Pathfinder

[surreal basin]

Where they got shit to actually use their items better then anyone else

[warped orbit]

Vials at least made them less immediately focused on needing to plan out your reagents super well
but a lot of their other issues still remain yes

[rustic cape]

I'd rather there be something for players of various mindsets than cater everything to a presumed normal set of tastes

[ocean cobalt]

i feel like alchemists and also inventors and also the crafting system have kind of the same problem at their root

which is that pf2 is sort of built from the ground up to give absolutely no quarter to 3.5e artificer sickos

and those are the traditional domains of the 3.5e Artificer Sicko

[warped orbit]

Crafting does aggravate me a little still

[rustic cape]

I could see a merger of alchemist and inventor, yeah

[warped orbit]

it's gotten a lot better, but the times where it is genuinely useful are still really small and specific

[trail nova]

My guys were

• "Knight" is a kind of guy,
• "Bastard with dirty tricks" is a type of guy
• "Almost mystical (to mystical) Weapon master" is a kind of guy that particulalry when more mystical, is distinct from the first two.
• "Person pulling weight through less combative skills, knowledge, and items" is a guy.
• "Studied magic" is a guy
• "Powerful but uncontrolled magic" is a guy
• "Mage who isn't afraid of swords" is a guy
• Magus is probably the one that least fits this, but I'd argue that "Mage who loves swords" is different from "Mage with swords as a good second plan".
• "Shapeshifting" is a guy.

[ocean cobalt]

crafting i do sympathize with the people who don't like it because like at a certain point you should actually be able to invest in skills and have that mathematically benefit you

how does mage who isnt afraid of swords distinguish itself from mystical weaponmaster in your eyes

[surreal basin]

Crafting is in a position where I feel like

They didn’t want to include it in the game

But felt like they had to

[ocean cobalt]

yea

artificer sicko oppression

[warped orbit]

to actually have Crafting be useful, you need to be in a position where you can't just simply buy what you want, but also still have the money
and also have several days of downtime at least

[echo briar]

I feel like mechanically, they should just get rid of gold and make items a part of normal leveling, but I feel like most players would reject that on narrative grounds.

[surreal basin]

Or in some cases

Months of downtime

[warped orbit]

plus needing to level Crafting, and several feat taxes

[surreal basin]

If you’re crafting expensive items even at high levels

[trail nova]

I think some of that is that like... monk isn't a caster, magus very much is. I don't expect my monk or gunslinger to just throw a fireball while doing their thing, I maybe expect like... supernaturally fast, fire charged attacks, ect.

[ocean cobalt]

mhm

[rustic cape]

The funky thing with crafting is that its value is extremely dependent on the DM both enforcing rules about community levels with earn income, and restricting the magic mart, which I think is unusual in practice

[ocean cobalt]

enhancers vs transmuters, in hunter x hunter terms

[trail nova]

Jane made a good point that for a lot of people, the difference between spells being an exception that steps outside the basic rules, and the traditional "martial" stuff being leveraging the basic rules really hard and doing stuff that builds on them, is pretty important, and I think I fall into that camp.

[warped orbit]

yeah but if you did do that, Crafting would just become mandatory instead

[rustic cape]

Yeeeep

[ocean cobalt]

this is basically my logic in putting fighter and rogue together and putting them separate from exemplar/champion/barb yeah

"GMS gear only" is a type of guy

[rustic cape]

I mean you could trust your GM to give out sufficient loot that's just slightly less specific than what you want

[trail nova]

Yeah. I just have always felt like fighter and rogue are too "big tent" to some degree.

[rustic cape]

But like

Yeah, it falls apart

[trail nova]

So I put some effort into splitting them up and merging them with other fitting classes.

[rustic cape]

I think merging rogue and fighter potentially falls into the trap of "this would be very elegant but it removes the rough edges that people like"

[ocean cobalt]

my thinking was basically using "leveraging the basic rules" as a gimmick that no one else gets

[echo briar]

I'm not sure how you make a good but not broken crafting skill with the current economic setup, where gold and items are a progression system separate from leveling but only technically.

[rustic cape]

Yeah, it's an issue

[ocean cobalt]

and also they are able to differentiate in between themselves by like, yknow, how monks and fighters and shit do

[echo briar]

Because you are trading a skill for gold, but how much gold would you trade for a skill?

[ocean cobalt]

viewed from that angle crafting seems almost underpowered

[warped orbit]

it is

[rustic cape]

It's very underpowered

[ocean cobalt]

no like, i know lol

[warped orbit]

it needs very specific circumstances to actually be useful

[ocean cobalt]

i was the one who brought up how underpowered pf2 crafting is

[rustic cape]

I mean it can be useful as a narrative skill like any other

[ocean cobalt]

i mean like 3.5 crafting

[rustic cape]

But yeah

I do think barbarian and monk, weirdly, are mechanically and conceptually similar enough to merge

[ocean cobalt]

they gotta just nuke monk for real honestly

[rustic cape]

Monk stances and rage are kinda the same thing

[echo briar]

Like, if items where just part of character leveling directly, then crafting would be like an ancestry feat that gives a general feat or vise versa.

[ocean cobalt]

split their component parts among everyone else

[echo briar]

But as is, theres a bunch of conversion problems that means that at some point it will be broken or useless

[surreal basin]

Tbh crafting also just

Digs into my feelings on downtime in general in 2e which is

not in a great state

[trail nova]

(And my difference between magus and battle mage was basically "how much do you blend swords and spells." - if you treat them as two separate things that you transition between, it's battle mage - think war cleric, a gish without action economy stuff, the 1e combat bards, ect, while Magus is 1e Warpriest and magus - fluidly cast spells and fight and blend the two together.

[surreal basin]

Hey kids do you wanna earn income, do one of these 5 situationally maybe useful things; or earn income but worse (crafting)

[echo briar]

I do feel like if you make crafting permanent items a secondary use for crafting, then you can make it work as a skill

[warped orbit]

I do mostly feel that with how limited they made item crafting, it might have been better to just not include it at all

[echo briar]

like, temp item creation, or modification

[rustic cape]

I think it would be cool if crafting let you graft minor improvements onto items or create items with those improvements to start out

[sacred bluff]

My take is classes delenda est

[ocean cobalt]

honestly give the artificer sickos what they want

who cares

[ocean cobalt]

well yeah but that's a real solution that doesn't allow for the existence of a totally artificial problem which means the entire discussion is moot

[rustic cape]

Also people like classes

There are lots of games without classes

[trail nova]

I honestly really like classes as a way to silo big modifications to core game mechanics.

[rustic cape]

So that's kind of just equivalent to saying "you should play a different game"

[ocean cobalt]

people like everything

[echo briar]

Like, some 10 minute activity activity to make a temporary item would make crafting a useful skill.

[ocean cobalt]

that's not an argument

[ocean cobalt]

aetherhollow specifically is a pathwarden enjoyer which is the same game without classes

so uh

[rustic cape]

So that's exactly what they were saying

[trail nova]

Stuff like my idea of the Magus getting spell combat or is worth putting into separate bins from stuff like "here's a straight buff to hit" or "here's an exciting new way to power up spells at a cost"

[sacred bluff]

Changing around classes would already be a different game

[rustic cape]

It's an argument for why you might want a thing to continue to exist such that it will cater to the people who like it

[ocean cobalt]

i guess this does come from me saying "hey what would a different pathfinder game look like"

hm im coming off very hostile here actually

gk i dont mean to be rude at all

[rustic cape]

I think there's a pretty striking difference between "what if the basic character options were different", and "what if the entire structure of options were different"

[trail nova]

I do think "exclusive mechanics that shouldn't be allowed to freely cross-pollinate" is probably the best mechanical argument for classes.

[sacred bluff]

idk I've just been in the "hack pathfinder with different options without touching the core structures" mines for several years and I'm interested in more these days.

[echo briar]

There's also thematic arguments. There's a reason like every PbtA game has some version of classes. It's way easier to make a character thematically when you have a starting place, plus it can keep the game thematic

[sacred bluff]

I think there are less restrictive ways to achieve that

[echo briar]

but for some people, that feels very constricting

[ocean cobalt]

i guess firebrands has bantraesh/landowner/revolutionary

[ocean cobalt]

i think this is a good point

[rustic cape]

Restrictions contribute substantially to gamefeel. A lot of design is more about perception and presentation than "Best Practices"

[echo briar]

Also, classes are way better for new players.

[rustic cape]

For a whole bunch of reasons

[echo briar]

you try to make a gurps character without someone teaching you

[rustic cape]

They serve as mechanical packages on the one hand, but more than that a lot of new players use classes to help come up with even their baseline concept

Hell, a lot of veteran players use them that way

"Oh I wanted to finally get around to playing a rogue" is a starting point people use

[warped orbit]

classes are good

classless systems will always have to contend with things just converging on the best options

you need a way to stop people from just only picking the best options every time

[rustic cape]

I don't think that's always true, but it certainly tends to be true of point buy systems

[ocean cobalt]

i don't think that's notably less true in classed systems

[sacred bluff]

There will always be a best option

Fortunately, best is not the only agenda for ttrpg players

[warped orbit]

it's not, but it places more guardrails on it

I do definitely think that classless will in general tend to be more homogenous than classes

[rustic cape]

To some degree that can be avoided by having progression trees with desirable points along them, but that is not really all that different from classes

[echo briar]

speaking of siloed game design, give me an interesting architype for a rogue. I've narrowed down the class, but I still need a character.

