Pathfinder

[warped orbit]

they have neither encounter or daily powers though?

[turbid dagger]

I see
I know there exists a few chain armor base game that remove the noisy trait
My Night Of The Grey Death Gunslinger is wearing Invisible Chain which whips

[turbid dagger]

Also yeah it's either 'at will' or 'at will you need to reload' 😭

[wary yoke]

"invisible chain" just makes me think of Incredibles

"Where's my armor?"

[turbid dagger]

It is literally a totally invisible and silent chain shirt
Keeping track of it must be a pain but it's really good
It feels so slick to have my fella walk into a fancy party in full armor under his dress suit and his gun sword stowed away down an extra dimensional space
It doubly fits cuz he used to be a bodyguard for nobility

[frank crystal]

Yah bodyguards carrying secret weapons and armor is always cool

[wary yoke]

In 1E my martial characters regularly had like, three different backup weapons

Including a boot blade, because those are cool as heck if silly

[desert vale]

I would be tempted to play a sorcerer in pathfinder 1e and focus on. Magical utility stuff.

looks at pathfinder bloodlines
Scorpion is pretty cool

[desert vale]

What if... I just pretend hatchets have finesse instead of agile...

[turbid dagger]

What do you hope to accomplish there?

[desert vale]

Not having to change a players sheet because I misread it

[turbid dagger]

If you're the GM, you may as well lmao
The probing cane is finesse sweep if you want an alternative to suggest to a player tho

[shrewd bane]

I wanted to ask

How goofy is unarmed attack rogue

Or uh

Brawling I guess?

[turbid dagger]

Not very goofy at all- stumbling stance or wolf stance off martial artist or monk archetype is what you want
Clawdancer is also great!

I have a funny little clawdancer ruffian build I play

[shrewd bane]

Huh, sweet

[turbid dagger]

Clawdancer gets this at level 4, so you essentially guarantee an attack with Sneak Attack on if you land a grapple
Since the trigger's wording means they're still Grabbed when you Claw Snag

[shrewd bane]

Oh, nice

[warped orbit]

unarmed Rogue is pretty good, yeah

[light gyro]

It's a lot of fun. Especially when you get the twin options of 'you tried to break my grapple? Fuck you sneak attack hit', and 'you didn't end your grapple before my next turn? Fuck you sneak attack flurry of blows'

[rustic cape]

Hey so this is the text for Blessed Shield from Champion:

Blessed Shield: In your hands, a shield gains the minor reinforcing rune. As you go up in level, the shield gains the reinforcing rune of your level (lesser at 7th level, moderate at 10th level, greater at 13th level, major at 16th level, and supreme at 19th level). If your shield already has the appropriate reinforcing rune for your level, or if it's a sturdy shield of the same level as the appropriate reinforcing rune, the shield's Hardness instead increases by 1.

Okay that's cool, it just applies to all shields you're holding unconditionally

But then we have

Which references a "chosen shield" and says you have a 1-minute charge time on reapplying your blessed shield

(To say nothing of how for many characters, the shield automatically being whisked away to take a day to repair is almost certainly a downside)

[desert vale]

So unarmed rogue. Uses grapple and the monk archetype?

[rustic cape]

Doesn't need to use grapple, and often uses Martial Artist instead of monk

Unarmed rogue can easily work almost identically to armed rogue

One cute trick is Head Stomp

[clever cobalt]

I once played a Monk/Rogue dual class

It was surprisingly good (and fun)

[rustic cape]

Monk/Rogue has a lot of stuff going on for it

[clever cobalt]

Yesh

[rustic cape]

Among other things, Thief lets you dump strength

Thief Rogue/Stumbling Monk is extremely straightforwardly good

[rustic cape]

Hm, what dual class should I make

Battle Harbinger …

Battle Harbinger/Bard?

[warped orbit]

I wish I liked Battle Harbinger more

but the aura font just always seems... not that impressive

kinda wish they got more scaling on the auras than just that one feat that only does it on crit

and more action compression for setting up the auras

[rustic cape]

Yeah, I agree

I have seen it be reasonably effective in play, but

Iunno.

[warped orbit]

giving up Heal font is just a big ask

and then they also lose most of their other spellcasting

[rustic cape]

I'm pondering Battle Harbinger w/some other form of caster

But eh

[craggy thunder]

So how does a character having lycanthropy (technically wererat) like... work?

nvm found it

[echo briar]

https://bsky.app/profile/paizo.com/post/3m5mor4hpmt2p

Paizo (@paizo.com)

There's never been a glitch Raia can't fix! Our trusty Starfinder iconic technomancer is pulling out all the stops to make our new website the best it can be! Hang tight through the weekend, and we'll be back on Monday with more updates!

Likes

117

Bluesky · Nov 14, 2025, 10:04 PM

The website will not be up until Monday at the earliest

[upbeat ridge]

good class feats for an elven curve blade fighter?

[turbid dagger]

So I'm reading Guilt Of The Grave World
This is a like
Fine cover

BUT
The INSIDE COVER
MM MM MMMMMMMMMMM

Less is MORE

[rustic cape]

werecreature archetype

[rustic cape]

Fuck it, Starlit Span Magus/Gunslinger

... huh, does this mean you can cast two spells on one attack, or something completely different?

[turbid dagger]

Spellsling and Spellwoven do the same thing, so you get a separate benefit instead if you have both (occasionally being able to load and activate a magic bullet as part of spellsling)

[rustic cape]

Ah, magic bullet as in an item

[rustic cape]

Hm, bomb magus ...

[craggy thunder]

Can you wear a headgear and an eyepiece at the same time?

[warped orbit]

if they don't have the same worn tag, yes

[craggy thunder]

pog

My Rogue with Alchemist arch has a Cassisian Helmet, Everair Mask, and Alchemists' Goggles then

[rustic cape]

Hm, how much of a downside is the Construct tag on an Alchemical Familiar, really?

It comes with a bunch of advantages but it seems like the only way to heal it, period, is with the Repair action?

[rustic cape]

Oh, huh, Lab Assistant isn't visible on Pathbuilder normally

I guess it was never republished

Understandable why, I suppose, but feels discouraging for Stupid Bomb-Launcher Magus purposes

And I guess there's no way to combine Quick Bomber w/Spellstrike :(

[craggy thunder]

[warped orbit]

they should just make Quick Bomber an Alchemist class feature tbh

that lets you draw or create an alchemical item from a vial as part of using it

[craggy thunder]

Oh I have an entirely unrelated but extremely funny story

One of my players accidentally made her character a Catwoman reference

She made an Amurrun Thief Rogue named Kyna, who uses a whip

Catfolk, Thief Rogue, with a whip

And her name is Kyna

Selina Kyle

[rustic cape]

Yeah we got it :P

[craggy thunder]

She did all of this unintentionally

[rustic cape]

Wait what

[craggy thunder]

I literally asked her 'did you name your character Kyna by taking syllables from Catwoman's name and mixing them cuz she's a Catwoman reference?'

[rustic cape]

But yeah AFAICT if I want to do Bomb Magus and have a working action economy, I either have to use Lab Assistant even though it's legacy and I feel weird about using it, or I have to sigh use Shadow Sheath again

[craggy thunder]

Her:

https://tenor.com/view/vae-gif-15357506855217945854

She was like this and went 'noooooo....'

'I did not'

[rustic cape]

So I guess that's out.

[craggy thunder]

Exemplar Be Like That

[rustic cape]

It's more that Exemplar's the only way I would be able to do it

And I would, except I've already played around with stupid Exemplar Bomber build stuff

[warped orbit]

Exemplar fixing throwing action econ

[rustic cape]

Gun Magus just wasn't doing much for me, and Spellshot and Beast Gunner both just feel kinda whatever.

[craggy thunder]

Oh I just realized a fun thing I could do with my Summoner player who's a former Mendevian Crusader

He became a Summoner by tying his soul to a dying wyrm he found, as far as he knows

He's a Godcaller now :3

[rustic cape]

I was getting enthusiastic about making a stupid Magus/Alchemist with a squirrel that reloaded their gun.

:(

And also Imaginary Weapon

And also just being generally deeply weird

[craggy thunder]

lmao

[warped orbit]

Can't have familiars actually being useful

[rustic cape]

Was partially gonna base it on this premaster build https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/17x9bbt/the_magusalchemist_how_i_learned_to_stop_worrying/

Which hammers out the basic idea

[rustic cape]

The basic trick of having a familiar do interact stuff with an item on one's person would still work, if that has any applications

Maybe something with Summoner would be cute

Lastly, the connection between you and your eidolon means you both share a single pool of Hit Points.
Random bullshit senses begin tingling

Wow, steed form looks kinda like it completely sucks

... Summoner/Inventor?

Eidolon and Robot Friend?

[stuck bane]

Seems like that’d be starved for actions, since neither one has its own action pool

[turbid dagger]

Commanding a companion is a pretty solid action filler for summoner imo
A summoner can Boost Eidolon or Demoralize, make two Eidolon strikes, and command animal in one turn

[rustic cape]

Yeah

All told it gets to swing 5 actions around per turn

Even outside of dual class it might be legit with archetypes

[craggy thunder]

my Summoner player's used the fact the action pool is connected as well to juggle who gets the extra action from casting haste on themselves

It's cheeky

xD

[rustic cape]

Slick

This feels like an excellent use case for haste, all-in-all

[craggy thunder]

Haste is a fucking goated Summoner spell, yeah

[rustic cape]

Alright, Inventor/Summoner it is :D

A little MAD, picking up heavy armor would probably be a good call

[rapid wagon]

Summoner is fun so far in my experience

It is a bit of a balancing act

But you are pretty versatile

[rustic cape]

Familiar Sage is interesting. Not sure if it's any good, but it's interesting.

