Pathfinder

[rustic cape]

I think orc is really good in general

Elf likewise due to speed

[frank crystal]

Yah orc and elf are always solid for a martial build

[rustic cape]

Ferocity Is Gud

[frank crystal]

It’s at least never bad

Though this build is probably gonna be using its reaction a lot

Just for AOO and reactive block

[rustic cape]

I would be stunned if there wasn't some combination of Awakened Animal stuff that synergized well with just about everything

[frank crystal]

Also Viking archetype very nice for this build

Just to grab shield fights you miss for dual weapon feats

[rustic cape]

This is with Free Archetype?

[frank crystal]

Yah

[barren cipher]

reactive shield? no, aggressive block only triggers on shield block

[frank crystal]

Damn

[barren cipher]

if you’ve got an extra reaction to shield block with you can raise it with reflexive, shield block and aggressive block no problem

[frank crystal]

Isn’t the only way to get an extra reaction to be a champion?

[barren cipher]

nope!

fighter and bastion get quick shield block iirc

[carmine oyster]

IIRC some archetypes give extra reactions but I think they're usually "can only be used to X"

[barren cipher]

and viking

[frank crystal]

Ohhh

Hmm, any particularly important dual weapon feats besides double slice if I’m using a shield?

[solar tendon]

agile shield grip maybe

[frank crystal]

Yah I’m just thinking how much use I’m gonna get out of that with double slice being what it is

[solar tendon]

depends on the other weapon

[frank crystal]

Also, about Golarion is there a sorta Varangian guard equivalent? An important martial group hired from entirely foreigners to ensure no political loyalty to existing powers?

[frank crystal]

True yah, I was planning to use a Kopesh for trip

[solar tendon]

then agile lets you attack second with shield without taking -2 to hit

[turbid dagger]

Iirc Taylor has more or less Just The Varangian Guard
Being drawn from the Land of the Linnorm Kings and all

[solar tendon]

(taldor)

[frank crystal]

Oh yah I forgot that’s how agile works

I thought it just didn’t have a penalty in general

[frank crystal]

Rad

Hmm, I wonder actually with if it’s buff the tengu Gale blade would be better

Just because disarm is actually like, good now

Oh actually I could use a Kama for the trip and agile

I’d just rather make the weapon have agile then the shield so I don’t need to grab the feat

[solar tendon]

yeah thats fair

[frank crystal]

Yah I think I’m gonna go Kama+shield and just, flavor the Kama as a sword because that fits the vibe for this character better

Also how’s Taldor in the modern day?

Because all I know about it is that it just had a huge civil war

[trail nova]

Doing pretty well, flies under the radar but it’s a still a big and capable nation.

[turbid dagger]

I just checked and those dudes I mentioned are called the Ulfen Guard btw, @frank crystal

[trail nova]

Civil war was remarkably bloodless too, mostly politicking and some deniable strikes.

[frank crystal]

Oh cool

[frank crystal]

Wasn’t like half the senate murdered?

[trail nova]

Oh, yeah. But there wasn’t really armies running around

[frank crystal]

I guess that’s relatively bloodless by civil war standards

[turbid dagger]

Members can be of any gender, but none are known to have had any romantic entanglement with a Taldan emperor, both out of honor and a general lack of Ulfen attraction to Taldans. The philandering Grand Prince Eudariano II went as far as to institute an all-female Ulfen Guard but failed in his four-year rule to romance any of them.

Little treat from the wiki page

[frank crystal]

Get shit on lol

Also are Ulfin only human?

I read on the wiki that they’re all human

[turbid dagger]

Ulfen is an ethnic group of human yeah
It basically just means Scandinavian

I've done a lot of research on the land of the Linnorm kings and figuring out what I should call non humans from there is a headache

[frank crystal]

Oh so yah it is just fantasy Varangian guard then

[turbid dagger]

I must imagine Land-hailing folk of other races are allowed, PF1e was just very weird about conflating Ulfen as an ethnic group with 'all people from that weird dragon country with a name that's too long'

[frank crystal]

Yah PF1E could be weird about stuff like that in general

I don’t think it’d be a big stretch to include an orc in it

Lands of the Linnorm Kings is a big place

[turbid dagger]

Not at all no!

[frank crystal]

Oh

Well there might be orcs there anyway

Also what the fuck Baba yaga conquered it once?

[turbid dagger]

No I mean

[surreal basin]

Yeah people would probably call them ulfin anyway

[turbid dagger]

It's not at all a stretch

[frank crystal]

Ohh

I thought you meant the nation was small

[turbid dagger]

But yeah Irrisen used to be Ulfen land

Baba yaga rolled up and conquered it by herself more or less

[frank crystal]

Was it just for kicks?

[turbid dagger]

Uhhhh I forget but probably mostly yeah

[frank crystal]

Damn

[turbid dagger]

Okay yeah she rolled up, conquered it in 23 days, put her daughter on the throne, and left

[clever cobalt]

Yeah Baba Yaga also put Anastasia Romanov as the current leader, after BY's daughter and Rasputin rebelled

(Rasputin is Baba Yaga's son)

[frank crystal]

Wait I thought Rasputin and Anastasia were born recently still?

When did she conquer that place?

[clever cobalt]

It's 1923 in the PF universe

And BY conquered it a while bback

[frank crystal]

So are Anastasia and Rasputin just super old then?

[clever cobalt]

Romanov was born in 1901

No like

The rebelling of Rasputin and Baba Yaga was a recent thing

Like 1914

Baba Yaga just put Anasatsia on the throne after the rebellion and put down

[frank crystal]

Ohhhh

I thought you meant she put Anastasia on the throne of the fantasy nords

[clever cobalt]

She did

[surreal basin]

Anastasia going to golarion is the reason for her disappearance on earth

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

[frank crystal]

Ohhhh

[surreal basin]

Pathfinder is technically set in the distant path

[clever cobalt]

Golarion is weird

[surreal basin]

Pats

PAST

[clever cobalt]

Not distant, only 100 years

Again it's 1924 in the PF universe

[surreal basin]

Distant enough lol

But fair

[clever cobalt]

On an Earth Calender at least

[surreal basin]

Fun fact: did you know that Anastasia’s body was actually found in the last 10 years, finally disproving that theory that she survived

[frank crystal]

Ok so, when the Russian revolution happens and Anastasia goes missing, what actually happened was that Baba Yaga conquerer fantasy Sweden and put her on the throne

[clever cobalt]

Sorta

[frank crystal]

Neat

[surreal basin]

In short yes, it’s a whole adventure path

[clever cobalt]

Baba Yaga conquered Fantasy Sweden a long time ago, but put her daughters on the throne

[surreal basin]

Yeah

[clever cobalt]

It wasn't until one of her daughters rebelled (which was recently, it was a PF1e AP) that Anastasia was put on the throne

[surreal basin]

Baba Yaga is the technical ruler of that nation and has been for a long time but has her daughters do the ruling instead

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

[surreal basin]

Flemeth coded

[frank crystal]

Ahhh, so when she conquered it it wasn’t Anastasia but now she’s placed Anastasia on the throne

[turbid dagger]

Baba yaga conquered it a long time ago
It's been ruled by a succession of queens, the most recent is her

[clever cobalt]

There's actually a pic or Anatadia in the 2e era, lemme find it

[clever cobalt]

Yeah, that and what Nam said

[surreal basin]

She also eventually eats her daughters I think

[frank crystal]

Ok sweet I was confused

[surreal basin]

Or possesses them or something

[frank crystal]

She is Baba yaga so that makes sense

She’s the most witchy witch to ever witch

[turbid dagger]

Does bana yaga just kidnap you for that ap or something
Why are you helping her

[clever cobalt]

The Daughters are trying to conquer Avistan or something

And put it in an eternal winter

[frank crystal]

…for kicks?

[surreal basin]

Yeah baba yaga is marginally better

[clever cobalt]

It just so happens our goals of stopping them align with Baba Yaga's goals

[clever cobalt]

I'd have to check the AP but something like that

This was one of the earlier APs, to ve fair

[frank crystal]

For 1e or 2e?

