Ectar's page

I read very briefly through Mechanic, focusing on Mines because it sounded novel.

First off, in my experience, Starfinder was a much more three dimensional game than Pathfinder, which implicitly limits how useful area control and delayed area damage effects are.
It doesn't seem like Mines can be deployed in the air which is pretty limiting. Maybe a level-dependent mod or a feat would be useful to add that functionality? Gravitic Mines would make sense to have hovering Mines as a mod or a rider
Related, Mines can only be ranged deployed to an occupied square? Why? At third level you gain the ability to move them anyway. Just feels strangely limited.

Ranged Combat is the meta for friends and foes alike, so it's good that we can deploy a mine at a distance.

Do regular Starfinder humans recognize a mine as it's being deployed? How difficult is it to know that a deployed object is a mine? How big is a mine? They don't take up bulk while stored in the Rig, but what if someone else tries to pick one up?

12 feels like an absurdly high level for Healing Mines. An Alchemist gets healing bombs at 4.

How does Double Deployment even work? 1 action deploy twice is cool and the last line seems like you should be able to ranged deploye them, otherwise they could never be 30ft apart.

Terraforming Mines requires Gravitic Mines, but its effect "Big Bang" is exactly the same as Gravitic Mines's "Big Bang"

Multitasker's description text specifically mentions only mines, but its effect applies to all subclasses. Probably should be a broader description.

This is all critical because I think it's neat and I want to see it as clean, functional, and effective as possible.

From the Divine Mysteries web supplement:
Areas of concern "Destruction, greed, wicked dragons". Cool. Pretty classic for a formerly Evil dragon deity.
Edicts "Kill dragons, destroy things at your whim, study past disasters"

Bolded for emphasis. Not kill benevolent dragons.
Kill. Dragons.

Seems odd that his concerns include those which he seeks to destroy.

Is this any intentional shift from the older "Kill metallic dragons" towards kill all dragons? If so, why are wicked dragons a particular area of concern?

Or is it meant to be more akin to Kill benevolent dragons?

Yep. Clicking Community and clicking the drop down next to Community and then clicking Forums both go to the forums.

The same is true if you click either Community or Forums in the forum addressing.
Ie:
Community/Forums/Paizo/General Discussion

Both of the first two go to the same place.

Edit: Technically they're different urls, but visually and functionally, they appear identical.

That's the thing we're all ostensibly trying not to be.

Yesterday in the Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion channel, a thread was posted expressing consternation about a perceived lack of communication, spurned by the Runesmith/Necromancer playtest ending without a post about it on the website; though there were posts to Facebook and bluesky, and a concern for the company given the departure of certain developers.

It was not, general, a happy nor positive thread, though there was some push back trying to paint a somewhat brighter picture.

As of when I last read the thread, last night, the mood was dour. However, it had not devolved into personal attacks, hatred, or the like.

So I was very surprised this morning to find that thread deleted. Not shutdown, not locked, simply gone, as though it never existed.

Now, PF2 General may not have been the best venue for that thread, so I see every potential reason to move it somewhere more appropriate.
It's possible it might have devolved into something awful, as hinted at above. Perfectly reasonable to lock the thread and delete the hate.

But I think deleting the thread entirely goes too far, into the realm of over-moderation. I've done a bit of community moderating, certainly not on the scale of Paizo, though. One thing I've found pretty consistent is that the best way to upset people who are discussing something they don't like about an organizationis to shut down that conversation. It swiftly takes people from reasonable and upset/unhappy to furious and vindictive.
It's a great way to get people to leave your community forever.

It's kind of sardonically funny. The thread with a major theme of concerning lack of communication gets silently deleted.

I love Pathfinder. I quite like Paizo, generally. I disagree with the way they handled this situation and I think it does themselves more harm than good.

If you, fellow forum poster, feel a desire to post in this thread, I implore you to keep a civil tone. Open, honest, but self-restrained dialogue is incredibly important to me and is a benefit to all of us here.

The feat in question

The old version of the feat was much clearer, imo.
Linkified

The wording on the new version, to me, doesn't necessarily read as updated wording to an existing feat. To me, the changed words almost certainly imply a change in functionality.

So, is "in range" supposed to mean "in range of the original, 2-action Heal"? In which case, neat buff.

Or is "in range" supposed to mean "in range of the 1-action Heal we're now going to choose a target for"? In which case, sad nerf.

