Cythnigot

Falco271's page

306 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


RSS

1 to 50 of 306 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ravingdork wrote:

As a GM what familiar abilities would you require your player select to have their familiar represent a basic cat, if any?

Why?

I'm asking as a player who wants to avoid potential surprises while making my witch character.

It must be able to smile and turn invisible!


The best item for status bonus for a hard (in combination with Inspire Heroics).

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1025


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So instead of one big attack, do many smaller attacks. Flurry ranger. Get sneak attack from somewhere, use as many damage runes as possible. Dit in cleric for deadly simplicity. Shred.


I enjoy the ranger (melee, dual weapon). Past lvl 10 it gets to be really interesting. Master monster hunter, double prey. Extra die from sneak, extra dies from elemental runes, a witch that adds status damage. Mass haste is often used in our party, meaning move and full attack. Master monster hunter with max Nature (wis second stat) gives loads of information. In a party with a rogue, were on par with damage. Soul forger with planar pain against resistances or to hit weaknesses in tough fights. At 18th level having 6 attacks at -2 is quite nice.

Had to pick a fight with a white dragon not long ago, the bow a secondary weapon also worked quite nicely. Ok, lesser runes, but coincidentally a fire rune...

As for the changes, as far as I read, I don't see much that would've impacted my choices. They sound fine, I might have picked up some focus spells which I haven't done for this character.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Reads nicely, after I skip the ancestries (not my thing).

Synesthesia combined with inspire heroics (courage) using an orchestral brooch is a killer in many boss fights. Inspire Heroics is blue once you can afford the brooches.


And go for throwing weapons for more fun.


And even these rules are just guidelines, and the dice are a huge influence in the outcome of any fight.

Last week our party of Taldoran heroes (6 chars, 18th level) faced some devil's in an arena fight. 5 rounds of buffing before the fight, both parties made good use of that. A pit fiend, two apostate devils (elite), two cornugons (elite). Would be an extreme encounter for a rested party, but we'd already lost quite some resources in earlier encounters.

The dice rolled and the outcome was a walkover from our side. They started out with a meteor swarm and two fireballs that did hardly any damage. And from there it was downhill for them, even after a successful dominate from their side and the pit fiend just ignoring the prismatic sphere around him.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Not sure why people think a bard is boring or a one trick pony. Lingering composition means you need to use you Inspire once or twice in a combat. Get swashbuckler dedication and get one for all, antagonize if you feel you want some action, guardians deflection if you want to help your martials. Don't be afraid to stand close to the martials. With this you have a lot of possible actions you can choose from (composition, one for all, intimidate, attack) with some spells on top of that. Occult list is super for combat effectiveness. Command, invis, hideous laughter, roaring applause, dispel magic, synesthesia etc. Or just use damage spells if that is more your thing.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would say that medical researcher replaces alchemical crafting for those few items that can be created (as named in the feat). It would be illogical to require medical researcher (medicine) and alchemical crafting to create items that could be created with alchemical crafting by itself.

You'll still need the formula and a lab to create the items, but no need for crafting or the alchemical crafting skill. A case of specific overriding general. Or otherwise to bad to be true.


It seems to me that the Dragon Disciple breath is way behind in DC as it uses Arcane DC. The other two use the Barbarian class DC, which is better.


Having gone from 3.5 -> pf1 -> 5e -> pf2 as a player, I think that that pf2 as a player is easier and more enjoyable than pf1 and 5e. In pf1 I needed excel to keep track of all the different bonuses which was a pain. 5e is just b@+~!%#s with multiclassing and options.

Pf2 has lots of numbers, but when you understand the system, it's actually easy to get to the final numbers. Level, stat, proficiency plus up to three separate bonuses: item, status and circumstance.

While we use foundry to play (huge help, even when actually sitting down together) and pathbuilder to create characters (easy to use, because of multiple books as sources of feats and classes) you could well do without for the actual numbers.

The fun part for me as a player: lots of optimization options, without making characters that can break the game (either too strong or to weak) if you follow some simple rules. All classes and races are viable, of course some are better than others, but nothing to break the system. Martials and casters are equally strong and useful from low to high.

The only thing which bothers me a bit, is that you can't build a class without the three save stats. You can't skip Wis on a char that otherwise wouldn't need it, because that will be surely cause issues.


Eldritch Yodel wrote:
The book really makes me want to play a celebrity. It was already unironically one of my favourite archetypes because of its general tone of much of it being "You are a delusional narcissist who thinks they're the center of the universe" which I found beautiful, and the new book has added enough to it to make it properly FA viable whilst maintaining that tone.

Ah, now I need to see the book. I have wanted to use the Celebrity archetype, but it didn't have enough body.


SuperBidi wrote:
What I dislike about the Flying Blade + Dual Finisher combo is that it's so strong you really have 2 Swashbucklers. Melee Swashbucklers are in a hard spot in terms of efficiency while Flying Blade Swashbucklers are quite fine. It pushes to play with Flying Blade when it's not exactly the basic Swashbuckler build you can imagine.

Starting to sound a bit like the magus.

I do agree that the wording of flying blade means it will apply to all strikes (melee strike is a strike).


SuperBidi wrote:
Roaring Applause is a sustained spell, it asks for hands (otherwise the target can't applause)

Not entirely true, as even IRL there a different ways of applauding.

From Wiki: The age of the custom of applauding is uncertain, but it is widespread among human cultures. The variety of its forms is limited only by the capacity for devising means of making a noise[1] (e.g., stomping of feet or rapping of fists or hands on a table). Within each culture, however, it is usually subject to conventions.
- or -
string musicians of an orchestra use bobbing their bows in the air or gently tapping them on their instruments' strings as a substitute for applause.

I'm quite sure that all intelligent being will have a way to applaud.

SuperBidi wrote:
Now, Roaring Applause is definitely a top spell. So it makes other similar spells look bad.

Lvl 6 vs lvl 9? That would look real bad indeed. I believe that fascination part would make up for the difference though.


Gortle wrote:
To me fascination is a side effect. The main feature is the loss of actions paying tribute. Which works even if your GM rules that the fascination is broken.

In combat, fascination will be broken almost immediately. Then what makes this spell 9th level? It has incapacitation. Targets must do a manipulate action at least once per round. twice even on a success.

A 6th level roaring applause (no incapacitation) also has targets (up to 10!) do manipulate actions once per round on failure (sustain).

Would removing the fascination as normal not make this a very weak 9th level spell?


Any other thoughts? Interested if there are other opinions.

Thanks


Lucerious wrote:

“While affected by this spell, a creature is fascinated by you and can't use hostile actions against you.”

It seems in this case that the duration of the spell overrides the standard issues of breaking fascination. While being affected by the spell, the enemy is fascinated as an additional effect, not the primary. Due to that, I believe the spell still works fine if the targets receive a hostile action from the party.

I also feel as if you look at it from the other perspective, you run into issues. Fascinated ends when you or an ally are being attacked. If fascinated ends, would that imply that the spell also ends? Because when affected, you are fascinated -> no longer fascinated -> no longer overwhelmed.

But even ending the fascinated status would be weak for this spell (9th level), as a roaring applaus at 6th level would be a better choice, in combat at least.

And the spell is already "weakened", because incapacitation.


While the spell is active (duration: until the tributes are done), creatures are fascinated. Normally fascinated ends when a creature or one of its allies is attacked, but in this specific case it sounds as if fascinated does not end as long as the tributes are not done (specific overrides general).

There were some older topics on this but short and without agreement.

Thoughts?


28d4 @8th lvl or 56d4 when using 6 actions. You'd be lucky to capture 3 creatures in the 6 actions versions as they can see what is coming, most higher level creatures are intelligent enough. Plus you need a way to reposition between rounds (haste). So difficult to setup. 6 actions is a lot.

If it's about damage, I'd prefer to go with true target - biting words heightened. And use (true strike or synesthesia) biting words for the second and third instance on the rounds after and direct the damage where I need it. Which can target reflex using the signet.

Or just use a spell like spirit song, which as a cone is easier to use (use = get more enemies, so more damage).

I only have a high level bard, and she's setup to be very flexible. Can do both support and damage, whichever is needed. Cantrips, one for all, spells, skills. So actions are always at a premium, spending 6 actions to get the most out of inner radiance torrent is just not working for me. Hard to imagine other casters to do have that (6 action) time actually.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gortle wrote:

Here is the comment from Mark about it

Basically scale it at half the rate.

Used it with this scaling, dumped the spell for not being useful. Remove this scaling and it gets even worse. Bard doesn't have much reflex options, even so this doesn't work.

No need to errata.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
BloodandDust wrote:


Casters should think about top-level slotted spells the same way a Magus thinks about Spellstrike and a Swashbuckler thinks about his Finishers... it's something that needs to be set up. That means Recall Knowledge, Demoralize, Bon Mot, or a True Strike... anything to lay the groundwork and make success more likely. Use cantrips until then. It will feel a bit like a Rogue trying to set up sneak-attack...if he can't get flat-footed he'll do "normal" (cantrip) damage instead of really high "backstab" (slotted spell) damage.

Totally agree. My Caster (bard) character is setup for both damage and support. High level occult spells have some nice area damage stuff (spirit song, phantasmal calamity). And with a shadow signet, staff of divination (true strike) and biting words (linguist character, lots of languages) she has a good chance to do a lot of damage on bosses even. Some characters in the group have good recall knowledge options. The advantage of Biting words is that you get three attacks for one spells slot, each can be used with true strike and follow up attacks are one action only.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

The summoner child-in-wolf Eidolon is soon followed around by an wolf companion and later on can become a wolf himself. Why be one wolf when you can be part of a pack all by yourself???


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You wanna kill stuff quick and it's allowed, go dual wielding rogue flurry ranger with Soulforger archetype. At 6th level the bard should have Dirge of doom and you Dread striker.


Taja the Barbarian wrote:


If you want to be an archer, be an archer.
If you want to be melee, be melee.

Also, keep in mind that drawing a weapon provokes Attacks of Opportunity and Quick Draw does not change this (it specifically states 'You Interact to draw a weapon' and the Interact action has the Manipulate trait that provokes), so moving away and continuing to shoot your bow isn't normally any more dangerous to you than changing to
...

My 15th lvl soulforger dual weapon flurry ranger (STR based) also has a bow, and I've developed dex (18). The bow is his worst weapon, but it does have +2 greater striking by now. I can remember only one combat where he actually used the bow. So I agree, concentrate on your main thing, but having a backup never hurts.

And about the drawing, again, soulforger solves a lot of issues with that....


Why would you go precision combined with dual wielding weapons? Third attacks are kind of wasted. Precision could just as well go sword and board. Though shield doesn't go to well with switch hitting.


Check the Soulforger archetype. That gives you what you want and more if you invest some feats. Draw weapons and armor as a fee action on initiative (with extra feat) or as a normal action otherwise. Change weapon type in downtime. Nice powers.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

In my experience with a dual wielding flurry ranger:
- doubling rings
- use different weapons. Light hammer (thrown, good crit effect), Kukri (trip), dogslicers (extra damage).
- check the soulforger archetype, very useful for a dual weapon ranger. Allows you to "draw" weapons and wear armor in one action or as a free action during initiative. Allows you to change weapon type in downtime. The extra powers you get are also quite nice.
- get as many extra dice as you can. Elemental runes, sneak. Many attacks -> many times the extra dice.
- Static damage bonuses. Works even better when you have second sting (L12).

Dual wielding flurry ranger do a shitload of damage. Stand up there and swing. Sentinel helps for the +1 ac of plate. Soulforger helps for damage resistance if you choose that as a power.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Sanityfaerie wrote:

Rogue combos pretty well with casters in general, as it turns out.. In particular, Magical Trickster lets you apply your sneak attack damage to damage rolls of spell attacks vs AC when the target is flat-footed and you successfully hit them. It's only once per target per spell, but if you can find multitarget attacks vs AC, it'll hit all of them.

...and the benefit of the caster side is that you get full caster proficiency progression rather than archetype caster proficiency progression, and you have more and better spell slots to do it with.

Sadly, all of the other feats that talk about sneak attacks explicitly refer to "strike", so you can't really get more than that, but getting any sort of meaningful damage add on spell attacks is pretty significant.

I don't personally know the spell list well enough to know which spells would be good for this, though. Are there any good multitarget spell attacks vs AC out there? If nothing else, Dancing Blade and Imaginary Weapon start to suggest that it might work out reasonably well for the psychic... and hey, the Dancing Blade is explicitly making Strikes, so we might be able to fit in a few more boosts there. I'm not saying it's likely, and I won't be going through to check, but it is possible.

Only one enemy get the effect when you hit multiple targets.

Rogue/bard works well for this. Staff of divination for true strike, lingering Dirge of doom, Dread striker and I personally like Biting words, you can get enough languages through multilingual. But your still mostly a bard with more skills (very useful), some more damage with attack spells and some extra useful defensive options like mobility.


Gortle wrote:
Falco271 wrote:
No rogue flurry ranger? Hmm let's try the dual flickmace flurry ranger barbarian. Add the soulforger dedication. Works better after mighty rage and double prey and gets really nasty at the highest levels.