[clever cobalt]

Also we got to go to Siberia on Earth and kill Rasputin so that's fun

1e

[frank crystal]

Ah so early early

[frank crystal]

I do know about that

It’s very funny how Russian is an official language in 2e because of it

[turbid dagger]

Alas 1e yes
As much as I want to lug around a maxim gun in 2e

[clever cobalt]

That's entirely because of Anastasia

[frank crystal]

This image goes so hard still

[clever cobalt]

Russian is a "thing" in her country

[frank crystal]

Ohhh

[turbid dagger]

There's an even better one where Amiri is on a sled shooting at pursuers with a machine gun

[frank crystal]

I gotta ask

[clever cobalt]

This is her as of 4722

[frank crystal]

How do the books describe Anastasia?

[clever cobalt]

Two years ago in PF land

[frank crystal]

Like in terms of her as a queen

[clever cobalt]

I mean the image above is how she looks

There isn't much info on her

Lemme check Baba Yaga in Legends. There might be some.lore there

[frank crystal]

I think Amiri deserves a machine gun

She’s earned it

[clever cobalt]

Supposed she's a decent ruler, from what I can gather

Not much info though

It's worth noting Baba Yaga is also from Earth, and is one of the strongest Casters in the entire setting

Up there with Jatambe and Nex

Earth is also galaxies away from Golarion, which is why it isn't in Starfinder

though I have had the idea of a Lancer/Starfinder crossover where the two meet

[frank crystal]

Yah I remember you mentioning that

It seems rad

[clever cobalt]

In 1e Baba Yaga is stronger than Cthulhu

Take that as you will

[frank crystal]

Honestly want to see a like, union commander well versed in old earth stories find out Baba Yaga is not only real

But pissed

[clever cobalt]

Eh. She isn't necessarily Pissed so much as just perpetually grumpy

Like she is in her own fairy tales

[frank crystal]

I guess so yah

[clever cobalt]

Also Baba Yaga hasn't showed up in Starfinder

At least iirc

[frank crystal]

Oh huh

[clever cobalt]

There is a PF2e-era Golarion Amusement Park in Starfinder though

[frank crystal]

Also like, do humans come from earth too?

[clever cobalt]

Which I find funny

[clever cobalt]

No clue honestly, it's possible but I'm unsure

[frank crystal]

Do we know what happens to Golarion in it?

[clever cobalt]

I'm not sure Humans have a backstory. They've just always been there

[frank crystal]

Ah ok

[clever cobalt]

And Golarion missing without explanation is one of the big mysteries of Starfinder

[frank crystal]

So if it is a forgotten realms “humans are from actual earth deal” it happened so long ago no one knows

[clever cobalt]

It's possible yeah

All that remains of Golarion is Absalom Station, which has the Starstone

And is the biggest Drift (FTL) beacon in the entire setting thanks to the Starstone

[frank crystal]

Can’t get rid of that

[clever cobalt]

Absalom Station is similar to uh

[turbid dagger]

Golarion is the Aroden of Starfinder
It's there, [CENTURIES OF MISSING HISTORY], it's not
In its place is a space station with the Starstone in it

[clever cobalt]

The Citadel of Mass Effect

[frank crystal]

Ah so while it’s a station it’s a big ass station

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

No one knows who or why it was built but it's massive and has powerful weapons

[frank crystal]

Somehow I feel like Aroden may have caused it to disappear

He has a habit of it

[clever cobalt]

It's also the center of the setting

[frank crystal]

Oh so Golarion is still the center in spirit then

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

In Starfinder there is the Gap, which is a period of time no one remembers and little evidence of what happened remains

[turbid dagger]

Starfinder is so weird

[clever cobalt]

Golarion disappeared during the Gap

[turbid dagger]

I'm looking forward to sf2e so I can properly tussle with its setting

[clever cobalt]

It's worth noting that it was centuries long, and you had situations where when it ended, everyone was there but has no idea what happened

So there was stuff like Empires being at war for reasons they forgot

Naturally this fucked with a lot of Long Lived races badly

[turbid dagger]

It's always sorted of intrigued me but also rubbed me the wrong way

[frank crystal]

Somehow I know Aroden caused that

[clever cobalt]

Because a sizable chunk of their life they've forgotten

[clever cobalt]

Honestly, same

[frank crystal]

Why?

[clever cobalt]

Its a neat concept but it jusr kinda rubs me in the wrong way as well

Like I get why they did it from a narrative standpoint but

I think a "proper" space opera without the Gap would work just fine

Plus I want to see "modern" Golarion

[turbid dagger]

It feels a little less.... Lived? I guess
Like Golarion in PF2e is largely a Fantasy Setting that exists as itself
While sf2e feels more like
'Guys woah, it's all your pathfinder thingies IN SPACE'
Like early 40k sorta?

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

I also think like, an urban fantasy setting ala Shadowrun set in "modern" Golarion could be very cool

Roadfinder

[frank crystal]

Ah yah that’s fair, I definitely see how it makes the setting feel kinda, sudden and rapidly made

[clever cobalt]

Hopefully 2e smooths some things over

[frank crystal]

Mapfinder

[turbid dagger]

The theme park star mentioned is the epitome of this to me
Like bro, what
The Gap and Golarion disappearing is a History Defining Event
They're not gonna have dudes dressed up as Tar Baphon selling the sf equivalent of coca cola

[frank crystal]

Thing is I could imagine it better if Golarion was just ancient history

We have historical themed parks in the real world

[clever cobalt]

Yeah

Renn fares

[turbid dagger]

I agree!

[frank crystal]

Actually a Golarion themed Renn fair sounds like a very fun starfinder adventure

Everyone forced to use PF2E equipment or else be kicked out for breaking the setting

[clever cobalt]

I've had some though about Modern Golarion

One idea was uh

Absalom basically being the New York City of Golarion, while also still being an independent city state and trade hub

[turbid dagger]

But yeah I feel like Golarion would probably be treated as a little more uh
Sacred
If all signs point to SEVERAL CENTURIES BEING ERASED UNIVERSE WIDE in some incident involving it

[frank crystal]

Republic city from korra vibes?

[turbid dagger]

Also that DOES sound neat

[clever cobalt]

Never watched Korra so idk

[frank crystal]

Ah well it’s that kinda idea

New York but also it’s own city state

[clever cobalt]

But I'd imagine Cheliax would have fully collapsed, and Andoran would be bigger but more evil

Capitalist Nation

[frank crystal]

Honestly if anything I imagine paizo wants to avoid writing a modern Golarion partially just because that isn’t a game they sell but also like, in my experience it’s a lot harder to write kitchen sink settings in modern settings

[clever cobalt]

Yeah agreed

Still a neat concept in my head

[frank crystal]

Just because modernity for nations tend to involve a lot more homogeneity because of how modern imperialism and how technology spreads and stuff like that

[frank crystal]

Oh I love the idea I will say

[clever cobalt]

I'm somewhat imagining Andoran being similar to the NUSA from Cyberpunk

Just, not Cyberpunk

(So America ig)

[frank crystal]

It can be like, a little cyberpunk I feel

Arriving at cyberpunk

[clever cobalt]

Fair

[trail nova]

My big annoyance with starfinder is that the pact worlds are simultaneously a huge thing with claims beyond the Golarion system, and we never see those claims anywhere else.

[frank crystal]

What’s a pact world?

[trail nova]

Members of the Political alliance/EU like thing that the Golarion system joined into after meeting the Vesk

[frank crystal]

Ahhh ok

[turbid dagger]

Yeah the big factions I know of are the federation pact worlds and the klingons veskarium

[frank crystal]

Are the Veskarium only the vesk?

Or are there other ancestries in there too?

[turbid dagger]

They have client races

Like, they're not strictly enslaved (iirc) but Locked To A Lower Caste

[frank crystal]

Ahhh

So like, still super evil then lol

[turbid dagger]

Yes

[clever cobalt]

And then there's the Azlanti

Who are even more evil

[frank crystal]

Oh dear

What do they have?

[clever cobalt]

Think the Empire from Star Wars but even more blatantly human supremacist

[frank crystal]

Oh fuck

Are they azarketi or humans?

