Gwyrdallan's page

Do the composite blasts that are half one physical damage type and half another physical damage type get hit twice by Damage Reduction?

For Example Let's say I'm using Autum Blast (any two of bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing (half each)) against a foe with 10 DR and I roll 40 damage.

Does it do 30 (total damage is 40 minus the 10 is 30)?

Does it do 20 (Two instances of 20 damage, each of which is reduced by 10).

As a follow up, if the damage reduction is bypassed by one of the two damage types does it still apply to the other half?

Ok, thanks for helping me understand traits on attacks. But do Kineticists have training on Attacks with Blasts?

I'm finally trying to wrap my head around 2e and am looking at trying to build a Kineticist and I have some questions, for some reason I find 2e much harder to read at a glance than 1e and so would like some clarification.

Under proficiencies Kineticist they have "Class DCs" so they get the training bonus to that, but most spellcasting classes list both "Class DCs" and "Spell Attack Rolls"

Does that mean that Kineticists are NOT actually proficient with their elemental blasts if they need an attack roll?

Also under the description of Elemental blast it says: " damage type other than a physical damage type adds its trait to the blast" Which trait? to the attack roll or damage roll?

Am I somehow missing some base rules that make these things make sense?

Oh, wow that link to a summary of the APs was EXACTLY what I was looking for Thanks!

I played a bunch of 1e when it was out but 2e wasn't really my cup of tea when it came out, I found myself prefering D&D's 5e. However that bridge has kinda been burned due to recent puplisher issues, and I am thinking of running my group's first 2E game, and Trying to figure out which AP would be the best fit. Also looking for some general answers since things have changed since the last time I bought an AP. It looks like some of them are only 3 books now? And I have seen the books advertised as both Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5th compatible, are there different versions or dual-stat in the books? Is there anywhere that gives a good elevator pitch of each AP?

Lets assume a ruling LG decides to end the world and take to heaven most souls. Forbidding suicide in his ethos he gave to his most faithful followers and paladins the order to kill all the population, especially the sinless ones.

1. How should paladins of that deity react?
2. Accepting the order, would paladins keep their status and alignment?
3. If some paladins refuse, can they still be paladin?
4. If paladins refusing loose their status, what should be their new alignment?

First off I have a problem with your assumption that a god would retain their LG status while doing so. I would honestly have every paladin that accepted that order fall, and the ones who disobeyed retain their powers, but if you control the morality system of your world.

Vital strike just multiplies the damage DICE not some "base weapon damage".

Huh, I was just re-reading mythic Vital Strike and it says to multiply the static damage "by the weapon dice" It was obviously written with the intent of using the same multiplier as the damage dice, but due to RAW, it is possible as a 20th level/10th tier to do 60d6(x1.5)+2580 damage on a blast. Obviously not the way someone would actually run it, but still hilarious to work out.

yeah, I too wish that character's weren't reliant on items do do cool things, but they are, even fighters have serious problems with DR without magic items.

OK, so I'm currently in that AP (12th level 5th tier so far), and, as kineticist is my favorite class in PF so far I have built one as a back-up character in case my melee bard dies. First thing to mention is the absurd ability score increases the AP and mythic path provides for (7x +2 bonuses over the course of the game, pluss access to more than enough cash to get belts/HBs and even tomes), With only really focusing on Dex and Con it would be easy to get con to 40 (honestly 50 isn't out of reach if you really focus), at 20th level with 40 con you are looking at +35 on all concentration checks, assuming no traits/feats/mythic powers. yeah, defensive casting isn't going to be a problem for this build.

As to powers I think that dual path for (archmage/champion) is the way to go, not to mention mythic vital striking at higher levels!

For best results talk to your GM before hand, but most gms I've ever played with would be ok with saying "when it says cast a spell you can use it with a SLA" which makes a lot more archmage abilities open up.

So, at say 16th level a sandstorm blast deals 16d6+16+con mod. If you were to use kinetic blade or whip and improved vital strike that turns into 48d6+16+con mod?!? That seems way too good, although I suppose that the poor to-hot chance might balance that out.

So in the Kineticist thread there were a number of builds posted with vital strike included in them, but as I read it since the blasts are a SP ability they are not an "attack action" EXCEPT the whip and blade infusions. By my reading since those say "as part of an attack action" that means it is a valid target for vital strike...which doubles (or triples) the damage dice. This seems absurdly good.

Is this really how it works, or am I missing something?

So first off I love this class. It is almost everything I ever wanted in a blaster and/or an element-bending class.

The big problems as I see them are:

Accuracy: The classes 3/4 BAB isn't quite enough for higher level tests (at around 12th+ it becomes a problem.

DR / Elemental resistance: There is currently no way to overcome Alignment based DR, and only geokinesis (incredibly minor nitpick, all latin or all greek prefixes, not mix-and-match) can bypass material based DR. The argument can be made, that at the higher levels you can have 2 types of blast but honestly these two things are frequently found on the same creature, which makes that option not so great.

