Pathfinder

[woeful pecan]

Ahhhh I misremembered

[warped orbit]

yeah the bit it gets from Cascade is the free action grip change

[woeful pecan]

Imaginary Weapon Spellstrike but it's flavored like the secret boss in Expedition 33

[light gyro]

||like Simon's massive greatsword or some other boss?||

[woeful pecan]

Yeah that's the one

[rustic cape]

Today in Kingmaker: treating the large number of fairies in the Stolen Lands as a citizenship issue.

[trim bluff]

(wrath of the righteous) why does one of my potions have this exclamation mark thing

what

what does this mean

[warped orbit]

huh

[true delta]

What are some good archetypes for a Giant Instinct Barbarian? I think he wields a maul.

[woeful pecan]

Pull up your active effects tab and show me what's on there?

[trim bluff]

resist cold, reduce person, shield of faith

the fight with the water elemental is over so it doesnt really matter anymore but it would be interesting to figure this out

[rustic cape]

Definitely a bug

[woeful pecan]

That's most likely, yeah

Normally, CLW potions don't have any lingering effects so there shouldn't be a buff to conflict

[warped orbit]

Mauler is always a decent choice to pick up some metastrikes

[rustic cape]

Certainly not a deflection bonus to AC!

[trim bluff]

i drank the healing potion that was supposedly conflicting with the ring and it still says its conflicting with something and now the info menu wont appear???

ok i took it off and reequipped it and everythings working now

[echo briar]

Blessed one is always nice on a barb, because lay on hands isn’t concentrate

The extra healing helps to balance out your ac, and your increased reach makes you better at healing your allies

[true delta]

Cool

[trim grotto]

Twisting Tree magus looks super fun

[woeful pecan]

Doesn't it? I'm very excited to play mine

The reach and free grip changes especially look super useful, and agile is always a welcome trait

[light gyro]

seems pretty nice, with some pain points. they made putting property runes onto a magic staff a feat tax, first studious spell is magic mouth/embed message of all things

[woeful pecan]

Tbf, that same feat also gives you crit spec and deadly d6

[woeful pecan]

Like as much as feat taxes suck... An unmodified staff sucks more

[rapid wagon]

cant you just use a quarterstaff instead of a magic staff? I guess you should probably use a magic staff

to get more spells

whats the feat you need?

[warped orbit]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2859

you need it to be able to put property runes on staves

which, tbqh, I'm not sure why you can't do that anyway

it's not like a staff would ever be a good weapon on anyone other than a Twisting Tree Magus

[rapid wagon]

i kind of always figured twisting tree was meant to use a quarterstaff or bo staff lol

didn't even occur to me to use a magic staff, but it seems like a good idea

[warped orbit]

that's basically the entire gimmick of it :p

since everything it does only applies to the staff weapon

[rapid wagon]

huh i guess a quarterstaff or bo staff arent strictly speaking staffs?

[warped orbit]

they are not

[turbid dagger]

Yeah, twisting trees gimmick only applies to the Staff simple weapon

For a Bo Staff Magus you'd probably go inexorable iron

[rapid wagon]

thats very strange

[turbid dagger]

Well no
The whole thing is using magic staves as weapons
That's it's gimmick
And magic staves are the staff simple weapon

[rapid wagon]

but you could also use the staff

not magical right?

like the basic weapon called Staff?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=367

[turbid dagger]

Yes
Magic staves count as that weapon

[rapid wagon]

got it, i just... its not its baseline gimmick if you have to also take additional feats into it; its baseline gimmick is just using a non magical staff by what it looks like to me

and then you can use a magic staff because its a good idea, but then have to take an additional feat

to get property runes on to it

whereas your normal Staff doesn't require that feat

[turbid dagger]

The feat tax is one thing, but that def seems to be the idea behind twisting tree being it's own thing

[rapid wagon]

as a magus, you dont need your staff to be magical to use it to cast do you? Magi use swords to deliver spells and dont need them to be magical

the same for a bows or what have you

[frank crystal]

No you don’t

No caster does

[warped orbit]

you could use a regular staff, but staves also suck

[frank crystal]

Staves are just useful for the extra spells they have

[rapid wagon]

right, im not arguing against that, im more thinking like, as far as what the class expects, it seems to want you to use the basic, humble staff, not a magically empowered staff; but it lets you do the latter because its a good idea, you just need to take a feat to let you upgrade it like a weapon properly

[warped orbit]

well the only real reason to want to use a staff is because you want to use a magic staff

otherwise you could just use a better weapon instead

[rapid wagon]

Well except that your hybrid study only works with staffs

Unless there's other simple staffs to use?

[frank crystal]

Nah staff isn’t a weapon type

[warped orbit]

yeah but you could just use a different Hybrid Study and a better weapon

Twisting Tree's whole thing is just making staves not absolutely suck

[rapid wagon]

sure, but thats kind of like a conclusion based on what you have available, based on its own text and options, its not a baseline assumption that youll be using a magic staff, just that you can

heck, the magic staff doesn't inherently improve its options as a weapon specifically, it just gives you more spell options

1d6 is pretty average as far as damage is it not? lots of weapons that deal 1d6/1d8, and you can buff the staff with the runes like any other no?

what makes it suck that much worse?

assuming you're also getting a laundry list of weapon tags too

[warped orbit]

1d6 agile onehanded is an okay statline, but it's still basically a worse shortsword

the 2h form is a bit more okay, but also mostly gains some tags

[rapid wagon]

1d8 reach parry trip seems at least serviceable

the reach being the star of that show

[warped orbit]

yeah that one is mostly fine

thanks to reach yeah

[rapid wagon]

certainly not standout, but not that bad, surely

[woeful pecan]

Magus weapon damage dice also matters a little less in the face of Spellstrike, which should be contributing to way more of your damage

My guess as to why staves can't have property runes is to help curb casters from butting in on martial territory too much. A magic staff will almost always be more useful to them than a weapon, so Paizo doesn't want it to be a serviceable weapon outside of heavy investment

And it is Literally Just a Stick

[rapid wagon]

weird question that i know the magus kind of solves, but does a magic staff count as a magic weapon when hitting stuff that cares about that?

[woeful pecan]

I would imagine so? But idk for sure

All I know is Spellstrike makes it inherently magical

[echo briar]

Early in the system, there was an abuse with shifting runes

People would just shift it into a gauntlet and true strike for days with a 2 handed weapon

[warped orbit]

ah, right

[echo briar]

Now you need to be a magus or have a very specific staff for that

[woeful pecan]

Found out our Witch's patron is The Resentment

Gonna have to look into those mechanics

[novel merlin]

It extends debuffs with a duration

Which is pretty great

Downside is that frightened doesn't have a duration

It's still basically the best debuff witch patron by a longshot

[woeful pecan]

Excellent

This is looking like a rock solid party then

[warped orbit]

Resentment is very good, yeah

you can extend stuff like Slow or Synesthesia

[tribal steeple]

Synesthesia is a diabolical debuff, would recommend.

[woeful pecan]

I heard about that spell yesterday, it looks NASTY

[warped orbit]

It is

It's very good

[woeful pecan]

Also, had a flavor idea for my spellbook

Since my character is an automaton, maybe she's had the book her whole life, and the spells I pick at level-up are already in there. They're just in dead languages she doesn't remember

[tribal steeple]

Our last Big Fight 1v4, the wizard went first and cast Stupefy, followed by Sorcerer (me) casting Synesthesia. The fight was remarkably easy from that point on.

[woeful pecan]

Helping my sister build her Kitsune Thief Rogue, suggested Tumble Behind as a class feat, and Battle Medicine for the skill feat. Ancestry side, I pointed her to Earthly Wilds as the heritage and Shapechanger's Intuition.

How's that for balancing simplicity with usefulness?

[warped orbit]

Probably fine

[trim bluff]

absolutely loving wrath of the righteous, finally got to the place where the world map unlocks, love the openness of it all

found woljif and instantly loved the guy, freed him and did the companion quest first thing lmao

[warped orbit]

Woljif is great

[woeful pecan]

Finally looked at the timeline and damn automatons are older than I thought

Around 7,000 years

[warped orbit]

yeah they are really old

[woeful pecan]

I'm just impressed that any of them haven't been killed

[warped orbit]

a lot of them probably have

[turbid dagger]

Yeee, they're Rare for a reason

[woeful pecan]

I mean even still, compared against how long it's been and how few there likely were to begin with

[desert vale]

Leshy

Pinecone leahy with a thing for fire

[woeful pecan]

Best class for a Medic archetype? I've got a friend interested lol

[warped orbit]

Forensics Investigator is an obvious one

I also played that myself, and it was very good

Monk could also do a good job

[surreal basin]

IMO it rivals cleric with full investment in medicine

[warped orbit]

Yeah I had the full suite of Medicine feats

Godless and Mortal Healing too

[surreal basin]

Sample

*same

I also had A Gun

[warped orbit]

Same lmao

I still think I would have been better off with just a shortbow, but the gun also worked mostly

I kept a gauntlet bow as an offhand if I needed to shoot again

[surreal basin]

It was disgusting for me because I basically used devise a stratagem to like

“Cheat” and almost exclusively do crits

[warped orbit]

I also archetyped into Eldritch Archer later (my GM let me use it with a gun instead of Beast Gunner)

[woeful pecan]

Devise a Stratagem is so cool to me conceptually

For a moment I considered taking the archetype to guarantee all my Spellstrikes landed

[surreal basin]

Same lmaaaao

Well

No

My GM let me do a custom weird thing with the Spellshot class archetype

We called it Child of Disaster

It tied into my characters backstory it was a whole thing

[turbid dagger]

Monk is commonly brought up for an unintuitive but very solid pick
They have high speed so Doctor's Visitation is even more powerful, and they typically have a free hand even in combat
And of course you can get stuff like Harmonize Self to reinforce your own self healing alongside being able to medicine your allies

[echo briar]

God, if only investigator had everything it needed in class.