This is for shades of blood should that matter

[ocean cobalt]

sanguimancer

[echo briar]

The problem is its not anywhere I can find yet

[carmine egret]

• Fighter
• Wizard
• Rogue
• Cleric
• Enhancer
• Transmuter
• Emitter
• Conjurer
• Manipulator
• Specialist

[warped orbit]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1jg1ffh/new_sanguimancer_archetype_in_shades_of_blood/

[ocean cobalt]

righter answer

[warped orbit]

basically you get some temp HP, and you can also spend them for certain benefits

and get some feats to get them back

[ocean cobalt]

your gm probably has it

[carmine egret]

👑

[warped orbit]

hilariously it also does very little for casters

[carmine egret]

martial blood mage is a cool concept

[echo briar]

It also seems pretty bad.

Also, what happened on new thasalon? I was looking at the time traveler background and apparently everyone there is a time traveler?

[turbid dagger]

So basically, when the big apocalypse of the settings distant past happened, one of the runelords, rulers of the ancient nation of Thassilion, foresaw it and tried to protect their seat of power from it with a powerful ritual, it failed, and instead trapped the entire city inside of a temporal dome of impenetrable crystal
The whole city was stuck in a week long time loop that no one inside was aware of all the way to the modern day, and during the events of 1e the dome finally got shattered and the loop broken

It's funny because uh
Everyone in the area was very aware of it before it broke
Scholars woul travel to the dome to look through and document the infinitely-repeating activity inside for details on ancient thassilion culture

[plucky snow]

Cleric (nature domain)

[craggy thunder]

Does Thaum's generally lesser accuracy get made up for by its increased damage?

[solar storm]

broadly yeah

[novel merlin]

Its kinda a barbarian vibe

[solar storm]

Thaum damage is very good ime

[craggy thunder]

Is the optimal statline 18 Cha, 16 Str or Dex, 12 Con, 12 something else?

[craggy thunder]

Barbarian has on par accuracy with other martials, no?

[novel merlin]

True, but in terms of like big damage swings with meh defense

[novel merlin]

Yes

[craggy thunder]

fair nuff

[craggy thunder]

mfw melee character with 15 hp

[novel merlin]

Just uhhh, take amulet

[vital kiln]

What general feats would y'all recommend for a Drifter?

[echo briar]

Same as every other class

Toughness, fleet, incredible initiative in an order of your choice

[vital kiln]

Initiative's already good enough and I already have a gun to shoot with if I can't get into melee range fast enough

Toughness it is, the more HP the gooder

[echo briar]

General feats are not exactly well designed, with those 3 being such stand outs that everything else pails in comparison unless you have a very specific build

[vital kiln]

Mmm, true

Are any of the graft items good enough to warrant taking Graft Technician?

[turbid dagger]

I've played thaum a lot, and my opinion is an extremely resounding yes
The -1 does not come up a wholeeeee lot and even so
You get the barbarian-tier damage but you also just get to solve basically every non-combat situation

[vital kiln]

Getting proficiency in an Advanced weapon isn't worth it for a Drifter, yeah?

[warped orbit]

not that much

unless you wanna get a whip sword or something

[vital kiln]

What I figured

Shame that advanced weapons just aren't worth it 90% of the time for anyone that isn't a fighter

[craggy thunder]

What's funny is

basically 2nd level onward

my worry about Thaum is irrelevant for this game

cuz the gm wants to do gradual ASIs

[warped orbit]

Oh yeah then the KAS super doesn't matter

You'll only be behind for one level at 1 and 10

[craggy thunder]

Is a Thaum a good fit in a party of a summoner, monk, water kinet, and champ?

[turbid dagger]

I'd say so yeah
Between the champ, kinet, and possibly summoner, you likely have enough healing, and Thaum handily fills the skill monkey slot that those 4 struggle to address

[craggy thunder]

the summoner is a dragon summoner

and I have chalice anyways

in this build at least

[turbid dagger]

Well neat!
The lack of full Heals is a bit spooky, but if needs must you can actually meet that too with scroll esoterica

[frozen hatch]

How would you build Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen's character) from the naked gun movies in 1e?

[errant roost]

what would you say are his key traits? how does he interact with the world?

[wary yoke]

We're finally having our first full session of PF2E tomorrow, hopefully we actually have some combat

Our GM has a recurring issue where he doesn't have situations that require combat

It was one of my biggest problems when he ran the game in 1E

We once went for over a month with no combat

[errant roost]

have y'all talked with him about wanting a more combat-focused game?

[craggy thunder]

So with spirit warrior, since it gives your fist the Parry trait

and 'fist' in Pathfinder is subbed for 'making a strike with whatever body part'

Can a spirit warrior have both hands occupied and use the parry trait?

[warped orbit]

Yes

It even has explicit 2h support

[craggy thunder]

that is so funny

[warped orbit]

Just needs to be a finesse or agile weapon IIRC

[craggy thunder]

So that makes it like

one of the best archs for Thaum then

[warped orbit]

Well Thaum has a hard time going 2h

With how Empowerment works

Spirit Warrior is very good for Thaum though yes

[turbid dagger]

I think they mean punching and parrying with both hands full from implements

[craggy thunder]

yeah

[warped orbit]

I only just realized you just meant doing Combination with a onehanded with implement in offhand yeah

But yes that works

And it's very good

[craggy thunder]

zamn

[turbid dagger]

Do note that overwhelming combo will apply weakness only once, though it will do empowerment multiple times

[warped orbit]

Falcata Spirit Warrior Thaum 😛

[craggy thunder]

ye

[echo briar]

It’s still two attacks for 1 action. There is no possible damage loss if you would have only attacked 1 time anyway, and a ton of potential damage gain

[rustic cape]

Unarmed thaum is very strong

[craggy thunder]

well it's not strictly unarmed, you still need a one handed weapon

[rustic cape]

And I guess spirit warrior is a way to do unarmed thaum and weapon thaum

[craggy thunder]

but ye

[rustic cape]

At the same time

Which ... you know actually that'd be an extremely good fit for a wuxia exorcist type of character

[craggy thunder]

Exactly the character I'm planning on lol

Though this one is less

[rustic cape]

Sword in one hand, magic item in the other is 100% the image there

[craggy thunder]

tempered and regal and more

a drunk smacking people with a dueling sword and bottle of baijiu

[rustic cape]

I believe the traditional spirit-cutting sword is made from peach-wood, although I could be mistaken

[echo briar]

Peach wood that has never touched metal

Which seems difficult to maintain if fighting someone in armor

[warped orbit]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1541

there is even a material for it 😛

it bypasses some resistance against undead

[wary yoke]

Yes, the problem is I don't know if he will follow through

[keen raptor]

Tbh if I ran a game with it I would probably houserule that into "can't touch metal during the creation process. It'd be way too easy to accidentally break your expensive weapon otherwise.

Or just be a pain in the ass to keep proper track of

[craggy thunder]

Campfire Chronicler seems really fun for a thaum that can spare the action economy

[light gyro]

am i Boss Baby'ing it or are Incarnate spells specifically meant to be a sendup of Final Fantasy style Summon spells

[rustic cape]

Certainly referential to

[rustic cape]

Hmmmmm sprite spirit warrior w/ kaiju defense oath

[ocean cobalt]

yeah 👍

what class do you think

[rustic cape]

Tons of stuff would work but Exemplar and Thaum both strike me as very compelling w/spirit warrior

[ocean cobalt]

thaumaturge is kind of asynergistic isnt it

exemplar is really good tho. the most wuxia per wuxia

[rustic cape]

Naw you can do fist attacks without an actual free hand

So Weapon Implement + some other implement

[ocean cobalt]

oh i meant you only proc weakness once

[rustic cape]

I’m not sure that’s an enormous loss

But

[craggy thunder]

I personally think spirit warrior is one of the best archs for thaum

[rapid wagon]

what do yall thin would be a good elemental fork for a pure metal caster

metal kineticist i mean

[craggy thunder]

either fire or earth seem thematically appropriate

[rapid wagon]

hmmm hmm ok cool

im one of the teams resident midliners

[craggy thunder]

out of the two I'd mechanically favor fire (longer range blast, higher damage impulses)

[rapid wagon]

i just picked up magnetic pinions at 4, i might fork fire at 5 an then retrain out of mag pinions into somehting else

though earth feels appropriate

just mechanically they dont seem to interact with eac other well

[ocean cobalt]

wood, get your timber sentinel on

[echo briar]

It’s two attacks for 1 action, if you only had one action to attack, then it’s just a free attack with no downsides

[ocean cobalt]

i mean yeah that doesn't become less true on a class with damage features that function better with it

[echo briar]

Actually it does because the thaumaturge is way less likely to have that second action

You will probably need to use it to exploit vulnerability or use an implement

[rustic cape]

Aye the big thing isn’t Max Possible DPS

It’s having a tight action economy

Especially adding other Spirit Warrior shenanigans to the mix

Spirit of the Blade good

[rustic cape]

(Exemplar / Thaum Sprite Spirit Warrior is now definitely my “if I were in a dual-class game” build tho)

[craggy thunder]

lmao

[rustic cape]

Tbh Exemplar kinda breaks in dual class unless you rule that its weird weapon specialization equivalent specifically does not stack with weapon specialization >_>

Even more than dual class usually breaks

[light gyro]

(cw for needle)

[warped orbit]

Examplar/Fighter the most main character to main character

[craggy thunder]

hmmm

for a thaumaturge with spirit warrior, should I do spirit of the blade, flowing palm deflection, or sword-light wave?