Damage Output: This class seems to be pure DPS, with very little out-of-combat utility aside from some highly situational abilities. Given that it's damage feels slightly underpowered. A dedicated blaster-caster can easily put out more damage than the kineticist, as well as having more utility from their non-blasting spells. Granted the blaster has to expend spell slots to blast, but from 10th level on I've rarely encountered a caster who regularly ran out of spells. That being said I don't think a kineticist should be doing more damage than a blaster, but it should be comparable. [note, this is all assuming that vital strike cannot be used with blasts, if this turns out to be untrue then HOLY CRAP TOO MUCH DAMAGE]

Burn: While not exactly a problem (and I must say I really love the idea and flavor behind this) I found myself incredibly reluctant to take burn for anything but what was (hopefully) a finishing attack, a very small pool (maybe just con modifier) that you could add to by taking the nonlethal, or maybe just only 1/2 level in NL would work better.

Solutions:
The Accuracy, DR and damage would all be more-or-less solved with an item like amulet of mighty fists, that would grant an enhancement bonus on all attack and damage rolls/count as various materials. Seriously, this one item would fix basically all the problems the class has (and maybe you guys were already planning on an item like this, after all fighters don't look like they have ways to bypass DR if you don't list the feats and items they can take).

In summary: this class has me more excited than any other class that has been announced and/or printed, this is absolutely the right direction to be going for a class, and this one is almost there!

So Half elves get Elven immunity as a racial trait, the can also count as an elf for any effect related to race. Can they then trade out elven immunity for Elemental resistance or some other ability as if they were an Elf?

So, having not really experimented with the Mythic rules in any actual gameI have discovered that I have no way to measure how high a character's attack rolls should be, nor how high their damage in this game. By the endgame of 20th/10th, what is considered good? A character with good saves int he 40s and low saves in the high 20s? Attacking for: +42/42/42? Damage of 1d8+57? I know the numbers, but not how to determine what the numbers will let me do. Any advice for how to meausure a character's effectiveness?

Does this AP roughly follow the WBL chart? My group is starting the game fairly soon and I was trying to plan out a character and wanted to know what I'd have to work with.

Yes. They do suck.

So there are many aspects of pathfinder that I love dearly, but some elements drive me crazy, one of the persistent bugs is the magic items system. This is the rules portion of trying to adapt an AP (Reign of Winter) into a more fairy-tale like world (heavily inspired by Frozen). There is magic, but you can't just go into a city and find spellcasting services.

Optional rules used: Armor as DR, Wound Points, Class defense bonus
Basic rules changes: Removed all Spells that resurrect people (dead means dead or undead), no magic mart; remove almost all magic items.

Replacement magic item system:

at every level where you would normally gain a +1 in an ability score you gain 2 +1s (in different things).
and a table of bonuses:

1 Resistance +1
2 Stat +2
3 Resistance +2
4 Weapon +1
5 Stat +4/2
6 Resistance +3
7 Natural Armor / Deflection +2 (gain 2 points of either NA or Def.)
8 Stat +4/4/2
9 Weapon +2
10 Resistance +4
11 Stat +6/4/4/2
12 Natural Armor / Deflection +4
13 Weapon +3
14 Resistance +5
15 Stat +6/6/4/4/2
16 Weapon +4
17 Stat +6/6/6/4/4/2
18 Natural Armor / Deflection +6
19 Weapon +5
20 Stat +8/6/6/4/4/2

I am aware that not all classes will get equal use out of all of these bonuses, but I'm mostly ok with that, in the past I have tried a more flexible system where players chose the bonuses they wanted and that seemed to ere a bit on lopsided end of things, and while some classes may not get a ton of use out of every single thing on here, it is likely enough to be going on with.

Wind wall or, better yet Fickle Winds will wreck an archer's day. That being said, it is clearly a case of a GM shutting down a PC completely, which can go over poorly. I do agree with you that one optimized archer can be a problem, my suggestion would be talking to the player out of game about it.

Ironically I frequently Ban barbarians because they are too hard to NOT kill. They are usually one of the biggest threats on the board and when they go unconscious they usually die from damage. I like being able to knock my players out without it being an auto-kill.

I do wish there had been 2 threads for each class, one for each person to post once and only once, with their thoughts on the class, and another thread to devolve into a 1000+ post argument with maybe 20 people continuing the arguments over and over.

Honestly having a text box with the class surveys would have been all I needed, but as it is I know several of my players who did the playtest felt it wasn't worth posting their thoughts on the classes they played because it would be lost in the crowd of arguments.

If those shadows use hit and run tactics, which they are smart enough to do that synth should die. It can't ready an action or have enough combat reflexes to deal with all of them, even if it does have magic weapons.

Oh yeah, but the entry says that they don't leave the room you encounter them in even if you run away. In my playthrough I had nothing that coluld hurt them, and barely managed to stagger out of the room at 3 STR, mostly due to not carrying much that I wasn't willing to lose to the shadows. No way I would have been able to defeat them even if I had a magic weapon, but I did SURvIVE them (due to bad tactics on their part, but those tactics are literally written in to the AP).