Given the general paradigm of Remaster stuff, I'm inclined to believe the former is intended, but is that what the words themselves say? I'm too tired atm to make an assessment ^_^;;

Tin.

Any class, ancestry, free archetype or not.

I've always loved the idea of the 2H dex melee weapon character. I even did it once or twice in 1E, when dex was king.

In 2E, I haven't thought of a character that doesn't feel hampered by that weapon choice. Not so much a trade-off and a trade down. So I'm soliciting ideas.

Inspired by Deriven Firelion.

On paper, I was never really sold on the remaster changes to investigator's combat efficacy as being sufficient to make the class worth playing over a slightly reflavored rogue. And since I'm now back in the GM saddle, I don't know when I'll get the chance to try one any time soon.
So to anyone who has played a remastered investigator, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Even more so if you also played the premastered one as well.

Almost every ability that utilizes the thralls does so without any regard for the fact they are supposedly undead creatures.
Bone Spear transforms them into a projectile, Life Tap consumes them, Muscle Barrier transforms them. Dead Weight kinda works, but barely. The strength of the grapple is necromantic, not muscular so the fact that a creature has to do the grabbing is almost immaterial.

There are very limited options to use the thralls as, well, thralls. Can't have a thrall grab me that drink off the counter. Can't have a thrall hold a torch for light (or even be lit aflame for light since it would be immediately destroyed).
Want to use a thrall to set of a trap? (Like in the class's description) Better hope it's a pressure plate and not a trip wire or a trapped lever.

Let me use my not-minion minions for something other than fueling the real focus spells.

I'm interested to see how in the world this system is going to be balanced. Not that original Mythic ever was, but with the tight math being such a selling point of the 2E system, this preview seems to fly in the face of that.

Mythic proficiency sounds bonkers, even if limited in scope and number of uses per day.

Was perusing the War of Immortals blog post and when I went to look at the books, I saw a $67.49 price tag, which I'd never seen before.
Started looking around and noted that Howl of the Wild was $64.99.

Sorting rulebooks by price, it became clear that those are the two most expensive non-Special hardcover books right now. The Core series of books are all $59.99.

Is this the expected price for hard covers going forward? I was already pretty on the fence about buying HotW and WoI before I noticed the price disparity. Like, $5.00 and $7.50 isn't a lot of extra money. It's just kind of a sentiment thing. "Do I really want to pay more money for a book I wasn't super excited about anyway?"

If this is the new price, I'll probably just end up being a little more discerning about which books I end up getting.

Times is tough all around.

edit: Yes, PDFs exist, but I strongly prefer physical books. So in almost all cases, if I'm interested enough to buy a RPG book, I'm interested in buying a physical one.

They're both originally from Golarion, so far enough back they must, right?
Taxonomically speaking, that it.

Probably Humans and Halflings, too.

Elves and Gnomes aren't originally native to Golarion, so likely no commonality there.

I wonder about Dwarves, tho. Both from Golarion, but Dwarves were never on the surface.
Could be a very distant common ancestor under ground where it eventually evolved into modern Dwarves. Or perhaps life developed today independently down there. Who knows!?

For context, as a single action with the Attack trait, you attempt a Medicine check vs the Fortitude DC of a target within your reach.

Critical Success- The target is either clumsy 3 or stupefied 3 until the end of your next turn. The target is then immune to Surgical Shock for 1 hour.

Success- As critical success, but the target is either clumsy 2 or stupefied 2.

The rest don't matter, because the question I have is: which one is it?

The target is either stupefied or clumsy. Do I get to pick? Do they? Is it random?

It's probably meant to be the former, and that's how I would recommend it to anyone. But it doesn't specify.

Never liked the change to moving Kobolds from little dragon guys to ambient magic sponges. (Didn't we just get Surki for that?) It's another in a long line of making options more flexible at the cost of a concrete identity. I'm rarely a fan, but whatever. I was mostly planning on looking the other way as much as possible and playing my Kobolds largely as before.

Finally got a chance to delve into my PC2 this morning.

Kobolds can no longer gain a permanent fly speed.

They still get access to the garbage Winglets feat at level 5, which is a prereq for the Fly once per turn style feat that is so popular in the flight feat chain they get at level 9 (which the flight capable ancestries get 4 level earlier).
And that's it.

There's no third feat granting access to an actual fly speed, so Kobolds are limited to 1 fly action per round forever.

