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I'm playing a rogue with a ranged unarmed poison spit attack and equipped with astral handwraps of mighty blows.

So what happens if I spit poison at an off-guard undead creature?

The poison will do 0 damage, obviously, but are they still susceptible to the astral damage? Or are such runes considered rider effects that are dependent on the initial damage in order to work at all?

If the spirit damage goes through, is the precision damage from sneak attack then converted to the spirit damage type? Or is it converted to the poison damage type and thus negated as well?

It's common knowledge that if you get a bonus skill, but already have it, you simply choose a different skill to pick up.

But what if an ability says "You become trained in that skill, or you become expert if you were already trained."--do I get training in a new skill if I am already an expert in that skill?

Posting this here for visibility. Original thread here.

Please reply there, not here.

Posting this here for visibility. Original thread here.

Please reply there, not here.

A sad day for all who make use of Archives of Nethys; their partnership with Paizo is officially at an end. [source]

Hi everyone,

We come to you today with some bad news. For nearly eight years, we here at the Archives of Nethys have been a licensed partner of Paizo Publishing and have proudly served this community as an official reference for all of Paizo's game systems. A few weeks ago, Paizo sent us an e-mail stating that our partnership has been terminated, effective on July 24th.

We have been told the reason for this decision is that our website has not produced royalties for Paizo. While we cannot go into the full details of our license arrangement, the general details have been publicly known for many years. Paizo would send us early access book PDFs well ahead of release and provided us with their art assets to use on the site. In exchange, our team of volunteers would make sure that the rules and content of the game made it onto the website in a timely and accurate manner. Lastly, if we generated enough profit, we would pay Paizo a royalty on that money, as licensed partners typically do. Unfortunately, as of the time of receiving this email, we had not made enough profit in a given month to generate any royalties for Paizo as per this arrangement.

Admittedly, Paizo's decision comes as a bit of a surprise to us - it was always known that our business model, for lack of a better word, was reliant on donations and ad revenue to support the website. Our primary expenses have only ever been server rental costs (both for the website and for elasticsearch, our search engine) and so long as we made enough money for that, we were happy. Everyone who works for the website is an unpaid volunteer drawn from the Pathfinder/Starfinder communities. We've always believed that attempting to monetize the site more aggressively would result in less users and that our real value to Paizo was in the traffic and business we sent their way. After all, one of the first things often said when pitching the game to a new friend is "the rules are free". Sadly, Paizo's decision has still been made.

With all of this said, the Archives of Nethys will continue to support this community. Paizo has even encouraged us to do so under the Community Use Policy (CUP) instead of our partnership license. This will, however, necessitate some changes going forward. As of July 24th:
We will be taking down all artwork that is not compliant with the Community Use Policy. This will be the majority of our artwork, leaving compatible art such as the iconics, religious symbols, and anything else it covers.
We have been hosting the original Paizo PRD up until now, under legacy.aonprd.com. With the partnership dissolving, we will be taking this site down.
We will no longer receive books early, so after Bastion of Blasphemies & Dead God's Hand (PF2e), along with Secrets of the Swarm (SF2e), we will have to go back to acquiring our PDFs the more traditional way. This means that our ability to release content on street date will cease. We will still aim to get our content online as quick as we can, but we will no longer be able to target the street date.
We are sure this news is as disappointing to all of you as it was to us, and we wish we could do more to change it. If you have any feedback about this change, we would encourage you to direct it to Paizo -- in a polite manner -- either using their messageboards or sending an email to community@paizo.com. Please use our Discord feedback channels for any other questions you may have for us. If you'd like to support us, especially now that we will need to purchase the books ourselves, please do so via our Patreon.

- Nethys
2026-07-14

What should I expect to happen to my summoner after Impossible Magic releases?

Can I continue to play him as is? Will I be forced to abandon or rebuild him?

Will I be given a free rebuild credit to update to the new version of the class?

Blood vendetta has the Curse trait. Does that mean there is no way to remove the ongoing bleed damage effect short of using curse-removing magic?

If a single druid can potentially create numerous leshy throughout their lifetime, then it stands to reason that common leshy would far outnumber druids, right?

Why aren't druids uncommon then? Don't they typically live the lives of hermits, or in very small isolated enclaves?