[warped orbit]

Sword Light Wave is very useful as a ranged option IMO

it's basically something like a free Extending Rune

[rapid wagon]

question, if i take plate in treasure and have versatile blasts, can i shoot elemental blasts of lightning that have the cold iron tag?

[warped orbit]

since it lets you have melee attacks at range

[warped orbit]

hmmm
I'd say yes personally, since it's still the metal Blast

[rapid wagon]

its weird right? But i guess it could be like... cold iron magnetism maybe

flavor wise

i guess for fun the electricity would be a different color

[warped orbit]

you can always flavor the lightning blast as electrically charged metal shards still or something

but I think it should work, since it is your metal Blast, and Plate in Treasure applies to all your metal impulses

[craggy thunder]

So, I just want a vibe check here

Is it normal/okay for a character, in a free archetype game

To just not take a normal class feat for 16 levels of building lmao

Cuz that's how this thaum is shaking out

[warped orbit]

can definitely happen with certain archetypes

though Thaum has a lot of great feats IMO

[craggy thunder]

Level 2 to level 18 is chock full of campfire chronicler, spirit warrior, and spirit emissary

[rustic cape]

I’d grab both Spirit of the Blade and Sword Light Wave

The parry line is really cool if you have the actions for it

But you may not

[warped orbit]

On a Thaum probably not that often I feel

[craggy thunder]

Yeah...

I have it at the higher levels but like meh?

[rustic cape]

Yeah, do something else cool

Personally I’d be inclined to do Weapon Initiate/Scepter Adept/Tome Paragon, but weapon paragon is also very sexy

[craggy thunder]

Man archetypes kinda peter out around level 14 most of the time huh

[rustic cape]

Most of them, yeah

For 1-20 builds I often end up with at least 4

[craggy thunder]

A lot of my implement choices are guided by what the archetypes I'm taking would lend themselves to lmao

Not wholly by that of course, but y'know

I take weapon as my second implement a level before spirit warrior, etc

Things that Feel Nice ™️

my first implement is actually chalice lmao

sharing drinks around a fire vibes

[rustic cape]

Scepter adept is just so, so good

[craggy thunder]

(yes I know its mid)

regalia I think you mean, right?

Or wand?

[rustic cape]

Regalia, yea

[craggy thunder]

so funny enough regalia isn't super useful to me lol

[rustic cape]

You have status to damage from something else?

[craggy thunder]

the initiate bonus is basically useless to my build

I am not fulfilling the role of party face, our summoner is

I'm actually our knowledge character lol

which probably means I should do Tome then

I just hadn't picked it for character reasons, but now I'm realizing since Tome doesn't have to be a book it could just be like

a mnemonic aid like prayer beads

[novel merlin]

There's a couple very strong thaum feats around 8-10

Sympathetic vulnerability and share vuln are both quite good

[craggy thunder]

mmm, true

fuck

[surreal basin]

I also like air for the electricity stuff

[craggy thunder]

true

God I hope this campaign gets to higher levels my characters vibes will be off the charts

[rustic cape]

Tome is great too because a decent portion of it does not require it to even be in your hand

[vital kiln]

Are any of the crafting general feats worth taking?

[clever cobalt]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfinder2e/comments/1jrq8hf/starfinder_special_edition_subscription/

[rustic cape]

So, if you really want an extra legendary skill

Legendary Tattoo Artist is the only skill feat in the game that elevates a master skill to Legendary

It's really funny imo

[vital kiln]

Hrmmm

Could take that later

[craggy thunder]

inspo sheet for my thaum for an upcoming campaign

[steel blade]

John Constantine
Thaum inspo
good, correct

[craggy thunder]

lmao ye

The rest is an attempt to cross 'lovable, wise elder' and 'I will cut a bitch'

[wary yoke]

Sigh

Lotta problems with first (real) session

One character got the spotlight because he was the only one who both spoke goblin and knew what they were, and had to negotiate with locals about thousands of newly-created goblins showing up on their doorstep

Our one fight was miserable, we were in a space filled with mud except for about 100 feet of 5-foot wide tunnels, and we were attacked by swarms

The GM had us roll initiative for the round they appeared, so half of us were trying to figure out what to do with our turns until the centipede swarms popped out of the walls

Nobody could maneuver, and when we managed to kill the centipedes through a combination of fireball, a lucky crit, and a few miscellaeneous attacks, the combat kept going

Because we had to get close to the final enemy for them to pop out

[craggy thunder]

This sounds like a very inexperienced gm

[true delta]

Go go gadget last-minute session prep

I'll try to replace a bossfight with character drama I thought of during a party on Dec 1st.

[fast hill]

I have a party that loves to yap so if I just fall silent they will fill that silence with PC-PC roleplay

This has helped me immensely to prep the goings on, especially if I didn't plan for it

[true delta]

Yeah, that's great.

My players are partially like that. I feel like I need to give them more stuff in the world to gossip about.

Rules question: Which skill would you have someone use to Recall Knowledge on personal memories?

[light gyro]

What reason would they have to not remember something. If it's magic, then it's probably a save against the effect. If it's just 'do they remember this' then just let em remember, it's their character

[fast hill]

yeah

but if you absolutely had to: society

really low DC too

like 10

[surreal basin]

Yeah it sounds like we need additional context lol

[true delta]

It's the appearance of yomeone they interacted with a few years ago.

However, the matter has now been resolved.

[true delta]

Today's session has solidified my judgement that while I like a lot about my group's AP, there are too many tough fights of little narrative importance. One PC almost died to a severely nerfed enemy: It was PL + 2. I reduced that to PL +1 because one player was missing, and then slashed a third of its HP for good measure. Said enemy is merely some bully tied to a minor subplot -- essentially filler shortly before the group gets into a PL+3 boss fight.

I'm left puzzled by some of these choices. The bully-style NPC would work if it were at party level, I wager. But why turn a rando into a severe encounter? If i hadn't slashed its HP (after making it Weak), it could easily have killed our ranger.

[echo briar]

Is this age of ashes, extinction curse, or agents of edgewatch?

Those 3 where partially designed before the rules were actually solidified, so they went with PF1 building guidelines

[tight flare]

How feasible is it to run PF2 gridless on Foundry?

Possibly insane scenario, but I have a map where the grids are not aligned because some rooms are not at 90 degree angles

[solar storm]

It's feasible

Foundry won't complain but the PF2 integration may be a little weird with auras and such

[tight flare]

I could fix it, but that would uglify my castle, and I don't want that

That sounds promising

[fast hill]

would be surprised

the auras work pretty good, since it just works on the foundry circle measurement tools

(usually)

[solar storm]

I mean more some of the stuff for areas of effect since it has some particularity for locations and I haven’t tried gridless with the system to see how it goes

[fast hill]

Problem I see with gridless is where you put cones and whatnot

I guess you could do it eminates from token/base and you can point it in any direction

[tight flare]

Hmmm right. I'll have to make an attempt at this and see how it goes

[craggy thunder]

battle harbinger just slapped me with the funniest realization in a while

'oh your simple, martial, and unarmed proficiency is the same as fighter'

[frozen hatch]

Ideas or suggestions for a campaign centered around the party being a team that is part of a great intercontinental (or cross-continental if the former is too large) race for a grand prize?

[surreal basin]

Blood drinker blade from the new shades of blood AP is another example of AP stuff needing just a bit more quality control lol
It has an activation that deals with “6d6 bleed damage. You gain temp up quality to half the bleed damage the creature takes” which is

Not how bleed works

It’s not a damage type

[craggy thunder]

encounters with chase rules seem inevitable

[craggy thunder]

I was looking at it wrong oops lol

[turbid dagger]

Well, things do have a specific weakness, resitance, or immunity to bleed (rarely)
It's weird but I get what they were going for
6d6 damage instantly, that is affected by stuff that affects bleed

[novel merlin]

Bleed technically isnt a damage type except that persistent bleed damage is untyped other than "bleed" and there are immunities to it, so its kinda a damage type

[craggy thunder]

Lancer Heat moment

[surreal basin]

Yeah but bleed is always persistent

Is the problem

[turbid dagger]

Yeeee but
The intent of that activation is pretty clear
It's not like it 'doesn't work'

[surreal basin]

I mean I guess so

But also it’s like

These kinda issues plague APs lol

I wish there was just a little more quality control

“The intent is clear” isn’t really good enough in a system like PF2e imo

[rustic cape]

So a character with assurance who increases their skill at the first opportunity can always hit an Easy DC of their level?

