Pathfinder

[sour venture]

doubling rings on a runed up weapon in the off-hand

because combination weapons carry their melee's runes onto the ranged part's too

and then just

crescent spray, drop the weapon, draw a new one
crescent spray, drop the weapon, draw a new one
crescent spray, drop the weapon, draw a new one

[light gyro]

apparently new battle oracle sucks, there any other option for 'martial cursed by something spooky'?

[solar storm]

Refluffed Exemplar is great for this

[light gyro]

i haven't read up on exemplar yet, seems like a lot to take in

[vocal ember]

spirit barbarian would fit I think.

[steel blade]

You could also simply play any martial class and take the cursed background, assuming your GM allows it

[paper inlet]

Thaum maybe? Or some kind of melee witch? But yeah, melee class + cursed bg is probably best fit

[vocal ember]

The Curse Maelstrom archetype is also an option, tho it is Rare

[paper inlet]

Also I feel like battle oracle is not bad, it's just not good at hitting things.

[light gyro]

two of its spells are based around hitting things better and the last is a slight counter to its own curse. the first hitting spell is an action tax to still be below any other martial with a martial weapon, and does nothing for a simple weapon build. The Dead Walk is a cool feat though. would be better if you were good at hitting things.

[frozen flame]

Animist with Witness to Ancient Battles is similar flavor

And the Embodiment of Battle focus spell helps a lot there

[turbid dagger]

Its not that complex
It's like Magus where you care about the class features more than the feats
Three to four Ikons, one to three Epithets, and whatever extra Transcends or Immanence effects you want to take
You will only really be worrying about one ikon, epithet, or transcend a round

[sour venture]

more specifically i'd say it's uhhhh

it's a stance change class, kinda

in a videogame sense

you've got 3 Special Super Cool Items

all of them have a passive and an active

you have one up at once, and when you use the active, you're forced to change to another item as part of the action (free)

from there, the class is about juggling these Special Super Cool Items while fighting in combat

[small meteor]

I do like how you can change what an ikon physically is though. So if you get a better but different item, you can swap it over.

[rustic cape]

The coolest Exemplar setup I've seen was played by Vhai and was a three weapon ikon iruxi with three different types of unarmed attack

[thorny berry]

living vessel also fits the flavor

[rustic cape]

Meaning it could use a transcendence option every turn without losing offensive presence or being locked to going back and forth between two things.

[thorny berry]

though that's one of the 'no actually this is marked rare for good reason' ones

[rustic cape]

Actually, are there any ancestries other than iruxi that can get an unarmed attack doing each of the three damage types?

[echo briar]

With grafts, technically all of them.

Also I think catfolk can, because of versatile and the default punch.

[rustic cape]

From level 1, as three discrete weapons, though?

I think it may just be iruxi and possibly some sort of custom mixed heritage

Although I guess catfolk can take Saber Teeth

Taloned Tengu can also work ...

... nephilim awakened animal works, though not until level 5

Which means you'd have to take Additional Ikon at level 8

Oh, hungerseed might open up some possibilities

[sudden lark]

LGS might host a PF2e game soonish. Might get to making my aeternal dragon drakewarden here!

As a ranger with a riding drake.

He just really likes dragons.

Like me

[rustic cape]

Fleshwarp! It's not quite as efficient as Iruxi but it can trade ancestry feats for natural attacks

And also gets the reasonably delectable https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2522

[light gyro]

Fleshwarp! At the disco

[rustic cape]

So fleshwarp CMH + any ancestry that gets a natural weapon by default can do it without problems.

Minotaur, kholo, lizardfolk, uh ...

Tengu?

I think the beak attack is a standard feature

Or fleshwarp w/hungerseed

Which tbh sounds kinda rad

[rustic cape]

This is very funny with the four cones

[wraith snow]

Goblin, too

Both through a specific ancestry or a feat

[rustic cape]

Having reviewed the options, I would say that in a non-ancestry paragon game, the best way to do this is probably to do just two weapon ikons, and to pick up claws from either lizardfolk or catfolk ancestry feats, which are versatile piercing/slashing.

And then to grab monk dedication at level 2

With ancestry paragon, either lizardfolk or fleshwarp feats are probably ideal.

The talos versatile ancestry also provides a funky feat that makes all of your unarmed attacks count as a special material type, so in ancestry paragon where swinging 3 ancestry feats is not so bad, one might do lizardfolk or fleshwarp with talos heritage to be able to eventually swing as cold iron, silver, and adamantine.

[vocal ember]

Talos also has a lineage that gives your fist the modular trait

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4324

[rustic cape]

True, although the feat may be more notable for making fists lethal and 1d6 even without monk, since modular is a bit of a pain and the idea is to have 2-3 weapon ikons that we're bouncing around between using transcendence every round.

[vocal ember]

oooooh I see

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7179 What do we think of Warped By Rage

On the one hand, it does require you to cycle the relevant body ikon on and off and doesn't give you the chance to use its transcendence.

On the other hand, those are pretty good bonuses

On the third, mutant hand that sticks out of my chest and moves of its own accord, it doesn't scale and those claws are not your weapon ikons so

[desert vale]

Do. Any ancestries in pathfinder hit the tiefling energy that D&D ended up with

[novel merlin]

There's just tieflings under a different name

[vocal ember]

Yeah, they're just part of the nephilim versatile heritage now

[desert vale]

Fair

[paper inlet]

I mean, pathfinder cambions are not that different from DnD tieflings

And yeah, they are under Nephilim

I think Duskwalkers are only exception and they are separated away from Nephilim

[eager mountain]

thats becuase they were.,....tieflings

before the reamster

[paper inlet]

I mean, yeah

But they are different thing now

[echo briar]

Duskwalkers are different things than boneyard nephilim.

Duskwalkers are more like the boneyards chosen than something that happens accidentally like nephilim

[paper inlet]

I am pretty sure there are no boneyard nephilim as a lineage other than duskwalkers, but yeah, they work differently

[echo briar]

We only just Got the other monitors, and because of duskwalker existing boneyard nephilim are low priority. But a lack of a lineage doesn’t mean they don’t exist in lore, or even mechanically. Just don’t take a lineage

[wary yoke]

Hungerseed also got separated out

In 1E they used to be a type of tiefling

[rustic cape]

I will mention, given Zoey asked about tiefling energy, that the very specific fan-driven vibes of the modern D&D tiefling are not really the default for lower-planar nephilim

I don't think PF2e really has a clear troubled-and-brightly-colored-queer-allegory-ancestry in the way the modern fandom have made tieflings out to be one.

[woeful pecan]

It's changelings I'm gonna tell you right now

[paper inlet]

I mean, the backstory is pretty much still the same? Cambions are not liked around, they get pushed out for being who they are, they form enclaves often. It is up to players to get their tieflings the colorful bubbly way that a lot of dnd tiefling players are

[vocal ember]

I think the backstory is technically different in D&D 5e (I think it was like that you're part of a lineage cursed by Asmodeus or something), but the change was not picked up on by the broader culture as far as I can tell.

[warped orbit]

That was in 4e

And then 5e sorta carried that on, but didn't really stick to it

[vocal ember]

Ah yeah, that was it. Also apparently the new PHB changed it back.

[sour venture]

5e changed the framing of tieflings, notably

3.5's text was like

tieflings are ontologically cursed to have an inclination towards evil

4e went "tieflings are all descendents of a devil-pacting empire"

5e was the first edition that explicitly just went "yeah tieflings are just like, some guy"

"people find them untrustworthy but that's just bigotry"

which... well, that's kinda what most Tiefling Fans were using them for since the late 2000s anyway,

[rustic cape]

The visual design originally created for 4e is also a big part of it

Nephilim are very much what tieflings were in 2E and maybe 3e

Whereas 4e and 5e solidified tiefling as a specific identity

Although two different ones

[wary yoke]

1E tieflings did have culture and enclaves, notably in Absalom.

But the lineage of a tiefling was important

Kyton/Velstrac-descended tieflings were popular in Nidal, for example

Demon-blooded less so around the worldwound

[desert vale]

I like. Asura.

Velstrac i also like because i can imagine them at a coffee shop

[tribal steeple]

I think the only time I've encountered a Velstrac was this mfer who looks like he belongs in a Quake or Doom game

[warped orbit]

oh that's a Quake enemy yeah

[desert vale]

nodnod

Specifically. I think i am really fond of things being surprisingly normal weirdos i guess

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3110v hmmmmm

[echo briar]

What is this? It looks like a random assortment of feats.

[rustic cape]

Oh I see what happened

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3110

It was the v at the end

I must have accidentally tacked it on

[warped orbit]

ah this one, it's very funny yeah

[rustic cape]

I think it might even be good?!

[warped orbit]

it's not bad, yeah

[rustic cape]

Solid damage, inherits potency bonus from your weapon, 120 foot range

[warped orbit]

the range is the big part IMO

[rustic cape]

And just how little investment it's asking for to use it

All you need is a high dex and A Weapon Or Handwraps

[warped orbit]

though you still need Dex for it of course

[rustic cape]

Precision ranger?

... starlit span magus?

