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The more I look into it and see discussions about it, the more it seems like having a familiar in 2E is utterly pointless. A simple comparison with the animal companion says it all:

- The animal companion generally remains what it was in 1E, a combat buddy with limited intelligence but a few interesting features. Animal companions come in varying types, having their own stats, attacks and skills and even some special abilities, starting with their support actions and later special maneuvers and branching evolution paths become available with more feats. They're relatively fragile compared to a PC but can also be equipped with magic barding and a small selection of magic items.
- Familiars have lost nearly every ability they had in 1E, only keeping the empathic link. There is no choosing a type of familiar anymore, they're all the same, with the bare minimum for HP and movement, no stats, attack or training in any skill, simply using their master's level as a modifier, only receiving an additional bonus in Perception, Stealth and Acrobatics (the importance of Perception on a creature that cannot communicate at all without an extra ability is debatable), all of tiny size and gaining no benefit from it (even squeezing through tight spaces is impossible without Acrobatics training) and unable to equip any item. It's still a good thing that familiars use their master's AC and saves modifiers as their own, including item bonuses, but this is their only positive aspect.

Familiars used to have the advantage of being intelligent creatures to compensate for being vulnerable and non-combative, had Improved Evasion by default to avoid dying immediatly to area damage, came with different advantages and drawbacks depending on their species and were also considered as a part of their master for the use of certain spells like teleportations, avoiding a lot of hassle. Now everything is gone. Familiars can barely be considered intelligent creatures anymore, their chances of surviving a single encounter at high level are close to zero if there is any form of area damage, there are no mechanical differences between two different familiars and they rapidly become a load when certain spells are considered. Is there anything a familiar is still good for?

That's something I noticed: apparently, nothing stops you from turning a shifting metallic weapon into a typically wooden one (it may even be an advantage considering how precious metals are good compared to precious woods), the only limitations are that one-handed weapons remain one-handed, two-handed weapons remain two-handed, melee weapons stay melee weapons and the rune has no effect on ranged weapons.

Then there are the rules on formulas that are extremly nebulous where weapons are concerned: there is no way to know if simply having the formula for a weapon allows the use of any valid material for it, or if formulas for using these materials are needed as well, or even if every weapon of every material, including each separate grade, needs its own unique formula.

Well since a 225gp rune that allows melee weapons to change into any other melee weapon that takes the same number of hands exists and is available at level 6, why bother with the logistics of hoarding formulas and looking for uncommon weapons at all? You can just etch a shifting rune on a dagger and you have access to all one-handed melee weapons for the price of one. You can do the same with a greatsword to have access to all two-handed melee weapons.

Did I miss something or does the shifting rune literally invalidate the need to learn how to create specific melee weapons as long as you know a handful of them?

I know, another discussion about the alchemist but this time I want to focus it on a specific class feature.

Perpetual Infusions and its subsequent improvements, Perpetual Potency and Perpetual Perfection, allows to create a virtually infinite amount of two specific alchemical items with Quick Alchemy, the process requires only a single action (Double Brew at level 9 and Achemical Alacrity at level 15 let you create two and three at a time respectively) but the items are quickly lost if not used immediately. The catch is that such a process is only optimal for items that can be used extremly frequently if not all the time and have an instantaneous effect. Bombs are the only option that really makes sense to be chosen for Perpetual Infusions: they're made to be thrown at the enemy immediately for instantaneous damage and debuffing and are a good source of energy damage, while antidotes and antiplagues are extremly situational and producing large amounts of them at a time makes no sense unless you have an entire army to treat, and even then the limitations of Perpetual Infusions makes crafting your strongest version of them during your daily preparations more sensible, and mutagens don't make much sense either being mass-produced if not to spam the Revivifying Mutagen feat for unlimited self-healing.

I gathered from other discussions that the bomber felt like the only research field worth choosing in spite of the class's absurd proficiency limitations and always personally thought that the chirurgeon sucked, while not sure about the mutagenist, and it turns out Perpetual Infusions allows unlimited self-healing that can probably be exploited one way or another but I doubt it would make a strong build considering the alchemist isn't that good at close combat.

It's a bit disappointing to see the effort put into the alchemist's design to make it more of a crafter than a glorified grenadier, only for lobbing an endless amount of bombs to be the most rewarding way to play it.

In other circumstances I would have probably drafted a big wish list of changes I would like to see, but here I'm out of ideas. How would you change Perpetual Infusions to make it more useful for chirurgeons and mutagenists?

I used to play 3.5 DnD and played a PF campaign with friends, and for some reason I always had something for playing small characters.

In both games, being small gives an advantage in terms of attack bonus, AC and stealth but a disadvantage in contests of strength like grappling and other combat maneuvers and also in intimidation. Also, their physical attacks deal less damage.

