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So in the olden days, hitting a demon with a holy cold iron weapon was somewhat straightforward. It would trigger the cold iron weakness since that was a trait of the weapon, and because of the additional good damage being a separate damage instance it would also hit the good weakness.

However, do holy cold iron weapons do this? I would strongly argue no.

Strikes made with it gain the holy trait

The strike therefore has the holy trait as a whole, and the weapon is also cold iron.

If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material or trait, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing.

So I believe it's true you can't double-tap weaknesses like this anymore. Though it all hinges on what a "single instance of damage" is.

So with player core 2 a few months away now, and with the Seraph of Desolation herself gracing the cover of War of the Immortals, I'm reminded of our dear old friends, evil and unholy champions!

Lots of people seem to have issues with them (especially desecrator and antipaladin) as being a product of the APG existing on the somewhat lower end of the power curve, and they do have some issues there. Namely, they have no good ways to force people to attack them, their features are geared towards dealing a damage type that a lot of monsters ignore (evil damage), and their reactions just aren't as good as those of the good/holy champions.

Do we expect these to be addressed like the problems with Witch, Oracle, and company? We already know that sanctification will add a few wrinkles for them, what else could change? What else do people expect to change? Evil damage was notoriously bad to inflict pre-remaster, do we expect it to be replaced with spirit damage, or not replaced at all since it was sort of a stand-in for the "trigger vulnerabilities" feature that champions now have by default with the holy/unholy trait on their strikes?

Inspired my dragon thread (here: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs47mjo?Remaster-Dragon-AC) I decided to look at the rest of Monster Core. Haven't done the entire thing, but I targeted the most iconic monsters plus some random animals, and compared premaster and post-remaster versions.

Here are my results, below:

Chaotic weakness and lawful damage stripped, otherwise pretty similar. Some of the high level ones have spirit weakness instead.

No real changes.

Pretty much just good damage stripped off.

Overall, gained all-around vision and lost bonus good damage on only qarna (hound armor) and aesra (legion archon). Not a lot of other changes.

Some hp changes and ability DC swaps, going for both nerfs and buffs. Some new abilities on lillend/kanya. Chaotic and good damage got ripped off and not replaced.

Grizzly bear lost some AC and gained some hp.

No changes. I know you were super worried.

Boar lost some AC in exchange for hp, daeodon unchanged.

Evil damage removed without replacement. Omox majorly nerfed, vrolikai upgraded to level 20 and it mostly seems to fit the bill with some minor proportional numbers nerfs.

No real changes except vordine wholly replaces barbazu and loses evil damage without replacement.

Deinonychus and pachycephalosaurus lost some AC, otherwise unchanged.

Hey all,

Just discovered something fascinating, which is that dragon ACs appear to have gone down post-remaster.

Pre-remaster, dragon ACs could be sorted into a few different buckets, based on how closely they met the monster building guidelines for AC. For instance, all brass dragons (young, adult, and ancient alike) had the "High" value for their level, while all gold dragons were at the "High" value + 1. But not anymore!

Premaster AC buckets:

High + 0 for all age categories: magma, brine, sky, underworld, brass, blue, black
High + 0 except a random uptick to High + 1 at ancient: copper, bronze, sovereign, sea, forest
High + 1 for all age categories: gold only, and also all linnorms

Silver and red both were High or High + 1 across the board but spiked to Extreme - 1 at ancient.

Remaster Buckets:

Moderate + 0 for all age categories: mirage, omen, diabolic, adamantine
High + 0 for all age categories: empyreal, conspiracy, fortune
High + 1 for all age categories: horned and all linnorms

What do people think about this? Good change? Bad change? Barely noticeable change? It's only around -2 to AC, but it's pretty consistent across the board.

So I was looking through Monster Core today, and I came across this gem. Similar to janni, and unlike janni it's a lot easier for the GM to twist. But it's certainly thought-provoking...

Phistophilus devils are capable of granting wishes.

The contract devil produces an infernal contract for a single living mortal. This contract can grant a wide range of abilities and effects, akin to the power of a wish ritual but fulfilled to the letter by the contract devil.

To receive any of those benefits, the mortal must willingly sign its true name to the contract. At that point, the mortal’s soul is bound to the contract devil and Hell.

Wish states that divine ascension is one of the possible benefits:

The target's wish can be anything, ranging from simpler wishes such as vast riches or the casting of a certain spell or ritual, to greater wishes like the destruction of an entire kingdom or ascension to divinity. The GM might decide a wish draws the attention of deities or other powerful creatures, leading to interference with the ritual or attempts to undo the wish. The power of the ritual alters reality to such a degree that even deities can't outright undo the wish, but they can react to the wish by sending servitors to take away the newly acquired riches, for example.

How would you run this as a GM, if a PC tried to sell their soul to a level 10 devil and become a god? Would it always go catastrophically wrong? Would the devil just refuse? What happens if you mind control the devil into thinking that this is a good idea? Are they even capable of making someone into a deity? Curious what people's thoughts are here, since it seems less "broken" and more "interesting".

So I was talking with one of my friends who works in international relations recently about fantasy government.

Her comment: "wow, fantasy RPG settings are pretty corrupt."

How true do people think this is for Golarion? A lot of Pathfinder quests do seem to revolve around blatant cronyism and quid pro quo arrangements with authority figures... but on the other hand, it's semi medieval, when EVERYONE was corrupt.

Anyone have experience running these? Things like flame tongue, frost brand, or their remaster equivalents (searing blade and icicle respectively)?

They're kinda mechanically...weak compared to a basic, non-special magic weapon tricked out with property runes. For instance, comparing greater storm flash to a normal +3 weapon...it's got only a single property rune (greater shock), compared to the THREE that a generic +3 weapon could normally have. A single lightning bolt (without scaling DC!) and divert lightning don't really make up for it.

Do people have suggestions for how to boost them? Or make them feel better? I love the idea of things like Sting, Orcrist, and Glamdring in Lord of the Rings, unique weapons with unique histories and unique powers...but they just seem so underwhelming right now.

What do people think of the different witch patrons in the remaster? Are any standing out as notably stronger or weaker than the rest? As mentioned in a prior thread, I would argue that Resentment is a LOT stronger than the rest, but do other people disagree or want to call out other patrons as having interesting abilities?

Here's a link to the remastered witch abilities, courtesy of our very own Ravingdork (pgs. 20-21 of the document)

How do you handle "generic" recall knowledge checks? For instance, it seems weird that you'd have to roll against the PC's basically impossible unique RK DC to know what ability they're using (brought up in another thread). In the same way IDing spells monsters cast uses the DC for the spell, not for the monster. Same thing applies to "knowing that red dragons breathe fire", "vampires are vulnerable to garlic" or "demons are vulnerable to cold iron". This is folklore that random people on the street can tell you - sure, you might not know that the six armed snake lady is a demon and thus that she's vulnerable to cold iron, but you know demons are vulnerable to cold iron in the abstract.

The most egregious example I've ever seen of this is a named velstrac having a DC 10 points higher than a generic one despite having literally the same statblock as the one in the bestiary, because it had the "unique" tag.

What sort of DC is appropriate? It seems somewhat important, since we all know PCs may metagame vampire weaknesses anyway, and it seems bizarre that you might have to make a DC 40 check about a level 17 vampire... when a level 3 adventurer can tell you that vampires are vulnerable to garlic and silver off a DC 18 check.

So I'm curious for people's general impressions (especially with the remaster out now): are cloistered harm font clerics good? To people who have played them, what's your experience in a party without negative/void healing? Since in the case of void healing they're basically a substitute for heal font rather than actually playing differently.

I'm just not sure how they stack up to heal font clerics in a normal party, so I was wondering what the general consensus was.

So my group has been playing with the Rage of Elements remastered Grab (and Improved Grab) rules for the last few months. Instead of automatically grabbing a creature they just hit, they let the monster make a Grapple check against the target with no multiple attack penalty.

They're...a lot. Monsters higher level than the PCs with improved grab in particular have been somewhat nightmarish since they critically succeed on the grapple check most of the time and restrain PCs rather than just grabbing them. You haven't lived until you get opportunity attacked by a linnorm at reach 20 feet and get restrained before you even get a chance to attack it...

I absolutely understand why the change was implemented (and it's a buff against monsters lower level than the PCs, let me be clear!), but I'm curious if others have had similar experiences and what people think about the change.

Okay so now that remaster is out, I'm asking if there's been any clarification on this by the devs.

Do clerics get bonus 10th level font slots? Or only 9ths?

And can wizard spell blending for another 10th?

Do we know if there's an intermediate material between steel and adamantine in the Remaster? Or if adamantine got some sort of change? Or are lesser, greater, and major shields just getting a small nerf?

Right now I'm looking at the old sturdy shields and comparing to reinforcing runes, and I am vaguely concerned (reinforcing rune data sourced from Rules Lawyer here )

Minor sturdy shield had hardness 8 and 64 hp for a cost of 80 gp. A minor reinforcing rune + steel shield has hardness 8 and 64 hp for 77 gp

Lesser sturdy shield had hardness 10 and 80 hp for 360 gp. Lesser reinforcing rune + steel shield has hardness 8 and 62 hp for 302 gp. Hardness and hp are both lower.

Moderate sturdy shield was hardness 13 and 104 hp for 1,000 gp. Moderate reinforcing rune + standard grade adamantine shield is hardness 13 and 104 hp for 1,340 gp.

Greater sturdy shield was hardness 15 and 120 hp for 3,000 gp. Greater reinforcing rune + standard grade adamantine is hardness 13 and 120 hp for 2,940 gp. Given that greater reinforcing rune maxes out at hardness 15 there has to be some sort of weird intermediate I'm not thinking of.

Major sturdy shield was hardness 17 and hp 136 for 10,000 gp. Standard grade adamantine major reinforcing shield gets hardness 15 and 124 hp for 8,440 gp.

High grade adamantine supreme reinforcing rune shield gets up to hardness 20 and 160 hp, exactly the same as supreme sturdy shield used to, both cost 40,000 gp.

The cleric is an iconic class, for good reason. It's impressively designed, it has a rich connection to any setting it's in, and it's one of the oldest classes in TTRPGs.

But I've always felt that clerics sort of have a weird theming issue. For some clerics, especially those of gods that are all about goodness, justice, and light like Iomedae and Sarenrae, the thematics of the divine spell list work fine. The divine list also works well for followers of dark and evil deities like Urgathoa or Zon-Kuthon. But for some gods, such as Gozreh or Nethys...why are they using the divine list? Does a hippie follower of Gozreh have more in common with a death cultist of Urgathoa...or their local druid? Are clerics of Nethys more like wizards, or like the avenging crusaders of Iomedae? Deity spells sort of address this, but it's almost universally only 3 spells (ignoring Abraxas and Nethys) and that's not enough to change the class's feel.

So I propose an alternative - clerics have different spellcasting traditions depending on the god (and for non-divine traditions, they don't get deity spells). For instance, clerics of Gozreh use the primal list, clerics of Nethys use the arcane list, and clerics of Mahathallah (queen of illusions) use the occult list. Bonus font spells could either remain heal/harm, or become a suitable spell for the deity in question - fireballs for Mephistopheles, for example. Given how strong heal font already is, I doubt this would break anything, even though fireball is a 3rd level spell while heal is only a 1st.

I can also 100% see this for other classes, for the record. For instance, a divine variant of wizard (similar to the 3.5 archivist) that gets deity spells (just like how Oracles get the Divine Access feat and Sorcerers get the Blessed Blood feat) seems like a reasonable thematic niche that doesn't currently exist. But I thought I'd bring it up for clerics first.

What do people think? Is this a good idea? Are there pitfalls I'm missing? I mostly came up with this because I deeply appreciate themed classes like kineticist, and wanted to see clerics more closely match their deity's particular vibe.

I'd also love to hear suggestions on which list matches which deity - Gozreh (primal) and Nethys (arcane) are both pretty easy, but for gods like Asmodeus or Shelyn I'm less certain.

The more hazards I've run (and run into) in PF 2E, the more they confuse me. I'm sort of curious if other people have run into frustrations similar to the below, and if so what you did to mitigate them. I want to stress - I'm not complaining, I'm legitimately curious if this is just a problem unique to my group:

1. Triggers that mean they're impossible to disable before being set off.

Many hazards aren't actually possible to disable before they go off. Darkside mirrors, for instance, go off the moment you look at them. Have fun disabling something you don't know is a trap until you see it. Likewise, many hazards trigger when you walk in the room - and you have to walk in the room to disable the hazard in the first place.

