Aservan's page

Horses and oxen might be a little rich for a level 1 settlement, but yes there are easier ways to move goods then loading and unloading. You still need a dock at both ends of the system for your plan to work. At that point a bridge isn't much more difficult depending on conditions, magic, monster muscle, etc.

I'm not sure historical knowledge is all that valuable a reference point. I mean the game lets you trade through magic portals if your Magic skill is high enough. You don't need coffer damns to build if your sorcerer can part the river with a single spell. It's an abstraction. Communication and moving animals (horses, oxen, drakes, etc.) is easy with a bridge, more complicated with a boat, or ship.

Your 18 Int character can easily figure out a system of reflected light to communicate across distance, but you still have to train a bunch of illiterate peasants in how to use such a system. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself. Until your kingdom advances to a point where that's a possibility the water protects you, but still hampers communication. You can't have the messenger simply hop on a horse and go. He needs a boat big enough for a horse, or a stable on the other side of the river (which wouldn't have the water as a wall).

I'm saying that level of detail isn't fun for many people.

The rules are overly harsh, but not completely wrong. Bridges are very helpful to maritime empires. Venice had bridges, so did Manhattan.

Cargo conversion is an issue. Bringing your goods by wagon from the local farm, then unloading them, then loading them onto a small river boat, then unloading them again on the island is a lot of extra time. Rolling across a bridge in the original wagon and then unloading at the warehouse is more efficient.

The river kingdoms are not the Mississippi. Large cargo vessels are probably not navigating the shoals, rapids and such that's possible on a monster like the Mississippi, or Amazon. You still get to start a trade route faster with the Boating skill than any other method. Medium Cargo vessels are a thing, but building big boats takes more of an industrial base than building a stone bridge.

There should probably be a bigger bonus for a kingdom with both bridges and water transport. Redundancy is king. look at the last several years, China, and logistics issue for a glaring example of why.

Still game-wise making the island kingdom not be king from the get-go is fair.

Does the transfer of magical rune stones not require the Magical Crafting feat as well? You are using the capital Craft action to transfer and the feat allows you to Craft magic items. Thoughts?

I think you're correct. You can't make a magical item without the requisite feat. A runic item is a magical item. I don't think it's explicitly spelled out anywhere, but it follows that Runic items have the magical tag and thus you need the feat to make or transfer a rune.

CRB: 144
"Make a melee Strike. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty."

It does not include any language saying to only count MAP penalty after the attack. Maybe that's RAI, but it's not RAW.

Even if you read it to not include the MAP, it's still slightly worse than making two attacks. Putting all your eggs in one basket just isn't a good plan. Two rolls is: two chances to crit, two chances to trigger on hit effects, two chances to get the Str bonus.

It gets worse when you take into account that we're talking about fighters. You know – the class most likely to land the second hit.

Are we reading the same feat?

It gets you an extra die of damage, with at least 1 MAP (usually -5), and it costs two actions.

Two attacks gets you two chances at 1 weapon die each plus your strength bonus, and the first attack is at full attack bonus.

A fighter with longsword using power attack gets 1 swing at -5 to hit, and if he hits does 2d8+Str Mod. A fighter who didn't waste a feat on power attack gets two swings for 1d8+Str Mod each. The first of which is -0 to hit. When you factor in that -0 to hit and critical hits power attack is even worse. You're much less likely to get a crit with power attack.

A fighter is so, so much better off taking Sudden Charge and actually arriving at the melee and swinging.

This is a thread about Lizard folk, so you have at least a +1 Str mod. Even with a 10 Str, I stand by the assertion that power attack is a trap. Two rolls is better than 1. Cosmetics and swine and all that.

Standing there and swinging repeatedly for the fences was a boring part of all 3.x D&D. It wasn't interesting then and it isn't now. All subsequent editions: 4e, 5e, and P2e have done away with this sort of tedium.

Now you have to think about how make your hits count.

As long as one of the actions you want to use is a stride or a strike, then Haste has value. Stride in particular is now very valuable. Remember Attacks of Opportunity are rare. Very few monsters or characters have them.

Haste makes the kiting spellcaster a real thing. If the opponent must spend two actions to catch the caster, then their options for hurting the caster are reduced. Move more to make that breath weapon miss.

