Bmj's page

It's required to be jarring and not immersive?

If anything, when I look at lab assistant, I feel like it is more likely that in terms of rule design Paizo's left hand isn't talking to the right hand.

Now that we know that familiars can't feed potions to others...

Quick Alchemy is 1 action, and then you can use your 2nd action to drink. Two actions.

Lab Assistant requires that your familiar be in your space. It can either:
A. Be commanded for an action to use two actions, in which it uses Quick Alchemy and then hands you the elixir. You use a second action to drink the elixir. Two actions.
B. Use independent to use quick alchemy, the potion is rendered inert by the next round, the familiar hands the inert elixir to the character using independent.

What is the purpose of lab assistant?

It is absurd. My two year old can unscrew milk caps, unstopper bottles, and uncap the Play-Dough while it takes me 45 seconds of labor to reload an old fashioned crossbow.

I understand PF2E isn't trying to mimic realism, but this doesn't make sense. They should have thought of a different way to prevent familiars from using potions.

With Quick Alchemy and Lab Assistant a familiar can use a mortar and pestle to grind up an elixir with carefully measured ingredients within 6 seconds, pour the mixture into the elixir, and cork it... but they can't pour it down somebody's throat while they're lying on the ground.

The balancing mechanism is jarring and not immersive.

And you even have a Familiar Ability that does nothing: Lab Assistant. Your Familiar can create an item it can't use nor give (as even with Independent you need 2 rounds so it disappears before you can hand it). Wonderful.

They clearly messed up Alchemical Familiar.

That's true. There is no longer any reason to have lab assistant since the action economy is identical as if you just did it yourself.

Familiar can’t unstopper a bottle and tilt it at a 45 degree angle, but they can reload a heavy crossbow. Totally makes sense.

Thanks guys - I'm going to allow it. I think it's a cool concept. Also, I apologize - I thought it was a rules question, but I'm still new to DM and PF2E as a whole, so the line between advice and rules gets a bit blurry for me.

Somebody in my group is asking about taking Adopted Ancestry (as a human) in order to take Unexpected Shift / Fortuitous Shift. Normally I'd say that unless you're a gnome that would be impossible on account of having a first world body versus learning something from a heritage; however, they are also wanting the background Feybound as a way of explanation. I'm inclined to allow it - but I am curious how other DMs feel about it.

If Abjuration is restricted such that: "Finally, you lose the ability to prepare or cast any spell from your school’s prohibited schools (pages 238–239). You remove all spells of those schools from your spell list, meaning you can’t even activate scrolls or wands of such spells."

Does this prohibit taking an abjuration tattoo from the human ancestry feats? Such as shield? It says the spells are removed from your spell list, and you can't activate scrolls or wands of that school, but it doesn't talk about tattoos, or say, the Pink Aeon stone that allows you to cast shield.

Thoughts?

Is it me or does this archetype serve to handicap the player? You trade out 2 entire schools of magic for easy access to 3 focus points and a 3 point recharge. I can't see the polearm being used since we're still using wizard proficiency, and that leaves access to an admittedly good counter spell (even if it is for your chosen school only) and the ability to embed aeon stones - which are expensive and very situational.

Thoughts?

I’ve just started pathfinder 2e, and tabletop RPGs in general, so take this with a grain of salt, but I haven’t been experiencing this let down others seem to be experiencing. This is coming from a guy who plays nothing but evocation wizards (yep, I’m that guy) whether as a player or npc (I GM for my family). Hard to break tradition from all those crpgs.

Granted, the barbarian and ranger in the party can pull off some awesome moves, especially if you bother to stack buffs and debuffs, but the same applies to the wizard. First of all, wizards can be as tanky as they want. If you really focus on maxing out con, taking toughness and ensuring you have max non shield AC (my level 2 NPC wizard/alch has 20 AC with his drake mutagens) you don’t go down any faster than any two handed or dual wielding martial - and that’s not including tricks like mirror image. If I really want to I could take a shield. Literally the only difference will be your proficiency.

Flanking, demoralizes and other debuffs help my spell attacks as well as any martial - and if the AC is too high I’ll nuke their reflex. If they’re some kind of armored ninja then I’ll shrug and say fine, let’s go for their fort, or their will. Martials seem to be stuck with AC unless they’re doing something with athletics.

Maybe it gets worse, but somehow I doubt that. Even if pf2e nerfed wizards ... I’ve seen the spell selection to come. I’m genuinely excited to progress through the campaigns and see what crazy stuff my group will be capable of. Who knows, maybe I’ll even learn to throw out some buffs now and then ;)

Seems reasonable, but taking a single dedication to be able to play loose with your familiar seems like a significant power gain for such a low level feat. I suppose the same question would apply for Leaf Druid's who want to take a Witch Dedication as well.

