Pathfinder

[woeful pecan]

Or would I benefit more from an ancestry feat? I was looking at Ru-Shi lineage just for flavor

[errant roost]

They're monolingual in ||pirate||

[rustic cape]

What's a pirate's favorite letter

[true delta]

🇷

No, wait

[rustic cape]

Aye, you'd think it be R, but it really be the C

[true delta]

…

[errant roost]

what's a privateer's favorite letter?

[rustic cape]

Marque

[errant roost]

fuck

[true delta]

A strong contestant for pirates could be ℹ️ (aye).

[desert vale]

If. I try running pathfinder 2e for some people. And want ro do a test game. What should I try?

[echo briar]

Beginners box

[rustic cape]

I hear good things about the beginner box

[woeful pecan]

I love making picrews

[desert vale]

Wow didnt know they could make stuff that cool

[woeful pecan]

There's some real good ones out there, though diversity in body types is really lacking

[woeful pecan]

Trying to figure out how to explain to a fellow player that a boomerang is a really bad choice for their Scoundrel Rogue

[woeful pecan]

Third party member confirmed!

• Human dhampir Witch (Spinner of Threads)
• Kitsune Rogue (Scoundrel)
• Gnome Animist (Seer)

[true delta]

@desert vale On the topic of the beginner's box: It's a great intro to the gameplay but note that its plot is a little thin. The strongest motivations for exploring the dungeons are curiosity and the OOC expectation to explore the dungeon. The initial quest is to find out what's been eating the dried fish in the basement. And once you fight some large rats which come through a hole in the wall, that's technically resolved. So you might want something like someone having gone through the hole and not returned. So this way, it becomes a rescue mission and the PCs have convincing reasons to explore the whole dungeon. Actually, you might want some talkative NPC at the end of the first floor. Just to dispense some info, maybe ramp up the stakes. IMO, it's an issue in Paizo's material that there are many NPCs to fight and few to talk to. And that many of the NPCs ou are to fight don't come with uuhhh good drama to th fight and/or are actually adorable.

I once had a rough plan which transformed the whole thing: In my version, the first floor of the dungeon would be reflavoured to be a thick forest. And only the second floor would be a proper underground dungeon. This was inspired by the Faron Woods and the forest te ple in Zelda: Twilight princess. I might have switched the kobolds out for hobgoblins. But that's perhaps a tengent without much use to you.

What I will say is this: consider that the kobolds may be too cute for the adventurers to murder. So you could a) consider damage to them non-lethal, make it a cartoon, b) swap them out for less cute enemies or c) simply portray them as less cute.

[small meteor]

Players are known to find GM kobolds to be adorable.

[desert vale]

nodnod

[twilit escarp]

Hey, guys, need some help.

Can someone help with Pathbuilder 1e? I can't install it on my smartphone (incompatible with it), and I can't run it on android emulators on PC (it just crushes on Nox and whitescreens on bluestacks). Can someone advice wtf can I do to run the damn thing?

[twilit escarp]

I'd loved to run in my smartphone obv but it's banned in my country from Market (because fuck me I guess) and, yeah, APKs say it's incompatible

[woeful pecan]

Okay so with this party comp, for Season of Ghosts, what should I recommend to our fourth player? Afaik they're new

[trail nova]

Fighter. Simple, strong frontliner

[woeful pecan]

I should probably look over the class huh

All I know about Fighter is they get better accuracy

Well, and Reactive Strike

[echo briar]

I mean, that’s kinda all they have lol

Except class feats, but everyone gets those

[woeful pecan]

The four I'm gonna put forward are Fighter, Champion, Thaumaturge, and Ranger

They're recommended by the player's guide, and should have enough variance to pick from

[rapid wagon]

Does space have weather and could a druid use magic to affect it?

[trail nova]

Kind of? And probably not on any reasonable scale - it's stuff like solar winds and similar.

[echo briar]

Solar winds aren’t like planetary winds. It’s not even atoms for the most part, just protons and electrons.

So it’s only weather in the absolutely loosest of sense

[wraith snow]

What would people say are the best options for targetting Fort or Reflex on the Occult list? One of my current characters is running into the issue where any mindless creature effectively turns me into Johnny Cantrips for an encounter

[echo briar]

Fort is easy. You have a ton of good options, like slow

Reflex is harder, with all of the best occult reflex spells being mediocre on any other spell list, and there still isn’t many of them

Rouse skeletons is probably your best bet

[woeful pecan]

Though fortunately, I imagine most enemies don't have BOTH fort and will super high

[warped orbit]

it depends

[woeful pecan]

Also mindless creatures nvm I can't read

[wraith snow]

The issue is that constructs often have fort as their best save and the mindless tag which defends against-

yeah

[woeful pecan]

I guess just grab some spells that still have nasty success effects?

[wraith snow]

Though Slow is a good option, I'm definitely overloaded on Will-targetting spells atm just because they fit the character's concept very well

[surreal basin]

For season of ghosts, will will be fine

[woeful pecan]

Excellent

Our casters are occult and divine, so I think we'll be alright

[surreal basin]

Which is not to say that it’s necessarily low, but just that it’s not like, choc full of immunities

[woeful pecan]

I was definitely worried there might be a lot of mental-immune enemies

[surreal basin]

I mean this is just off the top of my head but not really

[rustic cape]

Because of the way crits work, the fighter's better accuracy works out to an extremely good damage feature, and they also have slightly above-average AC due to heavy armor proficiency. They don't get a legendary save, but bravery means they have an edge against what is probably the most common will save condition in the game. They can be highly mobile if they need to be. Their class feats make them notably outstanding debuffers, since they can deliver a lot of conditions on an attack roll without giving the enemy a chance to make a save.

[woeful pecan]

Anyone else love making build decisions for RP reasons, but still struggle when said decision is Objectively Worse?

[rustic cape]

This is a common feeling, ye

[woeful pecan]

Ye, knew about the extra crit chance thing. Just need to look at their feats more

[rustic cape]

As you get to mid levels, the difference between an enemy's worst and best saves can get really large. A fighter being able to, say, inflict Frightened off of their excellent attack bonus without having to worry about Will DC is a huge boon.

They get a lot of neat toys, basically.

[woeful pecan]

The decision I'm staring down is my background. Outskirt Dweller, of all the campaign ones, fits my story best. But Terrain Expertise? Ehhhh

[sour venture]

the way i look at it there is that skill feats are extremely dime a dozen

unless your build is super tight, you're probably fine just picking it

alternatively you could ask the GM for a swap on the feat

[woeful pecan]

I may tweak the backstory slightly, and take the Mysterious Foundling adjustment for Streetwise instead

[sour venture]

but yeah that's an extremely common feeling to which there's often no real solution

[woeful pecan]

Which still isn't spectacular, but it's not useless

[surreal basin]

Background feats rarely matter

[sour venture]

in a game where choices in building matter, sometimes The Flavorful One will be worse mechanically

and it blows

[rustic cape]

In most cases you will really have more skill feats than you know what to do with

[surreal basin]

The terrain ones are continuitively really good actually

[sour venture]

but yeah, that

you're going to have more skill feats than you can meaningfully use

[surreal basin]

Because they’ll probably come up and do something

Unlike a lot of them

[sour venture]

you're GOING to hit a point after a few levels where it's like "uhhhh i guess i grab this level 1 feat about tracking werewolves at the beach"

terrain is pretty broad comparatively

[surreal basin]

I think outskirts dweller is actually excellent

[rustic cape]

Terrain stalker is wildly good, for instance

[surreal basin]

Because it gives it for forest

Which

Not so spoilers

There’s a LOT of

In SOG

[sour venture]

XD

[woeful pecan]

See I know that much

[surreal basin]

Like…. The entire country is forest lmao

[woeful pecan]

The bonus just doesn't feel super noteworthy

[surreal basin]

Oh fair

[rustic cape]

If you're building for like ... stealth, acrobatics, medicine, and intimidate skill feats, you may be pressed to try to fit everything in

[woeful pecan]

And I get that skill feats aren't super pressing, but I don't wanna take something I'm not using

[rustic cape]

Otherwise you should be fine

[sour venture]

Your experience in navigating a certain type of terrain makes you supremely confident while doing so. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Survival checks in one of the following types of terrain, chosen when you select this feat: aquatic, arctic, desert, forest, mountain, plains, sky, swamp, or underground.

hum

IS survival any good?

[woeful pecan]

I'm a Witch, so mostly crafting and Recall Knowledge skills

[rustic cape]

Yeah, you'll be fine

[woeful pecan]

Also dabbling in Medicine maybe

[rustic cape]

Oh, something that often goes overlooked (this won't matter for your game as you won't get to the requisite level, but I like to point it out): Legendary Tattoo Artist is the only skill feat that lets you raise a skill to legendary, in this case Crafting.

[sour venture]

huh

[rustic cape]

So it can be used to get a fourth legendary skill, hypothetically

It's not all that important, but it's a cute little thing.

[echo briar]

Not in SoG

[rustic cape]

I know, as I mentioned, too low level

[wraith snow]

I'm currently playing a party face Witch build and I sure am feeling the +3 in CHA for little mechanical benefit but it does make for fun RP hooks

[woeful pecan]

Fucking valid tbh

[woeful pecan]

And our final member is a Champion! Idk more than that though

[sinful gyro]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epictellers/starfinder-afterlight

That starfinder CRPG kickstarter just went live

Discount in the first 48 hours, send your cat into space

[keen raptor]

Holy shit, it's already halfway to the goal on the first day

[clever cobalt]

that's good

The stuff looks promising so far

[echo briar]

and they have met the goal

[echo briar]

They reached the only known stretch goal.