[fossil dome]

Basically, yup

[limber comet]

I feel like this is a meme made by a Pathfinder hater lmao

That +1 can really be a lifesaver

[fossil dome]

+1 is a 5% crit rate, remember

[fast hill]

Once you have a high enough modifier, atleast

[fossil dome]

True

And before that it's a -5% critfails chance

[fast hill]

Mmm true

Gotta play my hellknight build with intimidating strike

Oops all fear

[fossil dome]

Hah

[fast hill]

Fighter with intimidating strike and trip, hopefully a fearsome rune too

Crit fish until dead (and each crit makes each crit more likely)

[craggy thunder]

Make them a battle harbinger

[fossil dome]

Oh, no

[craggy thunder]

you know you want to

also fuck it's 4 am Jesus good night

[fast hill]

Lmfaooo

[fossil dome]

Take Gunslinger Dedication,

[fast hill]

I havent seen battle harbinger

[fossil dome]

Pistolero of course

[fast hill]

Oh god why

[fossil dome]

Every time you reload

That's an Intimidate

So you scare them on hit, and when you don't attack

[fast hill]

Oh shit

I think intimidating strike is a melee only think perhaps

Yeah

[fossil dome]

Drat

That woulda been terrifying

(Pun fully intended)

[fast hill]

Lmfao

[rustic cape]

For the most part this doesn't even strike me as particularly accurate. There are some lower-level class and ancestry feats that give highly situational bonuses (and admittedly most of those are duds), but generally the concern when finding a +whatever is "will it stack with my other +whatevers"

[robust heron]

isn't bleed a generic physical type?

i could've sworn there was something about phys resist hitting it

[warped orbit]

Bleed is physical yes

[robust heron]

bleed is just full of fucky little rules

[warped orbit]

So it gets reduced by blanket physical resistance

[robust heron]

s what i thought, but it's been a bit since i've played

[warped orbit]

Another special type of physical damage is bleed damage. This is persistent damage that represents loss of blood. As such, it has no effect on nonliving creatures or living creatures that don't need blood to live. Weaknesses and resistances to physical damage apply. Bleed damage ends automatically if you're healed to your full Hit Points.

[warped orbit]

Which does also mean this is actually functional, it'd just still be persistent damage which seems like it wasn't the intent maybe

[craggy thunder]

hm

fighter with some form of sword and a gauntlet can benefit from both two-weapon feats and open hand style feats...

cool

[warped orbit]

yep

[craggy thunder]

I am very quickly coming up with a new favorite fighter build

oh I also made a Hei-Fengite battle harbinger

hungerseed orc wielding a jiu huan dao and a hatchet

[rustic cape]

Spirit warrior builds get so weird

[craggy thunder]

This actually doesn't work with Spirit Warrior lol

Spirit Warrior only affects and uses your 'Fist'

[turbid dagger]

Alas, the gauntlet doesn't benefit from your weapon mastery/legend prof boosts 😔

[craggy thunder]

could make for a fun albeit very unusual swash

with bladed gauntlet in specific

[warped orbit]

that's always the tricky part with Fighters with mismatched weapons

[craggy thunder]

I don't imagine it'd be an overlarge impact

how viable is two weapon swash now?

[novel merlin]

Still not much support outside of one finisher I think

[craggy thunder]

yeah I asked in the pf discord and got the same response

[novel merlin]

They have twin parry, tinned defense, dual finisher

Dual finisher is hit two people in reach

Might be something workable with a reach weapon like a whip

[turbid dagger]

It's a pretty vast impact mathematically
There's just not much reason to be throwing around a d4 weapon with -2 to hit
In fact, if you're double slicing you could dual wield two d8s and get the same odds to hit as a d8 and gauntlet

[echo briar]

All you need is a single brawling weapon that deals more than 1d4

[steel blade]

my first attempt at homebrewing a consumable; in this case, ||liquid mana||
my party is level 1 and im expecting them to find this next session(||but they'll level up once they're done with the area this will be in||)
spoilers cause one of my players is in this server but afaik he never looks in #1161693671742259272 so im just being cautious

[novel merlin]

Cool way to give your spell casters some spells back at specific times that you want them to have access to, though if you let players craft or buy it then it's basically the best consumable in the game

On a second look it actually gets borderline unusable at higher levels because you'd just never fail the check to get to stage 1

[steel blade]

You can willingly fail saving throws for drugs

[novel merlin]

Oh cool

Then only my first comment stands

[steel blade]

I originally was going to have the damage scale with the user's level (legit just 1d8/level) but that felt a little too strong, so I decided to scale it back and have higher level versions. Might drop this one to only 1 spell slot now that I think about that

Granted, I guess I should reword how the spell slots granted work, cause it's meant to be like, if you roll a 3, that's either a rank 3 slot, a rank 1 and a rank 2, or three rank 1s

But as is it reads as 'roll a 4, give yourself 4 slots at your highest rank'

[novel merlin]

You'd probably want the spell slot to be temporary (like 1 minute) otherwise you could pretty easily heal back damage even if you failed the save with medicine

The gamble on a save with a lump of damage behind it for a spell slot is cool in combat but if you're just sitting there refilling spell slots while someone slaps you with bandages, it's just a gold for spell slot trade

[steel blade]

Fair. The intent with it is honestly just, with the setting for this game being inspired by Tactical Breach Wizards and similar stuff as 'what if fantasy world but modern, and just acting like that instead of all the secret society cloak and dagger stuff associated with urban fantasy', so I'm making up a magic drug that's also the power source for magitech stuff that would be battery powered irl

[fossil dome]

Oooooooooh

I would like me a TBW RPG

[steel blade]

Might bump the damage up or something so that it's actually significantly risky to use. Idk, I've got the rest of the week to figure it out

Also fun thing is my party only has 1 caster right now. Had 2 originally but the Witchwarper decided Runesmith fit his concept better, so we're left with a Rhythm Mystic, and then a thrown Exemplar and a Fortune Dragon Barb

[rapid wagon]

Moon Knight, what class would he be? I'm leaning swashbuckler, monk, or thaumaturge. Maybe a off build for cleric?

cleric with a dedication perhaps?

champion also seems like it might be good, flavor wise, but mechanically not so much

[steel blade]

Fluff-wise he's a champion, oracle, or maybe exemplar

Probably champion though, given that afaik most of the time all he gets from Khonshu is the costume and advice
I don't read the comics though so I'm operating entirely off of MCU info

[rapid wagon]

i think that still works, I think i struggle a bit with the champion inclination towards heavy armor; in that moon knight does a lot of roof top leaping and acrobatics and so on

uses a lot of moon themed implements and attacks, including many throwing weapons

[rustic cape]

I think exemplar, both mechanically and thematically

Moon knight is a very strange man possessed by a god

Perhaps there’s a case to be made for barabarian

[rapid wagon]

Took a crack at it

[steel blade]

updated wording to clarify intent and also put a maximum duration

(also buffed the stage 2 damage)

[limber comet]

https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/518041/Tian-Xia?src=newest_community&filters=100178

[craggy thunder]

wait

why does aroden have devotee benefits from divine mysteries?

is it a matter of recording or has power returned to his clerics?

[limber comet]

It's a matter of recording

All the dead gods have it

[craggy thunder]

All right

[echo briar]

They even gave benefits to a fake god their twitch chat made up

[craggy thunder]

lol

[limber comet]

Ultra based for that

[craggy thunder]

So my gm is running basically a testing & learning the system game for the group (he and I have both played but no one else has) and he's making it kind of an adventure of the week type deal where our characters are all members of a Pathfinder lodge

and the gm is having us all make three characters that we can swap between adventures if we want to, with whatever characters we don't take leveling up at the same time but not getting the same amount of gold (they've got downtime to Earn Income instead)

[trim bluff]

Gonna start a pathfinder 1e campaign soon and wanted to ask a question, as someone completely unfamiliar with the system and the world:
I was looking through classes and noticed that there didnt seem to be an alignment restriction on oracles in relation to the deity that chose them. After doing some research i came up with a character concept that i thought was pretty neat: nature mystery oracle of the vermilion mother who is good aligned and fears nature because of the nightmares given by the vermilion mother, despite getting their power from it
Is this a thing i can do or did i miss something about the oracle

[steel blade]

Oracles don't necessarily get their magic from a god, even if they do worship one that aligns with their mystery, so yeah that's totally possible

[crystal walrus]

imagining an oracle that's been hit with the oracle powers out of spite

[rustic cape]

Entirely possible

[steel blade]

Clarice Sackville says hi (Hellblazer character; in the newest run she ||is confirmed to be the sibyl of cumae, who may or may not have had any power prior to encountering apollo but afterwards is immortal and can predict the future amongst other things||)

also worth noting that in that version of events, there's a cw for SA so yknow, fyi if you plan on reading Hellblazer: Dead in America

(original tale, ||the sibyl gave apollo her virginity in exchange for longevity||, hellblazer's take ||apollo SA'd her and then gave her longevity as a 'woops sorry'||)

[craggy thunder]

You wanna know what I'm a little confused by?

Why does vineshvakhi have the lightning domain?

[frank crystal]

Not sure tbh

The pathfinder wiki article on him is a single paragraph

So it doesn’t seem like he has the most lore to begin with

[craggy thunder]

God I wish Commander was out of playtest

[light gyro]

lol PL-4 encounter.

[rustic cape]

yeeeeeep

[fast hill]

unsure if I ever asked this here but has anyone ever played with the alt rules that remove level scaling?

if so how did it go

[wary yoke]

I did look into that, apparently it widens the curve of threats parties can face, but it can make certain creatures very swingy

And it needs to be coupled with house rules that reduce the DC for things like Medicine

[fast hill]

ic ic

I've been thinking about it because the level scaling makes it harder to actually run certain types of campaigns

sometimes you dont want the players to outgrow an earlier enemy type

[wary yoke]

You can always scale them up a bit to compensate, can't you?