I hope this isn't against forum rules to triple post (it won't let me edit my post at this point).

I could trade out Dangerous Sorcery (and the Sorcerer Dedication), Overwhelming Energy, Tempest-Sun Shielding, Tempest-Sun Redirection and Safeguarded Spell for the the entire Halcyon casting line without the capstone.

It's hard to deny the efficacy of such a trade, but I have to wonder if it's worth trading out the otherwise blasting orientated feats for something which is, frankly speaking, a bit overpowered when used in conjunction with free archetype.

Hmm..

Is the wizard familiar forcibly removed by the witch familiar? Do you still apply enhanced familiar if you took that feat? Do you have multiple familiars, but only use the abilities granted by one while the other hangs out in a pocket dimension?

Or does your wizard familiar suddenly lose one of the familiar abilities, and it says, "Actually, I'm YOUR master." ?

I don't see any guidance on this in the rules - but I am aware that any witch spell slots are granted by the familiar in question.

I'm so confused D:

In short - if I have a Synesthesia scroll in my hand as an arcane caster with Unified Theory do I use a legendary proficiency to see if I can cast the scroll?

I just realized it's actually your guide that I've been reading, haha.

Question: Assuming Evoker and free archetype which do you see as more valuable - full Alchemist dedication or Magaambyan with Halcyon (ala Cascade for access to all schools)? The latter is so feat heavy that's basically all of the archetype feats, while Alchemist allows me to say, grab the two interesting abilities from the Tempest-Sun, Dangerous Sorcery, and even lets me fit the Golem Crafting Dedication at the end.

Is your heritage fixed? Because being a half-elf would solve your charisma problem.

Yeah, I've considered that, but I've got to be human for RP reasons.

Have you thought about Staff Acrobat?

It can do a lot of what you want Mauler for without needing to put so much into str, or needing to cause casting restrictions by wielding a two-handed weapon.

I've considered it. The more I think about your Weapon Storm suggestion, the more I've been considering dropping strength and Mauler altogether and leaning in on casting - I could pick up the level 6 Sorcerer feat for the extra +AC and the Tempest-Sun feats to give my blasting a supportive role - while remaining sturdy enough to be close enough to enemies to make use of the evoker's Elemental Tempest. Having my staff shifted into a bastard sword and gripping it with both hands for a D12 weapon storm sounds awesome, and will probably be more effective than any strike a wizard will ever be capable of.

Mauler sounds neat - but it is quite the expensive investment insofar that you need to dedicate both feats, skill feats, a legendary skill and attributes to essentially get use out of a multi-target shove or multi-target trip.

I’m not a huge fan of your plan to tank things with your face, as the Wizard chassis just isn’t prepped for all that great melee defence.

That said, I think I would favour Dangerous Sorcery over 40hp. 40hp is not an insignificant amount for the Wizard, but I hold to the idea that the best defence is a good offence.

I’d maybe consider taking Staff Nexus, Evo school, get a shifting rune on a staff, weapon rune it up, load up on the Weapon Storm spell, and use that setup to be a Gishy Wizard as well.

I appreciate the input - that's essentially the build I'm going for (although I haven't looked at Weapon Storm yet). I don't intend on full out tanking, I just don't want to instantly die if I decide to strike instead of stride :P

The main usage in my mind for the Mauler feats are the strikes that shove (ala Clear the Way) and trip (Hammer Quake) for the purpose of creating distance and wasting enemy actions as they approach.

With legendary athletics and 20 STR (and Assurance: Athletics for when it can apply to Clear the Way) I should only be 1 behind a dedicated martial for trips and shoves.

With free archetype, I have a wizard using Drakeheart Mutagen and the Mauler dedication who's going to go Evoker, lay down some suppressing fire and party buffs, and then whack stuff. However, I'm having trouble deciding on a build concept as I have not played past level 3 (in any table top RPG for that matter).

The core concept is a wizard that can evoke and wade into combat to continue doing damage as half my slots will still be used for utility and support.

Originally, I took a character flaw so as to start 14 CON (and 16 STR and 18 INT) and was also planning on using the human Multitalented to take Golem Crafter dedication at level 9 (GM approved) so with toughness I would have 268 hit points at level 20. That's about 72% of where a level 20 orc barbarian would be with 20 CON and Toughness.

However, I got to thinking that to add some bang I could use the Multitalented feat to take a Sorcerer dedication instead and grabbing Dangerous Sorcery at level 10, but to do so I would need avoid taking a character flaw and instead pump CHA to 12. In essence I'm trading 40 hit points for Dangerous Sorcery (I also get +1 to will saves for the first half of the game).

