Darksol the Painbringer's page

As the title.

We had an encounter with enemies weak to Holy, and the Sanctification rules seem unclear as to whether it only works for Spirit damage effects, effects with the Sanctified trait, or all Strikes.

The question is in regards to a Warpriest that is only 4th level.

At the time, we ruled that because they are Sanctified Holy, their Strikes and Sanctified spells apply the weakness, but since I don't own a PC1, and Nethys won't be updated anytime soon, I have no text to properly read.

So RoE produced a new Primal cantrip called Glass Shield, which is also shared with the Arcane list. It says that it functions "like the Shield cantrip," but even with similar mechanics, I am confused as to the direct similarities it shares.

1. If I use Shield Block with Glass Shield, does this also lock me out of the Shield cantrip, should I also have access to it (from another source), and vice-versa, or is this limitation specifically for locking you out of the same exact spell (i.e. can't use Glass Shield twice in a row)?

2. If I am targeted with Magic Missiles while using Glass Shield, can it be used to block the damage like the original Shield spell, or is this an unintended oversight?

So our group used Disintegrate last night that basically checked all the boxes of what it does, and it just seems like it's missing a lot of crucial information to adjudicate what does/doesn't work on it.

We had a target that was hit by it and was reduced to 0 HP. The issues are two-fold:

1. Disintegrate doesn't have a damage type. This is not consistent with any other spell or effect in the game that is typed out in some fashion. Even damage from falling is stated to be Bludgeoning (by default, anyway; I'm sure a GM will choose Piercing if falling into a pit of spikes, for example), so the idea that it just does not or cannot have a damage type is absurd when even something as basic as Falling has a damage type. The most logical answer would be Force or Fire damage, given that you're hit with something so powerful that you just turn to ashes if you're weak enough. As it stands, the only type of resistance that would work against this spell is either a Resistance (except) line, or Resistance All (which would probably work regardless of whether Disintegrate is defined a damage type or not, but not the point to be made here). Even worse, since it's not defined whether the Disintegrate damage is energy-based or not (because again, it's not typed in any fashion), even an enemy with, say, Resistance 15 Physical (except Silver) would apply its Resistance to it, and it seems hard to justify that being the case, but RAW, it could work, because again, the damage type isn't specified. Given that we were fighting Incorporeal creatures in this combat, (which usually have Resistance to all except a few damage types), being able to spell out what damage type Disintegrate actually is would be better guidance as to whether certain Resistances do or don't apply (with the only exception being Resistance All period, in which case the typing doesn't really matter to begin with).

2. Disintegrate has an effect of turning you to ash once you reach 0 HP, which is ambiguous as to what that precisely means mechanically, since it's not indicated that this is because of a Death effect, as it's lacking this trait. It could just as well be a sort of gravitational pull that condenses their body to the point of being fine powder, or a flame so hot that it just cooks them into ashes, instead of a Death effect, since I can see the argument dismissing this being a Death effect (otherwise physical undead like Skeletons and Zombies would be immune, for example, which probably doesn't make sense with the spell), because it's a matter of turning a physical creature to actual ashes, which can be done in a manner of ways, as I've described. The issue became that, with Breath of Life, it expressly denotes that creatures reduced to 0 HP via Disintegrate cannot be affected by the spell, and it's listed alongside other Death trait effects, so it creates this confusion of "Is this a death effect? It doesn't have the trait. But why wouldn't it have the trait if it's basically a death effect?"

So I recently had an idea to make a (Gold) Dragonscale Kobold Summoner with a (Red) Dragon Eidolon, and looking at all of the options, it seems difficult for me to identify a build path, largely because I don't quite understand the scaling or options that can be available over time, such as when I can expect my Dragon Eidolon to Fly, carry me around, etc.

I also don't know how precisely to build it based on what feats might be available to me, since one idea was to implement Dragon Disciple for some of the cool effects there, making it so that I have other options besides commanding my Eidolon or casting my few spell slots, but the issue becomes that I'm very feat-starved, because I need feats for myself, my Eidolon, and for Dragon Disciple. And before we ask if it's Free Archetype or not, I'd rather not implement that as an option unless I get confirmation that it's available, so let's assume that it's not for ease of build access.

Has anyone else built a Dragon Eidolon Summoner before? If so, what was your play experience, and what options did you think were good/bad? If you were to build differently from before, what options would you have picked instead?

We had this come up in a session last night against an invisible BBEG spellcaster, and I'm looking to see if there is something we're missing here, or if this really is just an ambiguous rule.

Our party Fighter, whom was Hasted, moved up to the BBEG Spellcaster with Flanking, activated Disruptive Stance, and used Improved Knockdown to debilitate, damage, and debuff the BBEG (since it was a Critical with a Fearsome weapon).

However, the BBEG had a Contingency in place to use Dimension Door if they got low enough health, which triggered after the Improved Knockdown took place.

Here's what Contingency says:

You prepare a spell that will trigger later. While casting contingency, you also cast another spell of 4th level or lower with a casting time of no more than 3 actions. This companion spell must be one that can affect you. You must make any decisions for the spell when you cast contingency, such as choosing a damage type for resist energy. During the casting, choose a trigger under which the spell will be cast, using the same restrictions as for the trigger of a Ready action. Once contingency is cast, you can cause the companion spell to come into effect as a reaction with that trigger. It affects only you, even if it would affect more creatures. If you define complicated conditions, as determined by the GM, the trigger might fail. If you cast contingency again, the newer casting supersedes the older.

Initially, the GM argued that because the spell coming into effect doesn't have any spellcasting traits or isn't an action of some sort that the BBEG could just use their Reaction and get away. However, I followed up by saying that, because the spell still has physical manifestations, and requires effort on the BBEG's part (hence represented by the reaction), that it would still require the components to function, which means it would still trigger. The GM eventually agreed, but disputed that because it would be a Verbal at-most, or a Concentrate trait effect, that only the Fighter in Disruptive Stance would be able to affect them.

Thankfully, this gives the BBEG the death knell, but I'm still wondering if we ran that situation incorrectly, or if there's some other information we're missing.

As the title.

If I cast a Fireball at maximum range, does the explosion continue past it (giving an effective range of 520 feet)? Or does it simply fizzle out past 500 feet?

Also, what about Wall spells: if I cast a Wall spell at maximum range, does the entirety of the Wall have to be in range, or only one part of it?

As the title.

I'm really disappointed that Armor, as an item type, doesn't have any really cool or interesting options for customization or variation from one another, and that it ultimately boils down to 3 factors: What weight proficiency your class(es) provide(s), if any; what your Strength Bonus is, and what your Dexterity Bonus is. That's it. It otherwise doesn't particularly matter what Armor you wear. And I don't much like that compared to what we otherwise could have gotten, and what was apparent in PF1. Granted, PF1 had differing variations on what Armors were the best for those same reasons, and what materials were most practical, but the point is that PF1 did more to at least try to make Armor different from one another, and had fewer interactive tools to do so. PF2 has far more interactive tools by comparison, so why does it feel even more restrictive?

Look at what Heavy Armor could have been, for example: Half-Plate could have been neat with a Piecemeal trait that lets it benefit from two Special Materials at once, and/or letting it benefit from both Composite and Plate groups for the purposes of Armor Specialization, making it more competitive to Full Plate for those common wearers of heavier armor. Splint Mail could have also been cool with having only a -5 foot penalty speed to signify its added flexibility, or add a Fortified trait, increasing the amount of damage reduced from Specialization by a significant amount (maybe by half item-level rounded up, for example). But no, instead it boils down to "Just take Full Plate when you can, it's the only armor with a solid support trait compared to the other two." I'm sorry, but what kind of design philosophy was this? What was the goal to accomplish? Simplicity? Uniformity? Just getting a product out the door?

And the other weights aren't any better by comparison. For Light Armor, there is Comfort, and is handy on the Padded Armor, but it gives 1 less AC than most other armors of its weight to compensate, which is unfair to what other armors could have given in exchange if they were actually given something else to offer, and Padded Armor is really only relevant for, surprise surprise, Heavy Armor wearers who get ambushed at night while resting. And Explorer's Clothing, while listed under the Armor section, isn't actually Armor to begin with, yet is essentially better than Padded Armor with the right amount of Dexterity. Even if you need to wait until 10th level at the earliest (or don't have that choice if you aren't proficient with any armor), it's just not worth it, even if you are already proficient in Leather Armor, since you'd already be down the AC anyway. Worse yet, Light armor doesn't even benefit from any form of Armor Specializations by RAW, meaning the only reason they have groupings is for Special Material purposes (as few and far between as those are, given only one of them is actually a metal that can be made of a special material), and has little to no traits or neat attributes to warrant improved diversity, especially not compared to something like I proposed above. I can accept that Light Armor doesn't protect you as well as Heavy Armor can, and the AC bonuses support that, but I don't accept that it doesn't provide intricately useful benefits for you that Heavy Armor can't, either. Yes, 5 feet of movement is a useful benefit, but it's both universal and generic, and isn't bound to a specific armor of a given weight. It also doesn't justify armor within the same weights being equally universal and generic of themselves, which is what brings me to the other baffling tier of Armor.

Medium. Medium is the most boring armor category ever, worn by maybe what, Barbarian and Alchemist? Possibly Druid (for Hide Armor, anyway,) and Magus as well, but most of those classes are already inclined to increase Dexterity anyway because of Reflex Saves constantly escalating, and they get no help compared to Full Plate wearers in that respect from their armor. Either way, it's got the least amount of classes wearing it (especially later in the game, where non-Heavy Armor wearers have their Dexterity jacked up to be considering Light Armor instead), and it has the least amount of variation or interest behind it. It's either just a slight change in armor groups, adjusting a trait or two, and/or the cost is 2 or 4 gold different. That is super unoriginal and uninteresting compared to even the Simple weapon category, and that has weapons like Daggers and Longspears, which offer a lot more combat variety to the game than any given Medium Armor does. Don't get me wrong, Chain Mail might have been interesting if characters that benefit from Armor Specialization don't already have access to far better options, which is really the only neat place where it shines compared to any other Medium Armor; reducing damage from Criticals of any damage type is pretty helpful. But the scaling is pretty weak compared to even the basic Armor Specializations from Full Plate. And the worst part is, it actually doesn't see the light of day anyway, because nobody would actually want to do this compared to the other options.

What about some of the other neat armors that were introduced in Pathfinder 1, like Stoneplate or Bonemail, for example? Why haven't such items made an appearance and changed the dynamic of Armor for the better in a later book? A few ancestries list wearing equipment made of such things (Lizardfolk and Dwarves in particular, based on the example armor names I provided), but don't actually have items that replicate this very ideal, which hurts immersion immensely. Players may want to play a Lizardfolk with Bonemail, or a Dwarven Druid with Stoneplate, but as it stands, they simply can't. Also, where's the Lamellar Armor at? It sounds cool, and might have added another bit of diversity to the Armor game by having another group that may add a different benefit to the Specialization boons.

And boy, do we keep getting things like Class or Ancestry-based Armor that is just a rehash of the original Armors, just in slightly different packaging that doesn't involve gold(, at least not right away, thanks fundamental/property runes! ABP solves this a bit, but not for property runes). In my opinion, it's relatively annoying, given how common it's becoming; it seems like there are a bunch of Ancestries that have feat-specific Armors, and the Inventor with its Armor Innovation did not help matters any, either. There might be some slight benefits to such things, depending on which Class or Ancestry-based Armor you're benefitting from (such as being able to sleep in it despite not having the Comfort trait), but it's otherwise just as boring and uninteresting as the other basic Armors the game has to offer.

Is this really all that we should expect from Armor in this game? Do you think the game could be more than what it is if Armor was expanded on compared to what we have now? Are there any things you would like to see Armor do that it currently doesn't do well now?

So I've looked at the Spell-storing weapon rune, and it's gotten me a bit confused as to how it's activation is supposed to work, and I'm left with a few interpretations that have me a bit dumbfounded, so I'm looking for additional clues or advice that I may be missing here.

Here's the full text of the Spell-storing rune:

A spell-storing rune creates a reservoir of eldritch energy within the etched weapon. A spellcaster can spend 1 minute to cast a spell of 3rd level or lower into the weapon. The spell must have a casting of 2 actions or fewer and must be able to target a creature other than the caster. The spell has no immediate effect—it is instead stored for later. When you wield a spell-storing weapon, you immediately know the name and level of the stored spell. A spell-storing weapon found as treasure has a 50% chance of having a spell of the GM’s choice stored in it.

Activate [1 Action] command; Requirements On your previous action this turn, you hit and damaged a creature with this weapon; Effect You unleash the stored spell, which uses the target of the triggering attack as the target of the spell. This empties the spell from the weapon and allows a spell to be cast into it again. If the spell requires a spell attack roll, the result of your attack roll with the weapon determines the degree of success of the spell, and if the spell requires a saving throw, the DC is 30.

So, one thing of note is that it takes 1 minute to refill it (which must be done out of combat, since that falls under the Long-Casting Time spells rule), and that it has to originally be of 2 or fewer actions, with the ability to target a creature (meaning no AoE or personal-only spells). Okay, that's reasonable and pretty easy to understand.

What I'm confused with is the activation part, and most specifically the finer details it encompasses. Based on the requirements, I must have hit and damage a creature with the enchanted weapon with a previous action in the same turn. Okay, no problem. But when I activate it, what happens? Yes, it says that I use the stored spell on the creature that I attacked, but what does that precisely mean? Here's why it's confusing me:

If I use a spell that requires a spell attack roll, the result of my spell attack roll is equal to the attack roll of my weapon. Does it use the result of my previous attack? Does that mean I make a new Spell Attack, using my weapon's modifier instead of my spell attack's modifier? Also, would I not suffer MAP from this attack (especially since I had to have hit and dealt damage with said weapon prior to activating this rune), meaning if I critically hit an enemy without a Natural 20 (yes, the requirements don't include critical hits, but that's beside the point), and I consequently suffer a -5 (or whatever penalty I am at) on this roll, wouldn't that also affect the result of my Spell Attack roll, thus causing me to not critically hit with it? Or worse, miss, and essentially "waste" the spell if it wasn't a critical hit to begin with? What about concealment/cover, or reactions used in response to this ability; could they potentially negate or ruin the odds of this effect firing off and successfully affecting the enemy? Part of me says that it doesn't require further rolls or checks on my part because there are no subordinate actions taking place here; there is no Cast a Spell activity or Strike being called out, but the wording suggests otherwise.

Incidentally, if I use a spell that targets a saving throw instead, it seems like a simple "Enemy must make a saving throw against a measly DC 30." But it does raise the question of if the enemy is affected by Concealment (thus providing a flat check miss chance) providing the possibility of simply not being affected by the spell in question.

I'm asking because I had a Spell-storing weapon that I used one time, and made the assumption that it simply took the same result as your previous attack and applied it to the respective spell (meaning if you rolled a Natural 20 and Critically Hit the enemy, for example, it would take that same result and apply it to the Spell with this action as well), and it seems almost wrong, or Too Good to Be True for it to work that way, even if it's limited to 3rd level spells. (I do wish the Spell DC was 30, or the spellcaster's DC, whichever is higher, but I guess runes like this can't be too OP with effects like Slow, for example.)

As the title.

The description from Telekinetic Projectile states:

You hurl a loose, unattended object that is within range and that has 1 Bulk or less at the target. Make a spell attack roll against the target. If you hit, you deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage—as appropriate for the object you hurled—equal to 1d6 plus your spellcasting ability modifier. No specific traits or magic properties of the hurled item affect the attack or the damage.

Okay, sounds simple enough. We can't take a +3 Major Striking weapon with a bunch of elemental runes dropped on the ground and toss it at a bad guy for added damage, nor can we take an object with the Light trait on it and throw it at an enemy in Darkness and counteract the effect, for examples.

But what if we're facing a Demon and have a Cold Iron object available to throw at them; does the object being made out of Cold Iron trigger Weakness from the Demon? It isn't the result of a magical property, nor does it benefit from specific traits. Would this be possible by RAW? And is it for or against RAI?

If I cast the Light spell on 50 feet of rope (identified as a single object by the rules), and extend it out to its maximum length, would the entire distance emanate light as the spell, or does it fall under the Too Good to Be True clause?

We had this come up in one of our recent games and weren't quite sure how this would work out.

BBEG got revived in the middle of the encounter and has Champion features such as Blade Ally, which provide the effects of a weapon property rune to a specific weapon he wields. They are also a Graveknight, which also makes any weapon they wield function as a Frost weapon.

Both the Blade Ally feature and the Graveknight ability do not mention being magical in nature or having magical traits of any type, contrast to the Tyrant reaction they possess, which has literally every trait under the sun.

In the midst of the combat, an Anti-Magic Field went off through the entire room, turning all of our magical gear and effects into mundane stuff (i.e. they were suppressed), which is why this question was brought up.

The GM ruled that because the abilities were natural (Blade Ally attached to a spirit inhabiting the sword, Graveknight abilities are innate to any weapon they hold) and not magical in nature (no traits or direct linkage to being purely magical runes), the properties would apply to the weapon (in this case, Unholy and Frost).

We beat the encounter regardless, but are they right or wrong by RAW? Did we miss something in the rules that is glaringly obvious?

So I keep reading up on Assurance, and it just looks worse and worse each time.

Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks. Choose a skill you’re trained in. You can forgo rolling a skill check for that skill to instead receive a result of 10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).

This seems nice in certain situations compared to others, but then I looked at what exactly your proficiency bonus entails, and it just falls apart from there:

Proficiency is a system that measures a character’s aptitude at a specific task or quality, and it has five ranks: untrained, trained, expert, master, and legendary. Proficiency gives you a bonus that’s added when determining the following modifiers and statistics: AC, attack rolls, Perception, saving throws, skills, and the effectiveness of spells. If you’re untrained, your proficiency bonus is +0. If you’re trained, expert, master, or legendary, your proficiency bonus equals your level plus 2, 4, 6, or 8, respectively.

So things like your ability modifier, item bonuses, status bonuses, etc. don't get factored in. Neither do penalties, but even in those cases, facing appropriate level tasks makes it impossible, even though the flavor text of Assurance states "Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks." It's a false misnomer, because objectively speaking, you can't.

One solid example is utilizing Battle Medicine/Treat Wounds for consistent healing across the board. Let's say we got a 2nd level Cloistered Cleric with the Field Medic background doing this to save on their limited spell slots and fonts for in-combat healing. They are only Trained in Medicine and so will be doing the DC 15 default, having taken Assurance in Medicine as their 2nd level Skill Feat.

So, without Assurance, a DC of 15, and being able to add +4 Wisdom, with maybe an investment of Expanded Healer's Tools for a +1 item bonus, plus a proficiency of 4, giving them a +9 to their skill check. To meet the DC 15 check and succeed, they must roll a 6 or higher, which gives a 25% of failure (including a 5% critical failure chance), with a 50% success rate, and a 25% critical success chance. With a 75% chance to succeed on your rolls, the numbers look quite in your favor here.

With Assurance, however, you do not get to add either the +4 Wisdom or your +1 item bonus, which shifts the math a factor of 25% to your detriment. Since Assurance also fixes the dice result, and has the Fortune effect (meaning effects which improve or allow re-rolls cannot apply), it fixes to the point that it can never succeed until the following level. But, by this point, you'll be improving your Medicine to Expert to get more bang for your buck out of Treat Wounds/Battle Medicine, and be back to being forced to roll to get a success out of it. At best, Assurance has helped to make an already easy check a guarantee, but you still deny yourself the benefits of any critical success effects.

But let's look at another effect in your favor, such as Assurance in Athletics. We're facing an enemy and want to Trip them to make it easier for our allies to run up and beat them in the face, since flanking seems implausible. But, we still want to give our party members that edge. So, we got a 5th level Fighter that is an Expert in Athletics tripping an on-level average enemy. We'll keep things simple and do an average level DC for the Fortitude Save of the creature.

A Fighter who rolls without Assurance will have +4 Strength with a proficiency bonus of +9, making it a +13 check. (It is harder to have Item Bonuses to Athletics via tripping, but at this point, if they have a weapon with the Trip trait, they would get a +1 item bonus to trip with it, but I won't factor that in since it's a little too specialized.) Against a DC 20, they have a 35% chance to fail (including a 5% critical failure chance), a 50% chance to succeed, and a 15% chance to critically succeed. So, it is a 65/35 ratio here (or 70/30 with the +1 Trip trait weapon). This also isn't including MAP, which shifts the math dramatically against the Fighter, making it 40/60 (45/55), and 15/85 (20/80) with the check, the latter of which is what is realistic.

A Fighter using Assurance will have 10 on the Dice with their +9 Proficiency bonus, putting them at a DC of 19, making them fail the check regardless of whether they have MAP or not. This means that, effectively speaking, no matter when this skill is used, against an on-level enemy, that Trip will fail. Whereas without Assurance and rolling, they still have a 15% chance to succeed (even if there is a 35% chance of critically failing). Granted, this would be a guarantee to work against level-1 enemies, it just demonstrates that Assurance isn't meant to work for on-level or higher threats.

Yet another example would be taking Assurance in Lore, Crafting, or Performance for earning gold via downtime activities, which is where it's most prevalent. While Lore may not guarantee on-level activities, Crafting and Performance certainly can, and depending on setting, it might still be available. But, comparing on-level DCs with Assurance values, the disparity between bonuses needed and DCs set become wider and wider. There is the option of doing things at a lower level just to make Assurance work, but then it's becoming more trivial than it is "basic," which is that on-level tasks should be appropriate and basic to them, whereas level+1 or more would be no basic task or feat.

Are there any viable uses for Assurance that I'm overlooking here? Is it just a "Avoid that Nat 1" feat that I presume it is, or is there more to it?

Let's take Foley the Fighter against a suped-up skeleton with double the resistances that was tripped and triggers an Attack of Opportunity from standing. Foley lands a critical hit with his Longsword, but rolls the minimum of 10 damage, which is resisted entirely by the skeleton.

Is the creatures action to stand still disrupted with a critical hit despite it being ineffective to wound the creature? I can't seem to find a rule that states what to do in this situation, as we had something come up in play last night that had a similar effect, but I could have swore the rule of "the attack must have dealt damage to apply rider effects" from PF1 carried over.

As the title.

I'm expecting to acquire this spell in a few levels, since most other 10th level spells are uncommon, or just plain suck, and looking at the description:

You temporarily stop time for everything but yourself, allowing you to use several actions in what appears to others to be no time at all. Immediately after casting time stop, you can use up to 9 actions in 3 sets of up to 3 actions each. After each set of actions, 1 round passes, but only for you, effects specifically targeting or affecting you, and effects you create during the stoppage. All other creatures and objects are invulnerable to your attacks, and you can't target or affect them with anything. Once you have finished your actions, time begins to flow again for the rest of the world. If you created an effect with a duration that extends beyond the time stop's duration, such as wall of fire, it immediately affects others again, but it doesn't have any of the effects that happen only when you first cast the spell.

I'm not getting any feasible uses out of it, other than maybe to Dimension Door out to a safer location, and then attempting to Teleport back to base. A last resort that I'd rather not burn a 10th level spell slot on, since this basically means I'm leaving my party behind to die.

Stack Reverse Gravity so the enemy is pinned to a certain levitation? Seems pretty weak, even if comical to do. Also doesn't work with flying enemies. Maybe Force Cage with some Wall spells, or spells like Ice Storm, for free constant damage? Keeps them in the area while dealing constant damage to them on their turns, requiring magic to escape, which isn't always a guarantee depending on tradition. Divine and Primal spellcasters will be screwed here, though Occult and other Arcane spellcasters have a chance to escape.

Am I missing something here to combo it with, or is Time Stop really just a "get out of jail free" card spell that otherwise sucks really, really bad?

We had a session last Thursday with one of our players trying out the Gunslinger class with a Party of 5 against martial-type enemies. I am writing this report on behalf of the player, as they aren't a forum-goer, and I felt like I should provide first-hand data since I was privy to it.

For report's sake, we have both the Free Archetype and Voluntary Flaw optional rules in place for the purposes of data (certain aspects of the build are instead acquired via custom items which are effectively replicated with these optional rules). Here's the essential build:

Unbreakable Goblin Sniper Gunslinger

Strength 12
Dexterity 20
Constitution 16
Intelligence 16
Wisdom 16
Charisma 10

AC 35
HP 178

Fortitude 22
Reflex 26 + Evasion
Will 22

Perception 23
Class DC 33

+2 Greater Striking Corrosive Musket at +29 for 3D6+4 Piercing + 1D6 Acid, Fatal D10; Gravity Bow +6 Status Bonus to Damage, Firearm Ace +2 Circumstance Bonus to Damage

*Trained Skills (value)*
Arcana (19)
Athletics (19)
Crafting (19)
Diplomacy (16)
Deception (16)
Tanning Lore (19)
Nature (19)
Religion (19)
Survival (19)

**Master Skills (value)**
Acrobatics (25)
Stealth (26)
Thievery (26)

Feats
*General*
Fleet
Toughness
Incredible Initiative

**Ancestry**
Very Sneaky
Bouncy
Roll With It
Very Very Sneaky

<Skill>
Survey Wildlife
Quick Jump
Forager
Wary Disarmament
Foil Senses
Swift Sneak
Kip Up
Pickpocket

<<Class>>
Firearm Ace
Risky Reload
Running Reload
Gravity Weapon
Far Shot
Called Shot
Penetrating Fire
Dance of Thunder

[Magic Items] (7,500 of 9,300 recommended WBL value)
+2 Resilient Shadow Leather Armor
+2 Greater Striking Corrosive Flintlock Musket
+2 Striking Blunderbuss
+2 Striking Shortsword
Boots of Bounding
Greater Hat of Disguise

The Party
-A Half-Elf Paladin Champion of Shelyn wielding a Glaive
-A Half-Orc Fighter wielding a Bastard Sword and Sturdy Shield
-A Human Bard with feats to enhance Inspire Courage effects
-A Halfling/Half-Orc Druid with Beastmaster and Mauler dedication

The Encounter

A large room (90 by 90), with the party confined to a single 30 by 30 corner, dealing with an onslaught of On-Level or Level-1 Fighters with Swords and Shields.

In Turn 1, the Gunslinger managed to hook a critical on the first shot, rolling a 17 + 29 = 46, a critical against the enemy Fighters' 35 AC. Since neither Gravity Bow nor Firearm Ace was active at this time, it only dealt 1D10+2(3D10+4+1D6) damage, the actual result being approximately 65 damage, rolling above average in this case. A powerful hit to put a dent in the approximately 250 HP Fighter enemies, but by no means extreme compared to the additional +16 damage that could have come in if both Firearm Ace and Gravity Bow were active, marking it at an impressive 81 damage.

In Turn 2, after receiving both Haste and Inspire Courage, the Gunslinger is now capable of firing Twice in a turn, and is able to navigate the area without too much hassle thanks to Running Reload. However, instead of firing twice this turn, Gravity Bow is activated, and now so is Firearm Ace, meaning even on non-criticals, the dice becoming D8s and having +8 effective damage (was calculated as 9 or 10 in-game, as we forgot that Inspire Courage and Gravity Weapon do not stack in this case) meant they were getting more for their shot each turn. Even without Gravity Bow active on a subsequent shot, an additional +3 or 4 damage isn't anything to shrug off at.

The rest of the fight goes relatively swimmingly. The Gunslinger has not had the occasion to use Dance of Thunder (though reading it, it looks to be very, very powerful if the dice is in your favor, even if it's limited to once per encounter pretty much), and only used both Penetrating Shot and Called Shot once, but to good effect with yet another critical of an almost identical result to Turn 1, except against 2 enemies for Penetrating Shot, and the last Called Shot to prevent escapees. The player wanted to optimize with the Blunderbuss and go full Sniper, but felt that the whole concept of steadying before their shot all the time overtly punished them for their playstyle, and action-economy wise equalled a Reload 2 weapon to them, which didn't feel very satisfying to play compared to the Musket, combined with the limited (even if somewhat expanded) action economy they possessed.

Compared to the rest of the party, the Gunslinger is able to dish out a fair amount of punishment that is the equivalent of the Fighter, Champion, and Druid, but being able to do so at a safe(r) distance than a Rogue. There were times when the Fighter and Champion have outdamaged them, but the Gunslinger's damage was certainly up there in their first shots, and only a little behind on the subsequent shot. Penetrating Shot can help that somewhat, but isn't a guarantee, and Called Shot appears to have attack utility. The Gunslinger did manage to get hit a few times (same as everyone else), but the Champion managed to utilize their reaction a couple times to prevent enough damage to not warrant any in-combat healing of any sort, either from potions, Battle Medicine, and so on. While the Gunslinger does not have as much of the Skill capacity and Reaction Synergy power the Rogue character had (between Instant Opportunity and Opportune Backstab with Champion Reaction and Attack of Opportunity all going off within the same round), it definitely covered a niche the party was lacking (ranged damage) in a relatively effective way.

Personal Notes
I can understand some of the points that have been made in other topic posts in that a Gunslinger feels fairly redundant in playstyle and infringes on the Fighters' schtick, but I do disagree on them being ineffective, as well as playing identically to Fighters, both mechanically and playstyle-wise. The former disagreement stems from not properly utilizing tactics or action economy effectively, the latter stems from Sword-and-Boards needing to Raise Shield all the time for AC (instead of being able to actually just attack multiple times), or not having to reload if utilizing a Bow of sorts while still dealing decent damage with Deadly traits and such. Plus, as the Gunslinger was considered under WBL guidelines, they were still powerful to contribute, thanks to the build choices (which I helped with, advice was asked for in this case) and Legendary Firearms proficiency, and they were certainly missing a couple things in their build (such as an additional weapon rune for their musket, adding another potential 1D6 damage plus effects on a critical) that would've helped in this regard.

In regards to their combat mechanics, Abilities like Haste make the Gunslinger much more capable of providing consistent damage in combat, as the Gunslinger is able to make 2 attacks consistently with a Reload 1 weapon, but to me feels more like a crutch to shore up its inherent flaw with the action economy than an actual buff in action economy options. Compared to a Fighter which can now Raise Shield, or the Champion who can now Intimidate, both of which without losing out on "effective" attacks, the Gunslinger just gets the ability to have the same offensive capability as those classes without Haste. Whether that's the intended goal or not, I do not know, but to me it feels off. It also still doesn't let a Gunslinger perform multiple abilities like Called Shot or Penetrating Shot in the same round (at least, without already being loaded before-hand, probable to happen in Round 1 of combat, not so in future rounds). Again, another potential intention behind it, but when Haste is expressly limited to Stride or Strike, and abilities like Running Reload cannot be utilized with them, it's fairly problematic that it results in a static "Shoot->Reload->Shoot->Reload" playstyle that gets redundant relatively fast. I imagine that if the player started at 1st level, by 3rd level they'd find it extremely tedious to have to constantly reload all the time, or be in positions where they can't reload due to Attacks of Opportunity being a threat, or running out of ammunition, or...you get the idea. And they don't gain anything in exchange by having this playstyle, other than maybe doing comparable damage from a range. Is that fair? Hard to say for me.

The rest of the party seemed satisfied with the character's effectiveness, but consider that the build took typical choices from other Gunslinger playtests at the lower levels, and instead of further choosing feats from within their class choice, instead branched off to valuable feats from other classes (such as Ranger) to reach the level of character they wanted. This isn't necessarily an inherent flaw for Gunslingers, but the player did note that a lot of the feats that Gunslingers had which didn't help their schtick and offered fringe utility benefits (like Black Powder Boost, Cauterize, Hit the Dirt!, Blast Lock, etc.) did not seem appealing to them compared to feats like Gravity Weapon and Far Shot from the Ranger side of things (which, incidentally, in Far Shot's case, seems strange for a Gunslinger not to be able to have a feat choice in their listed feats).

===

I would have liked to have posted at least two session's worth of data, but due to inclement weather we weren't able to play last week, and the playtest will end before the next session (or rather, I won't be able to make another post in regards to the results of that data). If I am lucky, I will bump this thread with another post on Friday night to submit the next session's worth of data, but if not, due to the playtest closing and threads/posts no longer being possible to do, then well, I tried.

As the title.

I noticed that there were a few generalized feats from previous classes that were in the Gunslinger feat choices, such as Running Reload and Quick Draw, as well as a few other exclusive feats, like Alchemical Shot and Called Shot, as well as some clearly reflavored feats to work with both Firearms and Crossbows, like Shooter's Aim and Penetrating Fire.

But there are several other Crossbow-related feats not present in the Gunslinger class. Yes, it's a playtest, and I imagine they didn't have the most space to play with in regards to the document size, but my concern is that certain other feats, like Crossbow Ace and Incredible Aim, won't be included in the Gunslinger package, meaning you must either multiclass or take other archetypes to acquire those feats.

Can we expect to see other feats not listed in the current playtest document to show up, or is this the best we're gonna get to a powerful crossbow-using class?

As the title.

As I've been growing in level, I've been having a hard time with acquiring spells that I want as more and more of them are having rarity tags that I can't seem to bypass. Uncommon or Rare spells are becoming the norm these days and I'm struggling to be able to select other spells I want as a result, because they just don't have the sort of thing I'm looking for a spell to accomplish.

I mean, I have received a couple uncommon spells from simply playing the game, but there are just so many other ones that I want to have as well, but it's unclear or seemingly improbable to acquire these spells.

Are there ways I'm missing to find or acquire these spells, or am I just at the whims of my GM in this case?

So, we had this issue come up in one of our games that is a bit unclear as to how it's supposed to be handled properly.

Our Rogue PC has the Opportune Backstab reaction to be usable on an enemy that is struck by another player, which happens after the enemy's turn takes place, but before the Rogue PC's turn takes place. They also have the Bloody Debilitation feat and are in a position to take advantage of the Debilitating Strikes ability.

The Debilitating Strikes ability goes as follows:

You apply one of the following debilitations, which lasts until the end of your next turn.

Debilitation: The target takes a –10-foot status penalty to its Speeds.

Debilitation: The target becomes enfeebled 1.

So, these effects don't normally go away by standard rules, meaning the bolded listing is important to determine how long these effects last. However, we introduce a new option via Bloody Debilitation which has normally different rules for resolution.

Now, the Bloody Debilitations feat goes as follows:

Your attacks slice arteries and veins. Add the following debilitation to the list you can choose from when you use Debilitating Strike.

Debilitation: The target takes 3d6 persistent bleed damage.

The bolded parts are crucial for what I'm next seeing here. So, when you utilize Debilitating Strikes, the duration is always until the end of your next turn, according to the bolded parts, as Bloody Debilitation merely adds an option to your choice of debilitations. The Bloody Debilitations feat doesn't change the original duration. But, it's persistent damage, which should require flat checks at the end of turns to go away, which is different from what the ability's duration states.

So, back to the gameplay at hand, it's the Rogue's turn. They strike some more and their turn ends before the bad guy goes, which is when persistent damage takes place. Does this create a situation where Bloody Debilitation does nothing as a feat? Are we running this wrong and overthinking it, or is this feat really that situational, where it's just a delayed 3D6 damage that might not take place if done at certain turns in the combat round?

With the current Summoner linking HP and effects from themselves to their Eidolon, and with them sharing action economy, this literally feels like a direct rip from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, with Eidolons being psychic projections/entities that have special abilities, appearances, interactions, etc., that the user must train and concentrate on to be effective.

Granted, Stands (and their users) have much more varied appearances, niches, abilities, and so on, some of them to the point of being nigh-unstoppable, others borderline useless, I feel that if the Eidolon was to rise to this apparent occasion, their options need to open up more to allow free-form abilities so that players could create a truly unique Stand/Eidolon.

With this concept in mind, do you think this might be biting off a bit more than the game can chew? Can we expect Eidolons and Summoners to realistically embody what is clearly a primary inspiration to the class' design? Or will we have to settle with it being "kind of but not quite really" a Stand?

I had a bit of a hair-brained unconscious thought in regards to the playtest, and I decided to see if it might work.

From PF1, the Magus had a 4th level class feature called Spell Recall, which let them regain spell slots they have cast at the cost of expending points from their Arcane Pool equal to the spell level of the spell they wish to regain. I believe there might be a way to re-implement this feature into PF2 as a means to make the current "4 Spell Slot" rules more viable for longer adventuring days, and to make the Magus have better staying power.

With the implementation and scaling balance of Focus Points/Pools, We can reinvent this feature as a means to not only make this "4 Spell Slot" mechanic viable, but also something that Magus players can better play around to make their Focus Pool more versatile while also gauging fair applications of Focus Points, and making more interesting choices with their Focus pool expenditures.

This is obviously a first rough draft, but hopefully it conveys the point across, and may be what Paizo might use to balance the "4 Spell Slot" mechanic if it still makes it to the final product:

Spell Recall Focus 1
{Uncommon}{Magus}{Concentrate}{Arcane}
1 Free Action
Trigger: At the start of your turn.
Requirement: You have expended a prepared spell slot.

You regain a spell slot you have cast from the last time you made your daily preparations. This ability cannot be used on spells acquired from sources other than the Magus class.

It obviously looks overpowered, but this is just the baseline I'm proposing, and there are other balancing factors that I haven't implemented quite yet as I'm unsure of the implications. But they include:

-Requiring your spellbook being held, otherwise how else are you going to recall the spell? Also makes Sword and Book more viable!
-Limiting the feature to be used only once per spell level until you reprepare spells, so that people can't just always have free spell slots every combat, as spell slots should still be a limitation of some sort.
-Allowing the feature to work with any prepared spells, including from multiclass dedications, as the Focus Pool plus Refocusing will be the balancing factors here, making spellcasting dedications like Wizard more appealing.

Any thoughts or impressions on what could make this work or if it's just way too much?

As the title. (Yes, it's long, and might be in the wrong forum, oops.)

While it is true that Demon Masks do not possess an Evil trait or anything of that nature, I, as a Champion player, am having a hard time justifying wearing this for the Intimidation bonuses without getting the unaccepting eye from my Patron deity or other NPCs, and I'd much rather not have to buy something that's ~400 gold more with a dead effect to justify the item bonus (Gorget of Primal Roar).

I mean, Heaven forbid we don't have any Good-themed Intimidation items in the game, can't ever make the good guys look scary! What's a Paladin to do about this conundrum?

As the title. Are they considered the same feat, or would this be possible to take and basically maximize my out-of-turn effectiveness?

Because as a Tyrant champion, I was wanting to take these feats, plus Attacks of Opportunity, combined with Divine Reflexes, making me able to utilize all of these reactions at the same time. But if these feats are both the same, I might just change course and pick something else.

So, I've been having a bit of an internal crisis with the importance of movement speed to my characters that it really hurts my character creation verisimilitude, but done so due to a sense of "required" optimization.

In other words, if I'm not playing an Elf or a Half-Elf, or some other ancestry/class that gives 30 movement speed from the get-go, I just won't play it. Before anyone says that I haven't given it a fair shake, I have. I played a Mountain Stance Dwarf Monk. Levels 1 and 2 made me stupidly slow, even when building to account for it. 20 movement speed is no fun, because I'm wasting 2 actions just to get into the thick of things. Combined with spending actions to enter a stance just to be able to wade into melee without getting slaughtered, you're not doing anything for a good round or round and a half, while everyone else is already in the thick of things fighting. Yes, there is Flurry of Blows, but that's really all I get, and when you're throwing D8 damage dice around while having a weak AC (because no armor, and proficiency only does so much) and only like 22-32 HP, it's very easy to be dropped before you get to do anything.

By 3rd level, I hit 35 movement thanks to fast movement and fleet, but with the meager feats and offensive options, I'm really not doing much. I literally had to pay a bunch of stuff just to hit that mobility compared to an ancestry and build combination that doesn't really have to, and could work with some other awesome stuff, like taking Fighter dedication for some interesting Fighter feats that work well with unarmed fighting styles. Of course, couldn't because no Dexterity to make it happen, which is a major bummer.

Whereas when I played my Elf Wizard, he had 35 movement from the get-go, reaching 40 feet by 3rd level. The freedom of movement (pardon the pun) from that compared to the Monk I played was so contrasting and powerful that I felt completely unchained from moving so slow, and it made being able to set up spells/cantrips in a single round more viable than ever. Yes, a Monk can eventually outpace me, but that takes way too long of dealing with janky movement speed that I'd get burned out before I'd actually enjoy taking advantage of it. In fact, just two levels of that and I basically decided "Nah, I don't like this, and this patch-all from class features screwed up any chance of me enjoying a true martial master build."

This is even more difficult when trying to make a character with Heavy Armor. I need the AC, but also need the mobility to get into the fight and slaughter enemies. Combined with the not-so-desirable ability array from ancestries like Elf or Half-Elf, and next thing you know you're stuck being Slowy McSlowerton again, wasting actions on just getting in there instead of doing things like Striking, Intimidation, Feint, etc. While also having something as crucial as a Constitution penalty to deal with. (It wasn't so bad on my Wizard, but smart play, building choice, and tactics was the only reason it wasn't a complete disaster.)

Combined with areas being made larger to accommodate an increased group size (and increased challenges), and it just seems that having low(er) movement speed is just not viable.

Does anyone with a normal-sized party feel like they have this issue? If so, how did you deal with the problem? Am I just an outlier who just feels like having to spend more than one movement action per turn is just a waste of a round?

So, here's a fun little situation I decided to cook up to give players an interesting battlefield for an encounter, and after reading the Leaping and High/Long Jump rules, it falls flat upon itself.

We have PCs adventuring to their destination and come across a crevasse where some nasty beasties live. The specifics for the encounter itself isn't important. What I'm getting at is how having differing surfaces of two differing elevations with greater than 10 feet distances is ridiculously difficult for PCs to do. Leap lets you go either a certain distance up or a certain distance across, you can never combine the two. The same can be said for the High/Long Jump actions as well, which, to me, doesn't seem to promote fluid terrain or non-flight airborne movement.

If I have a 15 foot gap with, say, a 5 foot difference in height (such as the difference caused by an earthquake), PCs cannot jump across it in either mode. They cannot use Long Jump because they would faceplant in the side of the crevasse and then fall down like Wile E. Coyote. They cannot use High Jump, because even if they would meet the height difference, they would literally only move 5 feet across (or maybe 10?) and, again, fall down like Wile E. Coyote. It's a humorous picture, to be sure. But if I wanted flying bad guys who could push prey off to their death, the PCs would stand no chance unless they could fly like the bad guys simply because the mechanics do not promote more fluid/heroic jumping or leaping.

Sure, there are certainly ways to cross the example crevasse, such as with flight, using rope to climb across the gap after it's been bound taught to the other side, and so on. But there's no real way to flex those jump skills in combat fluidly or all cool-like, even though several of those activities have actions, which imply that yes, they are for Encounter Mode.

Has anyone else come across these similar problems? If so, how have they adjusted things to accommodate the problems? Have they simply removed the need to both jump high and far, or have they not done anything and just let PCs go splat via stupidity?

So we had a session last night that had two Hazards (not together, separate instances of singular Hazards), both of which resulted in the Hazard by itself nearly TPKing the party. The second one was even worse, despite it being by itself with nothing else in the vicinity that would threaten us.

This also isn't the first time we've encountered Hazards that were this powerful within the AP itself, and after having ran an AP myself with a couple hazards, they weren't anywhere near as bad as the ones we've encountered thus far, even with their very first books!

The creatures/NPCs we've encountered have had their ups and downs in terms of difficulty and climactic engagement, but haven't been anywhere near as devastating as the Hazards have been so far, and it really makes me question why it is that a Hazard in the game is always infinitely more devastating that the creatures we come across? We've had to run from Hazards more than Creatures or other social encounters going down the drain so far, and it's proven to be extremely ridiculous as to the strength of the Hazards compared to what creatures we are supposed to face for our level. Even with multiple subsequent encounters, we've had close calls, and with abridgements from the Adventure Path, there was a "timed puzzle" segment that proved to be a lot more fun and engaging than any of these published Hazards! And the best part? We succeeded on our own without any sort of outside help or punch-pulling from the GM. (He would've pulled a punch if we failed, but he didn't have to, and that's what made the segment feel much more like an accomplishment.)

I mean, I understand traps are meant to stop/defeat would-be adventurers from foiling evil plans, but a BBEG could literally just taunt PCs with a big bad macguffin, line its (falsified) whereabouts with nothing but Hazards (because creatures are ineffective and have constant upkeep to deal with), and basically "entomb" PCs with these impossible hazards. In short, a GM throwing creatures unless they are like 6 or 7 levels above the PCs will always be ineffective compared to just throwing a 2-3 level above Hazard (or even a level-appropriate Hazard as I've seen in the above examples!) if they're wanting to make encounters appear extremely deadly, and that makes for a not-very-fun campaign in my honest opinion. I might as well play Pathfinder: Indiana Jones edition and run from a rolling boulder for 20 levels if that's the kind of game I want.

Are we the only ones noticing how imbalanced these Hazards are, and are consequently ranting about it?

As the title. (And no, this is not a bait thread.)

I'm a Paladin of Shelyn (one of the more "lax" Champion Tenet deities, I know), and the current campaign I'm running treats the entities I interact with as works of art (because they are considered part of an active story, and to someone like Shelyn, tales and theatrics are considered works of art), and this issue has come up several times so far simply because of bad rolls.

In several of these situations, I've had to attempt to utilize Diplomacy in an attempt to avoid encounters as well as further our goal without resorting to violence. In more situations than I care to admit, such attempts have failed and have come to fights to the death. (Since the entities I deal with are more like works of art, AKA objects, they don't have dying rules like us normal people do and are basically destroyed, and one of the entities I destroyed is actually what creates them in the first place, meaning they can't be replaced anymore.)

While I'm not surprised a situation like this has come to pass due to the basic rules of mathematics and probability, the frequency and circumstances presented to our group began to question whether my character could continue being a Champion of that deity, or of a Champion period, since instead of being able to properly diffuse the situation and saving "lives," these very "lives" have ended prematurely due to my inability to convince others of resorting to non-violence, and are now no longer capable of returning. Sure, in some cases this isn't possible, but quite clearly the GM has stated that several encounters can be resolved without combat, and of the ones I've failed thus far, they have all been avoidable.

This extreme set of circumstances has brought myself into question what Champions of other deities who don't have such "lax" tenets do in more realistic situations where they should preserve life before it becomes lost to the throes of anger and vengeance. If you were a Champion attempting to Diplomacy someone to not kill someone, and you were forced to kill them because of your inability to successfully persuade them not to kill someone, should you fall? I imagine such concepts would not be easy for a Champion to bear, but would they either choose to no longer pursue it due to the pain and hardship it creates, or would their deity view them as no longer capable of delivering the message they wish to convey?

In short, would a character's mistakes, even if they are attempting the right thing to do, but ultimately fail, and are resorted to something else that their deity might not approve of, still count as grounds for anathema? I would personally say no, since the intent of your actions is more important than the result of your intended actions, but I know that if these circumstances repeat consistently that Deities (AKA GMs) would intervene one way or another, or give said player a push to either retrain their entire class, or even retire altogether. I haven't technically gotten to that point yet, but if I had a more strict GM or Deity that I would probably have fallen simply due to incompetence.

Not an actual spell yet (maybe in the works of the Advanced Player's Guide, who knows), but liked it in PF1, so figured we'd give it a shot and see how it worked in the PF2 chassis.

SCORCHING RAY ---Spell 2---
Traits Fire, Attack, Evocation |Uncommon|
Traditions Arcane, Primal
Cast 2 Actions (Somatic, Verbal)
Range 30 feet; Target 1 to 3 creatures or objects

You conjure three tiny igneous spheres floating over top of you, each of which coalesce into a streak that shoots a flaming beam at your target. The target for each ray is chosen individually, though you may select the same target for each ray.

Make a spell attack roll for each ray; on a success, each ray deals 2D6 Fire damage. On a critical hit, double the damage and the target suffers 2 persistent fire damage per ray.

Each spell attack roll counts towards your multiple attack penalty, but does not apply until after the spell is cast. As the rays fire simultaneously, this counts as a single instance of damage for the purposes of resistances and weaknesses, as well as other abilities which trigger off of successful hits if multiple rays hit the same target.

Heightened (+2) Each ray deals an additional 1D6 Fire damage, and an additional point of persistent fire damage on a critical hit.

Something I whipped up quick off the top of my head. Considered making it be a single roll, but that makes the spell very swingy in play, and creates a weird tandem that didn't exist back in PF1. Also applied an Uncommon tag so that GMs can give players the veto if they come across this and want to pull some shenanigans the GM doesn't want to deal with.

Let me know what you guys think and if you decide to use it in your games! I might throw it in a game I'll be GMing soon, so we'll see if I do that based on your feedback!

This is not about the fact that I can't just get items at half price after a week or two of downtime. This is about how crafting items in the previous edition, while much more powerful and broken, was quite a bit more freeform and hand-waived in terms of application.

Let's say I wanted a Cloak of Resistance +1 to be crafted in the previous edition. I'd simply need a feat with minimal requirements (in this case, Craft Wondrous Item with CL 3 as a requirement), to do a check (usually Spellcraft or the relevant normal Craft check assuming I meet caster level requirements), mark off the crafting cost gold, wait a day for the stuff to be done, and boom, I now have my magic item. Simple, easy, effective, no hassle from the GM (unless he decides he doesn't want crafting in his games. Which is fine, but let's assume GM wants players to have out-of-combat utilities, or allows crafting as a player tool). Upgrading is equally simple, just make sure you meet the upgrade requirements, make the adjusted check, mark off the gold, wait the downtime, and boom, item is now improved.

Now let's see how Second Edition handles this. Well, before I can craft this, I need to be a certain tier of crafting (Expert), need a specific feat (Magical Crafting, which isn't available until like 3rd or 4th level at the earliest), need the formula for the specific item I'm crafting (good luck finding rules on how this works!), can't upgrade it to a higher tier item until I have the formula for that (which again, good luck on figuring this out with the rules!), need to make a check, wait 4 days (or longer), and pay full price. And that's just crafting standardized magic items.

Don't even get me started on how runes, runestones, and inscribing/transferring work, because that's even more damn confusing and our group hasn't figured out how that works due to conflicting wording.

Want to create something for yourself that no one else has? Can't. You don't have a formula for your own design, nor do you have the ability to make one up, there's no feats or rules that allow this. At best you have GM FIAT which will most likely end up in smoke if the GM thinks they smell shenanigans (and some do when there really isn't, though of course sometimes they don't when they should). Plus, new items from new books requires new formulas for you to craft them. Which likewise costs money, downtime, and can just be red herrings based on whatever checks the GM requires. Not to mention there's no simple or easy way to keep track of what formulas you have, since there will be multitudes and multitudes of magic items expanding with each release of content.

Whereas I can just say "I'm gonna buy X for Y gold," and unless it's Uncommon or something, GM will most likely just say "Okay, mark it off your currency sheet and put X on your inventory." Or just require some sort of check to find it if it is Uncommon or Rare. Okay. That's actually even easier than first edition crafting, and just as cost-effective as if I were going to just craft items in this edition!

I think the only thing this edition did right is not (effectively) requiring spellcasting to craft magical items. Otherwise? Major downgrade and really hurts player's egos and brains trying to figure this stuff out for what appears to be no real gain in anything.

As the title.

Our party came across a couple mindless creatures and one of our players tried to feint it to get an edge on his attack. Since the creatures are mindless, they are immune to effects that have the Mental trait, which feinting does possess. So he succeeds on the check, but receives no benefit other than knowing that feinting doesn't work on mindless creatures.

Now, another character goes to flank, and I initially was going to allow it, but the feinting player argued that flanking is similarly distracting from properly defending themselves, so I re-read how being flat-footed works, and it says:

"You’re distracted or otherwise unable to focus your full attention on defense."

So at the time, I went with the feinting player's logic and stated they couldn't be flanked either, since the description mentions requiring focus, which I imagined mindless creatures don't have. However, the key differences are that the feinting action has the mental trait, whereas a simple concept like flanking does not (unless I overlooked it somewhere). At the same time, being flat-footed means you're not mentally aware or fully capable of defending yourself, which I imagine is something that mindless creatures don't naturally or instinctively do other than what's listed in their creature demographic.

Is there anything that I'm missing here? What would you have done in this situation?

As the title.

As a specialist evocation wizard, I get 3 spell slots, 1 of which has to be of an Evocation trait, the other two being available to anything.

However, my contention is with how many spells I gain from acquiring a new level of spells. Do I really only ever get 2 per level period, which means that I am effectively required to have two copies of a given spell (probably the non-Evocation one) every time I get a spell level unless I scribe a scroll to learn new spells?

That seems...quite restricting. This means I need to have bought (or found) one of the next-level scrolls before getting access to that spell level, and in the official campaigns I've been in so far, I have been lucky to even find one or two scrolls of a given item, combined with them not being of the next level of spell available, which really really bites, especially when the wealth I've been getting thus far only just pays for said level 2 scroll of my choice.

Am I missing something or am I getting as shafted as I've described?

So this is going to be our first foray into the official PF2 rules (we have played the playtest before), and I'll be running this module so we can gauge how much has changed and if we like the changes or not, among other things.

Been reading through it, and while I like parts of it, I have several questions as to how to run it. **SPOILERS for those who are going to play this**

1. What sort of adjustments should I make for this? We'll have a fairly well-rounded group, relegating the GMPC to gruntwork (and assisted suicide by enemies if necessary) so the players can get a better gauge of playing. I can probably take the easier enemies and just increase the amount required to fight, but I worry about the stronger enemies being too weak as they are, but too strong if I buff them up to compensate.

2. Where is the map for the Feedmill? I can't seem to find it anywhere in the module book other than the giant map for Etran's Folly. There's maps for other smaller areas, but not this (which is probably the centerpoint of the whole AP), Is there one? If not, how would I construct it for the plot points to take place there? (AKA, if any of you guys have had to make one, how did you do it?)

3. Do the PCs ever level up from 1st level in this module? A cursory reading of several points in the book do not ever reference leveling up from what I've seen, outside of experience points, though I'd rather not have to add on another fiddly thing to track and just use the "PCs should be X level by this point in the story" gig previous APs have had. The back of the book only says 1st level, whereas the other module (Hellknight Hill, part of a much larger AP series) gives a level range of 1st-4th level, indicating that it goes up to higher levels. If not, would it be bad if I at least let them level up to 2nd at some point in the campaign so they can get a feel for how leveling up works?

As the title.

I reviewed the proficiency scaling, and I thought it was strange that the baseline is now Level + 2, with it scaling up to Level + 8. I don't mind the scaling so much, but the baseline I feel will confuse players and might make them add things when they shouldn't. Or I might get players who ask "Why do we add +2 when we're trained," to which the only valid response I have is "The Devs wanted it that way."

Conversely, this might have been done to either make players feel more empowered (which is a false equivalency since other rules elements use this too) or to make the baseline more powerful (which shouldn't matter when I feel it would all have the same impact as before, just less math).

So, if I decided to make the baseline to be just level, with Legendary being Level + 6, would the game still run the same as it does before, just a bit less fiddly math in the way? (I might have to reduce non-proficiency DCs by 2 to compensate, but that's something easy for me as a GM to do compared to wondering why players have different results on the same roll.)

Wheeee free homebrew content!

6th Level Feat
Fighter
Requirements: Power Attack, Sudden Charge
When using Sudden Charge, you may spend an additional action to gain the enhancement effect of Power Attack.

I'll go ahead and mention some things that I've noticed (that either other forum posters or the developers have not) that, if not clarified or changed in the final release, can have devastating consequences that post-printing cannot easily fix.

So, those are the 5 biggest things I'm looking for PF2 to change/clarify before I consider it ready for me to fully enjoy. If anyone has any additional information or input they can shed on the matter, by all means. Just keep it relevant to the points I've mentioned and don't derail the topic with edition warring or insulting badwrongfun posts, please.

**EDIT** Applied band-aids to wall-of-text syndrome. Should be easier on the eyes to read coherently now.

I've seen numerous people talk about this in other threads, but haven't really made a discussion thread specifically for it. So, here we are.

How important do people feel it is for Pathfinder as a game and/or Golarion as a setting to specifically have prepared Vancian casting? Is it crucial to the game or setting, or do you think that the game or setting could be done (or be better off) with a varied or completely different system?

(Yes, mechanics talk is fine too.)

So I've been doing some semi-homebrew sessions for the PF2 Playtest with another group, and with what I've done so far, they've enjoyed it quite a bit (though they are mostly amateurs at tabletop RPGs).

The group kind of "rotates" between who is and isn't available, but the optimal party is of 5, a Half-Elf Imperial Sorcerer, a Dwarf Barbarian, a Half-Elf Ranger (with a Panda Bear Animal Companion), a Halfling Rogue, and a Druid (I forget which race, but I think it's Human or something). They started out at 1st level obviously, but are now 3rd level, and approaching 4th level after this next "chapter."

The problem I have is how can I progress the story from here? I want to do different stuff to change things up for the players, but I still want the Cyclopes to be the main bad guys, and I do plan to have the Kobold come back as some mini-lich of sorts for one final brawl (even if for fun), but I really have no clue what I can do as an interim between this main story and what they can most likely come across. I also need some help with developing sidequests, as well as other potential allies the PCs can come across with fighting the bad guys. Pour in some suggestions, I honestly don't care how crazy they might be as long as they sound fun or interesting to throw in the story!

**EDIT** Cut down on wall-of-text syndrome via bandaids. Also forgot to add in party composition and levels. Whoops...

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR "AFFAIR AT SOMBERFELL HALL", IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THIS ADVENTURE OR THE ADVENTURES PRIOR TO THIS ONE, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

It has been awhile since I've reported on this sort of thing, between real life commitments, and actually having the motivation to type this sort of thing up, but since I'm in a bit of a lull (being sick and not having any major commitments at the time being the biggest factors here), I might as well do this.

This was ran using the 1.4 Update rules (so Wounded and such is a factor here now).

Regardless, the players survived. We almost had a PC death due to bad rolling, but reviewing rules prevented it (to the dismay of the other players, too). We had very little power left (there was only one channel left amongst the Clerics, the Druid was out of spell points, and the Paladin was out of Lay On Hands). Without proper preparation and use of tactics, this was a for-sure death sentence.

Overall, it wasn't a bad experience. It wasn't a great one, though, and at times it was frustrating (Poltergeist and BBEG in particular, due to Invis and Mirror Images, respectively), but considering that like most other encounters it was a one-off, it was one that we as players were accepting of having happened, especially since, by the end of it all, we succeeded. Would we want this to be the norm for combat? Doubtfully. (And this is especially true for Part 5 of the Playtest Adventure.) But hopefully the future changes will help reign this sort of thing in.

I want to take a moment to discuss the relevance of Channel Energy, Charisma, and their overly strong impact on the Cleric class. If we stripped both of those away from the Cleric, the class would be extremely weak and bare bones. The class has too many feats to expand on Channel Energy, and with the new nerf to Channel Energy uses, it makes Charisma much more impactful to the class, as the ratio from stat to base uses changed as well. Prior to these changes, Channel Energy also felt like a mandatory party feature in a game that wasn't supposed to require players playing a certain type of class or role.

On top of that, the raw power from Channel Energy spirals way out of control once you apply levels, as now you're having that much more spell power compared to others. Consider at the end game, you can heal as a 10th level spell upwards of six times compared to any other class whom would be foolish to do it even once, and don't ever get bonus 10th level spell slots. That's an insane amount of power gained compared to anyone else's 20th level feat, and is not something that changing the ratio of channel energy uses solves.

To that, I propose a complete rewrite of Channel Energy to be more along the lines of how current power scaling of other classes work (and compared to PF1's channel energy):

___

Channel Energy

The cleric gains the ability to channel the energy of his/her deity's will onto others. The Cleric gains one additional spell per day per spell level they can cast, which coincides with his/her deity's channel focus. If the deity uses positive energy, the cleric gains an additional Heal spell per spell level prepared for the day. If the deity uses negative energy, the cleric gains an additional Harm spell per spell level prepares for the day. If a deity allows a choice between either positive or negative, the cleric must decide which form of energy they channel, and receive one spell per spell level based on their choice of energy, and once chosen, this cannot be changed.

In addition, the Cleric may spontaneously transform one of his prepared spells to channel energy, expending the spell slot as normal to create a Heal (if positive) or Harm (if negative) spell whose effects manifest at the same level of whichever spell was transformed.

___

This is approximately the casting power that other casting classes got. Sorcerers got Bloodline spells. Wizards got School powers. Other casting classes got things like Orders and added heightening, and that's fair. On top of that, none of their main features are tied to secondary attributes (sans Wild Druid, but special cases and all that), so why should a Cleric's Channel Energy similarly be tied to a secondary attribute? We've all seen what happened when we did that: Charisma outright replaced Wisdom in most cases, and it's clearly not intended. In reality, abolishing that wouldn't be bad.

Of course, some people wouldn't like the overall nerf to clerics, and that's fine. There are other ways to shore up a Cleric. For example, a Healing Cleric might want to take the Advanced Domain feat to turn 2 Spell Points into a Heal spell, compared to 1 spell point adding +2 per dice. Or, they could use both and actually get some solid nova mileage out of their Wisdom and Spell Points. Right now, Domains are too niche and weak to have (except for a few), so having them beefed up in exchange can help the Cleric get more into its niche instead of just being one overly powerful feature of a class that it is now. And there are other ways to help besides domains. What about actual feats that give you abilities fit for a Cleric instead of more and more stuff meant to enhance "that one thing you do"? I'm sure Paizo can come up with several that can make Channel Energy more of a compliment than a requirement.

I created an Angelic Sorcerer for Part 1 in the hopes that I could make it a functional healer (optimistically, to sparingly replace Clerics as de facto choices for parties), and as that part demonstrated (and as our future playtest parts with Clerics have yielded), that avenue is clearly not going to happen. I was hoping that with the higher levels (and now expanded options from 1.3 and maybe 1.4 could help too!) that having some actual feats to work with (having zero feats at 1st level really, really sucks) can make it at least work with what our party expectations are in relation to combats ahead.

However, with how I currently built it, and with the only options I have to make my character a powerful healer, it appears even making it work with the current set-up is impossible, and I have no way of retraining or selecting appropriate options to make this option work, which means any choice I have of making this character function in relation to the party dynamic is impossible, approaching the point where I might just throw something to stick and sit both this and the final part of the playtest sessions out, leaving the rest of the players to run it out and see if anything useful happens (I won't expect my GM to be lenient enough to let me completely retrain my character choices or create a whole new character to fill the adventuring gap). I will also be missing out on major plot points of the story, too, meaning I might as well read those parts of Doomsday Dawn myself just to witness the ending (though compared to actually experiencing it, being quite disappointed with what actually happened).

The sad thing is that this was meant to be a fairly flavorful character, since I was told that this character would participate in numerous parts of the playtest, so I created this character with the intent of it having lasting story value. (And the first part of this adventure synchronized quite well with this character!) But with the current state of options at my disposal (improved, but not viable), and lack of options to switch or recreate with, this character may as well be abandoned, and I only expect to be participating in two more parts of the playtest (5 and 6), testing out the viability of a late-game anti-Resonance Superstition Barbarian (Dwarf with 8 Charisma and all anti-Resonance options available), and GMing a mid-level adventure, simply because the main character I made for this playtest is so garbage and beyond help that it will just die out due to horrible building choices. (Fitting, as Pharasma would deem her little "Angel" to die for the sins of imperfection and vanity, only optimizers live!)

I was surprised when our GM expressed interest to other players who wanted to try out the second edition of Pathfinder that I (and three others who have never played) made new characters with the current Pathfinder rules updates to run a homebrew campaign (I believe it's based off of either a Dragonlance or Grey Skull adventure) to both have these players try out the new system and to get more accurate feedback by using players who have never played table top RPGs like PF2, and for us to try to see if using a more "homebrew" campaign was a viable avenue for PF2 gameplay.

While this thread does not really encompass the latter concept, it is all about the observations I noticed while I (whom has some experience and knowledge of the system) was leveling up, and the explanations I had to make in relation to what the other players noticed (we used printed off sheets of paper of the Rulebook PDF with only my current knowledge of the existing errata), and these are major concerns with how I thought they would perceive the system/gameplay.

This last Thursday, we all met in the evening at one player's house to go and create characters as a group (so if players had questions, other players could reference things or I could answer them). To keep things short and simple, I'll go with a list of common things I've noticed, following up with a couple specific things (most of which aren't very positive). While some of these issues have been brought up before, this post might serve more as a reinforcement of addressing these things as being issues. Furthermore, while we spent ~3 hours on this "session 0," we still had to spend about an hour or so during Session 1 to make character decisions that should have already been done prior to the session (even though we players had real life commitments, that is besides the point here).

1. The character creation rules aren't intuitive or simple to understand to new or uninformed players. When it came to starting out, one player who had the sheets printed out wasn't entirely sure where to start, and one player who hasn't had any chance to read the rules due to real life commitments, had absolutely no clue how to even create a character, with the book (or rather, the printed PDF pages) being a hassle to read through. In addition, from my perspective, having clashing information between the printed PDF rules and what's currently errata'd helped further create confusion in what players got for skills, options, abilities, and so on. It also made people trip up on what Signature Skills were when, in actuality, Signature Skills were no longer a thing, and with the different method of skill applications in effect, players (myself included) had no clue how to apply skills, since some players got skills automatically trained, others didn't, and so on. They also had no idea how calculating attributes worked, and for two of our players, were missing critical aspects of their attribute allocation (most notably, the 4 free +2 attributes at 1st level). This part in particular seems to be a common issue, as even in both of our Doomsday Dawn playtests, players did not do their attribute allocation correctly.

2. The character sheets are cluttered, mismatched, and seem backwards in design. When players were attempting to calculate their melee and ranged attacks, they looked at the dice symbols and the two separate sections and had no clue what they were for, and were getting frustrated by it. It took me explaining to them numerous times how that section of the character sheet functioned before they finally got it understood. While they aren't the smartest players, they have played numerous other board games with somewhat complex rules and understood them fairly easily, but appear to have been tripped up with the numerous symbols and their format (such as not knowing the dice symbol, or that it went from attack roll to damage roll). Similarly, people got hung up on how proficiency worked and was calculated (such as not knowing what TEML stood for), as well as on numerous sections of the character sheet, and our Cleric got frustrated with his spell points, both because he has two separate spell point pools (which the sheets didn't compensate for), and didn't have any area to write down a brief description of what the spell does. This was also apparent during gameplay on the weekend (expressed in another post to link to later) when every spellcaster had to double check their spell descriptions to determine what their spells actually did. Having even a basic description section for each spell slot entry (no, the "notes" section isn't big enough to explain how each spell works) would have saved us almost an hour's worth of looking up and verifying spell effects.

3. The formatting of several sections in the book need major revisions to be intuitive and easy to reference. When it came time for our players to try and purchase their gear (we are starting play at 4th level), they had to reference all kinds of entries in the book. Between the standardized adventuring gear, weapons, armor and shields (being in the same place), combined with the magic items, generalized treasure table, alchemical items (like poisons and potions), special materials, being in several separate places in the book, it became very difficult for players to keep track of what items they wanted in relation to where they were in the book, and crossreferencing what they can (or can't) purchase, and seeing if items are in one section of a book instead of another. This made the character creation time take longer than it should have, and even for as much experience as I've gotten with this system, I was still finding out about items that I never heard of before, or thought weren't available at the time with specialized benefits (such as realizing Expert Cold Iron weapons were a Level 2 item that players of 4th level could take as one of their 2nd level permanent items). While parts of this helped our PC optimization out, it still hurt the character creation process because it did create several levels of frustration for players (myself included). There were also similar complaints in relation to how Skill Feats and General feats are sorted, in that they aren't sorted by level, type, or pre-requisites. They are simply in a giant glob in alphabetical order, with the traits of the feats being easily missable (unless you reference the table, but even that received similar complaints), and not being intuitive to find what you want unless you know precisely what each feat does in relation to what you want out of a given feat.

4. Decision Paralysis is still in place, and adds a lot of time into character creation. One of our players who made a Rogue was having an especially difficult time trying to allocate his feats into stuff that is both cool and worthwhile. Having more Skill Feats than anyone else and access to the same amount of other feats as other classes merely increased the amount of times he had no idea what to spend feats on. He was also disappointed at how underwhelming numerous skill feats were, while at the same time baffled by how strong and/or useful other skill feats were. We ended up changing around several feats up until it was playtime this last weekend. I similarly had this problem as a Bard player with my skills, spell/cantrip selections, and feats.