Hm, does anything prevent Minions from counting as allies?

[craggy thunder]

I'm looking at my players' character sheets and noticing something quite funny

My thief rogue and my bard both have 18 fucking Strength XDDDDDDDD

[rustic cape]

oh no

[craggy thunder]

It's so funny

They have growing up as farmhands in common too

[wooden orbit]

I wanna play this ap

[turbid dagger]

Are you willing and able to attend live text sessions on Mondays :3 :3 :3

[wooden orbit]

Its pbp?

(also can't do Mondays)

[turbid dagger]

I play all my games as live session, but with text instead of VC
Anxiety issues prohibit me from doing VC and I can't manage true PBPs well

Alas!

[rustic cape]

Live text is a good format

I’ve even done live text with voice for ooc and coordination purposes

[frank crystal]

What are Velstracs?

[trim bluff]

I cant even dm with text chat because of social anxiety, im locked to like exclusively dming for my alters lmao

[surreal basin]

Cenobites

[frank crystal]

Ohhh

BDSM torture fiends

[surreal basin]

[turbid dagger]

Also one of the original fiends of Hell, but they got exiled to the Netherworld after the Devils moved in

[wary yoke]

They're Paizos new names for Kytons, if you're familiar with 1E

[frank crystal]

I’m not

[frank crystal]

Oh cool

[turbid dagger]

Okay I have finished reading Guilt Of The Graveworld
Very fun!

[wary yoke]

Generally not a fan of the outsider renaming, but Velstracs aren't too bad, it's mostly because I'm used to the old name

Now Darvakka, I hate that name

Granted, I can never remember Nightshades, but at least it's not terrible

In my group's shared setting, I renamed them to Deadstars

[desert vale]

Ran first two encounters of beginner box.

Had five players so added an extra rat. They made short work of them.

One player is a druid with cornucopia and suggested using her familiar to run the fruit to people

I should. Have had a spider try something tricky.

Also added a second spider which wasnt too bad? One player got hit with a crit and lost 18 health. But they were batbarian and fine

[rustic cape]

Weighing bard dedication against marshal dedication for my stupid Inventor/Summoner

Oh wait

Marshal's Aura is tiny

[warped orbit]

I feel like your action econ will already be pretty cramped for Bard

[rustic cape]

It will, but I do want to get into a spellcasting multiclass either way, so

Hmmmmmm

... something stupid that occurs to me is that for a bard multiclass who intends to take Lingering Composition, there is no reason whatsoever not to take Multifarious Muse

[warped orbit]

Yeah

[rustic cape]

Hm, there are various ways to get 15-foot status bonus auras, but for longer distance it seems like it's basically just bard

Which is a bit frustrating since in multiclass bard's case the ability to do it consistently is buried behind a bunch of stuff

Really, bard/summoner w/beastmaster would probably do all of this better

But it would be less amusing than plant eidolon w/construct companion

[turbid dagger]

So, I've got prep for Guilt Of The Graveworld started
But I am contemplating a change to one plot point and have never done that with an AP before so am worried
Spoilers under the cut:
||For much of the first half of the adventure, your primary objective is to get a sample of living Elebrian genetic material to unlock a gene-locked digital file||
||You are in the Halls of the Living by the end of Chapter 2, where living Elebrians are assumedly quite common place, but the book says that only one Elebrian willing to provide a harmless blood sample can be found, and they're on a dangerous film shoot||
||The presence of multiple other Elebrians is implied by the location but their assistance is cut off with a line about most of them not being willing to provide genetic material for 'rusty spacer junk'||
This stretches my sense of disbelief, so the change I have in mind is: ||instead of requiring any Elebrian's genetic material, the file is keyed to the DNA of the station commander of the abandoned station you find it on, and the 'stuck on a dangerous film shoot' person is their last known descendant||
||So the party goes to Eox and enters the Halls not for Any Elebrian (but 99% of them are weirdly firm on not doing someone a harmless and effortless solid) but specifically the actor||

[warped orbit]

that seems reasonable to me

[turbid dagger]

Okay good
I wonder if the original situation is set up the way it is for like
A specific thematic reason
Like it's supposed to have Caper Vibes where you're always so close but so far from getting the easy thing
Cuz you also ||encounter a living Elebrian outside of the Halls at the start of Chapter 2, but she's written so you can't get DNA from her no matter what- she can't be convinced and (though I doubt 90% of parties are boneheaded enough to try this) always successfully runs away if the party tries to force the issue||

Like I'm not crazy to think that ||if you asked 50 people for less than a blood test's worth of blood for an archaeological project a fair percentage of them would be like 'yeah sure c:'|| right

[sour venture]

||what happens if you like. stab her||

[warped orbit]

yeah agreed

[turbid dagger]

I think that's broadly in the vein of 'unacceptable behavior for this adventure' BUT
This is the line that is devoted to that sort of approach

[surreal basin]

Mmmm I shouldn’t read this

[sour venture]

right ok

[turbid dagger]

You shouldn't!

[surreal basin]

Even tho I’m reaaaaaalllllyyyy curious

[turbid dagger]

Sorryyyyy
I'm sharing stuff about this here under cuts because I want to share it all with my friends but THEY don't want to be spoiled either 😭

[surreal basin]

No no that’s fine

Is this a one book adventure?

[turbid dagger]

It is! 1-5

Anyway I think I can set up my change pretty well- ||the PCs find the commander's name tag on their dessicated nonviable carcass, learn the file is gene-locked to them, one of their co-workers with the mining company looks the name up after they return to safety and the first result is a fan page for the actor||
||'eureka, we got a way in boys'||

[rustic cape]

Dang

[turbid dagger]

It's very good yeeeee

[rustic cape]

Nothing says you have can't just use it over and over, either, although that's probably an oversight

[warped orbit]

it doesn't deal any damage on a success, so it's fine to spam it

[rustic cape]

Question: if a character has an emanation, and they are riding a creature, does the emanation come from the larger creature being ridden?

[warped orbit]

I'd assume yes personally

[rustic cape]

Potentially greatly increasing the size of an emanation in absolute terms

[rustic cape]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=960 Huh, this is a weird one

I get the feeling it means to imply a bunch of rules text that isn’t included

But it does let you strike with your spell attack modifier

[rustic cape]

This Inventor/Summoner is taking me some weird places, I am now at the point where I am obligated to make them either a water buffalo or a hyena

[wraith snow]

I just got this in my Kingmaker game, haven't had a chance to pull it out yet but it matches the character concept well

[wary yoke]

||I think another justification could be, like, recently there was a necromantic scam, and asking for genetic material is like asking for a credit card number, but that's just my thinking without context||

[rustic cape]

AFAICT, it is the only effect in the game which lets you do strikes (pretty good ones, too!) with your spell attack modifier, which has a ton of highly specific uses. The problem is that the spell feels half-written. For example, it doesn't actually clarify that you can't move while joined with the natural feature so.

[wraith snow]

Yeah, I mostly took it because the whole one with nature thing fits very well for my nature-focused Sorcerer

Also because I don't expect to see many/any combats where I can cast Falling Stars without massive collateral damage

[rustic cape]

It's an extremely cool spell

Also: I just realized how to actually use Core Cannon

Summoner

Go into cannon mode, use 1 action a turn blasting, give the other 3 actions to the eidolon

120 foot range increment means staying far, far away from the action

I guess do basically the same thing with a ranged weapon until then

[wraith snow]

Would you have martial access or just using simple weapons?

ah, just noticed the Inventor bit

If you're okay with reloading weapons the sukgung is very good in terms of raw ranged increment without anything that would demand Str investment

[clever cobalt]

Whats the SF2e Soldier build

Beyond having a Magnetar rifle

[wraith snow]

I like the AoE build Soldier personally

[rustic cape]

Even without Inventor, it might be viable for certain types of high-level summoner

[wraith snow]

Yeah, I just wasn't sure if proficiency would be an issue for what you were doing or not

[rustic cape]

The attack bonus wouldn't be great, about 3 behind the curve

And yeah, I guess with shared MAP with the eidolon ... eh.

[turbid dagger]

I'll be playing a melee soldier in an upcoming game and it seems very solid
Close Quarters Style, Shot On The Run to close gaps
For me I'm using a Fangblade so I can spend my leftover 1 actually ion on Boost d12, and so the backswing trait soups up Whirling Swipe when I'm stuck in

[rustic cape]

I was momentarily excited to find some kind of use for Core Cannon

[turbid dagger]

Ancestry is Shobhad for more map presence and extra hands for grenades and med patches

Now as for the Meta Soldier Magnetar and all, you basically take Action Hero, some kind of advanced weapon training, and vibe

Hammer weak targets with action heroes ability to choose their primary target, take Collateral Witness for free action demoralizes

[warped orbit]

They have a lot of good meta Area/Auto Fire feats

Lots of good things to build into

I still really wanna see how a gun soldier would perform in a PF2 game tbh

(Using SF2 weapons)

[turbid dagger]

Probably extraordinarily well!