Thanks for posting your playtest feedback! :)

No problem, glad to help and we had a good time as well.

What about sniping from concealment? That seems like it might be prohibited in rage. At least that is how I ruled last night in my game.

Adendum: if the shadows in the fort didn't stay in their little room when/if you ran away that would have been an auto-lose. I didn't have magical attacks at that point and got hit for 16 points of STR damage on the first round of that fight.

Results: Well, I just plowed through all the combat in Burnt Offerings. A couple of fights were close (the skeletons at level 1 and the encounter with 2 yeth hounds at once had me 3hp away from dropping the eidolon. Also the Quasit witch encounter took 3 times longer than it had any right to without a ranged weapon. I would rate the first book as difficult but doable with a solo synth. There were a couple of points where one bad save could have ended it, but I got moderately lucky and saves are pretty easy after 4th level.

For the record build was fairly standard: (all AC all the time, str when you run out of AC evolutions), half elf for extra evolution point. Took Power attack and Arcane Strike at 3 and 5 to keep damage up there.

We ran through the Sarkorian Prophacy PFS scenerio. Here are my impressions on each class:

Warpriest: Sacred armor and blessings were meh at best and didn't end up being used due to sacred weapon and fervor being better. Sacred weapon and was awesome. Multiple Weapon Focus is amazing. Fervor should be Wisdom based as it is somewhat MAD.

Hunter: The Hunter class works alright, but the selection of teamwork feats available limits build options. Really felt like player was playing his tiger with a buff cohort. Also ended up being very, very powerful. The Tiger AC could basically solo the entire Adventure, the Hunter was buffing with a designated weapon and healing spells. The Tiger felt very OP.

Arcanist: Solid Class, works well, always had stuff to do, never felt overpowered.

Slayer: Sneak attack should be tied into favored target, also ranged sneak is very hard to achieve. Class seems to try and encourage ranged attacks, which does not work well with sneak attack.

Skald: Ragesong actual benefits are kinda lame, but the rage powers are amazing.Spell list seems a bit weird on a more barbarianism character. Class feels a bit MAD.

Challenge: run through an entire AP (all of the volumes) with only one party member, a Synthesist Summoner of any core race, built with a 20 point buy.

Post your build here, and how far in they made it, or (if they're as powerful as many seem to think), that they finished it. Consider it an after-market playtest.

I really hope you mean just the combat encounters, becau8se if you are asking for a full play through I don't think you'll get many takers for several months of a solo adventure.

If you do just mean the combat encounters I'll see what I can run though in the next few nights at work for you. (I basically just have to be physically present for my job and thus have LOTS of free time).

I really like the theme of this class,the problem is that Savage Skald already does most of what this class gets. Inspire Courage provides equal to better offensive boosts with no downsides. After playing a game with a skald in the party, not many of them accepted the ragesong, leaving it much less useful than inspire courage.

That leaves the Skald with DR, spell Kenning, and Rage Powers.

The DR is pathetic. I get it you are trying to make the class feel more "Barbarian-ish" but a useless DR does not really help.

Spell kenning is actually useful now! Skalds are now the kings and queens of limited utility spells that provide an Auto-win in certain very specific situations. Actually, now that I look at it I like the class a lot more if I think of this ability at the defining point of the class.

Rage Powers: These getting passed out to everybody is what really makes this class pop in my mind, other classes can replicate most of the other things this class can do, but nothing else can grant the entire party rage powers. Several of the totem lines seem amazing for this (Spirit and Beast jump out at me).

Overall I do like the class, but only group-wide rage powers and spell kenning feel new and different. This still feels like a bard archetype and not a new class. That being said it is an archetype I'll have a lot of fun playing.

So we did the PFS scenario Sewer Dragons of Absalom at 4th level. We did this Sunday so the round 2 playtest document wasn't out yet. I intend to do a second round with the new playtest and at 10th level this coming sunday and will post those results at that time.

I'm goin to post each of the classes in three parts, first a look at the builds my players went with, then their impressions/concerns, then mine

Arcanist:
Build:All the INT, moderate CHA, focused on debuffing/control with 1 slot devoted to magic missile.
Player Impressions: It was fun, new spell mechanic would be awesome in a traditional game, somewhat lost in a pickup that only covered 2 days.
My impression: Mostly the same as the player, between the good choice of spells and exploits he always had something to do, and used control spells to effectively solo a tough fight.

Investigator:
Build: All the INT, moderate CHA, str & con 8, dex 13. NOT A COMBAT CHARACTER. Twinked for not spending inspiration.
Player Impression: Quite fun, at low-mid levels poison use was great for being relevant in combat. Intelligence is of overwhelming importance,more so than for an int-caster. There aren't many useful feats to take.
My impression: At every single non-combat encounter this character was Boss. rocked everything, and rarely had to spend inspiration. Sneak attack was useful when it was available, but not something that was a huge boost. Even so mostly useless in combat.

Skald:
Build: High STR, moderate DEX&CHA, used a longsword 1 or 2 handed depending on if they needed to cast. (player didn't have much time so asked my to build character for her so I have a few more notes than normal)
Player Impressions: Was a lot of fun to play but the aspects of the class don't seem to synergize well. Being the heavy hitter was fun. Would rather play a Barbarian with a decent CHA.
My Impressions: At first I thought it was a great class, but then it was pointed out that everything it did well could also be done (possibly Better) by a straight bard. Rage power selection was very limited with no actions (fixed by update), weapon selection limited (fixed by update). In our group no one had ever played a strength based bard before and I think that is where a lot of the stuff I like is from, not the class itself.

Warpriest:
I did not gather much useful info on him othr than the fact that he was melee based and had medium armor for a move speed of 20' unfortunately the encounters worked out such that he only got 2 attacks the entire adventure and missed one of them.
Player Impression: Combat feats without a BAB suck.

Slayer:
I didn't have time to go over this character sheet before game, so I really have no clue what the player was doing/going for. I think he was supposed to be based off of throwing weapons, but 60 feet away was "too far away to be effective" and 40 feet was "well I might as well close to melee for sneak attack" which dealt a total of 2d6+2(after favored target). Player was annoyed that his class couldn't get poison use (fixed by update) and 4 skill points(fixed).

Hunter:
Once again I didn't get much useful info out of this one mostly due to hilariously bad luck (more natural 1s than the entire rest of the table put together (enemies included),likewise critical hits scored against him/pet.

Overall, 3 of the players felt like they learned something about the new classes and 3 of them were frustrated, but not usually by the class itself. Hopefully the 10th level game will be a bit more even-keeled and help get some Idea of where the classes stand.

I started writing out a big long suggestion that tried to get studied strike usable while weaker than sneak attack and then realized that it would still suck. I love the concept of the rogue, I even occasionally play a rogue (well Ninja) but for the love of all that is system balance don't start with a baseline assumption of "Rogue-equivalent or worse at combat." That is a losing proposition.

While I have seen a number of Rogues played all of them have around 11th+ (at the latest) required some serious optimizing to keep themselves relevant at all in combat. That is not a happy place to be. Now while I understand that you want to balance the addition of extracts with reduced combat power,that really isn't needed.

Instead balance the addition of Inspiration to the Vivisectionist. when not played as a natural attack monster the Viv. seems to be an excellent class when I have played it/seen it played. The sneak attack can keep you relevant in combat in many situations. rarely the star player, but usually relevant as long as the conditions are met. And extracts can be used when those conditions are not met to still be useful. It did not excel at combat or magic but was competent in both as a happy medium, the investigator should be in a similar happy place, not trading an interesting useful mechanic for combat uselessness.

All these new hybrid classes, but no Ranger/Cleric? Really? They were one of the old ADD2e staples!

You can find it on page 48 of the core rule book.

you know what, screw balance issues: those are almost impossible to fix and can occur to an amazing degree even within one class due to the system mastery of the players involved. This class makes magic more fun and less frustrating, that seems to be good for the game.

I feel that the only people who will stop playing Monks are the people who didn't want half of the monk class anyway but it was the only decent way to make an unarmed warrior.

My first impression was "Holy crap this is OP!" then I started comparing it to classes that were not the rogue class... I really do think that this class will almost completely replace the rogue for anybody who cares about system mastery. Its' very existence makes rogue a 'Trap option.' That being said I think it is time I gave up on the rogue being a valuable party member and jumped on this Investigator thing.

Yeah Hunter as it stands is both horrible and misnamed. There is a class in PF that is supposed to be exactly what springs to mind when your hear the word "Hunter" and this class isn't it. Honestly this class feels more like another attempt to bring teamwork feats out of obscurity than to actually make a new class. Mechanics wise it doesn't really do much a Druid can't, and a druid can do many things this class cant. With only 10 classes in the book I feel bad that space went to this one, it honestly seems better done as an archetype for ranger or druid, not as a new and separate class.

Things I love: The panache system, these deeds are great, exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for with this class.

Things I dislike:
(1) Limited weapon selection. Requiring piercing one handed makes little to no sense. Look at any of the various robin hood movies to see somebody finessing a longsword, this doesn't really feel like a necessary balance issue here, Piercing weapons are not usually inherently weaker than slashing or bludgeoning, so this is a flavor thing that ends up causing problems cut it.

(2) dervish danceing. I know that this class isn't really the problem, the real problem is that there is only 1 non-mythic way to get the ability to do dex to damage before you can afford a +2 weapon. But when you combine the aforementioned weapon restrictions with the benefits of dervish dancing it produces a clear advantage for scimitar based builds.

Things that drive me crazy: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A DEX FOCUSED CLASS AND GIVE IT WEAPON FINESSE GIVE IT AT LEVEL 1! right now you have at least one level of completely sucking before you can actually play the class as it sees it was meant to be played.

This spell preparation mechanic is everything I wanted from Wizard but never got. I personally don't particularly like vancian magic, and have frequently found myself really frustrated with true prepared casters for this very reason. This feels very much like a step forward, enough prep that you can have some of the choice of situational spells like a wizard, but not be completely useless if you guess wrong.