5. Several core decisions are highly underwhelming and unfun in relation to certain players. I've experienced part of this issue with my character as well as with the player's Cleric. He effectively went on numerous tirades about how much the current gods "sucked so bad," and that he hated practically every god available. To elaborate, he felt like a lot of their Domain powers were "trash", hated several combinations (such as Gorum being a Negative Energy channeler, but using a powerful Greatsword, whereas a deity like Pharasma could use Positive Energy channelling, but had a crappy deity weapon and domain powers), and was severely disappointed with how there were no gods who utilized a Morningstar as a deity weapon (which was originally going to be his weapon of choice). I did explain to him that there will probably be more options to better suit his needs (and maybe some balancing between a Cleric's Channel Energy combined with his Domain Powers), which did keep a lid on his explosive attitude, but it did serve as a point of contention for his angst of the new system. I did feel the same way with all of my Halfling Ancestry feats, combined with several of the Rogue's Skill feats (as well as some of my own, but I did find some that were "passable" choices in relation to my builds).

6. The book not having errata information causes a clash of information that players may not be certain of which set of information is correct. While this was brought up in one of the previous points, I do want to bring this some extra attention, because nothing seems more foolish than bringing a character sheet to a GM that is riddled with misinformation due to the book not reflecting the current errata. In short, this may have caused a negative outlook on the player perspective, and it also increases character creation time due to referencing numerous PDF documents to determine what you actually have as a rule. I can understand that updating the Core Rulebook PDF to reflect these changes all the time is tedious and potentially frustrating, but hopefully after the Doomsday Dawn playtest, we can get an "updated" Core Rulebook playtest PDF with the reflecting errata derived from the playtest so that we don't have to reference numerous documents all the time (something which the current playtest is meant to cut down on, if not eliminate entirely, and so far doesn't appear to be doing that, even if somewhat understandbly).

There are other things that the players may have complained about (and some things that the players found neat or interesting, such as multiclassing and fleshing out future character concepts through certain character choices), as well as things I may not have observed, but these are some major things that I feel, if addressed, will greatly help with keeping both these players (and encouraging other new players) to stay awhile and continue playing, creating enjoyable experiences and having fun with the new system.

As the title.

One thing I have observed is that a Paladin's ability to use Lay On Hands requires a hand to use. This means a Paladin using sword and shield is out (including Light Shield, since in PF1, it only let you hold stuff in there, not do anything else with that hand, per RAW), which meant unorthodox ways of combat (such as a two-hander or just using a single weapon) was required to make use of this ability during combat for yourself or someone else.

With the current rules, even two-handing is now impossible. To put it simply, while wielding a two-handed weapon, you must spend 1 action to remove grip on it, spend another action for your Lay On Hands (to yourself or an adjacent ally), then spend your last action re-gripping your two-handed weapon. Did I also mention you provoke Attacks of Opportunity the moment you let go of your weapon? Which means against enemies that have them, using Lay On Hands is just giving your enemies free reign to attack you without (much) penalty. It's extremely clunky and extremely punishing for no apparent reason. After all, you can't just heal yourself automatically, or just give your ally a poke with your weapon, or the GM might have to rule you deal damage to yourself or the ally, at the very least, if not outright say "You can't do that." The feat that removes the manipulate trait really only makes Lay On Hands no longer provoke, but that's circumvented when a player removes his grip on his weapon (which provokes), making it a very moot point. You still need a free hand (which takes actions and/or losing equipment to rectify at the least), and you still provoke at the part where it is most critical for it to not occur.

This means a Paladin, if he wants to make effective use of his Lay On Hands, has to use a single weapon (with no shield!), meaning a "swashbuckler" style of combat is required for this feature to have its use. Last I checked, every Paladin should not have to use a Zorro/duelist fighting art to be good at their class features; it's unfairly limiting and just doesn't make sense except for the most stringent and unique of characters. I should be able to play a Paladin, two-handed or sword-and-shield, and be able to make fair use of my class features. Telling me I have to throw away either my shield or my sword to heal others (or even myself!) can actually be grounds for anathema depending on Paladin codes, because it can also mean you're discarding your ability to fight Evil or protect innocents who may need it. Which is either silly, setting myself up for failure, or outright unplayable. (P.S., can we expect to get those deity-specific codes fleshed out? I seriously wonder if a Paladin of X deity can do Y action and have it not go against its code, but I can't know that for sure until it's released, and this isn't really something that requires much developer thought, since it's more of world-building rule than a mechanical one.)

Something like this needs to be fixed if I even want to consider playing a Paladin as a PC. As it stands, unless I want to play Zorro (which meshes poorly with the rest of the Paladin's schtick I might add), I'm not seeing how a Paladin's mechanics really sit together with the current rules set, making it both extremely limiting and unnecessarily clunky.

I know, this seems like a silly question when we consider what game we're talking about, but I'm talking about something very specific here, and this serves more as both an examination of design choices as well as a thought experiment.

As most people might be aware of, Adventure Paths in PF1 are balanced around a Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue party paradigm. One Martial, One Skill Monkey, One Full Divine Spellcaster, and One Full Arcane Spellcaster. This means any other unorthodox group, such as, say, Paladin, Bard, Barbarian, and Magus, will either underperform in some aspects (such as the spellcasting issues), but well outperform in other aspects (such as having knowledges and other skills at superior levels, plus a heavy increase in martial capability). So, this means that by design, the second party will be heavily imbalanced towards the options the Adventure Path lays out for them, and that they are actually more unlikely to properly finish the adventure (or break certain adventure interactions) than if they were the standard class makeup.

Based on numerous developer comments, this paradigm has not changed. Wizards aren't as powerful, but still have some utility to bring to the party. Rogues are the gods of skills (having twice as many trained and potential Legendary skills, plus twice the skill feats). Fighters are extremely capable of going toe-to-toe in physical combat, and Clerics are absolutely mandatory for properly fulfilling an adventuring day without it resulting in a TPK through their outrageous healing capabilities.

So, if the game (and by relation, the adventures) still always assume that a Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue are being played, then why on earth do classes like Bards, Sorcerers, Barbarians, Alchemists, Paladins, etc. still exist if they are not something the game assumes players have? The game is busted and doesn't really function well if we go outside of the assumed design paradigm, and it's not like the adventure path assumptions have changed much in regards to class interactions (other than Clerics being the new God class now, but that's beside the point). Why do we have all of these other unnecessary classes for which the game, in my experience, actually goes out of its way to assume you don't have/use them?

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR "IN PALE MOUNTAIN'S SHADOW," IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THAT ADVENTURE, OR "THE LOST STAR," DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

Our group is running through the "In Pale Moon's Shadow" playtest currently with new characters (as the module required), and while we haven't completed it yet, I can make an update for the rest of the game in a follow-up post. For this, I am the one GMing (another player will be GMing the next part, "Affair at Sombrefell Hall" after this, which we already have the basis for before we start, and seems to primarily function as a "healing stress-test" adventure).

Towards the end of the session, I let the players move forward to the next encounter, and they successfully identify what the creature is prior to the encounter with the appropriate checks. At the start of the next session, I will prepare the fight and doubly research the tactics on creatures so that A. I don't play them so recklessly or callously, and B. I don't flop playtest data results that should be triggering.

So I'm trying to understand how Hazards work, and there are some things that are bugging me in how to operate them; clarification on what I might be missing is appreciated, as I'll be expected to know these rules for our playtest session tomorrow.

1. How does one find a Hazard? Most specifically, Complex Hazards. All I've seen under the Traits of a given Hazard is a "Stealth +X [Prof.] or Y" entry, but I have no clue what this is for. Do I make an opposed roll using that modifier for players actively looking for the hazard, or is that Hazard undetected until creatures trigger the Hazard and thereby start Initiative? I've seen mention of a "Stealth DC," but this doesn't tell me anything, unless the "Stealth DC" is the assumption of 10 + Stealth score, in which case I seriously wonder how they got to that conclusion.

2. Complex Hazards seem to be ran like a creature would and gets actions. One such Hazard is Quicksand. Does it get 3 Actions like a creature does, and can just outright pull a creature down under in 6 seconds? That just seems outright cruel to say the least.

If you were asked by Paizo to bring back/restore up to 5 rules elements from PF1 to be put into PF2 (which range from something as simple as a minor change in an existing rule that PF1 had, to removing an existing PF2 rule, to something as complex as an entire rules subset that PF1 endorsed), what would you suggest, and why? (Do note that they don't have to be in any particular order, just your choice of 5 articles of rules to alter/revise/reinstate.)

There is more that I can add to the list, but given I limited the parameters to 5 things, this is perhaps the most prominent of things I want to have changed (back) in PF2. What are others' 5 things they want to bring from PF1 over to replace/reinstate for PF2?

**EDIT** Added band-aids for my wall-of-text syndrome. Should be easier to read now.

SPOILERS FOR "IN PALE MOUNTAIN'S SHADOW," PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED OR ARE GOING TO PLAY THIS PART OF THE ADVENTURE!!!

So I've been tasked with GMing this part of the Doomsday Dawn playtest, and one of the biggest hurdles I have is with adjusting this part to account for 5 players. Yes, I know the game assumes 4, and I should houserule/change as little as possible for raw playtest data, but I kind of throw that out the window with a 5th, so the next best thing would be to get fair adjustments (maybe a developer can chime in?) so that the playtest data isn't as skewed. I don't really need to change the DCs of the traps or anything, but some help/feedback with what I can do to adjust encounters would be appreciated.

The party in question is composed of a Druid, a Barbarian, a Wizard, a Cleric, and a Paladin (which, after a cursory reading, would make this quite a fitting combat group). They only have access to all common items (plus availability from whatever Ancestry feats or class features give them) and their 300 gold. I will allow them to donate up to half their gold to an ally if they wanted to buy something expensive (which means they still have 150 gold to buy stuff with); if there are any "broken" things that can be bought with up to 750 gold pieces that is common, please let me know so I can tell them it's simply not available (and mostly so it doesn't ruin the playtest data results).

With that being said, let's get into the nitty-gritty.

What does everyone think of these adjustments? Too much here? Too little there? Are there any parts that I probably just shouldn't touch? Are there any parts that might require other adjustments (such as additional hazards)? Any suggestions on what to do/build for Encounter 9?