Ganigumo's page

There used to be a section in the core rule book called "Damage Types and Traits" (its in my CRB) that seems to have disappeared between printings of the CRB, which stated:

Damage Types and Traits
When an attack deals a type of damage, the attack action gains that trait. For example, the Strikes and attack actions you use wielding a sword when its flaming rune is active gain the fire trait, since the rune gives the weapon the ability to deal fire damage.

Its removal never appeared in the errata.

There was a section in the lost omens ancestry guide that referenced the change indirectly since it said attacks with flaming weapon don't gain the fire trait.

I've been bumping into this rules change a bunch when trying to make my witch for Outlaws of Alkenstar, I'm planning on taking elemental betrayal and a flame wisp familiar, and it turns out there are a lot of feats that give attacks with elemental damage, but don't have the corresponding trait. Stuff like Ifrit's Lavasoul ancestry feat which deals 1 bonus fire damage, Goblins scalding spit, Automaton's energy beam, or Kitsune's foxfire.

I'm not sure why it was changed, since its not like fire immunity gives immunity to everything with the fire trait (the section on immunity explains that for complex effects, like a spell that deals both acid and fire damage, the damage immunity only applies to the fire section).

I'd like to hear community thoughts on it as well? Should stuff like foxfire have the fire trait? Do you houserule it? Was there some edge case I'm not seeing that made it broken?

I'm going to be starting Quest for the Frozen Flame in a couple days, and I'm struggling a bit with deciding on my character's build (we're doing free archetype as well).

The party is a giant instinct barbarian (who's covering medicine), a monk, a precision ranger, and my character.

I've yet to play a caster in 2e yet (but have DM'd for a few) and with this party composition I figure a divine caster would be good.

I want the character to fit into the setting well, and wrote a backstory about them being a human born into the tribe and having a friend who was taken by an "evil and twisted" smilodon.

For divine caster options there are Cleric, Witch, Oracle and Sorcerer (also summoner but I'd like to try a full caster). I'm leaning towards Oracle at the moment, or possibly sorcerer as I think the party needs a face of some sort. I like the strong focus spells of the oracle though. I'm hoping to be able to get into combat a bit too, not as a main focus but as a supplement. I'm planning to pick up shield block and maybe take bastion as an archetype.

I'm having trouble sorting out the pros/cons and deciding on a build though. For oracle I like tempest and Cosmos, as they seem the most appropriate for the setting.

Tempest seems to have some solid focus spells in tempest touch and thunderburst, plus electric arc as a cantrip, but there isn't a lot of benefit from the mystery, and tempest touch really wants reach spell asap.

Cosmos meanwhile has a weak initial revelation spell in spray of stars, but a phenomenal advanced one in interstellar void and built in DR which will be useful if I want need to take a few hits. Plus the darkness domain spell cloak of shadows is fantastic support for the ranger. I can still get electric arc through adapted cantrip. enfeebled makes being in melee tough though, or even using something like a javelin or dagger since I'll take a penalty to the damage rolls.

Divine sorcerer loses out on light armor base, and the focus spells generally feel weaker, but an extra spell every level is good. Unfortunately none of the bloodlines for divine casting have a fitting narrative feel, I'd probably take wyrmblessed or psychopomp.

edit: the statline I'm looking at is 10str/16dex/12con/10int/12wis/18cha

What archetypes are good on oracle/sorcerer? I'm leaning towards bastion at the moment, but I'm curious what others have tried or suggest, especially since I'll probably end up with a second archetype at some point.

I'm just looking for some suggestions or advice from people who are a bit more experienced with divine casters.

I had this idea today, and am now baffled as to how this isn't an official option.

Literally just a versatile heritage that grants you the adopted ancestry general feat at level 1.

Although maybe it would just devolve to gnomes adopting the entirely of golarion for flickmace proficiency.

Title is a bit self explanatory but I'll give an example:
"Gonzo the gnome wizard is currently hiding behind a bale of hay, and succeeded his stealth check to hide, so he is hidden. He casts produce flame to strike a goblin attacking one of his party members"

Is the goblin flat footed to Gonzo because he is hidden when he starts casting the spell, or does gonzo stop being hidden as soon as he starts to cast the spell?

The rules for hide say: "You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step." and also "If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flat-footed against that attack".

Spell attacks aren't technically strikes so it sounds like the target wouldn't be flat footed. The existence of eldritch trickster, and the magical trickster feat seem to point to it being the intention.

I know as a GM I would allow it to function like a strike in this scenario and count it as flat footed if the spell doesn't have verbal components or there's enough noise to reasonably mask the casting to some extent, but I'm curious what the actual ruling is here (and what other people think).

Also surprisingly neither silent spell, nor conceal spell actually help with this based on their descriptions.

I've been playing through ruins of gauntlight with a half-elf alchemist, we're at level 2 so far and it's been painful.

Built my character with:
8 Str
16 Dex
14 Con
10 Wis
10 Cha

Bomber alchemist, took quick bomber at 1, and alchemical familiar at 2, Elven weapon familiarity so I could use a shortbow, and since we're doing the extra archetype variant I took rogue dedication at 2 so I could get some extra skill feats/training.
Been running the familiar with extra reagents and speech.