Arguably, access is somewhat easier because there's no heritage requirement, but this change is terrible.
3 ancestry feats, imo, was already a steeper cost than 2 ancestry feats and a heritage. But now we can't even choose to make that inefficient trade.
Oh, and as a fun kicker: A remaster Kobold can't even use the old 3rd feat, since Hatchling Flight (the prereq to Wyrmling Flight) got renamed to Winglet Flight. Gotta make sure everyone knows that Kobolds aren't dragons. We've got a shiny new selling point versatile heritage for that.

I usually try not to be this rage posty, but it feels like mechanically and thematically my favorite ancestry is no longer what it was, and that's extremely frustrating to me.

SF1 operatives getting 5 levels worth of early access to a typically highly thematic exploit did a lot to engender me to a particular specialization.
I fell in LOVE with the Ghost because of level 5 cloaking field.
The early access was the biggest draw of the entire class to me and helped define the specializations. Sure any other operative could pick it up at 10, but by 11 I get a unique thing anyway, and 5-9 is a massive chunk of adventuring time.

Looking to the SF2 Operative:
At character creation we get a skill increase and a skill feat for something relevant to our specialization. The latter is kind of whatever; any two operative could end up with the exact same skillset irrespective of specialization. The skill feat is one level early access, since we don't start with a free skill feat, but it's only a level before any other operative could pick up the same thing.

The actual unique things the specializations grants, the exploits and advanced exploits, are almost all combat-specific abilities. Intellectually I understand the desire to make the operative into more of a striker and shift skills more over to the Envoy, but it feels like this is too far in that direction. It makes the specialization choice irrelevant outside of combat, which feel wrong to me.

Two changes I'd like to see for the operative:
1.) Auto-scaling of the specialization skill. Possibly in lieu of the free skill feat at 3,7,15. I think the raw numbers increase is a better indication of the operative's abilities than the skill feat.
Granted, the skill feats actually ARE early access to something that could be obtained a bit later by other specializations, but they just aren't that cool, imo.

2.) A unique, not specifically combat-related, ability somewhat early on. I'm thinking like the 4-6 range. Could be something baked into the base specialization or, I think more likely, actual class feats with a specialization as a prereq. Just something the specialization can get that helps them stand out. Especially outside of changes to the turn-by-turn combat routine.

Insofar as I can tell, every SF2 weapon should have Analog, Tech, or Archaic in their traits, with the latter currently reserved for PF weapons.
The Neutral Lash has none.

Getting that GM itch again, so I'm soliciting opinions.

I tend to favor APs that:
- Make it clear early on what the ultimate threat is. ie: Curse of the Crimson Throne (largely) or Reign of Winter.
- Revisit locations or have a notable home base where the PCs can form longer-term relationships with NPCs
- Have a more serious overall tone.

So what APs would y'all suggest?
Doesn't necessarily have to include all of the above, just want to hear what people think. And a bunch of the AP volumes don't have a lot of reviews.
Would prefer a 2e one, since converting is a non-trivial amount of extra work.

I was perusing the Star Guns out of Treasure Vault and Guns and Gears. All three of them have the concussive trait, which causes the target to use the lesser of their piercing and bludgeoning resistance, but the guns don't deal piercing or bludgeoning damage. Is this just like, a flavor trait in these cases? Or just an oversight?

The Roawn Rifle deals fire damage, and both the Ghosthand's Comet and the Kaldemash's Lament deal force damage, with other elemental options.

So what gives?

In the errata today it says:
"The Spellshot Dedication now reads as follows: You cast arcane spells like a wizard, gaining a spellbook with four common arcane cantrips of your choice. You gain the Cast a Spell activity. You can prepare two cantrips each day from your spellbook. You’re trained in the spell attack modifier and spell DC statistics. Your key spellcasting attribute for spellshot archetype spells is Intelligence, and they are arcane spells. You become trained in Arcana; if you were already trained in Arcana, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. This counts as the wizard archetype for the benefits of Basic Wizard Spellcasting. Special You can’t select another dedication feat other than Beast Gunner Dedication until you’ve gained two other feats from the spellshot or beast gunner archetypes."

Sure sounds like they lost it to me. If so, that makes me sad. The conjuring bullets bit was the coolest, or at least most evocative, part of the archetype to me.

I fully understand that these are not well fitting for the class fantasy and mechanics.

