Christopher#2411504's page

What I always found weird in Pathfinder 2e specifically when it comes to Thrown weapons is that they have printed the brutal trait specifically for the purpose of using STR to hit with ranged when it makes sense for a monster, but have never actually allowed PCs to get access to it even when it would make perfect sense for them, like making it part of Raging Thrower, or maybe making it a Stance feat.

The Brutal trait is about that ranged attack being immune to Clumsy but vulnerable to Enfeebled.

For a PC changing the accuracy stat fundamentally changes the builds they make.

Those two cases are not even remotely comparable.

Rules questions have their own forum.

I am relaying the rules issues as I keep encountering them. With my sources being active games, on discords and on reddit.

Using a question mark to highlight where stuff is unclear is not the same as a rules question.

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

In related questions, when do you continue a fall you started in a previous turn? Start of your turn or End of your turn?

I'm pretty sure this one is "end of your turn" due to the wording of the Fly action

"If you're airborne at the end of your turn and didn't use a Fly action this round, you fall."

That is only true if the fly action brought you up there. It doesn't even apply if you are still falling from last turn.

Does falling disrupt your Stride action, or only landing prone after the fall?

On the one hand there are very short falls (<5ft), that don't deal damage or put you prone normally.
On the other hand, Cat Fall can allow you to fall the maximum 500ft for the first turn, land on your feet and just continue.

In related questions, when do you continue a fall you started in a previous turn? Start of your turn or End of your turn?

The Com unit oddly does not mention any camera or video transmission capability, something the device I am writing on right now has.
Was that omitted by accident or was that supposed to be another item for storytelling reasons?

Two things about Force Barrage:
First:
Is it supposed to bypass the Flat Checks for Concealed or Hidden? Roll it once per missile? I ask because older Versions of Magic Missile had that wording, but this one does not.
Currently it is affected at the "select a Target" step, as any other ability with Targets.

Second:
"Targets 1 creature"/"You fire a shard of solidified magic toward a creature that you can see."
and
"You choose the target for each shard individually."
are inherently at odds.
It probably should be "up to 1 target per missile", "any number of creatures in range" or something like that.

Cruel Piercing has a logical issue or two.
It is supposed to be a lasting Grab that deals persistent bleed damage. However the weapon only gains Grapple for the Initial check, not for the ones to maintain the Grapple.
It also doesn't require you to even use the weapon used to deal the piercing damage in the first place. It kinda feels like it should.

Aromatic Lure doesn't have the Olfactory Trait, despite the ... everything about this spell.

If it is supposed to be a mental manipulation that is supposed to overwrite even having no sense of smell, it should probably say so. As the current way, a lot people will assume the lack of the trait is oversight.

In case Kitsune ever gets remastered:
Kitsune Ancestry Feat "Rampaging Form" has aspecial entry for the Frozen Winds Kitsune.
However the feat is only for Kitsune that have a Fox Alterante Form. Frozen Winds has a Humanoid Alternate form, thus could not take it in the first place.

If a Metastrike does multiple Strikes but combines the damage before Resistances*, two hit and the first Strike already deals enough damage to down the creature: Does that second hit progress the dying condition? Or do they count as as single hit for death and dying?

* Examples include Hunted Shot, Twin Takedown, Double Slice, Flurry of Blows, Geaming Blade Transcendence. However those have different wordings.
With Twin Takedown explicitly talking about Resistances: "If both hit the same hunted prey, combine their damage for the purpose of its resistances and weaknesses." But also hitting the same target being entirely optional.

While Double Slice combines them seemingly for everything "If both attacks hit, combine their damage, and then add any other applicable effects from both weapons. You add any precision damage only once, to the attack of your choice. Combine the damage from both Strikes and apply resistances and weaknesses only once."

And I don't know if a differnce here is intended.

Edit: There could also differences in how they would interact with Shield block.

Do you mean Anachronism? Because I can't figure out how deity or class Anathemas would factor in this.

Also why are you asking on the SF2 Forum, instead of the Foundry or Foundry System Discord?

Guardian - somewhat ironically - does not have armor specialisation.