DaS is so good, but it’s hampered by the fact that to actually use it effectively you need to take archetype feats

You want 2 action meta strikes that you can always use because you will never miss with them, or even always crit with them. You want ways to gain accuracy because you always know when that +2 matters. You want powerful non attack options for when you roll low. What does investigator have in class? None of it

[rustic cape]

Early-ish Season of Ghosts spoilers: ||Weird that the adventure doesn't natively anticipate the possibility of trying to reconcile Granny Hu and Mr. Matsuki. Our party did it, and our GM was like, "so fun fact,"||

[echo briar]

||same here lol||

[rapid wagon]

my medic monk got mercd by a hag almost as soon as he got created sadly -_-

now im playing a summoner heavily invested into medecine

[rustic cape]

Also: the foundry PF module's "I just took damage" voices are uh

[warped orbit]

it has that?

[rustic cape]

Maybe it's a mod?

The ones for women in particular suffer from the perennial problem with "I just took damage" VA noises.

[warped orbit]

either another module or an option we never used ourselves

but yeah I can imagine the issue

[rustic cape]

Every time my kineticist takes damage I think to myself, "wow I should really turn that off"

[vocal ember]

sounds annoying yeah

[rustic cape]

Finally got to use my kineticist's vitality blast!

[tribal steeple]

I'm sitting on mine still

We keep fighting living things :(

[warped orbit]

I got some good use out of it, but we also happened to fight a lot of undead

[tribal steeple]

We're running strength of thousands so a whole lotta stuff is decidedly alive

[rapid wagon]

would a kineticist doing a vitality blast in geb be illegal? Probably. But it kinda depends on who is watching right?

[rustic cape]

I took it knowing we were specifically doing Season of Ghosts, so >_>

[warped orbit]

ironically from what I hear, you don't actually face a lot of ghosts in SoT

or undead in general

[rustic cape]

Decent number of undead so far!

[tribal steeple]

I don't believe you, there's clearly an entire season of them

Four straight months of ghosts

[rustic cape]

Almost no ghosts, but that's because it's all more specific folkloric beings rather than Generic Ghosts

[woeful pecan]

How useful is darkvision in 2e?

[echo briar]

very

although the more of the party that has it, the better it is

[clever cobalt]

I never create a character without it tbh

[echo briar]

but even if you are the only one in the party with it, its still extremally good

[woeful pecan]

Cool cool

Just double-checking what ancestry feats I wanna take

[tribal steeple]

Early on I ran into a bunch of comical situations where my character was the only one who had darkvision, and thanks to the VTT's dynamic lighting I would confidently move my character token into totally unlit areas - because I myself didn't know they were unlit.

[echo briar]

Please note, while it is very good, you can also just buy darkvision with gold

[tribal steeple]

It's hard to replicate the boldness of "yeah I walk into the totally pitch black cave without fear" you get from from not even knowing the obstacle is present

[woeful pecan]

My options on my Automaton Magus boil down to:

• touch telepathy
• darkvision
• built-in armor (I have no idea how good it is)

Looks like it's worse than a breastplate until level 5?

[tribal steeple]

• probably not very useful?
• useful if nobody is the designated Light cantrip caster
• useful if you don't want to spend base gp and want to never be caught without your armor

[warped orbit]

On a Magus, the integrated armor isn't that useful

[tribal steeple]

like, darkvision is cool but if Player 1 is all about playing around in low-light/darkness and then Player 2, 3, and 4 just have a Light cantrip on them that totally solves all darkness all the time, darkvision isn't gonna feel too useful in practice.

[woeful pecan]

What lists is Light on? We've got casters of all traditions, so surely SOMEONE could cover it theoretically

Oh it's on all of them

[warped orbit]

all of them

[woeful pecan]

Why on a Magus specifically?

[warped orbit]

because you can just wear a Breastplate and be fine

[tribal steeple]

As long as there's one spellcaster in the party, there's little excuse to not have ample light source (especially if they're a prepared caster)

[woeful pecan]

For comparison, I'm using a breastplate currently with +1 dex. The item bonus for the integrated armor scales up, eventually outpacing the breastplate, but being worse for the early levels

[warped orbit]

Reinforced Chassis is basically useful for Monks or casters, and that's mostly it

[woeful pecan]

I guess I just take the darkvision then?

[warped orbit]

at level 10 or higher, I suppose it becomes equivalent to heavy now yeah

[woeful pecan]

Or would the lore skill be worth taking?

[warped orbit]

it's a weird feat now, it used to just be literally a breastplate with comfort

[woeful pecan]

I'm not sure what additional skills I might want anyway. Medicine couldn't hurt but beyond that? 🤷‍♀️

[echo briar]

I would go with the darkvision, the enhancement is really good and again, darkvision will not be bad

light has a range, darkvision does not

[woeful pecan]

I'm not sure I'll be making much use of enhancements, I was planning on Core Attunement at 9th for extra spells

If I was gonna take enhancements, then the armor gets a reaction to attempt to negate a crit

[rustic cape]

Everybody tells me it's extremely important, but I think it depends a lot on your GM.

[turbid dagger]

I would go even further and say it depends on your VTT and the game you are playing
If you are on foundry doing an official AP it will inevitably be useful at some point because darkness will actually get implemented
If you are doing your GMs homebrew adventure on Roll20 there's a good chance they just won't bother saying 'this room is dark, do you have some way to see?'

[rustic cape]

But it can also depend on how much work Paizo put into the Foundry module >_>

I try to always get it, fwiw.

[tribal steeple]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPFEI_6yhUY
this is actually just our magus's playstyle

I don't know how he's such a magnet for critical hits.

[wooden orbit]

SoT, that was our magus during our first big boss fight.

Poor bastard just kept getting knocked into dying every time we got him back up.

Dude was beat to hell and back by the time the rest of us finished off the boss.

[tribal steeple]

This is also SoT, he's just a punching bag. I don't know what to tell him.

[wooden orbit]

Is he also playing a staff magus?

[tribal steeple]

No, whatever the two-handed one is though, Inexorable Iron I think?

free archetype into investigator because I'm 99% certain he's mostly just picking "blue rated things" to make a "good build"

so predictable - hatori hanzo

[wooden orbit]

rpgbot be like

[tribal steeple]

I get wanting to pick good things and not pick bad things, but I'd be more appreciative if it weren't so transparently evident to me.

[rapid wagon]

Could someone point me to the free archetype rule? Or is it a common house rule thing?

[tribal steeple]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2751

[rapid wagon]

Awesome, thank you

[tribal steeple]

It's fairly common but is a variant rule and therefore not the norm.

[sturdy lagoon]

Mmm rpgbot build

Like white bread in water

(Notably, he only used strict PFS, core material options for PF1e so his optimization advice was pointless in most home games anyways)

[tribal steeple]

Given how pathfinder 2e's math works, side-feats like this don't often turn into "overpowered" issues and are more "increased versatility". But as depicted above, sometimes it's used just to directly make the base class better.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1343727357181038725/1405674264086188072/190848C5-581D-4C42-AF3C-762B3089D7CD.mov?ex=68cc82ac&is=68cb312c&hm=68c264b0218c33f1f2ca28b7a84c9721602c8f0735f90c1a9671565a256f4b2f&
literally the Magus + Investigator mindset

[sturdy lagoon]

Also if you're using free archetype picks to optimize for combat instead of fleshing out your character for story reasons, you're not the intended audience of that option and the rule text literally says so

[tribal steeple]

they devise stratagem, do math to see if it'll crit, and decide to either spellstrike or do literally anything else that isn't attack rolls

[sturdy lagoon]

Free archetype does give a lot of power to players, but only if you're giving them free reign and taking easy optimization picks, which is why it suggests you vet or limit the options

[tribal steeple]

I'm pleased with my Kineticist (Wood/Metal) + Druid (Cultivation) mix. Up until now it's largely been flavor and a way to have the Stabilize and Light cantrips on hand (to save the people who get almost killed by the overly violent magus and solve the party's darkness problems respectively.

Now as of like 30 minutes ago I have access to a 1st and 2nd level slot and so many neat spells can go in there, like:
1st - Alarm, Ant Haul, Gentle Landing, Jump, Tailwind
2nd - Darkvision, Gecko Grip, Mist, One With Plants, Resist Energy, Steel Fortifications, Tailwind (+1), Water Breathing

The sad truth of the matter is that a lot of the potential of these spells will never be seen, as the group and gm simply do not play the game in a way where it matters most of the time. 😔

[sturdy lagoon]

A really easy thing is limiting it to social or other more out of combat focused archetypes, but if a combat archetype isn't being picked to further hyperspecalize into what they can already do, then that tends to keep the power scale more in line, and the most trouble you'll have is that your party tends to overlap in more roles or it is difficult to use obstacles without them always having a solution

[balmy orchid]

One sec

[sour venture]

anyone around familiar with pathbuilder who could help me troubleshoot something

[echo briar]

Look, class guides can be great, I’m working on one my self. The trick is to avoid rpgbot

[sour venture]

i did always wonder about rpgbot

good to know

[echo briar]

You also need to know how to use them.