[warped orbit]

I think their aoe heavy play style is an unfilled niche for martials in PF2

And it woukd be neat

[wraith snow]

Yeah, splash damage is very underwhelming imo

[turbid dagger]

In SF2e there's an expectation to stick to cover and less need to clump up
In pf2e most enemies need to traverse the battlefield and clump up to gnaw on your head

[rustic cape]

It is notable that solider damage can itself be pretty underwhelming at low levels

That's true of a lot of ranged combatants, to an extent

I do really like Action Hero soldier

[rustic cape]

Too reliant on die rolls without much in the way of flat bonuses

[wraith snow]

Bomber builds do a very bad job at actually filling the niche of an explosives-based fighter imo

[rustic cape]

Yeah, splash damage is a nice little bonus but it's not meaningful AoE

"Oh I did 11 splash damage at level 20" yeah okay whatever

That's more signicant as +11 against the primary target

[wraith snow]

Maybe in the Christmasland scenario of a combat where everything is weak to fire and also you have Burn It! but aside from that it's just throwing around spicy thrown weapons that you can't put runes on, basically

[rustic cape]

I'm really enjoying my bomber barbarian but

I do have to allow that their being a bomber does not, do a whole lot compared to being some other kind of thrower

It lets them get the splash and the status bonus from Burn It

Which is pretty good!

But it means, as you say, no weapon runes

It does do silly things to WBL I guess since a single bomb is so cheap

[clever cobalt]

Exemplar sorta?

Err

Not Exemplar (though they do have some AoE options)

I mean the Kineticist

[wraith snow]

I think the funnest synergy I've seen for it was the alchemist we had in our Bloodlords game where the extra Str needed to get throwing online was used to make the Vampire grapples Kinda Playable I Guess

[rustic cape]

Do you need strength to get throwing online?

[echo briar]

you do for non bombs.

you add str to damage.

bombs however don't interact with str at all

[wraith snow]

Yeah, they weren't actually using the bomber alchemist subclass so they didn't have access to the usual tools to make it work

So bombs were just one of the many things they used for a more general attempt at a throwing build

It... wasn't amazing, but it worked

Albeit I think the GM gave him a homebrew item that basically just read "usable action economy"

[rustic cape]

Hence my question, strength isn't added to bomb damage

[wraith snow]

This was also pre-remaster which didn't help, Alchemist... sure is a class

[wraith snow]

he also had javelins, the bombs were usually more for weakness-procs or RP application

[rustic cape]

Ah, okay

Yeah, throwing was ... not great, pre-exemplar

Dual Weapon Warrior could do okay with it

Fighter in general

[light gyro]

i've seen a alch bomber from 1-20 and it was mostly stacking up fire bomb effectiveness, and like maybe the occasional other bomb as to not just sit out combats with fire-resisting enemies

[wraith snow]

Yeah, in this case they were the medic subclass, not bomber

the bombs were just an occasional extra surprise

[wraith snow]

Only semi-related but I really wanted to find a way to make the Flying Talon worth the time but man it's just... kinda bad

[warped orbit]

honestly, if Returning just didn't take up a rune slot, things would be fine I think

or if Returning was just a function of putting fundamental runes on throwing weapons

[rustic cape]

Okay, so I've been playing around with Tandem Strikes

And I think it could, hypothetically, be okay-ish if the eidolon specifically has good things to do with their 1 extra action

But it does mean any tandem strikes turn is locked into being "tandem strikes, 1 summoner action, 1 eidolon action"

Which is not great for a lot of eidolons

And it can't reasonably be a strike, since tandem strikes is going to give full MAP

I think it's just kind of bad, even with dual class bullshit

Wild thing to say

But I literally cannot think of a good use case for it

Tragically this means there's no real way to leverage Construct Inventor's double overdrive on a summoner, unless the eidolon just isn't going to be attacking

Which ... might be quasi-viable?

Really though it means sticking with my original intention of "to the back line with ye"

[wraith snow]

Yeah the Summoner in my SoT group tried to make frontlining alongside the Eidolon work and he mostly just went down a lot for his troubles

[rustic cape]

Even with better durability, though

You could give the Summoner warrior-level proficiencies, and it would not help

[surreal basin]

Man it’s so fucking weird that Captain isn’t allowed with any other companion features

[rustic cape]

I'd probably be overstating it to say that a dual-class fighter/summoner is worse than a normal fighter, but like ... the only reason it's better is the bit of spellcasting!

[warped orbit]

It is yeah

[rustic cape]

There might be some hypothetical niche for Guardian, Champion, or Commander to stand next to their eidolon while specifically not using Tandem Strikes

Preparation rogue could do some stuff

Genuinely kind of annoyed by this

Because at a glance it seems like it wouldn't work for proficiency reasons

And then it turns out that, no, it just doesn't work period

[turbid dagger]

My guess is it's because
A: They didn't want to put Followers entirely just In The Animal Companion Rules cuz that's weird
B: Not doing that led to tons of weird edge case stuff like being able to Command An Animal and Direct A Follower in the same round cuz their once per round things are seperate

[rustic cape]

You can already do that with Construct and Animal companions, no?

Unless I missed something important in the minion tag

Which I may have

[warped orbit]

You can only have one active at a time

You can have only one construct companion at a time, and you can have either a construct companion or an animal companion, but not both.

[rustic cape]

Oh, yeah, it's in the construct companion stuff

Not the minion stuff

[warped orbit]

But it's still weird that Captain is completely unavailable if you already have a minion

You just can't take it at all

[rustic cape]

God, I always forget that PF2e isn't built for AoN, but for physical books

So information is in the weirdest places

[warped orbit]

Tbh, I feel like it'd still be weird to find in the books too

[rustic cape]

I mean in the sense that they intend a linear reading experience

[warped orbit]

That's true I suppose yeah

AoN is definitely not the best way to learn stuff

[rustic cape]

Rather than "let's look up the relevant tags and use the search function"

[warped orbit]

But yeah Captain is weird because they are mechanically basically just animal companions again

But special case everything to say they totally aren't

[rustic cape]

temptation to drop Inventor entirely increases

I've been chipping away at this stupid build for hours and hours and there is a functional, not especially complicated version of it that I could call finished

But like, I keep going down the complexity rabbit hole and discovering "no, wait, that stupid trick doesn't work"

And there's an alternate version that uses Commander instead of Inventor and is probably better but which I find less intrinsically funny

Or just use stupid Beastmaster and a spellcaster class

[warped orbit]

Inventor do be like that sometimes

[rustic cape]

It's got some good stuff but it just doesn't feel like enough

[warped orbit]

One thing that would help Inventor a lot is just making them use focus points instead of Unstable

[rustic cape]

And I kinda wonder if I wouldn't realize this better with just some divine casting class and beastmaster

[warped orbit]

Unstable just really suffered from everyone else getting three focus spells per fight, while Inventor only gets one 70% of the time

[rustic cape]

Champion/Summoner with Devotion Phantom and Beastmaster "I don't care which of us you hit, someone is going to punch you for it"

... ugh that seems like it would work irritatingly well

[rustic cape]

Do we think we could make the bullshit case that if mounted on something other than one's animal companion, the quicken provided can still be used?

[wraith snow]

No, I think the RAW is pretty clear there

[rustic cape]

Yeah. Tragic.

[wraith snow]

A GM might allow it if asked but the intent is clear

[rustic cape]

Is there a clear consensus on quickened minions? I think the wording indicates it doesn't matter, but I'm uncertain.

[echo briar]

I assume the damage die is a mistake right? https://2e.aonsrd.com/equipment/weapons/78-vertebralis-thorn

should it be 1d4 or 1d6?

[warped orbit]

they are affected by Quickened and Slowed IIRC

[warped orbit]

I'd assume d6

[rustic cape]

So they'd take 2 actions if not commanded, and 3 if commanded?

[warped orbit]

it's not entirely clear if the extra action would still apply to indepent actions
but I'd probably allow it yeah

[turbid dagger]

Looking at the GOTGW book, yes

[echo briar]

could you imagine if it was a d5 though?

instantly becomes the most complicated weapon

[wraith snow]

Eh, not really

Roll a d10, divide by 2, round up

[echo briar]

Thats still more than other weapons, and its every damage roll

[rustic cape]

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1298983 Alright, I am finished with this stupid Summoner/Champion, although it managed to drain all of my will and energy.

There are a lot of alternative decisions that could have been made, the weighing of which ate my soul until I just needed to be done

[fossil dome]

Am I the only one who really hates the new store?

[light gyro]

i can select and download multiple files at once now so it's perfect now

[fossil dome]

I use the site to trck upcoming releases, and now I can't

Also, half my books are missing, what!??!?!?!

[craggy thunder]

Huh

I've had an odd but fun idea

Guardian with Aldori Duelist

[rustic cape]

Seems like it’d work decently

[eager mountain]

probably

[eager mountain]

how so ?

[eager mountain]

https://paizo.com/releasedate the release calendar still exists

[wraith snow]

I've had an Aldori Duelist Thaum as my backup character for Kingmaker for a while, a little sad I never got to pull them out

[clever cobalt]

Don't you need a free hand for a lot of Aldori stuff?

