Robot's Deconstruction Hour: Chronicler
Aug 29, 2016 16:49:09 GMT
flamefist96 and Faithless like this
Post by Robot on Aug 29, 2016 16:49:09 GMT
Overview: Oh no, the Paparazzi is here to steal your soul with their magic murder pencils. Chronicler is all about proving the Illuminati exist by taking photographs of strangers, and pinning them up on a corkboard with strings of colored yarn to draw wild associations between subjects. More specifically it is the second Professional class in PTU's 1.05 system, and the only one that doesn't even partially lean on actual crafting. It does by technicality, you make free profiles of things using your AP, but they aren't held or equippable items. Instead you have to wait until out of combat to take an extended action and log the move. Chronicler fits builds that are low on AP expenditures, and provides mostly passive bonuses.
Pros
-Perception as Primary Skill
-Decent substitute for a Self-Mentor.
-Can apply Mold Breaker to any of it's Pokemon, permitting a means to ruin some defensive builds, as well as allow your Sniper-themed Crit Ace to flourish in an environment rife with Battle Armor.
-Keen Eye/Smokescreen strats are great.
-Can Tutor TM Moves onto a target, which differentiates it from Mentor and gives it it's own identity.
-Technique Album capstone is ridiculous.
Cons
-If you ever had a hope of investing in another class that used AP, don't take Chronicler. You will never have enough. You could be downing hearty meals daily, and have a cheerleader giving you temporary AP every round, and you will never sate Chronicler's thirst for AP.
-Chronicler is not a good substitute for a party Mentor, as it can tutor it's own mon up to the limit for their move list, but can only teach it's teammates a single move per Pokemon. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me, as Mentor gets three early/natural tutors a day, plus an egg tutor, plus a move tutor. Chronicler gets one Archive Tutor a day, and has to have seen the move first. Yes, they ignore the level stipulations that Mentor has, but there are far many more checks and balances in place that should prevent this from being overwhelming. The Mentor/Tutoring Playtest further destroys the usefulness of this feature, limiting you to EoT/At Will non-statuses pre Pokemon Level 20. It also costs just as much TP wise as the Mentor features. So all in all, as a mentor-light, emphasis is on the light.
Base Feature: You pick from three initial packages depending on the build path you want to take through Chronicler. Pre-Expert Perception, your options are Archival Training, which gets you your other Album options, or Observation Party, which requires the Travel Archive Package. Your three options being Profile Archive, which builds into Targeted Profiling at Expert Perception and then the Character Study capstone, giving you skill bonuses against people and Pokemon in your Archive (so you will have had to encounter them more than once, or consistently). Pokemon are up to your GM, but should be managed by species instead of by individual as not doing it this way only makes the player suffer. Technique Archive, which builds into Archive Tutor at Expert Perception, and then the Recreation Capstone, which gives you an evasion bonus against any move you have catalogued. The third and final is again, Travel Archive, which builds into Observation Party, then into the Situational Awareness capstone. Travel Archive grants Perception (which saves you from friendly fire) or Keen Eye (which prevents accuracy lowering attacks from having any effect). Without going into Archival Training and paying the feat tax, you will only follow a singular build path which narrows focus and reduces overall AP costs. There is nothing saying you -need- to take all three, but you benefit the most from your capstone in doing so.
Archival Training: Grants you a second, and then a third archive, at the cost of features. If taking multiples, I would generally skip Travel Archive unless your allies are trigger happy with area attacks and don't care who gets caught in it. Granting a Pokemon Keen Eye or Perception only does so much for it, but Travel itself is the least AP expensive of the three, at 1/Scene, effectively. Profile you will want to load up on photographs of Pokemon with abilities like Sturdy, Sap Sipper, Levitate, Fur Coat, Bulletproof, and any other of a wide host of defensive abilities. Chronicler is the destroyer of Shedinjas, and the breaker of Mega Aggrons. Profile is slightly more selective about it's targets then Travel. Key figures you expect to encounter often, and as mentioned before Defensive Ability Pokemon. Technique is brutal. You will want as many moves as you can chronicle, all the time. Your AP will bleed out, a boss will use it's big attack, and you'll ask yourself why you grabbed Thunder Wave when you could have had Hyper Beam.