They are great starting points, but power comes from synergy’s, not the best from a list.

[tribal steeple]

They certainly help as a way to identify what your options are that are even worth considering.

But following a guide rigorously to only pick the "best" things... bleg.

[echo briar]

Investigator ded isn’t even that good.

It’s so action hungry

If you’re going to minmax, at least go psychic

[sour venture]

specifically: Forge Warden (the level 10 shield) lists that it's a lesser reinforcing steel shield, and lists, presumably, its post-rune hardness and hit points (8 and 72, respectively)

pathbuilder says it's got 6 hardness and 24 HP when you open it up

but once you drop it onto a sheet it has 10 hardness and 40 hp

and if you put a moderate reinforcing rune on it in pathbuilder it bumps that to 13/104, which Does Not Seem Right either

is this pathbuilder bugging out, or am I genuinely missing something?

I am so confused since some of these numbers seem like they just don't come from anywhere? A steel shield is hardness 5 and 20 HP; where did the first pathbuilder set come from...

[surreal basin]

Hmm

I have no idea, I’d personally check archives of nethys and do the math there yourself

[sour venture]

AoN has the same stats as the thing in the book, so i guess there's that

[finite sequoia]

Sorry wrong channel lol

[sour venture]

followup question: are shield reinforcing runes cumulative? Or are they just

am I stuck with hardness 8 until way later, even while sturdy and special material shields jump ahead

followup to the followup: is there anything stopping me from making my base Steel Shield out of a special material? it's a specific item, which afaict has rules saying it can't be A Different Item, but I'm not sure if special materials count as that

[vocal ember]

you can upgrade the rune

hmm... I thiiink it can't be made with special materials since it's usually specified if a specific magic item is made with special materials

[sour venture]

right; I know I can upgrade the rune

what I'm unclear on is: if I upgrade the stock lesser reinforcing rune to a moderate reinforcing rune, paying the difference (600gp), does the shield end up with 8 hardness (base steel shield's 5 + 3 = 8) or 11 hardness (lesser reinforced steel shield's 8 + 3 = 11)?

[vocal ember]

8 I think.

Can't find the specific rule saying so, but iirc different types of items don't inherit anything from other types unless it says so.

I suppose this would be the rule https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=3149

[echo briar]

11

[sour venture]

ok hold on i found something

oh my god

Page 588: Forge warden's durability is too low. Increase its basic shield statistics to Hardness 10, HP 40, BT 20.

pre-remaster it was errata'd, apparently, because its hardness was very low for a level 10 shield

but post-remaster they... reverted it completely? I'm baffled

[uneven wren]

Our party needed to get information out of an enemy that has recently passed away due to no one's fault

I say don't worry, my divine sorcerer can get information

Gm "you don't have speak with dead"

No, I don't I have summon undead

[sour venture]

sometimes you gotta hire a subcontractor

[uneven wren]

Exactly!

[vocal ember]

it has more HP (72 now)

[sour venture]

the HP is coming from a reinforcement rune

it's got base 5 hardness and 20 hp now instead of the 10/40 post-buff pre-remaster or even the 6/24 pre-buff pre-remaster

🙃

[vocal ember]

well, pre-remaster there was no reinforcement rune

[sour venture]

while that's true, it doesn't exactly help the problem of me not being able to boost its hardness past 8 until i spent 2500gp on a greater rune

and even then it's still kinda shit compared to a sturdy shield there

that sucks

they really didn't want people using non-sturdy shields for defenses huh

i guess it's just the same situation as pre-remaster

🫠

[vocal ember]

sorry I wasn't trying to say it doesn't kinda suck I was just trying to explain how it works

[sour venture]

thanks for explaining

this is good to know

it's infuriating, but it's good to know

[surreal basin]

Yeah I

Kinda hate path builder tbh

[sacred bluff]

I'm almost always just writing out character sheets raw in word processors

[sour venture]

I have google docs sheets I use but I would definitely not be up for building in pf2e without pathbuilder making it easier, honestly

the books are just laid out in a way I don't grok

and AoN is... user-unfriendly imo

[woeful pecan]

Yeah AoN is best for referencing something you already know exists

[sour venture]

the thing it does where it will hover-show a page and have it go past the bottom of your screen, but if you try to scroll down it just disappears

drives me insane

[sacred bluff]

Yeahhhhh

[sour venture]

and like

i KNOW FOR A FACT that it can make the hover boxes appear above your mouse

[wooden orbit]

I use DemiPlane for SF2E, but eventually I'll start picking up PF2E stuff on Demiplane.

[sour venture]

it does it if it's a low enough line on the page

but isn't dynamic to your screen

arghghghh

XD

anyway

thanks for the help with the shield stuff

[wooden orbit]

But for PF2E still using Pathbuilder at the moment.

[sour venture]

this is immensely frustrating but I Suppose The Good News Is

I am just buying a sturdy shield

and now have more money

[warped orbit]

Sturdy shields will always have way more hardness

[surreal basin]

Yeah so sturdy shield is always better unless you wanna make a different special shield hardier

[warped orbit]

Reinforcement runes only meant other shields get any scaling at all

As opposed to none

[surreal basin]

I curse the days when they didn’t exist and basically all special shields were ass for the builds that used them most

[warped orbit]

Yeah

You basically could not use non Sturdy shields to block at all

[sour venture]

yeah

nowadays you still don't want that, afaict

since they're so far outstripped and you're spending so much more money if you want an on-level Cool Shield

maybe the spellguard shield, but like

sturdy just seems Objectively Better outside of weird edge cases if you want to block at all

which is the same as before, goofily

[warped orbit]

A shield with a Reinforcement rune can at least block a hit or two without breaking

[sour venture]

yeah but so would a non-reinforced shield

[warped orbit]

The issue previously was that their HP was so low they'd just instantly break or get destroyed

[sour venture]

oh wait i mixed up a thing

okay yeah hang on i was thinking the non-sturdy shields were better than they are pff

i was thinking "the hardness is how much damage the shield takes"

god, you really don't want to use anything but a sturdy shield on any build that Expects To Be Actively Blocking instead of "blocking once every so often" huh

they're better than they were pre-remaster for sure

but I don't see a world where I'd ever use one on an actively-blocking character XD

[warped orbit]

Well the thing with Shield Block is ultimately aldo that you want to block small hits

Somewhat counterintuitively

[sour venture]

well

since i plan on shield blocking twice a round every round ideally

i definitely need a sturdy shield

how disappointing

[warped orbit]

For heavy Block usage, yes you basically always want a Sturdy shield

[sour venture]

i was like "whoa forge warden is the coolest thing i want to build around that" but uhhhh

lol

[warped orbit]

It's been a pain point with shields since forever

And Reinforcement runes helped at least, but still leave magic shields relegated to specific situations mostly

[sturdy lagoon]

Okay, so it's not like RPGBot is incredibly bad, the ratings make sense within the confines he sets for himself. But all optimization guide writers are opinionated, and RPGBot had a very one-track, PFS-centric mind where you have to buy every book you use, farm points to use the cool player options, and play in short, simple modules, which was less helpful if you were playing a home game with AoN as an open book and longer, more well-rounded adventures. This is an opinion he has transliterated into 2e, IIRC.

[sour venture]

wild

[sturdy lagoon]

Generally I'd say the more optimization guides you can find on the same subject, the better, but not everything has multiple guides. Sometimes you're optimizing that one mechanic nobody remembers and you just have to wing it with one guide and a grain of salt.

[finite sequoia]

Finding a good guide on certain classes can be real annoying.

And RPGBot's style and format is very unappealing to me

[sour venture]

iiiii definitely know how that feels

i spent a good 20 years waiting for someone to make a good 3.5 ranger guide, before eventually just deciding to make one myself

that's such a weird statement

i've found the pf2e guides online to be consistently vaguely frustrating to dig into, ngl

[sturdy lagoon]

Also, if you're reading optimization guides, remember to still have fun. I like to set myself a concept for a character and then optimize within that concept, only taking options that make sense for the character or which most further the concept, or optimize a weird mechanical idea that itself might not be a 100% optimal choice but taking it to the limit (though the latter is more 1e because of the messed up shit you could do to that system if you looked hard enough). Thus the character is still designed to play well in a campaign, put together with awareness of how good the pieces are in practice, but also didn't just choose every highest option in a guide I found on class X.

[sour venture]

mmm

someday someone is going to make an items guide for pf2e and i will be so happy

guidemakers for D&Dlikes' aversion to long-form gear segments is always a bit annoying

even just a "here's a handful of items that are really good and here's the items you should plan to have by X level" would be great, and is missing from so many guides

[woeful pecan]

Pathfinder's balance also just seems a little more level, so there's less of a gap between optimal and less helpful abilities

[sour venture]

at the same time i'm not sure i'm ever gonna be happy with Reasonable Levels Of Item Guidance in handbooks so i really just live with that

[sturdy lagoon]

2e is a fascinating system for me

on one hand, more stuff just generally works and I worry less over my level-by-level choices having some glaring issue I missed

on the other hand, there are more restrictions in place, so I have to play around more with my concepts to get them to fit in

[woeful pecan]

At least it's less restrictions than 1e, and more options than D&D

Pf1e: oh you wanna dual wield? Take these three feats first. With dex? Here's three more.

