Gortle's page

I am running a one off level 20 encounter. Are there any published modules or encounters you recommend for that level?

I wanted to put in one place my issues with the damage rules. Please critique if you get the time:

The rules are written in natural language. They are supposed to be interpreted by the GM as to what is reasonable. For the most part this works really well. The GM makes a ruling and everyone gets on with the game and has fun. It’s the right approach. There are a number of rules which can be read in different ways.

A good example is the Damage Rules. It looks really promising. It seems to be a nice 4 step process with detailed instructions. But it is a loose description of some things to help you determine how to resolve damage. It is full of undefined terms and natural language so while most people can get to a reasonable answer the edges are blurry and the timing is all over the place.
It starts with defining a procedure for 3 different damage rolls: melee, ranged and spell. Which is good. It talks about damage dice, modifiers, bonuses and penalties. It references the definition of those terms used elsewhere in checks.

OK so what's wrong? Well….the rules talk about damage sometimes being a fixed amount, but these steps 1-4 are mentioned as being for damage rolls. Ok so where is the step for fixed damage? If you look you are going to be disappointed because there isn’t one. So what does everyone do? They use the same procedure as for damage rolls, just don’t actually do a damage roll.

Then suddenly terms start showing up that are different: a Rogue's sneak attack does an extra 1d6 precision damage, a Precision Ranger does 1d8 additional precision damage, Weapon Specialization deals 2 additional damage, a Barbarian’s instinct can do additional damage of a different damage type. The terms extra and additional seem to be just natural language. The Precision Ranger uses both for the same feature, and there aren’t any definitions. But in natural language terms some of these are damage rolls. We know every term in the 3 different damage rolls provided (damage dice, modifiers, bonuses and penalties are well defined). Technically these extra dice and bits of damage don’t belong. But again there is nothing else so we just have to roll the extra dice and add them in too.

So we make it to Step 2: Damage Type with only a couple of issues that we decided a fix for. Now we have to determine the Damage Type. This is pretty good. It is reasonably defined. Damage Type singular? No, often enough our strike will be doing multiple types of damage at once. Then there are these other descriptive things called precious materials like silver, cold iron etc etc that are extra riders to colour the flavour of the damage. There are even some things like wood, and magical that aren’t really precious materials that get caught up in this anyway. So all those numbers we added together we now have to split into a few pools.

Now for Step 3: Apply Immunities, Weaknesses, and Resistances.and the follow up chapter. It can get complex here. You can be immune to a damage type, but also immune to an effect which might have caused damage of a different type so you end up immune to that bit of damage as well. The source of the damage, and other traits or properties of the damage can matter. Likewise with weakness and resistance. What is clear is every type of damage has to go through this procedure/step separately as resistance can apply to each instance.

The problem? Well damage type is well defined but it is clearly only mostly right as there are other things like precious materials and the trait magical and others that affect resistance so we may need to split apart everything even further if your target has special resistances.

Instance of damage? What is this? Then there is persistent damage and we realise that this damage, even though it all came off one strike, can be happening at different times. As it turns out persistent damage is not going to be very effective if it runs into resistance.

So how do we determine instances of damage? Mostly we guess and it is OK. Each simple strike or effect might be an instance of damage. But what about things like additional damage. Precision is explicitly added into the main damage type, but nothing else is. Does it matter if the additional damage is a different damage type. There is no real guidance here so most of us just lean into natural language and assume instance of damage is mostly about it all happening at once.

Putting some flesh on that. What about the additional damage from the support benefit of a bear animal companion. It is just listed as additional damage but it comes from the bear. Is it any different than extra damage from a spell like Draw the Lightning. Then there is SpellStrike: are the spell and the strike separate or together? For most people I think those are all included. So what about Foretell Harm which is free action damage, or a reactive strike? Those all seem to occur later and I think for most people are not included.

Finally we have all our different bits of damage and we get on to Step 4: Reduce Hit Points. We just subtract it all and we are done.

Er what happens with Shield Blocking. Well it triggers when you would take physical damage. (with Reflexive Shield, and some other abilities as well, you can block all types of damage).

When is that? Maybe Step 4, there are a lot of people who say that. Then there are those that say that damage type matters, and there are other abilities like Retributive Strike that trigger at the same time on damages your ally, and that grants resistance, so we are back in Step 3. Well rules wise I can’t tell who is right.

Balance wise it does make a difference as the shield block now becomes a resist all effect or not. The Champions reaction is a resist all so why can’t the shield be? The difference is not enough to make a compelling game balance argument.

The majority of the community think Step 4 claiming damage reduction and reducing damage from shield block are distinct effects. I can’t find anything significant within the limits of natural language. I guess I should go with the majority then.

Is this how other people see the damage rules?

I'm just looking through the archetype in the remaster. One of my players wants to give it a try.

So the dedication feat gives you 4 Versatile Vials that last for ten minutes tops. Then you can take the Advanced Alchemy archetype feat to gain 4 daily Advanced Alchemy items.

So for 2 feats you are getting access to 8 items per day. You are going to be stuck with the item DC often as your Alchemist DC is going to be on the low side. So poison and some effects are going to be less good, but buffs, mutagens, healing are going to be great.

This seems to be really good value. I can see a lot of Inventors and Investigators using this, all the Int classes especially Wizards and Witches, and a whole lot of martial characters playing some sort of Geralt of Rivia.

What do you think?

Luring Wail

Why do they keep releasing spells like this?

You emit a plaintive cry to lure your enemies closer. Each creature in the emanation that can hear you must attempt a Will save

Explicity refers to enemies but then targets all creatures.

Do we have a general ruling on how to read these?

Sorcerers now have

Sorcerous Potency which a status bonus to that spell’s damage or healing equal to
the spell’s rank

CROSSBLOODED EVOLUTION which is choose another bloodline. You know the blood magic
effect of that bloodline.
and

BLOOD SOVEREIGNTY
FEAT 12
SORCERER
You wield blood magic masterfully. When you would benefit
from a blood magic effect, you can choose to lose Hit Points
equal to twice the spell’s rank as the energy of your blood is
drawn out. This takes no extra action, and you benefit from
two different blood magic effects you know as a result. The two
effects can have different targets

So with an ELemental Sorcerer for elemental toss and elemental blast and say fireball (though Chain Lightning is an option)

Can pick up Diabolic Bloodmagic and now do +3 times spell rank fire damage

So at level 20 Elemental Toss for 10d8+30 and Fireball for 20d6+30 in the one round. We probably should consider Spell Shape Mastery + SplitShot to the Elemental Toss, and Spell Shape Mastery + Scintillating Spell to the Fireball

Of course you have taken 20 damage twice but that is the price of doing business.

The question is will these new spells count as bloodline spells and trigger bloodmagic?

GREATER CROSSBLOODED EVOLUTION
FEAT 18
SORCERER
Prerequisites Crossblooded Evolution
Your bloodline is extraordinarily complex. Choose up to three of
the sorcerous gift spells granted by your secondary bloodline.
You add these spells to your spell repertoire, heightened to the
highest rank of spells you can cast or to the highest rank they
can be heightened to that is lower than the highest rank of
spells you can cast. You cast these spells as the tradition from
your primary bloodline

How do people feel about the new Sorcerer class? You can see it here with BadLuckGammer.

There has been a huge move toward bloodmagic. It is an attempt to give a unique flavour to the class by leaning into it. Lots of extra things and many feats about what they can do when they cast one of their blood magic granted spells or use their blood magic focus spells.

Dangerous Sorcery has become a class feature. Which is a free feat but also means it can't easily be taken with an archetype.

Crossblooded Evolution has been removed from the game, by replacing with a so so feat of the same name. That just doesn't do anything at all like what the original does. I'm struggling to see its new value. Anyone help me here?

This was a courageous move that I feel will get a lot of resistance from the players who currently like the Sorcerer. This feat basically gave the Sorcerer its identity. But this wasn't the identity that Paizo wanted. So it is gone. I empathise with Paizo's position in reinforcing the boundaries between the magical traditions so a handful of high powered spells don't dominate the game. But I also don't think they have done themselves any favours over the last few years in this regard. Their new spells don't sit well inside one tradition anymore, and sometimes add abilities that used to belong in other traditions. Examples being: Ooze Form for Occult and Albatross Curse for Primal.

I've always looked on the Bloodline focus spells as key and the Bloodmagic spells as a disadvatage not a bonus. Now Paizo wants them to be a bonus.

Imperial Sorcerer is ridiculously strong. To the extent that it almost certainly invalidates the Wizard. They have a moderate recall knowledge game for any RK check just using Arcana. They have a good one action blood magic spell so they will use some of the new feats. It can hand out penalties to saving throws. Only diehard Wizard fans are going to remain - I don't think this is a good thing. It is beyond me why Recall Knowledge is consistently better in classes that aren't Wizard.

Personally I think if I am trying to make a strong sorcerer build, I will end up archetyping into Oracle and Pyschic. There is precious little in terms of mid level Sorcerer feats that interest me anymore. The Evolution feats at level 4 and Effortless Concentration are about all I really care for. Perhaps Propelling Sorcery at level 2.

I'm just going to have to play it.

Spellshot really wasn't that good before because of the locked in dedication felt like a strait jacket. The latest Guns and Gears errata now makes it viable. Now you get access to beast gunner and the wizard archetype.

I really do appreciate when a disfunctional part of the game is repaired.

I've been thinking about Taunt. A lot of people have been querying the feel and the effect of it. There is even a question in the feedback about how it should work. So the designers are thinking about it.

Can we really flip the effect.

How about a Guard action instead of a Taunt?

Single Action. Choose an ally within 10ft. Until the end of your next turn, enemies the Guardian can see are -1 to attack that ally. You get a +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls versus any enemy that takes a hostile action against your guarded ally and doesn't include you as a target.

It is a big boost to the attack power of the Guardian - which is coming off a low base.

It is usable if you are on low health. So play wise it doesn't share the same limitation as Intercept Strike.

It doesn't conflict stylewise with the Charisma based effects like Demoralise or Bon Mot, or the Swashbuckler in general.

Are there going to be subclasses for the Commander or Guardian?