So far at low levels the class just feels incredibly underwhelming, I don't have enough reagents, (even with 18 int and extra reagents) to hand out buffs to my allies when I also need to make healing elixirs and bombs. Quicksilver elixir is pretty dangerous for the swashbuckler anyways, and quick alchemy is basically pointless at this level because of the limited reagents.

I've been making a couple quicksilver elixirs for my own use, to help with my accuracy issues, but its not enough to get through all the encounters in a day and even then it eats up 1-2 actions at the start of every fight just to use it.

Accuracy is still an issue, even with the elixir, most level 2 enemies seem to have 17-19 AC, I've got an attack bonus of 7, or 8 with the elixir and can't benefit from flanking on my ranged attacks which gives me 40-50% accuracy without the elixir, or 45-55% with it against same level enemies which gets worse against higher level ones.

Damage-wise bombs are unimpressive, doing only slightly more than the shortbow (composite shortbow with a decent str mod would be close) and either applying a debuff or having some extra persistent damage, but being limited in uses per day. Generally I only use the shortbow to attack when I have the MAP or are out of bombs. Splash damage has yet to be useful outside of the bonus 1 damage the target takes (it turns out enemies being adjacent to each other, while not being adjacent to a party member is pretty rare). I know eventually, with feats, the math might even out if you factor in persistent damage, but given how short most fights tend to be, combined with alchemist's accuracy issues that makes missing a bomb in an early turn is absolutely crippling.

Honestly I really like the idea of debuff bombs, but due to accuracy and not applying the debuff on a miss they're a bit inconsistent, especially when compared to debuff spells.

Feat selection is also much less interesting than other classes I think, I took quick bomber because otherwise my action economy would be ruined, and alchemical familiar since I'm desperate for reagents. At level 4 I basically need to take calculated splash as a number fixer and prerequisite for another number fixer.

I understand that alchemist turns on at higher levels, and seems to scale a bit quadratically, but its the only class that does this buy it makes playing an alchemist at low levels pretty painful.

At this point I kind of think the class needs some serious reworking, I love the additive feats, but locking it to quick alchemy, while quick alchemy is so difficult to use at low levels, makes them bad choices early on, especially combined with the fact that feats like quick bomber are almost mandatory.

If I were to make some changes I would:

-Add "quick grab" as a class feature which lets alchemists draw an alchemical item in the same action it takes to use it. (helps with action economy of all alchemists, bombers get quick bomb for free, healers can use an elixir on an ally in 2 actions since they only need to move and use it, and mutagenists don't need to walk around with a potion in their hands at all times)
-Enduring alchemy is a class feature built into quick alchemy
-Ditch signature items, alchemists get perpetual infusion at level 1, for a single alchemical item related to their research field.
-Lesser perpetuals lowered to level 3
-All bombs available as bomber perpetual options
-debuff bombs still applying debuffs to targets hit by the splash damage
-Sticky bomb removes all direct damage from the bomb and converts it into persistent damage (i.e lesser alchemists fire would do 1 splash and 1d8+2 persistent) the class needs less math fixer feats
-Calculated splash, do something, the class needs less math fixer feats, maybe just add half int mod in splash damage to all bombs made by the alchemist as a class feature or something
-Demolition Charge: full bomb damage to all targets adjacent to the explosion, it takes a minute to set up and you can't use perpetuals for it, lets make it cool
-Rewrite Chirurgeon, I'm not sure what exactly it should do, but it's not very interesting outside of the greater field discovery, maybe change that to be d8s on your elixirs instead of healing the maximum amount and shift some power down to lower levels (maybe a perpetual level 0 elixir that heals 2hp or something)
-level 3 elixir of life for 2d6+3
-more mutagen types for mutagenists, as well as making mutagenic flashback a level 1 feat, and replacing it with a feature letting you ignore drawbacks of your own mutagens.
-mutagenist can pick strength or dex as a primary attribute
-Maybe lower number of infusions since perpetuals come online at level 1 now? 1/2 level + int? maybe a feat for full level + int? although loss of signature items at levels 1-4 might be enough of a swing

What's everyone else's opinion on the class? is it fine? does it need to be adjusted? Does it just need new alchemical item options? I honestly think the class is pretty close to being great but they need to flatten out the power curve a bit. I'd be fine with bomber's lower accuracy and damage if they could apply debuffs more consistently, and it would be nice if chirurgeon was appealing at lower levels.

I get that summoners are about a character and a powerful eidolon, but I can't help but feel that the entire class concept is a bit wishy washy. It doesn't feel like it has the same strong identity of most other classes where just hearing the name or a short description evokes a solid image of the class.

Maybe I just don't understand it properly but even the fluff and descriptions are very vague and open ended, which doesn't help with the identity issue.

It's not like the only thing classes can be is the "traditional" versions of themselves, ruffian rogues, arcane tricksters, battle wizards are all cool and can have strong identities as well, but with the summoner you need to dive into specific examples, rather than character archetypes.

Just my thoughts but I'm curious how others feel about the class identity.