It still doesn't work well.

Hunt Prey has the Concentrate Trait, making it incompatible with Rage.

Yes, you are getting a bit of action efficiency back here, but Mightly Rage has limits and only helps for a few two action rage abilities Dragon Breath being the only one I'd normally bother to take.

You end up having to waste two actions on Rage (or Moment of Clarity), and Hunt Prey reasonably often. Maybe 2 in your first round and two in your 3rd round.

Good luck.

Hmmm, triple threat is a bit late for it to actually work. Shame about that. But it works very well at 20th level!!!


Some nice builds:
Kobold Monk Flame Oracle. Stand in the middle of enemies and get that fire working for you. Add Dragon disciple for more fiery fun.

No rogue flurry ranger? Hmm let's try the dual flickmace flurry ranger barbarian. Add the soulforger dedication. Works better after mighty rage and double prey and gets really nasty at the highest levels.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gortle wrote:


Dirge affects their defenses and attacks. Compare it to Inspire Courage, or laughably Bless/Heroism. This power embarrasses one of the strongest powers in the game. It is as broken as anything gets in PF2.

Lingering Dirge, Circle of protection pre-cast on a martial and bless on the bard, who has actions to extend it sometimes. That's the combo I try to go for. As a bard I like to stay close to the martials anyway. That really shifts the odds.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Captain Morgan wrote:
Taja the Barbarian wrote:
Falco271 wrote:

...

A bard/rogue is a very useful combination and is very strong in social event, but not much more in combat. You can choose to buff or fight in combat, but both as a bard or as arogue you need your actions.
...
Dread Striker + Dirge of Doom by level 6 seems pretty damn nasty...
It is, but you'd be better off with one player taking rogue and another taking bard, and both getting the durability of a champion too or whatever.

Exactly. It's not difficult for a bard to use 3 actions, 4 even. That doesn't leave much room for rogue actions. Yet another useful 3rd action, I'd almost say. Certainly not bad to have a strike with sneak as that 3rd action, but that sure won't be something you'll use every turn.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I've played a fighter/cloistered cleric. Smite becomes really strong, if you add a cleric with true strike it's really strong.

A bard/rogue is a very useful combination and is very strong in social event, but not much more in combat. You can choose to buff or fight in combat, but both as a bard or as arogue you need your actions.

Not do fighter in a dual class will do much to help. Also martial/martial (flurry ranger/rogue...) should not be allowed. Otherwise, playing the DC characters was fun.


Turgan wrote:

If anyone is interested in the build, but wants to optimize a little more: Light Hammers are better in every way for this build (range increment doubled and bludgeoning, same damage; the sweep trait of the hatchet is almost worthless for a ranger (exception: you have double prey, are not using it in conjunction with Shared Prey and the opponents are adjacent).

.

And there is even a talisman that can give you sweep so indeed, hammers are better. Or kukris for the trip , dogslicers for the damage, sawtooths also.

But in the end the differences are small. Just go with what you want.

Btw, until you actually need 2x agile (for sneak, or lvl 18 imposs flurry) you can just use a d8 normal weapon and an agile weapon for the second attack. Warhammer plus light hammer with returning on the LH.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Super strong indeed, but for RP purposes having a FP char walk around normally is also very nice. The char is also a dual wielding ranger, but also a very good medic who works in a hospital sometimes. Walking around normally is a big plus, no more armor or weapons visible. Until a fight starts and all of a sudden the harmless bystander is suddenly a metal played blender.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You might want to check soulforger, which is super useful. Summon and dismiss weapons/armor anytime, way better than QuickDraw for dual wielders. And the powers aren't bad either (once per day).

You're already going for Monster hunter, that would have been my next advice.

L12 look at double prey. Very useful for hatchet wielders due to sweep. Get a +1 circumstance bonus if you attack a second target with the same weapon.


If you're considering keen icm with true strike, doing it for the second attack is much better than for the first attack, because keen adds little to the first attack, where a 19 can be a crit already.

But spell strike is 2 actions already, so the answer would be that keen is not the most effective rune for true strike / spell strike combo.


It does make a second attack much stronger. Hit - true strike - hit.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

2 I would say. Include maybe a reference to level. Gets better at higher levels. Or starts strong weakens after x.


At higher level, have a flurry ranger and thief as martials in a party. Use shared prey for lots of low MAP thief attacks.