[wraith snow]

I mostly wanted it for the sword itself and the initiative bonuses

The free hand is only needed for the parry feat tree

also the stance at level 16 ig

Yeah, just verfied that assuming FA I can get everything I want from it without having any gaps in levels

[clever cobalt]

Fair

[frank crystal]

What state is paizo based in?

[solar storm]

WA

[errant roost]

-waluigi

[rustic cape]

Gonna try to make a palette cleanser build

I think, ultimately, I kinda hate Summoner

And Inventor

[frank crystal]

Thanks

[rustic cape]

I was excited about Summoner in particular for a bit there but

[wraith snow]

I feel like both classes fall into the trap of being conceptually a lot of fun but mechanically leave the player feeling like they need to work harder for similar or worse outputs

Also I really hope when Guns and Gears gets remastered Inventor dedication gets looked at

[rustic cape]

The options look good until you start combining them

[wraith snow]

Because man it's just awful as is

[rustic cape]

Inventor dedication is worth it for a dexterity character for the subterfuge suit. Otherwise, no.

What’s a class combo that seems straightforwardly fun without being annoyingly fiddly …

Primal casters all like their focus spells, or else I might just do primal something + psychic

[wraith snow]

For what it's worth with draconic sorc I've found that the only focus spell I really care about is Claws

Wings are nice but easy to replicate, Breath is... uh, bad

[rustic cape]

Oh wait sorcerers exist

That’s true

Sorcerer/Psychic could be fun

Or fighter/druid, for the same reasons

[tribal steeple]

I'm seriously considering Kineticist + Guardian in order to pick up Taunt, cus it's already a Wood/Metal tank build

Taunt is just so effective, there's no complexity to it you just 1 action debuff

Something that's a simple class like Fighter can appreciate getting a caster dedication purely to have a source of buffs to self-cast before an encounter (especially if you get the spell slots to heighten long-duration things like Tailwind or See The Unseen to just have all-day benefits)

heightened Jump is a bootleg Fly solution

[surreal basin]

Man

If your GM is quick on their feat I cannot recommend picking up psychometric assessment enough

[errant roost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRB5YouHaYA

[rustic cape]

I actually already did this one >_>

[wraith snow]

The Kineticist in my Kingmaker game has been doing this albeit with Fire/Earth/Metal, it works well.

[rustic cape]

You can do fun stuff with the regenerating shield and blessed shield from champion dedication

• the “break your shield to block better” feat

Effectively doubling shield hardness

[surreal basin]

It lets you touch an object and learn an emotion associated with it and the see the face of who created the association

Which in my most recent session, lead to the thaum touching a door and seeing hundreds of thousands of a race they didn’t recognize begging for someone to save them

[craggy thunder]

Samurai Jack was such a fucking goated show

[rustic cape]

Ye

[craggy thunder]

suddenly realizes Aldori Duelist monk is possible

or not, damn

Wait, it is possible

Specifically with the Sword Scion background

[twilit escarp]

Sigh

I think our Kingmaker game is going to die in a prologue

[light gyro]

like murdered or lack of interest

[twilit escarp]

Like one post in 5 days type of die

I hate long term PBPs ×.×

I feel like my own PF game that died due to scheduling hell in text session format was up for about as long as KM game and we covered like 10 times the content ;-;

Actually, question. Do you guys know a place where I can find PF 1 game to join or yoink players from?

[tribal steeple]

The pathfinder discord server is probably where you should start

[surreal basin]

Hey weird question

Do yall think the spout spell

Would trigger this

[turbid dagger]

Id say so! You are producing magical water that I cannot imagine has any pollution

[surreal basin]

Looks at my wizard in this party who fucking loves spout

[rustic cape]

Triggering demon vulnerabilities is extremely fun and imo being permissive about it is good

(Also a lot of demons are really tough for their level if their vulnerability is never triggered)

[surreal basin]

Fair, although this don’t be a demon actually!

This is a nucklevee

It’s a fey

[rustic cape]

One of those entities they could have gone either way on

So I assumed demon given the bane

[surreal basin]

Very fair

I would not have spout trigger that second part tho so there’s still some potential planning to do

Although… uh; they don’t have any self healing

Gonna have it be the “raid leader” of a bunch of spirits (elemental, fey, plant creatures) that are pissed at an industrial woodcutters/lumber processing plant

[tribal steeple]

My experience with particularly specific weaknesses has always been "That's neat, but the criteria is way too narrow." I remember some kinda clay golem that was supposed to be weak to water, but the action economy (put thing away, take thing out, use thing) and inconsistency (making a roll or save or something) of "using" enough water to harm it was so abysmal that my only conclusion was that it was a waste of time compared to just brute forcing through its hp. And I am so tired of brute forcing through hp bars.

This might just be a path to me sport-bitching about that GM's interpretations and/or methods, though. I'm not spending 3 or more actions to attempt a roll (could miss) that might not do anything anyway (roll minimums) when "just kill it with attacks" has worked for literally everything so far and will continue to work for the rest of the AP.

[surreal basin]

almost like the drawing item rules are bad what who said that

[turbid dagger]

Nowadays you can just swap items, but yeah

[solar storm]

Most of the golem weaknesses are only cool if you’re a spellcaster with prep

[turbid dagger]

And forewarning!

[tribal steeple]

Both things I've woefully lacked (and the other spellcasters are not savvy enough to plan ahead that much either).

[surreal basin]

Unfortunately both are in very limited supplies in APs where Paizo just throws in a golem as like

A filler encounter

[solar storm]

Yea

It’s not good imo

[surreal basin]

It doesn’t help that even without the resistances they always make golems fucking juiced for their level

[frozen flame]

Yeeeeah. We're doing Blood Lords and (encounter spoilers for Mechitar) ||several golems with spammable, perma-blinding cone attacks|| is a "moderate" encounter

[surreal basin]

Lmao

what book is that?

[frozen flame]

On top of all the golem resistances/immunities, of course

[surreal basin]

Because there’s another golem encounter in bloodlords that is the only encounter my party has ever just completely not done

[frozen flame]

4

It's ||the glass shop||

[surreal basin]

Oh yeah

I’m talking about the ||fossil golem in book 2 in the mansion||

[frozen flame]

Oh god, that thing. That was a slog for us.

We managed it but it was entirely just brute-forcing through its resistances.

[warped orbit]

IIRC just targeting a golem with a spell of the right tag already triggers their weakness

[frozen flame]

I actually respecced to add sonic damage to my build after that because being an Exemplar with access to only spirit and vitality is rough for those.

[warped orbit]

Though that does require having spells of the right tag of course

But golems were very jank and not that fun to deal with IMO yeah

[wary yoke]

I think that removing golems from constructs was a good idea for 2E, but I do wish something else had been found to categorize them

Because they're still set apart from other constructs

[surreal basin]

For us we left because even those of us with the highest fort save had like

A 30% chance not to just get petrified

[frozen flame]

I think it's a delayed petrification, at least?

But yeah it's Not Great

And that part has the other construct too, the ||cursed sword thing||

[echo briar]

I feel like golems work if you fight exactly one of them every 5 levels.

[desert vale]

Talos

[wraith snow]

Yeah, recently a party I'm in had exactly 2 fights against golems and for those 2 combats my character sure was Johnny Cantrips

[rustic cape]

The metal planetouched?

[desert vale]

Did not know they were called that. But was reacting to the discussion of the usage of golem. And my brain went to Talos

[echo briar]

I think they should make a martial golem. Completely immune to all weapons except spears and polearms

Everyone else? Better start tripping.

Martials have had it too good for too long.

[turbid dagger]

You are describing an Ooze

[sudden lark]

Pretty much

[rustic cape]

Hey now, oozes are specifically immune to rogues and resistant to fighters

Barbarians do fine against them :D

[rustic cape]

I'm sorry what

[rustic cape]

Back in BG2:ToB, there were enemies in the Watcher's Keep megadungeon called Magic Golems, who could only be harmed by unenchanted weapons

Many other 2e golems were entirely immune to a bunch of different kinds of weapons

Clay golems were bludgeoning-only

[turbid dagger]

I'm talking specifically about the subtype of oozes that take no damage and split themselves if hit with slashing or piercing

[sour venture]

when i was a kid my dad ran oozes as totally immune to weapons and for a long time i thought it was just how they worked

[wary yoke]

In PF1E some oozes were immune to damage types

[warped orbit]

bludgeoning supremacy remain

[turbid dagger]

Also hmmm
I'm still really liking it but as I read more guilt of the grave world I find myself getting confused
||The book itself doesn't seem quite sure how dangerous and immoral your typical zo! program is, or how evil an institution Zo! Media is||
||Zo! himself is portrayed as a deeply flawed but well meaning atoner whose partaken this whole enterprise solely for the benefit of what few living Elebrians survive, channels his fortune into fighting the corpse fleet, and releases any actor that wants to leave to Absalom Station with a free luxury apartment thrown in||
||But also there are presumably-correct adventure hook rumors that a combat arena in the Halls conducts real death matches under the table and sells the footage to Azrinaian black marketeers||
||What I'm sort of getting is that Zo! is ultimately well meaning and, while approving of considerable amounts of danger with the actors consent, ultimately has their best interests in mind||
||But, the producers below him on the totem pole often sneak some nastier shit by him||