I wish they would just reveal all the stretch goals to start with

[steel blade]

not quite; the stretch goal is in euros, so we're 3k off still

[balmy orchid]

113k doesn't really feel like enough to make a big CRPG

[warped orbit]

Kickstarters like this are usually mostly marketing and interest signaling

[steel blade]

there's a section on the ks that establishes they're doing this more to expand the game than to get it made at all

also Skittermanders have officially been unlocked

[rustic cape]

Encouraging!

[woeful pecan]

Because I'm less familiar with these, suggestions on making a Samurai-flavored nagaji Champion?

[wraith snow]

There are a few specific samurai-themed gods they can follow, Shizuru for a straight-laced, honour-focused LG option and Susumu for a more violent, ends-means style

Playstyle will very much depend on subclass but you can make all of them work within the context of wanting to play a samurai

[rustic cape]

Depends on what you want out of samurai flavor. What's the aesthetic you're going for?

[woeful pecan]

Wonderful question, I'll have to ask the person playing them

[light gyro]

Incredibly funny and storied question in the context of pf2e

[rustic cape]

It's kinda funny because if you know samurai primarily from media in which there's just one samurai inexplicably hanging out, they often follow a very specific archtype.

[woeful pecan]

Oh this is for Season of Ghosts

The Tian flavor is kinda the default here

[warped orbit]

Just be a Justice Champion and use an appropriate weapon tbh

Naginata maybe

[rustic cape]

But in "samurai media," as it were, samurai are just characters and come in all shapes and sizes

Even Jin from Samurai Champloo, who presents as the classic elegant nobleman swordsman, is kind of a fuckin' weirdo once you get to know him.

If you are looking for that elegant nobleman swordsman, I would recommend weapon monk, fighter, or potentially rogue

Ranger could work too

[echo briar]

There's also the historical samurai, who would probably be fighter or even a gunslinger

[woeful pecan]

I don't think accuracy is even remotely what we're going for here lol, the player's guide even says it more or less outright

Okay lemme maybe narrow things down a bit

• What feats support a 2H Champion, if any?
• What Tian weapons best support sword and board?

Because typically, Champions seem to want a shield, and all the most iconic Tian weapons I can think of are typically two-handed

[rustic cape]

So, polearm justice champion is quite strong

Justice really likes having that extra reach

[woeful pecan]

Oo plus the level 1 feat to Step for the reaction

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=298 This is probably ideal

[woeful pecan]

That'd cover the whole aura, right?

[rustic cape]

If you specifically want samurai vibes

Yep, with a reach weapon and Nimble Reprisal you can nail enemies within 15 feet

[warped orbit]

Nodachi or Naginata would be my suggestion

Nodachi is just hard to get prof for

[warped orbit]

you don't strictly need a shield on Champion, especially if you go Justice

just go blade ally, and then don't pick feats that need a shield

[rustic cape]

The ideal shield champion is probably freedom or redemption

[woeful pecan]

Gotcha

[rustic cape]

If they do want to go nodachi, https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=94 is probably the easiest in for that

Oni Weapon Familiarity gives you the nodachi

[warped orbit]

Hungerseed is definitely the easiest way to get it, yeah

as long as they don't want any other particular Nagaji heritage

[rustic cape]

Oni form and greater transformation would also be pretty good for a justice champion

[warped orbit]

also unrelated, but huh
Ogre Hook is actually a pretty good polearm, looking at it

basically better guisarme

oh wait no it doesn't have reach, nvm

[woeful pecan]

I'll pass along the suggestions. If they've locked in a heritage, I don't know about it

[rustic cape]

Naginata is not all the much worse than nodachi really

Deadly d8 instead of d12, but same damage die and it gets versatile piercing (admittedly, probably the weakest versatile)

[woeful pecan]

Plus lack of Brace, which admittedly feels incredibly flavorful

[rustic cape]

The nodachi is also a big katana

[woeful pecan]

Thinking Ghost of Tsushima standoffs

[warped orbit]

Brace is a pretty fiddly trait

[rustic cape]

So that fits the flavor

[woeful pecan]

Shame you can't pick it up as a deity weapon

[warped orbit]

Deity weapon isn't super important as Champion tbh

unless you're really set on using a simple weapon for some reason

[rustic cape]

Just remember that champions are not an extremely high damage class: they're martials, and usually strength-based, so they do fine, but a lot of their power is defensive.

[woeful pecan]

No I know

[rustic cape]

Justice definitely does more damage due to retaliations, but

[woeful pecan]

Our final lineup is an occult Witch, Animist, Rogue, and this Champion

[rustic cape]

Oh, that's a good setup

[woeful pecan]

And this is a more combat-light campaign

[rustic cape]

(If the animist isn't already committed, I would strongly recommend liturgist for their subclass because it is both the strongest and at level 9 suddenly becomes really fun to fuck around with.)

But yeah, animist can cover some of the primal list, which helps with your other caster being occult

Since those two lists complement each others' weaknesses very well.

[woeful pecan]

They're going with Seer

[rustic cape]

Fair enough!

[woeful pecan]

Via apparition spells I assume? Since they're divine casters

[rustic cape]

Yeah

The volcano apparition in particular is a very good pickup

[woeful pecan]

But yeah no on finding out what Seer does our GM just went "ah fuck" so it sounds like it'll actually be useful lmao

[warped orbit]

Bile is a very strong and omni applicable apparition spell

[rustic cape]

And then it also comes with fireball.

My GM often says, "primal is the best list because it's the only one that has fireball and heal".

[woeful pecan]

Honestly valid

[rustic cape]

(Somewhat jokingly, but)

(There's a grain of truth to it)

[woeful pecan]

I heavily considered a primal Witch for a while

[rustic cape]

Animists get to cheat and get fireball even though they're divine

So that's very nice

[woeful pecan]

I discounted the spell list for a while like a dumbass because Druid spells in 5e always felt so lackluster to me

[rustic cape]

(Some clerics do as well)

Primal is basically arcane, but sacrifices most of the mental spells for healing stuff

Which is a very good trade

[woeful pecan]

What are the four "spheres" the books talk about? Matter, mind, soul, and life?

[rustic cape]

Yeah, you can think of it kinda like a four-circle venn diagram

[light gyro]

Idk how much they're reflected mechanically but I think those are the ones

[rustic cape]

Primal and occult don't have much in common, arcane and divine don't have much in common

[woeful pecan]

It represents a design ideology of what spells each list gets

[rustic cape]

But one of each of those pairs will cover a majority of stuff

[woeful pecan]

So arcane caster get to affect the mind and the world around them, but can't do much with intangible essences

[rustic cape]

Arcane is probably the strongest list except that it gets no healing shenanigans.

[warped orbit]

Arcane also doesn't get a few of the especially strong buffs and debuffs

Heroism and stuff like Synesthesia mostly

[rustic cape]

Synesthesia shakes fist

That spell is rude

[warped orbit]

it's very good 😛

[rustic cape]

Yeah

[wraith snow]

Something, something, Summon Unicorn

[woeful pecan]

So occult gets mind and soul then, right?

[wraith snow]

(im aware this is not actually very good)

but you can!

[rustic cape]

Occult gets very strong buffing/debuffing and very strong mental stuff, as well as some weirder damage stuff.

It has weaker healing via soothe

[warped orbit]

yes

each tradition covers two of the spheres

[rustic cape]

And mostly misses out on elemental damage

Occult also gets the best spell in the game, the aforementioned synesthesia

[woeful pecan]

Yeah I've heard that one mentioned before

[rustic cape]

Which is an incredible force multiplier debuff at mid-high levels.

[woeful pecan]

Importantly though, it's not vitality right? Which matters here since this character is a dhampir

[rustic cape]

Yes

Soothe is not vitality

Oh!

Fun fact

[woeful pecan]

Excellent

[rustic cape]

Neither is animist's garden of healing

[woeful pecan]

I've also got Cauldron with oil of unlife to help too

[rustic cape]

I played an animist ghoul and garden of healing did not cause me problems

[woeful pecan]

Also, debating what basic lesson I want to pick up. Dreams looks like maybe the best pick?

(Spinner of Threads patron if that matters)

[rustic cape]

I don't know witch very well, tragically

[wraith snow]

Honestly I'm not huge on any of them, Basic Lesson's job is to provide a focus point to Cackle with

[woeful pecan]

The fast version:

• Hex cantrip lasts for a minute (no sustain), and gives a +1 when it would change the degree of success (but not into a crit)
• Familiar applies a +1 or -1 status to AC on casting or sustaining a hex
• Dreams hex on a successful save applies a -1 to Perception, Will, and attacks. Failed save makes concentrate actions have a 25% fail chance

[woeful pecan]

I actually wasn't planning on picking up Cackle

I feel like Cauldron will give me more use in the long run

[wraith snow]

To note, the lessons don't require earlier lessons as prerequisites

You can just take Major Lesson at 10 as your first one if you want

[woeful pecan]

I mean I'm sure I could, but I'd like to have a hex I can more reliably spam for my familiar ability

[wraith snow]

Fair, I just use the one that came for free with my patron for the most part

[woeful pecan]

Nudge Fate isn't sustained, so I'd be burning an action just for the familiar ability

[rustic cape]

Oh, yeah, I'm playing with someone who has this in SoG. It seems pretty good!