Back on release that made sense:
- 3 common armor specialisaitons give a single physical resistance
- Guardians Armor already gave higher resistance to all physical for most levels

So having that ability would have pushed the Guardian towards Chain (reduces Critical Damage), Skeletal (Precision Resistance) or Wood (retalation damage on critical hits) armor types.
We could seperate specialisation mechanics from flavor and the rest of the stats with the Malleable Rune on higher levels, but it would still have been a problematic mechanic.

But now that resistances have their new shape, I think it would be less of an issue? Since "all physical" got a nerf: "For a resistance to a category including multiple damage types, like resistance to physical damage, to spells, or to all damage, if the subject is taking damage of multiple types included in the category, the subject can choose which damage type to use the resistance against."
So now having both Slashing and All Physiscal ressitance makes occasional sense. In fact, even a second "all Physical" resistance makes ocassional sense. Way less of a "no-brainer" for those armor types.

Commanders Unsteadying Strike says:
"Your attack makes your opponent more susceptible to follow-up maneuvers from your allies."
However nothing in the gameplay effect limits it to your allies. And with a agile empty hand or Grapple Weapon, it would only be a effective -2 to do Grapple afterwards.

The Athletic Maneuver Weapon Traits (Grapple, Trip, Shove, Disarm) are of questionable utility on Unarmed attacks:
- being able to use the maneuver without a Free Hand is often pointless, because you usually have a free hand just using a unarmed attack. *
- using the attacks reach is often pointless, because they don't have that reach. Or it is reach for all unarmed attacks
- adding the Attack Potency bonus to the attempt is often pointless, because if you have free hands anyway you might as well invest in items that give bonuses to all maneuvers
- the most interesting part of those Traits is avoiding critical fail by dropping the weapon: "If you critically fail a check to Grapple using the weapon, you can drop the weapon to take the effects of a failure instead of a critical failure."

That last thing is the one thing you cannot do with unarmed attacks, because they aren't weapons. But maybe you could at least allow this for some Stances and Transformations? "If you can dismiss the effect granting the unarmed attack used in the attempt, you can do that to avoid a critical failure too".

*technically none of the Stances ever specify they use your hands, but it is questinable if that means you have like a extra "Attack Hand" or two for grappling. Some Ancestry or Morph/Polymorph unarmed attacks like horns, jaws and hooves clearly are in addition to your hands, but your average claw probably needs to be empty to use (should be specified).

Because talismans and other magic items being “linked” makes some sense. You used the magic, it’s gone. Whatever’s left over isn’t doing anything useful for you. A bullet, on the other hand, is just a bullet. It being removed from the original copy or other clones is about as stupid as a shadow knife hit by a rust monster degrading the original, and there’s not really any fine line between them in terms of what’s actually happening in world.

Shallow vs Deep Cloning, nothing special.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

If they add anything, they need to make clear that is only a selection of examples. The more examples you list without explicitly saying they are examples, the more people think it is a Blacklist and anything not explicitly mentioned is somehow exempt.

I think you could pretty cleanly change the description via "(such as talismans, ammunition, or Activations with a frequency limit) (changes in bold.)

Like a hypothetical hand crossbow that has sharp bits and is designed for throwing should also not bypass reloading and you definitely shouldn't get special ammo for free this way.

Even then, the original weapon is loaded and I create 2 copies for dual wielding. If I fire one, is the other copy still loaded ? Or is it a shared quantic ammunition that disappears from the original and all copies at once ?

If the this was a weapon with a attached Talisman and you used the talisman on one, it definitely would be used up for all other copies (with Starfinder Ancestries you could have 8 copies out at once).

Chain armor Specialisation is the only armor Specialisation that doesn't grant resistance, but a weird separate damage reduction:
"Reduce the damage from critical hits by either 4 + the value of the armor’s potency rune for medium armor, or 6 + the value of the armor’s potency rune for heavy armor. This can’t reduce the damage to less than the damage rolled for the hit before doubling for a critical hit."

I think it was worded that way to get around to old rules for multiple resistances.

However with the current rules, it could simply give straight resistance to critical attacks and work.

Trip and Mounted Combat
RAW you would be:
- suffering the Prone condition while on the Mount
- unable to Dismount due to Prone (The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand.)
- unable to Crawl or Stand due to mounted defenses (Additionally, the only move action you can use is the Mount action to dismount.)