Which I guess fits the characterization I'm getting of ||'dude whose desperately trying to atone for something terrible he's done, but unfortunately has blinders on regarding his existing flaws, and the only thing he knows how to do to 'atone' is be entertaining'||

||'what if weird al yankovic was in part responsible for world war 3, and wandered the radioactive wastes as a fallout style ghoul, trying to redeem himself by teaching a clan of wasteland tribals to sing Amish Paradise'||

[rustic cape]

Which is also probably the best damage type for Dragon Barbarians >_>

[warped orbit]

you can also do force, but yeah

[rustic cape]

Force is rad if you don't want to use a bludgeoning weapon, but it does mean a much less valuable resistance

Better for offensive feats tho

[warped orbit]

oh right you get resistance for your own damage too

[turbid dagger]

Force resistance is, however, extremely funny,

[rustic cape]

And dragons already get piercing resistance

[turbid dagger]

Local man breaks the rules

[turbid dagger]

Anyhow I know my table and I'm reallyyy hoping I can pull off '||is trying to do a good thing but is pretty fucking bad at it||' for such a key character

||Because if a table ever goes 'fuck this zo! guy entirely, why even speak with him' the adventure breaks down a bit||
And my table is like
Trans communists y'know
We all have a very low tolerance for Exploitative Labor

[clever cobalt]

I do actually really.like this read yeah

[surreal basin]

I really shouldn’t be reading these but I think this is kinda the thing where you just gotta look at your players and tell them that

IMO part of running APs is looking at them and saying “that’s beyond the scope of this adventure”

Like in gatewalkers ||siding with Kaneepo is literally speaking a thing you can do but the adventure is not designed for it at all||

[turbid dagger]

Yeah lmao
I do want to preserve the twist that ||Zo! and the Halls are more morally complex an entity than they seem||
But if things are looking that way I'd talk about it

[turbid dagger]

And I do too! It's what made me fully switch from 'reading out of curiosity' to 'i need to get a table together now'

Because if you think about it, ||'Fun' really is an extremely powerful force||
||Everyone talks about how powerful an emotion love and hate are, how they can change the world, start wars and redirect history||
||But entertainment can sway someone's lifepath just as much if not more- the brain is given to thinking 'having fun' is a light, fluffy thing, but it's actually incredibly important for the mind||
||And GOTGW's exploration of Entertainment as a compelling force that can invisibly influence people is something I want to partake in||

||Zo! recognizes the influence Fun can have over people after his propaganda work as an extremely succesful Eoxian entertainer got the public behind the whole superweapon project, and is trying to use it now to protect the few remaining living Elebrians from destruction at the hands of the undead||

[rustic cape]

... Dragon Transformation is pretty good, huh?

[rustic cape]

Was pondering taking advantage of Unleash Yaoguai Might for a dragon barb but Dragon Transformation really does look rad

[warped orbit]

Dragon Barb has a lot of great stuff

[rustic cape]

Wait fuck Unburdened Iron can mitigate the speed penalty from Ligneous

Oh wait no it can't

Ligneous explicitly says otherwise

I am a fool

[turbid dagger]

Ligneous's penalty hardly feels like anything between fast movement and level 1 sudden charge anyhow

[warped orbit]

Yeah

The main downside of Ligneous us honestly no feats

[rustic cape]

The other ligneous downside is that you also pick up a weakness to fire

When you pick up your resistances

[warped orbit]

ah didn't realize that

[sour venture]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2768

ah yes

the El Goonish Shive feat

[sudden lark]

Ahhhh 2000s webcomics

[sturdy lagoon]

that's a reference I wasn't expecting here

[turbid dagger]

Readin the supplementary gazeteers for Guilt Of The Grave World
||I find it so funny that the actors have to do good old fashioned family feud before they can upgrade to 'fight this alien monster with a laser sword'||

[fossil dome]

So I got into a PF1 game, any system advice/help?

[tribal steeple]

Get familiar with all the multitudes of different +1s and such. Watch out for feat traps because unlike 2e there's actually a lot of those

[fossil dome]

Oh, dear

[tribal steeple]

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/
https://www.aonprd.com/
use your preference of one of these online SRDs for PF1e and start trawling

[frank crystal]

Monk question, when you’re in a stance who’s unarmed attacks are 1d4, do they increase to 1d6 from powerful fists?

[upbeat ridge]

It’s a separate attack granted by the stance I think, so no probably

[frank crystal]

Ah damn

Cobra stance seems fun but like

A d4 is really bad

[upbeat ridge]

Find extra ways to increase your flat damage

[frank crystal]

What besides strength?

[upbeat ridge]

Also it has venomous

Which is +1 persistent poison

[frank crystal]

Yah but that’s only 1 poison damage at the end of their turn, it’s alright but idk if it’s worth it

[upbeat ridge]

They’re taking AT LEAST 1 extra damage

[rustic cape]

Barbarian rage!

[upbeat ridge]

So it averages out to the equivalent of a d6

If you wanna look at it that way

[frank crystal]

But only for the first time you hit them

Which for monk

Isn’t really encouraged to hit them only 1 time

[upbeat ridge]

That’s fair

[frank crystal]

Although I will say

[upbeat ridge]

Also it’s deadly d10

[frank crystal]

The bonus to fort saves is nice

[frank crystal]

Yah that is legitimately nice

I can’t argue with that that’s a really strong aspect of the stance

[upbeat ridge]

Also inner upheaval is there

[frank crystal]

Yah can’t argue with inner upheaval

[upbeat ridge]

And barb dedication if you wanna push your damage

[frank crystal]

True true

[upbeat ridge]

The -1 to ac isn’t as bad if you’re +4 dex

Since you’re expert in unarmored defense you basically have +1 to ac

[frank crystal]

Monks have champion armor scaling?

For unarmored anyway?

[upbeat ridge]

It’s a little different

Champs get legendary armor, but they still start out at trained

Monks start at expert in unarmored defense

So you can have 19 ac at lv 1 instead of 18 if you have +4 dex

Don’t discount the non-stance level 2 monk feats, but since you’re going for a lv 4 stance, levels 1 and 2 are somewhat more open

(Level 2 for a dedication)

You maaaaay not want barb tho, if you’re doing inner upheaval

No casting while raging

[frank crystal]

[frank crystal]

Also yah I forgot it’s not even a level 1 stance

[upbeat ridge]

(Unless you take moment of clarity, but that takes an action itself)

Might not be terrible on monk tbh??

Thaum dedication is there though

[wary yoke]

What are people playing?

[upbeat ridge]

And kinda does the same thing damage-wise

[wary yoke]

Basically, in PF1E, any magic at all is an upgrade in effectiveness, and 2/3rds casters, unlike 2E, don't absolutely suck

[paper inlet]

Casters in 2e don't suck, they are just no longer objective upgrades.

[rustic cape]

I'm pretty sure he means partial casters, like wave casters in 2e

[paper inlet]

Ah, that's interesting phrasing

[rustic cape]

And yeah, a lot of people describe 2/3rds casters in 1e as something of a gameplay sweet spot

[paper inlet]

Never heard of it.

Anyway.

[rustic cape]

Casters that only scale to 6th level spells

[paper inlet]

When in question, combat expertise

[solar storm]

this is so sad

[warped orbit]

oof

[wary yoke]

I'm specifically referring to non-full casters

2E magus does a lot of things right, but I will never forgive the violence done to its casting ability with bounded casting

Also, fighter can still be very good, you just need to know what class features to swap out

Namely the advanced weapon and armor trainings

[turbid dagger]

So I'm doing pregame stuff in the weeks leading up to guilt of the graveworld
Asking all my players to come up with a Zo! Media show their PC likes 😌

Will try and ||sneak references to what they come up with into chapter 3||

[frozen hatch]

Thoughts on the 3rd party zeitgeist adventure path?

[fossil dome]

Opinions on Kineticist as a noob's 1e starting character?

[rustic cape]

Does reading the rules text for kineticist make your eyes spin?

[fossil dome]

I have yet to

[surreal basin]

Probably don’t, it has a lot of systems and benefits heavily from system knowledge

[fossil dome]

Name your top 5, then

[surreal basin]

Fighter, Paladin, Unchained Barbarian, maybe brawler? And Cleric

[fossil dome]

Those are all boring, though

Sorry, sorry

[surreal basin]

I mean play kineticist and suck it up then

[fossil dome]

This sells me more in it, though

[paper inlet]

I haven't played pf1e

[surreal basin]

Just figure it out

[paper inlet]

in years

and recently picked it up again

and I had fun on a swashbuckler at level 5

[rustic cape]

Seriously, though, kineticist is painfully poorly written

[fossil dome]

Guess I will

[sacred bluff]

My recommendation is pick a spheres class like Conscript

[rustic cape]

Like, putting aside whether the class is good design or not

[paper inlet]

Doing a 120feet sprint with two backflips, a fall into a crate and other bullshit only to open a latch on monsters cage was fun

[tribal steeple]

2e kineticist is merciful. 1e kineticist is a struggle.

[rustic cape]

The writing hurts me

[tribal steeple]

Enjoy keeping track of 7 moving parts for your character. Don't allocate too much Burn. But also don't not use Burn.