HOWEVER as someone whose character had their armor destroyed, I can tell you I was very glad that at least my proficiency was the same.
If the same thing happened to a level 11 Guardian in +2 full plate, their AC plummets by 12:
6 from plate
2 from +2
4 from drop in proficiency.

It's just an unnecessary feelsbadman, imo

Insofar as I can tell, no ability, feat, or class feature interacts with the level 1 Tactic classification. So why bother separating them?

I could see a world where at level 1 the Commander gets 2 mobility tactics and 2 offensive tactics or maybe a feat that has an effect when you use a Mobility Tactic or something. So could be design space left blank for future iteration?

I dunno; seems unnecessary atm to break 'em up into categories if those categories don't mean anything besides broad strokes description.

Choose an implement from the options to which you have access. You begin play with a mundane item of that type, and you gain the initiate benefit for that implement. While an implement is useful to you, it typically has no value if sold. If you acquire a new object of the same general implement type, you can switch your implement to the new object by spending 1 day of downtime with the new item.

So the implement we start with is mundane. And an implement typically has no value if sold. Additionally, if we acquire a new, similar item we can make that our new implement with a day of downtime.

Suppose I have a wand implement and our group happens upon a wand of Fireball. Can that be my new wand implement?

Petrify has replaced Flesh to Stone. I don't see a Stone to Flesh equivalent, and Petrify doesn't say anything about being able to remove its own effect or anything.

I've long believed that Dispel Magic wouldn't work, since the spell ends when the creature becomes fully petrified. I could be wrong about that, tho.

If I am correct about Dispel Magic not working, how does one remove the fully petrified effect of Petrify or similar effects using only Remastered content?

It's been established repeatedly that Hao Jin has lived for centuries, but also that she isn't truly immortal. What I haven't come across is how she has lived for centuries already.

Even the 1e version of the Phoenix Bloodline's capstone worked like True Resurrection, so it wouldn't stop her from dying of old age. It's technically possible she's imbibed the sun orchid elixir a bunch of times, but that probably would've been established by now if that were the case.

If there has been a canonical answer, I'd love to hear it <3

It's a simple wish:

I hope that the Monster Core specifies what a monster's melee Strike range is, if one is not given.

My default assumption has always been "5 ft". But I think an equally valid assumption is "whatever the standard reach is for a creature of that size".

I brought this up ages ago regarding Tiny creatures. Prior to the release of Book of the Dead, the only creature in the entire game with a listed melee range of "0 ft" was the demilich. But because one existed, I felt comfortable assuming that no listed reach equaled 5ft.
(This does lead to a bit of a silly adjudication regarding the Greater Nightmare, a Huge creature with no listed reach on its Jaws and Hoof)

But a number of people disagreed, saying that GMs should be using the reaches listed in the Size, Space, and Reach table if no reach is listed.

I think these are both valid interpretations.

The release of Book of the Dead introduced several Tiny creatures with a listed melee strike range of "0 ft". This further convinces me that if no range is listed, a 5ft reach should be assumed.

However, complicating this assumption is the existence of creatures which have a melee attack with a listed reach of 5 ft. These include the Dreamscraper, Tehialai-Thief-Of-Ships, Lomori Sprout, and the Gorilla.
The Gorilla is a particularly interesting one because it comes from the first bestiary, and it has 2 melee attacks, each with a listed range:
A 10ft fist and a 5ft Jaws.
Given the Gorilla's Large size and Bipedal nature, it's a fairly safe assumption a Gorilla should be considered a Large, Tall creature, giving it 10ft natural reach. This would make the specified 10ft reach unnecessary.
Alternatively, the generally assumed reach could be 5ft, making the specified 5ft reach on Jaws unnecessary.

Frankly, I don't much care which approach the book takes in the Remaster, though, I think having an assumed 5ft reach on attacks unless the attack specifies is a bit easier and requires less GM fiat on assessing if a creature is Tall or Long.

I just really hope the book specifies a standard and that the writers stick to it.

For context, here's the triggers and requirements for all three Thaumaturge implements which grant reactions:

Trigger The target of your Exploit Vulnerability would damage you or an ally within 15 feet of you.

Requirements You're holding your amulet implement and are benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability.

Trigger The target of your Exploit Vulnerability uses a concentrate, manipulate, or move action, or leaves a square during a move action it's using.

Requirements You're holding your weapon implement and are benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability against a creature. The creature must be within your reach if you're wielding a melee weapon, or within 10 feet if you're wielding a ranged weapon.