[clever cobalt]

Humans

[frank crystal]

Ah ok

[clever cobalt]

Basically they're ancient dependents of the Azlanti Empire

[frank crystal]

So they are the full revival of the Azlanti empire then

[clever cobalt]

Who had portals to other planets

But those portals stopped working at Earthfall

[turbid dagger]

IIRC they're logistic end is like
Wholly managed by one client race, the Skittermanders
Who are so nonviolent the Vesk couldn't really brutally conquer them because Vesk honor demands an opponent willing to fight

[frank crystal]

That’s very funny lol

[clever cobalt]

It's an in-setting thing that people don't know if the Vesk control.the Empire, or if the Skittermanders do

[frank crystal]

“PLEASE GOD JUST SHOOT ME”

“But that’s wrong”

“I JUST WANT TO FIGHT YOU”

[clever cobalt]

It's worth noting the Vesk committed genocide on the other two races of their homeworld

Who are now extinct

[frank crystal]

Oh Jesus

The veskarium are kinda bastards

[clever cobalt]

They are

They tried to conquer the Golarion System, which ended in the creation of the Pact Worlds to fight them off

[frank crystal]

Also that means the Azlanti empire fell into two groups: basically Atlantians and space fascists

[clever cobalt]

And (outright, at least) hostilities ended when the Swarm (think the Zerg or Tyranids) appeared

And they had to work together to stop the flood

[turbid dagger]

Yeah folks aren't sure if the Skittermanders really are that happy go lucky or if they just finessed themselves into the Veskariums good graces

Or both

[clever cobalt]

Sorta yeah

They're also extremely human supremacist

To the point of like, Nazis

[frank crystal]

I wonder how they’d feel to know the other Azlantians turned non human

[clever cobalt]

Pact Worlds: the Federation
Veskariun: the Evil Empire
Azlanti: the Space Nazis

[barren cipher]

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6vepl?Battlecry-Playtest-Debriefing

And, yes, I know Hampering Sweeps is too good for this world! But I’m hoping the idea of it will live on...

[frank crystal]

And the swarm as all consuming space bugs?

[clever cobalt]

Space locusts yep

[frank crystal]

Seems they will be nerfing it then

[clever cobalt]

I do find it interesting how Eox, the Evil Undead planet, were actually the first of the Golarion System to agree to the Pact Worlds

They're Evil but they're not Stupid

They also had the biggest and most militarily effective Navy

[frank crystal]

Was it manned by undead?

[clever cobalt]

Yes

They don't require oxygen or sustence (for the most part)

[trail nova]

Veskarium is very Roman

[clever cobalt]

Which contributed to their military strength

And yeah, they are

[frank crystal]

What other races are part of veskarium?

[clever cobalt]

Cat people

[trail nova]

Pahatras, the squid guys, uhh

[clever cobalt]

Yeti-esque people

[frank crystal]

Neat

[trail nova]

Veskarium is honestly a really cool version of the militaristic evil empire. Also, probably one of the best evil empires to have as an enemy.

[turbid dagger]

Guardian possibly being able to move as part of its reaction going forward will be neat

The attack prof stuff was not mentioned so maybe that is sticking around

[frank crystal]

One thing I do hope is guardian better actually supporting brawling weapons

Just because the image of ridiculously large shield+fists are something that the class likes to push but like

It just seems worse still then grabbing an unarmed stance

[turbid dagger]

I'm not sure id call punching a thematic focus
There's like two feats there and one (arguably both) seem more shield bash-y to me

[frank crystal]

Yah but it’s definitely a style that’s supported

Not a main style but it’s there

[surreal basin]

Which wasn’t really in question tbh

I am a little sad that they ugh

Removed the incentive to attack the guardian from taunt

I still think people overreacted to that personally

[turbid dagger]

I guess the idea is your the only guy without the malus, but yeah your ac means your at parity with the rest

[surreal basin]

But that’s the point is it’s incentive to hit you

It’s making you an attractive target over the rest of the party

And your armor allows you to be an attractive target, but not actually lose much in the deal - you still have regular ac for your level after using it

[turbid dagger]

I mean yeah I do get it

I won't turn down 'suck shit, dragon' though

And it's seeming like intercept will be far easier to get off so you'll be able to force the issue anyway

[light gyro]

YOU WANNA DO A FUCKIN' INFINITE??
https://x.com/Nonat1s/status/1813407822228660487

Nonat1s (@Nonat1s) on X

IT'S OVER

MONK WINS PLAYER CORE 2

THIS IS BASICALLY ALL THEY GOT THAT'S NEW, AND IT'S ENOUGH

Twitter · Jul 17, 2024, 2:58 AM

[vast burrow]

Finally, command throw ultimate

[pastel bane]

HEAVENLY

POTEMKIN

BUSTEEEEEERRRRR

[light gyro]

now we just need the epic path version that lets each blow tear open a doorway to another plane so we can become salami dave

[unborn rain]

This of course opens the question, who is the most powerful and funny enemy to do this to

[light gyro]

Dimari-diji. Juggle that giant old man

[frank crystal]

HOLY SHIT THATS RAD

[surreal basin]

guys im making an izutsumi inspired ranger for wardens of the wildwood

wild mimic/clawdancer + flurry ranger

[rustic cape]

Seems strong

What are you using Mimic for?

[surreal basin]

just random shit tbh, i just wanna get the mimic stuff

not for any particular reason i just think its really cool

[vast burrow]

Shame that Twin Takedown/Impossible Flurry doesn't work with unarmed attacks though

Though I guess you could just use Knuckle Dusters or something

Or the Claw Blade

[surreal basin]

oh yeah that sucks and is weird

[vast burrow]

Someone on Reddit also made Izutsumi on Pathfinder, though their approach was Monk instead of Ranger

I guess you could always take Monk Archetype for Flurry of Blows?

[silver geyser]

Treerazor

[light gyro]

does treerazer take fall damage?

[unborn rain]

I can't see anything in his stat block which says so

[silver geyser]

Yes, the worst he has in that regard is physical damage resist.

Why wouldn't he take fall damage?

[light gyro]

he has a fly speed, he can arrest the fall pretty easily

[silver geyser]

Not from Godbreaker.

[silver geyser]

See, the one I've seen for Izutsumi's build is Thief racket Rogue.

[light gyro]

i definitely see ranger/rogue over monk. like most of the time she's fighting dirty, jumping out from shadows. sure she's fighting unarmed most of the time but thats the more striking detail

[surreal basin]

Oh im not actually making izu just

a very izu inspired character

[vast burrow]

Oh shit I just remembered I have a unarmed Thief Rogue with Monk multiclass haha

[surreal basin]

At least in terms of attitude

The idea for the character is more uhhh

[vast burrow]

Izutsumi-coded

[surreal basin]

Gau from ff6

But Izu in the way that they’re kinda a feral cunt?

IE a child that was abandoned in the wildwood and was raised by the forest itself, eventually becoming its protector with a serious lack of social skills

[vast burrow]

Hmmmm

May I say......Animal Barb?

[surreal basin]

Hmmm

Mayhaps

[vast burrow]

Perchance

[surreal basin]

But I really wanna try clawdander

Clawdancer

Which wouldn’t gel well with animal barb

[vast burrow]

Ah gotcha

[surreal basin]

Wild Mimic is more for themeing and utility

My group uses free archetype and I’d probably replace some class abilities with wild mimic feats

Like, ferocity is great on anyone

[warped orbit]

Thief Clawdancer is gonna be sick together I think

[surreal basin]

Absolutely

Part of my deal is that I’ve played two precision heavy characters back to back recently
And while I will be playing redeemer champ for kingmaker in between

I’m still in no huge rush to get back to the precision mines lol

[frank crystal]

I assume you’re running flurry ranger then?

[surreal basin]

Thats the plan rn

Is flurry Ranger + clawdancer

With wild mimic sprinkled in

[frank crystal]

That’s cool

[surreal basin]

Which blends together really well actually

Since claw is agile but talon isn’t, it pushes them into their niches even further

Of accuracy over multiple attacks vs damage

The ideal strat is to start in talon and then shift to claw for the follow ups, ideally with a meta strike

Gravity weapon doesn’t work with unarmed strikes… I’m gonna frow up

[frank crystal]

Fug

[surreal basin]

It’s kinda weird that stuff like gravity weapon and twin takedowns don’t work with unarmed strikes in some ways

[warped orbit]

Thing I just saw about PC2
Shield Ally apparently just gives all your shields a free on level Reinforcement rune now, or +1 Hardness if it has the rune already

[surreal basin]

HELL YEAH BABYYYYY

Thats so good

Reinforcing runes can be an insane drain on your funds

Same with Sturdy, obv

The funny part of the clawdancer build is that like

I was talking to my GM about letting me wielding claw weapons for for it

Since it just replaces my strikes anyhow

[warped orbit]

I'm a bit ambivalent on it
It saves you money, but I kinda preferred the old bonus personally

[surreal basin]

What’s the old one again?