Is that worth the trade off? How valuable is 2 hit points per level if you're going to be engaged in melee combat occasionally?

I already have an enhanced familiar, but am interested in taking the witch dedication. CRB says you can only have one familiar - how do you deal with this?

You will be fine depending on your DM.

I just don't see the value in caster first Gish in this edition. The only thing it nets you is a third action attack really. Now free Archetype. Fighter with any caster dedication gets super nice by about level 12.

That is an alternative I've considered. Fighter base with a wizard dedication, but then I wouldn't get to cast Cataclysm :(

I'm hoping for more varied gish mechanics with the Magic book releasing next year.

You're probably right, and if I got charisma I'd make lemonade by altering my build to max charisma and take Scare to Death, lol.

How is the AC any worse than a martial without a shield? If I use unstable concoction to get the lv 17 drakeheart at 14+ dex that's +7 Item bonus AC with +2 dex bonus. I have 2 less than martial proficiency because of expert vs master (or 4 less for legendary champs and monks iirc), but I should be able to protect myself with the myriad of self casted arcane spells (mirror image, blue, just to name a couple). I would just need to stay away from anything with true sight :P

Mathematically, true strike should bring up my to hit somewhere near base fighter hit chance. (i.e., 12/20 vs (7/20)(7/20)+(13/20)(7/20)+(7/20)(13/20) is 60% vs 57.8%)

The only real cost is the action economy (true strikes and damage mitigation buffs), which I have no problem with. I suppose the shifting rune would also be a tax, but I bet I could combine overwhelming energy and a weapon elemental rune somehow. It would be busted if I could melee as well as a fighter without some cost.

In the end it's more about the concept than the min-maxing. I've always enjoyed the idea of a potion drinking, scroll casting, combat wizard.

The beautiful thing is - since it's using the free archetype, I'm still a full on wizard, so I could always fall back on ranged wizardry stuff if I need to. I could even go with enlarge instead of the drakeheart if something seems too dangerous and stand behind my martials with AoO, and make sure I have blood vendetta on to discourage the baddie from going for me.

Or maybe I'm super wrong and I'll die, but hey, at least I tried haha

Thanks, I’ll look into that build you mentioned as well. The build above is actually inspired by your mauler wizard post :)

Class: Wizard
Race: Human
Thesis: Staff Nexus
School: Evocation
Background: Amnesiac

Level 1 Stats: Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 10
Level 20 Stats: Str 20, Dex 16, Con 20, Int 22, Wis 16, Cha 10

Question: I want Clear the Way - what do I replace with it? Or would it not be useful?

Archetypes will be Alchemist and Mauler. The idea is to use primarily Drakeheart Elixir to boost survivability while using the egregious number of True Strikes from Staff Nexus in conjunction with Bespell Weapon to whack stuff with my staff (and eventually put a shifting rune on it to turn it into a bastard sword). Since I'll be in melee more often than usual I should also be able to put Elemental Tempest to good effect, which in addition to Quicken can really help me go super nova on difficult encounters.

The difficult choice I'm running into is I'm essentially being forced to make some choices - I don't have enough feats currently for Clear the Way, which is an excellent way to disengage since I'll be taking Assurance (Athletics). I'd either have to drop Quick Alchemy or a Wizard Feat such as Forcible Energy or Scroll Savant.

The build is as follows:

Level 1: Familiar (Natural Ambition), Incredible Initiative (Versatile)
Level 2: Improved Familiar, Alchemist Dedication (choose Drakeheart elixir)
Level 3: Toughness
Level 4: Bespell Weapon, Quick Alchemy
Level 5: Clever Improviser
Level 6: Split Slot, Expert Alchemy
Level 7: Die Hard
Level 8: Advanced School Spell, Maulder Dedication
Level 9: Multitalented (Golem Crafter Dedication)
Level 10: Quick Cast, Power Attack
Level 12: Forcible Energy, Mastery Alchemy
Level 13: Bounce Back
Level 14: Bonded Focus, Brutal Finish
Level 16: Scroll Savant, Avanlanche Strike
Level 17: Heroic Presence
Level 18: Reprepare Spell, Hammer Quake
Level 20: Spell Mastery, Unstable Concoction (for level 17 Drakeheart)

Thoughts?

Has this been resolved? I still don’t know if you stride after every successful shove or not. I’m inclined to think not on account of the shoving up to 5 adjacent creatures prior to the use of Clear the Way. It’s still a pretty sick ability considering that you can pair it with Assurance.

I don't see any verbage around this, so I'm assuming no, but I was hoping that somebody on here can convince me otherwise :P

All of these wizard threads are making me worry that my wizard I just created isn't going to feel powerful D: