There's a level 2 feat to do it now, Person of Interest.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5943
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This feels like a concern about damage modifiers for creature size, not weapon size. And that is generally accounted for with static modifiers, not damage dice. See: Enlarge, giant instinct, or just comparing the damage modifiers of the level 4 pixie (+4) to the level 4 minotaur hunter(+8). This is really easy as long as creatures are using weapons sized appropriately for them. A huge creature with a tiny greataxe (ignoring size penalty for a moment assuming we're strictly talking about mass) will do far less damage with all their strength as the same creature with a huge greataxe. The rules account for this too; a tiny creature can't wield a huge greataxe in the first place, nor can a huge creature wield a tiny great axe. Really, the only time size modifiers to damage are blatantly silly is when you look at PCs outside the regular small/medium range. It IS silly that a pixie PC can technically hit as hard as a minotaur PC, no matter how much you talk about momentum being a factor of velocity. That's because Paizo has made all their player facing options balanced instead of realistic. It is also why those ancestries of unusual size have the rare tag-- players need their GM's permission to use them. That means tables that can't overlook that level of silly can just say "no."
If a witch's familiar gets specifically attacked (instead of caught in an AoE) there's a good chance that is a tactical win for the party. Patron familiars are potent, but not as potent as the spell caster themselves or their barbarian buddy. And unlike the PC the familiar just comes back. Independent, flight, and lifelink are my favorite tools for familiar survivability. If you can't afford the armor feats, mystic armor is pretty handy since it double dips for both you and your familiar.
As far as I'm concerned all the pre-remaster dragons are still fair game, both for GMs and player options. (Except in some very particular cases where it is apparent that they didn't want PCs getting physical damage resistance from certain dragons anymore.)
There's the circuitous route to get the pre-remastered dragon bloodline powers with the pre-remaster Dragon Disciple archetype onto another bloodline. You just need to play the right race, i.e. a Kobold with the correct heritage.Actually the last point is about getting access to the Uncommon archetype. A PC story steeped in draconic theme might be enough to get access too. Yup, access and prerequisite are different.
Pre-remaster, I always felt Oracles should be able to deal any kind of alignment damage they don't really have a single god like a cleric, but instead channel multiple gods. Being able to tap into any of their alignments would have made a lot of sense. I don't think it would make sense for sanctification, though, for the same reason. Oracles are contradictions, not dedications to a single purpose.
They don't, they do 2d8+12. Pretty much all giants have fists listed in their stat blocks. (Which is probably intended to be used for all their unarmed strikes like PCs. It is easier to see giant stomping on a human than punching them.) They seem to be pretty careful about listing unarmed strikes for creatures this matters for. But a regular human knight NPC is essentially subject to the same penalties as a human knight PC. Maybe a little less since they get higher static damage bonuses. https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=3013&Redirected=1
I don't agree as ancestries have abilities [feats] that they get from levels. A level 1 DC can't tell you about a high level unique orcs Spell Devourer.I assume that would apply to level as well. A high level unique orc shouldn't just be treated as common to know things about orcs, but you should also be rolling against the base Orc DC, not the one boosted for this individual's level.The rules also tell you that Unique doesn't apply to the DC to recall about the general creature type. There are other examples of this without touching PC ancestries. Dragons are a big one. It shouldn't really be harder to recognize a red dragon based on its age. I always use the lowest level version of species to determine whether PCs know the basics like temperament, fire breath weapons, or a weakness to cold. If an ancient red dragon has abilities the younger versions lack, you'd need to hit the higher level DC to be aware of it.
Remember that if a spell hasn't been reprinted under the same name in the remaster, you're still allowed to use it. That is important because there are less spells with attack rolls in the remaster, so you'll still want to use Shocking Grasp, Ray of Frost, etc. (That hasn't changed yet, right?)
It starts to get tricky when you consider that plants and animals are mostly made up of water. And water is composed of air...
Because level adjusted by rarity is not the only way to set the DC for monster identification. It is just the simplest way. People see the listed Recall Knowledge DCs and think they are as "canon" as the monster's AC and saves. Case in point, the OP, who not only misunderstood RK DCs but things like Exploit Vulnerability. Here is what the rules actually say:
The problem is people don't spend as much time reading these rules as they do looking at stat blocks on AoN, so they start to think those DCs on AoN are scripture instead of baseline suggestions.
If you're considering homebrew, giving them Weapon Infusion for free might be worth considering. It's a low level feat that helps in a lot of situations. Especially if they have decent strength. D8 agile one handed is a pretty decent melee weapon. It gives you whatever combination of slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning your blast lacked. And then most of the other value is in extending the effective range of your blast and when you can add strength to damage. It won't make them into a barbarian or anything, but it lets them maintain a certain level of output more consistently. It is kinda like a bomber alchemist. Low white room damage, but good in corner cases. Whenever I try to build a kineticist, I feel foolish skipping weapon infusikn. Which is a good case for making it a freebie.
Whether or not that SHOULD be the case from a balance perspective, the rules aren't ambiguous. Attended objects aren't damaged by AoE, and exposed familiars are. Narratively, I'm also not sure how to justify giving them blanket AoE immunity without changing the definition of familiars from enhanced animals to something closer to eidolons that are the caster's magic shaped into flesh, sharing the casters hit points or something. I would be into that concept but it's a big departure.
What is the Witch losing here?It looses reasons to main class Witch instead of just Archetyping into the class. They are core selling points, just not very strong ones. Wizards aren't considered a very strong class, but with familiar thesis they get: - being a full spellcaster with one extra spell slot
Drain bonded item + extra slots is a lot of added power. Plus, the wizard doesn't need their familiar on the front lines to activate a core class feature or refocus. Witches do, which means they should be sinking some of their additional familiar abilities into survivability. (Flight and life link being my favorites.) So you wind up with less room for other familiar uses, like spell batteries or scouting. Or compare the witch to the bard. The same number of slots, an extra feat from their muse, counter performance, and more hit points. Plus better base proficiency in weapons, armor, perception, and skills. The patron hex cantrip combined with that familiar ability are at best equivalent value to inspire courage alone, with the exception of the Resentment. The hex/patron familiar combo might provide a better set of bonuses but they are single target where compositions effect the whole battlefield and often at longer range. I really like the remastered witch but they just aren't that strong a class, and the hidden advantages of an immortal familiar is basically the top mechanical appeal of the class for me. Otherwise I would just play a reflavored wizard.
AoN is generally great, yes, but it has created this false understanding of how knowledgeable DCs (and even relevant skills) work. As Hammerjack pointed out at the beginning.
By RAW, familiar satchels don't take damage when they are being carried, so they are a solid way to protect a passive familiar. You lose the visual of it riding on your shoulder though.
Flying brooms feel a bit like motorcycles to me. They are providing the propulsion, but you still need to stay balanced on them. Whether that should cost actions, hands, or both, I don't want to weigh in on. But from a flavor perspective both are justifiable.
Technically true, but it's a weird case where it wasn't remastered AND the divine spell list suddenly got access to fly. It feels different than, say, shocking grasp vs thunder strike. I've stopped using Air Walk myself.
I'm not fully convinced final sacrifice abuse is a problem. The witch class has some challenging flavor considerations to play effectively. The best patron is at best chaotic and at worse just wants to watch the world burn. The class trends towards vaguely sinister if not outright evil. Playing a witch optimally already means coming to terms with your familiar being "recyclable" in a way you and your fellow PCs are not. If you wanted to cut back on that, I would suggest adding some flavor text about how the familiar doesn't experience pain the same way as a normal animal because it is essentially a spiritual extension of the patron.
I do agree that the current mechanics are pretty punitive. But I think Undying Familiar is one of the few unique advantages witches have over four slot casters. So I hope they would get something new if every class got Undying.Undying Familiar isn't a advantage for the witch - it is a necessity for the class to function. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Undying opens up a variety of play styles other characters can't safely do. Aside from the obvious battle usage, it also makes familiar scouting safer and gives you a way to cycle between specific familiars day to day. If other characters could also do this, I would suggest witches get some kind of buff. Maybe they could revive and heal their familiar as a refocus activity, for example.
The GM screens have the DCs by level printed on them and are one of the most essential purchases you can make. Even playing online they are worth having on hand to reference.
I do agree that the current mechanics are pretty punitive. But I think Undying Familiar is one of the few unique advantages witches have over four slot casters. So I hope they would get something new if every class got Undying.
I've found Faith's Flamekeeper to make a very good support - Stoke the Flame is a scaling damage buff that only costs 1 action per turn with a very generous range (that you can cheat on with Cackle), you can cast Bless and later Heroism for the hit bonus, and your familiar ability grants temphp. So long as you have someone able to land two hits consistently in the party (you know, rangers, monks, dual weapon warriors) your one action will consistently outdamage cantrips... which you can still cast on top of that if you want. Yeah, that one is definitely in the tier below occult. The only problem is some parties already have temp HP or status bonuses to damage. So it's good but not as universally appealing as status penalties to the enemy are.
All bards get inspire courage, and have options to pick up even better focus cantrips like Dirge of Doom besides. Witches are locked to just the one focus cantrip by their subclass. Thematically and mechanically, if a single class witch can't obtain another focus cantrip I would prefer multi class witches not be able to pilfer one. Personally speaking, of course.
Yeah, there are specific actions that can only be used in combat, like the Stance trait. But that's a trait thing not a blanket rule. Otherwise you couldn't recall knowledge or lie out of encounter mode.
Yep, not guaranteed the enemy notices but they're definitely getting a perception check and you're risking enemies coming to you which may or may not be to your advantage. Annoint Ally isn't a spell though and it has no audible traits.
Looking just at the core patrons, it is basically the occult patrons which are safe picks. Everything else requires specific party compositions and strategies to make effective. The occult familiars and hexes just work. Resentment is definitely the most broken but Shadow and Fortune are perfectly respectable.
I think the witch is pretty fun and involved. But it's higher complexity than a sorcerer or remastered oracle without necessarily being stronger even when you apply system mastery. Some folks don't like that. In particular, you have to really think hard about how you use your familiar and it can be counter intuitive. I wrote most of a guide to playing one but never fully published it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y881LdGvXmUWwjxZrMZBC4XwoD8GS3tOPjaz6S2 8zXY/edit?usp=drivesdk
So what does this entail exactly? Just the starting hex cantrip and 1st rank spell? Not the familiar ability? Personally, I would rather get the option to get more hex cantrips for actual witches before I opened up the option to archetype witches.
I am in the "Tell Them What You Are Going to Say, Tell Them, Tell Them What You Said" camp (How to Open a Presentation: Tell 'Em What You're Going to Say) of giving presentations. I used to lecture on mathematics, mostly algebra and calculus, and the tough material needed repetition to stick in the students' minds. Is that still the best delivery method when you're doing a panel at a convention, rather than teaching students? Honest question. I would think people who signed up for your panel would be more engaged and they aren't going to be quizzed later.
There are two problems with the combo. 1. Action economy. Magus action economy is tight enough without adding in DaS. It only seems like you could rely on the trick if you had free action DaS. The Investigator has several feats to let you do that more reliably. But the magus archetype only lets you spell strike once per combat. So point for the magus if they can snag the quick lead persuit feats. 2. As always, you need something else to do if DaS says you'll get a bad strike. Another point in favor of the magus, who has more cantrips and spell slots to use instead.
They really don't seem interested in publishing things that break core balance assumptions for how PCs work.
There's a lot of things you might find yourself needing a target number for that level can help inform. Skill modifiers, the will DC if the PCs try and coerce the NPC, the level of items they sell, the level of the security the shop has.... Heck, you might want to use it to set up a full blown influence encounter. But it is up to you to figure out specifics from there.
I'm pretty sure the remaster made it clear you can't apply runes to consumables, even with the bandolier. But I can't be bothered to look it up right now.
Skill feats are generally under addressed in adventure design, and it's particularly egregious for VP skill challenges. There should be better guidance on how to reward relevant skills feats.
Climbing by design should almost never be a scaling DC. ALL climb checks are scaling DCs, even when they are simple. ... Get it? ... I'll see myself out.
I mean they are book publishers, they always care about page count. But they would certainly have more flexibility if this was a player core style new book instead of glorified errata.
Yeah, and Track is in the same boat. If an enemy isn't moving at half speed to conceal its tracks, you're rolling against the simple DC for the terrain. Which reminds me-- Assurance negates the penalty for experienced tracker too. Also tracking is one of those things you might have to roll multiple checks for (if you're tracking for more than an hour) so Assurance can remove failure chance. Assurance Survival also ignores the penalty for Subsisting while adventuring, which is nice if you don't have Forager. Survival isn't terribly useful itself, but if you're leaning into it for whatever reason Assurance ain't bad. Sometimes it feels like an ability that was really designed for NPC Bakers to not mess up their cupcakes or something, though.
Yeah it's one of the most system mastery driven feats so its basic billing is problematic.
Another thing that would make Assurance better is if it if you were told what success condition it would net you before committing to using it. I recall needing to scale a rock wall in combat and asking the GM is my character could judge the DC before using Assurance, and being told no. At that point I was basically still gambling on wasting my action.
I think they should have proficiency gated locks while letting anyone roll to Disable a hazard, personally.
Well, someone brought up automatic knowledge as a perk of assurance, and the only time saving actions matters is in combat. Usually in combat RK checks are limited to monsters. (Or hazards, but same difference.) Plus out of combat the whole party can usually roll on RK, and if it's a low enough DC for Assurance to work then odds are someone will succeed at it, maybe even the guy with Untrained Improvisation. So it isn't that monsters are the only thing that RK matters for, but it's not like Assurance is actually helpful for RK on much else.
One of the fundamental PF2 design principles (and biggest stumbling blocks for people from other systems) is that if something is supposed to be meaningful challenge (as defined by the DC by level chart) you can't optimize yourself out of rolling for it. The subtle trait might just work, but the spell you're casting with it probably doesn't. They removed the other checks because casting in social situations is a relatively rare situation so increasing the odds of failure with multiple checks feels bad when the character invested into being able to doing it. But the charm or dominate saving throw still achieves the desired tension.
For a middle ground between the "Gain all the skill feats" and "Gain skill feats only when you get a skill increase", I would like to also bring up the option of "Gain a bonus skill feat at 1st level, 3rd level, and every four levels thereafter" (So 1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 19). You'll much more get the weight of the skill choice whilst not having to deal quite as much with the "Damn some skills have twice as many as others" (The only skills which don't have enough feats for a 1-20 with just the Starfinder Player Core for example are Performance and Lore. There'll still be the issue of some skills shrimply having better feats than others, but again, this is just another compromise option for people to think aboot) I don't think the quantity a player receives is the problem with skill feats. It's that there's too many bad skills feats and the good ones are too clustered in a small number of skills. They are also more complicated to filter your relevant options than your (non-archetype) class feats or (non-skill) general feats. So you're spending the most work on building for the least impact. IMO, Making people pick more skill feats kinda makes the situation worse, not better. "Get all skill feats you qualify for" at least removes the need to bother picking through them. And because there are so few good feats, you're probably not going to feel much difference between someone who has all of the feats vs someone who has all of the intimidation feats.
That is good to know as well. It also inspired me to look at the SF2 skill feats. It's mostly pathfinder skill feats + Computers and Piloting stuff. But there are a few neat skill feats for the old skills I would probably allow in my game.
Yep. One of the fundamental PF2 design principles (and biggest stumbling blocks for people from other systems) is that if something is supposed to be meaningful challenge (as defined by the DC by level chart) you can't optimize yourself out of rolling for it. PF1 would sometimes create incredibly high DCs that you could only succeed at if you built for it, but then might be auto succeeding at it. In PF2, pretty much anything outside of a hazard can be attemped successfully by someone trained or failed at by someone who is a master. You're just shifting the odds around the edges. That's also why you see designers talk about fail forward. If a challenge is supposed to be meaningful but overcoming it is necessary for the story to proceed, then let the roll determine additional consequences beyond halting progress. Assurances can sometimes create interesting choices, in trying to determine if your check is likely to succeed or whether you're better off rolling the dice and hoping to critically succeed. Out of combat, I'll take Assurance to safely scale down the 100 foot cliff with my ally tied to my back. But in combat maybe I really need to get up that cliff as quickly as possible. Maybe Assurance and automatic knowledge are worth it when you can use a highly specific Lore skill. For something like the Inventor's Overdrive, the only way to make it work for Assurance is if Failure can sometimes be an acceptable or even desirable condition. I think maybe they pulled it off in the G&G remaster? On a success, you deal more damage of the type you already deal. On a failure, you deal less damage, but it is fire damage. Hello, second most common weakness in the game. Granted, the Inventor has several ways to build into constant fire damage, but if you didn't spend your more valuable class resources to get it, then on-demand fire on every strike for the price of a skill feat? That's a cheap price.
Yeah DC reductions are definitely underutilized. I also think they are intended to be utilized for rituals because there's no other way to make them worth the risk and costs. I always read rituals as "a thing the GM wants to let us do but make us meaningfully work for it in the story."
Assurance athletics is my favorite use case. By RAW it's the only safe way to scale great heights, and the maneuver thing can sometimes be handy. Beyond that it can be nice for characters with crappy ability scores who wants to be ok at a skill. Gnolls are supposed to be consumate hunters but they have a wisdom flaw, so when I built a gnoll alchemist I gave him Assurance Survival. Survival usually uses static DCs, too.
Assurance on Recall Knowledge freaking sucks, though. You almost never know the DC, but usually the checks you really want to succeed on are against higher level foes. And by RAW you can't retry once you've failed, so Automatic Knowledge is worse than useless most of the time.
I feel slings are among the weapons that sadly suffer from the simple / martial / advanced division that weapons have. A sling is a d6 50 ft simple range weapon with the propulsive trait, while a composite shortbow is d6 60 ft martial weapon with the propulsive and deadly traits. The real deal breaker here is that slings have reload 1, while bows don't. I think its obvious reload 1 has to go because that's the worst thing from slings, but to avoid slings becoming composite shortbows but simple they either should have a d4 damage die and become martial or remain simple but lose propulsive. Boomerangs only return on missed strikes, so you need to spend additional resources to make that true. Full strength to damage is nice for characters that have high strength, but it isn't a one to one.
Getting all the skill tests you qualify for is interesting. I would worry that it would exacerbate the existing problem of some skills just having much better skill feats than others. Intimidate is already really popular and has a ton of good feats, where diplomacy has mid feats and deception feats are meh. Crafting gets a ton of feats but many of the Int skills feel lacking. Still, skill feats are the least impactful feats and the most confusing outside of archetype feats. They also gate a lot of actions players might just want to try. I can't say I hate this idea, especially for newer players. I could take or leave the extra skill increases, and would rather have them at the staggered even levels personally.
I'm gonna be honest, I just straight-up tell my players what RK skills would be appropriate. I'm pretty generous with Recalling anyway, because the conservative reading of the rules is kinda bad. Same. With RK costing an action and having a critical failure condition, doing anything else is too punitive. Players need to make an informed decision over whether they should bother trying. They already don't know the DC. (And frankly I might consider telling them that, as well.) IMO Pathfinder and D&D GMs are just way too stingy with information in general. Sense motive is pretty much the only exception there.
Just remember that fascinated is almost useless in combat if you're spending mad resources to get a Nosoi for Anything other than roleplay.
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