Then there is the war Saddle: "You remain mounted even if you fall unconscious until either you or someone else uses an Interact action to unfasten the straps on the saddle. A creature or effect can separate you from your mount by pulling so hard it tears the straps, but to do so, the effect’s DC, attack roll, or skill check must exceed 20."
So apparently being unconscious should knock you off. But not because you fall Prone as part of it, just unconscious itself? And it doesn't stop anything knocking you prone, like a Trip.

Neither of which makes sense and is easily overruled, but really should not need to be.

What happens when you put a combination weapon that uses ammunition (like a dagger pistol) in the Exemplar Ikon Shadow Sheath? A dagger pistol is a "one-handed thrown weapon of light Bulk or less" that fits in a sheath or holster and the Ikon says "you can Interact to draw an exact copy of the weapon from thin air."

You probably shouldn't be able to bypass reloading this way, so it should probably be clarified?

I think bullets do count under "though if you use any limited-use abilities (such as talismans or Activations with a frequency limit), they count against the weapon’s normal usages."

There is "The Deft" Epitaph if you want reload support for non-thrown weapons, so it would only be a hard limit for the Archetype anyway.

If they add anything, they need to make clear that is only a selection of examples. The more examples you list without explicitly saying they are examples, the more people think it is a Blacklist and anything not explicitly mentioned is somehow exempt.

Do "Resist all" or "Spell Damage Resistance" work against untyped damage?
Stuff like Disintegrate or Implosion.

It would be wierd if Resistance to Spells worked, but Resist All didn't. But I am unsure if those should bypass Spell Resistance in the first place.

HalcyonHorizons wrote:

Sorry if these had been said, I'm not combing through 7 pages to look.

---------

Horde of Underlings

Needs the Summoned Trait, Minion Trait, and needs to combine damage.

I theory crafted a witch build that has an average damage of near a thousand abusing it.

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I looked into this because I was thinking more about the build and I don't think you can give it the minion trait. You summon six underlings by default and you can only control 4 minions at once. You'd have to add extra rules text in to define them as one minion or whatever, but that'd add more text in and there might not be the space for that.

The "4 minion" thing is for Rituals, not spells. You can have as many minions as you can command/maintain the spells off.

But this is more like commanding a swarm (minus the saves) or a version of Earths Bile, that can be attacked. I also see overlap with the Playtest Necromancer.

Any errata would probably require a rewrite to make it more like other "Sustained, repeat damage area" spells. Probably would not be bad, but might be out of scope.
Luckily it is is Rare in case the GM does not want to mess with it.

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

It needs a clarification in either direction, since my groups have played it both ways. Errata are for resolving "suggested" things into hard rules.

I mean, that sounds like a you problem, to be blunt. It says perfectly clearly what it does. The text is not vague or contradictory.

Errata should be for things that are unclear, contradictory, or don't work. This is none of those. You're just running it incorrectly in one case. It's not the first time in these threads, either. You post a lot of things in here that should just be questions for the community instead because they have an answer already.

It is a you problem that you think all my errata requests need to be discussed, argued about or justified to you. All because you have a house rule for your tables, that you agree with.

As was established multiple times already, this thread is not for discussion or argument about the validity of a request.

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

Hulking Corpsefolk jumps you straight to large size.

No consideration if the original was medium, small, tiny before. Or already large.

I have a skittermander corpsefolk that I intend to take that feat with. I consider it hilarious.

I mean you could take in on a Raxalite or other Tiny ancestry, for even more hilarity.

But I wonder if that is truly intented.

Kineticist Versatile Blasts might not actually get around Immunities and Resistances to the Element.

Elemental Blast says: "A damage type other than a physical damage type adds its trait to the blast."
So if you are a Fire Kineticist with Versatile Blasts and chooses Cold, they get around Fire Immunity or Resistance?

Well, not actually. Unfortunately before that is says "Choose one of your kinetic elements and a damage type listed for that element" and the Impulse Trait says "If an impulse allows you to choose an element, you can choose any element you're channeling, and the impulse gains that element's trait."

So if a Fire Kineticist chooses Fire Blast, then changes the damage type to Cold with Versatile Blasts, it would be a Fire and Cold Blast. And with the changes to Resistances, that one would run into Fire Resistance or Immunity, despite the damage being changed to Cold.