[fast hill]

but then why even level at all etc etc

[warped orbit]

have not played with them directly, but I'm not a big fan

largely because it still requires a lot of adjustment for stuff like certain set DCs

it also messed a lot with the encounter balance

because lower level enemies are comparatively more dangerous, and higher level quite a bit less

[fast hill]

ic ic

[warped orbit]

since in PwL, the difference between a PL-2 enemy and a PL+2 is much less pronounced

they are gonna have a bit more HP and damage, but the numerical difference on attacks and saves is largely gone

[wary yoke]

Players get new abilities and more HP

Same with Lancer

[warped orbit]

so if you want an encounter with a big single enemy, you either need to go to the extreme end of the scale (PL+6 potentially), or you just can't really do it

and conversely swarms of lower level enemies are much more dangerous, because they don't have their usual disadvantage of hitting less

[fast hill]

I mean I am kind of looking for that ye

semi unrelated: had an idea to run a custom setting inspired by Ars Magica

fantasy europe (with as few problematic tropes as possible)

[rapid wagon]

Hmm, my DnD group is loosely interested in PF as they run into DnD's pay to play model being more and more of a thing; any advice or suggested content for people who want to experience pathfinder 2e for the first time?

[surreal basin]

I would honestly say that pathfinder 2e isn’t suited for those kinda games really

Stories where the players don’t progress and teach new heights as they go, leaving old threats in dust, aren’t really what it’s made for

[rustic cape]

Agreed

[light gyro]

If you have money then the Foundry system and integrated adventure modules are great. (Single payments, not a subscription like beyond or r20)

[rapid wagon]

i forget, does pf have a system for combining the rolls of a mass of weaker enemies to potentially allow them to be threats?

[rapid wagon]

Luckily for me I do already have foundry, so that level of automation is already at my fingertips thankfully. I personally play pf2 as a player with a different group

[stuck bane]

The beginner box adventure is a pretty nice and short intro

[rapid wagon]

this groups is a bunch of "dnd is my first ttrpg and we've only flirted with some other systems" type of group

[warped orbit]

PL- enemies are still a threat, just only in numbers

[novel merlin]

Troop/swarm stat blocks

[warped orbit]

also troops yeah

[rapid wagon]

That was something that i was thinking about was like pretty quickly 1 bandit is a non threat, but a bunch em wil prolly still scratch the paint

at least until youre a demigod

[stuck bane]

Troops are neat, gonna be running my first fight with them sometime soon

[warped orbit]

if the enemies have a 2-3 points lower attack they will hit you less, but in mass they will still get a few hits

[frozen hatch]

Thoughts on the following adventure paths?

War For The Crown
Serpent's Skull
Jade Regent

[warped orbit]

but you will ultimately outgrow stuff

[novel merlin]

That being said, running your players up against like 10+ PL-3/-4 enemies is a slog and not particularly fun unless they can blast them with an aoe right off the bat

[warped orbit]

PL-4 is already kinda a joke

anything lower than that basically doesn't matter

[rapid wagon]

yeah, i was thinking probably along the lines of troops in terms of what i was imagining

[stuck bane]

I will say that it seems like modules that use troops don’t quite implement them ideally in foundry - making one big token when part of their gimmick and changing shape and size as they fight

[novel merlin]

Are you aware that those are all 1e?

[warped orbit]

'proper' troop handling would mostly kinda be a huge pain

[stuck bane]

But that’s a “cross that bridge when you get to it” issue

[warped orbit]

so the big token is just kind of a compromise

[novel merlin]

I love just dropping 16 tokens down

[warped orbit]

but yes troops are technically mostly amorphous

[rapid wagon]

I was also wondering if there was like a shorthand roll method where like if 8 people are attacking your dude, you do 1 roll that represents the proportion that hit instead of rolling for each dude in turn

[novel merlin]

Tbh most troops are fairly gimmicky as is

[stuck bane]

I just made a duplicate actor for each troop in the fight and made the tokens linked to the owning actor

[novel merlin]

Because their attacks are mostly against reflex saves, sometimes they just completely fail to ever harm a monk or a swashbuckler

[rapid wagon]

kinda cool movie esque vibes out of that

[novel merlin]

It's cool once or twice but considering monks and swashbucklers have basically no aoe to trigger weaknesses of troops, the fights drag out

[stuck bane]

If a swarm or troop did have an actual attack roll, it’d still be one roll per target

[warped orbit]

it's one of the weird things with troops

that they basically can't harm characters with good Reflex, while something like a Champion with great AC will keep geting chipped

[rapid wagon]

I take it this pretty much isn't a thing, at least as far as system goes; itd be a housrule to speed things up

[warped orbit]

I almost feel like Troops should maybe make you do an "AC save"

[novel merlin]

You're just supposed to use troops at that point

[rapid wagon]

ahh i see

you can just turn anything into a troop?

[novel merlin]

Not really

[warped orbit]

theoretically yes

[rapid wagon]

😮 troop of dragons

[novel merlin]

I mean you can homebrew

[warped orbit]

though there aren't great guidelines for it

[novel merlin]

But there aren't like templates

[warped orbit]

my experience with troops so far is that the AoE weakness doesn't super matter tbh

I found single target damage to still be king in fighting troops

[novel merlin]

Pathfinders style of fantasy is generally very generic heroic fantasy where your group of heroes is fighting 1-8 relatively powerful enemies at a time, rarely just cutting down whole armies.

[warped orbit]

the thresholds do basically nothing to discourage that

[novel merlin]

Not nearly as much as it does for swarms, yes

[stuck bane]

Troops aren’t like “take existing foe and apply a template,” they’re more a specific style of bespoke enemy stat block using mechanics meant to evoke fighting a large group

[warped orbit]

in general, troops are significantly worse to face as a caster than an actual group of low level foes

[rapid wagon]

is it advisable to mix troops in with normal lowby enemies or just replace em?

[warped orbit]

because you can't just Chain Lightning/Fireball/whatever down a troop like you can a group of PL-

[warped orbit]

I'd advise a mix

using PL- enemies is still valuable, especially for being nice to your casters

[novel merlin]

Troops are often 4-5 levels higher than the units that make them up, so they aren't great to mix unless it's like troop + leader type guys

[stuck bane]

The idea is a troop or swarm represents things far lower level than the player that you wouldn’t normally actually fight individually because they’re just not a threat

[warped orbit]

though yeah, not necessarily of the same enemy type

[rapid wagon]

hmm hmm good to see different perspectives

[stuck bane]

So like a party level troop might represent things that would individually be party level -4 or more

[warped orbit]

Casters really appreciate groups of low level enemies, because they can get huge value from AoE spells that way

[novel merlin]

Realistically once you hit like PL-4 or beyond, the enemies cease to be a meaningful threat unless it's like 20 of them and then you just have unfun combat

Hence why troops exist

It condenses 60+ actions down to 3

[warped orbit]

But yeah I'm talking about like PL-2 or 3 here
Not usually the ones you'd turn into a troop yet

[novel merlin]

But ultimately in pathfinder unless you hold your party back from leveling, you only get a few levels of "oh no, bandits!"

[rapid wagon]

this is the kinda situation where instead of trying to take every turn for those guys id be grouping them and then doing like a shorthand roll prolly. Iirc a few systems have concepts on how to do that to increase pace. But yeah eventually you do move beyond certain enemies

Unless you do it elder scrolls style where the next "bandit" you encounter is wearing enough gear to buy a kingdom

[stuck bane]

Well that’s the thing. Troops and swarms are that grouping

[rapid wagon]

"Bro, why are you still a bandit, you're in full daedric gear and literally all of it is enchanted"

i wonder if theres something to alaen's thought about armor save vs reflex save; potentially switching em around for the troup in question. Feels like players with good reflex eventually treat troops as a non thing

[frozen hatch]

Yes as that's what me and my friends typically run as our system of choice.

[novel merlin]

Troop fights are generally rare enough where it's not an issue, and this also only kicks in at high enough levels to where some classes have thier +1 degree of success effects for specific saves

So like 7+

There are also troops that do target other saves, it's just more rare

[stuck bane]

Yeah troops are a sometimes thing

You’re probably not gonna use them enough for a player with great saves to have a clear advantage, especially if you match them with other single-character enemies that are also a party-level-appropriate threat

[novel merlin]

They aren't particularly exciting enemies to fight over and over

[stuck bane]

Cause ideally those give you other angles to approach PCs troops are weak against

[novel merlin]

Pretty much every troop stat sheet is big hp pool, decent AC and saves, weakness to aoe, melee attach against reflex, aoe ranged attack against reflex, and 1-2 special attacks of varying interest

They're generally fairly attrition heavy fights because of the high hp and guaranteed chip damage on attacks

Not really something to flex tactics or show off cool spells or anything

[stuck bane]

I have a feeling my party of three aoe-spamming casters and a alchemist-archetyping thaumaturge will feel differently about that area vulnerability

But yeah mechanically they seem to fit a specific niche, from what I’ve seen

[novel merlin]

That party would definitely tear through them, thought it still doesn't make them a particularly interesting fight outside of enjoying big damage numbers

[stuck bane]

More on the showing off spells end than tactics end, really

[novel merlin]

Yeah

[warped orbit]

It helps, but the vuln IME only partially makes up for having only a single target

[ocean cobalt]

love of the game

[warped orbit]

The Thaum will probably have a great time against troops, the casters less so

When we faced troops in a game I was in, it was still me as the Fighter dealing with them mostly

[novel merlin]

Troops do thrash casters with low saves sometimes

[rapid wagon]

oh also, i guess meta question about playing. Is the primary pressure I should feel as a player be time availability? It's been covered frequently that like... parties can generally heal themselves up with very little trouble between fights

and that fights assume player will always be at or close to full health

effectively a non caster can fight a near limitless number of fights in a day given some time to heal inbetween each one

and in turn, the main tool the GM has is defining how much time we really have before more pressure is applied

cause its otherwise somewhat difficult to "wear out" a party it seems

[novel merlin]

Other than spell slots, yeah there's no need to focus on party attrition

If you want to stop people from healing, apply time pressure. Otherwise don't worry.