D&D 5e: spontaneous int caster? New classes? What are these strange words?

Like it will never not be baffling to me that 5e added ONE new class in its entire lifespan, and they didn't even put it in the 2024 rulebook. Like???

[sour venture]

how long was the magic items section on the last guide i made... i think it was 89k words

man

i know that's not reasonable but i do wish more peolpe were Into Magic Items to the level I was

finding magic items is really tricky on AoN too

is there a better way or is that just the best we got

(genuine question, i'm currently trying to gear my character)

[sturdy lagoon]

1e's martial feat trees are a demon

don't play 1st party Patrol, just beg your GM to use Spheres of Might, spare thyself

[surreal basin]

I find a lot of PF2e guides unappealing mostly because people get really stuck on only caring about damage per round

And white room numbers stuff

[sturdy lagoon]

the mere fact that Patrol is 1st party but literally no crowd-control martial build I've seen uses it because it requires something like 6 fucking unrelated feats is fucked up

For the privilege of losing your entire action to AoO further until your next turn

Thank you PF1e, very cool

[woeful pecan]

See this was something I was excited to find out about, and disappointed there aren't more guides talking about it. Pf2e is a teamwork system.

So now I'm trying to comb through all the party builds and figure out how I can best enable everyone, and vice versa. We have a Guardian and Rogue, that much writes itself, but what can my Magus do? What can it benefit from?

[fossil dome]

Magus wants alllllll the to-hit buffs it can get

[woeful pecan]

And subsequently, debuffs to enemy AC

I plan to Trip on my off turns to enable the Rogue, but beyond that idk

Doesn't help that Magus looks to be a pretty selfish class in general lol

[surreal basin]

It definitely is lll

[sturdy lagoon]

I mean, you're still a spellcaster and your spell choice says a lot. Some damaging spells have pretty good rider effects and there might be something another player is interested in.

You can also commit magus heresy and prepare something other than damage in your slots, though that's not necessarily a good idea when you're fairly limited on slots to maintain necessary buffs and debuffs for every fight.

[finite sequoia]

There are a couple class specific guides that talk about this. Tarandor's Wizard guide for example

Have you seen the guide masterlist btw?

https://zenithgames.blogspot.com/2019/09/pathfinder-2nd-edition-guide-to-guides.html?m=1

For those who dont know

[rustic cape]

I would actually say the only items other than basic potency runes that Everybody Should Have are boots of bounding

Stuff that makes it easier to shake off persistent damage is high value but not essential.

What would be really useful is a guide to items that provide item bonuses to skills, because while AoN lists them all going through them to figure out what to get can be a pain.

Implicitly also apex items.

[solar storm]

Another good everyone item are snapleaf talismans

After like level 4 they’re very cheap and incredible utility

[stuck bane]

Oh wow those are super cheap

[rustic cape]

Oh, the Potion Hat.

The Potion Beer Hat.

[stuck bane]

And we’ve had a share of fall-risk scenarios in outlaws so far

[rustic cape]

That one I always forget about but it’s rad

[finite sequoia]

A Spacious Pouch is pretty needed among the party as a whole

[desert vale]

Does the Earth show up in Starfinder?

[uneven wren]

Earth (aka golarion) is gone and no one knows where it is

[desert vale]

Earth and Golarion are gone?

[clever cobalt]

Earth does not show up in Starfinder

Canonically its unreachable as its in an entirely different galaxy

Desna's Path is not the Milky Way

[uneven wren]

I just meant that golarion is a stand in for earth

[clever cobalt]

Earth exists in the setting though

As a completely different planet than Golarion

[uneven wren]

This is something I wasn't aware of

[clever cobalt]

Baba Yaga is canonically from Earth

And theres an AP in 1e (Winter's Wrath iirc) where the players end up in Russia in 1918

Sorry, Reign of Winter

(Rasputin is canonically Baba Yaga's grandson)

[uneven wren]

That's something

[clever cobalt]

Also Anastasia Romanov (yes, that one) is the queen of Irresin after she gets taken to Golarion

[uneven wren]

And it's not like multiverse travel they are just in different galaxies?

[clever cobalt]

She's still on the throne in "current" Pathfinder

Yeah

[uneven wren]

What "canonical" ways can people travel to different galaxies?

[clever cobalt]

Magic

[desert vale]

Apparently Rovagug was attacking Earth, Golarian, and a third world together

[wary yoke]

It's where Cthulhu is napping

[uneven wren]

That's gotta be some crazy magic

[clever cobalt]

Its never elaborated on beyond "Baba Yaga is one of the strongest Casters in the entire setting"

In 1e she has the same CR as Cthulhu

Also yeah Lovecraft stuff is canon to Pathfinder

Including the stuff limited to Earth

In Strange Aeons you go to a Dreamlands version of Paris and fight a boss at the Eiffel Tower

Not exaggerating

[desert vale]

I kind of like the idea of Pathfinder Earth being somewhere anyone sane avoids because its a major center for mythos stuff.

[uneven wren]

I've been wondering if one were somehow able to travel through the drift to another galaxy would you bring like a whole star or something into the drift?

[clever cobalt]

Yeah same

Earth is its own weird place, but thats because its full of Mythos stuff as opposed to being a Prison Planet for a Destroyer God

[clever cobalt]

Id say up to GM interpretation, as vague as that is

Again, there really isnt any lore beyond "Baba Yaga can just do that because shes absurdly powerful"

[desert vale]

I would have put it in the same galaxy as Golarian but also. Have it be in one of the most dangerous places in space

Earth that is

[clever cobalt]

There's a thing my friend made that I like to think is canon to Pathfinder

Though thats just headcanon

Basically the Stars were Riggt and Cthulhu rose and etc etc

And... the world kept turning

So lovecraftian stuff exists in the open and Humanity has adapted to it

Its where this thing I like to post is from

[rustic cape]

Baba Yaga’s been described as having chosen not to be a god because it would impose limitations on her.

She’s the witch. It is to everyone’s benefit that she’s more bored, mean, and cynical than malicious.

[silver geyser]

Yeah, Baba Yaga is no Tar Baphon thankfully.

Though she would consider his method of immortality a chump move.

Why hide your soul when you can do the way more baller action of hiding your death?

[woeful pecan]

Helping my little sister with her character, weapon suggestions for a thief rogue?

She was drawn to a sickle concept-wise, but its stats and traits don't look super impressive

[silver geyser]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=473

[woeful pecan]

Seems like a lot of traits for her to keep track of, it'd probably be better for her to have something with a bigger die and less traits

[turbid dagger]

For a simple thief rogue, basically you want a finesse weapon in one hand and a finesse agile weapon in another
Optionally something like thrown too
So bog standard classic is something like rapier + short sword
A fancier play might be getting advanced prof for dual tamchal chakrams
If she likes the sickle, the Lion Scythe is a martial sickle with better damage, both mechanically and flavor wise, and can fill both hands of a thief rogue beautifully

[woeful pecan]

Would she ideally want to dual wield?

[turbid dagger]

Probably! Early feats lean that way and even the two handed finesse weapons are mere d8s
An easy early game combo is Tumble Behind->Twin Feint
A stride and two sneak attacks

[woeful pecan]

She's already taking Tumble Behind, so noted

[warped orbit]

reach is also very good to have on Rogue

so I would also toss in a rec for the Elven Branched Spear

or Dancer's Spear

[woeful pecan]

Looks like our Guardian is going with a khopesh

[sour venture]

boy

i'm really glad that google docs added dropdown stuff like this, it makes maintaining characters in pf2e a lot easier

[wooden orbit]

I pray we never acknowledge Earth in the setting again

[woeful pecan]

Oo wait she might like a fighting fan

[rustic cape]

My hot take is that thief rogue loves to be unarmed

But one of the finesse spears is a great alternative.

[tribal steeple]

Karate chop hands

[echo briar]

Rapier and free hand is the simplest setup

They don’t need to worry about stowing if they want to drink a potion or do battle medicine or open a door.

You can even give them a buckler to teach them about 3rd actions

[woeful pecan]

I'll definitely present the option, though knowing her she'll probably want a little more flair

Also! Looks like we'll be using relics, GM just told me what mine is. My spellbook is the Codex of Lost Histories, with the Time and Mind aspects, and the Repository of Knowledge gift (3 free lore skills!)

[rustic cape]

Honestly as long as she's getting a d6 or a d8 to damage with 1-2 non-sucky tags, she'll be golden. Thief Rogue is really solid.

[woeful pecan]

Yeah, I was reading over the subclasses and that one immediately jumped at me. Simple, effective, it's perfect. Especially since she's already familiar with five me to some degree, so she can just keep using the finesse rules she's used to

Looks like she's settled on a bladed scarf

[rustic cape]

It's the most straightforward rogue by far and arguably also the strongest.