Power attack is garbage no matter what. You're better off just making two attacks. The issue is the missing bonus damage.

Would you rather make two attacks where the first one has no penalty and both attacks add your strength? Or would you rather make one attack with the two attack penalty and only get the extra die of damage, forgoing the extra strength?

Hint: You're not skilled at math if you choose the later. Making two attacks helps mitigate the bad d20 roll in addition (pun intended).

In the CRB, a first level fighter has seven feats to pick from. Three of which require a weapon or shield. Power Attack is garbage, so you have three feats to choose from if you want to fight unarmed. Sudden Charge is universally useful, so that's easy.

By second level things have turned. Only Combat Grab and Intimidating Strike can be used unarmed. Neither is a bad feat, but the snowball is rolling downhill. As you level the feat chains start to pile up and most of those chains have at least one link that requires weapon-wielding.

At present, I wouldn't recommend a friend play an Iruxi fighter. At least not unless he or she possessed a high level of system mastery. It can probably be done, but it's not as flavorful or as effective as it could be.

I'd really like to see a monk path all about natural weapons, and I think it will come. Hopefully, it will arrive soon-ish.

The fact that unarmed attacks are not weapons is what makes the Lizardman Fighter so problematic. Most feats require you to be wielding a weapon. "Weapon in one hand", "Two-handed weapon", "Weapon in each hand" are all common requirements to use fighter feats. Unarmed attacks don't fit, yet most Lizardman ancestry feats are about fighting with natural weapons.

You can still make a fairly effective lizardman fighter, but you have to be careful not to take too many natural weapon feats or you're gimping yourself. They really need something that says that their unarmed attacks count for weapons when using them with feats.

It's not like they're broken in terms of power. Claw/claw/bite is an iconic D&D attack pattern.

Sure you can ride your animal companion, but it's not an effective practice. Animal companions are different stat-wise from the bestiary version. You're paying a fairly hefty price tag in terms of feats and class abilities to get that companion.

Take the champion. You're sacrificing a spiffy weapon or shield to get that companion. If you have a character concept that revolves around a dwarf riding bear back, you're hurting yourself. Your bear isn't even as capable to start as a standard monster. It's a mini-bear. Eventually, you'll earn your way to a big bear that you can ride. After you've paid all those feats and levels to get there, your reward is that your bear is no longer much help in a fight.

Support benefits don't suck, but they aren't amazing either. It's a measly 1d8 or 2d8 of damage. A situational d8. Compare that to the flaming sword divine weapon. That's only d6s but it will apply most of the time. Your bear can only follow you sometimes.

Take the ubiquitous bar fight. No critters in the tavern, but your sword usually gets to go with you.

Characters can fly via spells by 7th level. Flying via a mount is not 13 levels better. If your GM can't handle flying PCs then, respectfully, he/she just isn't that bright. It's not ample justification for dumbing down the game. Maybe that's just me.

It depends on what the Sorcerer tag means. If it means the feat only applies to sorcerer class stuff, then you can't use it with bard stuff.

On the other hand the text of the feat is pretty specific. It applies to the highest level of spell you can cast, which has to be a bard spell.

Would it change things if the wizard where holding a staff in two hands rather than a sword?

If it helps there is a rule that makes it clear (at least in my mind). Look at weapon storm (CRB384).

"Determine the die size as if you were attacking with the weapon; for instance, if you were wielding a two-hand weapon in both hands, you’d use its two-hand damage die." The spell has a somatic component. If you couldn't cast while wielding a two handed weapon you wouldn't need the text about two handed weapons.

Blave wrote:

Dragon Claws summons a weapon and that weapon deals damage, not the spell itself.

That shouldn't apply, otherwise you could use Burn It to boost the damage of a summoned fire elemental.

Transmutation tag says otherwise. If Dragon Claws had the Conjuration tag you'd have a point.

I'm not even sure it's the conjuration tag that matters. It's the summoned minion part that matters. A fire elemental is an independent entity that needs to be commanded to attack. The spell summons the entity and then the entity becomes a minion of the caster. The minion doesn't have the Burn It! feat and doesn't get the benefit.

Dragon Claws and flaming spheres are not independent. They are extensions of the caster and thus the direct parts of the spell.