Trigger The target of your Exploit Vulnerability makes a Strike or Casts a Spell that would affect you or one of your allies.

Requirements You are holding your bell implement, and the triggering creature is within 30 feet of you.

So for Amulet and Weapon, the Requirement includes Holding the specific Implement and that you are "Benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability".

Now, what does "Benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability" mean?
As a GM, I'd probably could Critical Success, Success, and Failure on the EV roll as "benefiting", since each of those allow the player to use some combination of Mortal Weakness and/or Personal Anthesis, and don't impart any penalties.
Critical Failure grants no positive effects and imposes a negative condition. Therefore, I'd consider this result to not be "benefiting" the Thaumaturge.

So after a critically failed EV roll, a Thaumaturge would still be able to use the Bell reaction, but not the other two. Because they have a target of Exploit Vulnerability and aren't required to be Benefiting from EV.

I don't think this discrepancy between the three reaction-based Implements should exist, which begs the question: Which wording, and therefore RAW, is correct?
My guess is probably the Weapon and Amulet wording is correct and Bell should include "Benefiting from Exploit Vulnerability" in its requirements.

You Stride, then attempt a DC 15 Athletics check to Long Jump in the direction you were Striding. If you didn't Stride at least 10 feet, you automatically fail your check. The GM might increase or decrease this DC depending on the situation.

Success: You Leap a distance equal to your check result rounded down to the nearest 5 feet. You can't Jump farther than your land speed

Suppose a level 20 Barbarian with Legendary Athletics, +1 item bonus to Athletics, +6 strength, and no other Leaping or Jumping related feats or items. They have a 40 foot move speed.

They want to jump a 20 foot gap. Easy.

They spend the appropriate 2 actions, Stride 10 feet and attempt their check, Nat 20 for a total of 20+20+6+8+1=55 feet. Goes down to 40 because of their land speed.
And they sail well past their intended destination, possibly into harm's way.

This is probably an improvement on the existing rules, but creates its own problem: you can't Jump less than the dice dictate.

Wisdom-based divine spellcaster.
Trained in simple weapons.
Trained in up to medium armor.
Trained in Fort and Reflex, Expert in Will.
Trained in Nature, Religion and 2+int others.
Trained in Perception.
8+con hit points.

Compared to Cloistered Cleric (since they get the same spell proficiency scaling):

Wisdom-based divine spellcaster.
Trained in unarmored (or medium if Warpriest)
Trained in simple weapons + deity's weapon.
Trained in Fort and Reflex, Expert in Will.
Trained in Religion, +1 based on deity, and 2+int others.
Trained in Perception.
8+con hit points.

They both get Fort saves to expert at level 3. Animists get Perception to expert at 9th level, compared to the Cleric's 5th.
9th level, Animists gain either Fort saves to master or medium armor proficiency to expert, compared to the cleric's Will to master.
11th level Animists gain Simple weapon proficiency and reflex saves to expert; Clerics gain Fort saves to expert.
13 Channelers gain medium armor to expert; Clerics gain unarmored defense to expert.

So like, the actual class chassis is not wholly dissimilar from the cleric. Somewhat better armor proficiency, somewhat worse saving throw proficiency (especially Sages).

The Animist gets a few more regular spell slots; the cleric gets a bunch more top level Heal/Harm spells. From 1-11, the Cleric has more total spell slots, they're tied at 12, and the Animist pulls ahead for the rest of the game.

A cleric's deity grants a handful of spells to their spell list. But this is where the Animist really shines, with the huge amount of flexibility granted by the Apparition Spell List and automatically going up to 3 focus points at 4th level. So by 5th level, an Animist has access to 3 cantrips and 9 spells which aren't limited to the Divine spell list.

So given the pretty similar chassis, the biggest points of differentiation that I've noticed are the incredible flexibility of the Animist and the Divine Font of the Cleric.
Which, to me, starts to beggar the question:

What is the Cleric's mechanical niche anymore, unless you explicitly NEED access to a bunch of extra heals or harms?
(You can tell plenty of deity-focuses or related stories without actually playing a Cleric, so I don't find that an especially compelling reason. I'm really looking for mechanics based reasons to play the cleric over the animist)

Alright, so the following categories CAN be a weapon ikon:
-One that deals piercing or slashing damage
-A ranged weapon
-A weapon in the sword or knife weapon group
-A weapon in the polearm or spear group, plus a few stave types
-A melee weapon in the club, hammer, or axe groups

So what does this list exclude?