Archive Tutor: For 2 TP, if a move is on any list that isn't Egg Moves, and at any level, it's yours. Constituents have been listed above and are pretty steep. Once a day, and once per an allied Trainer's Pokemon. Archive Tutor is best utilized on TMs or HMs, allowing you to spread one move around to everyone for minimal financial cost. Considering this comes at the same time Mentor does, it certainly hurts for any kind of regular usefulness. Archive Tutor is the reason most people take Chronicler, and that's just the worst. I mean other then fluff, but who does that?
Targeted Profiling: Your Pokemon gains Mold Breaker to it's next attack for the cost of 2 AP against a target in your Profile Album. Also gains a +2 Accuracy. Is an orders feature, which means it can be used via Commander, and be spread to allies as well. Since it is an At-Will on top of this, it can be used as a Burst 10 OrdersP, allowing all allies to ignore target's defensive abilities for their next attack. Probably the strongest strategy to dip Chronicler for, Expert Perception isn't really a huge loss on any character, but in play by post games, Expert for anything is a long dip.
Observation Party: Your Pokemon get your chosen ability from your Travel Archive. Neither ability is overtly strong, but each has it's uses depending on your allied trainers and their choice of moves. As always, pick intelligently and responsibly based on your circumstances.
Cinematic Analysis: Requires four other Chronicler Features. Typically this will be Chronicler (Album 1), Archival Training (Album 2), Advanced Feature Album 1, Advanced Feature Album 2. Gives three options which don't stack up particularly well against each other, each only usable with it's associated album. Character Study is the weakest option of the three, letting yo sub out your social role against a target that you have met in the past and profiled (this is the part that makes it less worth) to use Perception in place of a social skill roll. Recreation is the strongest of the three, which allows you to pull moves that exist in your Technique Archive, and Pokemon's moves that they could potentially know, and fire off attacks they don't actually currently know. Three times a day, but never the same move twice in one day. This makes normal types absolutely horrifying. All the coverage and utility you could ever want for one large fight, because they have such deep move pools. The last is Situational Awareness, which lets you give an ally their turn as a priority advanced. Situational Awareness also triggers as an interrupt, so it allows you to pull some strong party support.
Pros
-Perception as Primary Skill
-Decent substitute for a Self-Mentor.
-Can apply Mold Breaker to any of it's Pokemon, permitting a means to ruin some defensive builds, as well as allow your Sniper-themed Crit Ace to flourish in an environment rife with Battle Armor.
-Keen Eye/Smokescreen strats are great.
-Can Tutor TM Moves onto a target, which differentiates it from Mentor and gives it it's own identity.
-Technique Album capstone is ridiculous.
Cons
-If you ever had a hope of investing in another class that used AP, don't take Chronicler. You will never have enough. You could be downing hearty meals daily, and have a cheerleader giving you temporary AP every round, and you will never sate Chronicler's thirst for AP.
-Chronicler is not a good substitute for a party Mentor, as it can tutor it's own mon up to the limit for their move list, but can only teach it's teammates a single move per Pokemon. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me, as Mentor gets three early/natural tutors a day, plus an egg tutor, plus a move tutor. Chronicler gets one Archive Tutor a day, and has to have seen the move first. Yes, they ignore the level stipulations that Mentor has, but there are far many more checks and balances in place that should prevent this from being overwhelming. The Mentor/Tutoring Playtest further destroys the usefulness of this feature, limiting you to EoT/At Will non-statuses pre Pokemon Level 20. It also costs just as much TP wise as the Mentor features. So all in all, as a mentor-light, emphasis is on the light.