[woeful pecan]

Really now? I knew it was at least okay, but I didn't think it'd be quite that good

Ah I see now, didn't realize Rogue had subclass specific feats

[rustic cape]

Dex to damage is a really strong benefit in a game where pluses are few but significant, and Precise Debilitations at level 10 is amazing.

[woeful pecan]

Mhm mhm

[warped orbit]

Precise is good for just being extra sneak damage, if you don't need anything else

Rogue in general can do some crazy numbers with Opportune Backstab

take Gang Up as well, and enemies are basically always flanked

[woeful pecan]

Yeah I've heard about those feats, which on its speaks to their efficacy

[woeful pecan]

On a different topic, any particular staves I should watch for? For Twisting Tree specifically

[desert vale]

Pyrophylic Healing. If you take 1 fire damage do you heal 1 hp or 0 hp

[woeful pecan]

Pyrophilic Recovery? It specifies minimum 1

[desert vale]

Looked up quest for the frozen flame. Interesting. Still thinking of pyromaniac oracle leshy character idea and she would fit there.

[rustic cape]

As a note, Tempest's price tag is probably a typo.

Every other stave of equivalent level is around 4,000 gold, while Tempest is 14,000.

[echo briar]

At -20 f, it is both extremely cold and severely cold

[rustic cape]

Dang

[echo briar]

I guess you just need to make a save every 10 minutes, with an additional one every hour

It’s survived the remaster and starfinder, so it must be intentional

[vocal ember]

I guess the Spellstriker Staff is the obvious suggestion, tho I think that one got restricted in PFS for being OP? A Staff of the Unblinking Eye could be nice.

There are also some pre-remaster rules to create custom staves: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1499

[woeful pecan]

I guess? But I wouldn't really make use of the shifting property

[vocal ember]

ah, good point

[surreal basin]

It’s pretty good even without

Do convince your GM to replace acid grip with acid arrow like it used to have tho

[woeful pecan]

Does the Resentment Witch's familiar ability work on Evil Eye?

[novel merlin]

I dont believe so?

I did find this though
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/187ob1t/the_resentment_witch_project_a_list_of/

[warped orbit]

it doesn't because the Sickened from Evil Eye doesn't have a duration

which Sickened and Frightened usually don't, since they decrease in other ways

[woeful pecan]

Chat first session is tomorrow, what accent/voice do I do

Because I have no idea

• What a Jistkan accent would sound like
• If she'd still have one
• What she would sound like instead

[light gyro]

what's the role of a Summoner in combat? what's the usual game-plan?

[surreal basin]

Depends on ur Eidolon but usually

Ur eidolon gets into the thick of it while you hang back and support it with spells

[surreal basin]

For this since hour ago

[astral prawn]

Jistkans were assumed to be primarily Garundi ethnically

[wraith snow]

Friendfetch is such a fun spell, extremely versatile for when combats start to break down

[rapid wagon]

guys im so tired, i think my summoner is dying next. A giant brass bullt monster thing showed up behind me and just dummy dropped me

all my healers be dying

pretty much every big fight

[wraith snow]

It be that way sometimes

[woeful pecan]

Yeah, I did see that. Unfortunately for me, as far as I can tell, Garund seems to mostly parallel real-world Africa and I'm too white to do that one

[astral prawn]

Garundi are more northern africa than Mwangis rest of Africa

[astral prawn]

But yeah I understand that

[turbid dagger]

Personally what I'd do is like
Try and imitate Ana Amari
Just listen to Ana voicelines until you have 'old north african lady' down

[surreal basin]

How many healers do h have

[rapid wagon]

just me

[warped orbit]

no one else can get you back up?

[rapid wagon]

and an off healer bard

I got brought back by the bard this time

as in brought back up

but dying still isnt off the table

everyone in the party has dropped at least once

and the thing we're fighting isn't particularly worse for wear

[rapid wagon]

im just like the only character who has died at every major fight

and so i keep making new healers, and die anyway

[surreal basin]

….

You might want to like…

Reevaluate something

Cause that’s not normal lol

Or just ask your GM to maybe target you less

[rapid wagon]

we're in blood lords, so there are not many of other healers

[surreal basin]

Yeah I mean maybe your GM shouldn’t be what sounds like focusing down the healer every fight

[rapid wagon]

He's actually not intentionally, but the way the party moves often just exposes me to harm

First healer was a kineticist, second was a monk, third, current one, is a summoner

[surreal basin]

…. If you need to make another I recommend cleric using three action harm LMAO

Or two action

kineticist died??

[vocal ember]

hmm... yeah those aren't exactly the squishiest classes

[rapid wagon]

||Decrosia is out here critting for like 80 damage, having beef has been irrelevant||

[warped orbit]

you are either supremely unlucky, unintentionally getting targeted by the GM
or it's also in part on the rest of your party

[surreal basin]

||which one of them is that||

[rapid wagon]

||Rust hag, with the rifle||

||I spent the early rounds picking people up from monster crits, then the metal effigy construct came in from my side of the combat after everyone else moved to the other side, of the fight, meaning i got bulldozed||

[warped orbit]

on the max end
the average is more like 50-60

if you did get hit for 80, that's very unlucky

[wraith snow]

My group has done it

We've failed Kingmaker

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is over

Pathfinder: Balkanization has begun

[warped orbit]

Damn

[rapid wagon]

The party scattered, and I'm just booking it, im not losing another character in this fight, but sadly this means i left behind two other characters who were down. My character keeping themself alive suits the character though

[vocal ember]

do you just sorta end up being the most durable character so you're consistently put into vulnerable positions?

[rapid wagon]

the latter imo

the part is relatively undergeared, and low ACs, but the GM has also just been extremely lucky, critting all over the place

[warped orbit]

Wdym undergeared?

[rapid wagon]

well thats the GM's assessement

[warped orbit]

Are you not getting enough money to buy stuff?

[rapid wagon]

I think not buying the right stuff a little, not using the items we have appropriately

probably

and then like of our 2 front liners, one didn't have a magic weapon at all until recently

[warped orbit]

Also what's your AC?

Oh, yeah that's really bad

What level are you?

[rapid wagon]

Baseline 20, I'm not wearing armor

lvl 6

[warped orbit]

Yeah you definitely should have a +1 striking weapon on everybody at 6

[rapid wagon]

I have +1 striking handwraps

our champ has a scythe of the same

our fighter does not

i think he got an earthbreaker recently

[warped orbit]

Yeah they've been missing out on a huge amount of damage

They should have had Striking since level 4 already

[rapid wagon]

they're not very cognizant, the fighter, of options and how to do stuff

[warped orbit]

What's your Dex?

[rapid wagon]

2

or +2

[warped orbit]

Hmm, yeah that's also kinda low

[rapid wagon]

im 3/2/3/1/1/3

should swap the str and dex

but thats life

[warped orbit]

You'd ideally wanna be at +4 Dex at this point

And/or pick up some armor prof

[rapid wagon]

armor prof is prolly my best bet

i kinda thought id have my summon up more often and it would be in front or taking hits more than me

[warped orbit]

You don't have your eidolon manifested?

[rapid wagon]

i did till i got knocked out

but as i mentioned my early actions were taken up picking up the other characters got dropped like a sack of potatoes by rifle crits

so like multiple turns spent battle medicining

and i didn't have a turn to be able to put my eidolon between me and the big construct that showed up before it just charged meand put me down

[warped orbit]

Do you usually manifest in combat?

You can just do that during exploration already

[rapid wagon]

In this scenario there wasnt a better opportunity, considering we were trying to infiltrate, the beast eidolon seemed more a liability

in terms of drawing attention

[vocal ember]

yeah, having the necessary gear is non-optional. at this point everybody should have +1 armor and anybody who needs weapons should have +1 striking.

[rapid wagon]

yeah thats not the case really

and none of the players who dont fish around online about the game have any inclination to think as much

but hopefully we can get that to happen

[rustic cape]

If you don't want to worry about that, definitely raise using ABP.

[rapid wagon]

Abp?

[warped orbit]

Automatic Bonus Progression

[vocal ember]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2741

[rustic cape]

It's not a perfect solution but it ensures you get the pluses on schedule.

[rapid wagon]

oh huh, that might be worth looking into

[surreal basin]

Yeah like

This isn’t under geared

Not getting the fundamental runes is unfortunately just throwing lol

[clever cobalt]

https://bsky.app/profile/staryoshi06.bsky.social/post/3lzbuhvgqcc2g

(@staryoshi06.bsky.social)

pc: I’m going to cast-

the intimidating Reactive Strike popping up in the Foundry chat:

Bluesky · Sep 20, 2025, 5:06 PM

[woeful pecan]

First session was a hit!

Managed to not let anyone go down the entire time

[turbid dagger]

Eyyyy, awesome

[woeful pecan]

And! We already hit level 2

[trim grotto]

What monk stances do y'all enjoy

[rustic cape]

Stumbling

[silver geyser]

Mountain.

[rustic cape]

Wolf.

[turbid dagger]

Waterfowl, Stumbling, Crane, Stoked Flame, off the top of my head

[rustic cape]

Peafowl is rad.

[warped orbit]

Wolf and Tiger are good

[rustic cape]

10-foot steps are rad.