Flails and fisticuffs, mostly.
A probably slightly incorrect and non-exhaustive list:
Fist (makes sense, tbh), Gauntlet, Knuckle Duster, Poi, Combat Lure, Flail, Meteor Hammer, Monkey's Fist, Pantograph Gauntlet, Sansetsukon, Shield Bash, Shield Boss, War Flail, Dwarven Dorn-Dergar, Fire Poi, Gnome Flickmace, Wrecker.

Now, a lot of those are kinda weird weapons: I'm looking at you Fire Poi.
But some of them are pretty normal weapons that the playtest exemplar just can't use, like the war flail and meteor hammer.

I feel like this is probably just an oversight, but it is what it is for now.

edit- I flagged this for moving to the playtest thread. Probably better served there.

So there's a level 10 Kineticist feat that lets a single gate Kineticist become affected by the spell "Elemental Form" of the type of your single gate once per day.
However, as far as I can tell, neither Rage of Elements nor the PF2Core preview PDF have rules for a Wood or Metal elemental form's abilities.

So here's my attempt at filling those gaps:

Both Wood and Metal gain the Athletics modifier and strength-based unarmed strikes.

Metal: Speed 30ft; electricity resistance 10; Melee Claw 2d8 slashing

Wood: Speed 20ft, climb 20ft; bludgeoning and piercing resistance 5, fire and slashing weakness 5; Melee Branch 2d6.

How would y'all flesh out these elemental forms, until PF2 Core comes out?

So you breathe it in and you get an effect for a long as you hold your breath. Cool.
After you stop holding your breath (5+con mod, talking, verbal spell casting [until the remaster is completed and spell components go away entirely]) the effect ends.
Some Bottled Breaths have a special effect of you specifically spend an action to exhale the Breath.
However: there are no traits given for the action of Exhaling.
Is this intended?
I might have guessed that Exhaling would at least have Concentration, since I'm many cases you're breathing out and aiming something akin to (or exactly duplicating) a spell effect.
Given that it is duplicating spells, someone might even guess that it should have manipulate. I don't think that, but I don't think it's wholly unreasonable.

tldr: what traits, if any, should the action of Exhaling have, as it relates to Bottled Breaths.

It seems likely to me that the name of the Drow ancestry (that I'm hoping we'll get some day) will change.
Dark-skinned, underground elves have existed in fantasy since time immemorial, but the name might be a sticking point.

Svartalfar, to my mind, would have been a potential analogue, but they already exist as a fey monster in the Agents of Edgewatch AP. They could always just kind of retcon or ignore that in the transition, I suppose.

It might also be the case that Paizo create an entirely new name for their underground, dark-skinned elf ancestry. They're renamed a bunch of other extant monsters, but to date have kept Drow. I wonder if they can just continue to use it?

What would you like to see for "Drow" in PF2R?

I've always hoped to see a little more Drow utilization in PF. I'll probably never get the chance to play Second Darkness, and it'd be interesting to see a more contemporary take on PF Drow (or whatever they end up being called)

I took minor issue with the implementation of the simplified ancestries optional system in this thread Here.

With 2R on the horizon, these issues have a chance to be addressed in one of a few ways:

1.) Ensuring every ancestry has a level 1 ancestry feat called "Ancestry Lore". Like Elf Lore or Goblin Lore.
This is my preferred solution, though it butts had with the consistent stance that Humans are so varied and widespread on Golarion that no one more feat could/ should cover the entirety of humanity.

2.) Make a general exception in the subsystem for ancestries without an appropriate feat. Massive like a *If the ancestry you selected doesn't have an appropriate feat, work with your GM to find a replacement".
This feels like the most likely solution, to me.

3.) Make specific exceptions for all the ancestries without appropriate feats. Like "A gnome PC receives Gnome Obsession in lieu of an ancestral Lore feat".
This seems bad for future- proofing reasons.

4.) Larger changes. Rework or removal of the subsystem entirely.

I was perusing AoN, as I am want to do, when I stumbled across this ritual. Seemed cool. Read what happens on success and, well:

You learn a significant piece of lore, a forgotten secret, or some other tantalizing nugget of knowledge that is of immediate use to you, connected to the skill you chose. The GM will provide you with some piece of information they know will aid you in your personal goals. In addition, you become trained in the use of the selected skill and gain a +1 status bonus on checks made with that skill.

vs

Success You become expert in the use of the selected skill.

