Lanathar's page

Hi All

This may seem like a stupid question but I have received a PM that I want to report but it is not clear what avenue I should go down

Could someone please advise?

This is looking like it might be a good one to play with the characters who complete Abomination Vaults considering the plot-giving NPC in AV is a fortune teller. Seems like it won't take too much to link them

What is the downside ? Because in the first edition this was something you got from taking burn. Right now the proposal is to give a free version of a very expensive armour rune just for legacy reasons. And not even reflecting the legacy ability completely but choosing the positives

An indication of how this sort of thing could work is with oracle curses where they add negatives and get positives. Do any of those give the equivalent of fortification? I don’t know off hand. Some give miss chances don’t they ? But for pretty nasty downsides

It very much seems like the design intent for this class is not “well the first edition version had this”. Which was where a lot of the homebrew ones made very soon after release fell down - I saw versions that basically tried to directly port all the abilities over including the math and stat boosters - in that case clearly written so early that the author did not understand the math of the system

Edit : could be a feat as mentioned in a reply but I don’t recall this in the first post. And I fear would be a no brainer. Are there many other feats out there that directly replicate runes? Closest I can immediately think of are the flying ones but I don’t recall how they differ from the runes / items. There could well be others

On the contrary, as mentioned above I fully expect many people to deliberately create "opposite" characters because it is fun and also generally what people do

And 2E has largely removed minor restrictions like this. It doesn't seem worth the line of text it would require

Both of the above, and also some of the universal abilities, like being able to go to and from your associated elemental plane, or summon up an elemental buddy, or transform into an elemental temporarily. I get why these may not have arrived in the playtest, playtests are more about testing new mechanics rather than slapping in easily-implemented feats, but still.

The more I think about it the more it feels like the 1E kineticist was something of a precursor to PF2E's feat siloing system.

To me is is absolutely not a coincidence that the 1E Kineticist has siloed feats, core features built into the class and scaling numbers and shared a designer with 2E

I remember my Kineticist player getting frustrated because there was nothing unique that they could buy to directly boost their Kineticist abilities - so not stat boosters (apart from the diadem). Looking back this almost seems intentional

Haven't played this yet, but everything Aether. Aether was my favorite element for the unlimited utility potential. Telekinetic Haul to carry everything heavy, Foe Throw to just toss people around, Telekinetic Invisibility, Force Hook, Disintegrate, all that good stuff. Just looking at the playtest currently, and having not played 2e before, it feels heavily stripped down. If I remember right, though, 2e follows more along the lines of 5e which has a lot in small packages.

Wasn’t Aether mostly telekinesis? Isn’t this now in the psychic? How did aether work from a planes perspective in 1E? Did it have it’s own one or was it the connections between? It seems like they are sticking close to the actual elemental planes and have decided on 6

I take the inverse.

Oh you guys playing ttrpg? Nice!

Oh you want me to play? What system are you playing? 5e? Eh, right now my interest begins and ends with pathfinder 2e. Thanks for the offer though.

And the wheel keeps turning.

That said. I do feel like everyone just has terrible takes on both sides.

I see pro DND videos making bad faith arguments left and right. That Puff video was god awful.

And I see pf2e players just snapping at 5e players.

My group has a couple that mechanically prefer 5e DND, 2e pf and some that like anything.

I have no interest in 5e and when they go back to it I'll just sit the game out most likely. I see no reason to force myself to play something I don't like and see no reason to force people to cater to me either

In my experience a lot of the “snapping” came after the bad faith / ill informed videos on PF2 first started rolling out. They almost set the playing field that they wanted the discussion to take place on ( the 2E sucks compared to 5E and is too complicated and hard one). Starting with the one from that guy Cody that first triggered responses from pretty much every 2E creator

I am aware that the 5E creators that are now complaining are not those who “started it” in that regard. But other 5E creators seemed to really be the first to take active shots that ruffled feathers. And there have been others since the that almost seem to wilfully and stubbornly ignore any potential system upsides. And not to mention the channels that make videos whenever a humble bundle is released for charity claiming that it means pathfinder isn’t selling and is getting desperate and is about to go out of business / be sold to wizards. This take is usually only from tiny channels though but the YouTube algorithm is bizarre

As to the 5E content creators complaining - I think I weighed in on the toxic community thread but I have relatively limited sympathy for someone who is effectively asking the world (that is what Twitter is) “I want to make more money, how could I do that?” - and then having what amount to a tantrum at not getting both the response they wanted and a universally positive response.

