Rahadoum kinda has the same issue as the Mana Wastes in being a very idea rich setting that would be hard to swing as an official AP because of class limitations. I wouldn't be satisfied with a Rahadoum AP where you're allowed to play a Cleric.
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Well, that probably *would* be the side-effect on low-wisdom arcane caster nerds. :p I was more thinking low-wisdom Paladins. Redeeming a demon is an awfully romantic legacy to leave behind. I don't even specifically mean succubi here, Nocticula opens the floodgates for people to try peace with all sorts of planar beings that otherwise would be written off as non-negotiable forces of evil. This hope could lead to some... unfortunate errors.
Demons just suffered a major setback in the closing of the Worldwound, so that would be a very interesting way to keep them relevant; the redemption of Nocticula would reasonably convince people that evil outsiders are not as locked into their alignment as previously believed.
This monster's abilities are so simple yet distinct that other than the specific attack/save numbers you can probably run it from memory. A clear example of how monster design has improved with the PF2 philosophy.
I'm not sure if I agree with the use of occult for what the Bard does (given that for most modern nerds the word has a pretty Lovecrafty connotation), but I do like the idea of separating it out into a different tradition than Wizards. More of a folksy, pass-it-down-in-a-form-that-rhymes type of magic than the more academic connotations of the Arcane. I hope the Witch ends up being the prepared caster for this school of magic, it'd be a very appropriate fit.
As far as that goes, 5e is proof that analysis paralysis isn't a good argument. (Especially since wizards didn't seem to suffer from it when preparing their spells during playtesting.)Again, this simply isn't true because 5E casters have fewer spells per day than PF2 ones by a fair bit, You know, this SHOULD be true, but they gave Wizards the ability to pick whatever the hell spell they want at any point as long as they're out of combat. So.
If you replace the bonus feat with an ability that gives +1 to all saves, skills and ability checks, then you'd have a very versatile option that is surprisingly not very powerful. Uh... People already drool over Sacred Tattoo and this is even better than that.
It's the same deal as Half-Orcs counting as both orcs and humans. A long existing mechanic that is working exactly as intended.
What if the Sorcerer's Signature Spell is just better than a Wizard casting the same spell? It'd only need to be a minor boost, but picking Summon Monster as your spell that you want to be able to spam freely throughout your career and being able to wave around that choice in front of the generalist Wizard as proof of why you're better at summoning than he is would definitely help make up the gap in versatility.
I feel the kind of minor details found in these questionnaires are better filled out during roleplay; I usually don't actually know the answer to these questions until I've played the character a bit and seen how she really interacts with other people.
40. Heir to an old family requests you enter the crypt of his ancestors; you may take any treasure you find as your payment, except one particular item that he expects you return to him. As you descend deeper you begin to suspect this item should not be unearthed...
I'll preface this with the simple answer. Torture is an Evil act, one Evil act does not change your alignment. Torturing for some Good might balance to Neutral but that's a GM call. You're right, making a singular mistake in a moment of desperation doesn't completely change your alignment; if an otherwise Good person starts to feel the pressure of the situation and commits to torture as a means to their ends, then that alone won't change their alignment completely. They will probably feel horrible about what they've done and seek to atone somehow - or perhaps they'll double down on justifying themselves, which would indicate an alignment shift. That's not what the OP's character is doing though; torture as a means of gathering information is a defining character trait for him. Once it's a pattern of behavior rather than a single transgression it's absolutely indicative of being an evil person. It's the difference between a crime-of-passion murderer and a serial killer.
Are you guys excited for it?I've always liked the PF setting, modules and APs, but I didn't like 3.5 and thus I didn't learn PF 1e. It became very complex very fast and right now it is bloated with trap options. I would have liked to learn it anyways but I didn't move fast enough. Ehh, don't get too excited about getting away from the "trap options"; it's a simple fact of the matter that a game that sells itself on breadth of options, some of those options will suck. It's unfortunate that a lot of the options in PF1 suck deliberately, but we probably can't avoid that unless Paizo gets a mechanics-first guy like Seifter to sign off on everything to make sure that it's more than "flavorful" before it gets published. Which is not a reasonable expectation. Like, I'd sure hope there are fewer trap options in PF2, but don't bet on it. Some things are going to suck because the writer wanted them to suck, some things are going to suck because the writer thought it was stronger than it ended up being. Just the way it is.