2. Absurdly high DCs

Some hazards have hilariously silly DCs to detect or disable - for instance:

3. The disable rules don't interact with hp damage, at all.

Traps can be disabled in one of two ways. By making a series of skill checks, or by hitting them with a large hammer. But these two approaches don't meaningfully interact - breaking the trap doesn't reduce the number of skill checks to disable it, and likewise successful skill checks don't reduce the trap's hp. The fact that the cleric is using Religion on a trap and the barbarian is hitting it and these two things do not interact at all and it's just a race to see who finishes first is bizarre and feels non-collaborative.

To the point that I've started homebrewing it that successful skill checks against hazards deal damage to them equal to hp/number of required skill checks. So a 100 hp trap that takes 4 skill checks to disable loses 25 hp whenever you succeed on a check to disable it. That way the people without the requisite skills still feel like they're contributing. This leads into the final issue...

4. Ridiculous hardness and immunity to critical hits (and precision damage)

A moderate encounter for level 8 PCs is a level 10 trap. Such a trap has hardness 17-19. It's theoretically possible to break this hardness at level 8, but it's not easy or fast.

For instance, a fighter with a greatsword is dealing 2d12 (striking rune) + 4 (strength mod) + 3 (weapon specialization) + 1d6 (flame rune) = 23.5 damage per hit, so dealing about 4 or 5 damage past hardness. Against a trap with 70-74 hp. So it takes 14 or 15 fighter greatsword hits, and not all fighters are wielding greatswords.

A swashbuckler just bounces off of the hazard because it's immune to precision damage. A champion is dealing less than the fighter. Obviously some classes do a bit better (like barbarian or fighter with power attack) but if half the party is attacking the trap and the other half is trying to make skill checks, the skill checks will almost always get there first, because it doesn't take 14 successful skill checks to disable the thing.

Amusingly, STANDARD GRADE ADAMANTINE items have hardness 14. Ergo it is actually easier to smash an adamantine safe than it is to smash a stone hammer trap (https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=13) which has hardness 22 (16 on the hinge).

Again, some hazards are fine! But I'm curious if other people have run into these structural issues with hazards and if there's any consensus on how to deal with them.

So what do people think? It seems weaker than any previous list (other than the old elementalist one), but are there any tricks you can pull with it? Is it pure blaster?

What do people like about Nosferatu and vrykolakas vampires lore wise? Have you used them? How do you make them fit into your setting?

I really love the idea, but have never used them before in a setting. So I'm curious to hear your stories!

Okay, so I have a conundrum that may not belong here and should be moved to General Discussion.

Does Pathfinder 2E say a lot about how clerics prepare their spells every day? Is it

1. "You ask your god for the spell, the god grants it" sort of deal every morning?

2. You just pray for a bit to keep the channel of divine energy open, and the god isn't personally involved at all unless you start casting anathematic spells?

3. Something else?

Yes, I have read Secrets of Magic. No, it does not help. The best I was able to find was this piece of the Flexible Spellcasting archetype:

"Flexible spellcasting clerics, sometimes called ecclesiasts, have an unorthodox connection to their deity, allowing them flexibility in the grace they earn through their prayers. They’re more commonly itinerant, rather than connected to an established church."

The reason I ask is I'm curious if/why Zon-Kuthon allows his followers to prepare searing light , a spell that is axiomatically anathema to him (as an evil god and it being a [good] trait spell) at all, even if one assumes more than one or two castings will get the cleric booted. Why does the god of shadow, evil, and pain have the ability or the desire to give his priests a spell of goodness and light? And if he's not the one giving it to them, how does this actually work?

So I've been thinking about the Arcane tradition. And I'm wondering, as an open-ended question, what people think. Have you played it? Do you like it? Does it make thematic sense? Does it provide enough variety? I just ran an analysis that got me thinking about it...

Total count of spells by list (excluding focus spells and cantrips):

Arcane: 615
Divine: 321
Occult: 497
Primal: 460

Total count of UNIQUE spells by list (that is, spells on a list not shared with any other):

Arcane: 19
Divine: 37
Occult: 39
Primal: 65

I'm interested in both fluff and mechanical reflections.

And let me be very clear. This thread is not the place to complain about wizards in PF 2E . We have plenty of those elsewhere. Half of them are locked. PLEASE DO NOT DO IT HERE.

So noxious vapors, the new Rage of Elements spell, has an interesting effect. It sickens you "as long as you take the persistent poison damage".