Not amazing, and you have to remember to use the stuff.

But pretty good!

[woeful pecan]

Ye

[wraith snow]

Fair, I've been using the legacy Baba Yaga stuff and Spirit Object is an optional sustain so I don't have to spend the action to keep the spell going, only if I want to give it commands

[woeful pecan]

Fair enough

I just figure needing to sustain something means it's usually a more powerful effect than something that doesn't

[wraith snow]

Speaking of, I do need to start finding higher value things to use with Cackle

[rustic cape]

Spiritual Armament is alright

[woeful pecan]

Lesson of Vengeance looks enticing too maybe...

[light gyro]

I'm so fuckin lucky my strength of thousands party never figured out synesthesia

[wraith snow]

I have it and it's not bad but it is, however, annoying

its a lot to track for relatively minor chip damage

[rustic cape]

Laughing Fit is of course a classic high-value debuff with sustain

[rustic cape]

Mine deliberately chose not to use it, but the one fight where an enemy uses it suuuuuuucked

[wraith snow]

Yeah, this and Illusory Creature are my 2 go-tos rn

[rustic cape]

I played an animist which is all about sustain, but mostly for their own bespoke spells

[wraith snow]

Might opt for rouse skeletons

oh and I do have out of list access to Mad Monkeys ig

[woeful pecan]

I've heard someone half-jokingly say the optimal way to play an Animist is to just have three sustained spells going every round

[wraith snow]

that's more or less how our Sorcerer played in Stolen Fates

Quandary is a hell of a drug

[rustic cape]

They're half-right, given that Liturgist has a variety of ways of getting free sustains.

Two-action spells really are a significant portion of an animist's power, however, especially as they get more levels.

So you give up a lot of burst to just do a bunch of sustains all the time with normal actions.

[sour venture]

the trick is to take elf step, wing step, or guarded advance

and then organize your actions such that you chain spell sustains

but before that, you're trading mobility for power like anyone else

[rustic cape]

Maneuvering Spell is great for liturgist because it just tosses a free sustain on every two-action spell.

[sour venture]

yeah it is

maneuvering spell is amazing

i wish i could fit it into my current build

if i was going full caster i would ig

but im not

im going Shove Shoves tank

[sour venture]

more to the point, having three sustained spells takes a lot of actions

you need two actions (split across two rounds if you want) to cast non-primary vessel spells, and two actions to cast normal spells

so a lot of the time you're gonna be like

[woeful pecan]

I mean you could theoretically:
Turn 1: 2-action spell, move
Turn 2: 2-action spell, sustain
Turn 3: Vessel spell, sustain, sustain
Turn 4+: Sustain, sustain, sustain

[wraith snow]

I've had a fair amount of success using mounts as a way out of caster early action econ, once you get Mature Animal they can do a lot of heavy lifting

[sour venture]

yeah, and once liturgist is online at 9, it's like

1. vessel spell, 2-action spell
2. elf step (step sustain step sustain), circle of spirits, vessel spell
3. elf step (step sustain step sustain) elf step (step sustain step) circle of spirits
4. vessel spell, elf step (step sustain step sustain), elf step (step sustain step)
5. elf step (step sustain step sustain), elf step (step sustain step sustain), any action

or if you want to do something Really Silly,

build into shoves

grab gift of the anemos and a guardian multiclass

really, Gift of the Anemos is the gift that keeps on giving

when you have liturgist, it self-sustains when you step (sustain gift, step, free sustain of another vessel spell) and thus is excellent for mobility

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7134 animist actually has a lot of shove synergy

[rustic cape]

My general flow with my liturgist from levels 12-17 was:

• Earth's Bile, Circle of Spirits, Garden of Healing
• 2-action spell w/manuevering spell for a leap/step and free sustain, leap for movement w/free sustain OR circle of spirits (relative rarity, but if I'd had elf step I would have done it a lot more often)
• Either repeat or use the third action to cast my third vessel spell
• Use elf step on the third action to get two sustains out of it

But here's the thing

Shit happens

You need to cast a 3-action spell for some reason

You get slowed

No plan of action survives contact with the enemy

[sour venture]

yeah

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1373 definitely also nab this on any liturgist

[wraith snow]

In a future game I'll probably end up using Animist. Not my first choice but I'd rather not commit to the martial squad again.

[rustic cape]

(At 18 this all gets easier because there's a feat that gives a free step at the start of the round.)

[sour venture]

"become quickened whenever you're rooted" is just like

Get That

[rustic cape]

And critically, say you've used all three vessel spells

Some of them go down because of bullshit happening

You can't get them back up

No focus points.

[sour venture]

mmm

i like to build rotations with two core vessel spells for that reason

[rustic cape]

If you have a focus point left over you can just cast Earth's Bile again.

You might also need to put up a good 2-action spell with sustain from the apparition spells

[wraith snow]

Does Animist have their own version of the level 10 focus item?

[sour venture]

unfortunately no

[rustic cape]

If you have a familiar, you can hypothetically use that for a free point, but at least at my table if you want to use familiars in combat they become liable to combat risks, and an animist is less able to do that than a witch is

Grabbing witch dedication for cackle and reach spell can be a really solid pickup for an animist

Cackle is a panic button, and reach spell is just generally more useful than you would expect.

(And at level 15+ can be used with Moment of Renewal as the best healing effect, period.)

[sour venture]

here's a question

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=998

can you use familiar tattoo to protect a familiar and still get the focus point out of it?

[rustic cape]

Unclear. Vhai did not run it that way.

[sour venture]

nods

man

i really like pf2e familiars

they're a bit janky and limited in a lot of ways but they're a build puzzle that juuuust fits what i enjoy

[woeful pecan]

I can't wait to cram more shit on mine (a joro spider named Mimi)

[rustic cape]

Familiar spell is also a very strong master ability for any class that you can grab along with witch dedication.

[woeful pecan]

Right now I've just got her with Climber, Independent, and Tough

[rustic cape]

That one inarguably works all the time.

[wraith snow]

I've got the unique familiar Gennayn on my Witch reflavoured as an ice fey and man has Little Wish saved my ass so many times already

[woeful pecan]

So wait, does a Witch learning a spell from a scroll not cost any gold?

[sturdy lagoon]

Correct.

The wording is very specific, and you can check the premaster witch if you wanted to make sure

You still pay and roll for learning from another witch, or for learning a new spell from complete scratch

(in the latter case the end result is a pseudo-scroll that your familiar eats anyways)

[woeful pecan]

Hell yes

I'm also thinking ahead on my build and struggling a little. Level 5 ancestry feats for a human dhampir don't seem all that good?

[sturdy lagoon]

If your GM is generous with new scrolls of your tradition, you can learn a lot of spells while ignoring the usual cost and failure rate

But that is very dependent on "your GM is generous"

[woeful pecan]

It's an AP so who knows

I'll mostly plan for only level up spells

[echo briar]

Either it does cost gold, or it costs the scroll itself, which is usually more expensive.

[woeful pecan]

Unless you find it as loot

[echo briar]

Learning a spell from a scroll does not consume it, but a familiar eating it does.

Usually I would prefer to keep and use the scroll for some other time.

[sturdy lagoon]

It's fairly fast and has no tradition skill check, though

And TBH, most scrolls you'll want to learn will be stuff that wasn't high priority

[echo briar]

Both options have pros and cons.

[echo briar]

A lot of stuff that you’ll learn a scrolls will be stuff that you don’t always prepare, so having a backup scroll for when you need it unexpectedly is useful

[woeful pecan]

There'll be a lot of downtime in this campaign, so that's less of an issue

[sturdy lagoon]

I guess it depends on if you get enough downtime to make duplicating the scroll worthwhile, yeah

If you need multiple copies to begin with

[woeful pecan]

I hardly ever use consumables ngl

[sturdy lagoon]

And witch does have the Ceremonial Knife feat, so you can get 1-2 extra castings of a lower rank spell per day to mess around with

But in either case, it is neatly thematic, and on the off chance it's a spell you'll regularly use, it will never take longer than 1 hour.

Also I just like the mental image of trying to get a whole scroll down the throat of half of the familiar list

[woeful pecan]

Ye, not sure if I want that or a lesson

[woeful pecan]

Oh lemme make it an even better mental image

This familiar is a spider

[sturdy lagoon]

…where the fuck are those magical calories going

[woeful pecan]

A big one, but not that big. So eating a whole scroll probably WOULD take an entire hour

[sturdy lagoon]

Depends on if there's a worthwhile lesson you want to take first, and keep in mind you can't take multiple Greater lessons until Major Lesson, and can only take two basic lessons if you give up picking a Greater with Greater Lesson, or more with Major Lesson

[woeful pecan]

Basic lessons I'm pretty set on, just taking the one to consistently trigger familiar ability

Greater lessons I haven't looked at a ton but none immediately jumped at me

[sturdy lagoon]

Fair enough

Just keep in mind that a bonus spell slot from Ceremonial Knife, even one that lags by two ranks, is pretty good, and you can overload it rather freely by getting your daggers in bulk (or I think you can ask a Craft party member with help repairing a dagger each day, though chances are good it will disintegrate anyways IIRC)

Just keep in mind that it is a wand with all item action economy that implies, if you don't just go around holding a dagger on top of your other stuff.

[woeful pecan]

I'm sure it'll be fine

Are any of the greater lessons especially notable?