One would thing you wouldn't encounter them within the setting quite as often as you would a leshy.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

There are a variety of feats and abilities that say something to the effect of "When you roll a success, you get a critical success instead."

How many of these types of abilities can we fit on one character, to build a kind of Mary Sue style concept?

Archetypes can be hit or miss, even when their respective base class is amazing.

What are you hoping to see in the new necromancer multiclass archetype? What do you expect to we will see?

For me, I'm hoping they get thrall creation right out of the gate with Necromancer Dedication, since that's their whole identity. Perhaps on a 1 thrall for 1 action basis, which then increases to 2 once per round with another feat.

I hope it's not limited to one per round or per ten minutes or anything lame like that.

Monks have a reputation for having a high AC, and yet whenever I build one their AC seems to lag behind other characters by a few points unless I (1) add a shield, (2) prioritize Dexterity over Strength, or (3) make them high enough level that I can get 20 Dex even as a secondary attribute.

What else might I be missing?

If I'm unwilling to compromise damage or wield a shield, what is your advice for keeping AC parity throughout the character's career?

In a debate about the Psychic class on Reddit, I got down voted into oblivion for stating the following facts. So now I'm fact checking them here.

True or false?

- Courageous anthem is a cantrip.

- The Psychic doesn't have focus spells at all. It has cantrips that it can amp with focus points. That doesn't make them focus spells. They're just modified cantrips.

- Cantrips all have the cantrip trait, focus spells all have the focus trait, and psi cantrips have the cantrip trait, but lack the focus trait.

- The Psi Cantrips and Amps class ability of the Psychic even says "you don't gain focus spells that cost Focus Points to cast."

These all seem self evident to me because I read the rules. If you answer "false" to any of the above, I'd appreciate an explanation as to why you interpret the rules that way.

Given that a bonus to one stat does not negatively interact with a bonus to another stat, can my Shory Aerialist stack his feat's +5 status bonus to Fly speed with his monk class' Incredible Movement status bonus to land Speed?

Normally like bonuses don't stack, but in this case we're not adding them to the same stat. One is applied to base land Speed while the other is applied to Fly speed; two different stats.

And since the fly spell's Fly Speed is equal to his land Speed, the IM bonus is already baked into his base Fly Speed.

Example: Aiuvarin Shory Human Monk 13 with Fleet, Nimble Elf, and Shory Aerialist

25 base Speed
05 Fleet
05 Nimble Elf
20 Incredible Movement
05 Shory Aerialist
==
60 Fly speed at Lvl 13

Do I have that right? Is this possible? Why or why not?

If my character has a burrow speed that works even on solid stone, Cat Fall, and Legendary Proficiency in Acrobatics, can they dive off a cliff and glide harmlessly into the earth as easily as a diver dives into a swimming pool?

How might you deal with such a request if you were GM?

The Dragon Roar monk feat says "Creatures in the area are then temporarily immune for 1 minute."

"Then" makes me think this immunity occurs after...something. But what?

After my roar?

After they are no longer frightened?

After my stance ends?

When does that immunity begin?

We all know you can only have one effect per trigger, such as "You roll initiative." But what about Reflexive Stance and Battle Cry?

Reflexive Stance clearly has a trigger of "You roll initiative.

However, Battle Cry doesn't have a trigger line. It instead says "When you roll initiative, you can..."

Should I take that to mean that the latter does not need to abide by the one trigger general rule, and that they can both be used more or less simultaneously on my monk?

Does monastic weaponry prevent me from combining my monk abilities with my monk sword, even though I'm using my monk sword?

I'm looking to make an escaped slave character akin to Morgiana from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic.

What regions of Golarion still practice overt slavery? I understand it's been greatly dialed back and toned down in the setting as of late, so I'm no longer as sure of the answer as I used to be.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Bonus points if it's also a hot, arid environment.

Also, what other region most parallels the "dark continent" of Ankoku Tairiku, at least in reputation as a "mysterious and dangerous land known for producing powerful warriors?"

Can a barbarian with a specialized Instinct choose to Rage instead of using their specialized Instinct Rage? Or must they use their Instinct Rage every time?

For example, say I'm an Animal Instinct Barbarian wielding a throwing weapon with Raging Thrower. I can't wield weapons when using Bestial Rage, but may still be able to do so if permitted to use standard Rage.