There is a reason not many people seek to make money from performing to the public, and, indeed, why rpg content creation space has been taken over by actors - struggling or otherwise, many of whom potentially only had a tangential interest in gaming at the start. Because you need thick skin for it. Or at least the you used to. Barriers to entry have come down - especially in online twitch type content - so more people enter without really considering the difficulties or if it is right for them.

The same is true with reduced barriers to entry for anything. But online content creation of all forms is a big one especially as the pandemic had a big and quite quick impact on barriers coming down.

For anyone who has played this - what is the run time?

There is a frustrating drip feed of information from the OP. Including only cherry picking what they respond to. This is combined with them apparently making similar posts in the past

I appreciate that a full turn by turn summary is probably not reasonable as they probably don’t remember. But I am suspicious of the motives

For example early on someone suggested PFS scenarios as the encounters are written weaker than in other adventures. And very soon after came an OP reply of “so there is nothing I can do?”

There is not detail on what has been run or what the encounters are.

A simple solution would be judicious use of the weak template. If there are still TPKs then I would be staggered.

Perpdepog wrote:

Yeah I'm glad Scare to Death isn't as auto-picky as it used to be while still being useful.

Probably true (never got to it myself), but they should have also changed the name of the feat to 'Scare a lot' for example. Or "Better Demoralize' (it is better, right?) Because I just don't believe in two critical fails/successes with Incapacitate.

Agree that the name is now misleading (especially as someone who has got a lot of mileage out of this feat to date)

I couldn’t get through the nonat video as it seemed completely ridiculous and absurd as I didn’t know there was context. Absence of real context the video seemed stupid. Then learning it is seemingly based on one persons tweet - actually makes it worse

Click bait title combined with that very modern phenomenon of “of a small group of people did something, they have x trait in common, I will now get out a broad brush and talk to / lecture every single person with x trait”. Meanwhile most people have an expression similar to that blinking guy gif - no idea what is going on and are completely baffled

Yeah, I never really understood why Paizo has such a habit of trying to gaslight people with their errata, but they've been doing it since PF1.

Most of the changes seem nice overall, though I'm a little surprised that their solution to savage companions having bad AC was to just nerf all the other companions.

... Wasn't Paizo talking about making some additional changes to the Alchemist a few weeks ago? I don't see any mention of them in the FAQ document.

I don’t understand what this comment means here? Not disagreeing necessarily but how does “gaslighting” fit in this context ? Perhaps it is just too early to read this

There's a pretty easy fix for Raise a Tome I think; instead of providing the +1 to RK, it just lets you RK as part of raising your shield-tome. Combining actions is always valuable, especially for a class as action starved as the Magus.

I like this. A simple and elegant suggestion

Good damage only effects evil creatures and evil damage only effects good creatures

I personally house rule to half both for neutral but that is just me. I have issues with the rule as written. Namely it discourages players from playing good aligned characters

Lanathar wrote:

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Lanathar wrote:

Someone in another thread earlier brought up monks and their ties to occult and divine

Makes me think Kineticist should almost be the arcane and nature “monks”. That could well be something someone else has said

Then reverse them so that the primary is ranged rather than melee but there are options for that much like how mono gets ranged options.

Although this seems more geared towards the other thread that was alluded to in the OP. Although nearly everyone else ignored the “brief” in that OP and jumped into mechanical points (including, to be frank, some utterly ludicrous ones that will never be delivered on and therefore see some very very disappointed people)

This would be my preferred design for kineticist, honestly.

It’s grown on me the more I think about it. “Stances” are one action to enter for monks so could be almost “infusion channels”.

Focus points for certain other things (I know some really don’t want them). But it does seem like something you’d except all Kineticists to have rather than being optional like the monk.

Monks also all get a standard attack special action - flurry. So that gives “design budget” for something there. They are also already pseudo magical with their mystic and metal strikes

10 HP is solid and likely the highest the class would ever have. The saves thing could be dialled back as monks have the best saves but the space gained in relaxing them opens up room for some kind of kinetic defence

Another thing about using the monk as inspiration is that there wouldn’t really be an avenue for burn to be put in. I thought it was something most agreed should be part but apparently not. The existing examples of how it could work in the 2E rules could well be rather punishing (it really doesn’t seem like it is going to be simple HP damage that you can just medicine back).