It probably needs to say something like "Do not apply the Trait for the choosen element. Elemental Blast gains the trait of any damage type other then Physical."

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

Guardians Intercept Attack only mentions that you take the damage.

It does not mention secondary effects: Poison, who would be the target of a follow-up (improved) Grab ability, on-hit saves or conditions, pushback.

Could use a mention of secondary strike effects in either direction.

Maybe a "You take the entire attack or effect with the same degree of success, but otherwise apply your own Immunities, Weaknesses and Resistances" could do?

This isn't an errata issue. "You take the damage" isn't vague or unclear. It does exactly what it says: you take the damage. You don't take anything else.

This was raised more than once in the playtest and the fact that it wasn't touched at all suggests its deliberate.

It needs a clarification in either direction, since my groups have played it both ways. Errata are for resolving "suggested" things into hard rules.

Hulking Corpsefolk jumps you straight to large size.

No consideration if the original was medium, small, tiny before. Or already large.

Quote:

Security Badge is broken because it is a custom AP item.

Not sure why anyone thinks staple, powerful and/or broken options are limited to AP material at this point.

I don't think that and I did not write that.

So not sure why you read that.

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

Anyways my prediction is that this is going to be a total nothingburger, just at cost or mostly meaningless discount upgrade rules.

Divided on if that’s technically an improvement (if not one that actually fixes the core issues) or overall bad for the game as it doesn’t do much good but *does* allow security badge, ashen rune, and probably a handful of other outright broken fixed DC items to be a problem at all levels.

Security Badge is broken because it is a custom AP item.

And if an Item like Ashen rune was broken on level, that was merely hidden by the bad DC scaling. That especially should be fixed.

No, it’s broken OP and it happens to be an AP item. Being an AP item is not very probative of being broken powerful, the rate of brokenness among AP items is not much different than among all items.

Custom AP content tends to be overpowered, underpowered or have a incomplete writeup.

Luckily most of it is also marked as Uncommon, so at least GM have a shot at avoiding them.

Thlipit Contestants Archetype has the Lunge feat. But that feat requires a Melee weapon and the contestant is all about Unarmed attacks.

Premaster Golems had the annoyingly broken Golem Antimagic. While Remaster removed that and it is easy enough to replicate the changes to any non-remastered Golem, there is still the Will-O'-Wisp.

It has the same issue in worse: "Magic Immunity A will-o'-wisp is immune to all spells except force barrage, quandary, and revealing light."

While that at least doesn't magical abilities, all Spells and Kineticist Impulses are still utterly blocked - except those 3 named ones. Please consider also reworking it with similar changes.

Anyways my prediction is that this is going to be a total nothingburger, just at cost or mostly meaningless discount upgrade rules.

Divided on if that’s technically an improvement (if not one that actually fixes the core issues) or overall bad for the game as it doesn’t do much good but *does* allow security badge, ashen rune, and probably a handful of other outright broken fixed DC items to be a problem at all levels.

Security Badge is broken because it is a custom AP item.

And if a Item like Ashen rune was broken on level, that was merely hidden by the bad DC scaling. That especially should be fixed.

Todays Paizo Live name dropped "Legacy of the Forge".
And according to a Q&A segment question, it will contain official guidelines for finally scaling these item DC's.

How does Group Taunt Interact with Meta-Taunts?

Shielding Taught says "Raise a Shield, and then Taunt a creature.", making it sound like it overrides Group Taunts ability. If that is not wanted, instead write "Raise a Shield, then Taunt".

Taunting Strike meanwhile says "Make a Strike. Regardless of whether the Strike hits, you Taunt the target." Which also makes it sound like only primary Target of the Strike can be taunted.

Otherwise a special entry to say you can/can't use it with Group Taunt would be useful.

A big slug ancestry could be fun. I wonder what their heratiges would be? I grew up learning about banana slugs, and how they make toxins to scare predators. Maybe there could be enough kinds of slugs for unique heratiges? You could also do more cultural heratiges. I don't usually like it when a single ancestry has both "cultural" heratiges and "biological" heratiges.

If they had the Elf/Surki/Kobold style environmental adaptation, they could have both kinds of Heritages. The soceity can be the enviornment.