[surreal basin]

Or

Go crazy with burn and simply ride the lightning baby

[rustic cape]

Probably don't do this

You will die

[tribal steeple]

It did result it kineticists being bizarrely hard to kill even beyond them being a CON-maxxer, because their down-state in any given fight usually was "knocked unconscious" because their hp went below their nonlethal damage threshold (not because they actually went to 0 hp and were at risk of dying).

[fossil dome]

Huh?

[rustic cape]

I strongly recommend trying to read the class before making any decisions

[tribal steeple]

Using some kineticist abilities comes with taking Burn, the 1e class mechanic. Burn = your level in nonlethal damage. In 1e, nonlethal damage is tracked starting at 0 and going up, while your HP starts at max and goes down to 0. If ever your HP is less than your nonlethal damage, you just go unconscious. In effect, Burn is reducing your max HP to get more powerful effects from kineticist abilities.

The side effect of this is that in a fight where you take a lot of damage, a kineticist is going to become unconscious (and therefore not a combatant) and likely ignored by remaining enemies well before they actually are at risk of running out of HP and dying.

[warped orbit]

it's also somewhat complicated by the fact that you get buffs from certain amounts of Burn after a few levels

and you kinda need some of that to keep up numerically
so you also need to have a certain amount of Burn

[surreal basin]

You can also absurd burn abilities to absolutely nuke an encounter

Maximize, primarily

[tribal steeple]

Yeah, a number of abilities require Burn to be spent, and a number of those abilities are somewhat expected to be used (AC boosters, etc) at the start of the day.

But also that yes, if you're set up to be blasty-blasty and have nothing better to do afterward you can go wild and blow everything up like a lit candle in a pure oxygen environment.

[sour venture]

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/105559/10963

@fossil dome i wrote a guide about how to play the kineticist in a way that Actually Works

[sour venture]

this is definitely not true imo

you only ever get to leveld6, and even maximized that's not generally enough to nuke encounters

metakinesis is basically only good if you're at the very last round of a boss fight and it Makes The Difference

what kineticist is good at is being A Guy With A Lightsaber Who Cuts People Down With A Lightsaber (and has some at-will esoteric magical utility stuff)

[surreal basin]

/shrug I’m just speaking off my own experience

But it was not extremely hard to build in a way that let me do like 300 damage without rolling lmao

[sour venture]

uhhhhh

genuinely curious

i'm super curious what you did to do that!

[surreal basin]

Long time ago, no clue lol

[sour venture]

like i guess at 17th level you have the option to take uh

102 damage

to fire off [twice leveld6 maximized]

[surreal basin]

Well you would also presumably wanna put uhhh

Fuck the other one

[sour venture]

which is 202 damage

[surreal basin]

Powerful? The one that increases it by 50%

[sour venture]

empower, yeah

ok

yes

[surreal basin]

Yeah that

[sour venture]

that's 300 then

oh, plus another 4 burn for making it an aoe

and -1 for gather power

[surreal basin]

I’m sure I had some other shit going on

[sour venture]

we can reduce the aoe down with specialization at least

ok yeah at level 17 you can take 119 unhealable damage to hit an area for 302+Con Mod (likely 12-14) damage

which can only reasonably happen once per day because it constitutes 40% of your max hp, which was probably already reduced down to about 150

while this is definitely a cool nuke

I do not think it's at all indicative of the class experience prior to that specific level, and it's definitely not something that's indicative of the class's overall performance

[surreal basin]

I mean that’s fair

I was mostly just saying it as a motivator of the kind shit you do by accepting burn

Never regulate yourself always go crazy

[sour venture]

i just don't think it's a good thing to try to sell a class to a self-professed noob with a high-level trick

when most of the time you

don't get anything close to that by accepting burn

the main reason to accept burn is to get significantly boosted physical stats each day, and then to not do it again because you don't have the tools to protect yourself that a normal mage would

idk

[surreal basin]

I think he already sold it to himself

I tried to say it wasn’t a good beginner class lmao

[sour venture]

like the same level with a reasonable, but super-optimized (just "I knew to do this playstyle") melee kineticist is doing on average 259 damage after all roll chances are accounted for, without taking burn

which, yanno

it's not an aoe, that is true

weirdly, kineticist actually is a pretty good beginner class If Played With The Melee Kineticist Playstyle imo

because it's uhhhh

very

build-agnostic beyond the playstyle

hits touch attacks, turbocharges physical stats

at-will weird stand powers

[surreal basin]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[sour venture]

and then once per day you pull out a turbocharged 300 damage aoe blast at very high levels and then fall over after spirit bombing an encounter 👍

[surreal basin]

[rustic cape]

And if somebody reads the rules text for you

[sour venture]

someone does need to sit down and read the rules text with you if you're brand new yeah

necronomicon-ass class

[surreal basin]

Sorry if I was being aggressive or anything

[surreal basin]

Also idk to what extent but I think I did use a little bit of third party material like Legendary Kineticist

[sour venture]

fair!

[surreal basin]

As we went on in my group with 1e we realized it’s best when used as a framework

Rather than rules

If that makes sense

Despite its best attempts it’s not good as a hard tactics game where you follow the rules to a t and only do the stuff you’re allowed to

[wary yoke]

Kineticist as your first exposure to 1E is... certainly a choice

A choice of all time, you might say

It was an experiment with the system that almost everyone regarded as "not working"

The reason the 2E kineticist was so well regarded was, besides being a good class in and of itself, it actually delivered on what the 1E class failed to achieve

[wary yoke]

But my (second) RPG character was a 1E magus, so I understand the appeal to play what you wanna play, so if you can get the class chassis, go ahead

[tribal steeple]

My first was 1e magus, and that got a bit wild in the higher levels.

[fossil dome]

Howsabout oracle?

[tribal steeple]

1e oracle felt more like "divine spells sorcerer" when divine sorcerer wasn't an option in 1e

[wraith snow]

and now they're back :p

time truly is a flat circle

[trail nova]

In the tone of voice of someone with a terrible suggestion: Occultist? Very fun class, and there’s a great guide by Allerseen on it.

[errant roost]

Are there any specific beats you want to hit with this character? We've got beginner friendly and not boring, but "not boring" depends a lot on you as an individual. (Also, probably, the level of not the specific details of the campaign)

[tribal steeple]

I played alongside a Flames oracle in 1e and their fountain of spontaneous Cure X Wounds/healing eventually transitioned into a fountain of Flame Strikes and Fireballs so it worked out pretty good

[silver geyser]

Oh hey, we were talking about 1e Kineticist!

So that got a build that annoyed me so much as a GM I had to sit the player down and say "Can you please not do this anymore."

And it comes down entirely to there were a lot of overland encounters in Rise of the Runelords.

https://aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Air's Reach

Behold, the problem!

[rustic cape]

Amusingly similar to Clear As Air

[silver geyser]

Oh, the short form descriptions don't work for Wild Talents.

What this does is simple: Passively and at all times for free, it doubles the range of all air blasts.

[tribal steeple]

Ah yes, the sniper air build

[silver geyser]

The sniper air build, yeah.

[tribal steeple]

With permanent flight

[silver geyser]

Yuuuup.

This build did not annoy me by being too good.

But by just being completely non-interactive with any of the enemies outdoors

[tribal steeple]

Its gimmick is just hard to engage with in a way that doesn't also become a problem for the non flyer non sniper party

[silver geyser]

Yeah.

[rustic cape]

Yeah, that's the problem with sniper builds in general

[tribal steeple]

Suspicious how every wilderness encounter somehow takes place within a reinforced stone hut structure that has no clear line of sight to the inside

[rustic cape]

They exist in a binary state between "solves the encounter automatically" and "fails to do much of anything"

[silver geyser]

It's also not the worst class I've had a player make work.

That honor goes to 1e Medium.

[trail nova]

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1FL9xXq29pq4sQrGIlo3eCjCE7NCU-wyFsMH95wQAJKo/mobilebasic#heading=h.fw46z0d255c0

There’s a bunch of good advice here for some interesting classes, take a look and see if anything is particularly up your alley.

[trim bluff]

im steadily realizing how fucking bizzare our playgroups experience with 1e has been lmao
first campaign: 3 summoners and 1 witch. we made constant jojos references, including in character names and the fact we all had a bunch of ranks in performance and were a band. the summoners were individually weird, consisting of a synthesist fighter guy, a mounted shadow guy dodge tank, and a master summoner whos turns took fucking forever because they constantly had like 5+ things summoned
second campaign: jack of all trades styled oracle who buffed, healed, and did damage, fire kineticist, weird grappling focused unarmed fighter who was basically just a jank monk, and a tower shield paladin whos smite was replaced with this absurd defensive ability that gave them like, +6 ac or something and made everyone close to them talk half damage
we have not had a single "normal" party in this system 😭

[silver geyser]

That's the wonderful thing, this is in a way normal Pathfinder.

[trim bluff]

i think the synthesist summoner is my favorite character out of all of these

his name was billy and he just called his eidolon "eidolon"

and when they fused they were billy eidolon

[wary yoke]

They're broken, but not "this trivializes everything" broken, they're "this does not actually work" broken

Play an Aegis! It's designed for that!