...

So your idea for kineticist is to just make an elemental monk and call it a day....

Ah. So what has happened is you have not read what I wrote and read what you wanted to read instead. And then created a whole new thread about it

Of course I didn’t mean elemental monks as they exist. I meant design principles and very high level theme

And as to “how they should feel” - there tend to be a wide range of responses to what that is. Yours is not the only answer. You are on one end and extremely unwilling to budge from it. That is fine. You do you. You risk being disappointed though.

(Mine is not even an answer as I have no fondness for the class but moved from my original position on it)

On a more simple point - my point on HP and burn was dismissing the idea of changing it to pure HP damage in 2E. I am well aware of how it worked in 1E but there is currently no mechanism for unhealable HP in 2E and they have deliberately tried to avoid fiddly things like that in the design. So I was saying Burn will likely not be HP damage in any form in 2E

Someone in another thread earlier brought up monks and their ties to occult and divine

Makes me think Kineticist should almost be the arcane and nature “monks”. That could well be something someone else has said

Then reverse them so that the primary is ranged rather than melee but there are options for that much like how mono gets ranged options.

Although this seems more geared towards the other thread that was alluded to in the OP. Although nearly everyone else ignored the “brief” in that OP and jumped into mechanical points (including, to be frank, some utterly ludicrous ones that will never be delivered on and therefore see some very very disappointed people)

Congratulations to Jim

And wishing Jeff a speedy recovery

Yeah the really important question is what are you playing and does the GM understand the encounter building chart?

And do they treat it like the 1E one - where is just wasn’t accurate. I remember a YouTube creator commenting on how the 2E one is actually accurate. When it says that a certain XP budget it a “severe” encounter - it really means it. Same with the descriptions of what a monster that is +2

In 1E both monster CRs and encounter building tables were more often than not simply not accurate for a variety of reasons

I played a game that modified a 1E AP. My level 10 party basically felt like gods when they busted into a room of (I think) 5 level 7 creatures. Crits everywhere. Then their level 12 leader charged in at the end and they had a torrid time and had to kite it away and it was a very close run thing (not least because it was a bit of a chained fight so they weren’t on full)

So it really is down to what the GM is throwing at you

When one of the podcast I listen to was switching to 2E on launch they happened to have an interview with Jason at the preceding Paizocon U.K.

He joked “you will have to kill off the Bloodrager”. So at least in his jokey interpretation the barbarian and their weird rage effects don’t mimic the bloodrager sufficiently

But that said I can see how it would work with more instincts and maybe some more feat options. I’m not sold on it needing it’s own class but wouldn’t be opposed

Bloodrager really seems like it should have been an instinct in secrets of magic

But a kind of opposite magus could be fun- barbarian/sorcerer compared to wizard/fighter

Not sure what the sub classes would be. Mirrors of the barbarian ones? Bloodline based? Magic types ? I assume the bloodline part

The conversion is already pretty much done:

https://github.com/A-Series-of-Dice-Based-Events/RiseOfTheRunelords

There are some janky parts where it calls for “double elite” template a lot. This doesn’t really work very well.

If you use foundry vtt there is a module (whose name I can’t remember off hand) that lets you scale most of the monster numbers quite easily . This is a better solution than double elite templates

Why on Earth would you start at level 10 other than just because they want to be power gamers ? The whole point is that you are supposed to have limited abilities

For example what is the point of the hedge maze type thing outside thistletop when a level 10 party just fly straight to the fort .

Not to mention that a level 10 party would not be troubling themselves with goblins. As written it wouldn’t even be worth rolling the dice for those fights. And scaling all the goblins to level 7 or 8 also seems a bit silly as well

If they want to start close to level 10 then really that would either involve completely re-writing the first two books or starting with book 3

You really need to explain more about this level 10 idea in order to get more tips. Because as written scaling it will be both difficult and rather nonsensical. You will have stuff like a level 12 giant crab if you want the combats to be level appropriate

I like the creature echo feats. I hope there are quite a few rather than just a handful. I’d like one that I can give to my player that died from the sea Hag special ability. Because I am still really annoyed that this happened to them!

Although our game could well be mostly done by then!