[tribal steeple]

I got to use heavenseeker for a long while, was pretty rad

Fear my lightning karate chops

[rapid wagon]

Sounds like a lot of the styles are fun and cool

[trim bluff]

playing wotr, just got into a fight with a bunch of rat swarms, except i was above them and triggered the fight in a way that felt really unintended
-1 rat swarm did not move
-1 rat swarm tried to get to me but gave up halfway, i could also melee attack it despite being like 20 feet above it
-1 rat swarm waited until 3 rounds of everyone else being dead but combat still continuing to come into existence, phasing through walls to do so

[novel merlin]

Most functional owlcat game

[stuck bane]

Oh I remember that encounter. It’s near the market square yeah?

I feel like it plays out that way weirdly consistently for me

[limber comet]

Hello chat

I'm playing a Witch in an AV game

I was looking for pictures for my familiar

Have this superb specimen

[surreal basin]

I got to see heaven seeker before they nerfed it

So fucking sick

It was on a flurry ranger too

[desert vale]

Wait. Why do kholo favor flails?

[surreal basin]

Cause gnolls do in dnd presumably

[errant roost]

D&D loves to make flails the evil version of maces (which are the classic Good Cleric weapon), so Yeenoghu the no good hyena demon-god likes flails

[desert vale]

Alright.

[surreal basin]

There’s no diagetic answer I’m aware of

If that’s what u mean

[desert vale]

nodnod was suddenly struck by the fact that flails are tird to agriculture

[turbid dagger]

At the very least, for their bespoke ancestral flail, the spirit thresher
They believe it
Well
Threshes the soul of those killed by it like a agricultural flail

[sour venture]

does anyone know if there are universal ancestry feats other than the fey and reincarnation ones?

my group is using ancestry paragon and I feel like I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel on feats I have available for my level 9/11 feats, and wondering about branching out

[warped orbit]

It's just those I think

[sour venture]

dang

followup question: are there any items that perhaps heighten innate spells? there's the level 9 centaur feat that gives heroism 1/day but it's not heightened so it feels like I'm better off just. Casting the spell out of a 6th-level slot.

[vocal ember]

I'm not aware of any unfortunately. Paizo does have a problem of making a lot of ancestry feats that give you an innate spell that spell doesn't scale.

[sour venture]

gotcha

thanks!

[vocal ember]

tho heroism's never bad, there's not a ton of status bonuses in the game, so it'll probably have some use or other.

[tribal steeple]

At least nowadays ancestry lores automatically scale in proficiency

[sour venture]

at level 11, between a level 3 heroism that also grants 10 hp, and "reroll a failed mental effect save," which would y'all rec

[light gyro]

What class?

[sour venture]

animist, on a fuckass focus spell + shoves and raise shield and steps + sustained spell build

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hWOcDhnhmiUhmdcPRtJeAbYEB_aXuCQyxhWh9HR-cmE/edit?usp=sharing

i figure if i want heroism i can just get it as a spell, but since the level 9 feats on my build (sarangay + adopted centaur) don't seem great, maybe an "extra 3rd level slot" is worth a feat? idk

[light gyro]

Ough, not seen one in play. Probably heroism to help with shoves. Mental effects on casters can get pretty nasty but they're much rarer

Oh, actually, would demoralise get rerolled? not a save. Guess it depends on whether you feel more confident in your offense or defense

[sour venture]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5336

context

i'm pretty confident in my offense for now

i'll just go for this ig

[wraith snow]

I don't know if you're using it but iirc battle form is a status bonus already plus you should have access to real heroism from a slot which is basically always worth it imo

I would go for the mental effect save personally

[rustic cape]

Do you have adopted ancestry?

[sour venture]

yeah

[rustic cape]

Ah, can’t add more with that, then. What are your ancestry + adopted?

[sour venture]

sarangay + centaur

[rustic cape]

Have you got Awakened Jewel and Deflecting Jewel already?

[sour venture]

awakened jewel yes, deflecting jewel no

deflecting jewel seems... okay, i guess?

1/encounter or 1/2 encounters +2 to AC against a ranged attack? but i'm a very reaction-heavy build

[vocal ember]

Stubborn Defiance seems good to me.

[sour venture]

👍

[wraith snow]

Strange request, but does anyone have any suggestions for bougie camping gear available at low levels? The classic popout house items or other things like that.

I'm playing a noble and our party is going to be spending the foreseeable future in the woods so I want to try and pull out the flavour options to show how out of their element they are

[solar storm]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1048

Very low level but bougie

[wraith snow]

Very low level is fine

The party in that game is only level 7 and I also need to buy a staff

[frozen hatch]

Would it be feasible to combine Shattered Star and Return of the Runelords into one mega campaign of sorts? Alternate the order of the books between the two campaigns with slow xp progression (or milestone) for leveling. Start off with book one of Shattered and then after getting established, start with book 1 of Return to help set up that both the major threats for both campaigns are starting to be active and threats related to rhe Sihedron are also associated with the returning Runelords.

Is this train of thought worth further consideration or a foolhardy idea not worth pursuing?

For PF1E if that is relevant.

[novel merlin]

Are your players up for like a 2-3year campaign?

Probably longer

1e is not exactly super fast to run

You'd end up in low level hell for a long time

[frozen hatch]

Yeah progression being slow would definitely be something I would try to make sure the players understood.

[woeful pecan]

Only two days since my first session and I'm already trying to figure out if I can't squeeze in another game somewhere (I can't)

[heavy fulcrum]

actually that reminds me, my group is going to be doing Wrath of the Righteous (2e) once we finished our current campaign (soon) and im going to need some character ideas

[woeful pecan]

Is there an official port or just homebrew?

[wraith snow]

Homebrew

[heavy fulcrum]

homebrew, yeah

my GM has been steadily working on converting everything on the side

[frozen hatch]

Last I heard of a friend trying to convert a 1e AP was them trying to see which campaign would work best if modified to use the PTU system instead. Essentially which adventure path would work best if Pokémon was introduced. I wished him luck and havent heard any updates on his madness since.

[woeful pecan]

Looking at Kineticist (yes AtLA is my favorite show how'd you guess), there's SO many options I don't even know where to start

[tribal steeple]

fortunately despite having so many options, being restricted to 1 or 2 at the start really narrows it down - you just have to block out all the ones you don't have access to in order for it to be visually palatable

[woeful pecan]

See but then I have to actually make the choice

A pyromaniac goblin? Florida man wood/water leshy? Earth/air sandblasting? The possibilities are VAST

[tribal steeple]

I think it's best to tailor actual decisions to the group and what the group is doing (Adventure Path? Dungeoncrawl? Sandbox?), while dabbling in the myriad options of the Kineticist class as a whole is kept to just plotting out lots of drafts in Pathbuilder

go make a pathbuilder for the goblin, the leshy, etc, but unless you have a more concrete expectation of what you're gonna be playing in it doesn't help to sit there thinking about all of it

[woeful pecan]

Oh yeah no this is purely theorybuilding

[plucky snow]

Make all of them, then!

[desert vale]

In Starfinder 1e how good is 5/- DR at 6th level?

I would guess okay

Have minimal practical experience

[surreal basin]

DR/-? that’s incredible

Grab that

That 5 damage off literally everything

[desert vale]

I thino you can get that with Broken Cycle, Electrical Attunement, and the Dark Matter revelation... Which looking now takes a move action to activate.

I just randomly read the solarian class because looking at videogame with celestial magic with similar vibe

[woeful pecan]

Continuing to theorybuild at work, and my class wishlist is just getting longer lol

[tribal steeple]

Try not to get lost agonizing over how awesome most of the 18th level feats are. "Choose between awesome name A and awesome name B" type stuff.

Metal gets Hell of 1,000,000 Needles which, I mean, come on

[woeful pecan]

Oh yeah no I'm looking mostly at level 5 and below

And even beyond that, if it's not enjoyable and functional out of the box, I try to avoid it

[sour venture]

[finds a new interaction]

[ah fuck i need to adjust my build for this cus Hell Yeah]

[wait now i have to regear]

i am in a hell of my own making

[light gyro]

oh thank god paizo almost has that new store done

[echo briar]

God paizo is a great company.

I am the treasurer of a university tabletop club, whos trying to run a pathfinder night. I emailed them to see if I could get a bulk discount. They're giving them to us for free.

[rustic cape]

It’s such a weird change from how they used to be, but it seems like the old ghouls have mostly left or been kicked upstairs.

[frank crystal]

I’m kinda bummed I wasn’t able to get that remote job with them

Not surprised but still bummed

[sour venture]

man, a build rework has left me needing to get 440gp worth of stuff and i'm totally lost

i thought i was done with gear XD

maybe i should just buy a bazillion consumables

[rustic cape]

Yeah probably

You're an animist so you don't need out-of-combat healing stuff but talismans could be good pickups

[sour venture]

i got the aeon stone that zeroes out the skill penalties of keyword debuffs of 1

since i'm just rolling shove unless i'm casting

[woeful pecan]

I have so far cooked up, in addition to my automaton Magus:

• Gulruk Fairborn, Orc aiuvarin Thaumaturge, wielding the superstition of their mother's people and the gathered knowledge of their father's
• Silfen Wael, Human Cosmos Oracle, who glimpsed the infinite after falling asleep under the stars during the solstice.