[rapid wagon]

so my GM's main tools of like developing consequences is sort of like "How much time is this all taking, and what happens as a consequence of using up time"?

i.e. villain plan advances if you spend too much time meticulously patching up between fights with his castle guard or something

is there a way to mechanically account for balancing when a group foregoes healing or only takes a much shorter period of time to do less healing in order to go faster and goes into the next fight injured?

[warped orbit]

not exactly

[rapid wagon]

I know like... at low levels treat wounds has a limitation of time for example

[warped orbit]

but you can basically assume that it makes a fight slightly harder

if you go into a moderate fight while only at half HP for example, it will be more difficult than a moderate would normally be

one thing you can also do for attrition-esque stuff, is chaining multiple easy fights after each other

[rapid wagon]

yeah that came to mind

or like, patrols on clocks that move around based on passing time. Say you stick in one spot for an hour and half of healing up and resting, 30 minutes in you might get attacked unless someone is looking out

getting interrupted might be a sometimes thing, but would give a dungeon a sense of tension

[novel merlin]

I generally assume that my party can full heal in 30 minutes with thier level of medicine investiture

[warped orbit]

in general I recommend working more with Low or trivial encounters when not giving a lot of time to rest

[novel merlin]

Like once someone has expert/master medicine, ward medic, and continual recovery, 30 minutes can heal each party member for like 60+ hp

[rapid wagon]

my group probably doesnt play optimally, but we're habitually taking like an hour to repair and heal up

though in both cases we did that, our healer wasn't present so it was just me as a champion laying on hands and treating wounds

but yeah we're still dealing with the time restriction on non magic healing for the most part

we're just hitting level 11, but also just went on break so our gm can be a player in a different game

[warped orbit]

Continual is key to healing up quickly if you rely on Medicine

I do at this point honestly think Continual shouldn't be a feat

it's just too much of a tax

just make it baseline

[rapid wagon]

we've got an oracle and me, they have the medic dedication but i dont think they have continual and might not be aware of it?

[warped orbit]

Continual Recovery, it's a Medicine skill feat that requires Expert in Medicine

and Ward Medic too, which is the same

Continual lets you Treat Wounds every 10 minutes

Ward Medic lets you Treat multiple people at once

[rapid wagon]

ward medic they have i think, but not continual

i just have lay on hands since i figure i was a back up healer

[novel merlin]

If you have those two skill feats then you're set

[warped orbit]

LoH should also still do fairly well

that's 6/rank healing every 10 minutes IIRC

[rapid wagon]

yeah its pretty decent and let me fill for downtimes when the healer couldnt make sesh

[warped orbit]

I played an Investigator that was super specced into Medicine, and I could easily heal our entire party to full in like 10-20 minutes

[rapid wagon]

means we werent caught with our pants down

[warped orbit]

but I also have like, every Medicine skill feat

and Forensics bonus

[rapid wagon]

did still mean i needed to take like an hour of a heal per ten minutes on each person

[warped orbit]

Continual, Ward Medic, Godless Healing, Mortal Healing, Forensics extra on Treat Wounds

[rapid wagon]

i think the fights we're having are in a decent spot? We generally have a front liner get knocked down at minimum in any major fight

[warped orbit]

that's not unusual in a Moderate+ fight

[rapid wagon]

my kineticist in blood lords is a back up healer with battle medicine and stitch flesh

[novel merlin]

Damn my fotrp party has only had someone go down like once

[warped orbit]

Kineticist with Water and/or Wood can also be an insane healer

[rapid wagon]

i went with metal for theming xD

[warped orbit]

...maybe I should build out a Water/Wood full support Kinet at some point

[clever cobalt]

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6zs4c?Paizo-Tech-Update

Paizo is finalluy updating their site

[fast hill]

wish the pike was cooler and not a simple weapon...

[rapid wagon]

honestly, give its a fantasy game, but the pike is a strange weapon to use for interpersonal skirmishes/combat and/or dungeon delving

then again theres a fair share of weird weapons to use in that context

[fast hill]

yeah

[surreal basin]

making my players fight a rajang from monhun

[rapid wagon]

Question when you do import monsters from other settings, do you add in a lot of movement/ knockback and so on to make the space more dynamic?

And/or to reflect the monster hunter experience?

I often find existing monsters to be very "I stand here and fight"

[novel merlin]

Tbh 2e isn't exactly a great game for super dynamic, acrobatic combat unless your party very specifically builds for it. Making more dynamic maps to fight in can help though.

[rapid wagon]

Mm mm that makes sense

I guess not many fighters take blade brake lol

[surreal basin]

my parties also move around a lot anyway tbh

[rapid wagon]

I was thinking a lot on just like... "big things send you flying" just kinda makes sense

[novel merlin]

Moving is good! It's just not like crazy mohun movement stuff

[novel merlin]

Look for the knockback monster ability or whatever it's called

[fast hill]

what I think I actually want is cooler spear that doesn't feel like I'm gimping myself

breaching pike feels really, really weak

[warped orbit]

it's as good as it gets in one hand

or do you mean specifically a spear type weapon?

Gill Hook is a spear and very good, but 2h

[fast hill]

yeee I basically want to play a hoplite kinda character

1h reach is really strong but

for a d6?

youch

[novel merlin]

look into the warrior of legend class archetype

[novel merlin]

1d8 is the best damage you can get on a 1h weapon and reach is always at least 1 step lower than the max

[fast hill]

yeah I would love a d8 1h spear without reach

honestly

[solar thorn]

Reach is stupid good in pf2e because attack of opportunity is punishing

[surreal basin]

Reach is fucking insane

found my unfinished ancestry i was workin on

[surreal basin]

Playable up to level 5

or level 4 i guess

[rapid wagon]

For one handed weapons don't you only go up to a d8 in most cases?

Oh someone already said that

I mean, d6 seems fine when you have the benefit of reach tbh

I feel like a hoplite doesn't need to be doing the biggest damage to engage with the fantasy personally

[fast hill]

mayb

[fast hill]

as long as you aren't wielding a shield

very unfortunate

[silver geyser]

Yeah, the difference in damage between 1d6 and 1d8 is more than made up for by reach imo.

[fossil dome]

Literally 1 damage, on average

[rapid wagon]

tbh, i think spear and shield, even without reach, is plenty good

its not min maxing or anything

but if you choose appropriate enchantments and feats n such

it'll do you just fine

[rustic cape]

... wait the Achilles class archetype can't use a shield

wtf

[craggy thunder]

yeah warrior of legend is

the biggest concept vs mechanics L I've seen on Paizo's part

[fast hill]

Yeah it's kind of crazy

It'd be neat if WoL made the spear 1d8 that'd rock

[clever cobalt]

Even the whole stance thing is messed up

Because it counts the hilt as a club

[fast hill]

LOL

[clever cobalt]

Which fucks with Fighter Proficiency

[fast hill]

Wowzies

[rustic cape]

I continue to be baffled that the weakness is against piercing specifically

Like ... okay yes achilles, shot with arrows, got it

[rustic cape]

Also frequently immune to spears!

And like, "legendary hero with a polearm" isn't just Achilles. Where's Lu Bu and Cu Chulain, for instance?

This is like a whole category of troubled weirdo with temper problems

[plucky snow]

Maybe it's just me not understanding Pathfinder, but this doesn't seem very useful to me

[clever cobalt]

It isnt

Especially on the Fighter

[novel merlin]

Don't you choose the physical damage type?

[rustic cape]

Oh, you're right

I still don't think that's a ton better

But it is less specific, you're right

[novel merlin]

There's other feats that go along with it that play off the theme

[fast hill]

Give a player immunity damn it

[novel merlin]

It's not a super powerful archetype but it has cool mechanics

[fast hill]

I just wish it was about spear and shield

[novel merlin]

Using doomed as a resource is awesome

[fast hill]

Yeah I fw that

[rustic cape]

It is but it's not a resource you can meaningfully control

It's just "did the AP/GM decide to give you an enemy who triggers your doomed this fight"

[solar storm]

The archetype gets some options for that

[novel merlin]

The feats give more ways to manipulate it

[rustic cape]

I'll say the same thing I said when Warrior of Legend came out: it should let you choose an enemy at the start of the battle, and give you weakness to them

[novel merlin]

Gotta read the whole archetype

[trim bluff]

just spent a while looking through oracle curses and found this one and thought it was really fitting for the character. the vermilion mother is a decay subdomain deity, plus replacing natural plants with dangerous ones seems fitting, unless im misunderstanding the vermilion mother, which i may be given that ive only managed to find a couple of sentences of lore on her

[novel merlin]

The thing is is that's just awful for every solo boss fight, of which there are many in published APs

[rustic cape]

I read the whole thing, but it's been like six months and I did not memorize it on account of finding it to be poorly designed

[warped orbit]

It let's you dual wield with a 2h weapon and the haft

Which is in theory pretty good

But there's a bunch of small issues with it

[plucky snow]

What's the reason I would ever attack with the haft, though?