[light gyro]

BARBAROSSA EVERYWHERE SYSTEM

[vocal ember]

I'm noticing that the only actions you can take are to Strike or Interact to leave the form

[warped orbit]

yeah

[vocal ember]

I suppose it could still be useful tho for a dex-based melee character since if you need to hit something at range a lot of your actions won't apply anyhow.

[warped orbit]

yeah that's my thinking

[wraith snow]

I do think it's very fun flavour but admittedly at level 17 it's probably a little too late, at that level flight speed isn't hard to access even just through items if need be

Certainly not bad though, keeps you safe from risking fall damage or wandering into melee range of a dangerous target

[tribal steeple]

• 5d12 bludgeoning + 5d12 fire, Reflex vs damage & dazzle/blind, Fort vs radiation
• 75 untyped damage, basic Fort save, sustain spell to choose a new target (no repeats)
• 60ft line, Fort save vs 9d6 void / 100 void / death
  owie

[rustic cape]

It's tragic that massacre doesn't work against enemies above 17th level

(Yes you can heighten it, it's still going to be useless when you want it most)

[turbid dagger]

To be fair, massacre def seems more like a 'delete mooks' spell
At that point you'll have spells like quandary and synesthesia that chews high level enemies up like mulch in their own way

[tribal steeple]

if only it were a cone and not a line

[light gyro]

Fuckin quandary

[echo briar]

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo71mh7?Here-There-Be-Dragons#discuss

rune dragons seem interesting, at least mechanically.

[echo briar]

Does Arcadia have a desert region?

If not, where are cactuses native to?

[vocal ember]

It does seem to https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Arcadia
That said, they're probably also present in the Inner Sea Region given cactus leshies aren't an uncommon heritage or anything

huh apparently pesh is made from a type of cactus

[tribal steeple]

Yeah I recall running into that stuff during the ||Age of Ashes, desert section|| AP

[clever cobalt]

We know very little about Arcadia but yeah theres at least one desert area

Couldn't tell you much about it

[limber comet]

Katapesh has cacti

[paper inlet]

I have strong machine only to play very demanding games and using them as doll makers for my OCs
Managed to make a hungerseed hobgoblin (Using the old pf1e hobgoblin designs, the new ones are fucking UGLY)

[wraith snow]

I don't disagree but also when I'm playing a hobgob I'm usually there with the explicit goal of looking like/being a freak

[paper inlet]

I dont feel like hobgobs work as freaks compared to goblins. Too edgy

But we all have our views

[wraith snow]

To me the key difference is that a goblin is a loud, obnoxious type of freak while a hobgob is stoic and serious but ultimately still alien to most humanoid-centric cultures

[paper inlet]

Average hobgoblin would probably work well with any Hellknight minus the devil worship

[wraith snow]

One of my favourite hobgobs was very focused on ideas of reputation and status but also was completely socially unaware and never really noticed that most people found them off-putting from the start

[paper inlet]

Well, uuhh...mine is gonna be from either Kaoling or Chu Ye, taking the Snow Oni's desire to dominate and improve one's strength while merging it with militaristic approach of the hobgoblins that dominate each aspect of life to turn that into some kind of travelling warlord/sword practitioner with a nodachi

In short, evil

Might be even Susumu worshipper

[wraith snow]

Fair, in my case the character was largely detached from greater hobgob culture.

Basically a hedge wizard

[paper inlet]

Yeah. If you detach them and make them little freaks then the goblin looks work, in this case...eh

I think it cheapens the scary factor

As much as I understand trying to make all goblinoids look somewhat similar

[wraith snow]

In general I think the 2e goblins look a little funky but I don't hate them

at least they're consistent

Unlike whatever Tengu have going on

[paper inlet]

1e Hobgobs look like small orcs so yeah.

[wraith snow]

I just find the vast divide between Korokai and the stock Tengu to be very funny

[paper inlet]

He doesn't seem to be looking that much different?

[paper inlet]

Oooh

They reworked them in Player Core 2 I think

Old ones are funky damn

[rustic cape]

Doesn't even look very crow-ish

[wraith snow]

Probably for the best, lol

[wary yoke]

I need to figure out how to handle hobs in my setting

Since goblins, as a whole, just became a thing after being extinct for millenia

[eager mountain]

sooooo

we have more dominion of the black creatures

[clever cobalt]

any more Dominion of Black lore?

And/or high notable creatures from the DotB

[eager mountain]

at the moment thats about it I think

[clever cobalt]

gotcha

[echo briar]

What is the easiest caster for a new player starting at level 7?

[tribal steeple]

Sorcerer is pretty easy. You have your spells that you know, and you cast those spells often and goodly.

[warped orbit]

probably Sorc yeah

spontaneous casting, overall strong focus spells for most bloodlines

give them Imperial Sorc or Elemental probably

[tribal steeple]

I'm actually unfamiliar with the remaster sorcerer, so there's new blood magic action stuff to do, but even without that you have a limited selection of spells so you just fill up on some generally useful utilities or debuffs and then fireball some bastards

[warped orbit]

Imperial has Numbers, Elemental has blasting

[sour venture]

i think if they want to play the "you have a big list of spells and recall knowledge to find weak saves" game, sorc is probably the best pick

but if not, i might recommend starting someone with kineticist instead

it's more like how magic attackers tend to be outside of D&D (focused thematics especially) and also a lot simpler to grasp from the start i think

and for a new player, running into the pf2e standard of "you're not expecting enemies to fail the saves all of the time, you're looking for spells that are still good when they pass the save" is often incredibly demoralizing

[warped orbit]

Kineticist is also a good option, yes

though I also know a lot of people don't feel like Kineticist is a caster, so it depends on how they feel on that

[sour venture]

yeah

still

depending on the person kineticist might also feel more like a Caster™

if they're coming from non-D&D/pf games and are thinking of "wizard" as "the guy who throws a lot of fire" instead of "the guy with an eclectic bag of tricks"

not universal, but common enough to consider

[tribal steeple]

Kineticist feels like a caster if you build and play it like one. It also plays kinda like a martial if you build for it.

[wraith snow]

To offer an alternative answer to Sorc just bc I feel some players might be turned off by how poor the defenses are, I feel like post-remaster Oracle is simple and offers a similar playstyle albeit limited to one list.

[solar storm]

I think it depends on what kind of caster experience they want but Wizard imo

Or Cleric

Actually probably cleric

[wraith snow]

Druid is also solid imo, I think Primal is a good list for new players

[solar storm]

Druid is also good yeah

More complicated class chassis but that’s maybe not a big deal

[wraith snow]

Primal has a little bit of everything so even if they don't know what they want to do they can figure it out and shift focus on the go

[solar storm]

I think for new players spontaneous casters can be harder because you gotta be more specific and thoughtful with spell selection and that’s hard when you don’t know what spells are important

So I think spell list pick prepared casters are kinda best

Which is Cleric and Druid more than anyone else

[wraith snow]

I would actually argue the opposite, but fair enough

[solar storm]

It probably colors my perspective because I mostly play via Foundry which makes tracking Vancian spells super easy

[wraith snow]

I feel like prepared casters only getting one shot which each spell they take (barring prepping multiple times) can be more punishing for new players because if they use something at the wrong time they can't just try again

[plucky snow]

I actually think fewer choices is better for new players
And with spontaneous casters, it's easy to make sure that a player has at least one useful spell

[wraith snow]

Yeah

I also think Signature Spells are very good for new players because it means they'll always have access to staple spells

Though it's much less relevant at low levels

[solar storm]

Signature spells are nice yeah

I just think being able to reset and find new spells every day is pretty nice for new players

[wraith snow]

That's fair, I guess it depends how willing they are to engage with the spell list, like you mentioned having access to Foundry/Nethys helps a lot for that

I also think it's one of those situations where a smaller list like Primal or Divine is actually an advantage

[solar storm]

I agree

Divine in particular is nice because it only does a few things really well

Which makes it a lot easier to tell what to focus on ime

[wraith snow]

True, I like Primal for the opposite reason, because if the new player doesn't enjoy what Divine does the list doesn't have a ton of alternatives

Whereas Primal can be a dedicated support, blaster, or somewhere in the middle

[echo briar]

Yea, but that’s a build decision that you can get help from the GM or experienced players for. Choosing spells in the moment is harder to get advice for.

[solar storm]

That is true yeah

[steel blade]

Rom the Vacuous Spider

[wraith snow]

Do people have any good GMing resources they like for this system? In particular I'm trying to find encounter guidance for low levels. I'm aware that using PL+2 or more enemies can lead to very swingy encounters where one shot can down someone or potentially massive damage kill them.