The Blood Focus mechanic feels weird and clunky, trying too hard to be a blend of Wizard and Sorcerer when it should be trying to be its' own thing. Also feels very bland. Overall I think that this class will appeal to players who like the idea of wizards, but hate seeing their prep work end up screwing them. All in all this looks like a lot of fun to play, and not uber-powerful or anything. I mean sure, I will always choose this over wizard, but that is more because I find pure prepared spellcasting to be very limiting and not to my preferred playstyle, I think that the three classes are still distinct (I know that there will still be some characters that I want to be sorcerers, and others that I would want to play as arcanists).

If you want a slightly less magical paladin, with a bit of a nerf just have all paladins use the Warrior of holy light archetype. They trade all of their spell-casting for some effects that are useful, but not nearly as useful as spells.

It mentions extracts so that when you play as a trickster and take path dabbling to get that ability it works!

Seems very quick but then if that's the way you enjoy playing that's fine.

I think looking on post posts the average is somewhere around 8-12 sessions of 3hours per book. My skull and Shackles game, book 1 was around 14 weeks and part 2 they are 3/4 of the way through and have been playing for 20 weeks so far. But some people do finish them quicker.

If you are following the normal average of 8 sessions it should be taking you around 24 sessions, you seem to have taken 8 sessions, again if that's the way you like to play that's fine but I think you must be miising huge swathes of parts out, combat must be over very quickly.

Another thing, you say you are using the book to level up. I see you have finished book 3 and it looks like you are level 5, I think you're level count is way out.You need to check the levels in the book, if you have finsihed book 3 everyone should be level 7 not level 5, if you dont level them up they may have problems later as they won't be powerful enough to face the encounters as written.

The books level as follows:
BOOK 1 1st to 3rd Level , ( 2 level ups they should have been level 3 not 2 by the end).

Boook 2: 3rd to 5th level (1 level up they finshed at 3rd and should have been 5th)

Book 3: 5th to 7th level (2 level ups they finished at 5th and should be 7th).

All the points where you level up are at the start of the book, you need to read these.

You are correct, I was typing the previous post in a hurry and forgot one of the level ups, the PCs are in fact 7th level at the start of book 4.

The party is extremely well built and usually uses great tactics, none of the battles have made it into the 4th round (except Sain's ambush). In the first book the sorcerer spammed sleep and got pretty lucky with saves, with a Barbarian finishing up what she didn't get. I will admit to not doing too much in the way of side quests not written up in the book, the reason I'm using the AP is so that I don't have to write my own material.

I've been running a Council of Theves game and it seems to be going exceptionally quickly. My group doesn't use XP, so I have them level up when the Ap says to, and they have leveled after almost every session:

Book 1: took all of 2 sessions (2 level ups)
Book 2: took 3 sessions (1 level up, this seems pretty decent rate)
Book 3: took 3 sessions (2 level ups)

So we have been playing for 2 months and are already almost done, these are 3.5 hour-long sessions.

Did other people have this issue? It isn't exactly a problem (we have a long list of APs that we still haven't played), but I was wondering if other people had enc0ountered the same thing, and wondered if it continued this way throughouut the AP or if it slowed down.

My Group just finished Serpent's Skull, and while we did technically have casters, they didn't do much spell-wise. We had a paladin who mostly used heroic sacrifice to save others, an Inquisitor, who mostly just used divine power and once or twice Magic circle spells, and a bard who used the inspiring spells (and a few well placed Dimension doors). Other than the Dimension Doors (which was relevant in only 1 session where we bit off WAY more than we could chew) nothing required spells, the inability to fly was annoying, but we had 1.5 effective combat archers so they could usually handle flying things.

I would like to thank you all for your advice, we just had our next session and the Rogue was actually quite good in combat even against a monster with a very high AC, so your advice worked, thanks!

I'm asking for some advice for a friend who doesn't frequent these forums, mostly just checking to see if I am missing something. We have just hit 16th level (just finished the Serpent's Skull AP and continuing on for a bit) and while most of us are happy with how our characters have been doing, the person in the party playing the rogue is unhappy with how often she misses attack rolls. When she hits her damage is quite good, but she is having a problem landing these attacks, aand she asked for help raising her attack bonus. The rogue is a TWF, dex based melee character. Here are the things I have already thought of:

+ to Dex Items (GM allows agile weapon enhancement and rogue already has Weapon finesse)
higher weapon enhancement bonus (obviously)
Weapon Focus (switching things up such that she has 2 shortswords instead of 1x shortsword and 1x rapier)
There are a couple of Ioun Stones that can Increase Attack
Upping her bluff check and taking two weapon feint feats (a bit late int he game to do this one)
Take levels in fighter (also a bit late)

I'm looking for feats / items / possibly even some dips that would add to her attack roll, any advice would be appreciated (other than: "well, she shouldn't have played a rogue then")

My opinions on the matter:
Me and the other rules laywer of the group sat down and looked at the psionics rules and both came to the conclusion that they were in fact overpowered. So the boards are not unanimous in saying they are balanced.