[warped orbit]

+50% HP and BT to shields, and +2 Hardness

[surreal basin]

Oh yeah

Fuck that’s so good yeah

[vast burrow]

It's probably because some unarmed attacks from stances and whatnot have the same power as some two-handed weapons

Oh wait that's just for Twin Takedown

I'm not sure why Gravity Weapon doesn't work on unarmed strikes

[surreal basin]

Maybe I could cajole my GM into letting me use twin takedown with agile unarmed strikes

[rapid wagon]

question is there an online encounter balancer/planner that gm's generally consider to be good?

[novel merlin]

I mean you can just balance based off the rules/xp in the book and it works pretty well. There are quite a few online tools where you just tye in the enemy and party levels and it tells you encounter difficulty.

[warped orbit]

the book guidelines generally work fairly well, yeah

[turbid dagger]

Pathbuilder has an encounter builder beta which is pretty nice imo

[rapid wagon]

follow up, do templates add or change the balance value?

[surreal basin]

Usually they will say if they increase the creatures level

My only piece of advice beyond what Paizo suggests is that before level 6ish, pl+3s shouldn’t be used save for very hard fights

[rapid wagon]

any advice for boss fights? Do they need to have a solid collection of adds to be meaningful as a big bad or can they stand alone?

[warped orbit]

especially early on, PL+2 or more enemies are very swingy

[rapid wagon]

well in this case my gm is converting the campaign at level 9

[warped orbit]

generally fights with multiple creatures tend to be more consistent

if you stay within budget

[rapid wagon]

and some of the things they're bemoaning is not knowing how much templates change the balance of things, not being sure how to scale difficulty with the big fights

cause if the template changes the hp, ac, and or gives abilities it doesn't adjust their balance on the budget if it doesnt say it chnges its level?

[warped orbit]

technically no, but that's something you might just have to eyeball a bit

there also just aren't that many templates in PF2 though
the majority of them are various undead conversions

[surreal basin]

Yeah

Usually they say they adjust the level tho

I can’t think of any templates that don’t

[warped orbit]

zombie doesn't, a few of the others also don't

[surreal basin]

They’re converting the whole AP by hand without much experience in the system though? That’s certainly ambitious

[warped orbit]

but zombie for example also gives it the usual zombie weaknesses

[rapid wagon]

its def ambitious

s'why im asking here to help em out however i can

[surreal basin]

Yeah if it doesn’t say that it effects their level, the assumption is that the template is roughly nuetral

In terms of power

[warped orbit]

I know the Cryptid templates do increase level, because those are actually a fairly substantial boost

[turbid dagger]

In theory converting an AP should require strictly less work than running something custom at least, roght

[surreal basin]

Ehhhhhhh

Not really, imo, just a different kind of work

[warped orbit]

PF1 to PF2 doesn't always convert that cleanly, so it's tricky

[surreal basin]

Also lots of stuff you’re just gonna

Need to make fully custom statblocks

Cause there’s not an equivalent

[barren cipher]

fortunately that isn't that all that hard outside transferring abilities

[rapid wagon]

huh, so the divine warden template's +1 level is enough to account for all its improvements?>

[solar thorn]

I find PF2e second only to lancer for ease of making custom enemies

The GM manual's monster creation section is great

[rapid wagon]

whts the assumed number of encounters per long rest in pf?

[novel merlin]

I don't know if there's an official assumed amount because you can pretty much always heal to full between fights if you don't have lots of time pressure. Your only real restriction will be burning spell slots.

I'd say more than like 3-4 below level 10 and 5-6 above 10 when casters have more slots

For normal or worse encounters. Trivial ones don't necessarily even burn resources.

[rapid wagon]

hmm gotcha, cause yeah i was thinking about how pathfinder assumes a degree of attrition

[warped orbit]

martials experience drastically less attrition than casters

casters need to worry about their top level slots, a lot of other classes can just take 20 minutes to heal up after a fight and be ready to go

[novel merlin]

2e has very much less emphasis on attrition than dnd5e or pf1e

Since most fights only run like 3-4 rounds, casters usually aren't blowing many of thier top level spells per fight unless they're like severe or extreme difficulty

[turbid dagger]

Yeah, attrition is actually far less of a thing than most dnd likes
Get a focus healer and you can broadly assume to have full HP restore after every fight with no resources lost

[warped orbit]

for example in my current campaign, I play a Forensics Investigator, and I have a lot of investment into Medicine
I can generally throw 1-2 Treat Wounds on everyone after a fight and we're back to full (Ward Medic lets me Treat everyone at once, and Continual means it only takes 10-20 minutes)

and since we don't have any casters, we don't usually expend daily resources

[turbid dagger]

I do kind of want to screw with that via patrols some time, but as a sometimes food

[echo briar]

Paizo is very unwilling to give that information for some reason.

I believe one of the main devs said 3, but thats buried deep in some forum post, and never mentioned in official books

So they clearly don't think its that important

[light gyro]

The correct number is until they get killed
Pf2e is a one shot system

[solar storm]

This may have been answered but solo bosses usually work pretty well on their own, but adds can still had a lot of variability. Personally I often find it hard to make a boss with adds in PF2’s budget system

[warped orbit]

one thing you can do is like, a PL+1 and 3-4 PL-1

which would be a severe

[turbid dagger]

A PL+1 feels more like an elite than boss tho

[warped orbit]

well you could make the adds more mook-y if you wanted
PL+2 and four PL-4 is also a variant the book mentions, comes out to 120 XP

[rapid wagon]

huh how does it take 20 minutes to heal up? I thought with treat wounds you can take a higher dc to heal for like an hour

[warped orbit]

Treat Wounds always takes 10 minutes, the higher DC just increases the healing you get
You can optionally keep treating for an hour, and it will double the healing received

[turbid dagger]

And before continual recovery they are immune for an hour so for getting someone to full it more or less does take an hour to treat wounds

[warped orbit]

I do think Continual should be baseline tbh

It's IMO one of the biggest feat taxes in the game

[rapid wagon]

Admittedly I don't have much experience, but I don't know that I'd agree, being able to heal the whole party to full in less time than a rest using only treat wounds with a healers kit seems a little wild

[warped orbit]

Well the thing is, there are a bunch of effectively infinite out of combat healing sources

[rapid wagon]

Yeah but like, say with the healers kit and medicine skill, that's functionally infinite but limited by time.

[warped orbit]

And the game pretty clearly expects you to use one of them, because otherwise you will have a really hard time

[warped orbit]

My point is mostly that anyone who would rely on Treat Wounds for healing is already gonna grab Continual Recovery immediately

So it just makes things awkward at level 1-2 mostly

You can achieve a very similar result by going Blessed One or Kineticist or something

[rapid wagon]

See I think that comes from a purely experienced perspective, not one person who was going to take treat wounds in this group transitioning over thought to go into continual. They see it as "Hey I already am trained in medicine and I can get a healers kit, I can heal myself a little while leaving the big stuff to the party healer"

I didn't even know continual existed

[warped orbit]

Yeah that's the other thing, the game is pretty bad at signalling this

Medicine is pretty vital if you don't have other healing sources

Though you mentioned you have a Champion so that already does a lot

[light gyro]

the bard just gave the magus a +6

[rapid wagon]

I'm pretty sure at minimum we'll have 3 people at least trained in medicine who are taking a healers kit, one of whom is also going to be a healing oracle

[warped orbit]

Lay on Hands can cover most of your healing needs

[rapid wagon]

I don't think any of the healers kit people are gonna invest heavily to make it better currently

In like feats

Except maybe the oracle

I'm actually on the fence on if I want to be trained in medicine, mostly because despite being empowered by divine will, I feel like I'd be trained in how to dress a wound in the field anyway

Just seems a practical skill for a professional warrior

The fighter plans on having it, and the Ranger wants to use that use nature as medicine feature to do it

Party is looking like a
Champion
Fighter
Oracle
Ranger
???? - they were playing a samurai class, looking at fighter, swashbuckler, maybe magus?