You can get a somewhat workable Spring Attack build out of the Warrior Poet Samurai, though that's a very different thread. As a note: Vital Strike IS an attack action, and does work with the Scout's 8th level ability. It just sucks because you're a 3/4 BAB class so your Vital Strike progression is delayed.
Those people are probably just playing PF1 with Spheres of Power. Which, if PF2 ends up being successful, I can only assume DDS will churn out a version of for the new system.
The Invulnerable Rager is a freebie, not something you should necessarily build around; you're trading out Uncanny Dodge, which unless you're an Urban Barbarian you don't care about having, in exchange for a small but consistent defensive boost. Just treat it as part of the basic Barbarian package, it's not really intended for "tanking".
It's kind of interesting how Medium of the Master is under no obligation to actually follow the unarmed strike nudging it gets - you don't lose anything the Champion Medium normally gets by ignoring it, you simply gain a few benefits by using it. You could very easily just use Master's Strike to give yourself pounce in exchange for one of the attacks being a mediocre unarmed strike and then use the rest of your full attack on falchion hits.I mean, having the monk's unarmed strike damage isn't bad (you punch like a greataxe at level 12), and with handwraps (from the same book) enchanting your punching is no more expensive than enchanting your greataxe. You misunderstand my meaning; unarmed certainly works for the archetype, but I find it very interesting that it doesn't need to. The fact that it doesn't lock you into being a Medium/Monk supports the argument it belongs in this thread; it's a great choice for any Medium that just wants to focus on the martial bits. For comparison, I mentioned the Vivisectionist earlier as the standard for mutagen-focused Alchemists; I did not, however, mention the Beastmorph because despite it being an excellent choice and probably the best pair for the Vivisectionist available it locks you into a particular set of skills that isn't appropriate for every Hyde Alchemist (wings are really good, but maybe you don't want to sprout wings). The Vivisectionist doesn't enforce any flavor that isn't already there with the base Alchemist, and it's the same thing with the Medium of the Master.
This is a pretty controversial issue that you're not gonna get a solid, consensus answer for. Personally I think that torture for any purpose and with any intentions is fundamentally evil - I would not be surprised to see the next person come in willing to justify it as a necessary evil to get crucial information, or even not evil at all. I think it's telling that your character isn't willing to accept responsibility for the healing, though; requiring the tortured individual to accept further pain in the form of burn is an exceptionally weak justification of your actions, and the kind of thing I'd expect from the Lawful Evil nemesis character who's going to get Smited when the protagonists come along to stop him.
I actually have a pretty positive image of what PF2 looks like in post-playtest previews; seems like everything I hated about the playtest has been fixed or removed in some manner. Buuuut I was pretty optimistic about what I was seeing prior to the playtest, too. To the point where when the playtest's details were revealed I felt like I was directly lied to on some details. And now I am working from the unenviable position of trying to convince my less generous friends that the poor look the playtest gave does not necessarily mean the final product will be as bad; a problem that would not have occurred had Paizo been more realistic in the things they tested out, rather than throwing in mechanics that flew directly in the face of what makes Pathfinder appealing in the first place for... no reason at all, really. I can't actually envision a scenario in which the Paizo devs believed Signature Skills would survive community scrutiny. I don't have that little faith in their capabilities.
Well thank god that isn't what they did then was it? They made the most radical changes, not the worst. And most of them, going by surveys were very well recieved. Even the one totally axed mechanic (Resonance) wasn't totally panned in the surveys, with just the fact that those who didn't like it absolutely abhorred it making the choice to remove it.And then there will be people with the playtest so firmly stuck in their heads that they'll insist on judging PF2 as though it were the playtest, even after its own release. That's the most fun group of all!In fairness, "these are the absolute worst ideas our team has had, let's call them a playtest and see if they aren't as bad as we think they are" is a poor way to make a first impression. I've been generally positive about what I've seen post-playtest but I'm not gonna blame anyone who took their playtest experience and decided Paizo has very little goodwill to work off of now. Two words: signature skills.
It's kind of interesting how Medium of the Master is under no obligation to actually follow the unarmed strike nudging it gets - you don't lose anything the Champion Medium normally gets by ignoring it, you simply gain a few benefits by using it. You could very easily just use Master's Strike to give yourself pounce in exchange for one of the attacks being a mediocre unarmed strike and then use the rest of your full attack on falchion hits.
And then there will be people with the playtest so firmly stuck in their heads that they'll insist on judging PF2 as though it were the playtest, even after its own release. That's the most fun group of all! In fairness, "these are the absolute worst ideas our team has had, let's call them a playtest and see if they aren't as bad as we think they are" is a poor way to make a first impression. I've been generally positive about what I've seen post-playtest but I'm not gonna blame anyone who took their playtest experience and decided Paizo has very little goodwill to work off of now.
