Claxon's page

Claxon wrote:

K1 wrote:

Dex users

- +7 reflex saving throws
- comfortable armor ( Explorer clothes )
- +7 stealth, acrobatics and Thievery
- eventually, +7 on initiative
- +7 hit ranged and finesse weapons

STR users

- +7 flat dmg with melee weapons
- +7 hit melee weapons
- +7 athletics
- extra bulk

The reason why many dex based classes are not allowed to get armor is pretty obvious.

Even if in some versions dex builds could have been better than any other build.

The initiative and skill bonuses assume that the character is using stealth as their exploration activity and are interested in dex based skills which are not necessarily true.

It's not nearly as lopsided a comparison as you're painting it.

The main advantage is that dex boosts a save while strength doesn't.

That is your personal point.

If you had added something else I forgot, that would have then made room for a more interesting discussion.

By saying "3 skills are situational, as ranged attacks. What only counts is the ST" you are not being objective.

While of course having +7 on a St, if you Plan not to increase reflex above 10, is definitely godlike.

I did add something, the observation that your putting more importance on things than is really credible. Not every character is going to want those skills. Many people probably wouldn't bother to get those skills beyond trained.

I never said ranged attacks were situational, they are the main thing to go with dex besides AC and saves.

Heavy armor lets you ignore dex if you choose. But in this edition of Pathfinder given the ability to increase 4 stats at level up, most people would be better off sacrificing either int/wis/cha than sacrificing .

Fighters actually have it easy. Str/Dex/Con/Wis is all they need. Champions are the one class that have a problem Because they need Cha, but they might also want Wis, Str, Con, and Dex (except they can't really afford Dex and Wis so they have to choose which they prefer).

If you are a martial character you're probably going to want a mixture of str and dex anyways, for both melee and ranged attacks. Of course, for fighters and champions they might forgo dex and use thrown weapons and just ignore their reflex save.

Dex users

- +7 reflex saving throws
- comfortable armor ( Explorer clothes )
- +7 stealth, acrobatics and Thievery
- eventually, +7 on initiative
- +7 hit ranged and finesse weapons

STR users

- +7 flat dmg with melee weapons
- +7 hit melee weapons
- +7 athletics
- extra bulk

The reason why many dex based classes are not allowed to get armor is pretty obvious.

Even if in some versions dex builds could have been better than any other build.

The initiative and skill bonuses assume that the character is using stealth as their exploration activity and are interested in dex based skills which are not necessarily true.

It's not nearly as lopsided a comparison as you're painting it.

The main advantage is that dex boosts a save while strength doesn't.

Diego Rossi wrote:

First of all, the rule of not turning your PCs into mush. It is a CR 15 encounter for level 9 (at most) characters, against an aquatic creature, in the water, while unprepared.

If you try to squeeze the maximum damage, you end with squeezed PCs.

Second, the grapple rules. Maintaining a single grapple is a standard action. There are no special rules for creatures with multiple limbs with the grab ability that allow them to maintain more than one grapple. Without a specific rule, they are limited to maintain the grapple on a single target.

I don't want turning the party into mush xD,i just want some logic. There are 4 tentacles with five target grappled, and can you only keep the grapple in one? But on the other hand, the Black Magga can attack, grapple them, and release them, and at the next round attack them with all the tentacles. I think that should be a review of this.

That's why I was thinking of a home rule. I don't want to kill the party, but don't want that the Black Magga only can moves a tentacle in an round xD

It is a known flaw in the grapple rules that characters with an abnormally large number of appendages are limited to maintaining only one grapple per round. In the thread I'm thinking of, one poster concluded that the optimal attack routine ended up being attacking with all tentacles, getting free grapple attempts with grab, constricting, and then releasing. And do this with all the tentacles the creature had, against 1 enemy.

I think it wasn't an octopus, but something similar to an octopus.

But yeah, the problem is that doing that method makes them incredibly deadly. But if you run them as only grappling once and holding onto the PC it makes them too easy.

I mean, a rogue or ranger or barbarian with the same AC as a fighter doesn't seem like nonsense to me.

Now, I'm not accounting for PF2 mechanics, which given that they pegged the fighter as having master heavy armor and in order for that to mean something that have to limit everyone else who doesn't have that.

What I mean is that in the PF1 flavor, armor wasn't that big a deal for a fighter. They got armor training, which was largely worth ignoring unless you were an archer fighter.

Fighters always had good Ac, but setting the limits based off of what they can do is a new thing. In PF1 other characters had better methods to achieve better AC than the fighter.

Now, this isn't to say that I actually care that much. But it is a new paradigm for a new edition.

One that I'm not bothered by, but I also wouldn't go so far as to say that it's "non-sense" that a rogue, ranger, or barbarian could have equal or higher AC.

Claxon wrote:

Any class except Fighter and Champion will want to go with the lightest armor they can that they can still reach the dex cap.

I mean, it's still worthwhile considering heavy armor if you get scaled proficiency with it because it has a higher total AC cap. Most classes don't get that and getting full proficiency is kinda tricky, but if you do for whatever reason it's worthwhile.

I will grant the caveat that if you get scaling proficiency with heavy armor then it can be worth, as it has a higher max overall AC.

Currently there are no base classes that offer that, except for fighter and champion.

I believe there is at least one prestige archetype that offers it.

Claxon wrote:

In PF1 it was basically a re-skinned short sword, with an expanded crit range.

I'd make it a shortsword with deadly trait and exotic proficiency

I would like to draw your attention to the fact the katana isn't exotic.

Oh right, forgot about that.

So give it the uncommon trait instead, as the katana, and maybe deadly and otherwise its a shortsword.

In PF1 it was basically a re-skinned short sword, with an expanded crit range.

I'd make it a shortsword with deadly trait and exotic proficiency

Claxon wrote:

Armor usage is completely about capping out your dex unless you get specialization, which is champion and fighter only.

Any class except Fighter and Champion will want to go with the lightest armor they can that they can still reach the dex cap.

Well, depends on magic armours. The extra actions are worth it imo.

Can you provide examples? I must admit I haven't looked extensively at any specific magic armor options, but the few I did look at didn't seem that interesting to me.

Armor usage is completely about capping out your dex unless you get specialization, which is champion and fighter only.

Any class except Fighter and Champion will want to go with the lightest armor they can that they can still reach the dex cap.

Regardless of whether or not precision damage stacks the same effect, Hunt Prey, definitely shouldn't stack with itself.

In my mind, a Ranger cannot benefit from another Ranger's Hunt Prey (if they've targeted the same creature). The abilities are the exact same thing.

That's true, it wouldn't technically be a shove but that's the closest thing.

When the horse tries act on the grabber and the grabbed there can be only two potential outcomes in my mind:
1) The horse moves and separates the grabber and grabbed. This in my opinion is an unacceptable outcome, it makes getting out of the grapple too easy. Grapple is already much weaker than it used to be unless you get a critical success. Making it easy to get away like this just isn't acceptable in my opinion. Of note, if the horse can critically succeed at a grapple the former grabber is unable to continue taking actions to grapple the other person (due to the restrained trait) so the formerly grabbed person would be freed.

2) If the horse moving doesn't separate the grabber from the grabbed, then via the immobilized trait:

You can’t use any action with the move trait. If you’re immobilized by something holding you in place and an external force would move you out of your space, the force must succeed at a check against either the DC of the effect holding you in place or the relevant defense (usually Fortitude DC) of the monster holding you in place.

They can be moved, but only by making the check, and it doesn't say it ends the effect.

Perhaps the immobilized trait needs to add that the effects is ended, but lacking that callout my only conclusion is that you move both the grabber and the grabbed.

I don't know what a 3rd possibility would look like, I just can't imagine it.

Ultimately this edition missed the very common desire of people to try to extricate their friends and allies from a grapple and how that should be handled.

In PF1 there only rule was that attempting to join the grapple to free someone amounted to a +1 aid attempt for the ally to get free. Most people were displeased with that despite that being the only rule on the issue.

I am trying to bridge the gap in the lack of rules by making some interpretations while adhering as much as I can to the rules.

Claxon wrote:

HammerJack wrote:

So why is it that an animal trying to pull the character couldn't fall under the heading of "an external force that would move you out of your space"?

I was just about to address this because I didn't specifically before, it does. But it still doesn't break the grapple. It just moves you both.

If an outside force moves the grabbed character out of the reach of the grabbing creature, then, it’s your position that the outside force drags the grabbing creature along with it?

Well, the creature attempting to move the grabbed character in this scenario would be performing a shove maneuver against the grabber. In which case both characters would be moved IMO.

Ask of right now, there are no rules to for another character separate a grabbed character from the grabber. Well I guess if you can restrain a character (critical success on a grapple) that would automatically cause them to be unable to make the athletics check against their target.

So if you can beat the fortitude DC of the monster by 10 I would let you separate them, mechanically it would be like grappling them (restraining) and letting go.

My group, still being new to the new mechanics basically just has an agreement that we can change anything for free without retraining as long as it isn't particularly central to your character, but we also trust each other not to abuse and realize that we're each just trying to find the mechanics that best represent the kind of character we have in our minds.

That means, for instance you could have started out as fighter, but decide that what you really wanted was the hunt prey mechanic of the ranger and to two weapon fight and switch between classes in between play session.

It's more just a thing to not lock people into mechanics they didn't understand or realized something works better for their concept and feel trapped.

You have outward character continuity without punishing players.

Eventually this will go away, and if someone abuses it (GM discretion) they will be asked to make their character back to the original, but that hasn't come up for our group since we all understand the limits.

Noe of which is a rules based answer, but potentially something to discuss with your GM.

Well considering that under the normal rules there is no special effects for critical failures on attack rolls, my thought would be perhaps you shouldn't use critical failures in PF2. Is there a Paizo published critical hi/fumblet deck for PF2? Or are people trying to use the PF1 version?

If there is, then perhaps it only happens on a nat 1.

Rogues are the best at skills, and skills are actually good in this edition.

Not to mention that a sneak attacking rogue keeps up with other martials in terms of damage. They're not winning it, but they're doing enough to contribute that its relevant. They also get some nice debuff with the debilitating strikes.

So why is it that an animal trying to pull the character couldn't fall under the heading of "an external force that would move you out of your space"?

I was just about to address this because I didn't specifically before, it does. But it still doesn't break the grapple. It just moves you both.

That's why I was talking about effectively doing the shove maneuver.

Think of it like this. I have a little dog (10 lbs) who loves his chew toys.

I can grab that chew toy and pull, do you know what happens? The dog comes with it. I can lift them both off the ground, the dog is hanging from the chew toy. The only way I can separate them is to pry it out of his mouth or the dog chooses to let go.

In this scenario, I think anything without arms/hands probably lacks the ability to try to separate a grabber from the grabbed.

It's definitely not Bluff replaces all uses of Intimidate.

It's possible that you can use Bluff instead of Intimidate for Demoralize actions, but I think that's not even the intention. Else the feat text would have stopped there.

Instead it goes on to talk about Dazzling Display and feats that require it. But Dazzling Display just says to make a check to demoralize enemies, so it wouldn't be necessary to say to replace this specific instance with Bluff since it would be covered it you replaced all Demoralize attempts with Bluff.

I think Empty Threats only replaces Intimidate with Bluff when making a Dazzling Display or other feats that list Dazzling Display as a pre-req.

Alternatively, the words after "You can use the Bluff skill to demoralize opponents in combat instead of Intimidate" add no meaning or detail to how the feat works and should be removed.

Grabbed specifies immobilized. That's why I'm saying the animal companion can't pull you free on its own.

And I didn't say a companion or trained animal isn't allowed to use the aid action, in fact that was my suggestion for the only way they're allowed to help their rider get free. I was saying they can't pull the rider free no matter what check they make. The best the animal companion could do in my mind is drag both the rider and grappler (still grabbing the rider) but that would mechanical be represented by the animal companion performing a shove maneuver against the grappler.

I can see that the aid action works there, but I also see it as a possibility.

First of all I would consider the monster.

A halfling grabs a human on a horse?

The horse wouldn't give a crap about the halfling, and will continue to move, eventually with his mounted owner.

A human grabs a fire Giant on a huge elephant?

The human will be like a dude catching the bus at the last moment. Grabbing him, and then by getting carried away with it.

A orc grabs a human on his horse?
The horse would be free to try to escape the situation, which has 7 possible ending

1) the horse gets away ( whether you give him a dc or not ) without his rider.

2) the horse gets away with his rider ( check + aid )

3) the orc beats the human but not the horse. He is pulled in the horse direction. How long depends the horse str and the degree of success

4) the orc beats the horse but not the human. The human sets free and the horse doesn't move.

5) the orc beats both human and horse. Human doesn't set free and the horse doesn't move.

6) both orc and horse beat the human. The human is getting torn apart. It could suffer Normal dmg, or eventually we could consider his hardness and the hp of a specific part of his body.

7) the human beats the orc. See nr 2.

Disagree on the bolded. The rider is immobilized unless they beat the Fort DC of the grappler. The most the horse can do is the Aid action (IMO). The horse cannot pull the rider free, the horse could pull free of the rider though (the rider lets them go) and do other things.

Allowing the horse to pull the rider free isn't supported by the rules.

RecklessPrudence wrote:

Claims I don't have permission? I read it closer to when it was first uploaded, but wanted to go back and read it again, only I can't. Did OP make it private?

Is for me as well.

Same here

K1 wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I agree that it's going to involve table variation.

However, I for example would allow the mount to move out from under the grabbed rider and have the rider fall prone.

In essence, the rider has been yanked off their mount.

This would be a check too.

The character could hold with the legs and then will be a 3x check.

To think that a mount could dismount a grabbed rider for free is not real.

I think maybe the two of you are talking about different things? I read Claxon's statement as a ruling assuming that the rider was trying to NOT stay in the saddle.

Yeah, I was assuming the rider wasn't trying to stay on the mount and instead commanded the mount to move, and they weren't trying to stay mounted. Maybe to have the mount flank or do something else.

@K1

It's not that the rider wants to go prone, but they may want their mount to not be stuck underneath them. And the creature that grabbed the rider may have too strong a hold on the rider to be freed. I'm not inclined to let the mount pull the rider free (on its own), ever. The rider would need to make a check to free itself as per normal grapple rules, potentially being aided by the horse as under Aid action.

However, I would let the rider command the mount to move out from under them (so the mount can get free to do things) and as a penalty the rider falls prone.

I agree that it's going to involve table variation.

However, I for example would allow the mount to move out from under the grabbed rider and have the rider fall prone.

In essence, the rider has been yanked off their mount.

If you trying to sell it then the third party products forum is the most appropriate, under product discussion.

If you're not trying to monetize it then Homebrew forum for 2nd Edition would be the most appropriate place.

Mathmuse wrote:

I myself have an Intelligence of at least 18

And your Modesty score is even higher, no doubt

While it is a bit boastful, mathmuse has written scientific papers on mathematics that have been published. They are definitely of high intelligence, though I hesitate to translate that to direct numbers.

Daenerys is a high level aristocrat with some special version of leadership that gives her much bigger dragons than she should have with the normal rules.

She was a (crazy) leader, not really a combatant.

If you want a character that is a combatant that involves dragons, i would look to something that focuses on ranged combat or magic.

GoT was a pretty low magic setting though, so I guess this partially depends on if you're trying to run a low magic campaign.

Power attack as first attack (with Furious Focus and a second attack) is mathematically better than regular attack first and then power attack.

The accuracy loss to the more damaging of your two attacks is significant.

If I were giving fighters general advice it would be only to use power attack when you are trying to overcome hardness or DR and not otherwise.

You get enough class feats that you could drop one on Power Attack and not be too sad if you only used it occasionally, but I personally think Sudden Charge and Exacting Strike are much better choices.

Well so far in PF2 we have very few re-roll abilities, and it does mean reroll abilities wouldn't be as useful on secret rolls. However many of the reroll abilities have trigger that happen on failed or critically failed actions. Actions that you would be aware of failing typically.

Some of them wouldn't involve secret checks, like the Barbarian's Perfect Clarity for attacks.

Let's examine however a different example. Halfling Luck ability triggers when you fail a skill check or saving throw, this one would be a problem because failing a will save could likely be a secret check. And if you don't know you failed, you couldn't use the ability.

For abilities that fall into the second camp rather than the first there probably should be an official way of resolving that contention, though I don't know what it would be.

My suspicion on how it should be run (not saying I'm right) is the following:
It's basically like a 30ft fly speed that can be used once per round and doesn't require additional movement to move directly vertical, nor does it gain bonus movement for going down.

You physically traverse the intervening distance, so anything that would happen if you flew that path should still happen.

How do you jump around corner? I dunno. It's magic.

This seems like the most reasonable interpretation to me of how the spell is presented in the rules.

Yes, Divine Lance is the new Detect Evil, in the sense that if you see a Champion running around using it on everyone their alignment is likely to become evil very soon.

Most people just accepted that historical accuracy isn't the point of the weapons table, and that's its all just based on "fantasy weapons".

If you were to do anything I would simply rename the existing mechanics of weapons to fit whatever description makes you happy, but I wouldn't actually adjust the mechanics of existing weapons since striking the right balance is going to be hard if you're not really familiar with all of the rules and existing weapons.

Mechanical balance between weapons is far more important to the game than historical accuracy is.

Claxon wrote:

HammerJack wrote:

Ten10 wrote:

Alaryth wrote:

I really dislike the concept of secret rolls. I'm liking PF2 far more than I expected, but this is one of the few areas I profundly dislike, and near all those dislikes are connected to the same; the loss of player control/agency that put even more pressure on the DM. When I GM (half the time, currently more on PF2)I do near all roll open. I'm of the opinion that the DM is just one more player on the table, the narrative should be as even as possible.

How is the DM rolling some checks a loss of player control/agency?

The phrase gets used in a lot of weird ways, these days.

And in this case it's flatly wrong.

Agency is about the player being able to choose how their character acts and having those options be meaningful.

The GM rolling instead of the player doesn't reduce player agency. It reduces metagaming and increases suspense.

You're not be taking away their character's agency, but you are taking away their actual real-life human agency, the freedom to do something they want to do: roll a dice while playing a game.

The players get to roll plenty of dice, just not the secret checks.

I mean sure, you could get the player to randomly roll 20s at the time or in advance and then just tell them nothing, but even that can influence paranoid players and cause metagaming in others.

I really only see this as a decrying of players being defensive about rolls and wanting to make them because they're superstitious.

If I had a player who was truly upset about it I guess I could accommodate them by allowing them to roll in advance, but I would still randomize the order in which the rolls were used afterwards.

I would say leaning in or out costs an action. So if you want to begin and end your turn with cover you need to spend two actions.

Although thinking about it that would be equivalent to just steping in and out from cover some I'm not sure if that's fair.

The rulebook implies the whole thing should cost at least one action.

Not sure what to do really.

Claxon wrote:

It always seemed kind of hollow that your patron really didn't affect you at all.

It seems to me that a witch's patron should expect certain things of the witch, and if the witch doesn't provide those things (not worship, that's the gods' prerogative) the patron would withdraw patronage. What, exactly, that should mean I'm not sure, but it should not be just a repeat of the cleric's relation to his or her deity.

I agree it shouldn't be a repeat, but it should probably have some similarities.

If my post implied "repeat" to you that was not my intention.

Ten10 wrote:

Alaryth wrote:

I really dislike the concept of secret rolls. I'm liking PF2 far more than I expected, but this is one of the few areas I profundly dislike, and near all those dislikes are connected to the same; the loss of player control/agency that put even more pressure on the DM. When I GM (half the time, currently more on PF2)I do near all roll open. I'm of the opinion that the DM is just one more player on the table, the narrative should be as even as possible.

How is the DM rolling some checks a loss of player control/agency?

The phrase gets used in a lot of weird ways, these days.

And in this case it's flatly wrong.

Agency is about the player being able to choose how their character acts and having those options be meaningful.

The GM rolling instead of the player doesn't reduce player agency. It reduces metagaming and increases suspense.

I agree 95% with DeadManWalking analysis except I put Charisma and Intelligence as equally unimportant. Getting to trained only in a skill (which is all Intelligence will give you if your class features don't revolve around it) isn't very good. Unless you want knowledge skills it can be passed in my opinion. There are other better ways of getting skills.

Namely taking Adopted Ancestry for Clever Improviser from the Human Ancestry list will make you about the equivalent of trained in all skills.

I like the idea of them being more setting rooted. PF1 called them patrons, but they were really just a word that grouped together bonus spells along vaguely thematic lines and there was no real connection between what you picked and what your witch represented.

So I'm really excited at the prospect of them being more meaningful.

I'd be kind of happy to see witches be more like Clerics but without the divine spell list and not tied only to deities. But I think they should have anathema and certain restrictions.

It always seemed kind of hollow that your patron really didn't affect you at all.

Some people want Lord of the Rings instead of more traditional D&D fantasy.

Both are equally good, just depends on what you prefer.

Edit: See above

IIRC, we also had a pair of gloves in PF1 that basically gave enhancement bonus to weapons thrown, but i can't recall the name of it.

We might get something like that too.

I'd be okay with a system wherein I have 10 daggers for throwing, I pay to put runes on one with potency & striking and the rest end up with the same bonus somehow. And then I proceed to throw and use them all up.

Generally speaking this is worse than just having returning on that one dagger, so the cost should honestly end up at about the same.

I wish they just let the doubling rings work on thrown weapons.

Matter of perspective I guess, cause that seems awfully low to me.

It's a 10% higher chance to be hit or crit. It's not great. That's also why you get 12 hp per level.

Barbarians were always about face tanking/"best defense is a good offense".

With the plethora of healing options, as long as you can make it through combat conscious you're going to be alright.

I just want to clarify a point.

Your AC isn't that bad. Compared to a non-shield using non-heavy armor user which otherwise has max AC, you will be 2 points behind.

Rage is -1 and Clumsy condition is another -1. That's it.

It's not great, but it's not world shakingly bad either.

I think whether or not buying several +3 potency runes for multiple throwing weapons is viable depends on viewpoint. At 16th level when they become available it's about 10% of your wealth. As you continue to level up that percentage goes down. The real problem is that it doesn't including the striking runes, which are equally important and more costly.

Personally my group doesn't roll for "Exploration Stealth" until there is an enemy to hide from and then it's also for init. Unless the whole party is using stealth (usually with Follow the Expert) and wants to avoid the enemy entirely (and the enemy doesn't notice the party).

I mean it still affects fort saves. So pretty darn important considering how nasty a crit failed fort save can be.

But yes, it's not really important for HP and is arguably less important in PF2 than in PF1, until you realize how rare increases to your saves are.

Honestly I consider con to be something you should spend an ability score increase on whenever you get them, but not any of your character choice selections when building your character (except for the choice of 4 ability increases).

Honestly, a character should typically ignore either dex or strength and then either int or charisma.

Int only adds more trained skills, which typically isn't worth it. Especially not for humans with Clever Improviser.

Charisma is only important for charisma skills unless your class keys off it.

Strength is only important for melee focused combatants.

Dex is important for ranged martials and AC for not heavy armor classes.

Con and wisdom are the two stats I would always recommend increasing because they are tied to saves that will have incredibly bad effects if you crit fail.

Wisdom also drives perception, which also drives init in most cases.

As others have noticed, this tactic only works if you play into it. Rather than allow them to do this, pull back and force them stride twice to reach an PC. This will likely causes some of the enemy group to be out of range even after two strides.

This sort of thing only works if you don't attempt to improve your tactics at all.

The only thing that would really be necessary (IMO) is rolling the weapon potency and striking runes into character progression rather than buying them.

And I think it's doable, we just have to analyze when to grant them and how much to reduce WBL by.

Since the doubling ring allows you to grant the fundamental weapon runes to two weapons I think this should be an ability of the characters that they grant to their weapons (for damage dice increase) and just an inherent accuracy increases for the characters.

I think you could probably just grant the accuracy increase at the level when they normally become available. The striking rune is a little more difficult. I think I'd only grant the first two levels for free and leave 1 (high level version) of the rune which increases the damage. Mostly because on theoretical characters I've built the 3rd striking rune is so expensive that it really inhibits your ability to buy other things, so I haven't actually purchased it.

I would caution against it. That books was written still in the early years of PF1 and doesn't necessarily mean that the writers followed the rules.

For a GM creating a character, rating the overall challenge of the character is more important than any specific adherence to rules.

For a PC...make things easy on your GM. If they we're nice enough to let you play something with racial hit dice in the first place don't try to force this issue.

I suspect, that you might get a couple of hex cantrips, btut hey're going to be on the weaker side of things (whatever weak might mean in terms of debuff, not sure in PF2 yet).

But generally unlimited use strong hexes are probably gone. We probably wont see misfortune, at least not like it was in PF1. Maybe a misfortune hex that lasts one round and gives a -1 penalty to attacks, or saves, or skills could be an all day thing that exists (as a cantrip).

But based on the state of buffing and debuffing as they are now...I just think the class is going to feel very different from what it did in PF1.

Perhaps they will create a "sharding" property like the PF1 enchant that basically just says "As you make an attack with this weapon instead of actually letting go a copy breaks off to complete the attack and disappears once the attack is resolved."

Well, lets think of it as a comparison to ammunition based weapons.

If you throw a weapon, it's definitely easiest if you have the returning rune.

But let's assume you don't want to.

Instead you just buy multiple weapons with attack bonus runes at max, and damage dice bonus runes at one less than max for your level. It's expensive, but the damage dice bonus is the more expensive of the two runes.

However, your thrown weapon gets to add strength (something even propulsive weapons only get half of) and you get to use your main attack attribute rather than switch to dex.

In terms of damage, it probably works out as a wash even without the extra damage dice because of the strength damage (though it will depend on dice size, and I haven't run the math).

Certainly the easiest way is just buying a weapon with the returning rune.

Unlike older version of returning, at least this one returns your weapon to you as soon as the strike is resolved so you don't have to worry about multiple returning weapons.