Now, there are certainly likely times where the immediately useful knowledge is going to be critical. But I feel like other times simply becoming an expert is superior.

This feels like almost certainly a mistake somewhere. Reading the heightened options for this ritual, it seems almost certain that Critical Success is supposed to make you an expert, plus all the other benefits.

In the start of the Treasure Vault section on Missives, Purepurin admitted to sending Tik an Explosive Missive to show him how much of a meanie he was for drawing a particular picture.
Coincidentally, I've been playing a kobold called Tik for a few months now. So it seems I need to update my backstory a bit, which beggars the titular question:
What did Tik draw?

Sympathy Heave (I'd want it to be Sympathy Puker, but I don't think that terminology is quite appropriate)
General
Feat 1

Reaction
Trigger: You have the sickened condition and a creature you can see within 30ft succeeds on a fortitude save retching to reduce the value of their sickened condition.

The sight and sound of vomiting has always caused you to sick up as well. Immediately attempt a Fortitude save against the DC of the effect that made you sickened. On a success, you reduce your sickened value by 1 (or by 2 on a critical success).

I don't think this feat is exactly good but I think it's funny, has a reasonable use case, and it's pretty believable.

I was using this guide to help with making a homebrew version of the Monk's Spade:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j0uUtVcTgvn2a0oMYFKMwe_-tAPOdnFY21_0FOi X2DI/edit?usp=sharing

when I thought the following question:

Could you place Versatile on a weapon more than once?

The 1e version of the Monk's Spade could do any of the 3 types of weapon damage, so I'd like to do something like this for the homebrew version.
Currently, 0 weapons have versatile for more than one type of damage. Modular does something kind of similar, but requires extra actions.

So would y'all consider having a weapon with two versatile traits on it? Would you "dock" the weapon in other ways to compensate?

Supposing, of course, you need to underwater for more than an hour, an Aquatic Chair seems to me to be the most economical and effective strategy.

As Mobility Device, your land speed continues to be equal to your speed. As far as I can tell, there's no detriment to handedness especially true if you also acquire Impulse Control, a common and cheap upgrade.

Other items meant to facilitate underwater adventuring:

Bottled air (level 7, 320gp) Requires actions to breathe. Doesn't grant swim speed.

Potion of Swimming, Greater (level 11, 250gp) Lasts an hour. Doesn't grant water breathing.

Ring of Swimming (level 12, 1750gp) Swim speed 1/2 land speed. Doesn't grant water breathing.

Elemental Wayfinder, Water (level 10, 900gp) Uncommon. Doesn't grant swim speed.

Compared to: Amphibious Chair (level 9, 575gp). Common. 20ft land speed, unless yours is better. 20ft swim speed, unless yours is better. Unlimited water breathing (or air breathing if you normally breathe water).

I'm on board with Mobility Devices being 100% non-detrimental. But, to me, it sorta breaks verisimilitude when a wheel chair is by far and away the most effective means of underwater traversal.

There's very likely an angle to this that I'm missing, and I look forward to reading it ^_^

Mechanically speaking.

As far as I can tell, there are almost no differences to not being in a wheel chair, save that someone else can spend an action to help you stand, whereby you can stand as a free action triggered by your ally's help, and that you can be immobilized by having your hands bound, prior to Impulse Control.

Relevant rules text from AoN: "Your scales are medium armor in the plate armor group that grant a +4 item bonus to AC, a Dex cap of +1, a check penalty of –2, a Speed penalty of –5 feet, a Strength value of 16, and have the comfort trait. You can never wear other armor or remove your scales. You can etch armor runes onto your scales."

The way I read it, nothing suggests you should be. But having a heritage that makes you incapable of wearing armor while not guaranteeing that you can use the Scales armor feels wrong to me.

If I were GMing for a PC with this ancestry who was not proficient in medium armor, I'd at least make them automatically trained in the Scales armor, specificity.
Later down the line, I'd have to check their AC vs another light armor PC to see if they're taking behind.
If they are not, I might have their proficiency in scales match their class armor progression. I'm not home atm so I can't adequately check right now.