[rustic cape]

Fun aiuvarin fact: if you use adopted ancestry to access multitalented from human, you still get the aiuvarin benefit :D

[edgy skiff]

Concept: Rina, Kitsune Triggerbrand Gunslinger with the Justice Champion archetype. A flashy acrobat with a gunsword, dancing in the air and raining fire down before finishing her foes off with a massive slash that glows with holy light.

[tribal steeple]

I still can't stop thinking about the centaur guardian whose Shove action does a flat 20 damage

Centaur: Practiced Brawn - +1 to shove, shove success becomes crit success
Guardian: Punishing Shove - deal STR as damage on shove (2x dmg on crit shove). Scales with athletics proficiency (base STR+2/6/12)

At level 1 your shove does 8 damage AND push 10ft

Pushing nerds around so hard they keel over entirely

[wary yoke]

In 1E our centaur race had a trait where it did extra damage with its hooves when it was flanked, glad to see the legacy of a centaur braining people with their kicks has a solid legacy

[tribal steeple]

The specific character idea i had to go with it was human adopted ancestry Centaur to get practiced Brawn, the idea being that this is actually a human who was raised by and around horse-people and was necessarily required to be capable of rough-housing on their level

[sour venture]

my character in the game im gonna play in uses this combo

[tribal steeple]

It should be
1st - 8 flat damage
3rd - 12 flat damage
7th - 20 flat damage
10th - 24 flat damage
15th - 34 flat damage
The scaling sure looks strange

Certainly not stellar damage compared to a hefty martial crit, but this is coming from a defender/controller with no gold or rune investment

[sour venture]

yeah

bring Aggressive Block and get a non-rolled autosuccess Shove on each shield block too (shouldn't convert to a crit since it's just "you Shove them automatically") for the standard damage too

😄

[rustic cape]

Today in Season of Ghosts:

CAT

[rustic cape]

Also, low level uses of Summon Fey: summon a naiad, which has the ability to speak with animals.

oh thank god

[frozen hatch]

Would it be reasonable/feasible to run book 1 of Strange Aeons as a standalone multi-part oneshot for friends for October or would it take too long to run if played weekly?

[woeful pecan]

Depends on how long your sessions are

Iirc AP books usually take 2-3 months

[rustic cape]

Hot take: kip up should be a general feat.

[sour venture]

agreed

[woeful pecan]

Trying to decide if I should prioritize Magical Crafting or Magical Shorthand

I'll take one at 4, and the other at 6

[rustic cape]

Broadly I think fleet, incredible initiative, toughness, adopted ancestry, etc. are good general feats and that general feats should mostly be stuff that Everybody Wants.

[novel merlin]

I think kip up shouldn't be a general feat specifically because it would just kinda make trip not very useful

It's a good payoff for acrobatics and it makes it so trip is pretty good into characters who dump dex not just have a get out of jail free button

(unless they do take acrobatics even with bad dex)

[warped orbit]

I have done this on frontline PCs tbh

Kip Up is generally worth it I think, if you can take being one skill down

[sour venture]

yeah i feel like most characters want to get acrobatics even with bad dex, just for kip up

which speaks to me as uhhh

either Kip Up is too strong, or it shouldn't be limited to master acrobatics

[solar storm]

It being at master acrobatics is weird

[sour venture]

or it should be Acrobat Boots

and take the boots slot like in 4e, instead of a feat

and then there's a more meaningful opportunity cost other than "lose one skill for this effect"

[rustic cape]

That’s it, though. Kip up is that good (and acrobatics has a bunch of other skill feats that become really excellent at Master and Legendary).

[woeful pecan]

Just found out about Familiar Master for our Witch. Holy shit

Also need to tell y'all that her flavoring is AMAZING. Resentment patron with a water theme. Familiar is a cat who is ALWAYS sopping wet and is very upset about it

[rustic cape]

Not even because of trip. But rather because every character will, sooner or later, get downed by an enemy with reactive strike. And then they’ll receive healing, and their party will have to play The Reaction Game so they can spend an action getting to their feet.

Unless they have kip up.

[warped orbit]

There's also a lot of other effects that can prone you

[rustic cape]

I could see alternately tethering it to the Acrobat archetype

[sour venture]

i don't think kip up makes these effects useless on the GM side; i think that there is merit in effects that down you until your turn, and I think that having the party pay a cost to escape a serious danger is a core part of buildcrafting in this kind of game

[rustic cape]

So that it’s still a very good pickup but requires more consideration.

[sour venture]

imo it's a good thing that the party can strategically negate some threats before they happen, by building for them

the problem i have with kip up is that its cost is

weird

it's not that it's overcosted

i want it to have a real opportunity cost

but "you get one less skill (and skills are cool things for utility) in exchange for a crucial combat defense" is a Wonky Cost

i'd much rather it be a general feat, competing with other Very Good General Combat Feats, or an item, competing with the Very Important Boots Slot

[warped orbit]

Acrobatics is pretty generally useful too tbh

Catfall is also nice to have

[sour venture]

yeah

catfall is also really good

coincidentally, catfall also shuts down a vector of proning,

[rustic cape]

… thinking about it I really like the idea of putting it on Acrobat.

[warped orbit]

as is some other stuff like Steady Balance or Quick Squeeze

(Stead Balance if your GM ever actually remembers the Balance action)

[rustic cape]

Slippery Prey and Steady Balance are amazing, Cat Fall is rock solid, and Nimble Crawl suddenly becomes crazy at Legendary

[sour venture]

gonna be real unless you mean in addition to its existing options, i hate that a lot

"to get a crucial combat defense that the game really wants you to have, you're now locked into a specific dedication and thus 3 class feats, shutting down buildcrafting severely"

a dedication that gets like

[warped orbit]

Acrobatics is also weird because a lot of its good options are fairly low level and then just keep scaling with your proficiency

[sour venture]

all the cool acrobatics defense feats, as class feats

as an option to get it instead of maxing the skill

would be cool though

[rustic cape]

I mean keeping it a skill feat but requiring acrobat dedications

But also making it count for getting out of acrobat dedication

[rustic cape]

But yeah in some ways acrobatics feels like the model skill for skill feats

[warped orbit]

It would definitely be nice if more skills were like Acrobatics, yes

[woeful pecan]

Meanwhile I just take Quick Jump and have to wait for it to be more useful

[sour venture]

yeah i hate this ngl

mostly like

[rustic cape]

JSYK, archetype skill feats count for leaving an archetype. This is one of the reasons Medic is so amazing — treat condition gets you out at level 4.

[sour venture]

the only reason i am willing to engage with pf2e at all is the buildcrafting of dedications and archetypes

That Is The Meat Of PF2e For Me

locking a crucial combat defense that literally everyone wants to "yeah delay the cool stuff of your build for it 🙂 " sucks ass

[rustic cape]

See, I would strongly consider skipping Kip up if that were the cost

I probably even would on most builds

And on the flip side acrobat has other skill feats tethered to it

[sour venture]

in the end

it's a question of

"do you want kip up to be a very limited thing that many people can't afford, or do you want kip up to be a common thing that most people get"

i err on the latter side

it prevents death spirals, it gives good counterplay to proning, and proning tools are still useful for monsters since it can't be used off-turn

in the end, I want more skill feats like kip up

[rustic cape]

Either way, really

The present arrangement is just not ideal

I kinda want general feats to be more attractive in general

[sour venture]

if kip up was one of many, many Good Feats Like That

then the fact that its cost is trivial but weird would matter

the fact that the vast majority of skill feats are like

"under a full moon, get a +1 bonus to jumping up ledges of exactly 8 feet, while near a werewolf"

is the problem really

so people go "sure yeah acrobatics has good skill feats i'll grab it, it's a gimme"

acrobatics is weird because it has a set of extremely useful skill feats, something most skills don't

[rustic cape]

Prone is just ubiquitous enough for it to be rock solid, but one could do good stuff with other status conditions, especially sickened or frightened which are pretty common and hard-hitting as well.

[turbid dagger]

The first time I actually used the Make An Impression skill action as opposed to the GM going 'idk roll me diplomacy' was like two weeks ago I admit

[sour venture]

if there were equivalents to kip up that required Master in other skills and were the same level for other debuffs, yeah

that'd be cool

master intimidate for a feat that's like

"Nothing Scares You"

you can clear frightened up to X amount (based on skill proficiency) on your turn as a free action

and so on and so forth

it'd also help solve the issue of skill feats often just being like

you run out of good ones to take at later levels and are just grabbing whatever low-level feats that you'll rarely if ever use

[rustic cape]

There are already some good skill feats like that.

[sour venture]

that hasn't been my experience building and looking at skill feats

[rustic cape]

God, what if one were to stick a single borderline-mandatory skill feat on every skill at Master (rogues and investigators would consider it party time is what).

[sour venture]

qualitative changes to how you play are few and far between

[rustic cape]

Some! Not many.