[sturdy lagoon]

Even without overloading, a free wand you can change the spell of every day is pretty good

Uh

To be honest, I didn't find many stood out to me

Major Lessons, yes, Lesson of Death is Raise Dead, No Questions Asked if you're not running divine patron and even if someone else already has it, can't help to have a backup (or I guess you could be funny if your GM is usually stingy about learning uncommon spells)

Though funnily enough, you can't actually cast it until level 11 if you take it ASAP

So you get the Killing People half but not the Unkilling People half for 1 level

[woeful pecan]

Okay but there's also Quickened Casting and Double, Double

[frank crystal]

Chat, for my industrializing Fey wolf arc

I wanna have the city the party is in always have a huge clock at the center of it

As a means to stabilize time

As time in the Feywild gets fucky, so long as it’s not being measured actively

[rustic cape]

Even at 1/day, quickened casting is amazing

It’s one of those 10th level feats where if you pick it up as a capstone through multiclassing it’s absolutely worth it

[woeful pecan]

It's not something I'll have to worry about for a while, thankfully

[desert vale]

Kholo oracle worshipper of zon shelyn in pathfinder 2e

[twilit escarp]

Sigh

I am sadge

The game of PF1 I promised to run last summer died bc one player was unavailable, and another got health problems.

😔

[eager mountain]

NECRO TURRET

[small meteor]

Also, massive note about Tien weapons conversion from yesterday: Those weapons are Minkai weapons. The successor states use the statlines of Inner Sea weapons mostly.

Also, if the character is from Minkai, they will automatically have access to a Naginata.

At least, using PFS access rules.

[clever cobalt]

Kholos always have my approval

[rapid wagon]

Can someone throw me the link for starfinder 2's website?

[surreal basin]

https://2e.aonsrd.com/

[woeful pecan]

The SoG player's guide gives a pretty explicit list of what we get access to, fortunately. All of the weapons being discussed were available, except the nodachi and only because it didn't exist yet

[woeful pecan]

Specifically the: kama, katana, nunchaku, say, shuriken, temple sword, daikyu, khakkara, tengu gale blade, wakizashi, butterfly sword, feng huo lun, fighting fan, hook sword, jiu huan dao, kusarigama, naginata, rope dart, sansetsukon, tekko-kagi, and three-section naginata

[rustic cape]

The notable thing is that Season of Ghosts explicitly takes place in a very ethnically mixed community in Asian Horror Cinema Land

One of the big important leadership figures in town is a Minkai guy, the priestess of Pharasma is ethnically from Avistan, etc.

So at the very least all of Tian Xia is on the table.

[woeful pecan]

And even beyond by way of Amanandar

[twilit escarp]

Hey, guys, need somw help.

So. I wanna make a dragongirl-sorceress with Draconic Bloodline, but I'm confused wtf should I be doing there

(And if I have to take draconic bloodline in the first place)

[warped orbit]

take the Dragonblood heritage

[twilit escarp]

This one, right?

[warped orbit]

wait, are you building for first or second edition?

[twilit escarp]

1st

[warped orbit]

ah then I can't say much

[sour venture]

genuine question

what are you looking to build for

what kind of spells

[twilit escarp]

https://tenor.com/view/medic-tf2medic-idk-i-have-no-idea-crazy-gif-22434420

[sour venture]

do you wanna debuff? control the field? blast stuff?

[twilit escarp]

But more seriously, I wanna make smth like buffer/debuffer

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jm28vMfrceih2TOgfEkx8JC4w7EiCV5Q/view?usp=drivesdk

That's my started sheet but idk if I fucked up smth or not x.x

[sour venture]

draconic sorcerer is best at damage spells, so you might be having a slight mismatch; however, you can probably still make it work because Spellcasters Strong

if you're starting at level 1 you're going to run into the usual level 1 stuff for 3.x

lesse...

the good news is that at very low level, your claws are useful backup weapons if something runs into melee at you

you probably shouldn't be actively using them (you are so squishy) but two attacks for 1d4+Str as a full-round action is better than most casters have

[twilit escarp]

I have shield le spell, so that's 16 AC to not die (and will get mage armor soon™), but ye

[sour venture]

at level 1, you have relatively few choices; you have two 1st-level spells known and can use them 3 times per day

yeah

if you want to debuff things

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/color-spray/

color spray is probably the spell to pick

it's a big cone (cones are 90 degrees in pathfinder 1e, it's BIG) and if enemies at this level fail the save, they are Out Of The Fight

do you know what dragon you want?

[twilit escarp]

I think going with red purely because of her art

[sour venture]

solid

[twilit escarp]

(GM agreed to give mechanical arm without any downsides)

[sour venture]

at level 6 you can nab fireball, which gets boosted by draconic bloodline

it's pretty consistently good, and synergizes well with debuffs

my recommendations for a buffer/debuffer would probably be like

[twilit escarp]

Question, what would be the difference between golden and red dragons?

[sour venture]

1sts: Color Spray (debuff), Enlarge Person (buff, disproportionately good for melees at all levels)
2nds: Pyrotechnics (debuff; if you get a bullseye lantern you can turn this into a 120ft cone of blinding flash, since it restricts the angle of the light, and the smoke cloud is also useful), Create Pit (debuff)
3rds: Haste (incredibly strong party buff), Slow (incredibly strong enemy group debuff), Fireball (big aoe good for clearing mooks and damaging groups)

[sour venture]

the short answer is "red dragons are evil and gold dragons are good"

for your game mechanics and build, there's no meaningful difference

[twilit escarp]

Mmm, golden dragon it is then

Muh gal is chaotic good, so follows after the ancestor

[tribal steeple]

Golds are lawful good iirc, but you can have a little rebellious phase as a treat

[rustic cape]

Reds are traditionally chaotic evil

Golds traditionally lawful good, yeh

[twilit escarp]

Also, any thoughts on these cantrips?

(I have no clue what are good and not lol)

[tribal steeple]

Man it's been so long since I looked at 1e pathbuilder

Cantrips don't scale in 1e so you wanna maximize whatever utility you can get out of them

[twilit escarp]

Actually swapped arcane mark for prestidigation

Ability to clean or soil a cubic meter of water is definitely good shit

[frank crystal]

Oh shit I love this artist

[twilit escarp]

Look up O-nce

[twilit escarp]

He also made this

And this

[frank crystal]

Oh, I think I got the artist confused then

Because that’s a super different art style then I was thinking about

[twilit escarp]

Oh, okay lol

[frank crystal]

Though those are both super nice

I thought that was commissioned from Koyorin

[twilit escarp]

Ah, nah

I'm fairly sure Koyorin is way beyond my budget for arts

[frank crystal]

Their commissions are pretty pricey yah

[twilit escarp]

All three of these were like 30-50 bucks

[frank crystal]

Oh nice

[twilit escarp]

And I think Koyorin will ask like... idk, 300+, which is something I just straight ip can't afford

(My monthly wage is around 600 lol)

[frank crystal]

Yah that probably isn’t worth it unfortunately

[twilit escarp]

Mhm

I wish to get some more art, but I'm sure as fuck live in too poor of a country to afford it

But, erm, back to mechanical part...

I'm so fkn dreading the amount of feats and spells and stuff that is there, man x.x

[woeful pecan]

It gets less intimidating pretty quickly

[twilit escarp]

Still spooked tho

Also, after reading into dragon heritage chose to dip off it and into half-elf with dragon soul instead

Defo better than just darkvision/lowlight of heritage lol

[surreal basin]

Those are good, damage cantrips are ass and you should never take them

Read magic is essential

Mending is god tier utility

[twilit escarp]

Same thought, yeah

Mage hand also feels like omega-good utility, and prestidigation is just nice to have in case we need it

[twilit escarp]

I don't think it's possible to learn more cantrips, right?

Bc there's other neat stuff like Resistance, Detect Poison and Detect Magic

(And arcane symbol to make dickpicks in places or smth to fuck with other ppl indirectly)

[surreal basin]

Check your class table

I’m pretty sure you get like 2-3 more

Sorry the

Spell progression table

I guess

Yeah sorc gets up to 9

As they level

[twilit escarp]

Noice

So I think that'll be it if we live till lvl 10 lol

[sour venture]

something also to note is that you can get wands of cantrips for 325gp, and that's 50 uses (which is more than enough to last through a campaign for a small utility spell)

there's also the cracked orange prism ioun stone which gives +1 cantrip known

once you've got some levels on you, either is a pretty trivial cost

[twilit escarp]

Mmm, I see

But yeah, for now we're just with those 4, and I think it should be good.

We have utility, we have offense (magic missle+claws), we have debuff

[tribal steeple]

I am super not well engaged for this game session, but if nothing else the Druid has cast Cave Fangs to make a 20ft burst of difficult terrain followed by me using Wooden Palisade to force enemies to navigate around the wall

[fossil dome]

Tower defence time

[tribal steeple]

the gm made a mistake letting me play a level 6 kineticist

[fossil dome]

Which Gate/a?

[echo briar]

Earth and wood at minimum.

That’s the combo impulse

[tribal steeple]

No, metal and wood. There is a druid in the party who's doing the difficult terrain for this instance.