I noticed that the Frog Instinct barbarian no longer has the reach trait on their tongue attack.

Thing is though, when I look at the official Pathifnder FAQ page and search for "Barbarian" "frog" "tongue" or "reach" I can find no reference to the trait being removed.

When did it change, and why does it not appear to be included in the errata documentation?

What does the Underhanded Assault feat supposed to do for you?

It doesn't appear to do anything you couldn't already do.

You can already Sneak and Strike for two actions, so it's not action compression. It penalizes your Stealth check to Sneak, so it's not a buff.

I suppose it does allow you to Sneak out in the open, without cover or concealment, but since you have to end your turn adjacent to the enemy, you likely don't have cover or concealment against them and so become Observed at the conclusion of your movement as normal for Sneak. Nothing in the feat explicitly changes the end condition consequences, only the starting state conditions are altered.

I've heard some say it makes the target Off-guard to your Strike, but the feat doesn't mention Sneak Attack or the Off-guard condition so that can't be it.

Even if there was cover or concealment adjacent to the enemy, I still need an ally present to use the feat at all, so what's the point of jumping through all these hoops and risking an unnecessary and penalized check against failure when I could have more easily just used my actions to Stride into flanking and then Strike with sneak attack?

I'm seriously at a loss as to what this feat was intended to do and how it means to accomplish it.

What am I missing?

I read earlier today that it was currently impossible to sanctify arcane spells.

I'd like for us to put it to the test; can we find a way?

What are some odd or interesting game mechanic interactions or team interactions between characters that were clearly unintended but still work out to interesting ends?

Is there a feat combo or two rules subsystems that might not have been considered by the developers?

I'll start with one that I just learned of:

Animal companions and mundane steeds cannot use non-land speeds when mounted, unless they have the Mount ability.

However, using Athletics to Climb or Swim is not using a Climb or Swim Speed.

Therefore, you can spend a single action to command your steed to make two Climb or Swim checks, quite possibly with a higher Athletics modifier than your character possesses. Furthermore, you don't need to have your hands free, since it's your mount that's doing the climbing, leaving you to shoot your bow or cast your spells.

Another, more commonly known one, is casting aqueous orb followed by laughing fit to kill an enemy via the drowning and suffocating rules.

It is also amazing how many very important objects can fit into a bag of weasels. A fistful of sand, for example. Makes 500 toads seem like child's play.

Does the automaton's energy beam do double damage on a critical hit? Or just the persistent damage?

Can I add armor property runes, like the shadow rune, to non-armors such as the explorer's outfit, gi, or scroll robes?

I thought there was a rule specifically calling them out as not being armor (and thus ineligible), but I can't seem to find it now.

At the levels in which you get ability increases, I allow my players to reset their attribute modifiers so that at each interval of 5 levels, they always have the best stats, with no "useless floaters." They can't have +4 Strength and +0 Intelligence at level 1, then swap to +0 Strength and +4 Intelligence at level 5, but I do let them tweak the numbers a bit so that there's no useless floater to worry about at any level. I think it's a pretty good house rule that prevents a lot of "feels bad" moments of character building and remains balanced since it always falls within the bounds of normal character builds.

What are some potential unseen ramifications of such a house rule?

Should the Shisk Lore feat give Additional Lore four times, similar to the other Ancestral Lore feats post Remaster?

If someone makes a single basic save against a single source that deals two or more types of damage, at what point does the division or multiplication of damage apply? Do you round down the sum of damage, or for each type of damage?

Take the kineticist's lava leap, for example: it does 1d6 bludgeoning damage and 2d6 fire damage in an area with a basic Reflex save. If the kineticist rolls 3 bludgeoning and 7 fire damage (10 total) and the target succeeds on their save, taking half, do they take 1 bludgeoning and 3 fire (only 4 damage), or should they take some combination of 5 damage?

Sword and board fighters were already fighting an uphill battle for the role of tank with the Champion class around. Now that we have the Guardian class too, is there really any point in trying to tank as a fighter over going for one of those two classes, or an entirely different role (such as a two-handed reach bruiser or archer)?