I think more subclasses would be great and in some cases needed - patrons , mysteries etc

I can’t think of too many obvious class gaps once the two dark archive ones come out. I’d like another stance based caster as the shaman as I don’t think that niche is really covered by druid , sorcerer , oracle or cleric

Then another class to pair with that one. If environment / physical world is the steer for shaman then this could be Kineticist or some kind of shifter

After that you are kind of in “new class” territory and perhaps efforts should be focused on expanding existing ones. Definitely cleric doctrines. It would be nice if there are one more

And I am sure reasons can be found for other numbers

5 is the points of a pentagram isn't it?

7 is a lucky number but also the whole sihedron, seven deadly sins, seven schools of magic thing

7 out of 9 would feel odd. 5 not so much. Perhaps with the possibility to have 2 at power level 2 and one at 3. This is assume approximate current power level

To stick with three only will need a power bump for some I would expect

To me the pacing makes no sense . 1 , 5 and 15? Really highlights the gap at 10 and 20

*A tome

I was glancing over all of the item feats - scrolls, talismans, handy esoterica and I noticed that they seemed to clash with both each other and some very very useful combat feats like rule of three and esoteric reflexes

It seems to me that some of these “I have these handy items” feats should be built into the class automatically. Probably not the scroll one. And the esoterica one requires money until the end game unless it is changed

Although now that I think about it…

I’d suggest the whole “esoterica as a toolbox” should point down the path of handy esoterica chain being built into the class and scaled differently . Perhaps getting it earlier but the benefits of both feats spread out ?

And the levels of the scroll and talisman feats changed - given they apply to a base class they should not have to match the archetype feat levels (which I believe they currently do)

Currently I don’t think you can take the scroll and talisman chains without picking lower level feats at higher slots and giving up a fair amount of power on paper for a few extra consumables that are under levelled

Oh yes i remember seeing this mentioned elsewhere. So you drink it, roll yours find flaws and then heal yourself and end the mutagen's effects

Still - the 14 Int is a bit of struggle for such a MAD class in this build

Lanathar wrote:

From what I have heard I have far more of a issue with how the freelancers are dealing with this situation than the paizo staff.

What’s your issue with it?

The work stoppage they’ve done is one of the most admirable things I’ve seen in years.

There are a lot of people on this thread (most I would suggest) who are saying that they don’t want paizo to fail. This just seems like it could increase the risk of that. Or at least significantly struggling

Or delays in products have a knock on effect of having to cut costs.

For example if the freelancers refuse to complete work and therefore it needs to be restarted and all the original cost lost and new people found or existing staff asked to do it (more pressure, worse working conditions etc)

It’s admirable but if it forces scaling back then it may not have the desired effect.

That said I don’t know how significant a delay the current stoppage would cause and how long it will go on for. If it caps at two months (giving time for all the legal parts of union recognition to be sorted) then it can be managed especially with worldwide delays being a thing. Much longer though could be a problem (but I don’t see how that can happen)

And of course it is breach of contract. I thought it was a situation where the freelancers had refused to take any NEW assignments. Not that they were refusing to complete the existing ones. This is a very different thing. There is obviously a risk that many of these freelancers are never given another paizo assignment (if there are even any to give out which I assume there will be). Which is where it being admirable comes in

I’m not convinced Pacts should be Thaumaturge only . I think every class should have access somehow and Thaumaturge either have easier access, early access or gain more from them

But don’t disagree on the focus spell part. And the fey pact needing a boost

I can't help but want more Implements. Especially if they stay at the (relatively low) power level they currently are

But they'd need to be a good way of using them more effectively. Likely that swapping ability as soon as you get the second one (doesn't make sense that it is two level later - why?)

At the very least I find the pacing utterly bizarre. 1st, 5th and 15th? That doesn't make sense. What about 10th and 20th?

Sadly if there are only going to be 9 to pick from and the focus on "rule of three" (which also seems to explain the three power levels) I don't see the number changing

1E implement pacing was odd as well. But you got loads

From my reading of the rules it seemed clear to me that the DC wouldn't change for Find Flaws Definitely not for if it was another of the same type and probably not even if you crit failed the first check

But I had to carefully read and could easily see how people might rule otherwise.

But equally I could have been looking for the generous ruling as I like the class

Esoteric Reflexes - level 14. Gives an additional implement reaction.

Ravingdork wrote:

If you could use your main ability every time you can, why would you ever use anything else?