Lore would be a great mystery with that array, Sidestep Secret would help a ton with what would otherwise be a very unimpressive armor class. The bonus spells aren't very impressive, true, but fortunately you're a half-elf so you can take Ancient Lorekeeper and replace them. As a side note, since your physical stats are so bad that you're locked into the backline caster role you should consider taking one of the truly awful curses like Blackened so you can use Oracle's Burden.
For the mutagen focused Alchemist, the Vivisectionist is the base class; there's some similar archetypes that help focus down the Alchemist's many concepts into a singular build but none are as clear cut of a choice as the Vivisectionist for Hyde Alchemists. Qinggong Monk is literally just a buff patch to Monk; it deliberately stacks with everything because it's intended to give the Monk more useful class abilities. It's not nearly as required as it once was because Unchained serves a similar fix-it role but if you're interested in an archetype that can't be Unchained then there is zero reason not to put Qinggong on your character sheet in case you decide to make a trade in the future.
The Underfoot Adept Monk can get pretty silly... if you cheat into it with a Racial Heritage Human.
Have you considered having an adult conversation about why you don't like to play with this type of character rather than being passive aggressive about it and reaching to tie game mechanics to your personal pet peeves
It's adorable that you created a neat little table where the enemies are standing adjacent to each other to illustrate your point that Cleave is useful, when my entire argument is that you can't expect there to always be enemies standing next to each other. Or even most of the time. Literally a five foot gap between t1 and t2 and your investment into cleave is worthless. All you're proving is the usefulness of a reach weapon on a large creature. To which I would say, no duh.
I think that if I'm a 2H weapon user with feats to burn, I probably go into Cornugon Smash/Hurtful (though a preference for charisma characters definitely weighs the scale in that chain's favor). Killing a big scary foe is a lot better than nearly killing two minor ones in a game with no injury rules, and the only time you'll fail to get value out of Hurtful is if the enemies are so weak you're 1-shotting all of them (in which case the fight is so trivial your investment into fight good doesn't matter much anyways). Again, Cleaving Finish is a good feat; you can be pretty sure any fight that involves multiple melee enemies you'll get to roll for your Cleaving Finish attack (though fights that involve one or two extremely dangerous foes Cleaving Finish worthless for). Cleave has no such guarantee due to positioning requirements that are largely out of your control - if the enemies don't stay stacked together in a neat line (likely, given that intelligent foes are jostling for flanking position as much as you are) then you're never going to cleave onto anything. There's a lot of randomness and unreliability in a d20 roleplaying game, I don't see the wisdom in introducing more things outside of your control. Consistency is key to a healthy adventurer, and a feat that's a dead investment in so many situations just isn't very helpful.
Should clarify by "well tread ground" I don't mean to criticize it as being cliche or anything; the use of a trope isn't a sin in and of itself, just gotta find an interesting way to use it. More mean that there are a lot of examples out there on what's worked in the past that you can draw from as inspiration.
Cleaving Finish is a much better feat than Cleave since it lacks the "adjacent to the first" clause, but the fact that it requires Cleave and is still something that you won't get guaranteed usage out of every fight makes it hard to justify. I like it a lot better in games that use Spheres of Might, since you can pick it up as a talent without the prereq's.
My first thought was Inarius and Lilith from Diablo. Goes to show that this is well tread ground.
Oracle switching spell lists based on their mystery doesn't make as much thematic sense as the Sorcerer; the Oracle's powers explicitly come from unasked for divine intervention. Nature magic that comes from Gozreh breaking your legs is still going to be divine.
A castery Druid fulfills much the same role as a Wizard. The Bard well and fully fills the role of buff support, so battlefield control is what you need, which Druids are about as good as Wizards at.
It's a problem for a player to get to play two characters. Minionmancy got out of control real fast in PF1 if the player wasn't specifically trying to regulate themselves, it should come as no surprise that Paizo put some strict limits on it in the new edition.
A lot of the Inquisitor's thematic niche can be covered by a Ranger/Champion multiclass - studied target (if that's what it's called now, don't remember) is largely in the same f@~+-this-guy-in-particular wheelhouse as Inquisitor's bane. You probably could justify Solo Tactics as being worth its own class, though.
Did Helen even manipulate anyone? It has been a very long time since I read the Iliad but as I recall Helen was mostly a passive actor that men would kidnap and fight each other over and she had very little say in the matter.