Base Feature: You pick from three initial packages depending on the build path you want to take through Chronicler. Pre-Expert Perception, your options are Archival Training, which gets you your other Album options, or Observation Party, which requires the Travel Archive Package. Your three options being Profile Archive, which builds into Targeted Profiling at Expert Perception and then the Character Study capstone, giving you skill bonuses against people and Pokemon in your Archive (so you will have had to encounter them more than once, or consistently). Pokemon are up to your GM, but should be managed by species instead of by individual as not doing it this way only makes the player suffer. Technique Archive, which builds into Archive Tutor at Expert Perception, and then the Recreation Capstone, which gives you an evasion bonus against any move you have catalogued. The third and final is again, Travel Archive, which builds into Observation Party, then into the Situational Awareness capstone. Travel Archive grants Perception (which saves you from friendly fire) or Keen Eye (which prevents accuracy lowering attacks from having any effect). Without going into Archival Training and paying the feat tax, you will only follow a singular build path which narrows focus and reduces overall AP costs. There is nothing saying you -need- to take all three, but you benefit the most from your capstone in doing so.
Archival Training: Grants you a second, and then a third archive, at the cost of features. If taking multiples, I would generally skip Travel Archive unless your allies are trigger happy with area attacks and don't care who gets caught in it. Granting a Pokemon Keen Eye or Perception only does so much for it, but Travel itself is the least AP expensive of the three, at 1/Scene, effectively. Profile you will want to load up on photographs of Pokemon with abilities like Sturdy, Sap Sipper, Levitate, Fur Coat, Bulletproof, and any other of a wide host of defensive abilities. Chronicler is the destroyer of Shedinjas, and the breaker of Mega Aggrons. Profile is slightly more selective about it's targets then Travel. Key figures you expect to encounter often, and as mentioned before Defensive Ability Pokemon. Technique is brutal. You will want as many moves as you can chronicle, all the time. Your AP will bleed out, a boss will use it's big attack, and you'll ask yourself why you grabbed Thunder Wave when you could have had Hyper Beam.
Archive Tutor: For 2 TP, if a move is on any list that isn't Egg Moves, and at any level, it's yours. Constituents have been listed above and are pretty steep. Once a day, and once per an allied Trainer's Pokemon. Archive Tutor is best utilized on TMs or HMs, allowing you to spread one move around to everyone for minimal financial cost. Considering this comes at the same time Mentor does, it certainly hurts for any kind of regular usefulness. Archive Tutor is the reason most people take Chronicler, and that's just the worst. I mean other then fluff, but who does that?
Targeted Profiling: Your Pokemon gains Mold Breaker to it's next attack for the cost of 2 AP against a target in your Profile Album. Also gains a +2 Accuracy. Is an orders feature, which means it can be used via Commander, and be spread to allies as well. Since it is an At-Will on top of this, it can be used as a Burst 10 OrdersP, allowing all allies to ignore target's defensive abilities for their next attack. Probably the strongest strategy to dip Chronicler for, Expert Perception isn't really a huge loss on any character, but in play by post games, Expert for anything is a long dip.
Observation Party: Your Pokemon get your chosen ability from your Travel Archive. Neither ability is overtly strong, but each has it's uses depending on your allied trainers and their choice of moves. As always, pick intelligently and responsibly based on your circumstances.
Cinematic Analysis: Requires four other Chronicler Features. Typically this will be Chronicler (Album 1), Archival Training (Album 2), Advanced Feature Album 1, Advanced Feature Album 2. Gives three options which don't stack up particularly well against each other, each only usable with it's associated album. Character Study is the weakest option of the three, letting yo sub out your social role against a target that you have met in the past and profiled (this is the part that makes it less worth) to use Perception in place of a social skill roll. Recreation is the strongest of the three, which allows you to pull moves that exist in your Technique Archive, and Pokemon's moves that they could potentially know, and fire off attacks they don't actually currently know. Three times a day, but never the same move twice in one day. This makes normal types absolutely horrifying. All the coverage and utility you could ever want for one large fight, because they have such deep move pools. The last is Situational Awareness, which lets you give an ally their turn as a priority advanced. Situational Awareness also triggers as an interrupt, so it allows you to pull some strong party support.