Earth with Sand Snatcher is very cool though, yes please 30ft ranged grapple

[rustic cape]

I'm a big fan of earth/air for Desert Wind

[echo briar]

I misremembered the earth/wood impulse my bad

[rustic cape]

Earth Wood is Jagged Berms iirc

Which is very strong as well

[tribal steeple]

Jagged Berm is indeed earth-wood and extremely good if you can play around forced movement or otherwise forcing enemies to deal with it

[rustic cape]

A wall that does damage and doesn't need sustain is good stuff

[tribal steeple]

I've already thoroughly fucked up this boss fight just by doing wall -> aura + sustain -> wall in new location, so I'm satisfied

[tribal steeple]

update: i had to step away and they started another combat with exactly none of the good coordination the above-mentioned fight had

[tribal steeple]

our minotaur magus continues to think he's the tank of the party (he is 3rd place for AC and consistently eats critical hits, being dropped to Dying multiple times each fight)

[sacred bluff]

Sounds like he's the floor tank at least

[tribal steeple]

The joke is that he's doing burpees, but frankly I'm kind of sick of it happening.

Combined with him being a very stereotypical Magus + Investigator polearm build who never does anything unless Devise A Stratagem foretells that his spellstrike will obliterate someone.

The party composition is geared to support tons of movement control and threat, but the players just do not get it and consistently resort to stationary slugging matches, and the biggest target is the one who is most likely to eat critical hits (as the Summoner, Witch, and Druid are all at a very sensible safe distance).

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1343727357181038725/1405674264086188072/190848C5-581D-4C42-AF3C-762B3089D7CD.mov?ex=68e8322c&is=68e6e0ac&hm=3de907f29531f767415dd2e8a245a0034cd9af199b5d415d25c7a5b06fdef208&

[echo briar]

Why did investigator magus even take off? It’s not that good.

[tribal steeple]

Knowing if your One Big Attack is going to work or not, that's about it

[echo briar]

Like, you would much rather have a spell attack focus spell, so you can do the big attack more often

[tribal steeple]

Ostensibly it lets you chose what else to do instead but in at least my experience it just feels like "I rolled a number that doesn't guarantee I hit this time, so instead I will contribute what feels like nothing and try again next turn"

[echo briar]

They could spend the archetype feats to instead get more castings of true strike, which is more likely to be useful

[tribal steeple]

but polish vampire, that's not what the magus guides have ranked [****] blue!

[echo briar]

Here’s the thing, last time I checked, it isn’t ranked that well.

Like, it’s good, but generally a witch or wizard dedication are rated higher.

Or just the sentinel dedication

[sturdy lagoon]

It is kind of weird. You don't get any benefits of future sight unless you have other useful tasks you can perform without a roll. You just get to feel useless early and save your spell slots "for later" like consumables in a video game.

Investigator loves devise a stratagem because 1. You can do it for free if your GM believes in your bullshit, 2. You swap the attribute to your best attribute, and 3. You have double the skills and skill feats and can easily do literally anything else on a bad roll.

[tribal steeple]

I haven't looked at it at all recently but I remember a handful of things and am kinda just being petty and facetious about this right now.

[sturdy lagoon]

None of these apply with archetype investigator, so the benefits are way weaker in exchange for class feats you can use for other purposes.

[woeful pecan]

I'm playing a Magus in one of my games, and yeah. It's durable enough for melee, but not a tank by any measure

Without our Guardian I'd probably have died by now

I'm multiclassing into Wizard for more spell slots, but if I wanted to be a tank then Sentinel is so obviously the choice it's not even funny

[tribal steeple]

My first rpg character was a 1e magus, and seeing this one being played has really turned me away from trying a 2e magus.

[woeful pecan]

I promise you 2e Magus feels so much better compared to 1e

At the very least because you don't have to deal with clunky twf rules

Laughing Shadow would probably play most similarly to 1e

[wary yoke]

Yeah spellstrike is better, but IMO the whole class feels worse

I hate wave casting

[wary yoke]

Okay, less sleepy opinion: large parts of the class are better, but if wave casting makes you feel like a shitty martial rather than a caster wading into melee like the 1E version did

I can see a world where Spell Combat was the emphasized feature instead of Spellstrike that does really fun things with the action economy

[paper inlet]

There is a character concept in my head, but I have no idea if Inventor is the good choice here or something else. I kinda wanna do a concept of punching innovator with some really funky prosthetic arms that run on something weird.

[wraith snow]

Sterling Dynamo is an archetype built around that concept, more or less. Your GM might let you play a weapon inventor with the Dynamo as your invention but RAW it doesn't work. Armour Inventor or just Brawling specialist Fighter would probably work fine.

[paper inlet]

I see I see.

[wraith snow]

Also as always, flavour is free, so you could probably get away with just doing weapon inventor with any brawling weapon and calling it a day

[paper inlet]

True

But my inspiration is specifically something about steam knights with wacky mechanical stuff

So armor inventor or fighter works even better

[clever cobalt]

What's the appeal of the Claw Dancer dedication?

[echo briar]

two very good unarmed strikes that you can switch between at will.

[clever cobalt]

is it worth it as a monk?

[wraith snow]

I'd also add solid reaction attacks on builds where it's not competing with reactive strike

ie, a monk lol

[wary yoke]

Dont monks want their own stances?

[light gyro]

if you're grabby and you know it you can get four strikes in with two actions

[wary yoke]

Or is clawdancer enough of an upgrade?

[light gyro]

it's pretty versatile, also has a neat combo-y feeling

[echo briar]

Well thats for the architype. they just asked about the dedication.

[wraith snow]

Fair, though I'd argue even talking about just the dedication "you can access this stuff later" IS a selling point

[wraith snow]

There's not many feats that care about using a Monk stance specifically, some require a specific stance as a pre-requisite but between the qi feats and several that just care about unarmed strikes it's completely workable

[wary yoke]

Ah, alrighty then

[rustic cape]

It strikes me as one of those things like the old "to-hit is god" fallacy in 4e, where it's less about a thing actually being good and more about people being nervous about a feelsbad situation that may not actually arise.

[paper inlet]

People don't like to miss

[warped orbit]

just spend the action you used on DeS to recharge your Spellstrike instead if you miss

[solar storm]

I think the idea is to use DeS to ensure great effect for a leveled spell

Chain lightning or something high value

Since it feels pretty bad to fizzle something like that

[rustic cape]

You are objectively correct, but people don't like to miss

It's kinda like Risky Reload where like

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3163

It doesn't always work, but when it fails all it means is that you use the exact same number of actions you would have if you hadn't used it at all

So objectively it's really strong and the only reason not to use it is having some other Flourish ability

But people see the word misfire and that makes them unhappy

[warped orbit]

Well Chain Lightning is also a save, so it doesn't work exactly with Spellstrike anyway
But yes, I get your point

It has more of a use case if you are using a slot, but IMO you most of the time don't really want to do that as much

[woeful pecan]

Yeah usually your actual slots should be for buffs

[rustic cape]

Cantrips are really, really strong for spellstrike purposes and there actually aren't that many good spells to use with spellstrike

[wraith snow]

Counterpoint: 3 copies of Horizon Thunder Sphere

(Realistically Grasping Claw every turn us fine)

[clever cobalt]

Magus with Psychic dedication goes hard for a reason

[rustic cape]

Plus Live Wire, Needle Darts, and Ignition

For hitting more weaknesses

And if you have some way of getting it, Divine Lance

[warped orbit]

cantrips and focus spells

[rustic cape]

Yeah!

[warped orbit]

even if you don't go for Imaginary Weapon, there's tons of strong Cleric focus spells, and a few others too

[rustic cape]

Hence psychic, which gives you a cantrip that is also a focus spell

And one of the really nice things with multiclassing for attack spells as a magus is that you still don't need to care about your casting stat

So you can, for instance, get Divine Lance off of cleric dedication, and then pick up some domain stuff, and still need no more than a +2 wisdom

[woeful pecan]

And if weaknesses are a factor, Spellstrike into Arcane Cascade allows you to trigger the weakness on every attack, no matter what cantrip you use afterwards

Real quick though, because I have nothing better to do, I'm trying to think of good party synergy stuff ahead of session next week. Think stuff like Guardian + Rogue shenanigans. As a reminder, we have:

• Nagaji Champion (Justice)
• Gnome Animist (Seer)
• Human dhampir Witch (Spinner of Threads)
• Kitsune Rogue (Scoundrel)

Are there many divine or occult spells that inflict off-guard, or help pull enemies into the Champion's aura?

[rustic cape]

One of the easiest ways for a caster to inflict off-guard for a rogue specifically is if the rogue takes Dread Striker at level 4

[woeful pecan]

Mhm I did notice that, and will be suggesting it

[rustic cape]

Fear is an amazing spell

[woeful pecan]

It heightens at 3rd rank, right?

[warped orbit]

it makes it AoE, yes

[woeful pecan]

And I can also use my familiar ability to lower enemy AC for higher crit chance

[warped orbit]

note that the Spinner familiar benefit will not stack with any other spells inflicting a status penalty

[woeful pecan]

Aye aye

What are gonna be the major sources of that? I assume the Animist?

Ah, Frightened. Yeah that's something to watch for

[paper inlet]

What Sanctification does the Champion go?

[woeful pecan]

Unknown as of yet

(I'm in full-on hyperfixation mode and unsurprisingly nobody but the GM is matching that pace)

[paper inlet]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5895

You can go Evil Justice

[woeful pecan]

I'm not sure they'll wanna go that route, but I'll keep it in mind

[paper inlet]

Void Touch is also another source of healing for the dhampir

[woeful pecan]

I was planning on using Cauldron for oil of unlife and Treat Wounds primarily

And notably, the player's guide actively does not recommend evil characters

[wraith snow]

Woe, an Albatross upon ye

[wraith snow]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1946

Ah, wait, I'm silly

Just circumstance bonus not off-guard

Still very good for a party with many martials though

[woeful pecan]

Very on-flavor too, especially if I change which bird

Fucking love curses

[warped orbit]

Albatross Curse is very funny

and also quite good

[rustic cape]

Yeah, circumstance bonuses and penalties are relatively rare

So they're very valuable.