In 2E, most of the differences between size categories have been removed, except small characters still have an obvious disadvantage in combat maneuvers since they're more limited in what opponents they can affect at all and start with less HP overall (except for unbreakable goblins).

So, is being small a complete disadvantage, or are there benefits from being small to compensate?

Currently experimenting with character creation and interested in the monk class for its excellent combination of mobility and melee damage, with skills on the side to become a self-sufficient survivalist.

Timeless Body fits the survivalist theme for the most part, and I wonder about the "you cease aging" part: does it mean that my character can live forever as long as nothing bad happens?

I'm generally the kind of player who likes sticking to the rules and doesn't try to make stuff up when it's convenient, then I have a few questions about (mostly) fighter feats with two weapons or a free hand as a prerequisite:

- The rules state pretty clearly that unarmed attacks are not weapons, even for monks, and don't benefit from effects that apply to weapons. Does this mean that two-weapon fighting feats don't work with unarmed attacks at all since they require to wield one weapon in each hand?

- Gauntlets are weapons and not unarmed attacks (makes sense since, you know, you strike with the gauntlet and not your fist directly) and leave your hand free. Does this mean that a fighter with any main-hand one-handed weapon and an off-hand gauntlet is treated as both wielding two weapons and having a free hand to use feats?

It was a fun option in 1E, though I admit that it could quickly become very exploitable with the massive number of upgrades available and some of them being pretty poorly worded (the ability upgrade above all was so poorly worded that everyone kind of assumed it was an infinitely stacking +2 bonus for 2000gp each). Even the weakest constructs could be turned into fearsome killing machines, like upgrading a clockwork familiar with higher speed, AC, extra feats, guns and other additions to have a killer drone at your side.

Judging by the Bestiary, golems seem definitely off-limits and info about other constructs and the possibility of crafting them is very vague.

Is there a possibility that crafting constructs (or at least some kind of construct companion for players) comes back in 2E or is it out of the question?

If I understand correctly, deific anathemas are an area of concern only for the most devout followers and clerics and other classes with abilities that depend on remaining in a deity's good graces. Most deities have anathemas that make sense and don't need special sets of circumstances to be avoided.

Then comes Rovagug and his "create something new" anathema. It makes sense for the quintessential god of annihilation of everything to be repulsed by creation, but the fact is that depending on how its wording is interpreted, it may either make Rovagug worshippers too limited to be a threat or it may barely be an anathema at all:
- If simply creating an item from scratch counts as creating something new, it would be hard for Rovagug worshippers to make their own weapons and they would either depend entirely on pillaging or fight unarmed, both are impractical and above all for clerics who should use the greataxe as their main weapon. Hard to understand how Rovagug worshippers would be a real threat there.
- If creating someting new means inventing something no one ever came up with before, then there is no real restriction here. Just copy someone else's design and you're good to go.

Hos is this anathema supposed to impact Rovagug worshippers?

I'm not against a part of randomness in the result of a decision, but one thing that particularly bugs me is the idea that no matter how much you work on a particular skill to be the best, there is always a 1/20 chance that you fail miserably at even the simplest of tasks, sometimes having nasty or long-lasting consequences (a critical failure at earning income essentially gets you blacklisted as a terrible employee in a community, a critical failure at treating wounds might kill your patient).

The rules themselves don't really make anything clear about natural 20s and natural 1s:

Once a check is rolled, the GM compares the result to a target number called the difficulty class (DC) to determine the outcome. If the result of the check is equal to or greater than the DC, the check is successful. If it is less, the check is a failure. Beating the DC by 10 or more is referred to as a critical success, which usually grants an especially positive outcome. Similarly, failing the check by 10 or more is a critical failure (sometimes called a fumble). This sometimes results in additional negative effects. You also often score a critical success by rolling a 20 on the die when attempting a check (before adding anything). Likewise, rolling a 1 on the die when attempting a check often results in a critical failure. Note that not all checks have a special effect on a critical success or critical failure and such results should be treated just like an ordinary success or failure instead.

What is "often"?

Looking at the barbarian feats, I spotted some inconsistent elements among them:

- Animal Skin: gives expert proficiency in unarmored defense, but doesn't grant any greater proficiency at later levels unlike other class feats that improve weapon and armor proficiencies. Add the restriction to maximum Dexterity to AC and it becomes close to a trap feat.

- Animal Rage: what does the term "statistics" refer to?

- Giant's Lunge: its effects last "until your rage ends", but it shouldn't be usable at all while raging since it has the Concentrate trait and lacks the Rage trait.

Is there anything I am missing or is there an actual problem with the rules as written?

A fairly simple observation: by the basic rules, riding a mundane mount requires to spend a Command an Animal action for every single action the animal has to do, and it has 3 actions per round. An animal companion has the minion trait and thus only has 2 actions per round but only needs one command per round. Does it mean that an animal companion would be a slower mount than a mundane animal?