Take a hypothetical conjuration spell that summons alchemist fire that is then thrown. The goblin should get the bonus even though the spell has the conjuration tag. The result of the conjuration would be an alchemical item and should get the bonus damage.

P.S I would like to propose a Prophet of Pyromania feat that allows Goblins to apply the benefits of Burn It! to their minions.

Haw can it not be from the spell?

Burn It! feat: "Your spells and alchemical items that deal fire damage gain a status bonus to damage equal to half the spell’s level or one-quarter the item’s level (minimum 1)."

The claws do fire damage as the result of a spell (a focus spell). Why does the claws part even matter? If you summoned a flaming sphere are you saying that you wouldn't let the goblin have the extra damage because it's the sphere doing the damage – not the spell?

The mount trait right now makes the game more boring. That's bad. I don't know about the rest of you, but I role-play to do awesome stuff. Riding a horse is something I can already do. So it's fun and all, but not awesome.

Riding Nightmares has been a part of D&D from the beginning (albeit for bad guys). Dragons, pegasi, dinosaurs, wolves, and eagles are all part of standard fantasy role playing and right now Paizo is pooping all over that. No fun.

Until they explain themselves and their party-pooping ways, I will ignore the mount rule. If you make your wolf or eagle big enough to ride you go ahead and do so.

I don't think you can attack the darkness, but you could target the center of the emanation as that is a spot. Both fireball and darkness are 20 feet bursts. So just target the center of the darkness with your fireball and boom you get everyone in there.

I mean you can target an area behind a bunch of people charging at you. An area you can't really see accurately because of the oncoming maniacs. Is it really a stretch that a spellcaster can do that math in their head?

Semantics or a typo. It's being used like one. If the word was changed to attack would that satisfy?

By your logic spell splash has no rules and thus does nothing.

If you are trained you already add your level to a skill. You add your level plus 2 for trained, Lvl +4 for expert, Lvl +6 for master, and Lvl +8 for legendary. Untrained characters only add their stat modifier. No level.

These abilities let untrained characters have a chance of success at higher levels. When you're 16th level the +16 matters a lot.

Splash damage is automatic, and affects all creatures within 5 feet of the target. "If an attack with a splash weapon fails, succeeds, or critically succeeds, all creatures within 5 feet of the target (including the target) take the listed splash damage." Just don't critically fail and you're golden.

That makes acid splash a very nice spell. It's an AoE that does some nearly automatic damage. It's a very nice way to make trolls never regenerate. Unlike an Alchemist you aren't spending resources to make your attack. You just cast the cantrip until the GM says, "Enough already!"

Acid Splash does inferior damage when compared to other cantrips, but in most cases those cantrips don't affect multiple targets and/or don't do anything when the roll goes against you (i.e failed hit roll or successful save).

Claws are not weapons; they are unarmed attacks. Ergo it's the spell changing the caster and thus the spell doing the damage. Also claws do not naturally emit flames, cold, acid, etc. So the spell has to be doing the damage. Goblins get the burn it bonus.

Sorta?

A fighter can make an attack with a gauntlet, which is a weapon, even though his naked fist is not. So as long as you are wearing gloves or have brass knuckles on, you are wielding weapons and qualify for feats and effects that need weapons.

This is because of reasons. These reasons don't make any sense, but are the rules.

It gets more interesting in that a Lizardman with claws might not be able to use his claws to double slice even though it's kinda the name of the feat. Unarmed attacks are not weapons after all.

As long as you have access to the 10th level spells you can always Remake the item. No biggie.

A medium mount can carry a small character because that's the thing that makes sense in the context of playing the game.

Rules exist that support this idea, even though they can be made to look ridiculous if applied without context.

Do you realize you're arguing that the rules should be ignored in favor of common sense? Most folks here are arguing the same thing. The rules as written don't make sense, so for now we're better off ignoring them.

This really sucks for people who need PFS to get in a game, but won't matter much to those of us with regular game nights.

I don't think it will break the game either way, and I think it can be interpreted either way.

There are several valid arguments for adding Dex instead of Str. On the other hand...

The Bestiary lists thrown daggers as ranged attacks. Paizo clearly considers thrown weapons as ranged attacks. Maybe they are ranged melee attacks?