I'm hoping he doesn't go fighter but we'll just live with it if he does

I'm sure there are a bunch of ways to play or build a fighter

He's also the player who frequently does not show up to session

[trail nova]

Personally PF2e should just standardize 10-15 minute short rests, have everyone heal to full, and throw daily attrition out the window

[warped orbit]

Do agree personally

[trail nova]

(I’m also a very Spheres-pilled PF1e gamer, so that’s why I suggested 15 minute rest

[warped orbit]

In my hypothetical, basically everything would be largely encounter based, with maybe a few big per day resources
And those could even be shared by the party

[trail nova]

I want my stupid talent system.

[rapid wagon]

I feel like if you're gonna be full health every fight, anything less than a difficult encounter shouldn't exist

Because every fight needs to risk defeating the party with completely full resources

Like trivial encounters shouldn't even be an option

[trail nova]

See, currently that is the case anyways, PF2e spellcastersare just the odd guys out

[rapid wagon]

Playing through book one of blood lords didn't feel that way

[trail nova]

But if you build an all martials party with a bit of care, you have no limits on daily endurance

[rapid wagon]

There are no lasting debuffs that martials have no issues clearing?

[warped orbit]

At later levels, not that much

[surreal basin]

well, stuff like wands can help with that

but also 'permanent' debuffs aren;t that common

trivial encounters are mostly there to make you feel cool tbh

like

[silver geyser]

Chump fights should always exist

[surreal basin]

sometimes the narrative just placesa bunch of shitheads in a place

[warped orbit]

With Treat Condition I can remove most longer lasting debuffs given a bit of time
Only thing it can't is Drained

[surreal basin]

theres also stuff you can do to mix it up

like make it non-lethal

[rapid wagon]

I dunno I just get the vibe, like having only played a little bit, that the game I played and game being described to me are different

[warped orbit]

And I can still use Paragon Battle Medicine to lower Drained by 1-2 each hour

[rapid wagon]

We didn't go into every fight at full capability or capacity

Every fight was not tailored to defeat us at maximum capacity

[silver geyser]

Fights often aren't designed to beat players anyways

[surreal basin]

for what its worth alean that is a pretty specialized build

[rapid wagon]

And the time limitations on stuff like treat wounds were consequential

[surreal basin]

you absolutely can do an all martial party but

[rapid wagon]

To our stakes

[surreal basin]

you will run into some problems

I do think time limitations are a good thing to introduce to your game

[silver geyser]

Spells still offer a ton of narrative power

[surreal basin]

or some other pressure to make healing and refocusing between fights more of a choice on occasion

[rapid wagon]

Like, the question "should we push on now, or stay back and rest and recover and risk the scenario changing against us" was a meaningful question that "you heal to full always between fights" would kind of... trivialize

[surreal basin]

like i usually roll for wandering monsters if my players are in a dungeon crawl and rest, but thats just my sensibilities

[silver geyser]

Most of the time, the question is not in place if you're dungeon delving or not on the clock

[surreal basin]

I honestly wouldn't mind martials getting some kind of per day resource as well

because the dichotomy feels really weird imo

in pf2e

[warped orbit]

In another game I was in, we had two Kineticists
Between me casting Fresh Produce, and the other one using Balm and Treat Wounds it also rarely took us more than 20-30 minutes to heal up

[silver geyser]

Also, to be perfectly clear, this also happened in 1e. Cure Light Wound wands were dirt cheap

[surreal basin]

unrelated sidenote: it's really funny to me when people suggest that alchemist preremaster is super balanced because of their ability to trigger weaknesses with bombs when weaknesses are super uncommon

[rapid wagon]

In a wider sense, I just think that having some level of attritional stakes is relevant and interesting to me. Heroes don't go into every fight fresh, well rested, well stocked, and raring to go. Sometimes they have to act in crisis and push their limits to see a problem through

[surreal basin]

yeah i am of the opinion that it's okay to occasionally push your players outside of being fully back up after every fight

[silver geyser]

The only difference now is that it doesn't require magic.

[surreal basin]

with time limits or extenuating circumstances, or so on

[warped orbit]

Yeah I think in total like... 20% of monsters or so have a weakness?

[surreal basin]

yeah its

very small

i like weaknesses tbh

I run enemies with them v often

[turbid dagger]

I heard on another server that with the remaster alchs are getting master attack prof at the same time as other martials, so thats neat

[warped orbit]

It's still two levels delayed, vut they do yeah

But that's the same as their Expert prof

[rapid wagon]

I wonder if having charges on healing kit that refresh on a timer would be interesting

Or via a downtime action

To gather what you need

[surreal basin]

the buff to master is huge imo

its no longer the only class who doesn't get at least master in their main form of combat

[warped orbit]

I do mostly like what I've seen of new Alchi so far

[turbid dagger]

They are also, funnily
Getting once per ten minute healing, topically
Some Chirurgeon stuff has the new Coagulant trait
Where the target becomes immune to Coagulant stuff for ten minutes after using one

[silver geyser]

Ok, reminded myself of 1e wand costs. A CLW wand cost 750 for 50 charges, and heals on average 5 hp per charge. 3 gold per hp and some time is chump change

[surreal basin]

oh my fgod watching the rules lawyer alchi vid

they get back vials

every 10 minutes

vials are now like focus points

[turbid dagger]

LMAO

[surreal basin]

just full stop

[warped orbit]

Yeah

[silver geyser]

There is no reason, even in 1e, to not top off before every encounter

[warped orbit]

2 vials back every 10 minutes

You have 2+Int vials max

[turbid dagger]

Carcinization ass game design 😌

[surreal basin]

I think it’s really good tbh

[warped orbit]

I do like that Alchi is moving away from massive daily prep

[surreal basin]

The classes are already asymmetrical in the ways that matter

[warped orbit]

And more towards the vials

[surreal basin]

But the way that Alchi was asymmetrical before was mostly just annoying

[turbid dagger]

I'm interested in nuChamp mostly
Because no amount of wild reworks are making me learn Crafting or Alchemy

[warped orbit]

Champ I'm mostly waiting for feats

Though there was also a video today going over Champ changes I think

[turbid dagger]

Oh and Dragonkin

[frank crystal]

I just wanna see the new causes

[rapid wagon]

I see observations like this a lot but it has rarely been a table reality that I've seen at multiple 1e tables, where the gain or use was just trivial.

[warped orbit]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=-LtZ3FoU3Fr2MWWd&v=Y7DSIruDbWk&feature=youtu.be

[surreal basin]

Dragonkin is gonna fuck so hard

[frank crystal]

Oh cool

[surreal basin]

I’m glad they’ve finally let go of the 1e bugbear

Of “no dragon people”

[turbid dagger]

gimme draconic frenzy

(They wont)

[frank crystal]

Play summoner

[surreal basin]

If anything dragon barb should be the path to that

[frank crystal]

Fuse with eidolon

[surreal basin]

Or summoner yeah

[turbid dagger]

Yes I know Summoner gets it!!!!

I want my own blorbo to go crazy not his stand

[rapid wagon]

Our group is waiting for that information to drop and hit pathbuildwr before I translate my champion to 2e

[frank crystal]

just play meld into eidolon build

[warped orbit]

Champion apparently gets a feat to extend their aura now
And thus also tge range of the reaction

[turbid dagger]

(And I'm playing a plant eidolon summoner in SOT right now 😔)

[surreal basin]

Meld into eidolon will unfortunately never be good lol

[frank crystal]

Oh that’s sick

[warped orbit]

Maybe they finally make that Synthesist archetype some day

[turbid dagger]

Fortuantely theres's Summoner+-

[rapid wagon]

But meld into eidolon sounds cool, how bad does it have to be to be a non take if someone just wants to do it

[frank crystal]

It’s, very bad

[warped orbit]

Meld is currently not only largely useless, it's actively detrimental to you

[trail nova]

Too scared of accidentally showing up martials (never mind 1e synthesis summoner was arguably a downgrade.)

[frank crystal]

It takes summoners gimmick and makes it not work anymore

[rapid wagon]

What's it supposed to do for you?

