Dr. Frank Funkelstein's page

And if you focus on AC, the DEX build is indeed better when you get Apex items.

If you have dex apex items, you are limited by the +5 of explorers clothing and your +7 dex does not give you any more AC.

I think it is a strong feature of Pathfinder2e that you do not have to play the one optimal way.

Investing a feat into a caster archetype gives you plenty of options, it does not "ruin your build".
And even though every +1 matters, you will probably be fine if you wanted another feature more.

I like scaly hide, but dislike that it is investing into this or taking the problematic mountain stance (you lose AC when you fly?...) if you want to start with maximum strength to focus on maneuvers.

I am currently playing it (with remastered rules), about 2/3 in, lvl 12.
Some fights were hard, some not, so far only a single one has stood out - a certain lich, loaded to the brim with damage spells and not even relevant to the story, where we avoided a tpk with a lot of luck and lost two characters...

Otherwise it has been a lot of fun, except for the idea that you have a home base that you never visit, and NPCs that you never meet again - an issue shared by other travel around the world APs.

Storm druid is a very resource efficient way to play, you have an excellent focus spell (tempest touch), and order explorer - untamed order gives you a second focus point as well as the option to fight in animal form.

I played a storm/animal order druid in Abomination Vaults, quite versatile - except for the few skills.

I think it is fair to have both in the same item, but treat them as different ikons

I would also suggest medic, you can leave it at lv 4.
Rogue would also be a nice option, giving you light armor, good feats and later on lots of skills.

There is no damage to armor, with very very few exceptions.
The Rust Monster, remastered Ore Louse, is one
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2665
But Iruxi armor is not made of metal.

It has multiple issues:
- Summons scale badly, you are mainly looking for utility, and animals offer not much of that. Skunks are okay for the first levels.
- you can learn other summon spells as a bard without needing a subclass
- summoning spells cost three actions and you can't do your bard thing (support with a composition) at the same time till lvl 14
- Zoophonic Composition, your cool lvl 4 feat, is 1/day - not even focus point based
- being a gnome with Animal Elocutionist exists - but talking to animals is not common, unless your GM puts it in just for you (which they totally should, but pathfinder society does not offer that)
- Songbird's call, your unique composition at lvl 8, does 1d6 damage (to everybody but you) and makes everybody concealed - it is just bad.

It is still totally playable, you are a bard after all, just bad compared to other muses.

The oracle remaster divided the benefits and drawbacks of cursebound abilities: Using the ability gives you benefits, your cursebound value gets up which gives you drawbacks.
I think the intention is pretty clear, you do not get an advantage by being cursebound.

If you feel battle oracle is too weak (which it is), you can homebrew any number of things, and of course you can allow sure strike not to have a cooldown for battle oracles - you don't have to find a loophole based on the limitations of natural speech for that.

The rules are not that granular, you will probably have to homebrew.

Crafting feels a bit unecessary at lower levels, but gets more important when you get higher and not every village smith is capable of transferring your runes, and settlement levels fall behind your own - unless you play in Absalom.

I don't have high level experience, only lvl 8 with mine.
Shield+Unarmed with Mirrored Aegis, Titan's Breaker and Scar of the Survior.
The +1 AC Aura at start is nice, as i am not the fastest.
Typical first turn would be raise the walls (transcendence-action for the shield aka raise shield and +1 ac/saves for me + 1), move and strike (with the immanence-effect of titan's breaker, +2/dice).

Scar of the Survivor is my tank option for a bit of self heal.

Pro:
- High survivability
- Nice support with aegis and radiant healing (2+2*level for each ally once per combat)
- Some options to target weaknesses with different energy types
- Trip/Grapple with unarmed
- Free hand for battle medicine

Con:
- Damage not that high (even though my GM allowed Titan's Breaker with my d8 bite)
- Feels a bit action starved
- Lower level feats are mostly bad or situational, despite their grandiose names

The rare tag is quite obviously not due to the class power, but due to the grandiose story/main character feeling - which you probably would't care about (and we don't, at least in this group).

it does not affect grapple

It is more of a flavor ability, it does good damage and spawning shadows makes it quite dangerous if not dispatched quickly.

The campaign is nearly over, somebody lost their character and created a new one focused on defense: I don't really see the issue.
AV has loads of rather difficult fights, if you feel as if your group is no longer challenged adjust the encounters accordingly.