[clever cobalt]

Like the weapon type proficiency thing

[trim bluff]

ok wait, this one is also really fitting, god there are so many curses that would work well for this character idea

[rustic cape]

Two-weapon fighting feats

[rustic cape]

Also, no they don't

There is nothing in Warrior of Legend that lets you voluntarily gain doomed without a hit triggering it

[novel merlin]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7238

This would be pretty good on a rogue or flurry ranger

[rustic cape]

The main benefit of haft-striker is that you can either do two-weapon fighting with a maul, or you can do two-weapon fighting with a reach weapon for reactions

[novel merlin]

Not amazing but playable if it's the vibe you want

[rustic cape]

Both are solid benefits, although tragically the agile on the club end means dual-weapon warrior barbarian doesn't get a ton of mileage out of it

[craggy thunder]

I mean it's against a physical damage type of your choice

But agreed

[rustic cape]

I want to like Warrior of Legend enough for it to annoy me, basically -_-

and tbh if I wanted to do Achilles I'd probably do a barbarian

Rage of Achilles and all that

[craggy thunder]

If I wanted to do Achilles I would pick a different mythological hero (this is a joke about being sick of Greek stuff, not at you lol)

I also would have fundamentally designed the archetype differently

Having it be polearm specific does it a disservice I feel

Should you have a signature weapon? Sure

It should be one of the player's choice tho

[rustic cape]

I agree

For all that "guy with pole weapon" is a very common version of that mythic figure

There's no reason to enforce that in-game

[craggy thunder]

There are also several cursed (or Doomed, Paizo) heroes in Norse myth

Who are specifically fucked over by picking up a sword

Beowulf, some guy whose name I can't remember but whose most notable trait is 'self-victimizing asshole'

Grettir

that's who it was

The c*nt

[rustic cape]

Oh yeah cursed sword guy would be a thing to do with a relic archetype

I’d love to see more of those

Wasn’t there one all about turning into a bear? Was that any good?

[craggy thunder]

I have literally no idea lol

but my point was more that like

cursed hero weapon variety Paizo! xD

[rustic cape]

Oh no I got it

I was just tangenting

[warped orbit]

Are you thinking of that one artifact archetype?

[rustic cape]

Yeah

[turbid dagger]

The idea I came up with for haft striker, that I've actually played and to pretty good effect
Is maul precision ranger
Flurry is the first thought but
Why would you build around spamming a d4
What I went with is double slice off dual weapon warrior
So you haft up on a maul, and double slice
If you don't land the d12, you have a chance to 'save' your proc with the d4 followup

[rustic cape]

Huh, interesting

That's a good shout

[turbid dagger]

It also means, if one attack crits and the other doesn't, you can apply the precision proc to the crit to double it
It was a neat build
I never got there but once you get dual weapon onslaught it goes crazy
Cuz if you miss both you just
Do the damage of the maul strike, precision proc included

[rustic cape]

... that's legit

Love that

I often feel ranger is sorta undercooked

[craggy thunder]

I wish haft striker let you pommel strike

[rustic cape]

But that feels really solid

[craggy thunder]

(I know why it doesn't, there's other feats for sword I believe)

[warped orbit]

Ranger is pretty fine I think

my only wish for Ranger is that Outwit got some extra skill tricks inside the class

[craggy thunder]

Outwit kinda feels very incongruous with ranger tbh

Not the idea, but the execution

[turbid dagger]

It's
Weird
I def get what gka means
The scaling on precision is so weird and basically strong arms you into getting a companion

[craggy thunder]

'Ah yes, I am going to feint on my ranger'

[turbid dagger]

A lot of it's feats are odd

[warped orbit]

Precision is fine tbh, but it does very much encourage getting a beast companion yes

[turbid dagger]

And this is coming from someone who played that maul ranger for 8 levels and loved it

[craggy thunder]

my hobgoblin mastermind is about to start taking combat drugs and blowing shit up, let's go

Oh my god you can Sneak Attack with Bombs???

[rustic cape]

Yeah of course

[craggy thunder]

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[rustic cape]

Bombs are just thrown weapons

Mechanically speaking

[craggy thunder]

wait does alchemist arch's alchemy level advance as the class does now?

It used to not do that right?

[warped orbit]

it used to be slower yes

now it's just at your level

but you also don't get the renewable versatile vials

[craggy thunder]

that's a more than worthy tradeoff I feel

'occasional giant bomb, flexible elixir, or mutagen' is what I'm after

[rustic cape]

Alchemist archetype gives you some solid daily resources, yeah

[craggy thunder]

Also really helps sell my character's style in particular

a preparedness-focused former leader of men who can make best use of limited resources

He's a hobgoblin and former member of the Ironfang Legion who served as the leader of a saboteur-corps, kind of like the roots of the SAS

[rustic cape]

You can also get advanced alchemy at pretty much alchemist levels with a bit of feat investment

Alchemist and Inventor dedication are both great “I don’t know what to do with these feats” pickups if you have decent Intelligence

[craggy thunder]

I specifically planned to take alchemist, even went with int kas for mastermind rogue lol

[rustic cape]

If you have the free space, inventor with armor innovation

Is really nice

But of course rogue has so few dud levels

[keen raptor]

Technically a video game question, but Wrath of the Righteous is 1e so I'm posting it here. How good is duelist as a prestige class? Thinking of going rogue/duelist for my Trickster run

[rustic cape]

It's not very good

[keen raptor]

Damn.

[rustic cape]

What difficulty are you planning on?

[keen raptor]

Normal, probably.

Might bump it up since I'm very nearly done with my first playthrough and I'm actually used to the game now.

Definitely not going Core though. The balancing is too sadistic for that

[rustic cape]

At normal, you can probably get through without optimizing much. I know Alaen got it with default party levelups, for instance. Straight unchained rogue is surprisingly strong, you could do worse than just running that the whole way through

Vivisectionist alchemist is excellent if you want to bump the power up a bit and not overlap with Woljif

[keen raptor]

Might give that a shot. I was hoping for something similar to 2e's Swashbuckler but I've never done alch before

My current Azata run is as a sorc, which is a lot of fun but dear god was the early game hell

[craggy thunder]

Modified panoply of the Ironfang Legion's Barghest Corps, 6th Squad, worn by veteran of the Ironfang Invasion and new member of the Pathfinder Society, Darchahk

[fast hill]

"He goes invisible!"
"And then?"
"Good question!"

[craggy thunder]

that's always how it is lol

[fast hill]

moreso he is stuck and cannot move

[crystal walrus]

He goes invisible and takes the circumstancial bonus to AC i guess.

[fast hill]

pretty much yeah he gets the flat check

he is trying to run away

and we are throwing hands and tryna KO him

Tartuccio is a bitch ass mfer

[crystal walrus]

oh it's Tartuccio!

the lion, the witch and the Audacity of this Bitch

[fast hill]

we are just beating the shit out of him

[craggy thunder]

Omfg that's great

[fast hill]

we have cuffed him and we are going to let the kobolds decide his fate

[surreal basin]

Oh my god shurikins have reload 0

They can be drawn as a free action

[fossil dome]

Oh

Oh. no

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=333

[surreal basin]

Ooo

See but this doesn’t let you have a throwers bandolier with 200 shurikins that get runes and don’t need returning

[rustic cape]

It doesn't, but it's good to start with

40 ft range, recovery, thrown, reload 0 on the first four

Then you switch to shuriken

[echo briar]

My group is doing a oneshot where the theme is stereotypical pathfinder society characters. I am the only one who hasn’t played a society game. Other than pure minmaxer, what should I play?

[strong sonnet]

'newbie', I suppose?

[solar storm]

I haven’t played PFS but I chatted with someone who did and she said the big ones were

• Rogue
  And
• Hyper generalist self sufficient “works in any comp or alone”

[minor monolith]

I'm actually using this in my Kingmaker game atm! Saves a Property Rune space, and (in theory) can give you a ton of versatility for per-weapon stuff like Talismans or Precious Materials! Biggest issue is, (as far as I know) you can't actually use a Free Action to "Reload" and draw one, the drawing just happens as part of the attack, so they're not usable for anything that specifies "wielding a weapon with Reload 0," which is a real shame

Relatedly, is there any sort of limitation, aside from gold and common sense, to equipping spellhearts onto multiple weapons, like a ton of throwables? I don't think they're Invested, and while it'd make using their On-Strike effects hard because of no Returning, it feels like an easy enough way to get a collection of cantrips and daily casts without needing to hold them like a Cantrip Card or Wand

[rustic cape]

Would be fun to do a game where everyone is dual-classed with exemplar

[rustic cape]

Just finished the prologue in Kingmaker revised

[echo briar]

Is the age of lost omens still going in the time of starfinder?