[light gyro]

i trust my players to look up items and stuff, so in a session they'll craft the staff of explode eyeballs and i get to respond with

[frank crystal]

So instead of playing a partial martial and partial caster you’re just playing a substandard martial

[turbid dagger]

Well
The basic gist of Summoner is that its strong because you are one sort of bad caster, and one sort of bad martial
With meld into eidolon, you become one sort of bad martial and zero sort of bad caster

For no benefit

[frank crystal]

Also you only get 3 actions instead of 4

[warped orbit]

You lose Act Together for basically no upside

[novel merlin]

The only real function is that if your eidolon can fly or swim or something then you can just meld with it to benefit from that movement

[frank crystal]

So instead of some of the best action economy in the game you have actively bad action economy

[rapid wagon]

So the spirit of it is that you're meant to become a good martial by melding by giving up your casting, but in practice it doesn't work is what I'm gathering?

[true delta]

But you will feel like those kids in Digimon Tamers, won't you?

[surreal basin]

honestly my real belief is that meld into eidolon can't be good without being op

in pf2e's current framework

[frank crystal]

Worst part is not even that’s good, if you want that just make a mounted summoner build

[surreal basin]

it would need to be like

[frank crystal]

Which is an actually good build

[surreal basin]

basically it's own class

[warped orbit]

They did mean to make it a class archetype

[turbid dagger]

Honestly I want a class that is Eidolons 'give yourself a bunch of cool mutations and extra things like Rend and Knockdown' but by itself, yeah
So uh
Shifter or Evolutionist

God now that I'm looking into SF1e I want Evolutionst and Nanocyte in a game that isnt SF1e so bad

[rapid wagon]

Is melding like a thing you'd have to build all the way around instead it being a sometimes useful thing?

[surreal basin]

I mean you can't build around it rn

it just sucks

[frank crystal]

It’s only the one feat

There’s no other support for it

[trail nova]

I think if I was making a PF2e class list, I’d meld Shifter, Barb, and Mutagen Alch into one transformation focused class

[warped orbit]

There is no build around currently yeah

That's the issue

[novel merlin]

Meld exists because synthesist existed in 1e, but it sucks because it was broken in 1e so they made it exist thematically but took away any chance of being broken

[rapid wagon]

Mm

[trail nova]

Ehh, Synthesist arguably was a downgrade, it just looked better than almost any martial

[rapid wagon]

I actually enjoy sf1e xD

[trail nova]

Stuff like Master Summoner was the really stupid stuff

[turbid dagger]

It has some extremely niche uses like using your eidolon to fly around or fit into small spaces with shrink down, yeah
But the problem is that 1e had Synthesist
Which was a Summoner class that fused with its eidolon in combat
And people want that
Meld Into Eidolon Is Not That but its Close

[surreal basin]

summoner in 1e in general is just really good at

making everyone else in the party feel bad

what if i was a martial and functionally a full caster simultaneously

[rapid wagon]

Yeah it was sounded like meld is more of a utility than a combat thing based on how yall described it

[surreal basin]

i guess yeah you can use it out of combat for some stuff

[silver geyser]

Also Master Summoner

[trail nova]

Master Summoner is the actually stupid one.

[warped orbit]

It has some out of combat utility, but Steed Form covers a lot of those too

[trail nova]

Synthesis is a very good martial, but that's because it actually gets the good martial tools like pounce without paying an arm and a leg.

[novel merlin]

It also gets 6 arms

[rapid wagon]

My takeaway for the moment is that meld looks cool, aesthetically, has some useful applications out of combat. Is worse than mount, but not totally useless if the player likes the meld vibes better and they have a plan for it

I.e. mount is a stronger utility and combat choice, but meld isn't a non-choice. It's just not taking the best available option mechanically to favor narrative or aesthetic

I think it can be fine for a thing to not be the best thing and still be fun

Not everyone is gonna be optimizing

[frank crystal]

I mean at the very worst, it’s a singular feat you’re missing out on

Even if you don’t use it summoner doesn’t get the best feats at level 2

It’s not like it’ll cripple your character (so long as you don’t use it during combat)

[rapid wagon]

I figure if you get one good Character Moment™️ that's memorable out of it, it was well worth it

[novel merlin]

Yeah actually using it during combat is definitely shooting yourself in the foot on the level of like a barbarian that never rages

[warped orbit]

I mostly dislike the current state of Meld for being as close as you get to a trap option in PF2 currently

[rapid wagon]

Oh on that note, am I correct that there are no rage per day limits in 2?

[warped orbit]

Correct

[rapid wagon]

That's neat

Tangent though, sry

[frank crystal]

It’s fine

[warped orbit]

In fact in PC2 Barbs don't even have the 1 minute cool down on Rage anymore

[rapid wagon]

They get angry a LOT more

[frank crystal]

Though there is the downside of having less AC

And even less for giant barbs

[warped orbit]

Not anymore

[frank crystal]

Oh

[warped orbit]

They don't take the-1 AC anymore now

[rapid wagon]

I figure some of my opinions may change once I've been in the game more/ get more system fluency, but it'll also boil down to table realities I think

[novel merlin]

Except for giant barbs

[frank crystal]

Do giant barbs at least become clumsy still?

[rapid wagon]

It's not like we're gonna play 100% by the book I think

[warped orbit]

Still only get the temp HP once per minute though

And yes Giant still gets Clumsy 1

[novel merlin]

2e does a lot to make balancing encounters easy but part of that is assuming that most fights start with little to no attrition

And that the game doesn't have many trap options unless you intentionally pick no int on a wizard or something

[surreal basin]

Tbh I think you can also violate the “people start will full health” rule with relative ease as long as your careful to not be like

A dick about it

[warped orbit]

you definitely can

just need to be aware that it can make an encounter a lot harder than its "listed" difficulty would be otherwise

a moderate is much more difficult when you're only at half health

[rapid wagon]

i think you can do stuff like have staggered arrivals due to party split too

or make the environment its own challenge

[surreal basin]

sorry so can someone help me understand new quick alchemy

why do your vials matter if you can just spawn new ones as a single action

[warped orbit]

you can turn Infused Reagents into vials I believe

if you really need one more

[surreal basin]

oh wait quick lchemy costs a resource?

okay

lol

[warped orbit]

otherwise AIUI Quick Alchemy mostly is for turning Vials into items now

[surreal basin]

i thought the option to make a short lived alchemist vial like

didnt cost a resource

[warped orbit]

could also be I misunderstood, I haven't read it in depth yet

[surreal basin]

Okay wait I get it

Quick vials can’t be used to then use quick alchemy again

Only normal vials

So it’s essentially an extra action to not use a resource for your generic vial usages

Yeah this is basically a whole new class imo

[barren cipher]

if anything needed to be a whole new class, this was it

[surreal basin]

OH SHIT

MUTAGENIST CAN USE THEIR VIALS TO JUST IGNORE THE DRAWBACK OF A MUTAGEN

THATS HUGE

[warped orbit]

ah okay, so just an extra action to use your subclass vial action

that's nice

also means they always have an attack option, since you can throw the vial as a basic bomb sort of

[surreal basin]

Yeah!

I do agree with rules lawyer that this could use some clarification passes :3

Oh wow bestial mutagen doesn’t need runes anymore

[warped orbit]

yeah it has inbuilt Striking now

[limber comet]

Alchemist got enormous buffs huh

[warped orbit]

it's hard to say if they are purely buffs

because their preparation capability was reduced a lot

I do personally like the direction new Alchi has though, and I think it will be easier to play now

[limber comet]

Maybe not purely buffs but overall

[surreal basin]

Holy shit

Toxicologist ignores poison immunity with their infused poisons

Full stop

You can poison constructs and undead

[warped orbit]

I believe they basically get concussive for poison and acid

[surreal basin]

Yeah
But it also says you ignore poison immunity which is funny

[warped orbit]

oh it is both, neat

[surreal basin]

If someone is immune to both acid and poison it doesn’t care

You are taking the poison

I do think this is overall a huge alchemist buff

[worthy stump]

that puts the general poison nerfs we saw in the remaster into perspective a bit better i suppose, haha

[surreal basin]

And makes it way more of an actual class

And not just

[limber comet]

Oh fuck yea

[surreal basin]

A vending machine

[worthy stump]

these do sound like great changes for the alchemist though, nice

[surreal basin]

Having watched this very comprehensive rules lawyer video

I’m gonna call this pretty much a universal buff

The class is just better

[clever cobalt]

Agreed

[warped orbit]

I do like the vials a lot
transferring your budget mostly into per encounter usable resources instead of having to do all your prep upfront is good IMO

[surreal basin]

Yeah

And it gives you some stuff you can do that like

Another class can’t

Idk, it feels like alchemist is finally out of playtest basically

[limber comet]

I heard some complaints in another server that Oracle didn't feel good/unique anymore

[surreal basin]

I don’t know if I agree with that?