[sour venture]

there are solid numbers boosts, and so on

but like

yeah, idk

many of them are also very low level

🤷‍♀️

[sour venture]

this would be cool as hell

this is what i want

make "what skill you master first" a really hard choice

hell

if you wanna be really funny with it

[rustic cape]

Rogues: “yes we did need to be stronger”
Investigators: “okay but for real with us”

[sour venture]

give them all (and kip up) a special trait

that limits how many of this kind of feat you can get

and let rogues and investigators the ability to have more of them

[rustic cape]

True, true

[sour venture]

if you can only have two such feats normally, and rogues/investigators can keep takingt them or whatever

that's an interesting build consideration and gameplay dynamic

[rustic cape]

I think General feats do well as kinda “expected” upgrades where you’re mostly choosing order of acquisition over 20 levels

[sour venture]

yeah i agree

[rustic cape]

“Everyone gets this eventually”

[woeful pecan]

I'm just glad skills are actually useful, even in combat

[rustic cape]

Yeah, that is nice

[woeful pecan]

CHA skills being the big glow up of course

[rustic cape]

Some of them less so and some of them only through skill feats but

[woeful pecan]

But I also like Recall Knowledge being a more key system, Medicine being able to ACTUALLY heal people, Crafting and how it interacts with shields, etc.

[rustic cape]

Bon mot is rock solid, for instance

[warped orbit]

I wish Deception had more Feinting skill feats

[sour venture]

feinting is uhhhh

[rustic cape]

Yes

[sour venture]

bad

it's super weird

[warped orbit]

instead of it all being kinda only in Scoundrel

[sour venture]

like it's a WEIRDLY specific hole in the game

[warped orbit]

and Fencer a bit

[sour venture]

my boyfriend was going through feint stuff a couple days ago and we were just like

"why is feinting bad"

(the answer is: because the authors of D&Dlikes think of 'feinting' as something for showy flashy fighters who are about the performance, not as something literally every combat style does all the time)

(this has been a pain point of these systems for as long as they've existed)

[rustic cape]

Feinting can be okay as a very low-investment option.

[warped orbit]

Feinting can be good, if you are a Scoundrel Rogue

because they actually get feats to make it good

[sour venture]

yeah

feinting is For The Showy Sneaky Guys

not for Everyone Who Fights

[warped orbit]

I just think there should be a lot more skill feats for Feinting

[sour venture]

yeah agreed

[warped orbit]

and it would have more of a niche

[sour venture]

demoralize is where feinting should be imo

[rustic cape]

But the people who want to use it are either scoundrel rogues or folks who are probably willing to invest in something else

[sour venture]

like

wrt support

[warped orbit]

Diplomacy I feel could lean into Aid support maybe

[rustic cape]

The trouble with demoralize is just the 1/fight/enemy nature of it. But keying into an existing status effect works wonders.

[warped orbit]

like, just make One for All an Expert Diplomacy feat

and some of the other Aid supporting stuff as well maybe

[rustic cape]

Dread striker is great not because of demoralize but because frightened is amazing and easy to apply and now we’re getting more out of it

[turbid dagger]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=6395&Redirected=1 Scout's Charge is great but in a weird archetype, especially when Tumble Behind does largely the same thing and is easier to access
I do wish Feint got more support, I recently swapped my Fencer Swash to Wit because Tumble Behind is just all I need on the off guard front
(Also Wit's Exemplary Finisher is extremely good)

[rustic cape]

I think part of the issue here is just the name. If you showed a normal human a feint, it would be nothing like what hearing it explained led them to imagine.

What they’re imagining is a clever trick, but what they’d see is Normal Fighting.

The simplest and most essential feint in all of the martial arts is how boxers will twitch their lead shoulder forwards, and people barely even register that as an event.

[turbid dagger]

PF2e is, admittedly, working on hollywood rules too
If you hit a guy, it's because you Swung Fast Enough He Couldn't Block
Advanced and non-intuitive techniques are essential in IRL combat but optional in the sword-and-dragon world

[rustic cape]

Call it “deceive” or “manipulate” and all the sword nerd complaints vanish in a puff of smoke

Or “distract”

[sour venture]

yeah and it bugs me a lot

but yeah you can call it "dirty trick" if you want it to be just a Showy Scoundrel Attack

they have dirty trick

but if they're gonna have Feint they should have it be a Feint dammit! [/swordnerd]

[rustic cape]

Honestly feints are so routine and fundamental I wouldn’t even mechanize them if I were aiming to please my inner sword nerd.

[sour venture]

that is fair

[rustic cape]

That’s just like

Rolling to hit

[sour venture]

but the fact that "feint" is mechanized and consistently just

terribly designed

in D&Dlikes

like it's like this every time

[rustic cape]

Yea

[sour venture]

tells me that "This Needs To Be Something Different"

either make it a real feint, or rename it and have it not carry the baggage of "feinting" conceptually

Dirty Trick

Distract

Cheap Shot

whatever

pf1e's dirty trick was allowed to be any number of cool, strong debuffs because it wasn't limited that way

[warped orbit]

ironically now also a separate skill feat in Remaster 😛

[sour venture]

yep

[rustic cape]

Aaaaaaa

[sour venture]

because Dirty Trick was like

pf1e's answer to this problem, even while they still had the terribad feint

so pf2e now has both

lol

[fast hill]

had the first Anbennar pathfinder session with peeps from here

[rustic cape]

Something I like in PF2e is that no skill is really required for combat, and while one can build to use them they’re not that big a deal in most cases.

[sour venture]

pf2e did an interesting threading of the needle where many if not most skills are Good In Combat but none are Required

optimal play means using them, for sure, but like

you CAN get a good spread of saves even without them

[rustic cape]

And not even always. My action-hungry kineticist doesn’t use skills in combat because when would she?

[sour venture]

i mean

on a party level

'optimal' play means Someone Should Have These Skills

otherwise you're leaving power on the table

but it's not really required

[rustic cape]

Usually! But I think it is possible to have a strong party where everyone is weirdly too busy to use skills

[sour venture]

i agree

[rustic cape]

I guess like … War Cry Intimidate needs no actions

[sour venture]

there's a reason i said "optimal" and not "optimized"

there's a distinction in my mind

i guess personally 'optimal' means 'the Actual Best Way' while 'optimized' means 'we tuned it up'

hum

words are hard

[rustic cape]

Yeah, I’m not even sure it is so clearly best

[sour venture]

fair nuff

if there's a party that covers all bases even harder then versatile skill spreads wouldn't be the optimal way

but i haven't theorycrafted enough to tell tbh

i like pf2e skills

[rustic cape]

Like, say you’ve got a fighter, a tank/healer/support kinet, a starlit span magus, and a necromancer or bard. None of them will have time for skills, but that’s a strong party.

[surreal basin]

I mean

Okay so here’s the thing like

Theoretically they are correct about what a feint is lmao

[rustic cape]

The fighter is using debuffing meta strikes that do the stuff skills do with attack rolls.

The magus is spellstriking and sometimes buffing.

The kineticist has a billion things to do.

[sour venture]

so my question here is

[rustic cape]

The bard is using composition cantrips and spells.

[sour venture]

is it possible to replace these characters with better ones that use skills more actively

i genuinely don't know

but i'm talking about like how in 3.5

you CAN have a great party that's a warblade a bard a dragonfire adept and a factotum

and they'll be strong

or

you could have three wizards who sold their spellbooks to buy a riding dog at level 1, and a druid

i am genuinely curious how skill usage plays into what the true theoretical optimal party looks like; i was given to understand that it does but i don't know

i like seeing the limits of systems

[rustic cape]

Yeah, PF2e isn't nearly solved enough to say, but I'd say that party does everything you could be getting out of skills in different ways. I dunno if it's stronger, but it definitely covers all bases and it has a fighter so it'll do amazing no questions asked.

[sour venture]

noted!

hella cool

[rustic cape]

Fighters are weird, they have the best damage feature in the game: +2 to hit.

[sour venture]

😭

[rustic cape]

Because of the way crits work, that is amazing.

Third-best AC in the game, best attack bonus, lots of metastrikes that do crazy debuffing stuff. Their only weak area is probably saves.

Which aren't bad, they're just not especially good.

[warped orbit]

they don't cap out as well on saves, but they do get Expert in all very quickly

[rustic cape]

And they get the bonus against Fear

[warped orbit]

at level 3 I think?

[rustic cape]

Which is great.

[warped orbit]

Fearless is quite good

[rustic cape]

(Rogue has the best saves, it's very silly.)

[warped orbit]

being immune to Frightened 1

[warped orbit]

they do, yes

[rustic cape]

Kineticist does this too, actually!

[warped orbit]

still weird that they didn't errata that IMO

[rustic cape]

It's been confirmed by the community liaison.

[warped orbit]

it does not feel intended that Rogues get the success bump on Fort

[rustic cape]

She asked the devs, they said yes it's meant to be there.

IIRC.

[fast hill]

fighter is fun

fighter is genuinely so cool in that they get so many awesome ways to play

I want to play a 2 handed feint fighter sometime

[rustic cape]

If you just want to do cool stuff with a very high success rate, fighter is impeccable.

[fast hill]

crit fish tf out of someone

[warped orbit]

another thing Fighters also get which I feel is not mentioned as much is that they have one of the better Perception progressions in the game

[clever cobalt]

The Fighter and Wizard basically swapped places in 5e to PF2e

[rustic cape]

True!

[warped orbit]

as well as an extra bonus on their master prof IIRC

[rustic cape]

Master perception pretty early, and no need for Improved Initiative.

[fast hill]

no need?

[clever cobalt]

They get a +2 Circ bonus to Initative yeah

[warped orbit]

they get a +2 circ from their feature

[fast hill]

do they

[rustic cape]

Their bonus doesn't stack with it.

[fast hill]

oh shit

that's awesome

[rustic cape]

But, they get the bonus.