I agree, this is a major positive change for the system. Best part is that it's a baseline action rather than something you (or worse, the Expert themself) have to feat into. I kinda wonder if we could broaden it even further; if the Bard wants to put on a play in a Hamlet-esque scenario, then he should be able to give the Barbarian quick instruction on how to perform her role the way he wants even though she lacks any previous acting experience. This would open up a ton of non-combat solutions to problems that simply were not feasible in PF1 because it was unrealistic to expect everyone to be trained in the same skills (and was a bad idea anyways in most scenarios).
Personally, I like the idea of rolling characters straight up because it forces the player to figure out inventive ways to make the character work while actually ROLEPLAYING. Absolutely this. Pathfinder is a very mechanical game, and what your character can and cannot do is dictated strictly by the math. Right now I'm playing a character with a supernatural aptitude for martial prowess due to her deadbeat angelic father; she's an ignorant and uneducated country bumpkin who gets through life by instinct, but has somehow stumbled into being an inspiration to the people around her through her rustic and sincere charm and instinctive desire to do good. The chances of coming rolling an array that makes this character reflect the idea I have for her background are extremely slim. I need her physical stats to be far above the average, I need her charisma and diplomacy rolls to be well beyond consistent, and her intelligence needs to be a major dump stat. If I had rolled for stats rather than constructing my point buy in a way that fit the vision of the character I wanted to play, this character simply would not exist.
The Slayer is a d10 HD class with medium armor proficiency, don't be fooled by sneak attack. It's honestly closer to a "Fighter with skills" than a Rogue.
Paladin is fine, great even. It's the Gray Paladin archetype that cannot be reasonably recommended, you just trade out most of what makes Paladin good for the privilege of being Lawful Neutral. Is that worth losing most of your combat viability in the form of aspects? Many of the best feats for animal companions are already available to them in the standard list. It's not the best choice, no, but if your goal is to have an animal companion that isn't inconvenient in social situations (which Hell's Rebels has many of, from my understanding) then the Courtly Hunter is at least functional. It's so sideways from the normal expectations of a Hunter that it's at least possible to do something different with it so you don't have the "same thing but worse" effect like you get with, for example, the Gray Paladin.
Your charisma score doesn't affect the potency of channel if you aren't using it offensively, just your number of uses per day. I'd say a very small number of uses of a free out-of-combat heal is a better use of your resources than a small number of uses for a minor in-combat bonus that takes up your action economy; of course, as Derklord said the best solution may be to simply take an archetype that swaps out channeling.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the Courtly Hunter is a direct downgrade - it's certainly worse for the normal expectations of a Hunter, but the fact that it makes your companion intelligent (and therefore capable of taking any feat) is quite significant. Pick a companion with a decent charisma and you can leverage the Frilled Lizard focus to get extra hits in with Hurtful, for example. Gray Paladin sucks, though. Completely irredeemable archetype there.
The fact of the matter is that telling a player their character must be hideous because they're playing a Warpriest and they have no need for charisma just isn't very fun.
Not when some of those shounen characters can do stuff like run around the Earth in a second and similar crap. Superman once flew around the Earth so quickly it reversed time...
We have half-dragons. Let's just say fantasy characters can be awfully courageous in their choice of mate.
Let's face it. Desna herself is probably just a colossal 7-dimensional mass of tentacles and insect wings.Yes, but a beautiful one, or Shelyn wouldn't be her lover. Bold of you to assume that Shelyn can't find the beauty in a colossal 7-dimensional mass of tentacles and insect wings. Love the skin you're in, babe
People more familiar with the math: does this feat make a cantrip strong enough to be your primary damage source? I'm curious if you could potentially see Gnome Rogues running around with no weapon and just the magic from their ancestry.
I think a hybrid method might work. Give out an array, then have each player roll to randomize where each number ends up. That... could actually be interesting, if the purpose is to build characters you wouldn't normally. Might be interesting for a hyper lethal dungeon romp where attachment to the backstory and personality of your hero-for-the-day is unwarranted.
As stated previously by Mark, the dagger sucks because it's a simple weapon. If you want it to be as good as a martial weapon then it's gonna require some investment (Sacred Weapon will do it for example). A Rogue option that makes daggers good would be a great thing to have in the game since it's such an iconic Rogue weapon.
I, for one, would love to see Old Testament-style good outsiders; thousand eyes, a hundred grinding wheels. Be not afraid.
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