The other problem your GM may be having is that they do different things than what he is expecting. Yes, a good GM should be able to adjust, but if he doesn't care for psionics it is quite likely he hasn't read through them, and therefore isn't exactly sure what you are capable of.

Actually I believe that you are thinking of "Toothy" an alternate racail feature for half orcs. The "Tusked" trait, is a trait you can select. You could also use the human trait that lets you count as an orc to get the orc-only feat for a bite attack.

Also: Play a changeling.

Name: Kara
Race: Ifrit
Classes/levels: Sorcerer 6 / Dragon Disciple 2
Adventure: City of Seven Spears
Location: a lake without fish
Catalyst: being on her own/being surprised
The Gory Details:

Name: Ruvia
Race: Human (Kellid)
Classes/levels: Zen Archer 3 / Inquisitor 5 (Abadar)
Adventure: City of Seven Spears
Location: a lake without fish
Catalyst: the previous death
The Gory Details:

Name: Orm'izd (kinda)
Race: Half-Orc
Classes/levels: Fighter (Unbreakable) 8
Adventure: City of Seven Spears
Location: a lake without fish
Catalyst: the previous death
The Gory Details:

Not a good night for our party.
Out of 6 regular PCs:
1 didn't make it to game so was kidnapped
1 was ravaged by a demon and so not even with us by the lake
2 eaten by froghemoth
1 carried away to be eaten later (might still escape)
and 1 who is still functional but dealing with a lot of guilt.

Our group has been running it like greace/rome

You do not actually have to be evil, to worship an evil god. Just saying.

Yeah but you still can't take versatile channel as that requires neutral cleric of a neutral god. Also, due to the aura class feature would still detect as Evil.

Ok, so again: spoilers, this is for those that already played Gatewalkers

Basically I am looking for ways to make Book 2 better. I already have ideas how to fix "escort" part, GMPC party part and how to make Egede more exciting part with less idiotic contradiction and anti-climatic subplot of Committee for Moral Rectitude.

However, here is what I need help with: I want to start giving some tips or clues that Dr Ritalson is a shady figure and that there is something wrong with him, this whole quest and Missing Moment stuff. Adventure BADLY lacks any build up to revelation in Book 3 that's its all Dr Ritalson plan. Also I would like to give more clues about players being behind kidnapping and Osoyo, but I dont know how to do it so I don't spoil whole thing. Maybe something with dreams? I don't know. This "plot twist" seems too much 0-100 for me. I don't have ideas how to make it more building up through book 2.

Any advice is welcome.

So my player with whom I will be starting Gatewalkers wanted to play Tengu Bard and he asked me if Tengu , being humanoid brids have genitals or they have cloacas.

Now, I don't myself find this question wierd (if you want to roleplay a race, you may want to know more about it, I understand that, especially when it comes to maybe some cross-species romance adventures of PC) but I honestly don't know. I am really new to Gloarion and Pathfinder lore so I have no idea. I only know that Tengu are born from eggs reading about them on PF wiki. But I don't know how otherwise humanoid they are.

Anything in official lore?

Nobody plays them in all campaigns I play right now so I have no personal experience with them apart from some little math I did. I mostly think probably people just don't want to bother with tracking HP/BT, calculating how much damage they can block, having decision breaks in middle of combat (should I block that much damage or not?), repair after combat etc.

So I don't personally have an opinion whenever they are good or not and how Shield Block scales on levels 1-20 on characters that want to do it.

I know Blade Ally (Shield) is basically the stapple to buff that, so probably if you want to Shield Block you should be Champion or archetype into Champion for that. Sadly Quick Shield Block feat comes quite late (level 8 earliest) so that Block fights with AoO/Champion Reaction.

Anyway, what is your experience with Sturdy Shields and characters that build for Blocking. Do you consider it good enough? Does it scale well with average damage dealt as levels go up? Do you think it's worth investment over free-hand, dual or two-handed or just using shield for AC bonus and don't bother with blocking?

Would be nice to look at it from APs perspective where encounters level +2 and up are very common. And let's skip talk about Amp Shield as I know it's a great alternative free of all the HP/BT stuff. Let's just focus on Sturdy Shields and Shield Blocking.

Giving my voice as to what I think is really one of the biggest mechanial mind boggles for me in PF2e. And I am saying it as a big Fighter simp, mind it.

How for Gods sake is it that a Monk, whose whole class legend/myth/power fantasy/lore/history/identity is being a master of unarmed fighting (originating from Kung Fu legends), of martial arts, is not getting Legendary in unarmed while Fighter does? And why Monk doesn't get crit spec of unarmed by default and needs to spend feat?

Now I am not against Fighter getting Legendary in weapons. I understand that they are Fighters and they are like masters of arms. However, the only thing that Fighter should not be Legendary in is Unarmed attacks. That should be monk.

Normally I am not a guy who sews mechanics with lore, however this one thing among martials just doesn't fit the class identities in my opinion. Monks are people who soley, for their whole life, try to master unarmed techniques. They learn various of Stances (martial arts), various of unarmed deadly techniques (like one-inch-punch) or learn how to (as the only class) use a Ki to further enchance their unarmed mastery. They are only proficient in simple and unarmed for that reason, becasue of how big focus they put into it. Even Monastic Weaponry being feat shows that it's something outside of their expertise without additional training.

Yet, despite all that training and dedication to unarmed martial arts and all the mystical ways to enchance them and rich traditions of monks Houses, Monsteries etc...

Here is a guy, a Fighter and he just happes to be Legendary at unarmed. Not only unarmed. Everything else. Monk player playing with Fighter/Martial Artist in party feels just wrong when Fighter is MASTER at unarmed but monk is only Expert? How?

Whos should be more Legendary in unarmed? A guy who just punches or a guy who achieved such greatness in unamred fighting that his fist are adamant, magical, cold iron, silver and can channel energies through them? What sounds more "Legendary"?

I wish we could see a change here in Remaster but also a reason from devs: why is Fighter more proficient in unarmed than Monk? It's like Wizard having better divine font than Cleric... I just don't get it and can't wrap my head around it.

For me it should be: Monk Legendary in Unarmed, never in weapons (even with Monastic Weaponry), Fighter legendary in weapons, but never in Unarmed.

That's just how I wish it could be.

Mathematically it's worse than striking twice. Mathematically with 3 actions it's always worse than using Exacting Strike. Even vs high AC enemies with Furious Focus it still just matches Exacting Strike mathematically with 3 Actions available for only striking. Even Press feats like Brutal Finish/Certain Strike actually (statistically) helps more Strike-> Exacting Strike as if you miss Exacting Strike you can go for Brutal Finish and if you hit with Exacting Strike you can go for Certain Strike (or for 3rd Strike even).

Every other Fighter fighting style has it's "style defining" feat that is baseline of attacking: dual wielding has Double Slice, free-hand has Snagging Strike/Dual-Handed Assault, Sword and Shield has obviously tons of shield feats. Yet Power Attack, which I assume was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds, mathematically fails to be that. Unless it's Exacting Strike that was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds.

Anyway, I am just surprised that Paizo didn't think that PA needs a little bit of love. It should be a more viable way to use your 2 actions than Striking twice and mathematically that's never the case, unlike Double Slice which is always better than Striking twice and Snagging Strike or Dual-Handed Assault are direct upgrades to Strike action for free-hand builds. And while I understand argument "feats are situational": many feats are not and are direct upgrades to mechanics, like feats I mentioned here and many more.

I guess after so many years there no hope for errata for PA, but maybe we will get in future some defining feat for 2 handed characters. I love PF2e but I also love 2 handed weapons and it makes me sad that PA is so bad.

So, a quick question:

Imp. Knockdown is single Strike and you add effect of critical trip to that Strike. Further more feats says "If you used a two-handed melee weapon for the Strike, you can use the weapon's damage die size instead of the regular die size for the damage from a critical Trip"

So for example you use Greataxe, the critical trip damage bonus to your Strike is D12.

But what if you critical hit on Strike? Since you apply "critical success effect of a Trip" to that Strike: does the extra damage from critical trip that now rides on Strike also doubles on crit since now it's part of that single Strike? So would it be on Critical Strike Improved Knockdown from Greataxe an extra 2x(d12) then from critical trip effect?

Just wanted to get some general opinions about this idea for build, as there are pros and cons to it. This is pure optimization idea.

I don't like demoralize and frightened condition due to fall off. If I were to even invest in Intimidation on Fighter it has be to be on Hobgoblin Fighter because of Remorseless Lash and backup feats: Intimidating Strike and Shatter Defense.

So I thought about making it all little bit bette by taking Free Archetype dedication into Rogue (at level 8 or 9 depending if Adopted Human for Multitalented is there) for Dread Striker on level 12 + on level 10 Minor Magic: Arcane to be able to use scrolls/wands and later Gang Up becasue why not if I am already here, it's great feat.

General thought is that if there are already so many ways to make enemies frightened: Demoralize, Fear spell, Dirge of Doom, Intimidating Strike then Remorsless Lash is good to keep it with just Strikes (which means you can also use stuff like Knockdown and AoO will also count for prolonging frightened). But -1 for ancestry investment and loosing better ancestry feats for Fighters is in my opinion not enough. But Dread Striker makes that every frightened 1 is auto flat-footed, which means -3 AC from Demoralize success, from Intimidating Strike, from Fear spell, from Dirge of Doom. Which obviously combo with Remorseless Lash to prolong that -3 AC on enemy and best is when I trip frightened enemy and he Stands my AoO will still be with -3 AC becasue flat-footed is not caused by prone but frightened, so increases my hit/crit chance and prone if using hammers/flails. On heightened Fear or Dirge of Doom can make whole room -3 AC to Fighter and one Intimidating Strike has potential of -3 to -4 AC as opening on start which makes Press/Second Strike just -2/-1 on Fighter. Rogues know that Dread Striker is awesome. Then we could pick later Gang Up and pretty much have enemies flat-footed almost all the time. However the question is: is this worth the hassle, because there are pros and cons to this build:

Pros:
1. Every Demoralize, Fear spell, Dirge of Doom, Intimidating Strike, Dread Marshal Stance crit, Fearsome rune etc. can just straight up make enemy -3 AC at minimum, no flank or anything needed.
2. "Easy" condition to keep due to Remorseless Lash from Hobo and accuracy from Fighter.
3. "Easy" condition to reaply due to Intimidating Strike if needed.
4. Minor Magic from Basic Trickery is very good feat to pick. Cast a Spell Activity, we can pick any tradition, which unlocks scrolls/wands for us without having to take spellcasting dedication
5. Dread Striker just works. No strings attached. Once enemy is frightened, it works
6. Dread Striker + Gang Up + Flanking + Prone pretty much guarantees flat-footed on enemies in pretty much 95% of scenarios.

Cons:
1. Hobgoblin is a must. Remorseless Lash is just imo mandatory for fear martials. Darkvision from start is also nice. You can justify Adopted Ancestry (Human) or (Dwarf) for very good feats, but not both, so you lose good combo of Human with Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf) or counterwise.
2. 14 DEX to pick Rogue Dedication hurts as we want to be STR Fighter. You can start with 12 DEX and 10 WIS and get 14 DEX at level 5, but that means delaying your WIS increases to level 10 and Fighter Will saves are not good.
3. Traits like "Emotion", "Mental", "Fear" make whole combo useless vs mindless enemies like Golems for example. Something to keep in mind when thinking about cost of opportunity here.
4. Dread Striker is level 12 to pick at earliest due to "two times level" rule for dedication advanced feats. Which means levels 1-11 it's pretty much just Remorsless Lash -1 debuff for keeping with suboptimal 14 DEX being there. So we will play till minimum of level 8 with diffrent FA dedication anyway. Makes you wonder about justification of Hobgobling pick. -1 from frightened 1 is good but makes me wonder if it's worth on higher levels where casting Fear spell is very cheap option. This is "late game" build sadly so even in 1-20 campaign you only see the "power" of it on levels 12-20.

Hi,

So we chose AoA as our first adventure, becasue it allows for biggest variety of locations and it's great way to see Golarion (everyone are new in PF2e) while going 1-20 levels. However, we know that some encounters are no as balanced as later adventures (understantable, AoA was first) and we'd rather avoid random TPKs for group that will still be catching up with PF2e many mechanics. So, with that said: could you please give some general pointers of how to balance (and which ones) encounters in AoA? Like for example "First fight should be level -2 instead of level 0", "final boss at Book 2 works better as Level -1 and with 5x henchmens instead of 10x" etc. I would appreciate tips like that from those that already played that adventure path.

Cheers.

Hello,

I am still learning PF2e and I just got to a point where I think I understand optimization aspect around Fighter (class I plan to play, which took me like 2 weeks) but I absolutely didn't touch yet any other class or full casters mechanical nuisances in PF2e.

So I basically ask for "head start" here and recommending me builds for her, as that will be also great way for me to have some starting templates to reverse engineer them and help her build her character and me understanding how it works (since I have to explain to her, she is not very rule-reading-friendly :P)

So I know for sure she will like to play as Druid or Witch as she loves "nature casters" (Clerics are out of question, she hates clerics). As for races I am sure she will lean towards Leshy, Kitsune or Catfolk. She also loves summons (she is Summoner main in FF XIV for example, healer main in general) so I included Summoner class too if it can be healer too (dunno). She was dissapointed healing/buffing was so bad in DnD 5e so I hope she can have fun with that in PF2e.

She is not to keen on direct combat tactics and prefers to be buffer on top of being healer. Basically she loves to be support to buff allies, heal allies and place some debuff on enemies if needed. So I guess Occult or Primal is what I am looking at?

Dedications (multiclass) are probably out of questions as she is not very good at very mechanical complicated stuff with many many things to follow/remember. Unless it's very "light" Dedication like Blessed One for example, where it's just few bonus things easy to track.

If it matters, I will be playing two-handed Fighter with knockdowns (flails/hammers), wizard dedication for true strike/enlarge shenningans at front line.

Anyway: please kindly recommend me builds you would recommend her as if she was one of your players at table and I will be grateful for every single proposition as it will help a lot :). Thank you.

Me and my group are heavy powergaming group and we like many are leaving DnD and trying PF2e for first time. Obviously it will take long time before we can start crafting power builds for PF2e as system is huge!

So I would like to start with something grounded like melee-focused character (Paladin or Cleric/Ranger too, doesn't have to be without magic) for our first campaign. So what kind of best melee focused builds you can recommend and I would be grateful if you could also give me breakdown of your build so I can start to see "patterns" and "syngergies" etc. and slowly build my understanding of optimization in this system.

Thank you very much for every single proposition! Go wild, I don't really have any race, class/mulitclass or alligment restricion :). Just want to deliver very high damage/DPR and hopefully still keep nice defenses up.