[wary yoke]

Organized play PFS, or in-universe PFS?

[echo briar]

Organized play

[trim bluff]

quick question, i just did some lore research and wanted to ask this:
my character concept is an unwilling oracle of the vermilion mother who did something to anger her and is now being tormented in nightmares and such because of it. i found a very interesting race, duskwalker. duskwalkers are given a second chance at life by a psychopomp, normally out of respect. sahkils like the vermilion mother are psychopomps who dissented. could this be reflavored to be something like my character did something to anger the vermilion mother in a previous life and was brought back to life as an oracle of her as a punishment? or would that be too much of a stretch? normally i'd ask my dm but we're all pretty new to pathfinder 1e so he's not very familiar with the lore yet (i probably wont choose duskwalker as my race regardless, sadly the stats don't line up very well, but i'm still considering it hence why i'm asking this)

[errant roost]

IMO there's no reason to constrain yourself to someone else's lore if there's something you're excited about.

[keen raptor]

Like D&D, you can play fast and loose with PF lore as long as your DM allows it, so just ask them.

[trim bluff]

alright, thank you

[novel merlin]

You could also use the revenant background here

[trim bluff]

ok i should clarify, we're doing a 1e campaign, and i looked it up and as far as i can tell that's a 2e thing

[novel merlin]

Ohhh

[trim bluff]

wait, i'm doing some research, does 1e not have any first-party background/origin/etc equivalent? i'm so used to dnd that coming to a new system and seeing that it seemingly doesn't have that is weird to me

[surreal basin]

There’s traits but not full backgrounds no

[trim bluff]

ah, i see

is there a list of the special duskwalker 1st level feats that depend on how you died?

or are the chance death and deliberate death ones the only options

[steel blade]

there's also lonely death and willing death

[trim bluff]

ooo, lonely death is both really fitting in terms of flavor and pretty useful, i think ill grab that

[surreal basin]

Man

The more I look at

Weapon Damage Die really are like

Not really something to worry about

You lose so little damage between steps lol

It’s like -1 damage per step per die

[fossil dome]

-1 average damage, -2 damage cap

[rustic cape]

It's one of those little things that adds up over time

Like there's feats that give a +1 per weapon die to damage or some such and those are generally considered pretty valuable

But yes, going from 1d8 to 1d6 is not the end of the world

[turbid dagger]

I still wouldn't really use a d4 as my mainstay on a weapon swinger but I'll happily go d6+(desirable trait) over d8

[frank crystal]

my friend cant find gorilla stance on pathbuilder

[trim grotto]

is there a way to have multiple summoned creatures out

[novel merlin]

use cackle or equivalent free action sustain effect to sustain the first summon, then cast a second summon

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4629&Redirected=1

[trim grotto]

interesting!

i'm thinking of playing as a summoner next chance i get and im basing this off V from DMC 5 where his whole gameplan is his 3 summons

[thorny berry]

Possible alternate way of handling this might be a summoner with some animal companion (or similar like clockwork reanimator) archetype

or at least that feels closer to V's vibe where the 'companions' in question were pretty durable, persistent characters and not like

disposable minions

[trim grotto]

are you able to have multiple pets out at a time?

my goals are basically to have a few little dudes running around i can command to kill stuff

[thorny berry]

A summoner with an animal companion will have two extra dudes on the board at all times

Beastmaster can eventually raise that to three at like 16

though you will have some extremely wacky action economy and probably annoy your gm lol

[novel merlin]

Having 3 summons at once is only possible on witch, but summoner + beastmaster can get 3 minions

[trim grotto]

Ostilli Host could make for a good substitute even though its not a literal guy on the board

[novel merlin]

Eidolon + animal companion + summon is doable, but your eidolon wont get a ton of actions because you share with it

[thorny berry]

or a liturgist animist could flavor different spirits as manifesting a bit more visibly

though this topic actually has me thinking: What class do people think is the hardest to actually pilot? Like, alchemist and kineticist have kind of a dizzying array of building options but when you're already built and in a fight what takes the most finesse

the most I can think is just spell substitution wizard having the potentially 'most' options

and I guess to an extent it just depends on what sort of particular build and archetypes you're stacking on

[warped orbit]

Ostilli Host is pretty cracked on basically anybody who has a third action free frequently

[echo briar]

It is spring. We are supposed to get the spring errata some point in the next few months. do you think we'll get it in May for Paizocon, or do you think they will wait until June like how they did the fall errata in December?

[fast hill]

is there a reason to have a shield if your build probably wont have space for the action econ for raise shield?

[trail nova]

Are you using that hand for anything that the shield cuts off? If not, is the bulk an issue. Otherwise, it’s a very cheap defensive action.

[fast hill]

probably not, was mostly considering getting a flail and using intimidating strike for a build. Trip+Intimidating Strike would be basically all my actions

[echo briar]

What if someone else in the party demoralized them? What if they are mindless?

Also, if you are only going to trip and intimidating strike, why not use a 2 handed weapon with trip?

At minimum, get a warflail if you need the sweep and disarm

Plus that would let you take spam down to greatly reduce map

[thorny berry]

if you manage to get reflexive shield or shielded stride or something like that

[warped orbit]

meteor hammer my beloved

or guisarme

[echo briar]

So, there was a PF2 Crpg kickstarter that failed today (the one made by the Reddit mod that called everyone who wanted to play a ninja racist). However hours before it ended, over $100,000 USD was donated between 11 people

At best this smells like some weird ego trip. At worst this looks like fraud or money laundering

[clever cobalt]

Weird

[heavy fulcrum]

it didnt technically fail, he ended it early

[echo briar]

Yes, but I refuse be believe 11 people giving $10,000 just randomly came in at the end by pure chance

[heavy fulcrum]

definitely

i imagine he's going to come back soon with a higher goal, because people were rightly suspicious of the goal being only 300k (which is extremely low for a videogame especially one from a studio that supposedly has 18 employees)

(just the KS cut makes it 270k, so at best, 40k per person for ~4 months)

[clever cobalt]

Sounds sketchy and/or the devs don't know what they're getting into

[heavy fulcrum]

both!

[thorny berry]

I think a frequentl play for kickstarters is to use 'look we got X backing' to try to convince a publish to pitch in the rest of the actual budget

which would also explain a desire to inflate the end total

[heavy fulcrum]

the smart move is to talk to a publisher first

"we're gonna do a KS, our target is X, we expect to get Y, how much can we get from you for some cut of the profit"

(if Y is not significantly more than X, you should not be doing a KS)

[steel blade]

the ks video isnt even remotely impressive btw, it's like 4 models and 3 animations repeated over and over

[rapid wagon]

300k as a goal just... smacks of a project that wont succeed

with that many employees

[echo briar]

This was also their first game right?

Thats a lot of employees for your first project, particularly one with such little to show for it during the kickstarter

$300,000 could make a great CRPG, just with a team of like 5

[astral prawn]

Was dead the moment it turned out that panda dude was head of the project

[rapid wagon]

they have a rep or something?

[astral prawn]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/1gqcDMcnhv

They were a mod who was a major character in the Tian Xia World Guide fiasco, where before its release a post was made telling people not to be racist and not to practice orientalism by being annoyed by a lack of samurai/ninja, which definitely soured peoples excitement for the book. He wasn't the mod who made that post, but he was power trippin and banning people left and right while also making some very patronising posts (see below)
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/s/7X6YAjCHtK

People were really excited and the moderators began an unnecessary flame war, and panda dude decided to respond to one person with "Hey buddy, it's big and scary, but some people are affected by a little thing called racism, I'm sure that's hard for you but you should learn to be considerate of others 😁"

A paraphrase of course, the original comment was significantly worse

[rapid wagon]

i didn't even know there was a controversy/fiasco around the tian xia guide tbh

i was just excited about it

[astral prawn]

Yeah it was pretty much reddit-based

Terminally online leftist friendly fire

[echo briar]

There really wasn't a controversy until this. They weren't responding to much of anything

[astral prawn]

Also the guy thought Ninjas originated from 1960s James Bond

[rapid wagon]

🤔

[echo briar]

I think this bit wasn't really the main problem. It was deleting and everyone who called him out on it

[astral prawn]

Yeah nah but he flat out believed nothing like Ninjas, the concept, the word, the profession, ever existed in Japan until Ian Fleming invented it

Its not a major thing but it's a very weird and wild detail

Calling racism but also the only valid source he considers is a white dude, books in the Japanese national archive are mistranslated and not legit

[echo briar]

Ninjas as a dedicated profession might not have existed, but they absolutely existed as a trope.

Like the stereotypical ninja outfit is a Japanese stage hand outfit, because some Japanese playwright had the idea to disguise the super sneaky spy or assassin as a random stage hand, and it became a trope

[craggy thunder]

Was being a ninja not a dedicated profession?

(I know this is a historical question but its being sparked by this convo)

[rapid wagon]

ive seen assertions that the popular image of them never existed historically, but its generally accepted that shinobi have been around since around the 12th century

[echo briar]

Yea, it depends on how you define ninja

[craggy thunder]

Shinobi as in like the actual spies who did espionage and occasional assassination, both for pay or as part of their fealty

Not even like

Sekiro

even if Sekiro couldn't do all the physically impossible shit he can do