Relevant rules blurb for context:

When choosing an ancestry for a simplified ancestry character, you gain the ancestry’s normal abilities at 1st level, choose a heritage, and gain the appropriate lore feat (Dwarven Lore for dwarves, for example) as your ancestry feat. Simplified ancestry characters never gain ancestry feats beyond that first lore feat. If you want to keep the power level of your game consistent, you can replace the ancestry feats gained at higher levels with general feats.

The problem lies in the fact that not every race has a _____ Lore feat. Most of these are rare races, so it's not too big of an issue: Fleshwarp, Poppet, Skeleton, Sprite. There may be others that I overlooked.

The big HOWEVER, though, is that there is no Human Lore feat. Humans are one of the big core races and one of the most common races in the game.
I understand that extreme versatility and societal/geographic/cultural flexibility are cornerstones of the Golarian human's design, so it makes sense that there isn't a "Human Lore" feat, since humans are so varied (arguably should be true of a lot of the more widespread races, but that's a topic for another channel).
But it is something of a failing for the alternative rules system.

For those wondering: this problem is partially, though not wholly, ameliorated by versatile heritages. Only Beastkin and Ganzi VHs don't have an associated Lore skill feat.

Natural Skill seems like a nice replacement compromise. You get trained proficiency in any two skills you like at the trade-off of not getting a lore skill.

The 'unconscious' condition says "You take a –4 status penalty to AC, Perception, and Reflex saves, and you have the blinded and flat-footed conditions. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you are wielding or holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're in a position in which you wouldn't."

None of those effects, of the effects of the nested conditions, affects the fortitude DC, which is what athletics to grapple goes against. Kinda silly.

It's the kind of thing every GM I know would probably house rule in some way on the spot.

"Your fly sped no longer restricts the height you can fly." -Sentence 2 of Unlimited Ghost Flight.

However, nothing I can see in either Floating or the Ghost Flight feat indicate this to have been the case previously.
Floating keeps you generally tethered to the ground, whereas Ghost Flight lets you fly wholly unrestricted for 10 minutes.

I suppose it's somewhat implied in Floating, since you can high jump up to your fly speed?

However, it kinda reads like an earlier version of the Ghost archetype or maybe the Ghost Flight feat used to previously allow unlimited flight up to a height capped by your fly speed.

The answer to this question significantly impacts how good of a spell it is.
Considering it's a third level spell, I don't think it should be equal to the spell DC.
Nothing in the spell description describes the quality or stillness of the water, so I'm unsure which of the non-level based DCs would apply.

Looking at the art in the blog post looks kinda "swiftly flowing river" to me, but I'm really grasping at straws when I'm trying to discern rules from art.

Seems really odd when it's a huge creature, and a full size category over the regular nightmare which also has 5ft reach.
I couldn't find many instances of a huge creature having only 5ft reach. The Quetzalcoatlus has talons at 5ft, but it also has beak at 10. Both the Greater Nightmare's jaws and hoof are not given a range, so it defaults to 5ft, yeah?
Seems odd.

Yeah. From the list of 2e APs, Extinction Curse also has the Agents of Edgewatch stuff on it.
It's weird and took me a few minutes to notice that Extinction Curse is actually on the lower half of the page, but I don't think other AP pages have 2 APs worth of stuff on them, especially when the stuff that should be up-front is on the bottom.

When performing high jump and long jumps, the wording of the actions states that you perform a stride of at least 10 feet, then make either a vertical or horizontal Leap. Make an athletics check.
So, if you have a feat that modifies your Leap action, does that affect high or long jumps, since they have a Leap action nested inside of them?

So a feat like Raging Athlete:
"Physical obstacles can’t hold back your fury. While you are raging, you gain a climb Speed and swim Speed equal to your land Speed, the DC of High Jumps and Long Jumps decreases by 10, and your Leap distance increases by 5 feet when you jump horizontally and by 2 feet when you jump vertically."

Obviously it reduces the DC for high and long jumps. But does the last bit about Leap distances also apply to high and long jumps, since the high and long jumps still use the Leap action?

Secondly, how high can you jump with Sudden Leap? Specifically this line:
"When attempting a High Jump or Long Jump during a Sudden Leap, determine the DC using the Long Jump DCs, and increase your maximum distance to double your Speed."

And more generally, what kinds of abilities can you mash together?

Can a stunning fist also be a perfect strike, while also being a punishing kick?

Can my stunning, punishing, perfect fistkickstrike also target the foe's flat-footed AC via the Spin Kick style strike?

Where does the madness end?