Mind you, I don't think we should take Shield Block away from Fighters or anything like that; I rather kind of like that they are so versatile.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Razmiran Priest Dedication says the following:

You can take the Cleric Dedication feat without needing to meet its prerequisites and before you take two other feats from the Razmiran priest archetype, but you must choose Razmir as your deity. All spells granted by the cleric archetype when gained in this way are occult spells instead of divine spells, and cleric feats that normally have the divine trait instead have the occult trait. Your key spellcasting attribute for these spells is Charisma, rather than Wisdom.

Does it mean I pull my cleric spells from the occult tradition list? Or that I pull my cleric spells from the divine tradition list and treat them as though they were occult?

If a given game rule says to add extra distance to your Leap, but doesn't reference High Jump or Long Jump, does that bonus also apply to High Jumps and Long Jumps, since they are also considered Leaps?

I'm curious to know; for those of you who use Free Archetype in your games, do you allow your players to double up on feats if they choose? That is, take more feats from a single archetype than normally would be possible without Free Archetype in effect. Why or why not?

For example, one of your players wants to play a monk with the wrestler archetype, which has several feats available at each level. Starring at 4th level, your player takes a wrestler feat as normal for Free Archetype, but then also chooses another wrestler feat in lieu of a monk feat. In fact, from then on, they choose only wrestler feats when possible, effectively making them twice the wrestler than would normally be possible.

If you enforce the duality of Free Archetype, why? If you allow for doubling up, do you have any concerns that it might get out of hand in some way?

Casting the spell makes you automatically undetected...so why does it let you make a Hide check with a bonus? What's the point? You're already undetected.

The receptacle can store up to 1 Bulk of potions and elixirs, but no other items.

Ten light items count as 1 Bulk, and you round down fractions (so 9 light items count as 0 Bulk, and 11 light items count as 1 Bulk).

Therefore the exemplar's Horn of Plenty can hold 19 light elixirs or potions.

If you believe differently, I'd like to hear your take on it (and why you believe such).

What does your exemplar put in their horn of plenty and why?

I am making a cook exemplar and am looking for fun ideas.

If my exemplar is wielding a staff in two hands, it does d8 damage. If I then follow up a successful two-handed strike with Strike, Breathe, Rend, does it do d8 damage, or d4?

Seems too bad to be true if it is stuck at d4.

I never see anyone ever take the daze cantrip due to its lack of damage and commonly resisted damage type. It has almost nothing going for it. It being nonlethal might be the only advantage it has over other cantrips, but it's found lacking in almost every other respect.

I'm considering powering it up a bit and wanted to get some second opinions on my idea.

I'm considering removing the Manipulate trait, maybe even add the Subtle trait, and adding some additional verbiage making it clear that it is a purely mental action and therefore can be performed even while bound or paralyzed.

Damage and other parameters would remain the same. I feel this would make it much more valuable in specific cases, giving it a place in caster repertoires, while not impinging upon other cantrip options.

What are the awesome and funny victories your PCs have had?

For us, it was defeating the overpowered psychotic sorcereress by pushing a folding boat out of a tower window to crash down on her head several floors below.

Another one was defeating a reoccurring villain who, when defeated, would melt and drain away only to reappear stronger than ever in the next campaign arc. The third time we beat him and he began his transformation, one of the players was quick to shout "Quick! Get out the bread!" We mopped up the villain with an absorbent loaf of bread, then stuck it in an air tight jar until he suffocated and died.

An older encounter involved a green dragon that completely thrashed the whole party, only to have one PC's underleveled NPC cohort crit with a frost bow, dealing enough damage to trigger massive damage and kill the dragon outright.

Got a bit of pushback from a player today. They're kineticist used sanguivolent roots for the first time. When they described the ability to me, I said "if it's alright with you, I'm going to roll damage once and apply the result to everyone in the area so as to keep things moving along quickly." I didn't think this would be an issue since this is pretty much what myself and every GM I've known has done for area effects since time immemorial.

The player insisted that I rolled individually, since that would increase the odds of higher healing for the party and that, though my house rule would be more expedient, it would greatly devalue an ability they had invested in and actively weaken the party. After reading the ability more closely, and seeing verbiage that implied rolling damage separately for individual targets, I acquiesced and we got on with the game

It got me thinking about area damage effects and whether the expected norm is rolling damage once, or rolling for each target in the area. I'm sure there are examples on both end of the spectrum.

What is the expected norm? Do you follow that norm, or play it differently? What are some examples that follow the expected norm, or go against it?