[trim bluff]

according to the player of billy eidolon actually making them nearly gave them a heart attack. but once they got into actually playing with them it was like playing a fighter. a really fucking broken fighter with no dump stats.

[wraith snow]

This is also the method my Kobold in Kingmaker uses, she has Beastmaster dedication and her companions are Pet and Bird respectively.

[trim bluff]

also in case youre wondering appearance wise the character was just a really scrawny billy idol and the eidolon was literally just billy idol

it was great

as frustrating as it was to figure it all out considering wed never played pathfinder 1e before and chose summoner, probably one of the hardest classes to wrap your head around, the campaign was so worth it

it also got our dm to ban summoner for all future pathfinder 1e campaigns because every step of the process was miserable for him

[wary yoke]

In my games I have banned chained summoner

The unchained version having actual outsiders was a big plus for me

[trim bluff]

oh i almost forgot

our band was called the storebought crusaders

[eager mountain]

Classy 😄

[trim bluff]

i love them

idk what they even do yet but i love them

[eager mountain]

they have a lucky fog they breath ( or unlucky

and they can gain resistance when you hit them , then bounce away

[trim bluff]

amazing

perfect monster

[eager mountain]

thier heritage ability is the bounce away thing

[trim bluff]

nothing can top this, they should just stop making statblocks

[eager mountain]

theres also an Eel like one

[surreal basin]

oh is this book out? or this is subscrtiber pdfs

[turbid dagger]

I believe it's subscriber previews yeah

Also eugh
I am not liking dex cha free with a con malus

[rustic cape]

Just means it's time to go for alternate boosts

[surreal basin]

yeah it kinda doesnt matter lol

[rustic cape]

Standard boosts are just kind of a "hey is this perfect for my build" bonus

[turbid dagger]

Well yeah
But it's always nice to see a spicy three boost ancestry

[rustic cape]

That's fair

[turbid dagger]

Like the kobold heritage with con cha free with int malus
Thaum Central

Or Centaur (my beloved)

[rustic cape]

I think it's Str/Cha

If you mean Mightyscale

[turbid dagger]

Ohhh yeah, my bad

[rustic cape]

And yes it is extremely rad

[surreal basin]

to be fair elf is also con flaw and manages to be as god tier ancestry

[rustic cape]

partially because of alternate boosts

[warped orbit]

mostly because of their speed and feats tbh

[clever cobalt]

anyone else having trobule logging into paizo?

[eager mountain]

TRANS DRAGON TRANS DRAGON

[true delta]

@proper pelican

[small meteor]

TRANS DRAGON TRANS DRAGON TRANS DRAGON SHE'S SO USSSSS-

[sudden lark]

What is a stormcrown dragon?

[warped orbit]

new type of Primal dragon it seem

[turbid dagger]

In essence a Blue Dragon
Apparently gets chain lightning as it's breath weapon

[wary yoke]

I'm disappointed there aren't any new rules for familiars

IIRC the only dragonet to have specific familiar rules is the house drake (ancient) and fey dragonet (please no)

[wraith snow]

Familiars are in a really wierd place for me, I appreciate the system for what it is but I find I seldom get value from them

[warped orbit]

They are pretty niche

[silver geyser]

Oh ho, well well, good to have someone new in Schloss Caromac. RIP to the count though. Wonder what's up with his son....

[wraith snow]

For my current Witch I more or less just landed on using the djinn specific familiar because Little Wish is cracked but aside from that it hasn't done a lot

[turbid dagger]

I have learned that Acid Arrow, despite being removed and replaced with Acid Grip in PF2e, was ported wholesale with only a name change into SF2e
https://2e.aonsrd.com/spells/32-caustic-conversion

[wraith snow]

Huh

[sudden lark]

I forgor how to convert stuff from old PF2e to the remaster

[surreal basin]

Not much to do

Good and evil become holy and unholy, alignment and anything functioning off it blows up, change out spells for new ones if necessary, remove anything referencing a school of magic

[sudden lark]

Okie

[steel blade]

lawful/chaotic damage probably become basic spirit, unless it makes more sense to be holy or unholy

[sudden lark]

Thanks

[rustic cape]

Things I have said while playing Season of Ghosts: "Friend, we will be happy to escort your back to mirror lake, and when we find the woman who threatened to drop you off of the nonexistent edge of the world, I will beat her with a globe."

[sinful gyro]

So the starfinder video game kickstarter just CC'd their emails to all backers instead of BCC'd

So OOOPS

Hopefully no GDPR fines

Looks like they're batches of 50 but still

[rustic cape]

wooops

[echo briar]

Fines wise, that could be worse. Each group of 50 could be a separate fine.

[sinful gyro]

Maybe

This has happened at a workplace I was at before

I think it was determined that emails to the customer base of the product was not identifying or damaging enough

[surreal basin]

What does this mean

[rustic cape]

They hit reply all

In essence

[wraith snow]

The recipients of each email can see 49 other recipients of the same mail, essentially a massive leak of user email addresses if someone compiles it

[surreal basin]

Oh okay

That seems pretty minor

[rustic cape]

I believe the discussion was that it could result in some fines in the EU

[sinful gyro]

While it is a minor mistake, it is potentially a big GDPR violation

[wary yoke]

My Tuesday game is moving to a Wuxia-inspired PF2E game, I get a chance to play my free-hand fighter/spirit warrior

Playing an asshole mercenary woman, very excited

[wooden orbit]

https://youtu.be/URAtSNkBWJU?si=almmXL52u6JHRGRH

[sacred bluff]

Tip #1: don't take That's Odd if you want to maintain a healthy relationship with your GM

[dapper tusk]

concept: chaotic neutral thief NPC who goes around stealing specifically everyone's silver pieces

[paper inlet]

...expand this with a werewolf encounter

[surreal basin]

They’re stealing the silver to melt them down into weapons to save their village which is under the thumb of a Lycan gang

[wooden orbit]

unfortunately I like that’s odd

[light gyro]

honestly surprised it's not an uncommon feat

[tribal steeple]

"I would like a little bit of railroading, gm, my time is valuable so let's just keep the session moving shall we?"

[surreal basin]

Got my grubby mitts on the dragon book

[wooden orbit]

How about them Dragonets?

[surreal basin]

They’re very cool

[wooden orbit]

I really like them, and the new additions for Dragonbloods.

[fossil dome]

OK

Looking through the oracle Spell list, and this is doooope

https://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Holy Ice Weapon

[turbid dagger]

I'm a little dissatisfied with Draconic Codex's player options but there are some lovely dragons in there!

[surreal basin]

What else would you have wanted?

[turbid dagger]

Better player options!
Drake Rider is a pretty sauceless companion arch, the new dragonblood and kobold feats aren't really thrilling me, Dragonets don't seem like a very good ancestry
Draconic Adept has some nice stuff so I'll give it due credit but like
IDK I'm just not excited by it!
TBH I think it's mostly just how fun dragons are to run contrasted by how milquetoast dragon player options are

Just give me Draconic Frenzy
Mathematically it's not even that good a metastrike I just crave it

A few things also annoy me specifically in a way that I can't really call an objective failure
I go a little rabid when I think about how Vorpal Dragon Dragon Barbarian is doing void damage with their rage and therefore sucks ass

The sword dragon barbarian????? Sucks?????

[surreal basin]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[turbid dagger]

I'll say Phase Dragon Barb does get Force Rage and that's a pretty cool vibe! Especially with how fast barbarians can get
So it's not all bad

[surreal basin]

Several pf them do actually

Barrage dragon does as well

It’s just based on the type their breath does iirc

[turbid dagger]

Oh yeah! We've had Fortune for a while now
I just mean that vibes wise the Phase Dragon is a cool dragon for a martial to theme themselves around
Which is why Vorpal's breath being void hurts so much

[surreal basin]

That’s fair

Is just how the class works tho so I get why they didn’t change it

[turbid dagger]

Clearly they should have had a sword wave breath that does slashing :3

Vorpal dragon in general is sort of letdown tbh, even as a GM
Its vibes are immaculate but it's Special Gimmick only happens if you roll a nat 20
The nonlethal decapitation mechanic should be wayyyyy easier to proc tbh, with the Lethal Vorpal Decapitation restricted to nat 20s as normal

[surreal basin]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I wouldn’t call it a letdown cause like

That’s just how vorpal works

I didn’t expect it to work another way

[turbid dagger]

Well the nonlethal decapitation is like
A seperate, very interesting mechanic from the Vorpal rune's effects
Where you get big clumsy that gets worse if your body isn't in LOS of your head, which you can suppress by spending a hand on carrying your head and dispel it entirely by spending two actions to reattach it
If the dragon actually
Had that as a gimmick you had to work around while fighting it, that might be really fun
But it's very unlikely to come up that much in a given fight

[clever cobalt]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfinder2e/comments/1pd2ftr/starbuilder_2e_is_out/

[wooden orbit]

Yarp!