[craggy thunder]

My group is an Alchemist, Summoner, Rogue, and Bard

No beef, my players deigned to create a party with zero beef

<XD

[woeful pecan]

I mean they do have the eidolon

[woeful pecan]

So dhampir aging. According to the rules, they age similarly to elves. Which is:

"Elves reach physical adulthood around the age of 20, though they aren't considered to be fully emotionally mature by other elves until closer to the passing of their first century. A typical elf can live to around 600 years old."

How do I interpret this? Is any elf under 100 still emotionally equivalent to a teenager? Or is this just an example of elves being elves?

[sour venture]

you have stepped into a common pitfall of "wait hang on" that's plagued D&D and D&Dlikes for ages

the answer is "you can interpret it how you want; elves over 20ish are Adults but elven culture values a certain level of age in spite of that due to their long lives"

my personal preferred way of doing it is that a 20something elf or dhampir is equivalent to a 20something human, but that a 40-60something elf or dhampir is still somewhat equivalent to a 25-30ish human, because of the knowledge that They Have All The Time In The World affecting how they tend to develop as people

but generally there just isn't really a hard answer

and different authors even within a given game handle it differently

just be glad that modern D&Dlikes go with "a 20 year old elf is physically an adult and not Still A Toddler ig"

personally i like to imagine that an elf or dhampir or similarly long-lived individual tends to feel the malaise that a lot of irl millennials do, where feel a sense of having never quite 'made it to adulthood' in spite of being objectively adults, due to the milestones of adulthood ingrained in childhood being out of reach in our time of economic collapse

if im playing a 60 or 70 year old elf i'm playing the most 31 year old woman on earth

https://tenor.com/view/bird-brain-teto-4lokogangemporer-jamiep-birdbrain-gif-14306545906510942645

[true delta]

An excellent post

[wraith snow]

I did once go an entire campaign as a dwarf saying I was doing things "for my baby siblings" and then they were brought on screen like 2/3rd of the way into the game for the first time and they were both 20 somethings

[turbid dagger]

Admittedly, I do like the dungeon meshi approach of 'fuck it we play it straight, a 17 year old elf is still going goo goo ga ga'

[woeful pecan]

Fuck it she's about 70, works better with the timeline and I was already gonna play her as like a Midwestern aunt

[rapid wagon]

I generally just figure elven society has like a coming of age shtick at around 100 and before that you're largely considered vaguely incompetent but also given more freedom than post century elves

where like a lot less is expected of you before 100 and so you can try all kinds of things, but after 100 you're generally expected to contribute to elven society

[woeful pecan]

I'm just excited for the group to figure out what she is

Because I've set the players and characters up to think she's a half-elf (pointy ears + long life = elf shit obviously)

While also having as many picrews and such depicting her with more ashy skin

[warped orbit]

I personally also generally treat it as a cultural thing mostly
where an elf is physically and mentally adult at the same rate as other ancestries, but culturally they don't get treated as such until later

[wraith snow]

Extremely minor spoilers for the Kingmaker AP ||Due to a combo of the nature of the timeline being longer than most APs, my character being shortlived, and being on the older end even at the start, my character is going to end up pushing the absolute limit of natural lifespan for her race||

[woeful pecan]

Gonna see if I can talk my group into using free archetype

[surreal basin]

Misread this as short lived and I was like “what fuck are you taking about”

[rustic cape]

Given the existence of Ancient Elf, I would tend to read it as functionally an adult by most standards but still not given full social weight due to a presumed lack of diversity and/or depth of experience

[woeful pecan]

If I get Herbalist free archetype on my Witch, at level 1 should I:

• Natural Ambition - Cauldron
• Natural Ambition - Cackle
• Dhampir ancestry feat

[novel merlin]

Cackle IMO

[light gyro]

party got rinsed by an extreme+ encounter, felt kinda bad especially since we spent a real-world hour trying to flee only to get death-spiraled

[woeful pecan]

GM drew my blorbo!

[clever cobalt]

Nice

[desert vale]

Blorbo!

[astral prawn]

Does it tend to take 2 years to get to level 8 on a biweekly campaign

[warped orbit]

IME no

[astral prawn]

Didn't think so, took 6 months to get to 7 in mine I'm runnin

[warped orbit]

I think generally the game is paced to level up every 4-6-ish sessions or so?
assuming you keep a relatively steady pace of combat

sometimes even faster

[astral prawn]

It's definitely on the slower side

[warped orbit]

I found it fairly fast generally when I played

[astral prawn]

Same same

I'm trying to understand how it could take so long?

Ah some sessions only 80xp got rewarded

Or if they were short it were dream sessions with 0xp

[surreal basin]

At least in my experience a 1-20 adventure takes about a year and a half playing weekly for 4 hours

[astral prawn]

I think the GM just takes his time, no idea what level he's planning to run things 'til

[astral prawn]

He's planning to run to 20 or if we reach a natural conclusion sooner

[limber comet]

I need to burn more mitflits

Every moment a mitflit goes unburned I suffer

[woeful pecan]

We get to use free archetype hell yes

[rapid wagon]

Shouldn't non combat stuff and major scenes offer sums of xp similar to combats?

[warped orbit]

Generally yes, but it depends

[tribal steeple]

Xp is supposed to be rewarded for getting past challenges, whether that be combat encounters where monsters die or social encounters where reputations die or just successfully navigating through hazards and puzzles

[rustic cape]

XP counting can be fun but in general I think milestone is a better fit for a lot of campaign types.

[tribal steeple]

I do think milestone is better

[stuck bane]

Finally got to fight an enemy disarming block can work on, got a nat 20 on the disarm check

Immediately got kicked in the face and downed/dying after though, celebrated too hard

[sour venture]

squints

squints

man

dagger pistols are thrown weapons with bulk L

that means you can put them into Shadow Sheath

exemplar dedication really is the gift that keeps on giving huh

if you do that does it stay loaded on the copies,

oh wait no you have to use an action to switch it from melee to ranged anyway

[frozen flame]

A kind GM might let an actual Exemplar use the Deft Epithet's bonus action to switch them

But that's Draw/Reload, not Interact, so it's not RAW

[desert vale]

Pathfinder 2e beginner box ordered.

Need to receive it. Read it. And. Invite possible friends to ot

[eager mountain]

did a very me thing last night in pathfinder

saw loot, beelined right for it

ran right into a trap

BAM lol

[clever cobalt]

rip

[solar storm]

lmfao

[true delta]

Heya. I'm looking at the spell lists in Player Core 1. The short description for the cantrip Daze says "Cloud a creature's mind to make it off-guard or slow" -- for instance on page 307.

However, the actual spell description says it deals 1d6 mental damage and, upon a critically fails the Will saving throw, inflicts Stunned.

Am I missing something?

[sour venture]

Pages 304, 307, and 309: On all three pages, the daze spell description should read "Cloud a creature's mind and possibly stun it."

editing mistake on the short description

[tribal steeple]

Daze has sad damage scaling, but it's still an option.

[warped orbit]

If Daze made the target off-guard on a success it would be something neat at least

[true delta]

Thank you

I am making a witch and have been assailed by a silly thought: Could you build a melee witch? With Mystic Armor, Shield and Bane, she could possibly tank a little.

[warped orbit]

you could, though actually Striking would still be mostly tertiary

just due to how your proficiencies are

[true delta]

true, true

[wraith snow]

Hair witch is something I really do want to try at some point

I can't justify it on my current Witch build but I think it could be a lot of fun, even if just as a dedication tech

[tribal steeple]

Meanwhile, Psychic with the 120ft daze that can be amped to d10 + mental weakness + Will penalty (radical)

[warped orbit]

I'll let Psychics have it tbh

[steel blade]

me thinking i was slick playing a silent whisper psychic, only for the GM to put us up against mindless enemies it was the only fight that happened before that game fell apart and i was basically useless in it

[warped orbit]

ah that's rough

Silent Whisper is quite good

especially once you get Shatter Mind

[true delta]

My witch is supposed to be built on the theme of bending fate. Hence Bless, Bane, Ill Omen, and so forth. But I'm unsure about the Spinner of Threads as a Patron. I'm underwhelmed by the nudge fate hex and by sure strike. I do like the familiar ability which gives a creature of my choice either +1 or -1 to AC.

But I smells a bit like the Resentment might be a more fun choice. I just don't know how well my party will be set up to inflict negative conditions on enemies, which my familiar could then extend the duration of. Any experiences with either patron?

[tribal steeple]

I REALLY should not keep planning for it, but I'm plagued with the urge to do a Psychic for Season of Ghosts. I think the retired military teacher Commander might win out though.

[warped orbit]

Resentment is very strong, just because the Occult list already has several powerful conditions you can extend like with Synesthesia or Slow

the main danger with Resentment is mostly just your familiar getting focused

[woeful pecan]

What other casters will be in the group?

I'm playing a Spinner Witch, but we also have an Animist, so that covers divine spells, leaving me to focus on debuffs. But you can still lean into the fate thing

Nudge Fate is definitely underwhelming, so take Basic Lesson at 2. Vengeance or Life could be about enforcing a creature's fate, either deciding they're not destined to fight a given ally (Needle of Vengeance), or healing being flavored as essentially plot armor (Life Boost)

[tribal steeple]

Synesthesia is so stupidly nasty of a spell.