Vote "NO!" to Spellstrike overpowerment!

Not sure if sarcasm but I'm pretty sure every CRB martial uses their main ability all time. Fighter and Rogue's are passive. Barbarian rage is one and done. Ranger uses it when they set targets. Monk compresses 2 actions into 1. The disconnect is that CRB "main abilities" aren't obtrusive to gameplay and keep the action economy open for maneuvers, special attacks, etc while post-CRB martials' (minus the summoner) lock them into rotations to keep up on basic damage and don't particularly do anything special or impressive when they deviate.

The magus tries to escape this with arcane spellcasting but they can't even make effective use of most of its spells due to low int and low proficiency. Trying to spike with damage doesn't provide significant returns either so you're left with buffs and no-save spells. So you're stuck trying to make 6 spells, mostly buffs and illusions until maze at 15, last over a whole day or investing in items to bolster your lower level slots while other martials buy items that make them better martials instead of just trying to close the gap.

Rogue sneak attack isn’t always available. Sure there are loads of ways to activate it but not always a guarantee. And then there is precision immunity

I noticed “CRB” martial. I assume this is deliberate as there was definitely someone earlier in this thread trying to make this argument for ALL martials but clearly realised that this is just not true - especially with swashbucklers. But also investigators

But why are these being discounted from the comparison?

Also champions have been missed because they don’t all have a damage boost. But those that do don’t have it “always on” either. Even their defensive power (the reaction) isn’t always available every turn for a wide variety of reasons

It working on wands would potentially make the feat worth it

As it stands it really seems underpowered due to the capping of which items can be utilised

Is there an item that is so good you’d really want this feat ? The new Brooch of Inspiration perhaps?

Why do these threads always devolve into going on and on about the Fighter? I guess it is “white room” math based arguments that drive this

Two comments on the fighter :

1. They are supposed to be the best at damage. The suggestion that others classes need to keep up seems flawed to me

2. They are the least interesting. I saw something higher up (haven’t read the whole thread) where someone argues that a fighter with magus dedication is a better magus than a magus. This is wrong. Because they are NOT a magus. They only have a spattering of the abilities. They might be better at damage than the magus (which might well be what the argument stated more clearly but I read it days ago).

But I find most people still look for theme and flavour when picking classes rather than pure mechanical effectiveness.

In the above scenario most people would likely just pick magus. Many will choose monk over fighter/monk or fighter/martial artist.

From the albeit relatively small (and of course anecdotal) sample size of characters I have GM’d or played in a group with (which total about 20) no one picked a fighter. Statistically that should be improbable. Even the game where we are basically crunching our way through Agents of Edgewatch with a virtual group from all over the world and massively scaled back role play. Even there we have no fighter

(Incidentally no bards either but a couple of multiclass ones)

This might just be my experience though. But the “but the Fighter…” seems a very internet hypothesis type discussion point rather than a gaming table one. Now perhaps when someone from one of my group finally brings a fighter to the table the dam will be breached and they will blow through everything and no one will ever look back

But it hasn’t happened yet.

Lanathar wrote:

HeHateMe wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

HeHateMe wrote:

I think a major part of the problem is Psychics just use the Occult spell list, which doesn't make them much different than certain Sorcerer bloodlines. There's no list of "psionic powers" or anything like that.

I mean...yeah..

Why wouldn't they use the mechanics they built the system upon? In that same way, is a bard just a sorcerer as well?

Bards were never hyped up as being "different", like Psionics have traditionally been. They were always spellcasters. Psionics have had a very different system in the past, which is what people seem to want, based on the hate that Occult spellcasting received in 1e.

What are Psionics? The class being playtested is a Psychic.

An alternate spellcasting system in DnD 3.5 of not-spellcasters that broke lots of things. Anytime Occult or Psychics get brought up people want Paizo to copy the alternate system from 3.5, despite being told repeatedly they were not and had not interest in doing so.

I should have made it clearer that my question was not serious but it is hard to do over typed message. I know full well what psionics are and am aware they broke things in 3.5

Which I don’t doubt it the reason some people want them back so much.