1d4+4 (a 1st level rogue with a dagger) is better than 1d8 (a first level ranger with a long bow). It's 6.5 expected damage vs. 4.5. The rogue can do this at 10 feet vs. 100 feet for the ranger. So it depends on the expected range to decide the superior weapon. Indoors the dagger wielding rogue is the clear winner, however.

At higher levels the math gets a bit more interesting. The rogue with 24 Dex is 3d4+7 (14.5 expected) while the ranger is 3d8+2 (15.5 expected) with her composite long bow and 18 Str. The ranger is 1 point higher, at this point, but the rogue is hopefully getting sneak attack on a consistent basis. This is countered by the ranger's Hunter's Edge. In the end it ought to be comparable.

My non-counting vote is to let rogues keep the Dex as it makes things more interesting. More interesting is better.

The bulk rules are actually a version of the 2nd ed. D&D rules. They were called Encumbrance back then, but the idea was the Enc. was an abstraction of handiness and weight. The rules didn't work back then and I'm not sure why Paizo thought it was a good idea to resurrect them with a new name.

To be fair no one has ever done a good job of writing rules for this subject. The best are probably the real world rules, but those end up meaning people need to keep spreadsheets to track weight. That's the opposite of fun. If I'm doing record-keeping I expect to be paid for my time.

The idea that a corpse is a storage medium is ridiculous, but that's what the rules say. Passing the buck to the GM isn't very nice either. Some one will be angry no matter what. What we have now is worth ignoring in the spirit of table harmony. Ergo no better than the rules we ignored before.

Yeah, I don't read it the way you are reading it. I think the text does mean that mounts act like minions just the way it says. I also think that actions rather than action is pretty incontrovertible. It means mounts get two actions when you spend one to command them.

I think the example (CRB pg. 478 Mounted Combat paragraph 2) you're referring to is more poor writing. Maybe you're right and the designers just need to learn to write better rules, but I think it really means that you can mix your actions with your mount's. Notice that the language "command the horse to attack," isn't capitalized while the line above "Command an Animal" is. Rules relevant actions are Capitalized.

I think the designers are smart enough to learn from 4e. In 4th Edition D&D a player had to use their action to get a minion/summon/mount to do anything. Almost no one used those rules as a consequence. Why would any player want to use an inferior action in place of their own superior action?

I see it this way – Make the game more interesting is rule One.

Invalidating the entire mounted character concept (by making it stupid to choose) does not make the game more interesting. I will always choose to make things more fun.

Mounts act like minions. Minions get two actions when you spend one to command them. The texts says, "You must use the Command an Animal action (page 249) to get your mount to spend its actions." Actions plural.

1 for 1 trading of actions means being mounted sucks, as per KutuluKultist's original post. You're spending a bunch of money to purchase, and maintain a mount; equip it; and possibly a feat to ride it. That's utterly terrible if they offer little benefit in combat.

From a simulationist point of view it would be even worse. Mounted combatants (cavalry) were the terror of the infantry. The phalanx died in part because of the stirrup.

It works if there is an action advantage.

There is a sort of action advantage. You spend one to get your mount two actions. That's kind of like a built in haste spell. That means you can spend one to have your mount move and attack. You share the multi attack penalty, though.

If you are riding a horse there is a special movement advantage for doing so. This seems to be a reward for riding a boring mount. Developers should learn that many (most?) players aren't interested in doing things in a fantasy game that they can do in real life. I can ride a horse in real life. But whatever.

If you want to get the most out of this you should get the Ride general feat. It lets you automatically succeed at commanding your mount. You don't appear to need the feat if your mount is your animal companion, however, as companions are minions. Animal companions aren't subject to the regular animal rules.

I understand why you think they force you to be the larger size, but I'm not sure that's true.

The form spells when heightened use the word "is," so what you're saying makes sense. On the other hand the rules for heightened call these modifiers advantages or benefits. Both words can only refer to something positive, or in this case something your character wants.

I think it's meant that you can use the lesser effect if it's not advantageous or beneficial for you to use the higher level benefit. Thus you can use a high level form spell to gain the smaller size if the larger isn't an advantage.

The jerk GM who wouldn't read it that way isn't someone I want to play with.