[woeful pecan]

And an occult exclusive notably

[warped orbit]

it's great yeah

[tribal steeple]

In our Kingmaker game we went into a 4v1 boss fight (PL+2 I think?). Wizard landed a Stupefy first, then I (shadow sorcerer) landed a Synesthesia crit-fail. Fight was so trivial afterward (until the Wizard got Swallowed but it was fine)

[warped orbit]

Crit fails do be like that

[true delta]

Only one bard and I don’t know any specifics. I‘m likely taking the witch feat Cauldron at level 2 to brew some healing potions.

[true delta]

Neat

[woeful pecan]

Okay yeah I'd definitely avoid an occult patron if the Bard is the only other caster

ESPECIALLY Spinner since their familiar ability overlaps with Bard a lot

[true delta]

Okay, good to know

I‘ll have some reflavouring of the backstory to do, then.

[woeful pecan]

One of the primal patrons would probably be my recommendation, should give you the widest spell coverage

[true delta]

Hmmm yeah

Might fit some story ideas, too

Thank ye

[echo briar]

So we can finally use advanced weapons in starfinder now https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/997-prop-closet

I really hate the ancestry based unlocking system for advanced weapons. Advanced weapons are not worth a 6th level class feat, why is it ether that or a level 1 ancestry feat?

[solar storm]

It seems like something which got decided real early in system construction and would be complicated to change now but also nearly all advanced weapons are completely not worth it lol

[rustic cape]

Tbh I’m not exactly sure what I’d give them to a player for, very little seems truly worth it

[paper inlet]

Hornbow is one of the few I heard are actually worth it.

[echo briar]

General feat seems like it would be fine.

It may not be the best general feat, but it’s at least comparable

[twilit escarp]

Okay... I play PF1e with some friends and went out to glance into one of the sheets...

What is this shit

[surreal basin]

What part

[twilit escarp]

20 charisma and 18 str

Like, how tf

[surreal basin]

Did yall roll and what did you roll

Like what dice

[twilit escarp]

It was 20 points

So ain't no stat rolling

[surreal basin]

Are you the GM?

[paper inlet]

I don't recognize the race. Maybe some stuff going on idk

But pf1e has higher base stats and less stat increases

Ushally

That's for my swash for example

[twilit escarp]

Nop

[surreal basin]

Yeah that seems like a custom race

[twilit escarp]

There's apparently some tool to create custom races or smth? Idk

[surreal basin]

Idk I wouldn’t worry then, but bring it up to the GM or ask the player they did that

They do have really low in everything but those two stats

[sour venture]

if we assume +2 Str/Cha and -2 Int, then we're looking at 31 point buy

[surreal basin]

Jesus okay

Yeah maybe ask I didn’t realize it was that bad lol

[sour venture]

but if you drop the cha down to 16 base (18 after stats) it's only 24 point buy, which isn't uncommon

if you're doing custom races it's not that hard to boost stats though

the race points system is wonky

[surreal basin]

Yeah

Could be +4 charisma

[twilit escarp]

We're going with 20 point buy sooo

[sour venture]

if they had race points for +4/+4/-2 then it'd end up under 20

i'd have to see the rest of the sheet to figure out what happened

honestly though

what i suspect happened is they misunderstood how point buy works

[twilit escarp]

Well, here's the sheet

[sour venture]

and did this:
Str 10 -> 18 (8 points)
Dex 10 -> 12 (2 points)
Con 10 -> 12 (2 points)
Int 10 -> 8 (-2 points)
Wis 10 (0 points)
Cha 10 -> 20 (10 points)

thinking it was 1:1

in a vacuum

yeah

their racial traits don't have any stat boosts

which makes me suspect they just didn't understand how the point buy has diminishing returns

[surreal basin]

Yeag

You should tell them

Or the GM if you don’t know them

Don’t accuse them of cheating or anything tho obv

[sour venture]

this system is super complex and frankly the point buy stuff isn't very intuitive

and "oh i have X points i'll up my stats with them" is like

one of the most common first-time mishaps ime

[surreal basin]

Yeah absolutely

[sour venture]

because like

[surreal basin]

((Probably how it should work))

[sour venture]

why WOULD you assume that the stats have exponential costs,

very few game industries do this

[paper inlet]

Nah

[sour venture]

it's basically just the D&Dlikes

[paper inlet]

Knowing the type of creatures 3.x dnd players are

I'm glad this is here

[surreal basin]

I got really confused when stuff in storyteller didn’t have exponential costs

“What do you mean the last rank of this merit costs the same as the first”

“Surely it costs 25 XP”

[sour venture]

honestly i've always considered the exponential costs for starting stats to be a bit of an ivory tower game design thing

[surreal basin]

I’m still not entirely sure it’s not exponential lmao

[sour venture]

because it's completely unintuitive ime that it's Just Better to downgrade stats below the maximum for most characters

(in 3.x especially)

(because in 3.x you can make up the difference elsewhere and going from 18 to 16 starting stat gives you significant and disproportionate gains in secondary stats)

[twilit escarp]

Ye, I DMes GM and was like 'hey, is it fine her character is...'

[solar storm]

This is why my limited experience with 3.5 mostly involved people going “fuck it we’re rolling stats”

[twilit escarp]

Me when attributes in Shadowrun

[sour venture]

well that';s even worse,

don't roll stats in 3.5,

😭

[twilit escarp]

Rolling stats is... kinda weird

You can roll like ass and get fucked, loser

Or RNJesus can pat you on the head and bam

[surreal basin]

Yeah it

[sour venture]

mostly the problem with rolled stats, as i see it, is "it's very easy for someone to get lucky and just be Better Off Than Everyone Else, or unlucky and be Arbitrarily Worse, and in modern ttrpgs (post the year 2000), this is terrible for group dynamics"

just a snowballing Bad Gamefeels thing

[surreal basin]

Heaaah

[sour venture]

which is why if i ever do rolled stats

it's

"everyone rolls"

"and anyone can take ANYONE'S array"

if one person rolls really well then this is a game about high-rolled PCs

but generally i just link a calculator at people,

[solar storm]

We were also all in middle school and it was far from the most egregious thing balance wise

[sour venture]

for 3.5 at least,

yeah

[surreal basin]

Yeah I hate rolling lmao

[sour venture]

i mean when i was a kid we rolled but yeah

anyway

you wanna know the dumbest part of point buy in both 3.5 and pf1e

i have a chart that can illustrate it lemme brb

[paper inlet]

I like "Rolled stats, but if you roll below arbitrary number you get a reroll."

[sour venture]

well that's built into most rolled stats systems

even going back to 1st edition D&D

it's more the table imbalance that's a problem in modern ttrpgs

[solar storm]

I like “rolled stats down the line, if they’re GM agrees you rolled trash you can reroll”

[sour venture]

if the game is meant to be a meatgrinder of cycling casts it's different though

[solar storm]

But there are a lot of systems which do not support it

[surreal basin]

Yeah I’m a big proponent of allowing refills

*rerolls

[sour venture]

anyway wanna know one of the stupidest but most powerful stat optimizations you can do in 3.x?

[surreal basin]

Either below a certain total or just

“Does this suck”

Cause all 13s is usually above the total but

That character is ass

[sour venture]

other trivia: one of the wierdest parts of both 3.5 and pf1e is that due to how the system is balanced, the classes that Only Need One Stat are orders of magnitude better than the other ones,

so if you give everyone a starting 18 in every stat, the result is "the weaker classes get huge boosts, and the stronger classes barely get anything unless they decide to play a weaker but likely more interesting playstyle"

a monk with 18s in every stat is having a really good time

a wizard with 18s in every stat is, played optimally, near-identical to a wizard with 18s in only con and int and 8s in the rest

which is just

so funny

[twilit escarp]

One of the more off-putting things is... we're playing Kindmaker module, and this player was really against the idea of none of us being the king. Then I came in with 18 charisma sorceress (her bunny was 18 str/18 cha in the moment)... so she made a new race and got 20 charisma - ensuring she'll get the ruler position no matter what.

It just... gives out some bad vibe.

[sturdy lagoon]

The literal first time my younger sibiling tried to have us run a D&D5e game, they decided on rolled stats. And another family member rolled so high on Wisdom, I was basically useless for wisdom skills, as a ranger, an already troubled class pick in 5e, and mediocre other stats.

It only reinforced that I do not like rolled stats. I do not use it in the PF1e game I'm in.

[sour venture]

yeah... rolled stats are a huge Bad Gamefeel generator in games where you're supposed to play the same character long term

it's just like

these games are already imbalanced

but adding in an arbitrary Different Starting Point makes the feelings worse

realistic as it is, rolled stats suck imo

[solar storm]

I think it works better in games where stats either evolve faster or don’t matter as much

It’s rough in 5e or hypothetically PF2

[sour venture]

the tighter the math the worse it gets too

[solar storm]

(I’ve never used rolled stats in PF2)

[surreal basin]

You can’t and shouldn’t

[woeful pecan]

I was gonna say, I think it just doesn't work

[solar storm]

But it’s not bad in early D&D where you basically just need 1 stat above 13-14 to be credible

[twilit escarp]

It also a bit of a pain when atts matter a whole lot

[solar storm]

Ignoring like, the weird stuff around 18.00 strength and such

[sturdy lagoon]

it's not even that realistic. people don't just arbitrarily have better bodies and minds. there are reasons behind that.