I assume they mean the curse not having benefits anymore

But you can take feats that essentially maintain that dynamic

So if you want that class dynamic you can have it

But it was removed because oracle was notably weird as hell to play in a way most people seemed to dislike

[limber comet]

Shrug

I'll judge it for myself when I get my hands on the pdf ahaha

[surreal basin]

Fair enough I guess

[limber comet]

Just asking bc of what I heard

[surreal basin]

Also the curse capping how many focus spells you could use per fight was a really weird limiter since

Uh

Oracle focus spells weren’t better

Than normal focus spells

[warped orbit]

hmm, from what I've seen basically its that generally the mysteries offer less benefits directly

[surreal basin]

They said that the stuff that advances your curse is gonna be really powerful now

[upbeat ridge]

Michael Sayre confirmed that barbs loosing the -1 ac while raging is intentional.

[warped orbit]

but the base class is much stronger, and they can get some of it back through feats

[surreal basin]

Because it’s exclusively a debuff when you get your curse

So

[upbeat ridge]

I think this might make barb broken now

[surreal basin]

They have more budget

[upbeat ridge]

But also

[surreal basin]

I don’t think so, it’s 1 ac lol

[upbeat ridge]

Does anyone have an image of the pc2 barb archetype

[warped orbit]

archetype still has the AC debuff AFAIK

[surreal basin]

Like it’s a big deal but it’s hardly broken

[upbeat ridge]

It’s fucktons of free extra damage with no downside

[surreal basin]

I mean

Yes

[upbeat ridge]

Yeah that’s what I’m trying to confirm

[surreal basin]

Because it’s their class feature

Class features don’t normally have downsides

[warped orbit]

the one mystery that did get kinda dunked on is Battle

[upbeat ridge]

And now they’re tanky as hell with 12 hp

[surreal basin]

It also still stops them from using concentrate actions which is still kinda rough

[warped orbit]

because the previous thing of doing like gish Battle Oracle, doesn't really work anymore

[surreal basin]

Also yeah uh
The archetype still gets the ac malus

[upbeat ridge]

Ok

[warped orbit]

Battle is probably still fine now, but you play it as a caster as well now

[upbeat ridge]

Well, sad on that

[surreal basin]

I don’t have picture proof but I’ve heard it like a billion times

[frank crystal]

How does new oracle work now actually?

[upbeat ridge]

Barb archetype is still bad then

I’m not sure how i feel about them loosing the -1 ac penalty

[surreal basin]

So my understanding is that
Oracle gets focus spells that they are just allowed to use without advancing your curse
Now you get special powerful actions that advance your curse, which is now a pure downside

[warped orbit]

for one, they are a 4 slot caster now
curse is now purely a downside, but focus spells don't have cursebound anymore
instead, they have certain actions with cursebound, that tend to be fairly powerful in exchange

[upbeat ridge]

I feel like it gave the class some extra wrinkles and it’s removal might make it op

[warped orbit]

oh also Divine Access is a base class feature now

you get it at 10

and each mystery also gives a cantrip and three granted spells

[frank crystal]

Ah, so are the new curses just the old effects with the positive effects removed then?

[warped orbit]

some are different

[surreal basin]

Idk, tbh 1 AC isn’t a huge deal

Like it’s not nothing but

But it’s hardly “you are an immortal god now”

[warped orbit]

a few I've seen mentioned

• Flames gets unremovable persistent fire damage based on cursebound value
• Battle gets spell weakness and penalty to saves against spells
• Life reduces magical healing received by level*cursebound

[upbeat ridge]

They lost deny advantage which is apparently a good feature

So it sorta evens out?

[warped orbit]

oh?

[trail nova]

Holy shit flame’s is brutal

[warped orbit]

weird that that got removed

[upbeat ridge]

I feel like they’re on the same level as fighter/bard now

[warped orbit]

notably I think your curse resets fully between fights now, not entirely sure yet

[sinful gyro]

What are the Champion changes looking like?

If anyone knows

[trail nova]

Oh, that’s a lot less likely to constantly kill people

[surreal basin]

Oh superstition is real now btw

Like it’s an actual think a person can play

[warped orbit]

I doubt its gonna keep killing you out of combat at least

[surreal basin]

Thing

Rather than a thought experiment which it seemingly was before lol

[warped orbit]

Bones apparently gets weakness to void and vitality

Cosmos seems to be similar to before still, ie Enfeebled and penalty against forced movement

Tempest is apparently not linear, it gives you electicity weakness, miss chance on ranged attacks, and reduces move speed

[turbid dagger]

Man
Its funny (good) that this means that not only is poisoning ghosts possible, it kicks mean ass
Cuz they have awful fort saves

[warped orbit]

lmao, yeah

[turbid dagger]

Same phenom as Spirit Barb

'oh your immune to grappling so it doesnt matter your fort is bad?'
'WRONG'

[upbeat ridge]

What does alch archetype look like?

[warped orbit]

so apparently the alchemical stuff is standardized similar to spellcasting archetypes now

[upbeat ridge]

Ok

[warped orbit]

so my assumption is that Alchi archetype will only give you Advanced Alchemy now

[upbeat ridge]

It gives both quick alchemy benefits and then advanced alch benefits at 4

I just saw in a vid

[warped orbit]

do you get vials?
I assume not

[upbeat ridge]

Now I’m curious what poisoner/herbalist archetype looks like

From https://youtu.be/9uA2QHSKBIY?feature=shared

I’m assuming herbalist/poisoned doesn’t give advanced benefits

[turbid dagger]

So
Can someone sell me on Monastic Archer Monk real quick
Trying to make myself not make another Fighter but the cost/benefit of monastic archer vs Double Shot or Hunters Aim (or both) Fighter is not making me feel good

[warped orbit]

huh, I wonder if you also still regain those vials over time

[turbid dagger]

The best I can come up with is 'ki strike'

[warped orbit]

Ki Strike is pretty good tbf

[turbid dagger]

It gets Triangle Shot at level 18 which is Crazy but thats level 18

And, admittedly, it also gets Second Stunning Fist with Pinning Fire, which is actually whats closest to getting me to sign off on it

If you flurry a dude and they fail the stunning fist and pinning fire save while not in melee they are just shit outta luck

[worthy stump]

tbf, even with the immunity bypass, might be rough getting through a ghost's resistances with poisons. the ones that do damage, at least

[solar storm]

https://fixupx.com/dantalksgames/status/1813698420428976412?s=46&t=RjdIzh2qFuWkjovzBmgCsQ

Whoa cool

[surreal basin]

Very surprised duelist didn’t get this

[solar storm]

Yeah tbh

[warped orbit]

yeah it leaves one handed advanced a little alone

[trail nova]

Just need uhh... firearms and 1-handed I guess, right? Are their weird thrown-only advanced weapons.

[carmine oyster]

Isn't there a Gunslinger feat for firearms?

[trail nova]

Yeah, lv. 6, same as fighter IIRC. Sadly basically out of reach of multiclassing.

[carmine oyster]

Oof, yeah, was thinking 4

[frank crystal]

Aldori Dueling Sword continually on bottom

[trail nova]

God, I'm almost sad for it now.

It's gotten so much support and all of it has sucked.

(I looked into it in PF 1e, and it was all just the worst symptoms of PF 1e martials. And because it's Golarion specific, there's not really 3pp for it.)

[clever cobalt]

I do like the Falcata

But that's the only advanced one handed weapon I enjoy

[frank crystal]

I wanna make a dual weapon fighter build for it one day

Just for crit fishing

[vast burrow]

Radahn

[frank crystal]

But like, I don’t know if there’s way to give it martial proficiency

[trail nova]

Tengu, right?

