Aether Seawolf's page

Longer turns arent bad. They exist in some form for most classes. We dont rip into rogues for going off and pick-pocketing the populace or combat maneuver builds for taking multiple checks in a single attack action. In the past the minion classes haven't drug table time into 15 minutes for a single player and as long as things are happening the game stays interesting. The only time I've ever seen it degrade into too long of a turn was with open Leadership feat abuse which we dont have in 2.0.

The problem here is having to command the animal for the animal to act makes no sense.

When you command an attack dog to attack, it does so. Non-stop until you tell it to heel. In PF2, the dog will attack once. And then if you don't tell him to do anything. He'll just stand there. Even if the opponent is whacking him with a sword. HE'LL JUST STAND THERE. Unless you command him to flee or attack.

That is crazy and unrealistic.

Mergy wrote:

Other characters are going to have 3 actions total. Let's stick close to that number so everyone has a chance to shine.

Are we all really so saddened by someone else taking more time to resolve their actions than others? "DMmy, it's not fair, he gets 5 minutes of your attention and I only get 3." I've never understood why people were so upset that someone else's build gives them more (usually weaker) actions than normal.

On this note though, how is necromancer going to play out. It takes a command per minion. They can have up to 4. There goes their entire turn. Because you have to "push" each minion instead of group commanding.

Also as a note on summoning: you have to concentrate which is a bigger cost in 2.0 than the base game.

So, when looking over the different ancestries it's easy enough to see what ability got traded for what. All of the non-human ancestries get 2 set boosts and 1 flaw. They get common plus their own language. Then each gets some special ability that's not tied to a heritage feat.

medium sized creatures seem to be the norm, if you're small this "advantage" costs you either in hitpoints, movement or some combination there of.

Dwarf: 10, M, 20ft, +extra abilityx2
Elf: 6, M, 30ft, +extra ability
Gnome: 8, S, 20ft, +extra ability
Goblin: 6, S, 25ft, +extra ability
Halfling: 6, S, 25ft,
Human: 8, M, 25ft,

We can see that the default stats seem to be

6, M, 20ft, with each getting 1 or more of the following, +2HP, S, +5ft, +extra ability

How many each gets, is as follows
Dwarves: 4
Elves: 4
Gnome: 3
Goblin: 3
Halfling: 2
Human: 2

Even if I ignore size and I just compare medium sized races to other medium sized races, dwarves and elves get more benefits then humans do. The only advantage humans seem to get is that they can be half-orcs or half-elves or take the general training feat. Even then, you are gaining this in place of your normal ancestry feat. The thing is, a level one ancestry feat should be relatively equivalent to other level one ancestry feats, regardless of what race it's coming from. Making this not quite the advantage it seems.

All things being equal, there's little reason to pick a human over a dwarf or an elf and there's little reason to pick a halfling over a goblin or gnome. At minimum, humans and halflings need an extra trait or an extra ancestry feat in order for it to make sense to take one of these ancestries. Ancestries give you so little now in terms of set benefits that it's easy to compare them on a normalized curve.

But as far as what youre feats give you access too.... well humans are outpacing everyone and halflings are still screwed. The shear value of an extra class feat or general feat is way more then low light vision, unencumbered, or speed is gonna give you.

I don't think that's how it works. The Animal Companion section says that for animal companions specifically its one action of the Druid/Ranger to give two actions for the companion, overriding the general rules where it is one to one. Also you don't need to use handle animal because your animal companion is already obeying you.

So it's never more than one action to command an animal companion.

EDIT: "Animal companions are loyal comrades who follow your
orders. They have the minion trait, so they gain 2 actions
during your turn if you use the Command an Animal
action to command them; this is in place of the usual
effects of Command an Animal" P. 284

So basically your "house rules" are the actual rules.

Thanks. The GM was pushing for the normal effects from the command animal skill use due to that rules section until we plead to be functionable. Knowing that theres a companion specific rules change is a lifesaver.

Animal companion classes - Ranger, Druid, Paladin - face the same problem that killed 5Es beastmaster ranger: action economy. Animal druid kind of gets a break here in that once you hit 4th you don't have to use one of your actions to command one of the moves but essentially the problem boils down to having only 3 actions. Turns in encounter mode end up by rules looking like:

>1st action: handle animal to even be able to command
>2nd action: Command animal to move
>3rd action: Command animal to attack/work together/other.

Even without handle animal, players are sinking 2 actions into handling their companion leaving them one to attack themselves, cast, or attack. I got around this by being mounted so my companions movement moves me, but it hits the same action economy point where you are asking players to sacrifice their actions in order for their companions to see action. While the balance of this can be argued, companions and their advancement are core class features on par with any of the others and there should not be action tax to use them. My group is house ruling that there is no handle animal check and that you only need one command per round to move and attack; however this hurts the benefit 4th level druid gets. (Our group has each companion class so its a visible hit to druid). If anyone has feedback on how we can fix this for the system that would be great. I like pet classes and I'd hate for them to become pariah like the did in 5E.

Everyone seems to have some issue with this area of the game, and I wanted to collect all the ones I've seen and experienced in one post. The problems appear to be:
>Growing into a race is weird roleplay wise. The game assumes I'm an adult adventurer, why am I still developing core racial abilities.
>The races feel really flat and flavorless.
>General Training and Natural Ambition are so far out of the league of everything else it hurts
>Race abilities (for the most part) are situational to the point of being painful
>Low incentive for players to branch out of human

The best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.