I don't think a single "Poisoned Fang/Stinger" attack on any creature mentions those are Injury poisons. So by RAW, they would still take effect even if the entire damage is resisted. When really they should not.

Guardians Intercept Attack only mentions that you take the damage.
It does not mention secondary effects: Poison, who would be the target of a follow-up (improved) Grab ability, on-hit saves or conditions, pushback.

Could use a mention of secondary strike effects in either direction.

Maybe a "You take the entire attack or effect with the same degree of success, but otherwise apply your own Immunities, Weaknesses and Resistances" could do?

Muscle Hut in melee
We now know:
- how a hut looks if he worked out
- how a hut would fight in melee against smaller opponents
- how a hut would fight against a speeder
- how a hut would fight against equal sized opponents
Interesting use of a sideways dodge roll, has something of "Nimble dodge" and a literal "Side step". Agility you would not suspect from a hut.

Usefull art refences for any large, slug-like ancestry in melee situations.

Arena fight Hazard
While it at first appeared to be a 2v6, the 6 were not fighting together. It turned into a "2vsFFA". There were never more then 2 enemies per protagonist, as they did not coordinate - they either fought amongst themselves in the background, got in each others way or actively attacked each other.

I would probably do this as a Hazard, where a random "enemy" each round attack you (allowing you to strike the back against them with checks), with different attacks (which can include stuff like grabs/partial swallows). You can decide to stick figthing with one, but that is an additional attack each round.
The victory condition is defeating all foes (hard because it is dangerous to focus fire) or disabling the cage. But that last one seemed somewhat accidental, it might just have been the inevitable result of enough successes/critical successes being accrued, rather then a specific check.

The head shield
Embo was there with his head shield and as a major adversary, with 2 fights.
If people haven't asked for "how to play Embo" already, they will soon enough. In fact, I had forgotten all about him.

And I think there might be enough in his scenees for a Monk Fighting/Ranger style, a Subclass or even a Archetype. Notably I don't think he ever used that head-shield with a weapon, so technically his hands were free or he was actually unable to attack without breaking the defense.
I am thinking "Greater Cover if you do not move after use, Standard if you do move". Definitely more useful for a Duel, then a multi-party battle. With the standard "break out of cover if you use a attack action".

Friendly state and attacks on allies
A interesting scene where Grogu used theanimal friend force power to tame a hostile creature. But that did not take it out of the fight, as it still reacted to someone else seriously hurting/incapacitating Embo.

I just watched the movie Monday and had some thoughts what might be relevant for SF2:
Art references, things that might be interesting to adapt into mechanics, things that people will be asking for.

There will have to be spoilers, but unfortuantely large or repetitive spoiler tags make the post pretty unwieldy. So I am making a large spoiler whitespace, then put the spoilery content in a seperate post for easier quoting.

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What if you have multiple reasons to make a Perception check during exploration? For example:

- the Hazard does not list a minimum Proficiency (check even without Search)
- you have a Lantern Implement (search Effect even if not searching)
- you have a suitable Hazard Finder Feat (search Effect even if not searching)
- you are taking the Search exploration activity

Would all that investment fail because of "duplicate effects" rule? Do we get one roll per valid effect? Something else?

I don't see how anything I said contributes to "DEX or STR supremacy".

Every other word in your post is that discussion.

Edit to clarify: I did not mean "every second word". I meant "every word in that post, except the ones I just quoted".

One thing I’ve never really understood is why thrown weapons use Dexterity for accuracy instead of Strength. It would make more sense if thrown weapons were tied to Strength by default, while finesse thrown weapons like daggers could use either Strength or Dexterity. From a balance perspective, Dexterity-based characters already have little reason to use thrown weapons outside of flavor. Thrown weapons require far more investment to function properly (such as Quick Draw and a returning rune) while regular ranged weapons offer much better range and more useful traits with fewer drawbacks. From a logic standpoint, throwing something effectively relies more on physical power than finesse. The exception would be small weapons specifically designed for throwing, like darts, where precision and technique matter more than strength.