I've seen Library Lore being used as an option for research subsystems in adventures, for example Malevolence.

Runes have a "Usage", in the case of shadow:
etched onto light or medium armor

As a D&D5-convert myself i can understand the mixup, no need to apologize for learning the rules and asking questions!

You got some good explainations already. The concentrate-tag can mostly be ignored, there are a few rare cases where it counts, for example a raging Barbarian cannot use actions with this trait (unless they take a feat and pay an action tax, moment of clarity), or a Thaumaturge with a weapon implement could react to it.

Sustain is the "D&D-contentrate", but more flexible - you can sustain multiple spells, there are ways to sustain for free, but usually it costs you one of your precious three actions.

Yes, i would use the existing ranged attack, also much more awesome than arrows

People dying with persistent damage is quite dangerous.
Sure, if you have high enough heal spells, you can throw them at the problem, but a simple skill check might be enough, so why waste resources?

Poison can be quite debilitating, healing the damage might not be your first priority if your fighter is confused etc.

It is more of a niche, but can be important to have in some sitations.
There are a few ways to make it more useful, e.g. medics treat condition.

A shield augmentation gives you at least some of the flexibility of a free hand fighter (trip, but not grapple)

Is it common in your groups to look at stat blocks of enemies of a campaign you are playing, let alone the end boss?
It would be a great no-no for me or any of the GMs i play with.

APs are designed to be beatable, improve your tactics, find group synergies and you should be fine.
Look for information in character, listen to clues your GM gives you and adjust your equipment or spells and you should be fine - dice willing, of course!

You don’t even need to spend the 10gp, the silver coin you already have on you will do fine.

PFS Note Any spells which require metal to function require the PC to be in possession of at least one chunk of that metal or an item made of that metal.

My GMs use that for our home campaigns as well

Deep Breath allows you to cast while swallowed etc, i try my very best to grab it for higher level play.

I think it is easy to criticize the bulk system and find edge cases it does not handle well while forgetting that it handles a lot of defaults quite good.
And what would you propose as an alternative? Just having a x pound carry limit has other issues.

Can you put unlimited neglible items on a horse? No, you can not, unless you treat the rule system as a computer API.
"Items of negligible Bulk don’t count toward Bulk unless you try to carry vast numbers of them, as determined by the GM"

I have found the "Bulk of Creatures" rule helpful to see who is able to carry or pull a dying comrade out of danger, if you think you win more realism by adding x to it: "the GM might adjust this number" - just be mindful of scenarios where the whole team cannot move a full plate wearing fighter...

I like my abstractions, i don't want to play a packing simulator.

Rule simplifications are there to provide simplified rules, not new opportunities to game said rules.

If you really have players that put their coins in 999 stacks to avoid bulk that otherwise would count, you have a whole other issue than the bulk rules.

Arcane and Primal casters can solve the air problem using Deep Breath
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1315
"you lose only 10 minutes of breath if you speak" (including to Cast a Spell)

After being in a bog mummys aura as a Magus i try to get it on all my casters.

It allows some archetypes greater flexibility, for example medic has both an archetype feat and a skill feat at lvl 4, which allows you to take a second archetype at lvl 6 (or lvl 4 with free archetype)

Patron's Puppet
Trigger: Your turn begins
Spell Delivery has you command the familiar after casting the spell, which is not when your turn begins.
Familiar of Nimble Flight would work though, if it also has Fast Movement that would give you 40ft + 15ft reach for your touch spell, a bit better than the 30ft that Reach Spell would give you.

Fire Ray is the remaining option with high damage, best combined with overwhelming spellstrike later.
Another interesting option is Cry of Destruction paired with Expansive Spellstrike as a mini-AoE, dealing d12s to the first and d8s to other targets.

You are correct, there is a "The first time an animal gains a specialization, it also gains the following[...]" +1 dex together with the +1 from Ambusher/Daredevil.

For a druid:
Bird +3
Mature +1 (Mature Companion, lvl 4)
Nimble +2 (Increadible Companion, lvl 8)
Specializations +3 (+1 each, Speczialized Companion, up to 3 times, lvl 14, 16, 18)
total +9

You can find existing structures and include them into your kingdom later.
I would also not use the building rules but just free-style something.

I can't see any Heavy armor that I could afford at 1st level

you can take a medium armor and add an armored skirt.