I think you can still remove the sickened condition by spending an action to make a saving throw and succeed. Do people agree?

It's a weird rules interaction.

I've had this come up before in a lot of my home games, but I'm curious for the collective forum wisdom on it after looking over Rainbow Fulmarole from Rage of Elements. Tell me if I should move it to another category like Rules or Advice.

How free should GMs be with knowledge of monster level? Given the sort of titanic difference between using [Incapacitation] tagged spells on the right targets vs. the wrong targets (they do absolutely nothing if the target succeeds, since they get upticked to a critical success, and if the target fails they do basically nothing because unlike slow or synesthesia they don't have great success effects) I'm skeptical about gating knowledge of creature level behind monster knowledge checks.

And before people jump on me for this making monster knowledge checks worthless or something...rules-as-written those checks don't give you monster level anyway, just monster weaknesses and prominent abilities.

And yes, I am well aware that you can do back-of-the-envelope math to GUESS based on encounter size and composition, but that's even more metagamey.

I can see a valid argument for just telling a PC before they cast an incapacitation spell "you sense that this spell will not have its full effect on this target, are you sure you want to do this"? What do people think about that?

So now that Rage of Elements is out, what does everyone think of the spells? Favorites? Stinkers? How do they stack up to old standbys like fireball or magic missile ?

Myself, I have to hand it to beheading buzz saw and wall of metal . The imagery is just outstanding - throwing a buzz saw at your enemies is never going to get old, and neither is yelling "and now the dragon's encased in adamantine!"

Okay, so the new Elementalist is out, and it's much improved. About double the number of on-list spells compared to the old elementalist, and the addition of metal and wood as elements is certainly welcome as well.

But that's not all! I was looking over the remaster preview, and I noticed that some of the old spells are getting elemental (air, earth, water, etc) traits they didn't have before, which would make the list much more useful:

Barskin -> Oaken Resilience: wood trait

Cone of cold -> Howling Blizzard: air trait

Flesh to stone -> Petrify: earth trait

What other spells do people think will gain elemental traits? Heat metal is a pretty obvious contender for the [metal] trait, and I can see stuff like chain lightning or lightning bolt getting the [air] trait, given spells like shock to the system have it in Rage of Elements.

Originally put this in the RoE Errata thread but then thought better of it, since I don't want to clutter that up.

Steam Knight has bizarre interactions with the Leap rules, since it overrides how far you jump but not how high. Rules as written, Leap lets you go 3 feet vertically (and 5 feet horizontally) or 10 feet horizontally and an unspecified but probably negligible distance vertically.

Not sure if it's intended, but in order to "leap over" someone who isn't a halfling child or similar you need to jump vertically multiple times (going up 3 feet each time) and then jump horizontally.

Do people believe this is intended usage? Can you jump vertically 3 feet + your horizontally each time you leap? I am so uncertain of how to evaluate this impulse.

(and yes, obviously if you combo with cyclonic ascent's air walk ability it gets a lot better, since you can just hop around 10-15 feet in the air without having to reach that height via jumping first)

Decided to make a separate thread for this, because I'm curious how most tables do it and what people think of kineticists wandering around with elements gathered.

Kineticist "gather element" is essentially their version of drawing a weapon. I have two questions:

1. How often do most tables allow PCs to have all the weapons they want drawn at the start of combat? Most of DMs I've ever seen are pretty loose about it, unless you're having tea with Duchess Primproper or something when combat breaks out - anyone have different experiences?

2. Would you allow a kineticist to wander around a dungeon/town with their kinetic aura active? None of the auras (sans stance, which is explicitly combat-only) actually deal damage, so it's not exactly dangerous for passerby.

Hi all,

I want to start by saying that this could be a sensitive topic - please shut this thread down if it is, I don't want to violate community rules or upset anyone!

My question is whether or not the words "mosque" and "imam" (both of which appear in the AP) are sensitive terms to be avoided in contemporary discourse when not referring to the real life middle east. I know "sultan" and "emir" both also had a religious connotation but have been secularized in the modern world and we see them all the time in RPGs, but I wanted to avoid landmines and offending my players, and changing terminology to "temple" and "priest" is a very simple fix!

Likewise, I know that lich "phylacteries" were replaced with "soul cages" for this very reason which is why I felt I should ask.

Again if this is an inappropriate question I apologize and hope it gets speedily whacked. Thanks!