We've had a runesmith in our Saturday game for a while now. He frequently places the Zohk rune on my rogue.

For several sessions I thought that I only benefitted from the speed boost when I moved toward the runesmith. Since many of our encounters took place in dungeons and similar tight spaces and we're not spread out, I'm rarely able to take advantage beyond its teleportation ability (which has helped us escape bad rooms more than once).

The target gains a +15-foot status bonus to their Speeds, but only when their movement would end closer to you than they started their turn.

This morning, I was reading the ability, and came to the realization that it doesn't say I have to move toward the Runesmith to get the speed bonus; I just need to end my movement closer to him than I started.

Suddenly, I'm running PAST and AROUND the runesmith to reach an enemy in a single stride that would otherwise take two strides. It gets even better if the movement is totaled then checked, rather than checked for each action. I've been able to run AWAY from the rune smith, round a corner, and into a different room to engage enemies there just because the runesmith ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL is positionally closer to me than when I started.

It is SO much more versatile than I originally gave it credit for.

Is this really the way it is intended to work? Am I missing anything?

How might you best take advantage of such a boon?

I seem to recall that a recently released source book allowed an easy way to become sanctified. However I cannot for the life of me remember what that method was.

So...what methods do you know of to get sanctified? Help me jump-start my old brain.

The armored skirt description confuses me and appears it is in desperate need of errata.

What does my half plate stats become when I incorporate an armored skirt? Is the following correct?

Price 20 gp; AC Bonus +4; Dex Cap +2; Check Penalty -2; Speed Penalty -5 ft. Strength +1; Bulk 4; Category Heavy; Group Plate; Traits Noisy

There is nothing anywhere in the game, insofar as I'm aware, that states that your character gets clothes for free. For years now, my fellow players and I have been purchasing mundane clothes for our adventurers. However, when I look at humanoid monsters and NPC stat blocks, I almost never see clothes mentioned among their gear. Same appears to be true with prefab characters in Society play as well. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever seen mundane clothes mentioned in online player builds and the like.

This leads me to the natural assumption that adventurers all across Golarion are nudists. Naturally. ;P

Do you and your table(s) ever concern yourself with such things? Or do you all just assume your characters have a basic outfit and anything purchased are specialized, magical, or spare outfits?

EDIT: Posting here 'cause Reddit doesn't know how to have fun little tongue-in-cheek discussions.

Reworking an old diviner.

How might I build out a "Seer" concept in Pathfinder 2e? That is, someone with the gift of foresight and/or the ability to accurately predict outcomes.

I'd prefer an arcane caster, such as a wizard, but I'm not dead set on that if something fits the concept particularly well.

Anyone have any good suggestions for mechanical options that might work to that end?

If I have a caster standing in a dispelling globe and an enemy tosses a fireball or ignition against him, it is likely to get dispelled.

But what if the caster inside the globe steps outside of it, while keeping it in between him and his foe. Does his foe have line of effect? Does he still need to contend with the counterspell effect? Does fireball simply work since, unlike previous editions, there is no magical bead streaking across the intervening space? What if the enemy attempted something like stupefy?

Do spells that simply emerge or target directly still need to contend with obstacles, barriers, and line of effect / line of sight?

Can clerics and other divine casters of Zon-Kuthon cast the heal spell?

One of Zon-Kuthon's anathemas is "provide comfort to those who suffer" which gives me pause.

I was hoping to prepare the spell on a Kuthite character for use in prolonging the suffering of torture victims that would otherwise die, but I'm not sure if that would really fly.

What do you guys think? Can Kuthite priests cast heal and/or use other restoratives during the course of their grisly work? Are they not allowed to use Battle Medicine even on themselves?

I am updating an old character to Remaster rules and noticed that AoN still lists spell immunity as being in the Core Rulebook. Is there a replacement spell for spell immunity in the Remaster?

If you buy a magical weapon with fundamental runes, the cost of the weapon is subsumed in the cost of the runes.

Is the same true for armor? I don't recall.

It's generally understood that if you fail a check to Recall Knowledge, you can't keep making checks to learn more information with that skill (sorry I couldn't find the source to quote it). But what if you have multiple related lore skills, such as Giant Lore and the more specific Troll Lore? Can you make new checks using the other lore skill after you've failed the other?