[solar storm]

Honestly I just used the stuff in the book and it worked well enough

I think it’s worth glancing at the stats first because sometimes there’s blind spots in low level parties

But that’s unusual ime

(And most often spectral undead)

[wraith snow]

No spectral undead are planned for this so that's not really an issue

It's meant to take place in the tunnels beneath Westcrown

[wary yoke]

Honestly yeah

I 100% recommend wizards now because of tricky spell selection which is harder in 2E because of signature spells

[warped orbit]

Wizard would have been my least suggested personally

[rustic cape]

I think among the prepared casters it would largely come down to how annoying the focus spells are to learn and manage

[warped orbit]

Because I also think prepared is more complicated for most people than spontaneous
And also Wizards generally have mostly just the one extra top level slot as a real gimmick, two if you go Spell Blending

[rustic cape]

The big thing is that it's harder to make permanent mistakes with prepared

[warped orbit]

And overall not as good focus spells, and that's very important IMO

[rustic cape]

You get to experiment

[warped orbit]

Is it?
I personally see the opposite, in that with prepared it's far more likely to have a wasted slot

[rustic cape]

If you make a bad choice with a spontaneous caster, you're dependent on retraining to fix that

Depending on the GM and the campaign that may not be an option

I think I'd say cleric, if only because you always have the font

Although divine spell list can be fiddly for a new player

Hmmm

[warped orbit]

My thinking on that is mostly that spell selection is already the singularly most important thing about any caster

If you pick bad spells you are gonna have a bad time either way

And I would also assume that player would get some assistance on that

[wraith snow]

I mean to be fair the conversation started as options for a new player, I think it's fair to allow retraining on the fly if they make a mistake provided they don't abuse it.

[echo briar]

Also, I think that build complexity is easier to manage than in play complexity, because it’s way easier to get help when building a character.

“Hey GM, are these good spells for a sorcerer” VS “hey GM, without spoiling anything, are these spells good for today in particular. I will also need to ask this question every day for a month or two”

[warped orbit]

Also this is probably my other main argument against Wizard
Except for a few of the newer schools, their focus spells aren't that good, and they can't get a third focus point without archetyping

And having a reliably strong focus spell is a really big deal for casters IMO

[rustic cape]

In that case, primal sorcerer is hard to fuck up

Take damage spells, take heal

Do fine

[tribal steeple]

If all a primal sorcerer does is cast Heal and cast Fireball, they're doing their job

[rustic cape]

Wait, thought

... oh, no, that wouldn't work

[light gyro]

devise a stratagem 3 roll

[surreal basin]

Hmmm

Is dual repeating weapons exemplar anything

Is this possible

[rustic cape]

It could be, but are there even enough ranged-weapon ikons to make that work?

[warped orbit]

well you can always twin it with Twin Stars

oh AoN doesn't separate the ikons by type at all, ew

[sour venture]

genuine question

what does dual repeating weapons bring in the first place over just

one repeating weapon

or idk, a crescent cross

[warped orbit]

more ammo, presumably

[warped orbit]

Unfailing Bow despite the name does not need to actually be a bow, at least on AoN

so that's two options with it and Starshot

[surreal basin]

I’m adapting a character but also could take some shit like dual weapon warrior to get like

Paired shot

[rustic cape]

Dual wielding does nothing internal to the Exemplar class, unless you have multiple weapon ikons to bounce back and forth the transcendence for.

You could of course pick stuff up with dual weapon warrior or a multiclass, and take non-weapon ikons

[trim bluff]

im just realizing that ive never really played a caster in pathfinder lmao

wait im dumb i forgot about that one oracle that i played

[rustic cape]

But even then you're gonna be seeing action conflicts between transcendence and double slice

[wraith snow]

Somehow my groups are very good at assembling 4 stacks of casters or 4 stacks of martials

Balanced party comp never

[warped orbit]

we did four martial in our AV campaign, and it worked perfectly fine tbh

Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Investigator (me)

[wraith snow]

We did it in Bloodlords and it uhhh

Did not go fine, frequently

Alch, Investigator, Barb, and Swash (me)

And then on the opposite end of things our current arrangement in a homebrew game is Kineticist, Necromancer, Animist, and Witch (me)

[surreal basin]

You guys should

Probably build parties together lmao

[wraith snow]

We do, it's just that most of us have concepts in mind and would rather attempt to force them than not use them.

[paper inlet]

Does oracle dedication count as

playing a spellcaster

Because if it doesn't then I don't think I did

[rustic cape]

Not a full caster, at least

[wraith snow]

Though the parties may not be mechanically cohesive, they're at least narratively tied together and to the main plot well

[rustic cape]

All-martial parties are pretty strong

Low on burst healing, usually

[paper inlet]

smoking that martial blunt always

[rustic cape]

But very good

[paper inlet]

Champion, Fighter, swashbuckler.

[rustic cape]

I think a balanced comp tends to be strongest if only for debuffing

[wraith snow]

Yeah, it just becomes fragile to some enemy types ime

Not always a problem but occasionally makes some fights painful that didn't need to be

[rustic cape]

All-caster squads tend to be pretty squishy but can throw out a dazzling amount of power as needed

[trim grotto]

practically speaking, does playing a large ancestry make it harder to sneak

[clever cobalt]

Mechanically no

[rustic cape]

In theory yes, due to cover rules

Is the GM going to enforce those? Different question.

And of course at high level with skill feats the difference disappears

[surreal basin]

Hide in plain sight is so fucking funny

As a sidenote

Stealth builds that hide in combat are actually kinda insane

[wraith snow]

The Kingmaker game I'm in featured a Gunslinger/Ranger with a crossbow who was all-in on this and it was very effective

[warped orbit]

Arbalest Sniper is a pretty good build yeah

And much less crit reliant than other weapons

[surreal basin]

My player is Shobhad Long Rifle Sniper

That shit is scary

And yes that’s a real weapon read a book

:p

[wraith snow]

I'm familiar, I've seen it used a few times actually lol

[tribal steeple]

I wanted to do this with my shadow sorcerer, but action economy and the need to do things NOW has often said no. The wizard throwing a fireball into the big cloud of magical darkness where I was hiding was a frustrating turn of events

[wraith snow]

I've also gone for it occasionally on my Witch build, it's meant to be a high stealth, high CHA illusionist build

granted I often can't really afford the action econ often

[tribal steeple]

Yeah same. It just turns out that the gm and party are not the kind of people who engage well with illusion and hiding.

[warped orbit]

I feel like you mainly do combat hiding to get off guard for ranged attacks

and the defensive benefits are more secondary

[tribal steeple]

Sniper Gunslinger life.

[wraith snow]

I've been fortunate in that regard.

[warped orbit]

fomx

[desert vale]

looks at pathfinder beginner box adventure

One of the encounters seems odd.

Area 11 the art on the map seems slightly off. The shadows are wrong for what is described

||it says that the wide staircase goes up but those stairs look like they go down||

[desert vale]

Leshy Lamashtu cultist. Lemeshtu?

Leshystu?

[redacted for maximum caution]

[silver geyser]

not that last one.

[wary yoke]

The only situation I can think of where a Leshy would start worshipping Lamashtu was if it was the creation of a Druid that was a follower

[clever cobalt]

Evil Fey exist

[rustic cape]

I think we’re all forgetting a crucial factor

It would be funny, and could be gross

Lamashtu is a patron to outcasts, either way, even if it’s just a way for her to exploit them

[desert vale]

Honestly I originally had the idea because it was funny to me. And made me think of weeds and plants being weird.

[sacred bluff]

I think I'm gonna veto the Investigator class if I ever run a pf2e game that's not structured as an investigation or mystery because holy hell is the GM overhead ever annoying. One of the other players in the game I'm in is playing one and the amount of interjections is excruciating. It's not the player's fault at all, it's just how the class is designed.

[solar storm]

It's not a bad idea

I think it's the most narratively specialized class

Though there's some competition with champion I think it wins

[sacred bluff]

"Is this related to my investigation?" "Does That's Odd trigger?"

[tribal steeple]

I get exhausted by unnecessary interjections, but it's not from someone playing an investigator so I'm willing to ascribe at least part of the problem onto the player. Some people just are not good at:

• timing, knowing when to interject and when to wait just a bit for a sentence to finish
• brevity, being able to convey what the interjection, taking 3 minutes of waffling and being dodgy about what it is they are even talking about

asterisk: they play a wizard where this is the most problem, but in a parallel game they play a magus w/ investigator dedication and aren't really any better about it

[warped orbit]

having played an Investigator for a while, you could IMO just give them free action DaS all the time, and it would be fine tbh

[rustic cape]

Investigator is definitely undertuned, so I agree with Alaen.

It’s a shame because it’s the only other class with rogue speed skill advancement

[light gyro]

(wrt investigator) stuff like spellstrike fishing does feel kind of like a trap option, though i've only seen someone trying it for a few sessions so far

[warped orbit]

I played with Eldritch Archer archetype, and it did feel useful for when I did get a good DaS roll

[rustic cape]

Spellstrike fishing is absolutely just a perceptual thing

Big hit feels good

Which isn’t nothing but

[warped orbit]

for Investigators themselves, you are already checking your DaS most turns

on other classes though, yes I agree

[rustic cape]

Yeah, in that case it can make sense as a 1/encounter big hit

[warped orbit]

especially if you do happen to roll a crit

[rustic cape]

Spellstrike isn’t a ton of investment, especially not in free archetype

[trim grotto]

y'all think a clockwork reanimator dedication inventor would work in a blood lords game

[wraith snow]

Yeah, if the party is already specced to support undead it's less annoying than it would otherwise be and it's a fine combat companion ime

Plus you're in one of the few places it won't raise eyebrows in public

[trim grotto]

sick

do the feats for the construct innovation work for the construct companion from clockwork reanimator

[novel merlin]

I don't believe they would

[rustic cape]

I just noticed she's wearing heels, but honestly in her case it's fitting.

[echo briar]

The new subscription is a complete scam.

You will be charged $.01 to start a new subscription when the new website goes up.

[warped orbit]

?

[echo briar]

They’re adding a $.01 charge to make sure your credit card works before subscribing. I am exaggerating this tiny charge for the sake of comedy

[warped orbit]

ah, okay

[wary yoke]

Witch archetype is better than I thought for casters to splash into

[warped orbit]

They have some decent feats to grab yeah

Psychic archetype can also be good for any caster without a good general use focus spell

[rustic cape]

Spells only caring about your key stat if they’re doing offense helps make them a lot more accessible

[clever cobalt]

Oddly specific question but what name would you give a Mythic Numerian Great-Chainsword?

All I can come up with is "God's Teeth"

My party (as a player) is currently in Numeria and are trying to kill a recently freed Azlanti Flesh God

Also chainswords are cool

[wraith snow]

Sundering Maw, Roaring Reaver

[surreal basin]

Gods teeth is pretty fucking good

Render

[carmine oyster]

Or just Rend

Render makes me think of Blender or SolidWorks

[steel blade]

God's Teeth is metal but it's also the name of a published #1162147260348497980 adventure (big content warning wrt that campaign and child abuse btw)

[rustic cape]

I decided to drop Stealth for Society on my bomb-throwing barbarian, so now I've got three skill feats open. What's good re: Society feats, in people's opinions?

[turbid dagger]

Eyes of the city and biographical eye are my main picks

[rustic cape]

Oh, huh, those do both look rad

[light gyro]

cognitive crossover might be worth it if you can guarantee another skill covers a good deal of the encounters you expect

[rustic cape]

This is Kingmaker, so Fey Lore or something might be good?

Streetwise and Courtly Graces seem to have their virtues as well.

[tribal steeple]

Additional Lore skill feat kicks so much ass if you know what will be relevant for whatever it is you're doing.

[wraith snow]

I'm a fan of both feats, though they do somewhat rely on GM leeway a bit imo

[clever cobalt]

Yeah thats where I got the name from

[rustic cape]

Courtly Graces feels like it could help a lot in Kingmaker specifically

[wraith snow]

Honestly both of them could help a decent amount tbh

[clever cobalt]

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo724zu

[errant roost]

that reminds me, when are we expecting them to actually publish the Necromancer class?

[warped orbit]

some time next year

[echo briar]

Likely before gencon

unless this is an extremely long playtest.

[errant roost]

have they published any changes after the initial playtest release?

[warped orbit]

there was a blogpost I think

the main thing I remember is that Runesmith damage will likely go down a bit

[echo briar]

I really hope PF3 gets rid of bespoke weapons.

Just give us a light/med/heavy category and let us pick a few traits.

[errant roost]

evil option: bring back the polearm tables

get feats that only work if you wield a glaive-guisarme, or a bec-de-corbin, but not a voulge

[surreal basin]

yeah tbh i see the vision but would be disapointed if thy got rid of bespoke weapons

[solar storm]

Yeah not a big fan of of juiceless generic weapon lists

[novel merlin]

I want the evil option

More polearms

Every notable weapon from every culture and also all the fantasy ones

[errant roost]

really, I want either generic weapons or a smaller list of meaningful options. I don't need stats for a Goblin Rat-stick if it's just a worse spear, I want that rat to be mechanically signfiicant

[solar storm]

I think that’s more the problem

A lot of the options are just not compelling

[warped orbit]

There are a ton of weapons that are just not really worth using

[vocal ember]

Yeah

[surreal basin]

yeah i want weapon traits to all be like

deadly, fatal, reach, and agile

where theyre a big factor in how the game feels

[echo briar]

I mean, have like 10 different base weapons. "Spear", "sword", "dagger". These have base damage and major traits like fatal or reach. Then you get like 1-2 minor traits like disarm or hampering.

[sour venture]

i like it when games have both somewhat generic weapons for people who want them but also the option to be like "hi yes i've got eight different types of polearms and the differences matter"

tangentially

is there any way at all to reduce the reload for a sling?

[vocal ember]

Like reduce it to reload 0? not that I know of

[sour venture]

unfortunate

someday a D&Dlike dev will actually look up how slings work

evidently not this day

[vocal ember]

Guerrilla Archetype has a lot of sling action compression tho

yeah, the weapons are explicitly not based on the real deal

[sour venture]

I'm well aware, but it also bothers me since this is a recurring pain point for D&D and D&Dlikes and has been for as long as I've played them

D&D devs love to go "slings are weak weapons that's why David lost to Goliath"

guerilla assault is okay i guess

sucks that there's no real support for using slings on actual ranged build loadouts

bows (and I guess guns) getting such a privileged position in the rules has bugged me for a while and I briefly had a hope that maybe they fixed slings in pf2e

maybe i just refluff a gun as a sling and take gunslinger

[novel merlin]

Slingslinger

[sour venture]

in the end im just frustrated and sad that this incredibly niche character concept fantasy is (reasonably, in some ways) never actually enabled in these games

though i have always felt like it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy

no one uses slings because slings always suck which means no one makes cool options for slings because no one uses slings

[echo briar]

level 8
+1 striking fearsome cruuk
1/day, free action
Trigger: you hit a frightened creature with this weapon. 

Effect: You may demoralize a creature within 30 feat, ignoring any temporary immunity to your demoralizes.``` Also speaking of weapons, how does this look? The base AP weapon is just so disappointing.

[sour venture]

meanwhile a certain kind of real life historical warfare and weaponry nerd end up not getting to use slings

side note

ok nevermind i lost my train of thought

that looks like a cool weapon

[echo briar]

Could I make it 1/hour if I got rid of the ignoring immunities thing?

It needs setup, skill investment, and only works against multiple opponents.

[vocal ember]

I think either would be fine more or less.

[warped orbit]

Definitely yes I think

And it's still just kinda okay I feel

[sudden lark]

So I want to make a blaster character, is Wizard w/ Martial Artist dedication or Magus better?

[sour venture]

what does blasting mean to you

[novel merlin]

Wizard with martial artist definitely won't be as good as whatever you're imagining

[sudden lark]

Uhhhh big elemental AoE damage

Dang.

[novel merlin]

As in your punching will still not be good

[sudden lark]

Ok then.

[sour venture]

big elemental aoe damage, but also you want to melee, by the sounds of it?

probably just kineticist

[sudden lark]

Oh ok haha

[novel merlin]

Kinetecist for consistent aoe elemental stuff, sorcerer for slamming a few big spells then running out of slots lol

[sudden lark]

I'm thinking of Rin Tohsaka.

I didn't even know Kineticist was out

[sour venture]

kineticist is what you're looking at for that kinda thing

maybe with a wizard or witch multiclass

[warped orbit]

Then I would probably recommend an Elemental Sorc

Wizard will probably not do this as well

[sudden lark]

nodnod

[sour venture]

reasonably gishy, has aoe effects and anime jumping if that's your speed, can be, if you want about getting in and blowing stuff up while fighting

[warped orbit]

Mainly because Sorc gets you some good blasty focus spells too

[sour venture]

otherwise yeah sorc probably

honorable mention alchemist

[novel merlin]

Kinetecist is sorta fake gish but that's fine

[sour venture]

if you want to throw exploding gems,

[warped orbit]

Kineticist can also do good, yeah

But trades some impact for being able to do it all the time

[tribal steeple]

Kineticist is rad and flexes into a lot of off-roles depending on what elements you're working with.

[rustic cape]

Kineticist does get some big impact if one knows where to look, fwiw

[tribal steeple]

Air and fire make great mobile skirmishers, wood and water make decent healers, water comes with built-in forced movement to keep things moving around, earth and metal and wood can be fairly (sometimes stupidly) durable melee range fighters

[rustic cape]

Earth/Wood has been treating me extremely well in Season of Ghosts

[tribal steeple]

I'm running a metal/wood tank literally at this moment.

[warped orbit]

It's not bad definitely, but you aren't going to be matching a top level slot spell in one go usually

[tribal steeple]

Yeah, you do pay in some ways to have "all-day-every-day" elemental pseudomagic

[warped orbit]

But the Kineticist can of course do their thing every round without repercussions

[rustic cape]

I’m eager to add Air at level 5 for lightning dash and Desert Wind at level 6

[tribal steeple]

You have your fairly clearly-defined lane to work inside, unlike those casters who flex their spell choices on a whim.

[sudden lark]

nods

[rustic cape]

You know what’s hilariously, comically powerful? Ignite Sun

[sudden lark]

Oh...

I didn't even look that up

[rustic cape]

Very late game but

[sudden lark]

And I have a feeling I know what that does.

[rustic cape]

It is silly strong

[sudden lark]

https://tenor.com/view/frieza-laugh-gif-23029740

I...actually wonder if ||Father creating a miniature star|| at the end of FMA is a reference to this.

[tribal steeple]

metal has the record for highest number referenced with its capstone feat HELL OF 1,000,000 NEEDLES

[rustic cape]

It creates three small suns that you can move around

[sudden lark]

Oh ok

[tribal steeple]

Ignite the Sun only makes one sun, but you can make it bigger AND move it each time you Sustain it

18th level Rolling Flame (but good)

[small meteor]

Question: How is Kineticist/Monk?

[warped orbit]

Ignite the Sun is also a bit weird, because a lot of its value is in the attack buff it gives

[rustic cape]

Especially since you probably have free sustain at that point

[warped orbit]

Rather than just the AoE itself

[warped orbit]

Archetype or dual class?

[small meteor]

Archetype.

[rustic cape]

Monk can dip kineticist stuff for good value

[tribal steeple]

They don't interact much, and this is kind of a weakness of Kineticist in general. HOWEVER there are a handful of impulses and effects that are stupidly worth dipping into.

[rustic cape]

The reverse is not true

[sudden lark]

Thank you all

[small meteor]

Really? I kinda expected that Kineticist would like Monk's stances.

[warped orbit]

Kineticist doesn't super benefit from a lot of stuff, because their actions econ is already spoken for and they don't interact with other things

[warped orbit]

They already have their own stances

[tribal steeple]

Go into the pathfinder discord and search for discourse on how Timber Sentinel is overpowered as a dip for other classes.

[small meteor]

Hm.

[tribal steeple]

But yeah a class Kineticist is 100% occupied with its own stuff in terms of combat actions.

[warped orbit]

It's something that makes Kineticist a bit weird
They don't use Strikes and they don't cast spells

[tribal steeple]

Meanwhile a Monk has the freedom of action economy to absolutely make use of a spare Impulse or two every so often.

[warped orbit]

So a large majority of things in the game don't interact with them at all

Which can make finding useful archetypes difficult

[rustic cape]

Kineticist stances are extremely strong and a huge portion of their power budget

[warped orbit]

It's mostly stuff that goes off your class DC or out of combat

[small meteor]

Hm. Though er, then again one of our characters is a staff acrobat Exemplar (was Fighter before WoL came out)

We think about her a lot. :)

[tribal steeple]

A high level Monk can use that capstone to Fuse Stance with one of their fucked up Monk stances and one of the fucked up Kineticist stances

[rustic cape]

Picking up impulses from the kineticist archetype can be very good in general

And yeah, fuse stance does numbers with at least one non-monk stance

[sudden lark]

So to be clear, selecting dedications is a wholly separate process from straight multiclassing?

[tribal steeple]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4284
Like, picking up Timber Sentinel using 2 archetype feats pays for itself and naturally scales with your level for the rest of your life. Anyone can snag that.

[warped orbit]

Fuse Stance is so cool too bad it comes in so late

[sudden lark]

Like uhhhh

Multiclassing still works the same way it did in 1e/D&D 3.5?

[tribal steeple]

it does not

[sudden lark]

Oh?

[warped orbit]

And is also arguably better on anyone except Monk

[small meteor]

Dedications is, rather than taking a standard class feat at level 2+, you can instead dabble a bit in another class, but you get a nerfed version of their stuff, or you get a unique non-class thing.

[rustic cape]

No

[warped orbit]

Archetypes are the only form of multiclassing in the game

[sudden lark]

Oh

So straight-up multiclassing is just against the rules

[small meteor]

There's also the dual-classing rule but that lights balance on fire and you will never see it.

[tribal steeple]

There are two options for "multiclassing"

• dual class rule, where you take two parallel full classes and get all the features of each, taking the highest if you get similar things
• archetype dedications, where you spend one of your class feats to dip into a limited "sidegrade" of whatever that archetype is

[warped orbit]

There's also the dual class optional rule, but that's also something different

[sudden lark]

Ok then.

Good

I fucking hated calculating BaB back in the day.

[small meteor]

You can't do for example Exemplar 7/Gunslinger 3 at Lv.10, you'd do Exemplar with a Gunslinger dedication.

[sudden lark]

Yeah I get you now

[small meteor]

But not all dedications are class dedications, for example Staff Acrobat.

[tribal steeple]

BY DEFAULT, archetype dedications and feats are supposed to be taken IN PLACE OF your normal class feats, representing you sacrificing progress in your own class to have a diversified toolkit or some other unique combination that fits your needs. A LOT OF GMs like to run the Free Archetype rule where you get a track of bonus feats at even levels specifically for allocating to Archetype dedications/feats, parallel to your normal class feats.

[small meteor]

This does boost the power level a bit, but doesn't break balancing wide open.

[tribal steeple]

For example my Wood/Metal Kineticist is being run with Free Archetype, so at 2nd level they get Druid Dedication, at 4th level they get the focus spell feat, and so on, all while keeping normal Kineticist class progression.

[small meteor]

Also, IDK how good this specific one is, but Archer is a dedication, which is literally just for "you use bows and crossbows more good".

[sudden lark]

Insert Fate joke here

[warped orbit]

Archer is decent

It's mostly for getting the good Fighter archery stuff on anyone

[tribal steeple]

Some archetypes are better for combat than others (and some are just kinda so niche they're useless outside their specific scenario).

[small meteor]

Staff Acrobat we find is quite funny because you can throw people around with it or just start pole vaulting bastards.

[tribal steeple]

But they can also be easier gateways to specific kinds of character builds than going through a Class Archetype. Instead of getting a Monk Dedication and worming through that for one stance you wanted, you can get the Martial Artist Dedication that also gives you access to stances without being associated with "monk stuff"

Staff Acrobat is a cool dip dedication cus you just get auto-scaling Acrobatics

[warped orbit]

that's Acrobat actually

[tribal steeple]

right

the other acrobat

[small meteor]

Also like, combine Staff Acrobat and Quick Jump and you can just be on one side of a person and then just Leap onto the other side.

Which is great when you're making a character inspired by Guān Yǔ.

[tribal steeple]

I think everyone should do an Athletics-maxxing Assurance Jump Monk at least once. It was rather fun.

[sudden lark]

Ah Monk good times

Good times.

[small meteor]

..I feel like this could work well on Magus.

[cursive quartz]

https://tenor.com/view/flying-wuxia-gif-14539542697401951407

[sudden lark]

☺️

[small meteor]

Just start pulling off jumping Wuxia nonsense.

[tribal steeple]

With the ridiculous speed boost from the class you can just pre-calculate what your Long/High Jump distances are and say "yeah I triangle jump up to the top of this four-story building with ease"

[small meteor]

Also fun fact: Bǎihé can outrun a horse.

[rustic cape]

I love dual class but it is so wonky

That said, a lot of characters in fiction are best described using dual class rules

[paper inlet]

Tian Xia CG has that exactly

[small meteor]

At lv.3 she can move at 40ft per move, which allows her to 3-move faster than a horse using Gallop, but at lv.8 she can go up to 50ft.

And that means she can 2-move alongside a galloping horse.

[paper inlet]

SKY LAUGHS AT WAVES [one-action] FOCUS 1
UNCOMMON MAGUS MANIPULATE
Requirements You’re wielding a one-handed weapon in the
sword group.
You soar and leave the world’s squabbles behind before your
violent intentions ground you once more. Fly up to your Speed,
then make a Strike with your sword against an adjacent
creature at the end of your movement. If you don’t have any
other means of flying, you fall after the Strike. If you can’t end
your movement adjacent to an enemy, this spell is disrupted.

[tribal steeple]

Monks are indeed hella fast.

[small meteor]

Correct, and now imagine that combined with the jump assurance nonsense.

She's an Exemplar.

Salad, Advocates for Things ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161695831775248426 message) Monks are indeed hella fast.

[warped orbit]

dual class is veryy fun, but it also produces a lot of nonsense results

[tribal steeple]

I do not need to imagine, for I have done it on my hella-fast monk.

[warped orbit]

even for some of the "fairer" combos

[small meteor]

She could in theory go even faster if we mechanically (rather than just lorefully) made her an Aiuvarin, not a Dark Fields Kitsune, but that means asking the GM for foxform over tailless rather than just getting it.

[rustic cape]

I do love my Barbarian||Rogue bomb thrower build

[warped orbit]

one lesser focused on thing about dual class for example is, everyone has incredibly good save proficiencies

and is likely to have the save upgrades in two or even three saves

which can make it pretty difficult to actually tag people with save based effects

[sudden lark]

Barbarian||Rogue?

...there are gestalt rules in 2e?

[small meteor]

I'm not familiar with gestalt?

[sudden lark]

What does the || stand for

[sour venture]

probably just multiclass

[tribal steeple]

it's the dual class rule

[warped orbit]

that's kind of what dual class does

[tribal steeple]

gestalt is what it was called in 1e

[sour venture]

oh okay

[sudden lark]

Oh ok

[sour venture]

gestalt is actually from 3.5, and a lot of p1e players used it

i didn't know that there was a dual classing setup in pf2e

[sudden lark]

Hahaha...gestalt...

[sour venture]

neato

[tribal steeple]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1328

[warped orbit]

it's an optional rule in the GM books

it, predictably, makes things a little difficult to balance

[sudden lark]

Yep it's always been an optional rule

[warped orbit]

can be good for very small parties though

if you have only 2-3 people

[sudden lark]

Yep.

[rustic cape]

It’s pretty half-baked but I like to toy around with it on Pathbuilder

[small meteor]

I've had a very funny character idea, hold on.

Basically, an awakened animal cat that's a throwing weapon Ranger.

[tribal steeple]

who would win, a little metallic spoodler or a big fiery roomba

[paper inlet]

I bet on fiery roomba

[tribal steeple]

the spooder lured the fiery roomba outside by feeding it a line of conjured matter, then shouted to her friends "HEY PLEASE BLOW THIS UP WITH MAGIC SPELLS, QUICKLY"

[rustic cape]

Spiders have the advantage in tactical versatility

[rustic cape]

I do love playing rogues

Just for the skill feats

We need another skill feat class

[eager mountain]

it would be so fucked to end this campaign becuase of a random encoutner right now

[tribal steeple]

investigator's right there :v

[wraith snow]

The Kineticist player in the high-level Kingmaker game I'm in respecced to Guardian Dedication when it was added and it's really solid

Taunt goes crazy when you're the tankiest creature on god's green earth

[eager mountain]

we managed to win this btw

becuase the froghemoth went away i na few turns

[rustic cape]

I didn't say we need 2, I said we need another one :P

[solar storm]

Oh that sounds like a fun combo

[clever cobalt]

Mildly off topic but I wish I could get into a Kingmaker game that doesn't all apart early

[small meteor]

I am in love with this idea, BTW. Uses a war javelin for the tethered attribute. Good at survival and climbing mostly.

Josie | System at 63 ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161695831775248426 message) Basically, an awakened animal cat that's a throwing weapon Ranger.

[rustic cape]

Yeah I opted not to go for the Wood Shield + Guardian Shield stuff myself, but it's obviously a very strong setup

The main pain-point is that Taunt competes for actions with impulses, but

It's actually worth it

[wraith snow]

In their case they use a lot of the revenge damage feats so Taunt doubles as technically a damage vector

Granted you need to squint very hard

[rustic cape]

I can see it

And mixing Taunt with Protector Tree is crazy

Because you can essentially force enemies to go for the person near the tree

[wraith snow]

Unfortunately they're not Wood but that would be cool

[rustic cape]

Oh I assumed they were, just given Wood gets the regenerating shield

(I think my favored dual class for kineticist would be with guardian, it brings a lot of value to earth/wood)

[wraith snow]

They're using a tri-gate build for Fire/Metal/Earth iirc, though I don't remember if they kept Metal after the respec and are just Fire/Earth now

[rustic cape]

Lava Leap my beloved

Metal always feels hard to justify to me

[wraith snow]

Plus they have the Impulse that just reads "Furnace Form always and forever" which goes hard for a revenge damage focused build

[rustic cape]

Water and Metal between the two of them feel like the less attractive of the elements

[wraith snow]

Yeah it's been both the most common one I've seen at tables and ime it's always underperformed even in magical Christmasland perfect scenarios

[rustic cape]

I've only seen it played once, and that player was notably bad at the tactical/building side of the game

But when I tried to help him do some rebuilding I was stymied by how little there was that looked genuinely interesting.

[wraith snow]

I've seen Water used twice so far and it's been solid both times

Well, solid once and giga-busted the other time

The ice field AoE definitely needed that nerf lmao

Even post nerf it's been very solid ime

Just a small chance to completely explode an encounter if the GM rolls bad

[small meteor]

Also, rules question: If you have a 1-handed Tethered weapon, can you use it with a shield?

Or some other item in your offhand.

[warped orbit]

Yes

[small meteor]

Oooh.

And does a buckler block holding a tether, or only using both at once?

[warped orbit]

The latter

As long as you're not actively raising it, a buckler doesn't interfere with anything

[small meteor]

:3

[craggy thunder]

wrong chat thank you fatfingers

fucks sake

[rustic cape]

@craggy thunder should I still ping you for dual class abominations? I’ve got one coming XD

[craggy thunder]

sure lol

[rustic cape]

What are some of folks' favorite mythic paths used as archetypes?

[wraith snow]

Starfinder oneshot idea: The party must go on an adventure to seek the wisdom of the Install Wizard

[rapid wagon]

The quest for the Any Button

Err Any Key

[dapper tusk]

concept: ghost in big full-body armor who's in denial about being undead, and insists the cleric must be casting Heal wrong when it damages them

[fossil dome]

Galien

[sudden lark]

My immediate thought was Buzz Lightyear

[sinful gyro]

Oh damn they're finally updating the paizo store

Nice

[clever cobalt]

ye I saw that

about time tbh

[sudden lark]

Okay one of the other PCs in my PF2e game has a really weird and out-there backstory

Although she's a normal human monk mechanics-wise, she's the clone of a powerful necromancer who attempted to ascend to godhood, but failed and was stuck in a limbo state in the Astral Plane. The clone's creator, who is the BBEG, is the mage's lich husband/lover (unclear on that) and he created her as part of an elaborate ploy to get his wife back.

Reminds me of Zouken

[wary yoke]

I was looking at the Spirit Warrior and planning out a free-hand fighter character with it and I realized that if you stripped out some of the supernatural stuff, it could be a really fun combat style archetype

Reminds me a lot of what I liked about Fools Errand in PoW

[rustic cape]

Yeah, you don't even really need to play to the supernatural stuff

Just take the dedication, bam, you're good

Probably also take the hilarious sword-ruining parry feat

[light gyro]

DISRESPECTFUL
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7031

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7030 This is so fucking funny

1/fight get out of jail free card

[light gyro]

oh that's nuts

[wraith snow]

ig it does require having a usable sidearm but that's not the worst, and if you're using the twin rings and a dual wield build it's basically free

[wary yoke]

The only option at level 4 is an oath

[rustic cape]

Oath of the Kaiju is really good, fwiw

The others are kinda whatever

Circumstances bonus to damage good

[wary yoke]

The level 6 one that makes your one-handed weapon get your unarmed runes takes care of that

Have an arsenal of disposable swords

[rustic cape]

Spirit Warrior is, all-in-all, an extremely strong archetype.

Damage boosts, ranged melee attacks, a very good flourish, rock-solid defenses

[wary yoke]

I just wish there was an easier way on fighters to match proficiency scaling

Unless you use brawling weapons, you'd normally be stuck focusing on either brawling or on whatever your other weapons are

Swordmaster PFS archetype has a feat to address that, but that's it

[wraith snow]

The only way I could think of to get around it would be a brawling group weapon that doesn't feel like it

The thorn whip comes to mind

[rustic cape]

TBH I think just giving fighters accelerated scaling for all weapons would be fine

They have it until level 5, and it doesn't generally matter that they don't after that

Just kinda screws very specific builds

[wary yoke]

Swordmaster has a few other useful feats, so despite its age I don't mind having to splash in

It has a skill feat for repairing equipment on the go, which is useful with the whole "disposable swords" thing

[rustic cape]

Oh, huh, didn't know about Martial Expertise.

Glad that exists, at least

[wraith snow]

I've been trying to work out a way to play an undead Instinct of Decay Barb without uhhhh

Exploding and/or imposing a massive action tax on the party healer

Conceptually it's very fun to me but combining huge amounts of self-damage with being unable to use most sources of healing seems unwise

I wish there was Blessed One but for Touch of Corruption

[steel blade]

could just ask your gm 'hey can i take the blessed one background but swap the spell it gives'

[rustic cape]

Decay Instinct is bad

There's not really a way around it

Ligneous is my instinct of choice for being very larg

[wraith snow]

This is true but have you considered: Big number funny

(please ignore all of the creatures immune to poison, if I pretend they don't exist they can't hurt me)

[rustic cape]

Big number funny and that's why I use Ligneous :D

[warped orbit]

I wish Ligneous and Decay got any feats

[rustic cape]

Elemental gets points for having good damage and being compatible with multiclass kineticist impulses

[wraith snow]

Admittedly most of my fascination with Decay is that I already wanted to try doing a Ghoul or Zombie Barb and Decay is good flavour

[rustic cape]

TBH if you're doing ghoul or zombie it'd be easy to fluff ligneous as being decay

ligneous even slows you down for that zombie walk

[wraith snow]

Yeah, I did consider that as an option, I just like the fantasy of a fighter falling apart mid-combat, Zombie has a lot of it already and Decay would match very well

It's just an unfortunate situation of being a concept I like that gets mechanically executed well in terms of fulfilling the flavour

But also it's not good and gets worse for the introduction of undead

[echo briar]

The Paizo website will not be going down today due to a delay.

[light gyro]

The Old One is sentient and fighting back

[vocal ember]

Oh shit Paizo's old website has ascended

Paizo Shop (The Old One)
Areas of Concern commerce, role-playing games, riddles
Edicts buy Pathfinder and/or Starfinder products
Anathema reveal more than you need to, use modern web technologies

Devotee Benefits
Divine Attribute Dexterity or Intelligence
Divine Font harm
Divine Sanctification Can choose unholy
Divine Skill Computers
Favored Weapon starknife
Domains creation, disorientation, trickery, wealth
Cleric Spells 1st: lose the path 3rd: slow 8th: quandary

[echo briar]

Dam they got good spells. I guess I have to convert

[warped orbit]

Harm font though

[echo briar]

Be undead

[surreal basin]

Run up to a guy and spam one action harm

[carmine oyster]

Pokepokepoke

[true delta]

Have no life

[twilit escarp]

Our game starts. First battle against some fodder bandits. We make and ambush. Then my sorceress runs and casts color spray.

GM's reaction:

[desert vale]

Half joking headcanons: Aklo is just English

[echo briar]

It's weird they posted a blog post today when the website was supposed to be closed.

[frank crystal]

Hmm, if the only focus spells from monk I want are either mobility or unarmed damage amps, do I really need wisdom for anything?

[echo briar]

Will saves and perception.

[frank crystal]

I more meant besides the generic stuff everyone gets from Wisdom

[echo briar]

You have free hands. You are one of the best battle medics.

[novel merlin]

No class features nope

[frank crystal]

I did not think of that actually

[wary yoke]

The hand thing is causing me so much grief on my healing exemplar

Monk speed also lets you get a lot out of doctors visitstion

[eager mountain]

fighting a feesh

[twilit escarp]

Feels like dynamite fishing should be a thing here-

[rustic cape]

Today in Season of Ghosts: "On one side of this argument there's a cat, and on the other side there's a Pharasman."

[desert vale]

In theory. Their could ne two more spellcasting traditions.

Mind/Life. And. Spirit/Matter

[surreal basin]

I think personally it’s kinda inevitable we might get another eventually just as a result of like. How games with release lives like this work

[rustic cape]

At least for a while they’ll probably err towards bespoke subsystems like with Kineticist and Runesmith

Perhaps at some point we’ll see assembling a list from fixed parts, as the animist kinda does

[light gyro]

lancerfinder....

[tribal steeple]

I forgot runesmith was a thing until now, I look forward to that. IIRC it was pretty stronk in playtest though.

[surreal basin]

They said they’re toning down its direct damage potential which is good

[tribal steeple]

I think it might've served as a good vessel for a character idea I had once: an automaton crafted to be a soldier during a long-forgotten Wizard War, spent an indeterminate amount of time buried or locked away somewhere. After being unearthed, their only motive is to continue the war (which is LONG SINCE OVER) against an opponent who is in all likelihood dead. But nobody ever told them the war was over, and they can't confirm it without either seeing the opposition wizard(s) dead or being relieved by a commander (of which none seem to be left).

[surreal basin]

Since it’s supposed to be a support

Which I’m sure a bunch of people are gonna say is bad since a weird contingent of the PF2e community hates anything that isn’t about doing more damage harder

[tribal steeple]

My own experiences with Pathfinder 2E have not been especially favorable toward support roles, sadly.

[surreal basin]

Eh

[warped orbit]

I do think if they want it to be a support, they are gonna have to retool the runes quite a bit

The damage options were also just way better than most other things you could be doing in the playtest

So well have to see how release ends up looking

[rustic cape]

Ime the best general supports can do a lot of their schtick for one action

Old 4e leader principle, as it were

[woeful pecan]

Looks like our Season of Ghosts party is changing

-1 nagaji Champion, +1 ysoki Ranger

[solar storm]

It is?

[warped orbit]

they said they wanted supportive effects to be a more major part of it, yes

but in the playtest the best strategy definitely was to focus on the damage runes and play like a more flexible Magus

[solar storm]

Ah ok that makes sense

[warped orbit]

Though we don’t intend to do away with direct-damage runes like atryl, rune of fire altogether, we do intend to rebalance some (some) of the runes’ power away from direct-damage effects, having your runesmith increase the team’s damage output through buffs and support instead.

from the debrief blog post

and also that there will probably just be more rune in general

[small meteor]

I do like the idea of Atryl like, bestowing fire damage on whoever has it.

[desert vale]

Was thinking of running beginner box pathfinder for friends. But now scared things are getting too complicated

[light gyro]

It's like five sequential rooms

[surreal basin]

Would you be doing it on foundry or irl or what have you

[desert vale]

Real life. Its. I got the beginner box because i wanted something simple. And. It feels like its getting more complicated as we talk about more options.

[woeful pecan]

Fwiw I ran through it with my kid siblings just fine

[desert vale]

Okay. People in the group are reassuring

[wraith snow]

In a boss fight today I passed like 3 different saves because of the plus one off of Witch Warden

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=949

Bless extremely niche feats like this that are perfect for flavour

It feels so good when they pop off for exactly one encounter

[woeful pecan]

Flavor feats are so much fucking fun

[wraith snow]

I also stopped ten (10) different reaction attacks from Laughing Fit

So that was fun

[desert vale]

Set a date for the pathfinder beginner box game.

Also. Is Rascal one of the weaker Swashbuckler Styles? Dirty Trick has the attack trait which means either the trick or the finisher will be at a multi attack penalty

[turbid dagger]

The answer to your question is alas a fairly uncomplicated 'yea'

[desert vale]

Sadface

[surreal basin]

I guess it could work for having on turns and off turns

It’s not unuseable

[turbid dagger]

Its not unusable but it IS One Of The Weaker Swashbuckler Styles

[echo briar]

It’s better than gymnast

[turbid dagger]

Well no
Because it has the same map problem as gymnast and on less powerful actions 😭
Grappling does all the same things for a gymnast swash as dirty trick does for rascal while inflicting a much more useful condition

[warped orbit]

Gymnast is strong because it hugely benefits from Derring Do

[wraith snow]

Also it enables the wrestler archetype build and while it may not be amazing it IS very funny

[desert vale]

Keen flair is an interesting ability

[desert vale]

So. Helped a friend make their pathfinder character.

Autistic goblin changeling swashbuckler raised by humans

[warped orbit]

Nice

[desert vale]

Only problem is i kind of want to play the character now

[errant roost]

Maybe they have a twin

[shrewd bane]

Make them friends

[desert vale]

Im running the game

[steel blade]

The struggle is real

[desert vale]

Id probably mess it up

[sudden lark]

I read that as Australian at first

[echo briar]

The new store construction seems to have started.

[wooden orbit]

Has anyone played the Guardian and/or Commander yet?

[rustic cape]

I saw beta Guardian in play

[turbid dagger]

I've played some guardian! It's very nice
What in specific do you want to know?

[wooden orbit]

Would it be an alright class to play for someone who doesn't normally play frontline, and has never tanked in a ttrpg before?

[turbid dagger]

I'd say so! It's extremely simple as far as tanks go- you are the most durable class in the game, with a reaction that is 'take a hit for an ally' and a simple taunt
The main thing is to remember to apply off guard from your taunts, and to remember your physical resistance

[wraith snow]

Yes, Taunt is very straightforward imo, it rewards good threat assessment but it's not complicated.

[tribal steeple]

Guardian is like THE "tank" class, even more directly than Champion now. Your entire job is to be a heavy armor meatsack and just Taunt and block all the time, no fancy frills like catch 22 reactions or anathemas or divine whatsits.

[wary yoke]

GMing for one in my current online campaign, very much centering on Taunt usage

Though the guardian is also doubling down on using a shield offensively

Which I admit I have bad blood for because the first time my group played a PF2E one-shot I wasn't allowed to create my own character (was going to make a catfolk thaumaturge) and was instead handed an EXTREMELY underwhelming solo-shield fighter

[tribal steeple]

Guardian with Punishing Shove (deal scaling damage when you shove, 2x on crit) and the Centaur feat Practiced Brawn (+1 athletics to shove, success becomes crit success) is such a neat recipe for being a controller bully on top of the usual Taunt stuff.

damage on successful crit shove:

• STR x2
• (STR + 2) x2 (3rd level)
• (STR + 6) x2 (7th level)
• (STR + 12) x2 at Master (15th level)

[wooden orbit]

Was thinking of building a spear and shield Guardian for if I get to play Myth-Speaker.

[wary yoke]

Are there any bombs that aren't alchemical? I was watching a video on Dishonored and I was reminded of how fun the springrazor mines were and was wondering about some baselines to create a grenade version for my setting

[turbid dagger]

You might want to look into snares and gadgets

But also the junk bomb and nail bomb are alchemical bombs that work perfect for spring razors

[wary yoke]

Junk bomb seems perfect, I'll just remove alchemical and add clockwork

[shrewd bane]

Wanted to ask

But how flexible can tiefling appearances be

[wraith snow]

Short answer, very

[rustic cape]

Pathfinder Nephilim are like old-school planetouched, they come in basically infinite variety

[shrewd bane]

Interesting

[rustic cape]

From a gaming history perspective, bear in mind that the idea of a Standard Tiefling Look is an innovation of D&D in 4th and 5th editions. PF always drew more on the earlier Planescape look

Some tieflings from the old master, DiTerlizzi

[wary yoke]

And some of the tiefling lineages in the Blood of Fiends book were pretty out-there

[clever cobalt]

Such as?

[wary yoke]

I believe this was all of them

[clever cobalt]

Furry

[wary yoke]

Still waiting to see if beastbrood still exist

[errant roost]

she's less furry, more carnival facepaint

[wary yoke]

After Hungerseed got spun off into their own heritage

Oh, and the Motherless

[shrewd bane]

Ngl I'm spinning around the idea of a Rakshasa Spawn that I had going a few months back lol

[rustic cape]

Reached level 5 in Season of Ghosts, playing a Duskwalker

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5753

[tribal steeple]

Ma'am your legs do NOT look stable or adequately nourished, please consult a physician

[shrewd bane]

Strong tail moment

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1433119397219930302/1438292753996845086/DwarfFortressFish.mp4?ex=69165a02&is=69150882&hm=6c2d8e29275fca043b5679c65fba73872511381fd8ee9e20bbda89be9b49f17d&

[true delta]

Do you happen to know the music in this, or how to identify it? I like it.

[shrewd bane]

I have no clue what this is

But I suspect it's doom

This might be it

https://youtu.be/sGFX0nA--xc?si=yjaD-CDc4S7TbU09

[tribal steeple]

It's extremely doom, I don't recognize the track tho

[shrewd bane]

The end segment seems to match the start of this

[sour venture]

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1294299

this is stupid

im in love with this build

it's uhhhh

armor break guardian kineticist champion bastion

[rustic cape]

Kineticist tank is great

[sour venture]

it's got 3 reactions per turn and reactive shield, letting it do raise shield off-turn and then two shield blocks

every shield block is also a Shove, which deals a bunch of damage thanks to practiced brawn and punishing shove

and then on top of that it's got taunt and hardwood armor and armor break

so it can move taunt strike or move bomb or move refresh strike or if not moving just bomb and refresh

went into dwarf for the extra toughness

since i need to be below half max HP for armor break

[rustic cape]

Needs more Timber Sentinel :D

[sour venture]

timber sentinel is fine and good but i couldn't fit it because i wanted to uhhhh

.... so like

this gets shield salvation AND destructive block AND gets 2 reactions per turn to use on shield block (after using one for raise a shield)

[rustic cape]

Just pick it up later

[sour venture]

so it can proc destructive block twice 😄

(per shield)

(and then get a new shield)

(which comes reinforced thanks to champion multiclass)

it's like a cursed tank version of my other shield block shieldbreaker build

[rustic cape]

Longer-term I'd grab Timber Sentinel, and Add Element for Armor of Earth

[sour venture]

makes sense

(the other one uses an infinite supply of throwable abysium shields to prank enemies whenever using destructive block)

i can't be trusted with free archetype because whenever i build with it i inevitably do like

this:

2: class feat, dedication A
4: dedicA+1, dedicA+2
6: dedication B, dedicB+1
8: dedicB+2, dedication C

and so on

[rustic cape]

No that's correct :D

[sour venture]

sometimes grabbing a class feat at high levels or something but lmao

[rustic cape]

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1294324 Look this is my build for Eurus's Kingmaker game

If I could avoid taking a barbarian feat at 2nd I would

[sour venture]

in rhona's planned game i had a build that made people go "hey what the fuck how did you get all these dedication feats" when sharing it in here

(she waived the 2-other-feats requirement, but the build functions even without it; all the houserule did was give me some better utility)

[rustic cape]

I typically cheat that using Multitalented if needed :D

[sour venture]

unfortunately the animist build is stuck using a heritage that isn't custom mixed

[rustic cape]

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1294328 I also made an insane dual-class version for my own amusement

Speaking of which I gotta finish my stupid dual-class kinet/champion

I might steal some from your build for it to be tbh

[sour venture]

valid

i genuinely think guardian mainclass is the play over champion though

like for one, armor break is so good and not gettable on multiclass

but also getting a third possible reaction (if you take bastion for quick shield block) for shield blocks per round is huge

plus, being able to get the shield up before your turn in the first round

[rustic cape]

I originally intended guardian, actually

The trick is that I found myself wanting lots and lots of Champion feats

[sour venture]

fair

[rustic cape]

Including higher-level ones

Champion/Guardian might be the better play tbh, but I want to do kineticist shenanigans for more DPS

[sour venture]

oh, fair

[rustic cape]

In the Season of Ghosts game I'm in, Vhai house-rules that a 1-action blast can substitute for a 1-action strike for the purposes of metastrikes and other abilities, so in that I'm working towards Justice Champion

[sour venture]

nice

[rustic cape]

Tbh said house rule makes guardian/kinet a lot more attractive

Since guardian has so much good stuff tethered to strikes

[sour venture]

true

means you have some competition for armor break as well, giving you more flexibility in like

"ok i want to keep my armor up for this round and i'll do a blast-strike and taunt something"

[rustic cape]

But uh here's the thing about kineticist https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4302

[sour venture]

you would sometimes be called on to do that anyway

but it probably Feels Better here

[rustic cape]

Desert Wind is silly good

So I feel forever tempted to set up some kind of FIre/Air/Earth bullshit that does Desert Wind + Fire Kinet Bullshit

[echo briar]

Level 9
+1 resilient chain mail. This armor does not have the noisy trait. 

1 action, 1/day. 
You become invisible until the end of your next turn, or until you take a hostile action, which ever comes first. If you attack a creature while under this effect, the target becomes frightened 1.``` God  base AP stuff can just be so bad.

why was the stealth based armor chain, which is the worst armor for stealth?

[rustic cape]

@sour venture @craggy thunder https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1294832 Stupid Kineticist/Guardian dual class character. Could drop some of its offensive stuff to commit more fully to the bit, but I find it very funny as is.

[clever cobalt]

How do the classes synergize?

[rustic cape]

Decently! Guardian is mostly bringing us shield stuff and better defenses generally, as well as taunt.

Tragically a lot of its neatest tricks are tied to making strikes, and we are a kineticist, but it still improves the tanking power quite a lot.

The most questionable decision here is probably going for Earth's skill junction to get a bonus to Athletics for shoves — just nabbing fire earlier and getting the fire aura junction would probably be better.

A Kineticist/Champion version could probably be at least as good, but makes certain specific pickups a little more awkward

[clever cobalt]

Personally a big fan of Fire/Metal Kineticists

For those big numbers

[rustic cape]

I find Metal to be very lacking, of all the elements

I think the biggest numbers possible are Fire/Air, and this uses a little bit of that

[clever cobalt]

How so?

I know the Steam Knight stance is supposedly pretty good

[craggy thunder]

God lmao

[clever cobalt]

Though thats fire/water

[rustic cape]

Fire of course has the best tools for pumping its own damage in general, and Air has extremely high-damage stances in the form of Desert Wind and Crowned In Tempest's Glory.

[clever cobalt]

Fair

Fire also IMO has the best resistances

[rustic cape]

It does, it's a very stacked element if you invest heavily in it

Not quite as good if you don't

But just going pure fire seems like one of the strongest one-element kineticist choices to me

[sour venture]

nice

[rustic cape]

Using a bunch of the tech from your build

[turbid dagger]

Well in this case it specifically lacks the trait that makes chain bad for arealth

[wraith snow]

Also fire gets unique support in the form of Burn It!

Which I don't think exists for any other element

Granted that's not exclusive to fire kinet but it is relevant

[warped orbit]

I believe this is a version they edited already?

[rustic cape]

I don’t think Burn It works for kineticist, tragically

It doesn’t use spells or alchemical items

[wraith snow]

Ah, yeah, didn't realize that was part of it

[frank crystal]

That’s a big problem for so many archetypes with kineticist

All of them specify strikes, spells, or items

Which blasts explicitly aren’t

[rustic cape]

Kineticist has a real siloing issue. My gm house rules that it can use a one-action blast as a strike for various abilities

[frank crystal]

That’s fair tbh

[rustic cape]

I agree

But I can’t assume other folks will use it, sadly

[frank crystal]

I went grappler for my metal, earth, fire kineticist and I definitely got use out of it

But like half the feats were practically unusable

I was just lucky there were enough that go for athletics skills rather then strikes

[rustic cape]

In the stupid dual-class above I could definitely go way harder with said house rule

Guardian has some neat meta strikes

[frank crystal]

Yah

[sour venture]

kineticist really puts the 4e in the 4elike

[rustic cape]

And justice cause would be very nice imo

[frank crystal]

What’s that?

[rustic cape]

From champion

[sour venture]

(I love kineticist but it's really funny to me the way it's an escaped AEDU class)

[rustic cape]

It’s such a cool class. I just wish it weren’t so painfully silo’d.

[sour venture]

"we added an AEDU class to pf2e"

"with ways to interact with the rest of pf2e, like most classes in this game?"

":)"

[frank crystal]

Ohhhh

[rustic cape]

I’m going to get to play justice kineticist soon, so I’ll report on whether it whips like I think it will :D

[frank crystal]

I think it does!

[echo briar]

Yes it is.

The original was stealth armor that gave you a penalty to stealth.