I tend to get frustrated when questions or attempted debates are just very thinly veiled ways of asking “why can’t we have that powerful broken thing from the previous edition?”. Even when the answer is obvious

There are some perfectly reasonable questions to ask about whether the psychic’s power level is sufficient. And they have been in other threads. Conflating them with psionics and then asking for that is not really one of those reasonable questions in my opinion

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

HeHateMe wrote:

I think a major part of the problem is Psychics just use the Occult spell list, which doesn't make them much different than certain Sorcerer bloodlines. There's no list of "psionic powers" or anything like that.

I mean...yeah..

Why wouldn't they use the mechanics they built the system upon? In that same way, is a bard just a sorcerer as well?

Bards were never hyped up as being "different", like Psionics have traditionally been. They were always spellcasters. Psionics have had a very different system in the past, which is what people seem to want, based on the hate that Occult spellcasting received in 1e.

What are Psionics? The class being playtested is a Psychic.

My only experience of power point psionics (but it might not have been played right) was that they were just better at many things than normal casters

I recall they could use a point to make mage armour be +6AC and the wizard had nothing similar

Granted this was 3.5 and not dreamscarred

It is intriguing that this was post 3 weeks ago and the OP has not acknowledged this thread since that day.

Seems like just trying to start an argument really

Anyway Rysky is right - psionics were never promised. That is one of two big false assumptions made in the original post

The other is that spontaneous caster = sorcerer

Wand works best as a cantrip for an "item wizard" Thaumaturge imo. Between the Scroll line of feats and Handy/Implausible esoterica giving you a decent number of scrolls or other consumables a day, the only thing that character is really missing is a way to have a "cantrip". The wand fills that niche pretty nicely.

It doesn't really play nice with Find Flaws and Antithesis, but a non-front line thaumaturge who focuses on their support abilities wouldn't be running forward to exploit those anyway.

How useful would such a build be do you think? I ask as it might fit the NPC I was planning on testing Thaumaturge with better than a melee one

Squiggit wrote:

My big concern with splitting the class like that is you end up forcing someone to choose between doing good damage or doing a cool thing, which feels like a bad place to put a player in.

I mean, the class still does decent damage thanks to Implement Empowerment, and there's a lot of status effects worth more than the extra 2-12 damage per hit.

Plus, there really *isn't* a cool thing at the moment. Just the damage.

To a certain extent this seems a balancer for the class being required to use one handed weapons

Other classes that are locked out of d10 and d12 weapons get things like precise strike, sneak attack and the like to patch their damage

So this brings them to par. Then you need to given them something to set them apart

I really like having “class pathways” focused on a specific skill leading to a different style. I thought about this myself but can’t remember if I ever actually wrote it in a reply. And it certainly wasn’t as nuanced or as detailed. It was more that it felt like they should have master monster Hunter as per ranger but with any of the magic tradition knowledge skills and with *something* unique added - which is what has been suggested here

I’d like to see custom weakness retained class wide though and arcane have something else.

Lanathar wrote:

The scroll one seems very limited. You really don’t get many and they come late. But I guess not needing to be from a particular tradition offsets this

What really is the point of the familiar ones though? What do they really offer a Thaumaturge? The magic boosts (main reason for a familiar) have no effect and you also can’t get reagents. It really doesn’t seem to fit with the class at all …

It's not very useful. My guess is that they just decided familiars are a cool, flavorful magic thing so it made sense for them to have the option.

It seems almost entirely linked to Bob the Skull from Dresden. Which was all well and good in 1E when you could add the archetype to familiars and there was the librarian (which fits him) as well as other useful ones. Now though …

On the healing potion comparison - it might just be me but regardless of what post is being replied to, using a edge case like forensic medicine investigator with medic archetype is not really a genuine comparison

All parties have access to healing potions. Very few will have that exact build. More will have medic dedication especially with free archetype and most will have a lot least one battle medicine user

But edge cases are not really helpful in my view

Part of the issue is that GMs just see "unique" and bump the DC without considering the caveats for Recall Knowledge.

A unique vampire does not have unique DC to know that they're undead, for instance. (Unless I suppose they have some special ability that makes that harder to notice?)

Rarity tags on creatures require consideration of the difference between a special case of a more common creature (e.g. some elemental infused thing, a named bad guy, etc) or a creature that's universally rarer.

It’s not even that - the unique creatures in APs have the DC bumped automatically. So if you play out of the book…

A potential problem seems to be that you can’t boost the catch all lore with items other than the lantern

Which unless the GM always applies the “very easy” adjustment puts it well behind on scaling on multiple levels - unless I have missed something