Looking for an original construct to make a challenging fight, I decided to make an animated object - not the best in terms of raw power but very customizable - modified with several templates (all stuff that a player with enough time and money could legally add to a personal creation without massive GM fiat), and noticed that an animated object can get some energy resistance at its creation.

By the rules, most resistances are specific and don't stack with each other (you can't stack several resistances to the same energy type, several sources of DR don't stack and only the highest one that can apply to the attack recieved works) but hardness is a bit special: according to the rules about damaging objects, hardness reduces damage regardless of type or source, although it's hard to tell if this applies to inanimate objects only or also to creatures.

Animated objects having an option to get energy resistance can mean one of two things:
- hardness on creatures only applies to physical damage, and energy resistance is necessary to reduce energy damage;
- hardness and energy resistance actually stack to reduce energy damage taken.

Which is correct?

A friend is playing a alchemist with the tinkerer archetype and chooses the promethean disciple discovery at level 6. Then he can build constructs and modify them, including his clockwork familiar (this is a construct with creation rules then it is modifyable). As he likes the idea of a steampunk-themed character, he plans to make constructs with integrated firearms.

What I understood by reading the rules:
- a construct is considered proficient with all its integrated weapons;
- integrated weapons are considered a part of the construct itself and cannot be sundered or disarmed, but are immediatly ruined if the construct is destroyed;
- constructs have the same restrictions as most creatures regarding attacks per round, not being able to use weapon attacks and some of their natural attacks in the same full attack.

The catch is that ranged weapons need ammunition, most of them need reloading and firearms may misfire on a bad roll.

Excluding the cases of magic weapons and specific constructs with a baseline ranged weapon and endless ammo:
1) Does the construct need an external source of ammunition?
2) Is reloading time modified in any way?
3) Can an integrated firearm misfire? If so, what happens, and what can be done about it? (especially interesting since integrated weapons cannot be damaged separately by the rules)

A friend in a campaign wants a character mostly about crafting and doesn't mind lacking useful class features for combat and being dependent on his creations.

Until now we agreed to use 3rd party classes that fill this role, but after closer examination they have way too much potential to totally break the game and look very badly balanced (for example a class around constructs that gives the Craft Construct feat for free at level 1 with no caveat and the ability to upgrade every construct for free with stronger versions of construct modifications that normally cost over 20kgp and require extra work and spells to apply, with only 3 levels in the class!). So we decided to look for something else, preferably avoiding 3rd party stuff entirely.

After searching I found the promethean alchemist archetype that gives a slightly modified version of Craft Construct at level 1 and an intelligent construct buddy. Now we need to find a crafting-themed build with a few limitations:
- the character is human (for the many skill points to spend);
- intelligence-based;
- a construct companion that can talk (this means 6 alchemist levels at least);
- anything that improves magic item crafting, could be feats, traits and multiclassing.

Any suggestions?

According to the feat's wording, it allows you to either use a grappling hook as a light piercing weapon or as a two-handed weapon with a reach of 15 ft when used with a rope or chain, if your character is proficient with whips. Above all, it can be used to perform trip, drag and reposition combat maneuvers.

According to the rules about reach and threatened areas, large humanoids typically have double the reach of medium and small creatures with all melee weapons, including the particular case of reach weapons. Does this mean that a large creature with Hook Fighter can get a total reach of 30 ft (and that looks ridiculously strong considering the possible combat maneuvers that can be used), or does it work differently ?

My character gets her lost arm replaced by a clockwork prosthesis, with plans to add more magic weapon special abilities to it later. In terms of rules, the existence of prosthetics of this kind raises many questions :

1: My character is a halfling and the prosthesis's weight is 25 lbs for a medium character. I saw two ways to calculate the new weight for a small character : either divide its weight by 2 like weapons and armor, or by 4 like clothing and containers. Which is appropriate in this case ?

2: Can a clockwork arm perform somatic spell components ?

3: Can a character with a clockwork arm safely manipulate objects or punch monsters that deal damage or apply a nasty condition when touched directly ( i.e. the burn universal monster ability, grabbing a red-hot steel bar, holding a scarab of death or other cursed item, a contact poison...) while the arm takes the hit as a separate entity ?

4: We use the called shots rule in our campaign, what makes losing a limb in combat possible, but are artificial limbs targetable with sunder combat maneuvers instead of called shots ?

As I'm playing a gun-wielding spellcaster, I'm interested in a Shadowshooting firearm (this is an "emerging guns" setting type with no advanced firearms at all).

If I understand correctly, any projectile ranged weapon can become shadowshooting, this removes the need to reload between two attacks but has a chance to only deal minimum damage to targets if they make a Will save.

However, although I assume only basic ammo types for the enchanted weapon can be generated, its says nothing about weapons with two possible types of ammo, and scatter firearms can either fire a normal bullet at a single target or pellets to hit an area.

How does the Shadowshooting special ability work in this case ?