PF2e is melee-centric, to the point where all-melee parties are fairly common. That often forces GMs into awkward situations when dealing with flying enemies, either avoiding using flying creatures altogether, have them ignore the fact that they can fly, or keep them low enough for players to hit with jumps and melee Strikes. On top of that, keeping a primary melee weapon fully upgraded is already expensive enough as is, so asking Strength-based characters to maintain an upgraded thrown weapon as a backup feels unreasonable, especially when they’ll be attacking with a −3 or −4 penalty compared to their main weapon.

We have literal decades of trying to avoid DEX or STR supremacy in DnD score systems, or trying to argue in one direction or the other.

Trying to restart it will likely just derail the discussion.

Javelin is listed as reload " - ", which I take to be neglible/0.

That doesn't fit the actual rules:

If anything that is Reload 1 but worse - because you can't use "Draw Weapon" with most free Reloads or Reload action compression.

The majority of Ranged attack Feats lock out thrown weapons, because they say

You are wielding a ranged weapon with reload 0

The only thrown weapon that can met this, is the Shuriken. And Chakri, if worn on the wrist.

However I don't see a reason you can't use a Double Shot style Feat, by the magic of: just wielding two thrown weapon in your hands.
Or a Returning Rune.

Please reword those Feats to be more permisive, so Thrown weapons have a lot more Feat support.

Something like
- "ability to make X ranged strike without spending actions on reload"? Where X is usually two, but sometimes more.
- just cut the requirement and maybe add "you can use as many reload 0 actions as you need for this"? Maybe make a Trait "quick shots"?
- add a line to Thrown that "you meet Reload 0 requirements if you are already wielding multiple Thrown weapons"?

Dive Bomb might be missing a few limits.

If they choose Long Jump it let's them:
- Stride as part of the Long Jump, minimum 10ft already allows the Strike at the end
- roll the minimum DC of 15 (trivial with a +13 proficiency bonus at level 9) to jump an extra 15 ft
- Strike or Shove, probably with off guard

For a single action without use limit.

All the checks have flat DC (the fly option doesn't even have a default DC, you could be 5).

And they can choose to only Stride 0-5ft, automatically failing the long jump check for a 10ft leap and then still meet the 10ft requirement for the Strike.

I totally forgot Assurance is a thing. By level 11 they Auto-crit that DC15 check with Assurance.

This rule:
"Targeting Companions
Some spells and abilities can affect your companion. When “companion” is used in a stat block, it refers to animal companions, familiars, and types of companions appearing in other books—such as elemental companions."

doesn't include rules that mention Companions - only spells and abilities. It is missing Rules like getting Knocked out:
"Player characters, their companions, and other significant characters and creatures don't automatically die when they reach 0 Hit Points."

So regardless how stupid it is, there is a RAW argument that the Dying rules don't apply to Familiars and Animal Companions.

no it doesn't as anything that succeeds is already suppressed for a bombard

I am pretty sure Pin Down even works on people taht critically succeed.

Otherwise it would have to exclude that one.

Remastered Spellwatch Armor Rune might be overtuned? Victors Wreath needed a nerf, because it could do very similar stuff on a action.

Slightly more limited to spells, but entirely passive and rolls every turn.

Dive Bomb might be missing a few limits.

If they choose Long Jump it let's them:
- Stride as part of the Long Jump, minimum 10ft already allows the Strike at the end
- roll the minimum DC of 15 (trivial with a +13 proficiency bonus at level 9) to jump an extra 15 ft
- Strike or Shove, probably with off guard

For a single action without use limit.

All the checks have flat DC (the fly option doesn't even have a default DC, you could be 5).

And they can choose to only Stride 0-5ft, automatically failing the long jump check for a 10ft leap and then still meet the 10ft requirement for the Strike.

Animist has non-standard wording about being incapable of "using the apparition’s vessel spell".
Both under dispersal and the Spiritual Expansion Spell Spellshape Feat.

Does that block casting the spell, sustaining the spell or both?

There is a old developer video that states "your last action was X" only applies if that last action was during this turn. It is usually assumed to also apply to "if your next action" things.

Unfortunately neither are clearly stated anywhere. (In-Depth Action Rules would be a good place for that).

The closest is Spellshape saying "The benefit is also lost if your turn ends before you cast the spell.". But it mentioning that sounds like a specific rule, instead of restating a general one.