[twilit escarp]

Just built different

[sour venture]

the people at the top of their game in a field tend to be people who do in fact arbitrarily have 'better' (in a technical sense, not a moral sense) bodies

michael phelps is a guy who rolled really high stat dependencies for swimming

etc

and a lot of people do in fact have arbitrarily worse 'stats' in many ways

[surreal basin]

It also makes sense with stuff like Paladin

Where it has very strict stat requirement because it’s supposed to be

Like

Rare

[sour venture]

myself included

||to pretend otherwise is basically a gentle lie that makes people feel better, but moving past it is one of the most important parts of disability justice and activism, because if you can't internalize that some people will be physically better or worse off in some ways (again, in a technical sense, not a moral or value one), you can't even begin to start working on achieving equity||

[twilit escarp]

But I mean, in the end, rolling for stats can just feel bad if you're shit outta luck

[sour venture]

yeah

it sucks

[sturdy lagoon]

my point is that isn't well represented by randomness. genetic disposition and upbringings aren't random.

[sour venture]

i think it's represented well enough by randomness because you're functionally taking a random person from a large sample (everyone in the setting) and making them a player character, and stats tend to be the first part of making a character in games

but in the end

i don't think random-rolled stats are any good for gaming

realism for realism's sake isn't worth it either, but that's a separate thing

[solar storm]

I think just rolling bad stats is actually a huge problem since you usually get rerolls but the really awkward thing is when many people have good stats and one person has Extremely Good stats ime

[sour venture]

yeah

that can be a mess

you know what's funny

[sturdy lagoon]

yeah I prefer to play my TTRPGs to escape from the limitations of my body and life lmao.

at least in a play-by-post game I can simulate having normal recall and attention span.

[sour venture]

yeah exactly

fuckin mood

i play ttrpgs to enjoy being someone who isn't bedridden all the time

[sour venture]

IQ sucks, it's not a measure of your intelligence it's a measure of how good you are at finding your neighbor's lost cat in the alps

but even if you take it at its face value and then look at the actual definitions of what IQ is

int 18 is like

IQ 120? ish?

which was always really deeply funny to me because of the way nerds historically have constantly tried to go "int = IQ on some scale (generally 1 int = 10 IQ)"

but IQ is not a linear scale it's a normal distribution

if you follow the way a lot of D&Ds have random-rolled NPCs be 3d6 straight down, Int 18 (one in 216 people) is IQ 140

if we're talking 4d6kh3, Int 18 is IQ 131

if it's 5d6kh3, it's IQ 127

basically

int 18 will in practice hover between IQ 130ish and IQ 140ish

NOT the "once in a lifetime supergenius smarter than smart omni-genius" thing that many people like to consider Int 18 to be

(and of course IQ is not a measure of intelligence at all, but even if you try to say it is, this is what you get)

[sturdy lagoon]

also most d20 point buy you can get int 18 during chargen

it shouldn't represent super-intelligence only gained through long years of mastery, because your character can start as INT 18

[sour venture]

yeah xd

[sturdy lagoon]

same thing with the other 5 stats.

[woeful pecan]

Though keep in mind your characteralso starts with training and experience in their class. Attribute scores likely include at least SOME of that

[twilit escarp]

Yeah

It also can lead to funny situations where you may roll so shit that you're better to just swap classes or smth, which is... yeah.

[sturdy lagoon]

though, level 1 class. baseline prowess and all, but not exactly a master yet. it is still a score you achieve within the boundary of your pre-level-1 backstory.

with an 18 you're great at attribute X, better than most people you know. but you still have more to improve.

[echo briar]

Pathbuilder is on IOS

But it’s region locked for some reason. Americans can get it, but I’m not sure about if any other country’s have access.

[rustic cape]

Oh wait they released IOS Pathbuilder?

[warped orbit]

Yeah just today

[rustic cape]

Cool

[twilit escarp]

Okay, GM talked with her, and she actually fixed the sheet, so now she "only" has two attributes at 18

Which still feels like something that shouldn't be a thing buuuuuuut it's not as stupid

Her Cha went from 20 to 18, and her agi went from 12 to 10, so yeah.

[sour venture]

for whatever it's worth

that is standard 20 point buy with normal pf1e races

pf1e expects you to start with two 18s or one 20, in many cases

[warped orbit]

That's pretty normal yeah

[leaden token]

hi folks, how long would it take to complete the adventure in the beginner box?

[warped orbit]

about 2-3 sessions is normal IME, depending on how quick you are
possibly faster

[leaden token]

how long is troubles in otari?

[eager mountain]

PPSSSSTTTTTTTT

https://bsky.app/profile/phoebebane.bsky.social/post/3m36laiasdk2j

Phoebe Bane (@phoebebane.bsky.social)

The new dragon designs in Pathfinder 2e's Monster Core 2 are kinda heccin' poggers, NGL...

Bluesky · Oct 14, 2025, 8:33 PM

new dragons

space drongon

[sour venture]

loving how pf2e is bringing back the All Dragons Are Weird Guys of the 3.5 days after D&D and pf1e both kinda dropped that emphasis

gorgeous designs

weirdass derps

[errant roost]

Resurrection dragons should have a breath weapon that brings you back to life

[clever cobalt]

isn't this an SCP

[eager mountain]

yep

[trail nova]

There’s also a separate note here that at least in most modern games, PCs are emphatically not “random guy #13” but instead people who are decently capable at some things.

[twilit escarp]

Hmmm I see... well, I hope there won't be (too much) suffering with my stats then lol

[sour venture]

you'll be fine

[twilit escarp]

It's my first time and I'm a bit nervous lol

[sour venture]

it is generally better to have more well-rounded stats than spikes in practice; pf1e is just a system where the math is not very tight

[upbeat ridge]

CORAL DRAGON

[upbeat ridge]

Are these the first 4 dragons for starfinder or have they shown others?

[trim bluff]

starfinder seems cool as fuck

big shame that my dm (understandabely) doesnt like running pathfinder and pathfinder is too much for me to dm either 😔

[desert vale]

Im thinking of trying to run pathfinder. Ordered beginner box

[eager mountain]

Starfinder

[wraith snow]

You uh, might have read the question wrong

[turbid dagger]

I believe tey are the first

[upbeat ridge]

I see

[eager mountain]

( anguished Flame )

[desert vale]

What are those?

[eager mountain]

outsiders

[desert vale]

Buh are they a category of cool fore outsiders?

[true delta]

Is this book super new?

[desert vale]

Its. I have not read monster core in its entirety and it sounded like some new stuff was coming out

[echo briar]

It’s not even out yet

These are just people who got it early via subscriptions

[surreal basin]

Wait there are people who got monster core 3?

2 even

Idk why I thought 2 came out already lol

[warped orbit]

Subscriber pdf

[eager mountain]

subscriber pdfs

and the reason I dont fuckin know , is becuase I dont own it yet

[desert vale]

I didnt mean to put you on the spot. Sorry.

[rapid wagon]

Anyone know if there's a starfinder 2e character builder or if one is in the works?

[tribal steeple]

https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/starfinder2e
this exists

[echo briar]

https://sf2e.hephaistos.online/

[rustic cape]

If the pathbuilder guy intends one we probably won’t know until it happens

Since he “doesn’t like to self-promote”

[clever cobalt]

enkidu

[turbid dagger]

Starbuilder has in fact been confirmed, as a toggle for PB
But it's a longggggg way out

[sour venture]

anyone know if there's a good way to get extra item daily uses in pf2e? or, to frame challenge, if there's a way to draw weapons as a free action (a) that isn't on initiative roll and (b) that isn't thousand-blade thesis?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1081

looking at a build that wants to draw a new (loaded) crossbow every round instead of loading them manually

[vocal ember]

The closest I can find is Crossbow Infiltrator Dedication https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7913

[sour venture]

ironically that's part of the build anyway

[vocal ember]

The thaumaturge feat One More Activation can get you an extra activation once per day, but only for an item of half your level or lower

[sour venture]

it's just that i don't want to draw-and-strike, i want to draw on its own

the goal here is to use crescent spray every round: https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7914

and like

i can do that by just drawing the weapon

draw a new one each round and volley

but i'd like to find a way to move too

i guess haste works?

[warped orbit]

Get a mount

Or haste yeah

[sour venture]

there's a mount that lets you move and draw a weapon as part of its movement (one of the mules, forget the name), which works

i'm just trying to figure out if there's more options

it genuinely didn't occur to me to get haste until now though

Oh Right, Haste

XD

[vocal ember]

Lightning Swap maybe?

[sour venture]

also a flourish, can't use at the same time, unfortunately

mostly im building reaper overwatch and would like to not need to have him riding a mule

as funny as it is

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/326489077820162049/1427792474528550943/image.png?ex=68f2c9dd&is=68f1785d&hm=11bfbd1954670e6963cd967d47dcf2fd0096896f6243b75ed406c902f492ae81&

[turbid dagger]

When I contemplated crescent spray spam the idea was
Two crescent crosses
Crescent spray cross 1, meta reload
Meta reload, crescent spray cross 2
Meta reload, crescent spray cross 1 again
And you are now three rounds into the fight with 9 attacks downrange and hopefully you can make do with the more conventional reload then shoot loop from here

[sour venture]

meta reload?

[turbid dagger]

Running reload, clear the path, night wave springing reload, etc
Like metastrike, the sundry feats that are reload then do x

[sour venture]

oh i see

what i was thinking is just