It says not another "special animal". One could determine that a bulette is a "special" animal. As in not a normal animal. It has abilities that are basically magical. No normal critter moves though the ground the way a bulette does.

A lion is a normal animal, a bulette is not. Mammoths, sabertooth tigers and dinosaurs are another matter. They are normal animals, albeit ones displaced in time.

That special animal is the elasticity clause that lets a GM rule things as he or she wants.

You can also focus fire where ever feasible on the cheese weasel's pet. The ability doesn't give the character a way to get the animal back after death. Most parties won't go out of their way to help out a cheese weasel. After a few sessions folks are usually looking to ostracize them as fast as possible.

I'm not sure "forces you" is the right phrasing. Strongly encourages you?

You can still access the lower level forms. They aren't much use in combat, but retain their out-of-combat utility. Pigeons can go and spy pretty much everywhere without attracting attention.

Have you considered that the vast majority of high level foes are also large or bigger? High level demons, devils, dragons, worms, and the like are all big. That means if the GM wants them to have space you'll have space.

You also don't have to shapechange. There are several threads around here where folks are whining about how druids are "more better" than wizards at being awesome spellcasters. It's mostly crud, but it should tell you that druids are very good spellcasters. Druids are not reliant on shapechange to be useful.

What's a weird situation though? I assume it's like porn and you know it when you see it.

The whole point of a pen and paper game is to do things a video game can't. We can treat buildings and terrain in a logical manner when a video game can't. I mean at what point does the bar room floor explode when the fireball hits it? In a video game never, because the ground object is defined as indestructible.

They tried to cut munchkins off at the knees, but I think they went too far. Like most rules meant to limit human behavior they've made more problems than they solved. Just let the players and GM figure it out. Sure you'll get some what-the-heck moments, but probably fewer than we're seeing right now.

Object: Noun - A material thing that can be seen and touched.

I wish game designers would avoid the word. They clearly don't know what it actually means.

Virtually everything is an object. People are objects. Most folks don't think of it that way, but that's what the word means. Changing the definition after that fact to mean what you want it to mean makes you a jerk and a poor communicator. It doesn't make you magically correct.

Just use an adjective or state outright that spells using the word object mean non-living objects. Terrain is a group of objects. You can see and touch stone, dirt, and grass. Grass is also a creature as plants are creatures in D&D-esque games.

Terrain is also never flat. Even when it's nearly flat it isn't a perfect plane. I don't see too many uses for rules lawyering the curve of the earth in relation to wall spells, but you know some turd will try it.

Even a single sentence such as, "Walls adapt themselves to follow terrain. They will bend over the top of a hill, for example," would have been enough.

Instead we got poor language that says "Some walls can be shaped[...]" That's great. But what about the ones that can't?

It also applies to some wall spells. Chromatic Wall and Prismatic Wall specify dimensions and that they are straight. By RAW they are utterly useless.

They can't overlap with any object which means existing terrain. Casting a wall in the middle of a field is nigh useless as it can easily be avoided. Hovering it a foot or more off the ground so it doesn't encounter any plants, stones, or insects makes avoiding the wall really easy. Just roll under. The spell can't touch walls of the cavern or building – those are objects. These two spells don't have the wording like other walls that let them be shaped to lesser dimensions. Basically, dragon sorcerers are screwed at certain levels.

I'm guessing this isn't RAI. Such spells can encounter objects – just not animate ones. Creatures likewise only count if they have a level so insects and bacteria aren't an issue.

As much as his posts are often off-putting, Nemo isn't entirely wrong here. Transmutation may have been over-nerfed.

Mending is functionally worthless. It's a spell slot so you can repair a bit faster. Even worse it's 5HP per spell level or 50 Hp if you burn a 10th level slot! To add insult to injury, it gets restrictive when you try to repair magic stuff. 5HP won't even get you back to usable in many cases. The pendulum swung the other way and crashed through the wall.

Transmutation does have some up-sides, however. It is generally a buff focused rather than debuff focused discipline. That means fewer pesky saving throws or rolls to hit. Trying to land a decent effect on some foes can be real challenge. When you're turning into a dragon that's less of an issue. You can just try again with your breath weapon.

True sight might reveal your true form, but it doesn't deny you flight, dragon fire, or darkvision.

So the picture isn't as grim as painted, but I think Transmuters could use a little love.

I don't know of one. Attack of Opportunity or Champion abilities specify the Strike action. Both Trip and Strike are attack actions, but I don't know of anything that lets you use Trip in place of strike.

The Trip property of whips (and Flails in general) has some perks for making trips, but still doesn't allow action substitution.

It's a cool idea for a future skill feat, but might be too powerful? I think it should be Okay.

There is a crossbow thing that launches them with a range increment of 30ft. in one of the adventure books. I don't have it in front if me at the moment.

I remember it being not a good option compared to the feet that lets you throw them 30ft. If you don't have room for the feat it might work.

Slings work because the bullet is close to a sphere. Unless your bomb was a glass sphere I don't see it being at all accurate. Pathfinder doesn't have the tech to create prefect glass shpere's and inject the alchemical fluid into them.

Tell your player to stop being a munchkin or use the crappy crossbow launcher (maybe reskined?).

Barding can't get armor runes, but is allowed to be magical.

I read this as:

Dear GM,

Use armor runes but don't use armor runes. The math at high level will be all sorts of screwed up if you let followers get kacked by the first AoE used in the fight. They will need the save and AC bonus or they will be chunky salsa.

We don't want armor runes or moron rules lawyers will bugger the system six ways from Sunday. Make sure you stay in control and maybe stop playing with asshats.

Sincerely,
The Pathfinder Game Designers.

Honestly, I wish they would just avoid these situations entirely. No rules are sometimes best.

I mean lightning attacks are not all converted into AoEs centered on the caster while underwater. Logically they should be. And the caster should not be immune. Water is an electrical conductor, while air is not.

There are things that burn without oxygen or create it as they burn. Just don't make a rule (i.e. it's magic!) and it will all work out. Is anti-sound caused by a lack of vibration or because a counter vibration is automagically created whenever something makes a noise? If it's the later, then sonic attacks might do double damage in a silence zone as the wave form is doubled.

Simple houserule: The designers over-reached due to being game designers rather than STEM folks. Ignore them.

Barding is armor and should be able to get armor runes. Companions can explicitly wear barding, thus companions can't be restricted to only items with the companion trait.

If you can't armor up your 20th level companion against auras and exploding balors, why even have one?

Assess the battlefield is probably a Seek action. In a real fight you are highly focused on what your opponents are doing. Tunnel Vision is more normal than not. Fighter pilots have been known to fly into the ground because they are so intently focused on shooting the enemy.

PF2 seems to lean towards this more gritty view in that actually keeping perspective slows you down. I like this, but I can see how some don't.

I just see spending all your actions on moving as just that. You are MOVING. "Damn the torpedoes!"

Real movement matters, because as a GM making hard calls you need to manage expectations. A player will base his or her expectations on what they can do in real life. It helps to do the math in your head if the game distances are close to real distances. PF2 distances are not close enough for me.

On a tactical grid artificial distances are not a big deal, but we don't always setup the table that way. For small encounters or chases it's not worth the wasted game time. When it's all in your head those expectations become very important.

As for how long people can keep it up? If you're in shape, at least a minute. Most encounters are less than that.

Humanoid Form lets you change size. It's hard to pretend to be a goblin when you're too damn tall.

Humanoid form lets you infiltrate when there are dogs. The illusion doesn't change your scent.

Humanoid form makes you sound like an orc. The illusion has to be heightened. At which point it's the same level.

If the orc babe flirtatiously swats you on the arm and you aren't wearing an illusion, she won't automatically notice that you are a scrawny wizard – rather than the manly orc she expected.

The more Athletic classes have options to run much faster than this. A Barbarian who takes Fast Movement (Barbarian 4) and Fleet can run 120 ft. in a round. If they take Furious Sprint at level 10 they can run 200 ft in a straight line for 2 actions or 320 ft in a straight line for 3 actions.

Monks of course have extremely high movement speeds that just keep getting better. They also have access to ki rush from level 1 to be able to move twice with a single action. Of course other than their high movement speeds most of their mobility is inherently supernatural.

I would have been fine with slightly higher base movement rates though.

That's part of my issue. A barbarian who takes a 4th level feat and a general feat isn't even as fast as a normal person. You have to be 10th level to actually be fast.

Think about it. It's a two feat tax and a class to be 1 second shy of normal. Apparently, Golarion has higher gravity.

The speed thing is a big deal. There just aren't that many ways to permanently improve your speed. An elf gets two of them. I would trade 2 HP for +5 movement every time.

Two pick stat increases is nice, but not automatically superior. Many builds want Int and Dex. As long as you wanted those to be at least 12, then pick two isn't better. The Con flaw is definitely a flaw as more Fort save and HP is always nice. Bad Con is what makes Elf the not automatically superior pick.

More feat options is nice, but you don't actually get more feats. After some splat books I'm guessing nearly every ancestry will have some nice picks. At that point the number of options won't matter much compared to how many you actually have.

I don't see half elf as superior to full elf. It just depends on what you want to do.

I feel guilty for hijacking the thread, but I never played 3.75 – I mean PF1.

I didn't like speeds in 3.x, but at least running was an option. Call me crazy, but I'd prefer a more middle ground. PF2 is too conservative with speeds, but I don't want to see them double either.

There's no use crying over spilled milk, but I feel that speeds should've been about 5 to 10 higher than they are. 105 feet per three actions feels more "real" to me.

Maybe a Run action: cost 3 actions to stride 4 times?

It doesn't need to be a straight line though. Look at NFL players dodging obstacles on the practice field. They can blaze up, over, and around orange obstacles with amazing alacrity. By Pathfinder standards every running back or receiver is a monk. And a pretty high level one at that.

I get that it's a game, but this one sticks in my craw.

I still don't get why Pathfinder characters are so slow. A reasonably athletic person (so anyone going adventuring) can run 120 feet in 5 seconds (truly fast people can do it in about 4 seconds). 1 second less than a 6 second round. A Pathfinder human with the speed feat can only manage 90 feet in 6 sec. Heavy armor compounds this absurdity.

I don't think of it as millions to invest. I think of it as the GM dumps loot on the players. In some cases it's loot the players want. In other cases it isn't. Getting greater resilient chain mail +2, when no one in the group wears chain mail wouldn't be odd.

It's even less odd when the GM is running published adventures. It's easy for the wizard to transfer those runes to her robes, and thus not waste anything. That costs 344+106 GP or 450 GP and costs the party a day. Not a bad deal to obtain a very useful item.

It's practically a given that someone in the group will know how to craft armor runes. I don't think most players will go out of their way to find schematics for bracers of armor. Maybe I'm wrong. One has near ubiquitous utility and the other is useful sometimes.

Like I said – trap. Traps with no bait aren't really traps. Bracers of Armor are useful enough to wear if you've gotten them as loot, but having enchanted clothes is better.

I still think Bracers of Armor are a trap. Yes, Claxon is correct that they're cheaper, but quality > quantity. This is Armor we're talking about. You really think players will cheapo out on defense?

Property runes matter. Energy resistant can save you all over the place even at a measly -5 to damage.

It's a lot more efficient to learn how to craft two runes that can be used on all the group's armor than to learn to craft each kind of bracer. You can transfer runes to your clothes. Not so much to your bracers. Transferring is also much cheaper than the bracers, and it shouldn't be all that difficult to find some +x stuff no one wants.

You still can't stack magic items on your arms even if slots have gone the way of the dodo. As the books are released there will be more items and some of the good ones will probably be worn your forearms.

shroudb's math is correct. You're making a flawed argument because there's no equipment as Ascalaphus observed.

There is the obvious way to get a save bonus from armor runes. You can also get situational bonuses from good tactics. Saves tend to outpace spellcasting skill by a mile. A barbarian is a master of Fortitude saves at lvl 7 and legendary with them at 13th. Bards are masters of spellcasting at 15th and legendary at 19th. That's a lot of levels where if you guess wrong about what you're facing as a caster you can really get hurt.

Unless I am missing something there are no items that directly add to save DC. Only Wizards get spell penetration, and even there it only works on things that get bonuses to save vs. spells.

If you don't have the right spells prepared casters can be hosed when facing certain classes. A bunch of fireballs and lightning bolts won't do much to high leveled rogues and monks. That's a good thing in that it makes a caster diversify selection. Semper Paratus.