If feels like it should be possible especially for the Guardian who has multiple ways of working depending on feats.

Why is this once a minute?

This is a level 12 feat. Please realise that a Champion gets a second reaction a round at level 14, a Fighter does two Reactive Strikes at 10, and a Rogue can be using Preparation to get 2 Opportune BackStabs or Nimble Strikes as well.

Intercept Strike is weaker in some senses than the Champions Reaction and both the Rogue options. Intercept Strike is self limiting as you take damage from it. It does not need a Frequency limit at all, let alone one per round. Once per minute is a big nerf to the Guardian.

Are you trying to make us use Intercept Foe? Looking at it closely the Guardian has a lot of reaction options. Most are useful. The trade off between them is interesting.

The Commander has a feat Chain for an Animal Companions.

It starts at level 1 Commanders Steed which is unusual as every other one starts at level 2. Then it matures with a level 6 feat, but does get the free stride or strike most other companions get level level 10. The unshakeable reliability in the level 6 feat is going to come up maybe once in a campaign unless your GM loves the Confusion spell - so I tend to discount that.

So my initial thoughs were this is terrible as you want the free stride more than anything from a mount. People are just going to take Beastmaster and ignore these feats.

However a Commmanders mount is almost certainly going to be a squadmate. This means it will benefit from tactics. This means that things like Pincer Attack will give the Commander a Step that he wouldn't normally get.

So the level 1 mount feat all by itself is very useful. You don't need the extra feats.

I think we will even see more Sprites on Corgi's again.

It is the core feature of the class but it just doesn't seem to be worthwhile to use. I mean +2 to hit totally negates any defensive advantage the class might have. So the Guardian becomes as squishy as what he is trying to protect.

I can think of building a ranged skirmisher with the guardian and force the enemy to take the penalty or waste actions chasing me. That just doesn't seem to be the concept of the guardian class though.

Maybe I could build a Shove specialist and shove enemies away. That might waste some actions. I'm not seeing enough in the class to make this worth it.

Anyone have any ideas?

I want to try the Guardian out but I'm just not seeing how I would use this or build around it? I'm out of ideas can I have some help?

I can save a bit of damage which I can take instead of an ally. I mean that has some use value but I still will end up taking most of the damage. It just seems worse than Reactive Strike or all the Champion Reactions so any sane player is going to take one of those reactions instead.

Why doesn't the Guardian get something decent like DEFENSIVE SWAP instead?

I really appreciate the announcements and product releases that Paizo have made over the last days.

I am so glad that Paizo are trying very hard to give us what we have been asking for. Because I know we ask for weird things that don't fit and are completely the opposite of what the next person asks for. As a community we aren't reasonable. But Pathfinder is finding a way to deliver something of everything.

Are there any combinations with Phoenix Ward

I have updated my Spell Guide for the remaster.

I continue to update my other guides. I have been fairly heavily medicated this week so doubtless there will be some mistakes.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

I had a check from a player this week. They were playing a barbarian fighting a Swarm. They didn't use their main two handed weapon as they thought it would not be effective against swarms of little creatures. I had to inform him it would work fine. In fact the bigger weapon is better as it powers through the resistance. Then he of course critted and did 60 damage destroying the Swarm.
But he was right. It should have been ineffective. Swarms are just done wrong. They should have a damage cap, not a resistance.
What do other people think?

What is the nearest equivalent of a ring of wizardy for occult/primal/divine casters.
I know we have staves, wands and for some grimoires. But are there any with open slots like the ring of wizardy?

I'm not aware of any but one of my players asked so I'd thought I'd check.

I am getting upset with the remastered stun rules. It is all in one handy page 446 of the remastered rules.
The box in the top left in the second paragraph says
Other conditions say you can't act... Unlike slowed and stunned...
In the colum right next to it is the condition Stunned. It says
Stunned. You've become senseless. You can't act.

Please Paizo stop writing directly contradictory statements.

Please remember that Stuned has two different implementations. Stunned with a number of actions lost, and Stunned with a time duration.

Note that this is different to the problems cleared up in the errata with the 4th printing of the CRB
Page 460, 462, and 469: The text on Gaining and Losing actions on page 462 and for the last step of starting your turn on page 469 indicated that if you had a condition that said “you can’t act,” you wouldn’t regain any actions on your turn, rather than merely being unable to use them. This conflicted with the sidebar on page 622, which was correct. Conditions and other effects that cause you to change the number of actions you regain (such as quickened, slowed, or stunned) say so.

Some changes I noted to the general damage rules in the remaster. Aside from the well known Void, Vitality and Spirit changes. I picked up a couple of things. Only the first is significant:

1) Bleed Damage ends when you are healed to your full hit points.

2) You don't add a attribute modifier with spells and bombs. Unless noted. Which seems redundant.

3) They put in a rule about counting damage dice. No change.

Unfortunately Extra and Additional Damage are still not clear at all. Nor are the terms instance of damage or pool of damage that they use.

The wording has changed. In the remaster it now says:
Unlike with other spell slots you can't use 10th level slots with abilities that give you more spell slots or that let you cast spells without spending spell slots
Which means that taking another 10th level slots via a level 20 feat eg Archwizards's Might, no longer undoes this rule.

I've been looking back over the rules for this. There were plenty of people saying that the wizard had some exceptions to this. They clearly don't.
Arcane Bond, Spell Blending, Arcane School all clearly don't work. It doesn't matter if the wording says bonus or extra it is stopped. Abilities like the Sorcerers Primal Evolution doesn't work here.

AFAICT the exceptions are Focus Spells and Cantrips which heighten based on your level.
There are some wierd things like a 20th level Druid with the Plant Shape feat having a 10th rank effect if he has wild shape, but a 9th rank effect if he does not.

The Divine Font would be stopped from this by the rules text, but they still have that asterisk against the 10th level slot in their spell chart. Which to my mind counts as a specific exception.

It still leaves open the general question of what happens if you have an ability which gives you an extra top level slot when you have level 10 slots. In general the right outcome would seem to be that you get a 9th level slot as you can't consider your 10th level spells for this purpose. Though I lack confidence this is expressed well everywhere.

Finally. Just home from work, and my Player Core Book has arrived.

I've had it ordered though a 3rd party retailer for ages.

A month later than everyone else. Serves me right for living in Australia.

This is the remaster change I am most excited about. Ghost Sound becomes Figment. It can be visual. Now with the errata it gets Subtle.

This means by default the casting is not noticed. There are going to be all sorts of shenanigans with this. At last a caster can easily distract and misdirect. It final works how it was always intended but in a rules clear way.

Well I'm pleasantly surprised by the remastered Rogue.

For the optimizers out there Rogue build used to be totally dominated by building around the feat Opportune Backstab. Which allowed you a no MAP Strike triggered when an allies Strike hit. I was half expected this to be slightly nerfed. But no Paizo doubled down by providing another competing reaction.

Nimble Strike (Feat 10) When you use your Nimble Dodge Reaction, you can make a melee Strike against the triggering creature.
Given that Nimble doge triggers on an attack or with Nimble Roll a Reflex save this is going to happen a lot.

So there is now no longer one optimised path for the Rogue. We have two and all the hydrids in between.

The main question I have with the Animist is the flavour. What sort of character is it based on? What myths and stories should I be looking at for inspiration? At the moment I am a blank.

The comment has been made that casters can do everything:
Since a wizard very much can have a spell for every situation that targets every possible defense, the game has to assume they do

I don't want to rehash that discussion in another thread. But I would like to pose the question what is the most flexible martial you can build?

This thread from reddit on Animist seems like a better Wildshaper than Wild Order Druid
Just making sure it is noticed and considered in the playtest.

No I'm not the original poster. If it had been me I'd have banged the drum about being very clear on how handwraps with a few different runes affect wild shape too.

The Elemental Barbarian has a real problem.
All the impulses get the Rage trait.

Which means all impulses can't be used outside of combat, and they end when rage ends. This is a big problem for utility impulses.

Question.
The way I read these is that Unburdened Iron still works with Tenacious Stance. Is that how other people see it?

Stalwart Defender Dedication

any time you're taking a penalty to your Speed from some other reason (such as from the encumbered condition or from a spell), deduct 5 feet from the penalty. For example, the encumbered condition normally gives a –10-foot penalty to Speed, but it gives you only a –5-foot penalty. If your Speed is taking multiple penalties, pick only one penalty to reduce.

I've been really impressed with the new spells in Rage of Elements. It is 95% arcane and primal. These are my highlights:

Best Spells

Rust Cloud good damage in a burst (1/2 a point under fireball) but conceals your targets. Which should be a disadvantage. But not much, as you can prepare by taking Blindfight or Goz Masks so you don’t take the concealment penalty. But where it is really strong is the damage area continues for a minute and triggers on start of turn so your enemies can’t avoid it if you push them back in. You do have a wrestler on your team don't you?

Personal Ocean your own personal swimming pool. A nice defensive buff. Especially good if for some reason you have a high swim speed. Here are the rules for Aquatic combat. A lot of enemies are going to be -2 to hit you. Personally I want to wild shape into a sea serpent then zoom around raking enemies with this .

Cave Fangs fireball piercing damage plus difficult terrain that lasts for a minute.

Field of Razors damaging terrain. Yes I do like the forced movement game

Shock to the System brings someone back from the dead who just died. They are hasted. Finally a revivify type spell.
Heatvision a new PRECISE sense.

Cantrips

There are some rivals for Electric Arc: an area of effect damage cantrip with Timber, a two target damage cantrip Slashing Gust. People are probably going to prefer Electric Arc still but these cantrips are getting closer.

Plus a damage cantrips for Divine casters with Needle Darts. Everyone else gets it too.

A shield cantrip for primal casters - Glass Shield

Elemental Counter enables counterspelling an elemental spell with another spell slot. Which leads on to -

Reactions

So many good reaction spells. Obviously for when you have few encounters in a day and you probably wouldn't do them out of your top slots but these really get the effects out fast.

Cloud Dragon's Cloak missed me.
Wooden Double negate most of a critical hit.
Brine Dragon Bile extra damage to an allies attack.
Blastback fall into a Blazing Dive. Definitely some manoeuvres and special entry techniques you could do with this.
Propulsive Breeze extra movement.
Interposing Earth create a shield that lasts a bit.
Zephyr Slip can't touch this.

Long Running Buffs

Thermal Remedy temporary hit points for the party.
Entwined Roots party damage resistance.

More Debuffs for Primal Casters to use

Coral Scourge clumsy and slow.

Frost Pillar save or be restrained. Very useful. Certain types of creatures will need an ally to get themselves out. For others it will waste a round or two.
Grasp of the Deep ranged grapple with modest damage. Just stay there thanks.
Grasping Earth ranged area grapple.
Pressure Zone long range, good area, short term clumsy debuff. Great if you have a horde coming at you.

Immunities

These have always been very restricted so far. but now you can get quite a range

Ferrous Form a lot of immunities like you were a construct, including healing unfortunately. None the less you should be able to exploit this. This is not a battle form, you can still cast, plus you get physical resistance as well.

Glass Form is just weird you'll have to check it out. Useful if you want to be permanently concealed so you can hide even in plain sight, or if you are being tracked by scent and very certain damage types but not others.

There is a lot more. I have updated my full Spell Guide. It is aimed at general adventuring with spontanteous not prepared casters. I am still yet to update some of my secondary comments. Feedback about spells is most welcome.

Conductive Weapon
You channel powerful electric current through the metal of a weapon, zapping anyone the item hits. The target becomes a +1 shock weapon. If any target of an attack with the weapon is wearing metal armor or is primarily made of metal, the electricity damage die from the shock rune is 1d12.

What happens if you cast it on a +1 striking weapon - I assume it just adds the Shock on. But what if the weapon has a property rune does it stack or not?

This ancestry feat Conductor's Redirection
.

You conduct the damage through your body, taking damage as normal (if applicable) and redirecting it at one target within 10 feet that you can see. The creature must make a Fortitude save using your class DC or spell DC, whichever is higher. On a failure, they take the electrical damage; on a success, they take half damage.

Questions:
1) Does the Talos character take the damage?
2) Is the damage redirected the damage of the original spell or the damage the Talos character took?

The problem I have is the word redirect. The object of the sentence is the damage.

Just cross posting from The Magic Sword for those that aren't on reddit. Full details on the primal previews
The Kineticist looks cool. I like the page of powers they show.

Large Minotaurs and Centaurs.

But mostly the Spellsong Lyrebird. Love the concept and it is based on a local bird.

Maybe.

A Bards best ability perhaps the best ability in the mid game, is Dirge of Doom.

Area effect 30ft emanation, no save, no timing out, frightened 1 on all enemies.

Why is it so good?
* Frightened 1 is -1 to all enemies attacks and -1 to all their defences. It is basically like giving everyone +2 to everything --- and people complain about fighters?
* In PF2 very few things are immune to fear. It is typically only Oozes and Mindless creatures. This is nice BTW as I am tired of large common categories of monsters being immune to illusions, or fire or fear like previous editions.
* It works with Lingering Composition so on a moderate roll plus a focus point it only cost 1 action and will last for 3 or 4 rounds.

Other Bard focus cantrips give a benefit of 1 not 2. You can Harmonise them to get a second cantrip for a net plus 2 but then you are spending 2 actions per turn. You can't do this and Linger them because of the metamagic and action restrictions. Yeah I think I'll just spend one action once thanks.

Likewise Inspire Heroics costs a focus point to get a larger bonus, but you can't also linger that.

Net result the Action Economy wins and Dirge of Doom is the best Bard cantrip in most common situations.

Then there is the knock on effect. Dread Striker which becomes worth multiclassing to get, not just for the Rogue.

Paizo should have a look at this situation and see if this is what they intended. but Dirge of Doom is so strong it is crowding out other Bard options.

What do people thing about these as items to help alchemists?

These are alchemical laboratory items that can be repurposed as weapons by many a budding alchemist. These items are advanced weapons but can not have weapon runes etched on them. Alchemists treat these weapons as simple weapons, and may use their crafting skill modifiers instead of their ranged weapon attack modifiers with these weapons. These weapons cannot be used beyond their base maximimum range.

Greek Fire Dispenser
Bulk L; Hands 1; Range 20 ft.; Reload 0
Category Advanced
Group Alchemical (on a critical hit the target is blinded until they spend an action wiping their face).
Item 1. Price 5gp; Damage 1d8 fire damage
Item 3. Price 15gp; Damage 2d8 fire damage
Item 11. Price 80gp; Damage 3d8 fire damage
Item 17. Price 1625gp; Damage 4d8 fire damage

Acid Squeegee Bottle
Bulk L; Hands 1; Range 20 ft.; Reload 0
Category Advanced
Group Alchemical (on a critical hit the target is blinded until they spend an action wiping their face).
Item 1. Price 5gp; Damage 1d6 acid damage, and 1 point of splash damage to every creature in a line between the alchemist and the target.
Item 3. Price 15gp; Damage 2d6 acid damage, and 2 points of splash damage …
Item 11. Price 80gp; Damage 3d6 acid damage, and 3 points of splash damage …
Item 17. Price 1625gp; Damage 4d6 acid damage, and 4 points of splash damage …

My conception of the Bard as a caster is not that of studious reseracher but that of a widely learned artist who has picked up tricks and bit and pieces from everywhere on his travels. Every bit of his knowedge and magic has a story behind it. Where he picked it up from who and how they met.

You are a PF2 Bard with some changes.

You gain abilities normally however you have Hit Point and Spell slots like a Psychic. All your spells are adapted into music. Your Muse is the Polymath. Modify the Esoteric Polymath feat. Your Spell Repertoire is recorded in a book of spells (though you refer to them as songs) These spells can be of any tradition of magic and don’t all have to be the same tradition but they must have a verbal component. During your daily preparations, choose any one spell from your book of spells. If it isn't in your repertoire, treat it as though it were until your next daily preparations. If you have too many spells in your repertoire then choose which ones to forget. You can expand your collection of spells by recording it in your book.

From level 2 you gain skill feats and skills at the same rate as a Rogue.

I'm sure someone will be able to break this. But this is the other character that is a bard to me.

This is a different martial bard in the tradition of the norse skald. This is not the PF2 skald, but a historian bard and poet typically in the service of a noble of a warrior culture.

Start with a PF2 Bard. Remove all the regular cantrips and spell slots that a Bard gets. You retain access to the composition cantrips and composition spells as per a normal Bard. You can choose the tradition of this magic. You are Trained in it and know 2 cantrips of that tradition. A skald knows their compositions so well that they do not require concentration. Hint.

You have Hit points as per a Ranger
Replace the Initial Proficiencies for Saving Throws, Attack and Defences with the Rangers. As your character goes up levels you gain the increases to these abilities as if you were a Ranger. That is:
* Iron Will
* Ranger Skald Weapon Expertise except that you gain access to the critical specialization effects of all simple and martial weapons and unarmed attacks while singing or while under the effect of a composition spell.
* Evasion
* Weapon Specialization
* Ranger Skald Expertise
* Juggernaut
* Medium Armor Expertise
* Weapon Mastery
* Greater Weapon Specialization
* Improved Evasion
* Second Skin

Your Muse is the Warrior Muse but you gain no other benefits from it. You gain Bard feats and Skill and General feats as normal for a bard. Plus
* Expert Spellcaster at level 7
* Vigilant Senses at level 11
* Master Spellcaster at level 19 (yes it is late)

You are forbidden to take the Bard Multiclass Archetype like other Bards are. But you can gain some Bard spellcasting ability by taking these feats as if you had taken the Bard Dedication feat. There is no skill requirement and the tradition of this magic is whatever you chose before
* Basic Bard Spellcasting at level 4
* Occult Breadth at level 8
* Expert Bard Spellcasting at level 8
* Master Bard Spellcasting at level 18

In summary Bard compositions on a generic martial chassis.

Here is the link
Holy and Unholy are going to be damage relevant traits not damage types

Focus point feats will be clarified to ensure they all give a focus point.

Some changes to shields.

Lots of general clean up is happening but he doesn't give much in terms of specifics.
I hope a number of the list of issues I maintain are going to get cleaned up.

So what changes do people want to see for the Core 1 classes?

These are: bard, cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, rogue, witch, and wizard. But lets set aside witch as it has several threads already. We know about weapon proficiency changes to the rogue and wizard, alignment swap out for the cleric.
Is there anything else people want besides more feats and options?

Bard. Is in a good state. It really looks like someone slipped the designer a few extra dollars to make sure it got the best deal. My only real gripe is the Warrior muse could do with a little something extra.

Cleric. I like where it is at and think many people bag the War Priest too much. Obviously there will be alignment changes.

Druid. In pretty good state. Just clarify the battle form rules and do something with high level animal companions - they seem too weak.

Fighter. No problems. Plenty of people like the feats that I don't like and it has mulitple ways to play.

Ranger. The OutWit ranger gets ignored too much by the community.

Rogue. I am fairly happy with the Rogue. Maybe more love for ranged options. Eldritch Trickster is not very popular.

Witch. Discussed elsewhere

Wizard. Is fine. Many people find the feats a bit flat. Please reword Staff Nexus for clarity - some people read the charging rules in a way that makes their staff use terrible.

What changes do people think are important, because I don't have a lot?

While you doing some tidying, I thought it would be helpful to list some of the major things that aren't clear in the rules.

I don't like having to look up 3 different rules sections and the glossary to understand the rules. Long lists with multiple conjunctions and commas might save page count but it confuses people.

The damage rules. Please be clear about what and instance of damage is. Consider a critical strike from a flaming sword. There is slashing damage, additional fire damage, and persistent fire damage. How does that interact with a Champions reaction that does resist all? Is it one two or three instances? Is a shield block with item hardness different? There are similar concerns with multiple weaknesses.

Battle Forms and wild shape. Please reword it all. Many peope are confused about how to calculate the Druids unarmed attack modifier. There were long arguments about whether or not item bonus was included. Can the Druid choose to use Dexterity or Strength? How does Additional Damage interact with the Battle Forms damage numbers. Many people do mistakenly add the wild shape +2 status bonus to attack all the time.

You recently created the Shapespeak mask to allow a wild shaped Animal to speak. But it misses the fact that other Battle forms like Avatars, Righteous Might, and Dragons aren't animals and traditionally do speak. This is very similar to the problem with all the familiar rules being written for animals - but we have rock, plant and undead familiars now.

Minions. You clarified quickened and slowed recently but there are a stack of conditions that are affected by the start and the end of the turn. Can you be clear about how these are resolved. I just let the player choose and do that in the minions controllers turn.

10th level spells. Can you delete the rule please its confusing and is not important. Or tell me what a 19th level Cleric has for a Divine Font: none, 9th rank, 10th rank? Because I think the rules say none and that doesn't seem fair. Loving your nomenclature change already.

Divine source and Deity rules make sense as is for Clerics and Champions, but not for the classes that don't have to worship the source of their magic ie Oracles, Divine Sorcerers or Divine Witches. While you are redoing alignment mechanics can you make it clear what applies if an Oracle who worships a holy deity but gets their magic from an unholy deity.

Recall Knowledge. Please make it clear how to handle Unique creatures and just reword it so half the community doesn't write off the ability as useless.

Hostile actions. Is not clear as the term Indirect is open ended. Please can we be sure how Sanctuary, Charm, and Calm Emotions work.

Traits: So many of these are not cleanly overwritten and they should be. Please fix up.
a) Poppets and the Construct trait. I don't want to see Poppets claiming they have immunity to bleed, or immunity to unconsciousness
b) Undead trait and Healing. It is just quite clear the whole positive and negative healing, but the Undead trait still has blanket immunity to healing. Seems like a clash. Please ensure that the Negative Healing rules have priority
c) Incorporeal mentions immunity to strength checks 4 times. Note that swinging an axe is a strength check. That was Ok till players got Incorporeal options.

Eidolons re-manifesting and persistent conditions?

I have more collected here but above are the major things.

I am working on a summoning build. I haven't tried this yet. It is just a mechancial concept at this stage. Thoughts?

Sorcerer Bloodline Phoenix

Starting ability scores:
STR 10 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 18

Background
Cultist, fascinated by fire but fleeing a goblin cult that wanted to purify everything with fire.

Ancestry Feats
Charhide Goblin
Burn it
Goblin Scuttle
Very Sneaky
Skittering Scuttle
Very Very Sneaky

General Feats
Armor Proficiency for a while then from level 10 Toughness
Fleet
Incredible Initiative
Canny Acumen
Feather Step

Skill Feats
Intimidating Glare
Battle Cry
Scare to Death
Bon Mot
Evangelize to debuff when I can’t demoralise anymore
Terrain Stalker underbrush
Foil Senses
Quiet Allies
Legendary Sneak

Skills
Intimidation, Diplomacy, Stealth, Nature, Occultism, Arcana, Religion
Ranking the first 3

Feats
2. Summoner Dedication for Psychopomp Eidolon
4. Primal Evolution for an extra top level summons
6. Basic Synergy for Meld into Eidolon so I can be Ostentatious whenever I want.
8. Crossblooded Evolution for another summon spell from another list. The best part is I can change which one every level if I want.
10. Bloodline Resistance a nice bit of extra defence that is always on.
12. Advanced Synergy for Ostentatious Arrival for bonus damage on every summon.
14. Advanced Synergy for Master Summoner for an extra top level summons
16. Effortless Concentration because actions are more important than spell slots
18. Greater Vital Evolution for an extra top level summons and one just below
20. Ruby Resurrection just because it is who we are

Note that this build has 3 extra top level spell slots, an extra slot one level down and we still have all our normal slots. Too bad for Spell Blending.

If you have Free Archetype then pick up Basic Summoner Spellcasting and a lot of summoner abilities.
Take the opportunity to get Bloodline Focus and Greater Crossblooded Evolution from the Sorcerer class.

Psychopomp Eidolon a Grim Reaper with black robes, a skull mask, a scythe, and flames
STR 12 DEX 16 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 12, CHA 10
The Eidolon might strike once or twice but its value is mostly dramatic and won’t stay out long. Out of combat it will assist with a few skill checks.

Equipment
Handwraps of Mighty Blows are useful as its runes will affect your Eidolon and you don’t have to waste time drawing it like you do any other weapon. Maybe at early levels you might use a sling occasionally.
Leather Armour then Bracers of Armor
Warding Statuette for Shield the level 7 one is good enough.
Bloodline Robe
Shadow Signet
A staff: Staff of Fire, Animal Staff or Staff of Healing are all good.
Bag of Holding
Insistent Door Knocker
Soaring Wings
Healer’s Gloves
Boots of Speed
Cat's Eye Elixir x 10
Elixir of Life

Spells listing Bloodline Spells first
Not quite right yet.
Cantrips : Detect Magic + Electric Arc, Ray of Frost, Guidance, Scatter Scree, Light
1st: Burning Hands + Lose the Path, Heal , Summon Animal, Gust of Wind
2nd: See Invisibility + Longstrider , Summon Fey, Obscuring Mist, Dispel Magic
3rd: Fireball + Wall of Thorns, Fear, Gasping Marsh, Animal Vision
4th: Remove Curse + Fire Shield, Summon Elemental, Air Walk
5th: Breath of Life + Acid Storm, Wall of Stone, Grisly Growths, Magnetic Repulsion, Synesthesia from Crossblooded Evolution
6th: Disintegrate + Chain Lightning, Scintillating Safeguard, Nature’s Reprisal, Slow
7th: Contingency + Energy Aegis, Frigid Flurry, Haste
8th: Moment of Renewal + Horrid Wilting, Burning Blossoms, Deluge, Stoneskin
9th: Meteor Swarm + Implosion, Banishment
10th: Summon Kaiju

Signature Spells
Heal, Dispel Magic , Summon Animal, Summon Fey, Summon Elemental, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Chain Lightning, Summon Giant, Acid Storm

Eidolon Occult Transmutation

Source: Secrets of Magic pg. 63
Trigger: An enemy within 15 feet of you hits you with a Strike and deals damage to you.
Requirements: Your eidolon is within 15 feet of you.
Your eidolon instinctively flashes with ectoplasmic energy, allowing them to strike back against an enemy who dares to harm you. Your eidolon makes a melee unarmed Strike against the triggering enemy, even if that enemy isn't within your eidolon's reach.

and

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 67

Your physical form can combine with that of your eidolon, granting benefits but limiting your capabilities. You Manifest your Eidolon, but instead of summoning it into an adjacent open space, you become it. While Manifested in this way, you use its statistics, and you can't act except to direct it to use Manifest an Eidolon to unmanifest it. Since you can't act, you can't Cast Spells, activate or benefit from magic items that normally benefit you and not your eidolon, perform actions that have the tandem trait, or use other abilities that require you, and not the eidolon, to act. Your can't be separately targeted while you are melded into it. When you reach 0 HP, your eidolon unmanifests, leaving your body behind, unconscious and dying.

Question: Can your Eidolon use Dutiful Retaliation while you are melded? Thus striking back when the Summoner ie the Eidolon is hit.

I'm thinking yes.

I'd like to note that Tempest Oracle now have another spell they can use to get their bonus electrical damage
Briny Bolt. Unfrotunately it is arcane/primal and on no deity list yet. So you can only get it via human or elf ancestry feats at the moment.

A quick example from my game last night, on line of effect versus line of sight.

Names removed to avoid spoilers.

The PCs travelling in a forest, came across a nest of animals in the middle of a stream. The animals attacked to defend their territory.

The animals had good movement and stealth powers so they climed up the bank and hid in the forest. Attacking players with darting attacks, retreating into the undergrowth each turn with their excellent stealth.

Yes I gave the animals a special movement power so I could stride, attack, then stride and hide as a single action. Why? Because they needed it tactically to make their powers make sense and the players certainly had that.

This forced the PCs to make seek checks, point out, attempt flat checks versus hidden targets. The animals got in some good damage while the PCs got their tactics together.
Eventually the PCs goblin sorcerer landed dazzled and 5 persistent fire damage on the last creature.

Being an animal, it ran wildly and jumped into the river. I ruled that is was visible to the PCs as the water was clear, but it was also 10 ft down, that is at least 5 foot of water between the PCs and it.

Not willing to let anything escape the PCs continued to hunt it. Arrow shot failed. Electric arc hit the water and fizzled. Line of Sight but not Line of Effect.

The creature rolled a 1 and a 2 on its flat check to remove the ongoing fire damage. I was giving it huge modifiers but I felt I had to let the sorcerers napalm keep working in that situation. Other GMs may have just had the fire automatically go out.

Next the Magus tried Magic Missile. Blam blam the missiles hit at precisely the right place on the surface of the water. None reached the creature. The player was a little surprised that Magic Missile wasn't a magic bullet.

Finally the Sorcerer tried Summon Animal for a Snapping Turtle. Yep the turtle could attack and did hit and hold. But the turtle was promptly eaten.

Then then rogue leapt in for an underwater strike at penalty, missing.

Then the inventor leapt in next to the creature then exploded. As the GM I could have gone either way on that effect. But I decided to let it the range 0 blast to work, ruling less than a foot of water was not an effective barrier. The creature was cooked and floated to the surface.

Post encounter the players checked the rules - sigh yep this is my home group. They agreed I got the line of effects rules right. Plus they all said it was fun.

Hope this example is useful. Cheers.

This build surprised me. Now you can't add damage together like this so it doesn't work. But at level 1 it does seem to. Because bleed damage is technically a damage type. Thoughts?

One gap in my strategy guide is how to use persistent damage.
Are there reasonable tactics for inflicting persistent damage and hiding or running away?
I ask because I really haven't used or seen used persistent damage successfully as a player (only as a GM). Because monsters just don't really last long enough. AFAICT it is just a nice little bonus for a round or two at best. Has anyone had better success with it as a player?

I've put together a Strategy Guide

I'd really appreciate some more ideas about strategy and synergies in combat. I have a fair bit down but I know I am also missing much. Any thoughts?