....Unfortunately this now means my Minotaur Oracle in Extinction Curse must die so I can play a Dragonet

[wraith snow]

It's really funny how much this book feels like it was directly targetted at my Kingmaker character

Who unfortunately is level 19 and I'm not changing anything now lmao

[wooden orbit]

....Paizo...PAIZO PLZ!!!! WHERE DO I FIND THE PLAYER'S GUIDE FOR THE APs ON THE WEBSITE

[wraith snow]

-Kobold
-Dragon Sorc
-Riding Drake companion
-Dragon Disciple Archetype

[turbid dagger]

Usually I look up '(AP OF CHOICE) Player's Guide' in google and the direct link to the document shows up

[rustic cape]

Reincarnate :D

[rotund geode]

Hey I am thinking about bards now

If you were to come up with a new Bard Muse what would it be?

[frank crystal]

I forget, you can’t really do two weapon thaumaturge yah?

[warped orbit]

It's kinda possible now with shield implement

[rustic cape]

Spirit Warrior Thaum is a possible substitute

[craggy thunder]

Spirit Warrior honestly feels made for Thaum

[eager mountain]

lol so this orc, started slashing me while my character was like " We dont have to fighttttt guys!"

and then when it came to my turn , he was low health, so I hit him with Ice, wghich would have killed him outright if it wasnt for ferocity

SO my weak little gnome wizard was like " OH! UH..NGH!" and just kinda slapped him for 1 damage XD and it downed him

[frank crystal]

Chat, me and a friend have been talking and I gotta ask

Can any of y’all think of a reason that critical trip damage doesn’t scale with weapon runes like everything else in this game?

[warped orbit]

Crashing Slam does, but yeah

[novel merlin]

Most random crit effects dont scale

Fall damage also doesnt scale

[frank crystal]

I mean yah but fall damage scales with length

It’s it’s own thing

[wooden orbit]

Hmm, I should probably make a pinterest just to put together a fashion reference and stuff for my Hell's Rebels investigator.

They're part Cheliax and part Varisian, and also Dragonblooded. Specifically a Diabolic Dragon. Though kinda leaning towards them wearing more of a Cheliax styled outfit.

[surreal basin]

Rune damage

Doesn’t scale

Like a frost rune

Only adds a 1d6

[rustic cape]

Kingmaker this morning, the party is getting a second barbarian

[rustic cape]

Things I've learned today: a party with two barbarians and a gunslinger tends to do alright

[warped orbit]

Barbarians do that yeah

[rustic cape]

We’ve got one bombbarian and one wrestlebarian

[frank crystal]

Yah but for that you can get better versions of those runes

It’s not like you’re stuck at that d6 forever

[surreal basin]

They don’t do more damage

[frank crystal]

You eventually get a stronger version of the same rune

[surreal basin]

You are actually stuck at d6

[frank crystal]

Oh they don’t?

Oh

[warped orbit]

they ignore resistance, and sometimes the secondary effect is improved

[rustic cape]

IIRC there is some bullshit here and there in the game that lets you do more with the crit trip. However, the really simple answer is that +3.5 damage is good at any level

[warped orbit]

Ruffian has a thing for it I think?

[frank crystal]

It really doesn’t feel like it…

[rustic cape]

The difference between a major and greater striking tune is typically +3.5 to +5.5

Most status bonuses to damage stop at +4

A few circumstance bonuses go to +6 at the very high end, or +8 for a few ancestry feats that require a combined doomed and wounded value of 4

I get that perceptually it doesn’t necessarily feel great

But even where damage is concerned, PF tends to be a game of small, non-stacking pluses

In that framework, critical trip is … fine. Not hugely compelling, but also not something you generally spend resources on

[warped orbit]

Crit Trip is something I don't super care about
It's neat when it happens, but the success is the important part

[surreal basin]

Yeah I don’t really think it needs to

So much

*do much

If it scaled I would argue it would be a little too strong

[woeful pecan]

Once again agonizing over my build, trying to balance mechanics and narrative

On the one hand, Lesson of Vengeance would be very on theme. On the other, it's kinda... Not great?

[wraith snow]

Yeah I kind of ran into the same situation. If nothing else it's a 3rd focus point to Cackle with but it's not good.

[rustic cape]

Hmmmmmm party of four barbarians

Ligneous bombbarian, elemental kinetibarian, dragon somethingbarian, giant champbarian

[woeful pecan]

See the problem is I don't have anything to use Cackle on yet

I took Spinner of Threads, and their Hex doesn't need to be sustained

And I haven't yet found any normal spells that I want to take that need sustaining either, at least at 1st rank

[wraith snow]

Yeah that's fair, I didn't start getting very good value from it till Laughing Fit at 2nd rank

I'm sure there's a good 1st rank target for it somewhere but I'm not sure what that might be

[woeful pecan]

Looks like the options are pretty much summons and Bless/Bane

I'm also just generally trying to reevaluate my build plans since our party changed. Trying to figure out how to best support everyone

[wraith snow]

I've gotten some solid Illusory Creature value but a lot of that was out of combat utility rather than being directly combat applicable

Though sometimes if you REALLY need to hit a weakness at 500ft of range it can work

[woeful pecan]

Honestly non-combat options could also be helpful. We're doing Season of Ghosts, which I'm told is pretty light on combat

Free archetype suggestions to pass on to the others could be useful too. What we have now is:

• Spinner of Threads Witch (Herbalist)
• Flurry Ranger
• Scoundrel Rogue
• Seer Animist

[crystal walrus]

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/pathfinder-second-edition-holiday-haul-bundle-paizo-books

[wooden orbit]

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/61170/pathfinder-2e-hellfire-crisis-sourcebook-revealed?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky

April 1st, 2026

And Hellbreaker's AP is releasing March 4th, 2026.

[errant roost]

April fools! Hell on earth

[clever cobalt]

Thats the Cheliax/Andoran war right

[wooden orbit]

Yarp

[clever cobalt]

Any new lore regarding that?

I guess most of it will be in this book but

[woeful pecan]

Looking at level-up options and I can't wait to pull more familiar shenanigans

Delivery spider time

[eager mountain]

ye

terrible time for me not to play society

becuase Brastlewark and Cheliax are like one of the thigns about my Gnome's backstory

her parents live there and she left after getting in trouble with the Chelaxians

( Brastlewark is a gnome enclave on the border between Andoran and Cheliax

[clever cobalt]

Has there been any major developments beyond "Andoran and Cheliax went to war"

[eager mountain]

I have no idea

i know there was a book atleast

i know that Battlecry, the rulebook as some of the begining stuff for the season.

like what happens leading up to the war

[clever cobalt]

I imagine the LO Hellfire Crisis will have more developments admittedly

[eager mountain]

written from the perspect of a war reporter

Last report was about the Battle of Breach hill, which took place at the Con where the new adventures were announced and stuff

[clever cobalt]

Nice

[eager mountain]

but yeah very much kinda going in on the " world war vibe"

not as large as Legends kinda promiced along time ago

( Lost omen legends was basically a big book of big name npcs

and there were meta game charts

[clever cobalt]

I do recall comparisons to WW1

By someone from Paizo

[wary yoke]

I'm very much looking forward to the next session of my in-person PF2E campaign

[clever cobalt]

Which IMO also means a mess of alliances getting involved

[eager mountain]

a noble on the chelaxian side literalyl got Franz furdinanded

[clever cobalt]

I hope Geb and Nex get involved

[wary yoke]

My Vow of Mortal Defiance Exemplar finally is going to meet something with the Unholy tag

An actual Contract Devil

[eager mountain]

oh i thought you meant the one im in

[clever cobalt]

Ideally Nex with Cheliax and Geb with Andoran

[wary yoke]

That's why I said in-person, lol

Though I'm looking forward to the online one too

[eager mountain]

im not very smart

[wary yoke]

Y'all got a taste of Coria with the high-tech magical research facility, now you're gonna get the rest with (spoilers)

[clever cobalt]

I'm reminded I really wanna fluff out my Kholo more

Especially since I recently got art of tjem

(Artist is Graey Erb)

Nephilim Kholo Exemplar

But yeah

I do kinda wanna make an Andoran OC for PF2e

But I also have a love of monstrous races and idk what would fit best

Kholo and Fleshwarp are naturally the primary ones on my mind

Well, I also had an Eagle Knight idea, but Idk how I'd accomplish it outside of homebrew

Basically a Twilight Talon (the Eagle Knight Spy division, basically) Shifter

Apologies, doing the rambling thing again

[wary yoke]

I'm very excited because my character is an anti-theist philosopher Exemplar up against a contract devil

Might get a chance to earn my second epithet

Though I'm trying to think of a parallel to Peerless Under Heaven involving Hell

[clever cobalt]

My Kholo was a fighter, until War of Immortals came out

And we had just finished the first half of the campaign

[wraith snow]

"Apex of the Inferno", "Pinnacle of the Pit"

[wary yoke]

That implies they're of Hell, I'm looking for something that says I'm better than Hell

I'm really hoping that this isn't some bullshit illusion, I've had awesome chances for character moments yanked away by this GM before

My character's whole shpiel isnt just that the devil is a parasite (as most outsiders are), it's obsolete

[wary yoke]

because in our setting, the outer planes (meaning the afterlives) are effectively cut off, so the fact a devil is even present means it's stranded and probably unable to fulfill its main purpose

[wary yoke]

Part of the reason I'm excited is this is the first time (in our revamped 2E campaign at least) we are in a situation that is 100% my wheelhouse

And we just found out the island the entire campaign has taken place in, the majority of the humans there have been taught that they are the last bastion of humans in the world, and they everywhere else is home to undead and monsters