It hits all the right themes, the use of Orders to emulate different types of cavaliers eliminates the need for the prestige class-tweak approach that was often taken during the 3.x/d20 days. And while it's a mounted warrior, that's not the limit of his abilities.
The oracle & witch are fantastic. They emulate the folklore inspirations, are interesting, and more importantly, are not re-skinned & mechanically inferior to the base spellcasters. After seeing the facelift & greater class differentiation the wizard & sorceror received, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I'm very impressed with these two. While I love the cavalier class, I'd jump at the chance to play one of these classes.
Alchemist & Inquisitor - these two I wasn't sold on initially. However, I'm really liking the Alchemist as it's probably the most unique character concept I've seen in a long time. Not a class for everyone, perhaps, but I think it's a great middle-ground choice for players that want a scholarly character that has some magic at his disposal. I see a far greater likelihood for alchemist's in my gaming groups than bards moving forward.
Inquisitor - like the cavalier, one of the best representations I've seen in a long time. It wasn't really on my radar screen in the playtest stage but as I'm absorbing the APG material I really like the class. Can't say how it compares to the Genius Guide Witch Hunter class.
Summoner - for me, the odd man out. While an interesting concept for me, it still strikes me as "Magic-Equivalent of Druid's Animal Companion". That probably isn't a fair characterization but it's how I keep summarizing it in my mind. This is one case where I don't know that a base class was warranted. A more focused wizard archetype, a prestige class, etc. might all have fit the concept better. IMO, the weakest of the classes. However, given that I score all of the others highly, that may not be much of a criticism in the final analysis.
Philosopher
First Post
I quite liked the cavalier, inquisitor, oracle, and witch. I do have one issue with the oracle, however - I simply can't stand the curses. It's not merely the execution (although I wasn't happy with that either, for the reasons that Kaisoku spelled out), but the very idea. The basic concept of an oracle is great, just the sort of thing I want in my campaigns, but I don't want them all to be cursed. I'm not too bothered by this, however, as I have no qualms about simply dropping the whole curse thing and using the class without it.
I wasn't terribly excited about the alchemist, but it looks good. While I don't think I'd ever play one, I can already think of ways of using one as an NPC. I don't care for the summoner, though. I don't have a particular complaint about it, I just don't like the flavour.
One of my favourite RPG books is the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana, primarily because of all the variations it gives on the core classes. I love the APG for the same reason. While I may not care for every archetype presented (the same goes for UA), there's a lot there that works great. The archer archetype for the fighter is perfect for a character of mine. Some of the archetypes are just the sort of things I've been looking for. Other archetypes give me new ideas. And I am simply thrilled at finally finding elementalist wizards that I'm happy with - I haven't had that since the Al-Qadim setting for 2e.
I wasn't terribly excited about the alchemist, but it looks good. While I don't think I'd ever play one, I can already think of ways of using one as an NPC. I don't care for the summoner, though. I don't have a particular complaint about it, I just don't like the flavour.
One of my favourite RPG books is the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana, primarily because of all the variations it gives on the core classes. I love the APG for the same reason. While I may not care for every archetype presented (the same goes for UA), there's a lot there that works great. The archer archetype for the fighter is perfect for a character of mine. Some of the archetypes are just the sort of things I've been looking for. Other archetypes give me new ideas. And I am simply thrilled at finally finding elementalist wizards that I'm happy with - I haven't had that since the Al-Qadim setting for 2e.
Philosopher
First Post
There's the brutal pugilist archetype for the barbarian.
Yeah, I saw that one. The problem is that most of the benefits work only with raging, and the unarmed strike doesn't really improve that much (mostly just getting really good at grappling).
He makes a good Wrestler, but tying it to the rage mechanic limits the concept away from what I was looking for.
He makes a good Wrestler, but tying it to the rage mechanic limits the concept away from what I was looking for.
I think it's the most solid D&D splatbook I've purchased -- there are a few things in need of errata or clarification, but I was amazed at the sheer amount of new, decent options it adds to the game (I even liked the magic items).