[clever cobalt]

Fighter with the level 6 feat

[frank crystal]

Oh yah that’d work

[surreal basin]

yeah a tengu could

or a fighter

[frank crystal]

Bird fighter here I go

[surreal basin]

i still think advanced weapons are widely kinda a fumble in some ways

[clever cobalt]

Falcata is quite fun but also strangely hard to get

[surreal basin]

i really think there should just be like

a general feat or something

[frank crystal]

Absolutely

[clever cobalt]

It's easier to get uncommon advanced weapons than common advanced weapons

[surreal basin]

where you can make any one advanced weapon martial

[clever cobalt]

For some reason

[surreal basin]

no other restrictions on it

[trail nova]

Just make weapon proficiency good.

[clever cobalt]

I think it's mostly fine as is

[surreal basin]

I respect the idea behind advanced weapon proficiency because it lets them make cool weapons without worrying about power creep

[clever cobalt]

Unless you mean a feat and not the whole concept

[trail nova]

I mean the feat.

[surreal basin]

the nodachi doesn't like

[clever cobalt]

Ay

[surreal basin]

need to be balanced against the longsword

oh you meant the feat

sorry

[trail nova]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5239

[rapid wagon]

is the aldori sword stuff suck or just not that great

[clever cobalt]

The latter

[surreal basin]

it's just kinda underpowered

[clever cobalt]

It's not bad but it's outpaced by a lot of other, easier to get options

[vast burrow]

What about Armor Prof?

[surreal basin]

which wouldn' be a problem if it wsn't so fucking hard to access

[trail nova]

In 1e? I've never seen an Aldori sword feat that wasn't a bottom tier option.

[clever cobalt]

And the Aldori Duelist dedication kinda sucks

[turbid dagger]

It's dex longsword
Dex melee martials already notably paying a lot to get in the door compared to str

[trail nova]

Tiny benefits with 100 prerequisites and random unneded conditions in 1e.

[clever cobalt]

Off topic but Witchwarpers in Starfinder get their power by manifesting alternate versions/realities of themselves right

Like as a fluff thing

Wonder if that'll carry over to 2e

[trail nova]

https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Duelist of the Roaring Falls - Other dex weapons like Rapier and Scimitar get unconditional dex to damage as a feat with weapon finesse and a few other tiny prerequisites, the +1 damage bonus is nothing, and Duels are a random subsystem that 90% of players/GMs wouldn't know existed.

This is pretty standard for Aldori specific 1e stuff.

[warped orbit]

does Slashing Grace not work with Aldori sword?

[vast burrow]

I really wonder why Duelist/Dual Weapon Warrior give feats instead of proficiency

I kinda maybe understand it for DWW

But like, why not Duelist?

[trail nova]

Oh, probably.

[clever cobalt]

I think a Str Fighter is overall better and just much more viable than a Dex fighter personally

[warped orbit]

DWW giving Double Slice is great tbh

[trail nova]

But the rest of the weapon specific support still sucks hard.

[clever cobalt]

The class and overall game mechanics seem to benefit Str fighters over Dex fighters

[warped orbit]

Dex melee has some upsides, but I generally agree yes

[clever cobalt]

There are some exceptions but Str just outweighs Dex in most cases as a martial thing

[trail nova]

https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Duelist of the Shrouded Lake - Ah yes, +1 bonus to CMB. This matters (The other stuff the guideline is just "don't do maneuvers without the improved maneuver feat")

[rapid wagon]

It's a bit funny that pathfinder gave us possibly some of the best swordsmen in the setting, then gated the fantasy of playing as one behind a bunch of somewhat lackluster feats

You're better off just saying you're an aldori swordnaster flavor wise

[trail nova]

I think the best 1e Aldori Swordsman build is just one that doesn't touch the Aldori Dueling Sword specific feats and builds a generic slashing grace guy.

[scenic patio]

Oh just noticed Core 2 is out how are we feeling on the changes

[clever cobalt]

Kholo

[warped orbit]

most of the class changes I've seen so far are pretty good

[limber comet]

Waiting for the group chat to get updated with the pdf so I can ogle it for myself

Spent too much on Wildsea to order it

[scenic patio]

I was wondering about alchemists and the Champion (Paladin) as they needed a much bigger boost if I remember correctly

[limber comet]

Alchemist has gotten a LOT of praise afaik

[scenic patio]

Oh good

I like the class as a concept

[surreal basin]

A two weapon agile grace build can go pretty hard though

Double Slice into Two Weapon Flurry with agile grace can match up to some strength builds

[warped orbit]

You can also do that with Str though

[turbid dagger]

Its true

It is indeed likely better since all those extra attacks are getting essentially an extra dice

Currently am playing a scizore/flyssa full plate dual fighter

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1e5wa3p/list_of_ancestry_changes_in_player_core_2/?share_id=2mEKOQPwiedmhoM3JFbS0&utm_content=2&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

Has this been posted yet

If not @clever cobalt thy hyena feats lie herein

[sinful gyro]

Yooo

Kobold change is nice

More HP for my paladin

[warped orbit]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=260
Dandpatta are also a slick dual wielding weapon

d6 agile twin

[turbid dagger]

I like my twin parry +2
And also Scizore of the C🇼 ab

[surreal basin]

Agile strength weapons are rarer tho

Man how did so many people get this early

[frank crystal]

So like, while I doubt I’ll use it as a thrown weapon, is there any real reason to use a steel shield over a meteor shield?

In the niche case where you need a ranged attack

4 hardness vs 5 seems kinda whatever

[warped orbit]

well, with reinforcement runes it's definitely more viable now

[frank crystal]

Were reinforcement runes not always a thing?

[vast burrow]

Nope, that's remaster material

[frank crystal]

Huh

I could have sworn they were a thing originally

[surreal basin]

I mean if you never plan on using the meteor shield the 1 hardness might be better

You might be thinking of just sturdy shields

[frank crystal]

I was kinda just thinking of needing it for the occasional times when I can’t reach my opponent in 2 strides

[surreal basin]

Which were kinda the only shield most people use

Oh I mean, if you WANT to use it yeah it’s no big loss

[frank crystal]

Right yah shield runes in general are new

[vast burrow]

So, it's pretty obvious that PC2 had more changes than PC1 right? I mean, it makes sense but it feels odd how PC1 was like "Rogues get martial proficiency, Witches get buffed familiars" while PC2 is like "Oh yeah Barbs get free action rage, and most of the classes get new capstones"

[frank crystal]

Just sturdy shields were basically runes for shields because they basically functioned like em

[vast burrow]

Basically, where's the PC1 new capstone feats 😭

[frank crystal]

Seems like it yah

[turbid dagger]

The fell secret is that you can just take a finesse weapon and use str for it
Shortsword is as good for brute stabbing as fencing

[frank crystal]

A lot more classes are being like, fundamentally reworked

[vast burrow]

Also the new ancestries get multiple new feats too grumbles in Magic Rider

[frank crystal]

Oracle and alchemist being the biggest ones

[vast burrow]

Oh yeah def, but all the classes seem to get their little changes as well

[frank crystal]

Are there any not really being changed?

Is sorcerer getting touch ups?

[vast burrow]

Dragon bloodline got reworked

Now you get to choose a Dragon bloodline after choosing the Dragon bloodline

Bloodlineception

[frank crystal]

Oh yah because new dragons

[clever cobalt]

Finally, mechanically decent Gnolls

[frank crystal]

Are Gnolls weak?

I always thought they were solid

At least for their jaws having grapple

[warped orbit]

They were good, but were lacking in ancestry feats

Especially at higher levels

[vast burrow]

They get 3 level 7 feats apparently

[frank crystal]

Oh yah I guess they did just have like, numerically less then most

Which did suck

[vast burrow]

Yeens 😌

Also apparently Elves are getting new feat in the uhh....spore war? Elf path?

So hopefully that quelms my level 17 feat struggles

[clever cobalt]

Given it's a higher level AP it's possible

[vast burrow]

...I feel like qualm isn't the right word but it's too early for me to think too hard about what it should be

[frank crystal]

What happened to elves in Golarion they’re associated with spores?

[vast burrow]

I think it's just them fighting against Treerazer?

[clever cobalt]

Spore Wars is the Treerazer/Elf AP

[vast burrow]

Or at least, elves play a major role in fighting them