@Kyrone: Opportune backstab does as much damage as the normal sneak attacks. And those added d6 really count.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

It's a nice overview, but to actually mean anything you should add why you come to these values, and also which variant of the class you're looking at for these values. Not all barbs do the same damage, same as rogues, same with rangers.

Edit: I missed your post where you mentioned to explain the ranking. Would be very useful indeed. I would love to see how a champion would do more damage than a two-weapon flurry ranger.

Edit 2: I agree with what I saw elsewhere about tiers also being defined by level. low level play can be a lot different than high level play, on all fronts.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I consider spell attacks spells part of a casters play, and whether you want to use them or not is up to the player. My 14th lvl bard has only one spell attack spell (biting words) but it is a signature spell. She has a shadow signet and a staff of divination (useful both in combat and out of combat). Which spell and levels to use depends totally on the situation and using biting words certainly has its uses. It helps that you get 3 attacks with one 7th level spell, with the second and third attack using only one action (bard are king of one action actions).

In short: part of the game, use it or not, but it has it's uses, with or without true strike (although it helps of course).


Captain Morgan wrote:
The best is probably double slice into twin takedown. Double Slice doesn't have flourish, right? Not sure why this is an either/or thing.

This is indeed the main advantage, get 4 attacks in at 0, 0, -4, -4 (DS, TT) which is a bit better than 0, -2, -4, -4 when doing TT followed by two strikes.

Whether the extra Mapless attack is worth the feats depends on what else you gain from the archetype.


Pre-errata AC (nimble: bird) had no problem surviving. Flanker mostly. Went wrong twice at lvl 13 (weakest level for AC) due to wrong positioning. Bird got sandwiched and was gone in a round. But otherwise, with healing available it never went wrong.

With the new errata, a nimble AC will still be OK, but you'd need to be more careful. Not sure I'd still want to play one. Maybe on a char that would optimally use it (flurry ranger not being the best char for an AC).

I would have preferred a solution where the nimble AC would have stayed as is and the other would have been made stronger. Adding expert/master armor for example. Having comparable or better AC AC to casters is not bad, given the limited options for ACs.


Extradimensional Storage: The armament is stored in an extradimensional space when not in use, and you can Manifest it to summon it into your hands or onto your body. A soulforged armament can be Dropped, Disarmed, or otherwise removed from you, but its soulforged abilities don't function for anyone else, and you can Dismiss the manifestation to return the items to the extradimensional space no matter where the items are. If you die or choose to pass ownership of a soulforged armament to a successor, it loses any soulforged abilities; violating the spirit of the soulforged bond by selling the item tends to have disastrous results. There might be special techniques or rituals by which a determined foe can break your bond with a soulforged item, but otherwise, your ability to Dismiss and Manifest it essentially means it can't be stolen.

I think the above implies that Manifesting is actually retrieving it from this extra dimensional storage. So dismiss/manifest needed.

But I agree extra clarity could be useful. Simple line mentioning manifest is only possible from the ED storage.


Nefreet wrote:
Darkness "suppresses magical light of your darkness spell's level or lower", so if you're rocking a Level 5 light, you don't need to counteract it.

Thats also how we interpret it. Makes the light cantrip pretty powerful as darkness effects are usually not cast at highest level.


CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

You know when I clicked on this thread I forgot I was the one that started it, hah.

Falco, I don’t think you need to dismiss and resummon to activate the essence power. Although that really should be spelled out better (hence why I started the thread hah)

When you Manifest Soulforged Armament, you can summon any number of your armaments (you must meet the Requirements for each), and when you Dismiss the effect, you can choose to Dismiss some and not others. You can choose to manifest the essence form of any number of your armaments when you take the action. Each armament can manifest its essence form only once per day.

The above part of the rules disagrees with your remark, I would say. When you take the action of manifesting your armament you can choose to manifest the essence form. And to manifest, you need to have your hands free and/or no armor.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Raven Black wrote:
Well. It was fun while it lasted :-D

I had already replaced my whip with a staff on my linguist bard for a shadow signet assisted true strike biting words, but it was fun. Also for the primal witch who used my whip for some searing light flankin attacks on synesthesia-ed enemies while blessed...

The good old times.


I've chosen planar pain, planar bond and healing grace on my flurry ranger. I've not used them much yet (retrained beastmaster for soul forger @14th level), but in the last extreme encounter two of the three were very useful. Dismissing and manifesting isn't fun, but the added extras are worth the trouble.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Flank with a whip in hand. Ok, still semi melee, but can be useful sometimes.

1 to 50 of 306 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | next > last >>