I also wouldn't allow the targeting (and wouldn't allow the DC 11 flat check) if the enemy is Unobserved and the caster is having to guess what square they are in. At that point in the narrative, the caster can't see the enemy at all.

With a sword you can select a square where you think it might be, i would allow the same with a spell.

Battle Medicine needs a free hand.
"Requirements You're holding or wearing a healer's toolkit"
Healer's Toolkit: Hands 1 or 2
"If you wear your healer's toolkit, you can draw and replace them as part of the action that uses them"

you can, however, use a free action to release 1 hand, apply battle medicine and use 1 action to re-grip your weapon.

take armor proficiency and select a different class feat at 2nd level
use an armored skirt to have appropriate armor at start

nope, they are all still a ring of wizardry

We were a bit surprised that Evil Eye can target monsters that would otherwise be not be affected by effects causing sickened, but so were the skeletons!
Applying sickened to enemies that would swallow you whole is a good way to prevent that.

Best to keep the game running and resolve any issues afterwards!

Wait until you read the kingdom and troop rules ;)
(i suggest using Vance&Kenesharas Homebrew or automating kingdom management)

Rolling dice is fun, but rolling the same dice 10 times not so much.
We usually use a fresh roll if a spell is sustained in a new round.

I think the "calculate with the highest damage" part is the one that is intended to avoid rolling for each target, you can just take the amount of the worst save result and multiply it with the number of targets.

Oracles Divine Access is a 11th level class feature, not poachable by archetype.
Cleric gets the spells at lvl 1 via the Deity, the archetype states "You don’t gain any other abilities from your choice of deity"

I think it should be possible via Sorcerer (class or archetype) with a divine bloodline and the Blessed Blood feat, which is legacy but should still be available.

I played a Whip Weapon/Tome Thaumaturge and it was a blast. Reach with the reaction is extremely nice

GM does stuff

I played a Thaumaturge with an Asp Coil, it's a pretty good weapon for a striker character - you won't be as sturdy as a fighter or champion.

Reach is nice as a lot of your main things, like exploit vulnerability, have the manipulate trait and trigger reactive strike.
Coming from 5e, you will probably have to learn that very few enemies at lower levels have this ability, but stumbling into it can be really painful - best have a post-it with a reminder to exploit first, then move in!

Regarding your implement, you should be aware of the limitation regarding the target of your exploit vulnerability. I was unhappy with the weapon implement, being limited to the one target makes it difficult to focus fire and interrupt someone else with it.

The amulet is quite strong and can usually be used every turn - the target of your EV will probably damage somebody, and as long as they are within 15ft you can use it. Didn't use it myself, but played along two who did, with great success.

My favorite was the tome, but i am a sucker for skills - i love skill training from rogue or investigator on my characters - and the built-in sure strike at 9th level is golden (but it's a long way there!). Has some good action compression due to the free RK as well - and you will be starved for actions.

Don't forget that 2e allows you to retrain choices if you don't like them, so maybe just try them out!

I also want to push back on the "D&D 3.75" nickname for PF1E being a positive, or at least an unalloyed positive

PF1e was basically a large errata draft from Paizo when WotC dropped 4e and its restrictive license, i think we called it "3.6" back then, but it found its own footing pretty quick, and a lot of people were happy to just continue playing "as is", but with new content.

I think intention matters, and while a lot of people bought the remastered books it was not intended to be necessary.
I also agree that the changes were rather small compared to the D&D ones and am perfectly fine with calling it "Remaster"

Innate spells do not fulfill casting prerequisites.

Greater Darkvision seems very situational to me, i would not expect it to come up often in PFS

I think it's more of an issue how much of a session it takes.
Personally, i love me a good shopping session - and having the funds for it!

yeah this thread has gone down in a pretty unnecessary hypothetical train derailment. "How would rules we don't really know yet handle a situation that has never happened?"

It is a legacy creature from Age of Ashes that triggered the discussion

The legacy spell would have worked, but the remastered does not, my suggestion was to either apply the legacy spell effect in this case or rework the monster (a lot of effort though for a single case)

Ask your GM

Though depending on your player's preferences, the kingmaking system is a bit cumbersome to use, and eats up a lot of time, so it might be considered home ruling an expedited version of it, or losing it altogether.

There is the Vance/Keneshara homebrew that was recently updated, it eases the management a lot - but its still cumbersome if you ask me, and i wanted to like it.